my skin. The conversations I’ve shared with Kassamir—who was taken from his parents as a child thirty years ago and sold to another plantation outside New Orleans—merely scratch the surface of his pain.
Kassamir never saw his parents again, even after the war ended.
I think of that fact as I drink deeper, gripping my victim by the shoulders. I think of all those boys and girls who will likely never see their homes or their families again. It doesn’t matter if some of them were orphans. Every child deserves a place of refuge. A place to feel safe.
The more I drink, the more distorted the images become. They darken as if they’ve fallen into the path of a shadow. As I watch the man’s vicious life unfold, my grasp tightens. My hands move from his shoulders to either side of his head. I feel his heartbeat begin to slow.
“Bastien,” Boone says from behind me, a warning note in his voice. “He’s dying.”
I ignore him. I drink more. The man’s hands—which have hung limply at his sides for the last few minutes—begin to flail. He tries to strike me, but I am drowning. Drowning in all the violence he has committed. Drowning in his salvation.
“Sébastien.” This admonishment comes from Jae, who blurs to my side and takes hold of my shoulder. “That is enough.” His fingers dig into my arm.
I draw back. Then, at the exact moment Jae relaxes his grasp, I twist my hands in opposite directions, snapping my victim’s neck.
Blood drips down my chin. I meet Jae’s gaze. My expression is mirrored in his. I look murderous. Demonic. The whites of my eyes are gone. My ears have sharpened into points. My fangs are stained and gleaming.
A dark part of me—the soulless part—relishes it.
Without a word, Jae directs me to follow him. I carry the body of my victim across the rooftops of my city until we reach a pauper’s cemetery, where I leave him to bake for several months in an empty chamber in the stifling Louisiana sun.
The water table in our city is high. Too high to bury our dead in the ground. It was a lesson the first imperialists learned when the coffins of the dead rose from the earth following a heavy storm, the rotting corpses clogging the city streets. After the Catholic Church took hold of New Orleans, something had to be done. The Holy See did not permit the burning of its dead.
But they granted a special dispensation for the Crescent City. The coffins of our dead are placed in brick mausoleums aboveground. In the tropical heat, these spaces turn into ovens. Over the span of a year, the bodies are slowly burned, until nothing remains but ash. One year and a day later, the bricks around the entrance are removed, and the ashes of its former occupants are swept aside into a caveau at the base of the crypt. In this way, entire generations of families share the same burial space.
Never was there a better place for a murderer to hide a body.
Never was there a better place to set the stage for a trap.
* * *
“I still don’t know why you hold this place so dear in your heart,” I say to Boone.
He, Jae, and I stand side by side on the walkway outside one of New Orleans’ most infamous bawdy houses. Its stucco façade is simple. Unadorned. Even its exterior is painted an uninspiring shade of grey. Unusual on a street peppered by structures in light pink and cheerful green and pale blue.
Jae frowns as Boone knocks on the door in a specific pattern. “I have no intention of accompanying you inside this sort of establishment.”
“Ever the monk,” Boone teases, his tone flippant.
He is playing his role well. But I expected nothing less. It is why he was chosen.
“Nor do I see reason in paying for any woman’s favor,” Jae continues.
“Isn’t that what happens all the time, though?” Boone arches a brow. “A boy needs a wife. His mama and papa want his marriage to bring the family more wealth and clout. So they find a girl with a hefty dowry or an inheritance.” He snaps his fingers. “Or do you only object when a woman is the one to decide the terms?”
“If you think all the women in this establishment had a say when it came to their lot in life, I’ll eat my hat,” I interject. “A choice under the barrel of a gun is not a choice at