April 18th

"Faster, Isaac . . ." Julie's wispy words melted into my ear as her ethereal form coiled around my waist and up my chest like an icy scarf. She knew I was distracted. And distracted was never good in a chase. She glided ahead to scope out the dark street, rustling the canopy of trees above.

Amid the lulls of the cicadas, the only other sounds disturbing the night were my sneakers' rubber soles hitting the pavement and the ghostly echoes of Stormy's toes clicking alongside me. The chill of Julie's touch lingered, reminding me that I was alive despite feeling like a hollow spectral form of myself, no different from her or Stormy. Adele's words hadn't left my mind for a single second over the last two days.

You killed my mother.

Not "my mother is dead," not "my mother tried to kill me," not "my mother was a vampire."

You killed my mother.

The words were scorched into every cell of my being, floating like ash in my head, clouding my other thoughts.

I took a sharp turn at the street corner and paused, gripped a wrought iron fence, and bent over my knees, struggling for breath. Stormy yelped, her back stiff and head alert, confused as to why we'd stopped at the decrepit antebellum house.

In a whoosh, Julie was back at my side. "What's wrong, mon cher?"

Stormy circled us then carefully took a few steps out in either direction before turning back to me like a practiced guard dog, as if she knew the vamps were back on the streets.

"Nothing, I'm fine." I straightened up and tried to even out my erratic breathing. I'm not sure why I bothered; her heightened senses picked up on the slightest emotional cues.

"What frightened you?" Her French accent thickened when she was worried. "Was it Emilio?"

The irony of a ghost asking me if I was frightened was not lost on me. "I'm fine. I just needed a second." What scared me had nothing to do with the predators still in town, even if Emilio Medici did want to revenge-kill me.

"It's not safe for you to linger on the street at night, mon cher. You need to keep moving."

I wiped sweat off my forehead with my arm, which was already damp from the thick air, and took off again, ramping up from a slow jog.

Staying on the main drag was safer, but the moon beaming through the rustling leaves created a nonstop fluttering of shadows, testing my nerves. Maybe I shouldn't have broken ahead from Dee and Codi.

We were on the fringe of the Lower Garden District, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods I'd ever seen, but this strip of Oretha Castle Haley was just one abandoned house and one looted shop after another. The curfew had been extended to midnight a few weeks ago, but the crime rate was still so high, people tended to stay inside after dark, which was good considering the five vampires lurking in town. Not too many Storm refugees had returned to Central City, judging by the shape of the neighborhood. The dark streets and lack of witnesses made it the perfect hunting ground for the Medici. Only Nicco and Emilio could come after me this far out of the Quarter, thanks to our ancestors' curse, but that didn't exactly bring comfort, considering they were the two who hated me the most. But what was I supposed to do, stay inside for the rest of my life? Now more than ever, the streets needed patrolling.

Ahead of us, a single functioning street lamp glowed dimly through the humid air. The homes were tall and old and the street was wide, like it had once been an important thoroughfare. Graffiti covered the bus stops, and every shop window looked like it'd had a date with a baseball bat. Vines crawled up the houses in tight chokeholds, and overgrown bushes crept out into the broken sidewalks. Nothing looked unlooted.

It was hard to tell whether the crime rate was so high because of the vamps, the desperate conditions in the city, or the Possessed—a repercussion of Callis's coven's feeding frenzy the night of the attack. His coven must have assaulted dozens of ghosts because people infected by the stray souls—the remnants of the spirits—had been popping up in the weeks since. We intercepted them where we could, but because they were possessing everyday, normal people like Ren, the only way to find them was after they deteriorated and became violent, committed crimes, or caused an unusual disturbance. Deciphering what was unusual and what was just New Orleans was almost impossible.

A shadow moved up ahead—more shifting light. The hairs on my arms rose. He's here. The harmonic shrill of cicadas hummed louder as if warning me of the pending danger. I didn't see anyone, but I didn't need to. I'd felt his presence half a mile back when we crossed over from the Warehouse District. Then, about six blocks ago, I'd seen a flash of movement behind a parked car. I focused on the air until my skin pricked again. The slightest twinge of supernatural sensation.

He's close.

