Page 43 of Curse in the Quarter
The network was calling across lifetimes.
Something was preparing to answer.
And in a cypress grove that had guarded secrets for over two centuries, a woman who carried the soul of history’s most dangerous theorist was about to complete work that would either preserve consciousness across infinite lifetimes or destroy everything that made existence worth preserving.
The crimson veil between worlds was about to be torn away completely.
Twelve
The protective wards carved into Bastien’s office doorframe exploded at eleven forty-seven.
Silver fire consumed ancient symbols in seconds, leaving nothing but char and the acrid scent of burning lacquered lumber. His phone rang before the last sparks died—Maman Brigitte’s number, but her voice carried strain he’d never heard before.
“They took Vincent. Walked through his apartment walls like they owned the place.” No greeting, no explanation of who ‘they’ were. She knew he’d understand. “Meet me at St. Louis Cemetery. We need to see what Charlotte really built there.”
The line died, leaving him staring at his phone while dread settled in his chest. Vincent Broussard—the psychic musician, Jacques’s cousin—had been showing early signs of the spreading contamination. If entities were escalating from marking to abduction, everyone touched by the soul-binding curse faced immediate danger.
Bastien grabbed weapons that felt pathetically inadequate—blessed silver, iron stakes, salt charged with divineenergy. But he suspected whatever hunted marked souls operated beyond physical law, in dimensions where conventional protection offered little more than psychological comfort.
The cemetery gates stood open despite the midnight hour, wrought iron swinging in humid air that carried no breeze. St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 spread before him in neat rows of marble tombs and weathered stone, above-ground burial necessitated by the city’s relationship with water and yellow fever.
Maman waited beside Marie Laveau’s tomb, her usual composed authority shattered. Tears streaked her face, and her hands shook as she traced protection symbols that flickered weakly in the darkness.
“Vincent was helping me research the contamination patterns,” she said without preamble. “Found connections between the marked families and old burial records. Then shadows came through his apartment walls like they owned the place.”
“What kind of shadows?”
“The kind that wear faces but cast no reflections. The kind that speak with voices borrowed from the dead.” She gestured toward the famous tomb beside them, where offerings of coins and flowers now appeared disturbed, scattered as if something had searched through them. “They left a message. Said the bloodline anchor must choose before dawn, or harvesting begins.”
Dawn.
“What exactly must she choose?”
“Walk the perimeter with me. You need to see what Charlotte really built here.”
The cemetery’s layout followed patterns established when yellow fever made traditional burial impossible. Butas they moved between marble monuments, Bastien’s enhanced senses detected wrongness beneath the familiar architecture.
Protective wards were failing throughout the grounds. Symbols carved into tomb foundations flickered like dying candles, their power drained by forces that left no physical evidence. Even the consecrated earth felt compromised, as if something was systematically poisoning the spiritual infrastructure.
Three rows from Marie Laveau’s tomb, he found what Maman had discovered.
A symbol burned into weathered marble, char still warm despite the night air. But this wasn’t one of the aggressive glyphs spreading through the Quarter. This symbol contained itself, defensive rather than invasive.
Lacroix family sigils. Charlotte’s work but designed to suppress rather than channel power.
“Protective array inversion,” Maman said, her voice steadying as she focused on the discovery. “These markings were carved to suppress soul-binding magic, not enable it.”
The pieces clicked into place. Charlotte hadn’t died attempting forbidden consciousness preservation. She’d died defending New Orleans from the same entities now hunting marked souls.
“She was trying to stop them.”
“Look around. These symbols cover the entire northern section.”
What he’d taken for decorative stonework revealed itself as systematic magical architecture. Ward patterns worked into foundations, protection spells hidden beneath moss and weathering, an entire network of defensive ritual work that had operated undetected for over two centuries.
Charlotte had built a fortress around the dead to protect the living.
“The current contamination—it’s designed to corrupt her protections,” Maman continued, kneeling beside one of the marked stones. “Turn defensive magic into harvesting networks. Someone’s been working decades to reverse-engineer what she built.”
