“Interesting, and why’d you attack me?”
I increased the pressure and watched him sink further into the brick. I knew if I applied anymore, I’d be causing serious damage to the building, and the last thing I wanted to do was take a chunk out of it. The vampire groaned again as the invisible hand holding it in place pushed harder against its undead bones.
“You have blood coursing through your veins,” it said, “And this is vampire territory. We feed on your kind.”
“Bullshit,” I spat, “You know how I know you’re lying? If you really were with the vampires who own this part of New Orleans, then you’d know they don’t feed around here—they take their feeding elsewhere. By the fact that you’re feeding here, and the clothes on your back, I’m guessing you’re either pretty new at the whole undead thing, or just one of the dumb vampires we’ve got in the city. Which is it?”
“Fuck you, whore-witch. I’m gonna rip your throat open and play with your insides!”
Whore witch… I preferred monkey witch, personally.
“Here’s what we’re gonna do. You’re gonna tell me who made you, and then I’m gonna decide whether to kill you or put you away.”
A phantom wind suddenly kicked up between us, picking up strength as it moved through the area. Leaves were ruffled, my hair started getting pulled, and after a moment or so, I felt myself get a little unsteady on my feet. I turned my head to find the source of the wind, momentarily breaking my concentration, and found someone standing on the edge of the street, hands extended toward me.
A witch.
I watched the witch’s right-hand raise, then wind back as if to hurl something at me. I had no choice then but to drop the magick I was pumping into the vampire and instead surround myself with Eliza’s shield, pulling my own right hand across my chest in a defensive stance. A ball of telekinetic energy raced toward me with so much force it dented the side of every car it touched and smashed their windows to tiny shards.
The ball of magick struck me, and while my shield was strong enough to keep it from caving my chest in, it didn’t stop me from falling to the floor several feet away from where I had been standing. By the time I gathered myself and looked up, both the vampire and the witch at the end of the street were gone. All that was left were a number of blaring car alarms, the cacophony filling the night around me.
CHAPTER SIX
“Madison…” Delphine said once she’d opened the door, “Are you alright? Your heart…”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Can I come in? I know I’m unannounced…”
“Please.”
Delphine stepped aside and allowed me to walk through the door and into the gloomy house on the corner of the street. Directly before me was a set of stairs rising to the next floor up, light fixtures in the wall only putting out a small amount of illumination—not that the vampires needed light with which to see, but that little amount of light made reading more comfortable.
I waited for Delphine to walk ahead of me, then I followed her up the stairs which were a little too loud for my liking. I’d wanted my entrance to be quiet, to maybe even go unnoticed by the vampires living here, but even if the stairs didn’t creak and groan and thump, they’d have known I was there. I was the only thing with a pulse, after all.
We reached the next floor landing, and through an open door I spotted a small room in which two people had in fact been reading. They were both staring at me now in the gloom, the light shifting on their dark, pale faces making their eyes shine silver like a cat’s. They didn’t speak, they just watched me as I moved away from the door and went down the hallway.
Down from upstairs drifted what sounded like piano music, though I couldn’t quite fix on what the melody was. It was a soft, somber piece that made me feel strangely lonely. Passing by another open door I spotted three more vampires; one—a woman—lounging on a long chair while two men sat around her. All three were staring at me, their eyes shining in the dark.
If I hadn’t turned my attention to the hallway ahead of me again, I’d have bumped right into Jean Luc, who seemed to have appeared from out of nowhere.
“Madison…” he said, sounding surprised. “Your visit is… unexpected.”
“I know,” I said, “I apologize for not making it known I’d be coming here, I just—”
“There’s no need to apologize. My home is your home. You are welcome here whenever you wish. Please, join me in the study.”
I nodded, and Jean Luc turned around and started walking down the hallway. I’d almost forgotten how big he was. In this house, with its cramped hallways, his broad shoulders seemed to almost fill the space from left to right. His hair was a waterfall of smooth, black silk falling down his back and over his chest. Everything about him was alluring, irresistible.
Jean Luc pushed through an open archway into a small study in which several chairs and a small desk had been fitted. There was room for little else except for the bookcase that took up the entire space of the wall across from the door. Jean Luc sat down, then Delphine took a spot, and then I followed, finding my own seat and sitting.
A beat passed, a breathless moment of silence, then he spoke. “What brings you here, Madison?” he asked, “You seem flustered…”
“May have something to do with the vampire attack on the street.”
His eyebrows met in the middle. “Vampire attack?”
“As I was heading here. I had only told Nicole I was coming here, but somehow a vampire flagged me down and managed to attack me about two blocks from here.”
“That vampire was not one of ours—they are forbidden from feeding in the French Quarter.”
“I know that, but he knew who I was, and while that’s probably not too impressive, it has a couple of implications I’m not totally comfortable with.”
“Someone could be watching you?” Delphine asked.
“It’s possible. But there’s something else, too. As I was questioning it, a witch intervened and attacked me too.”