Julie's icy swirl wrapped around me again. "Faster, Isaac." A hint of concern coated her voice.

She felt it too.

She broke ahead. Stormy raced after her. Ghosts seemed to have endless energy as long as they weren't being attacked by psychotic, spirit-sucking witches. Her long black hair and white dress fluttered behind as she gained half a block. Must be nice not needing functioning lungs.

Must be nice to be alive, I reminded myself.

The residential street forked in a V, with a grassy space separating the two sides—in New York, it would have been considered a small park. Metal crashed nearby, and I stopped so suddenly, I nearly stumbled. A hubcap spun out onto the street from a Storm-parked Chevy.

I scanned the road for a rat or squirrel, but my gaze landed on a lone figure standing perfectly still on the grassy median. He was just a silhouette, but some primal survival instinct told me we'd made eye contact. There is a precise moment when you know you're caught: a burst of adrenaline pops your nerves as you look for an escape route. Flashes pound your head, attempting to pinpoint the exact moment you screwed up. A wrong turn? Too fast out the gate? You start wondering if you can overpower your assailant, if it comes to it. My pulse climbed.

It was about to come to it.

It's now or never, Isaac.

We both took off at the same moment, weaving through cars and trees and telephone poles in the dark, deeper into the neighborhood.

"Come on, girl," I whispered to Stormy, dodging trash cans and piles of debris. I listened for his footsteps, zeroing in on all the tiny sounds striking the silent night: the gravel under his shoes, the indiscernible swearing as he skidded and then caught himself.

Just one more burst. That's all I needed.

I pushed myself into a sprint. Stormy followed suit with high-pitched yelps. She knew this was it: we were going for it.

Chain link rattled as he jumped over a short fence, stumbling on the landing. I cleared it easily and gained a couple steps as he bolted ahead. I launched myself into him, arms outstretched, and locked around his midsection. We both went down, skidding along the rough pavement. We rolled twice, thrashing and grunting as our shoulders and hipbones collided with the street. And then slammed to a halt when my back hit a drain grate at the curb. Fuck.

He'd landed on top, but I was still bear hugging his middle.

"Get the hell off me, you little prissy-ass-punk!" he yelled, slamming me into the metal bars.

The pain made me feel alive; I tightened my grip. He was shorter than me, but stout and unnaturally strong, and if he was possessed like I suspected, then he might not be in control of himself either. He dug his boot into my quad, pushing away. I swallowed a groan as my hands began to slip. He pressed harder and the pain deepened.

Stormy's deep-throated growls graduated to barks, and I couldn't help but grin. Perfect timing. My grip would only last another second.

He ripped away, scrambling up, but he didn't get far.

"Whur'd you come from?" he yelled as Codi emerged from the dark. His accent was more backwoods than anything I'd ever heard in NOLA—the suspect was supposed to be a local. He snapped back at me: "Need y'ur boyfriend to come rescue you?"

I inched forward in a crouch, ready to take off whichever way he ran. Codi did the same on the opposite side. The guy's eyes darkened, and I could see him recall where he'd misstepped. A single working street lamp shone over us, and I finally got a good look. His description fit the vague police profile. About 5'7", dark skin, a tattoo on his right arm. "Landry Dempsey?"

His eyes lit up.

"Who the hell's asking?" he yelled, bobbing back and forth.

"You're not going anywhere this time," Codi said.

Landry's gaze flicked between us, as if debating who would be easier to bulldoze. "Mysteries are the last thing you want in a fight," Johnny Lombardo, one of my oldest friends from back in Brooklyn, used to say. Codi and I were about the same height and build, but Landry had already collided with me. Codi was still a mystery to him.

I hunched, ready to block. Come and get me.

He turned back to Codi, whose stance widened, and then he spun my way.

Dominate, Isaac.

Landry came at me without fear in his eyes, his face wild and his arm thrust out—I caught the glint in his hand too late and lurched away. It ripped through my shirt, slicing deep. I knocked his legs out from under him with a gust of wind as I went down, clutching my side. "Shit. Shit. Shit."

"Isaac!" Julie screamed.

Codi charged Landry, who was already scrambling up, the blade scraping the pavement.

