Page 48 of Curse in the Quarter (Bourbon Street Shadows #1)
D awn bled crimson across the Garden District as Bastien's alliance closed on Maestro's stronghold.
The converted opera house squatted between antebellum mansions like a tumor, its Victorian facade warped by decades of fae glamour.
Iron shutters that had once protected against hurricanes now pulsed with protective wards.
“Positions,” Bastien whispered into his radio.
Roxy’s wolf pack emerged from the morning mist, thirty shapes moving with predatory grace through the mansion's gardens.
Vincent's vampire coven materialized on rooftops, their pale forms stark against terra cotta tiles.
Maman Brigitte's practitioners held the perimeter, salt circles and protective arrays glowing faintly in the pre-dawn light.
The plan was surgical. Compartmentalized. Each group knew their role.
Bastien checked his watch. Six-fifteen. In exactly three minutes, they would discover if three centuries of supernatural politics could unite against a common threat.
“Vincent,” he murmured. “Status? ”
“East and west approaches secured. Eight blood-drinkers on overwatch, four ready for breach entry.” Vincent's voice carried through the comm with aristocratic precision. “Maestro's inner circle is still sleeping. Fae don't expect pre-dawn assault.”
“Roxy?”
“Twenty-six wolves positioned. Two patrolling the garden maze, six in reserve.” Her voice held the controlled tension of a hunt leader. “No movement from the main house, but something feels wrong. The air tastes of ozone.”
Bastien trusted Roxy’s instincts. Pack alphas and their betas survived by reading atmospheric pressure, by sensing disturbance before it manifested.
“Maman?”
“Wards are holding, but barely.” Her voice carried strain. “Whatever that fae has been brewing inside, it's pressing against reality like a tumor. Much more, and the Veil breach surge won't be our doing—it'll be his.”
Bastien absorbed the reports while studying the opera house through binoculars.
Three stories of corrupted architecture, windows that reflected dawn light in patterns assaulting to the senses.
Maestro had chosen his stronghold well—isolated enough for privacy, grand enough for his ego, old enough to anchor deep enchantments.
“Thirty seconds,” Bastien announced. “Remember—we're not here to kill Maestro. We're here to stop whatever ritual he's planning for tether acceleration. Incapacitate, contain, extract intelligence.”
He drew the Votum Aeternum blade from its sheath.
The ceremonial weapon hummed with recognition, its edge designed to cut through magical barriers rather than flesh.
Around him, the alliance made final preparations—vampires checking their speed enhancements, wolves shifting to hybrid forms, practitioners lighting blessed candles that would provide guidance through fae illusions.
“Mark.”
Vincent's coven moved first, flowing across rooftops like living shadow. Glass shattered as they descended through skylights, their speed turning entry into controlled chaos. The opera house's protective wards flared silver-white, then shattered under coordinated assault.
Roxy’s pack followed seconds later, flooding through garden entrances in a wave of fur and fang. Their howls echoed between mansions, primal sounds that made sleeping humans lock their doors without understanding why.
Bastien and Maman's practitioners took the main entrance, the Votum Aeternum carving through Maestro's defensive barriers like paper. Wood splintered under force as they breached the foyer.
The interior had been transformed. Maestro had gutted the original architecture, replacing box seats and orchestra pit with a vast ritual chamber. Concentric circles covered the floor—not salt or chalk, but symbols burned directly into hardwood with precision that spoke of decades of preparation.
At the center, Maestro waited.
The fae stood motionless within a protective circle, his perfectly tailored suit unmarked by the chaos erupting around him. His smile never wavered as vampires and wolves poured into his sanctuary.
“Bastien,” he said, his voice carrying over combat without effort. “Right on schedule. Though I confess, I expected you to bring the girl.”
“Where are the ritual fragments?” Bastien advanced with the blade raised. “What are you planning? ”
“Planning?” Maestro laughed, a sound like breaking crystal. “My dear angel, the planning is finished. The ritual began the moment your alliance crossed my threshold.”
The floor symbols blazed to life.
Bastien felt the surge before he saw it—raw magical energy erupting from the ritual circles, seeking release through the path of least resistance. But instead of channeling outward, the power turned inward, boring through reality itself.
