Page 83 of Curse in the Quarter
"Radio check," he called softly.
Static answered from all channels. Inside the Collectors' analytical field, electromagnetic signals couldn't penetrate the boundary between dimensions.
They were on their own.
Vincent's vampires continued their distraction dance at the void's perimeter, their movements creating patterns that demanded the entities' attention. The Collectors responded with increasing focus, their analytical protocols engaged byphenomena that challenged their understanding of local reality.
Roxy's pack had reached the building's service entrance, their enhanced senses confirming human presence on the upper floors. Through hand signals, she indicated multiple civilians inside—archive staff, researchers, possibly security personnel.
Bastien approached the main entrance with the Votum Aeternum in hand. The veins of silver light within it pulsed in rhythm with the space itself, sensing the strained bonds that kept the realms apart. The blade’s purpose was not to cut, but to weave—drawing hidden threads together until a path between dimensions revealed itself.
The lock turned under his touch, not through any supernatural ability but because the building itself recognized his purpose. The Archive had been built on ley lines that predated European settlement, its foundation stones placed according to principles that Charlotte Lacroix had understood instinctively. It wanted to protect what it contained.
Inside, fluorescent lights hummed with mundane reliability. Computer terminals displayed normal screensavers. The elevator played generic music that belonged to a universe where cosmic forces weren't rewriting local physics. Everything aggressively, deliberately ordinary.
Except for the footsteps above.
Two sets—one human, moving with familiar rhythm. The other something else entirely, its gait following patterns that suggested a different relationship with gravity and momentum.
Bastien's radio crackled to life as he entered the building's electromagnetic field. "Boss," Vincent's voice carried new urgency. "The Collectors are adapting faster than expected. They're starting to ignore our distraction."
Through the Archive's windows, Bastien could see the entities turning their attention back toward the building. Their analytical dance was complete. They'd learned what they needed to know.
Now they were ready to collect what they'd come for.
"All units converge," Bastien commanded, taking the stairs three at a time. "Emergency extraction. We're out of time."
Above him, the footsteps quickened—one set moving toward what sounded like a defensive position, the other pursuing with inexorable patience. The human voice, muffled by distance and architecture, carried notes of confusion and growing fear.
Delphine's voice.
The real battle was beginning on the third floor of a building that existed in a pocket of enforced normalcy, surrounded by forces that could rewrite the fundamental rules of existence. And somewhere in that impossible space, the woman whose consciousness held the key to dimensional stability was about to discover that her quiet research job had placed her at the center of a cosmic war.
Bastien reached the third floor landing as reality began to shift around them. The Collectors had completed their analysis.
Now came the harvest.
Twenty-Five
The Archive had held—barely. By the time the Collectors withdrew into whatever rift had birthed them, the wards shimmered with exhaustion, the air still charged with the taste of ozone and ancient malice. Delphine had been shaken but unhurt, her questions barely contained beneath the weight of everything she’d just seen. Bastien had walked her out through streets that were slowly righting themselves, the city’s bruised reality knitting back together in uneven stitches. He’d told her they’d talk later, once the Quarter felt less like a wound, and while she was displeased with his putting her off, they were both exhausted.
Twenty-four hours later, that wound was still tender. The distortions had faded, but his instincts said they were only sleeping. He’d spent the day half-listening to reports from the alliance, half-listening for the faintest ripple in reality that might mean the Collectors had returned. He told himself that meeting Delphine later was about assessing her wellbeing after the chaos—confirming she was truly safe—but the tightnessin his chest when he saw her waiting by the Archive steps told him otherwise. She was the danger he couldn’t walk away from, and the one risk he wasn’t ready to name.
The next evening, they stood in front of the Archive, where Delphine had asked Bastien to meet her. "Would you like to get drinks?" Delphine's voice cut through the chaos at the Archive steps, tourists streaming past them in bright clusters. "I need something normal after . . . whatever happened in there. Even if normal's an illusion." She had continued to stay at Maman’s when she wasn’t in the Archive, an outing Bastien wasn’t thrilled about, but he was committed to her life being her choice.
Bastien stopped, one hand on the wrought iron railing. The Quarter pulsed around them with residual energy from the frequencies of the Veil tear that set his teeth on edge. Getting drinks with her meant proximity. Conversation. The risk of saying too much or not enough. But he couldn’t say no to her. Would never.
"Yes." The word escaped before wisdom could intervene.
Relief transformed her face. "Royal Street has a wine bar. Quiet but not isolated." Her smile carried Charlotte's mischief, the same expression that had once convinced him to dance at midnight in Jackson Square. "Safe from the weirdness that follows us around."
They moved through cobblestone streets where gas lamps threw amber pools across uneven pavement. Jazz spilled from doorways, mixing with laughter and the distant clip of horse hooves. Normal New Orleans evening sounds, except humans kept avoiding certain corners without realizing why. Their instincts recoiled from spaces where glyphs had burned through reality's fabric.
The wine bar occupied a narrow townhouse, allexposed brick and candle-warmed shadows. They claimed a corner booth, ordered Bordeaux that cost more than most people's grocery budget, and faced each other across polished wood scarred by decades of conversations.
"I'm losing time," Delphine said after the server retreated. Her fingers found patterns on the wine glass stem—unconscious ritual gestures that made Bastien's chest tighten. "Whole afternoons disappear. I'll be walking down Magazine Street and suddenly I'm on Chartres with no memory of how I got there. Like someone else is moving my body while I'm . . . elsewhere."
"Dissociation. Stress response to?—"