"Knife!" I yelled just as the guy swiped at him.

I should have grabbed it off the ground. Get your shit together, Isaac. Wetness soaked my fingers where they pressed over the wound. I sucked in a sharp breath. Medic protocol raced through my head. Don't freak out. It will only make it worse. With one arm clutching my side, I pushed myself off the ground, doubling over as I stood.

The guy veered back my way, wildly slashing at me a second time—and then he froze. The knife clanked to the street as I hovered just out of his reach. I hadn't meant to, but my body had snapped into crow form as a defensive response.

Landry stumbled a few steps back. "What the—? Where'd you—?"

Codi grabbed him from behind.

"Devilspawn!" He leaned forward, trying to flip Codi over his back.

I flapped higher, pain rippling through my bird bones—and the full realization of what I'd done hit me: I'd turned in front of a mundane. Désirée was going to kill me. Did this guy still count as a mundane? Blood soaked my feathers; I started losing air. I fell back to the street and snapped into human form upon impact, groaning.

"Isaac!" Codi yelled.

"Don't let him go!" I grunted. "I'm fine."

But it was pointless; Codi was already coming my side, along with Julie.

"Just come back for me! It's only a scratch." I clutched my side harder as he tried to lift my shirt.

"Where do you think you're going?" a female voice punched through the dark.

Thank God. There was no way Désirée would let Landry get away. He stopped about ten feet away from her.

"Y'ur gonna stop me?" he scoffed. "I got a better idea." His rubbed his crotch, his pelvis tipped in her direction. "How about you come with me?"

Codi's eyes narrowed, and for a second I thought he might abandon me to rip the guy's head off. The more you dealt with the Possessed, the harder it was to remember that someone else might be speaking for them.

"Classy," Désirée said. "But I'd rather take you home to meet my family."

Codi smirked, pressing back down on my wound. "He's dead."

"Pretty much."

Despite Codi and Dee having only recently become friends, his confidence in her matched mine. Granted, she did practically bring him back from the grave with her Spektral magic; if that didn't instill confidence in someone, I'm not sure what could.

"Pretty girl like you shouldn't be consortin' with these devil-worshipping fruitcakes," Landry said.

Codi's eyebrow raised to me and I snickered, the pain making me wince.

"Devil-worshipping?" she asked, twirling her hands in the air.

"Heathens. Probably did some kind of Voodoo shit on you."

"Probably." Her usual indifferent expression morphed into a sly smile.

He crept closer to her, and I tensed, but just beyond her, a long stretch of ivy was unwinding from the trunk of a live oak.

"I'll keep you safe from them," he said, and grabbed for her.

Désirée whipped her hand, and the ivy slapped the street like a crack of thunder.

"What the ever-lovin' hell?" He looked at Désirée and then back down at us. "Freaks." He took off running.

"I thought we were going to play?" Désirée asked, and with a motion of her hand, the vine whipped against the street.

Landry sped up as the vine cracked around him. Codi's gaze was fixed on Désirée as she showed off to the cicadas and oak trees and moonbeams that she was Queen of the Supernatural Rodeo. When she yanked the plant back, the guy came flying with it, landing hard at her feet. He had a least a buck-twenty on her; simple laws of physics rendered the move impossible, but the laws of the Natural World went out the window when magic was involved. As she walked him back to us, he spewed remarks about her ass that would have made even the surliest of New Yorkers blush, but Désirée just looked down at him and said, "You're going to want to calm down now."

"Devil-girl with y'ur devil-bird. Freaks all gonna burn."

"Wait, devil-bird?"

He pointed my way. "That freak of nature turned into a bird!"

"That's preposterous." Her face hardened on me.

"He stabbed me!"

She rolled her eyes and walked the guy back to us, wrapping the vine around her hand, shortening the leash.

"It was a reflex!" I clutched Codi's wrist as he let up on the pressure.

The guy looked back to Dee, suddenly concerned. "Who are you people? What are you going to do with me?" There was something different about his voice. He sounded more refined, and his good ol' boy accent faded. "Are you the Devil? You've come to take me to hell?" He sank down to his knees begging her. "I didn't mean it. I-I-I didn't mean to do it. I don't know what happened—?"