The Veil breach surge tore space apart.
The Lacroix estate, 1762. Charlotte stood in the center of a similar circle, her white dress whipping in supernatural wind as she channeled power that burned her mortal frame.
“The barrier won't hold!” she screamed over the roar of collapsing reality.
“Something's coming through!” Her hands blazed with golden light as she threw everything she had against the dimensional breach, skin cracking from the strain.
“I can seal it, but not from this side!” The look she gave him in that moment—love and terror and absolute determination.
“Remember me, mon ange. Remember what we choose.” She stepped forward into the breach itself, her body burning away as she sealed the tear with her life.
The memory struck as reality cracked around him. The opera house walls became transparent, revealing layers of existence human minds couldn't process. Through the breach, shapes moved—tall figures in flowing darkness, their attention turning toward this small tear in the fabric of space.
Collectors. And they were coming through.
“Fall back!” Bastien's command cut through the chaos. “Everyone out! Now!”
The alliance responded with supernatural efficiency. Vampires flowed up through skylights while wolves bounded through shattered windows. Maman's practitioners grabbed their materials and retreated, laying covering spells as they withdrew.
But the breach was expanding.
Maestro's laughter followed them as they fled. “Did you think this was about fragments, about binding spells? This was always about opening doors! Your precious Delphine is the key, and the lock is already turning!”
Bastien felt the alliance behind him, preparing to retreat, but he had to understand. "Why?" he shouted over the growing dimensional storm. "If you want her transformation, why bring entities that will destroy her?"
Maestro's expression shifted, revealing something almost like pity beneath his theatrical malice.
"You still don't understand, do you, mon ange?
The transformation Charlotte began requires absolute desperation.
Delphine will never willingly become what she must be—too human, too cautious, too afraid of losing herself.
" His voice carried over the roar of collapsing reality.
"But faced with entities that can erase her from existence itself?
Survival instinct will awaken power she doesn't know she possesses. "
Bastien's chest tightened as understanding crystallized. "The Collectors aren't here to stop her."
"They're here to forge her," Maestro confirmed, his smile sharp as broken glass. "Nothing creates transcendence like the absolute certainty of annihilation. She'll evolve or die—and either outcome serves the greater composition."
The first Collector stepped through.
It wore the shape of a man but moved like flowing shadow, its face a void that swallowed light. Where its feet touched the opera house floor, reality withered. Furniture aged decades in seconds. The hardwood floors cracked and split, becoming dust and memory.
“Move!” Bastien shoved Roxy ahead of him as they reached the street. Behind them, the opera house was collapsing into itself, consumed by forces that existed outside normal space and time.
The alliance regrouped three blocks away, gasping and shaken. Vincent's pale face was even whiter than usual. Roxy’s pack gathered around her, seeking her leadership and comfort. Maman clutched her ritual bag like a lifeline.
“What the hell was that?” Vincent demanded.
“Entities from between realities,” Maman replied, her voice grim. “Things that exist in the spaces where physics don't apply. Maestro didn't summon them—he just gave them an opening.”
Bastien stared back at the Garden District, where the opera house had been. In its place, a swirling vortex of darkness reached toward the dawn sky. Around it, ordinary reality flickered like a candle in wind.
“This isn't about supernatural politics anymore,” he said. “This is about preventing reality collapse.”
Roxy stepped forward, her authority clear despite their retreat. “So what's our next move?”
Bastien felt the weight of leadership, of decisions that would affect not just the supernatural community but reality itself. The Collectors weren't interested in New Orleans politics or vampire-wolf territorial disputes. They were here for something specific.
For Delphine.
“We protect the key,” he said. “Whatever Maestro's planning, Delphine is at the center of it. The Collectors won't manifest physically for long—maintaining presence in our reality requires enormous energy. But they'll keep trying until they get what they came for.”
“And if we can't stop them?” Vincent asked .
Bastien looked at the expanding breach, at the shadows moving within it, at the forces that had turned a simple supernatural conflict into something far more dangerous.
“Then reality itself becomes collateral damage.”
The alliance stood in the dawn light, no longer fighting for territory or political advantage. They were fighting for existence itself—theirs, humanity's, and the fundamental structure of reality.
The real battle was just beginning.