Her jaw tightened. “The court doesn’t negotiate with hired help.”
“Then the court can continue wondering what connects your dead to the Marchande-Levesque family.” He held her gaze without blinking. “I charge by the hour. Condescension wastes time I could be billing.”
Something hot and old moved behind her eyes—pride offended by a creature who should have known his place. Then she collected herself, smoothing her expression into the practiced neutrality that vampires learned after their first century of politics.
“House Béat would like assurance that the investigation is progressing.” Her tone had shifted, concession buried beneathformality. “Solange Vidal was ours. Her loss reflects on our ability to protect our own.”
“Her loss reflects on the killer’s ability to choose victims no one was protecting.” Bastien kept his voice level. “The pattern targets bloodline significance, not house affiliation. Your minor members are at risk. So are everyone else’s.”
“And you intend to stop this how, precisely?”
“By finding who’s responsible before they finish whatever they’re writing.”
She absorbed this. Her fingers, tipped in nails painted the deep red of dried blood, tapped once against the iron table. “The court observes that your involvement in this matter has attracted considerable attention.”
There it is.The real purpose of the approach, delivered beneath layers of political theater.
“Has it.”
“You are more visible than you used to be. Some wonder why.” She stood, smoothing her skirt with motions too precise to be unconscious. “House Béat hopes your visibility serves the investigation rather than other interests. We would hate to discover that certain parties have compromised your neutrality.”
She walked away before he could respond. His forearm pulsed once beneath his sleeve, as though acknowledging that the first test had been administered and noted.
Seven minutes passed before the next one began.
Bastien left the café and walked east, tracking the watchers who tracked him. Their numbers had grown. The woman in yellow remained at consistent distance. A different human had replaced the newspaper reader—older, heavyset, movingwith the deliberate economy of someone carrying a concealed weapon. New figures joined the rotation: a vampire whose face he did not recognize, watching from a balcony on St. Peter; a witch whose wards shimmered at the edges of his perception, observing from across Jackson Square.
The collision came on Chartres Street.
A man stepped from a doorway directly into Bastien’s path—tall, broad through the shoulders, moving with the coiled economy that marked combat training. Their shoulders connected with force that would have staggered a human. Bastien absorbed the impact without breaking stride.
“Watch yourself.” The man’s voice carried an edge of challenge. His eyes held Bastien’s a beat too long, measuring, assessing. Testing.
Bastien said nothing. He continued walking, pace unchanged, expression neutral. The mark flared beneath his sleeve—not in response to magic, but to the attention itself. Someone wanted to see how he handled provocation. He gave them nothing to read.
The werewolf found him on Decatur Street, making no attempt at subtlety. He approached from behind, footsteps heavy on the cobblestones, and fell into stride beside Bastien without breaking their rhythm. Young—mid-twenties by appearance, which meant early thirties given the accelerated aging that preceded first transformation. Lean build, with the coiled readiness that marked recent pack members still learning to contain their other nature.
“Tib sent me.” No greeting, no pretense of casual encounter. “He wants to know what you’ve learned about the vampire deaths.”
“Tell Tib to ask me himself.”
“Tib’s busy. Pack matters.” The young wolf’s jaw worked. “There’s been contamination on our territory. Sigils appearing on boundary stones. Magic that tastes like blood and copper.”
His forearm responded before Bastien could stop it — a flare that spread up through his arm and reached his elbow before subsiding. The wolf noticed. His nostrils flared, tracking something in the air between them.
“You’re carrying something,” he said. “Something that wasn’t there before.”
“I’m aware.”
“Is it connected to the killings?”
Bastien kept walking. The crowd on Decatur Street flowed around them—tourists photographing street performers, locals navigating the foot traffic with practiced irritation. Normal commerce of a normal morning. None of them saw the wolf at his side, or the watchers maintaining position behind, or the witch across the square whose attention pressed against his skin.
“Tell Tib that the contamination on your territory is likely related to the murders,” he said. “The killer uses ritual magic that leaves residue. If that residue has reached pack lands, then the killer has expanded their reach beyond the city’s center.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the answer I have. If Tib wants more, he can meet with me directly. Tomorrow night. St. Louis Cemetery Number One, the Laveau tomb, after midnight.”