"You need to calm down before someone hears us." She slung her little leather backpack from her shoulder to her chest and dug into it with her free hand.

"Oh, God, oh, God. Are you going to kill me?" His eyes stayed fixed on the bag. "I didn't mean— I really haven't been feeling like myself. I'm going to hell. I know it. I deserve it." He attempted the sign of the cross, and then the expression on his face twisted into something dark, and his Dixie accent returned along with a chorus of swear words.

Désirée, unfazed, pulled out a jar and wedged it between her hip and elbow. Landry started to pace, jerking her vine-entwined hand back and forth. "Calm. Down," she repeated, unscrewing the lid with her other.

"Devil-whore—!"

She opened her palm and blew a puff of magenta-colored powder into his face.

His feet stilled, his voice lowered, and a look of confusion washed over him. A single four-letter c-word shook out of his mouth over and over again. We'd been after this guy for two days, and he was making it more and more difficult to think there was still someone left in there to save.

Désirée whispered something under her breath and then forcefully blew another cloud of powder into his face.

"Watch it," Codi said, leaning out of the way as the pink puff dissipated around us. He fanned the powder away from my head.

Landry aggressively shook back and forth, like he was trying to hold onto something—the memory most likely. Pink dust fell from his beard as his mutterings dissolved into a different repeated word: "Bird. Bird. Bird."

"What bird?" Désirée asked with fake ignorance.

"Why 'er ya askin' about birds?" he shouted. "That guy just attacked me!"

The tension in her face eased as she re-screwed the lid and shoved the jar back into her bag. I stopped stressing over my witch-status being compromised—two breaths of Dee's memory powder and Landry seemed to have forgotten all about seeing a human morph into a giant black crow. She'd been working on the powder for months. If he was super resistant, he'd remember something, but likely chalk it up to a daydream or a drunken hallucination—not unusual for the French Quarter.

Désirée pulled Codi up, gave him the magic-soaked vine, and looked down at me with an expression that let me know she was about to let me have it. As she knelt, the anticipation made the pain pulse.

"You're an idiot!" she said, pulling my hand away.

I tried not to look down as the blood oozed, but I couldn't help myself. Blood didn't scare me, not since my early first responder days—which for me was junior high thanks to my pop dragging me around on work trips.

She pushed my clammy chest back down. "Lay back."

I squinted as Codi shone his bright phone light over us.

She shook her head. "You just had to break ahead of us. Go out on your own."

I groaned as her long, bony fingers prodded the depth of the cut.

"You said if we went out, we'd stick together. You shouldn't even be out here with Emilio still in town! Why am I the only person in our coven who can stick to a plan? Stick with the group? What the hell is the point of being bound together if we never stick together!?"

"I'm sorry." I doubled over, clutching her arm.

"We're not all bound together," Codi mumbled, reminding of us of his lone-witch status. We'd all agreed to wait for Adele to bind him in, but it didn't stop him from continually expressing his disappointment about not being official.

Désirée's eyes slipped shut and her fingers pulsed with magic. She began to tremble but didn't let go. "I'm starting to think you have a death wish. I'm going to start calling you Isaac Le Moyne." She clamped down on my side.

"Shit!" I gasped. "That hurts worse than the knife!" You'd think healing magic would feel like a dose of morphine, but it's more like electroshock therapy.

She gripped me tighter and I tensed, letting out a few more expletives of my own.

The pain passed from Roman-candle-explosion level to sparkler level, then it was just little electric pulses. She was shaking, and I couldn't tell if it was because of the strain the healing took on her magic or because she was still pissed.

I curled onto my side. "Jesus, Désirée, I was just stabbed. You think you could be a little gentler?"

She sat back on her knees. Sometimes she passed out after using her Spektral power, which she hated. Codi squatted next to her in case there was recoil.

"You, too," she snapped, looking at him.

"What did I do?"

"You're both taking too many risks! Stop trying to outdo one another; this isn't football practice!"

"Pfft. Like either of us played football." Codi smiled, grabbed my hand and pulled me up to my feet.

She rolled her eyes.