The vampires exchanged a grave look. “Do you know who the witch was?” Jean Luc asked.
I shook my head. “I couldn’t get a good look. Whoever it was, though, it was powerful. I mean, they knocked me off my feet and let the vampire get away.”
“A witch that was working with a vampire against you?”
“We knew this was a possibility, Jean Luc… ever since Tamara alluded to there being a hidden witch behind the scene, a powerful one.”
“Powerful enough to stop you from using your magick the night you faced off against Marie,” Delphine said.
“Right,” I said, “That kind of power… I’m not used to seeing it.”
“I will send patrols out to the streets of the French Quarter,” Jean Luc said, “If the vampire is still out there, we will find it.”
“And if the witch is out there, under no circumstances should anyone engage. A witch with that kind of power could probably vaporize one of you with a hard stare.”
Jean Luc stood and moved out of the room, excusing himself before he went. That left Delphine and I alone in the study, for at least a few minutes.
“I imagine your reason for coming here has something to do with that book?” Delphine asked.
“It does. I couldn’t wait… I mean, I could’ve waited, then called when I knew you were awake, but I needed to get here as soon as possible… to see you.”
“Why me?”
I showed her the book, hoping she’d identify it. She didn’t. I then opened it and let her flip through some of the pages. Still, nothing. “Does any of this look familiar to you?” I asked.
She shook her head, slowly. “I’m sorry, but it does not. The script is far too fine to be my own.”
“A friend, maybe?”
“A long time has passed since the ink dried on these pages, but I do not know who wrote this…”
I flicked along until I found the pages in which Delphine is mentioned, then showed it to her. “Here,” I said, “Is this you?”
“Remember? What do you remember?”
“I… it’s hazy.” She winced, as if recalling the memory were causing her physical pain. “Truthfully, I have been thinking about this ever since last night.”
“When you mentioned Eliza… if the person talked about in this book is you, then you didn’t just know her… Delphine, you were a witch.”
She stared at me, then, entirely stunned. “What do you mean?”
I turned to the book. “What I mean is, this book was clearly written by a witch, one in Eliza’s care. This witch talked about several others in her journal, spoke of the daily and nightly rituals required to empower the protective magick around the mansion, around Lumiére. Her death is what sealed the spell, her spell, but before that, there was other magick in place to keep the vampires safe. Your magick.”
“Me? But I’m… I’m vampire… I am no witch.”
“Right, but you aren’t like the other vampires we’ve faced, and the way in which you were turned… it’s not natural for your kind, as far as I understand things.”
“But… how can I have been a witch? Witches cannot be turned.”
“What if they can?”
Delphine fell silent. Clearly what I’d just laid on her lap was too much for her to process. Maybe her mind was desperately trying to piece together her own memories in an attempt to make what I was saying sound familiar. Whatever the case, Delphine wasn’t speaking.
“Delphine is the witch named in the book,” Jean Luc said, startling me.
“Holy shit,” I jumped, catching a wayward breath. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
“I apologize… I simply overheard, and now that you have in your possession written proof about Delphine’s past before she was turned, I can tell you what I know.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “Wait a second… you mean to tell me you’ve been sitting on a secret about Delphine all this time?”
“I have.”
“Why did you not say anything?” Delphine asked.
“I did not find the right moment. We have been afflicted with crisis after crisis. If I thought there was a right time to tell you, I would have told you.”
I stared at him, then, giving my anger a moment to simmer down. “Okay,” I said, as calmly as possible, “How about you tell us what you know now?”
“I do not know if that is wise.”
“What? Why not?”
“Delphine’s psyche is delicate. Unveiling things about her past will cause her pain, as we have both seen. Saying what I have to say could prove to be difficult to hear and understand. But before I say anything, you must know, I do not have all the answers, only some.”
First, we stop talking, and now he’s keeping secrets? I couldn’t figure out if he genuinely was looking after Delphine with his silence, or if he had another reason for keeping quiet about her past. I had to at least give him the benefit of the doubt, considering all we’d been through, so I tried to swallow whatever annoyance I was feeling and took a deep breath to calm myself.
“Alright,” I said, “How about you tell us what you know?”
Jean Luc moved across the room and took his place on the arm chair he had been sitting on a moment ago. Delphine watch him, warily, as he crossed in front of her. I could sense distrust coming from her, but also curiosity. Vampires were incredibly complex creatures who didn’t always think or act the way humans did; this having to do with them being clinically dead and no longer ruled by impulses and urges, save for the one to eat.
I had a feeling I’d just opened pandora’s box here, but it had to be done.
He took a moment to compose himself, but then he folded his hands on his knees and began to speak. “Delphine was once a witch,” Jean Luc said, “She was one of Eliza’s most trusted; capable, intelligent, and nimble with her magick. I was never as close with her as I was with Eliza for the simple reason that vampires were still largely mistrusted by witches, and vice versa, of course. Eliza was the only one who saw past the boundaries of race to the people inside, to the good in them—the good in me. Delphine, I remember, was the most skittish around me, easily frightened, but not one to run away from me no matter how scared she was of my presence within the confines of Eliza’s home.”
