"Of course it's pitch black down there," I said. The universe had a sick sense of humor. "Why would ancient underground chambers have convenient lighting?"
The iron door to the underground access stood open like a mouth. Lia pulled out her phone and turned on the flashlight. "We need to understand what we're dealing with before it gets worse."
"Define worse," I said, automatically checking my go-bag. Six months of supernatural crisis management had taught me to never leave home without what Dani called our ‘apocalypse survival kit’. I had enchanted silver throwing knives tucked into my boot sheaths and a vial of consecrated graveyard dirt fromMarie's personal collection. Next were emergency iron filings in a break-away pouch, and my grandmother's rosary. The latter had been soaking in holy water for three generations. Plus, the usual suspects. Salt packets liberated from various restaurants, a compact mirror backed with enchanted silver, and the tiny spray bottle of what Lucas jokingly called ‘monster mace’. It was actually a concentrated wolfsbane, sage, and iron solution that burned like hell if you got it in anything supernatural.
"Worse would be whatever's down there completing its ritual and unleashing something on the city," Lucas said grimly. His wolf senses were clearly picking up things the rest of us couldn't detect.
I followed my sisters toward the entrance. I was mentally waving goodbye to my fantasy of a peaceful afternoon filled with nothing more dangerous than choosing between hot chocolate and coffee. "I was really looking forward to those beignets, you know. And maybe having conversations that didn't involve the words supernatural, crisis, or ‘probably going to kill us’."
"We can still hit Café Du Monde afterward," Dea said with the kind of determined optimism that suggested she was clinging to normalcy by her fingernails.
"Oh, we're absolutely getting beignets," I replied firmly. "Even if we have to eat them while running from whatever fresh hell is waiting down there. I'll get powdered sugar all over Lia's SUV if I have to."
"Lucas will love that," Lia said dryly. "Nothing says 'successful supernatural investigation' like finding beignet crumbs in the air vents three months later."
I had to focus on navigating the treacherous stone steps without adding ‘fell down creepy underground stairs like a horror movie victim’ to my already impressive list of supernatural mishaps. The ancient stone was slick with moisture and about as trustworthy as a politician's campaign promises. Iwas nearly at the bottom when my foot decided to throw in the towel on the whole staying upright concept.
Noah's reflexes kicked in faster than my ability to curse creatively. His strong hands caught me before I could complete what would have been a spectacular tumble into the abyss. "Thank you," I told my mate as I steadied myself against his solid frame. "Nothing says you’re badass like face-planting on old, moldy stone."
The underground chamber was every bit the nightmare fuel I'd been expecting. Stone walls wept moisture like they were crying over their life choices. The air had that special flavor that came from mixing decay with damp earth. Ancient symbols covered every available surface. They weren't the weathered, time-softened carvings we'd found upstairs. These were fresh enough to still have spiritual wet paint. They were also humming with the kind of malevolent energy that suggested someone had been very busy down there recently.
"This is incredible," Phi observed, photographing everything with her phone.
But it was one particular carving near what looked like an altar that drew my attention. The pattern was familiar and not. And I couldn’t place why. Before I could think better of my actions, I reached out and touched it.
It was a big mistake. The moment my fingertips brushed the carved symbol, the world exploded into chaos. A vision slammed into me like a freight train.
I was standing in the same cemetery, but everything was different. The sky writhed with unnatural storm clouds that I recognized. The air was crackling with Baron Samedi's magical hurricane. It was the storm that had nearly destroyed half the French Quarter months ago. My sisters and I had stopped him before he could unleash hell.
Lightning that wasn't quite lightning split the darkness, and where it struck, shit started coming apart like wet paper. Through those rifts, I saw the realm of the dead. Spirits poured through the tears like water through a broken dam. The ghosts were shadows of their former selves and twisted by their passage between worlds.
Someone was calling them. They were also binding them. It took me a second to realize why. They were harvesting their energy for purposes that made every magical instinct I possessed scream in horror.
The vision shifted, showing me the aftermath. The rifts had been hastily sealed when we stopped the storm, but the damage was done. The boundary between life and death had been weakened and scarred. We were going to be picking up after that hurricane for the next decade.
Gathering as much information as possible before the vision ended, I searched for the asshole behind this latest problem. All I could tell was that someone was picking at those scars to widen them so they could gather the power of the dead.
"Dani!" Lia's voice dragged me back to reality. I was on my knees in the underground chamber. My sisters were clustered around me with worried expressions. The stone floor was cold and damp against my palms.
"What did you see?" Dre demanded, helping me to my feet.
I brushed dirt off my jeans. My hands were still shaking from the psychometric backlash. "Baron Samedi's hurricane. It seems that among the problems it caused, one of them was tearing holes between the world of the living and the dead. Someone's been using those tears."
“Using them how?” Kota asked.
“To harvest ghost energy and bind spirits that shouldn't be bound.” I looked at the symbol I'd touched. "These are anchorsholding those rifts open and channeling the energy somewhere else."
"The natural order has been perverted," Adèle projected to all of us as Dea put her back in her pocket. "Death is not meant to be exploited this way."
Dea nodded her head in agreement. “This could turn really bad.”
We spent another hour documenting everything in the underground chamber before finally making our way back to the surface. We had debated destroying the runes, but Adèle advised against it. There was no safe way to dismantle what had been done. We needed to do more research before we could manage that.
The afternoon sun felt like a blessing after the oppressive darkness below. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that we'd only seen the beginning of whatever supernatural nightmare was unfolding. "Okay," I announced as we reached our cars. "New plan. We're going to Café Du Monde like we originally intended, but it’ll have to be a working break. We need to cross-reference what we found with every magical text we can get our hands on."
"We should look in Marie's grimoire," Phi added. "If Samedi’s storm was involved, there’s a chance the symbols are rooted in voodoo tradition."
"And we need to understand how they've been corrupted," I interjected. "And by whom." There was no doubt in my mind that they had been changed to fit someone’s purpose.