"Relax, Dee." I fanned out my bloody shirt. "All that matters is that we got him."

"Got him? We don't even know if he's one of them! I assume that you weren't able to confirm his possession as you were rolling down the street in a death grip?"

I pulled the ball chain that hung around my neck from underneath my shirt. "Well, let's find out."

Désirée's gaze dropped to the silver feather hanging next to my grandpop's dog tags. She could hide her feelings better than any guy I knew, but I caught the flicker in her eyes when she saw it—the worry about Adele. Sometimes I think yelling at me was the only way she knew how to deal with it, which was fine. Désirée was angry that Adele was shutting us out, but I was worried that Adele didn't have anyone, and that the depression over losing her mother would swallow her up and she'd never come out of the house. That she'd hate me forever. That she'd blame me forever.

Most of all, I worried that when she finally let someone in, it would be Nicco.

I thumbed through the dog tags and feather for the third piece of metal dangling from the chain: the small magnifying glass whose lens I'd replaced with a mirror.

I circled around the guy and crouched down over his back. Every atom of Spektral magic in my body told me he was possessed; I could sense the ghostly creature inside of him.

"Wha-at are you doing?" he stuttered.

Codi and Dee peered over my shoulder, and Stormy scratched at my leg while I held the mirror in front of his face. All breath stilled at his reflection that stared back at us: instead of a youngish African-American guy, it was a middle-aged white guy with glasses that looked like they were from 1979 and a porn-stache from the same era.

"See," I said.

It never got easier to comprehend that someone else's soul was infecting another person, parasitically feeding off his spirit—his future ghost, slowly driving them insane.

A cool wave pressed into my back. "I wonder how long ago he was possessed?" Despite having felt her presence before Julie spoke, it didn't keep the chills from rippling up my spine. "The soul looks unhealthy."

"Agreed."

"Agreed with what?" Désirée asked.

"Sorry, Julie is worried about how long he's been possessed."

Désirée's eyes slanted my way, as if she might finally catch a glimpse of her. "So creepy."

"Says the girl with the houseful of bones and bat wings," Julie replied, unamused.

My chest shook, holding back a laugh. "For real."

Stormy continued to scratch at my leg. I bent down to pet her head, and her tail wagged. "I know, girl, that's enough excitement for one night. Let's go home."

When I looked back up, Dee, Codi, and the possessed guy were all staring at me.

"F-f-freaks," Landry muttered, twisting in his magical vines.

I smiled at him. "At least we aren't parasitic-soul-level freaks."

"Para-what?"

"Just wait until you start talking to yourself all day long," I said, thinking about Ren. "You're gonna wish you were talking to a ghost dog."

Dee twisted her finger in the air, and the vines unwound from around Landry's torso and slithered down his arms to form cuffs. "You're coming back with us to the French Quarter; my family is going to help you."

"If you're lucky," Codi mumbled.

Désirée shot him a cold look.

"What? It's not like you've successfully depossessed anyone yet. Ren's on the verge of a permanent trip to the nuthouse . . ."

She scoffed.

"I'm not going anywhere with you, devil-whore!"

Codi's face hardened, and he yanked the guy to his feet. "You know how you haven't been feeling like yourself lately?" Désirée stepped close and blew another puff of powder in his face. He guy coughed and tried to blow it away, but Codi held him in place. "It's because you're not just yourself. We're going to help you before you do something you'll regret for the rest of your life."

"If he hasn't already," I said, picking up his knife and wiping my own blood from it onto a patch of grass.

"I don't regret anything!"

Désirée tightened his restraints with a flick of her finger.

"I'm going to carve you up like a jack-o'-lantern, just like I did that other prissy girl."

A wave of shudders passed through me, and Codi took a permanent place in between him and Désirée. "That's exactly why you're coming with us," I said, shoving him forward.

He turned and spat in my face. I grabbed him by the back of the neck and gave him another shove. "You're coming with us because you're going to die if we don't get that extra soul out of you." I left out the details of the imprisonment. Up until that moment—having seen Ren trapped in the Borges guesthouse every day—I'd been uncomfortable with it, but this was exactly why Ritha was doing it, and she'd keep doing it until they figured out a way to extract the souls.