Jean Luc paused, as if remembering something fondly. The ghost of a smile crossed in front of his lips, and like a ghost, disappeared just as quickly. “I was not there the night Delphine was taken. Eliza’s protective magick was powerful, and impenetrable from the outside, but she had not considered one of her own would betray her. The witch’s name was Suzanne Renaux, she was the newest witch to join our makeshift order, and quickly gained Eliza’s trust by delivering news of Marie’s movements on the pretext that she had been in love with a vampire who was close to Marie, but that vampire had been turned from her, and she had no choice but to run to Eliza’s protection. The vampires did not want her, and her own kind did not want her.”
“Why hasn’t Eliza written about any of this in her journal?” I asked. “I have read it back to front, but I have never heard mention of Suzanne, or even Delphine.”
“Eliza wrote more than one journal,” Jean Luc said, “Unfortunately, many of them were lost. All that is left of her writing is the book in your possession. This one you brought with you tonight, however, belongs to someone else… perhaps with enough reading the author’s identity will be revealed. For now, I want to focus on the night Delphine was taken.”
“Yeah, me too. What happened?”
“The vampires came as they always do, in the dead of night when the witches were asleep. I and a few others—Bernarde among them—stood guard, watching over Lumiére. It was Bernarde who spotted Marie’s approach. With her, were four more vampires whose faces I did not recognize. She stood at the gate for a time, watching us as we watched her. This was something that happened often, most nights she would come, and stare, and watch. I should’ve acted when I sensed her strange confidence.”
“Confidence?” Delphine asked. She had been hanging on his every word, now she seemed to have regained herself.
“Every night was the same. She would come to the gate, wary and cautious. Then she would touch it, and it would burn the tips of her fingers off. That night there was no cautiousness on her part. She watched us for a time, then she opened the gate, and we knew, the spell protecting Lumiére had failed. The vampires were like knives of shadow, moving quickly, far too quickly. Delphine was one of the only witches awake, she sallied out to help, but she was no match for Marie. They quickly overwhelmed her, and she succumbed to her injuries. Eliza arrived too late to stop them from taking her, but she was successful in protecting Lumiére once more.”
Jean Luc paused and stared at each of us in turn. He could probably hear my elevated heartrate—Delphine probably could, too.
“Eliza wanted to go and find Delphine and Suzanne, who was nowhere to be found, but I stopped her,” he continued, “I knew, as well as she did, that she was the only hope we had for both our species to see reason. I, however, was expendable in this, so Bernarde and I took to the streets to find Delphine… what we found, instead, was a dark ritual the likes of which I had never encountered. The vampires, Marie included, had assembled at the Lafayette Cemetery. Delphine lay on a stone slab surrounded by candles. The vampires watched, all but Marie, who approached her and delicately held her head. I knew in my heart she was going to deliver the deathly kiss, but I did not know what the outcome of doing so to a witch would be.”
He shook his head. “Dark magick took place that night. Marie delivered the kiss to Delphine despite her injuries in an attempt to turn her. Usually a person who has been turned remains dead until the following sunset, when they awake with a ravenous hunger, but this was different. An ill wind filled the cemetery. I could hear chanting, words being spoken in a language I did not understand. From those assembled around the stone
slab came a witch wearing a cloak, her hands raised, magick moving between her fingers. I tried to move in on them, but Bernarde bid me not to for it would mean my assured death.”
“You did not stop it?” Delphine asked, anger rising in her voice.
“Bernarde and I fought, I struggled to free myself, but the ritual was over so quickly… and what happened next was horrifying to behold. I had made it only a few feet away from Bernarde when Delphine… started to burn. I did not know what was happening, I had never seen anything like this before. Chaos erupted in the ritual space, the vampires did not know what to do, Marie least of all. It was the witch who broke open a tomb with her magick, and with her magick interred Delphine’s flaming corpse. In an instant the tomb door fixed itself, and then it was over. Delphine was dead. Bernarde and I had no choice but to flee, or risk discovery.”
Silence descended on the small room we were in like a heavy shadow. My heart was pounding, my hands were sweating, and I couldn’t hear myself think. It was like I was watching Jean Luc’s story play out in my mind’s eye. I was there, a silent witness, I could almost smell the fire, feel its heat; I could almost hear the way Delphine screamed. A year and a day later, Marie appeared at the house with Delphine by her side, overconfident in her belief that she had a secret weapon; a vampire who could cast the magick of a witch. When she learned that Delphine had lost all of her memories and couldn’t control her magick like she once did, she left her in the middle of Jackson square for the sunrise. It was I who saved her and brought her to Eliza, and I who began to raise her as a vampire, with the intention of Eliza teaching her magick later on. I heard nothing of Suzanne after the night of the attack.”
I shook my head. “That… I don’t even know where to start with all of that.”
Delphine shut her eyes and stood. “Why?” she asked, her voice a low rumble.
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