Page 81 of Curse in the Quarter
"Movement at the Archive," Vincent's scout reported. "Three shadow figures circling the building. They're not entering, just . . . examining it."
Bastien's blood chilled. The Collectors had found their target's location. Now they were analyzing the space, understanding its properties, preparing for whatever extraction protocol entities from beyond reality used.
"How long before they move?" he asked Maman.
"Unknown. They don't experience time the way we do. But the Harvester's presence suggests urgency on their part." She consulted crystals that reflected light in patterns that hurt to perceive directly. "Something is compelling them to act quickly."
"What could rush entities that exist outside temporal constraints?"
"Competition," Maman said grimly. "Another force with similar goals but different methods."
Before Bastien could process that implication, his phone rang. Private number, but somehow he knew who it would be.
"Maestro."
"Mon ange!" The fae's voice carried theatrical cheer that didn't mask its underlying menace. "I trust you're enjoying the entertainment? Reality collapse has such magnificent visual effects."
"What do you want?"
"To offer assistance, naturally. These Collectors, they're terribly single-minded. No appreciation for nuance or artistic vision. When they harvest your precious Delphine, there won't be anything left worth loving."
Bastien gripped the phone with enough force to crack its case. "You opened the breach. This is your doing."
"I opened a door, yes. But not for them." Maestro's tone shifted, revealing something approaching sincerity beneath his fae duplicity. "The ritual was meant to awaken Delphine's accumulated power, to force her transformation through controlled crisis. These entities are an unwelcome complication."
"Then help us stop them."
"Oh, but I am helping. By offering you a choice more elegant than the brute force your alliance favors." The line crackled with static. "Bring her to me voluntarily, and I can complete Charlotte's original ritual. She'll achieve the transcendence she's been building toward across multiple lifetimes, becoming something these Collectors cannot touch or harvest."
"And if we refuse?"
"Then you face entities from outside reality withconventional weapons and desperate hope. How did that strategy serve you at the opera house?"
The connection severed, leaving Bastien staring at dead air while reality continued its slow dissolution around them. Through the warehouse windows, he watched gravity reverse itself in a two-block radius, sending debris floating skyward before crashing back down.
"Durand!" Roxy's voice cut through his contemplation, bringing him back to the decision he needed to make. "Extraction team's ready. But we need to move now—the distortions are spreading faster than predicted."
Bastien looked at the assembled rescue force. Four vampires whose speed could navigate dimensional instability. Six wolves whose supernatural senses might function where normal perception failed. Maman's protective wards that represented humanity's best understanding of forces beyond comprehension.
Against entities from outside space and time.
"Vincent, take point. Navigate by landmark memory, not visual confirmation—what you see might not be what's actually there. Roxy, your pack provides early warning for phenomena our instruments can't detect. Maman?—"
"Will keep us anchored to this reality so we don't get lost between dimensions." She distributed items that looked like ordinary stones but felt heavier than they should. "Hold these. Whatever you do, don't let go."
The extraction team moved out into a New Orleans that was becoming something else entirely. Streets that had existed for centuries were folding in on themselves like origami made of time and space. The Mississippi River flowed uphill in places, its muddy water defying gravity and direction while fish swam through air that had become temporarily liquid. Above them, the skyflickered between normal blue and colors that had no names because human eyes weren't designed to perceive wavelengths from outside their dimensional spectrum.
"Stay together," Bastien commanded as they navigated Royal Street, where storefronts aged decades in seconds before reverting to pristine condition. "Don't trust your eyes. Trust the stones Maman gave you—they'll anchor your perception to our reality."
Vincent led the vampire contingent with inhuman grace, his supernatural speed allowing him to test safe passage before the others followed. "The distortions are following patterns," he reported through the radio. "Not random chaos—organized restructuring. Like something is rewriting local physics according to a blueprint."
"The Collectors aren't just manifesting," Roxy realized, her pack moving in tight formation around her. "They're terraforming reality to match their home dimension."
Cold crept along his spine. If the entities were reshaping local space-time to suit their needs, they weren't planning a quick extraction. They intended to establish permanent presence, turning New Orleans into a beachhead for forces from beyond reality.
Behind them, the warehouse command post held its position through Maman's will and the alliance's desperate hope. Her voice crackled through comms every few minutes, updating them on expanding chaos. Gravity wells opening in the French Quarter. Temporal loops trapping civilians in the Garden District. Emergency services overwhelmed by phenomena that couldn't be explained or contained through any conventional human means.
Ahead, in a city becoming unstuck from reality, Delphine worked in the Archive, unaware that forces from beyond existence were closing in. The building stood likean island of stability in an ocean of dimensional chaos—which should have been comforting but instead felt ominous. Why would entities capable of rewriting physics leave one building untouched?
