Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 124479 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124479 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
The mark pulsed once, low and steady. He ignored it.
“What brings you here at six in the morning?”
“You canceled dinner twice this week. You’ve been avoiding questions. And yesterday, when I mentioned the Marchande-Levesque family in passing, you went completely still.”
She had noticed that. He had thought he’d hidden the reaction.
“The Marchande-Levesque family is part of what I’m investigating,” he said. “I can’t tell you more than that.”
“You can’t tell me anything about anything.” Her voice carried weariness rather than anger. “I understand that you have work you can’t discuss. I understand that your profession involves matters most people don’t encounter. But you’ve been carrying something for weeks, and I’m starting to worry about what it’s doing to you.”
She gestured at the floor, at the papers covering every inch of hardwood, at the photographs of crime scenes he had failed to hide when she arrived.
“This isn’t normal research. This is obsession.”
“It’s necessary.”
“Those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Bastien watched the morning light strengthen over Dauphine Street. The city woke around them—delivery trucks, early joggers, the first tourists venturing out before the heat became unbearable. Ordinary life proceeding while he traced centuries of betrayal and murder.
“Someone is killing vampires,” he said. The words emerged before he could stop them—not the full truth, but more than he had intended to share. “They’re leaving the bodies intact, marking them with symbols from a family that was destroyed over a century ago. The killings follow a pattern I’ve been trying to understand.”
Delphine processed this in silence. He could feel her attention on his back, the weight of her consideration as she absorbed information that should have been impossible.
“The Marchande-Levesque family,” she said.
“Yes.”
“They were destroyed in 1891. I’ve read the secondary accounts—the Archive has correspondence from human families who noted the sudden disappearance of their ‘unusual neighbors.’ The official story was a fire at their Garden District estate.”
“The official story is a lie.” He turned to face her. “They were murdered. All of them. By houses that had opposed their political proposals and wanted to ensure those proposals died with them.”
“Political proposals?”
“Territorial reform. Shared feeding grounds. An end to the conflicts that had plagued vampire society since the French colonial period.” He gestured at the documents on his floor. “They proposed change. The other houses destroyed them for it. And now someone is killing descendants of the houses that participated in that destruction.”
Delphine’s expression shifted—not shock, but the reassessment of someone encountering information that changed previous understanding. She moved to the corkboard where he had pinned the victims’ photographs, studying each face without flinching.
“Five victims,” she said.
“Five so far.”
“And you’re investigating this why?”
“Because I was asked to. Because the vampire court hired me to find the killer before more bodies accumulated.” He paused. “And because whoever is responsible has involved me in ways I didn’t consent to and don’t fully understand.”
“Involved you how?”
The mark warmed against the inside of his forearm. He pushed his sleeve up without thinking, the gesture automatic now, and pressed two fingers against the darkened skin. Then he stopped, aware of what he had just revealed.
Delphine’s eyes moved from his forearm to his face and back again. She crossed the room and stopped in front of him, close enough that he could see the precise attention in her expression—archivist’s focus, but warmer than that. She reached out and took his left arm gently, turning it into the light.
The raised skin sat there, its lines more defined than they had been a week ago, the darkness holding a pattern that shifted when viewed from certain angles.
“How long?” she asked.
“Since before the first murder.”
She held his arm for a moment, her thumb not quite touching the darkened skin, hovering just at its edge. The warmth intensified slightly — not painful, just present, aware of her proximity in a way he didn’t have language for.
“Does it hurt?”
“No.” He paused. “Not exactly.”
She released his arm. He pulled his sleeve back down, and she let him, which was one of the things about her he couldn’t adequately account for—the way she knew when to press and when to give him back his space.
“I brought something,” she said, returning to her bag. “It may not be relevant, but I thought you should see it.”
She withdrew three books—bound volumes, leather covers cracked with age, spines labeled in faded gold leaf. Bastien recognized the formatting before he read the titles.
“Archive collections?”
“The Beaumont papers I mentioned. I pulled them yesterday, after you reacted to the Marchande-Levesque name.” She opened the first volume to a marked page. “I couldn’t read them properly before. But I remembered certain patterns. Certain names that appeared repeatedly without explanation.”
The page showed a letter dated February 1891—one month after the purge. The handwriting was unfamiliar, but the content stopped him cold.
The matter is resolved. House Marchande-Levesque no longer exists. Their properties have been divided according to our agreement. Their allies have been dealt with. Their proposals will not trouble us again.