There’s nothing in this world like an old friend who’s still there for you through thick and thin, muck and mire. It’s another one of those corny lessons a long enough life teaches you. So what if that friend happens to have four hooves?

  At some point during the fracas, Timperina escaped Laveau’s side yard, and my rump landed on her saddle instead of the street. Now, I don’t wanna oversell it. Falling a couple of stories wouldn’t have mattered to me much in the end, but it’s the thought. Timp saw me in danger and rose to the occasion as only a friend would.

  I clutched her mane to stay on, then looked up. Tourmaline darkened the window with two lesser vampires holding her upright. She sneered, her teeth slick with fresh blood.

  “You aren’t even worth my maker’s time, Hamsa,” she said. “Enjoy the company of angels.”

  Timp whinnied and kicked, her rear hooves darting backward. I heard the grunt before turning to see she’d struck a werewolf sneaking up on us. The fur-ball toppled ass over tea kettle, skidding across the stone toward Laveau’s. My gaze was torn between there and Tourmaline.

  This was mayhem like St. Anne’s Street had likely never witnessed. Windows were shattered. People were screaming, swearing, running. Shadows moved like ghosts. I was barely able to register some of it.

  In front of me, werewolves attacked the marshals, one being dragged down the street by his leg. One was crouched behind a barrel, aiming at nothing, frozen by fear. I could feel the sharp tingle of Shar’s wrath as I weighed my decision.

  “Damn you, Roo!” I shouted.

  I whipped Timp around. The beast she’d kicked was already back up but dazed. I charged, slashing it with my knife as it tried to find its bearings.

  “Stay far out of sight, girl. No matter what. You hear? I’ll whistle for you when it’s clear,” I said as we passed Marie’s charred porch. I stood on the saddle, dove from her back, and bounded through the front door with reckless abandon.

  Deep claw marks marred the bookcase in the foyer. Tables and shelves were busted, and all Laveau’s oddities were spilled all over.

  “Come out, Voodoo Queen,” I heard Roo’s resounding voice echo. “I only want to talk.”

  “Roo!” I yelled. “It’s me you want.”

  Shadows darted deeper inside. I pressed forward with my knife in hand, checking corners. No time to waste reloading. In quarters this close, I’d risk putting a bullet through anyone. An unfortunate marshal was flat upon the table, eyes still open, a deer antler candlestick poking out of his chest.

  I brushed through a beaded curtain and into Laveau’s small hallway leading to her main room. Claws raced toward my head, and I ducked, coming up with a backhanded stab into a werewolf’s chest. A howl quickly transitioned to a wheeze as the air left its lungs. It wasn’t Roo.

  “C’mon, you bitch,” Roo cursed. “They worth dying over?”

  “They are guests in my home, unlike you,” Laveau replied, and unlike earlier, Damballah was no longer with her.

  The place wasn’t big, but there were plenty of nooks and crannies in which to hide or stay unseen. Ripping my dagger free, I rushed into the next room. Rougarou had Laveau cornered between a wall and an armoire where Bram had been healing. The bed was overturned, and he was nowhere in sight.

  “Leave her be, Roo,” I warned, squeezing the grip of my knife.

  He glanced back, snout twitching with anger. “You took her from me!”

  “Tourmaline’s alive. Whatever you monsters have with each other, it can go on.”

  “You don’t get to tell me what to do, cowboy. That’s your problem, no respect.”

  “This curse upon you shall be nothing compared to what I have wrought for your trespassing,” Laveau said. “You shall not know love. Your children will mature frail and lacking vigor.”

  “Crescent City has moved on from you, witch!” Roo turned his attention back to her and swiped. Yet there was no blood. His claws went right through her and sunk into the wall, causing him to get stuck.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Marie Laveau had a lot of tricks up her sleeve. I’d never seen her illusion magic before, but it was a thing to behold. The apparition of her fizzled away, a watermelon where the visage of her head had been clunked to the floor in its place.

  The doors of the wardrobe flung open, and Rosa came out screaming. All that pent-up anger and grief burst out of her with force almost as potent as her gun. She unloaded the chamber of her five-shooter into Roo’s back until he was slumped against the wall. By the end of it, she stood there panting.

  “Rosa!” I called. “Rosa!”

  No answer. I wasn’t shocked. Things in Dead Acre happened so fast she didn’t really have a chance to grasp what the Necromancer had truly done. She’d seen as the dead rose, heeding the commands of her once-friend and simple bartender, Mr. Phelps. All in a haze of confusion that could easily be chalked up to her fear feeding the imagination.

  But to witness the existence of a werewolf face-to-face. To see magic and mystery first-hand—that was a thing that could break most mortal minds.

  And Rougarou wasn’t down and out. So when he inevitably moved, I rushed forward, grabbed Rosa, and spun around, so when he tore his claws free of the wall, they scored my back instead of hers.

  Hers pounded the wardrobe as the potency of his strike made me stagger. I reeled on him and brought my knife to bear. The first slash caught two of Rougarou’s weaponized fingers and severed them clean off. Laced with silver, the blade cut through like he was made of butter. He howled and came at me, giant paws around my neck, me swinging to catch him somewhere vital.

  “Stop!” Rosa’s voice cracked like thunder. I don’t know exactly what happened, but Roo and I stopped as if winter had dropped. We stared at each other, both clearly wanting to tear each other to pieces but unable to.

  Damballah slithered out from under Bram’s overturned bed, snared Roo by the ankle, and sank her teeth in. He roared in pain, then roared some more as vines from a wicked-looking plant in the backyard flew through the window. He tried to fight them but remained semi-stunned as the snake coiled up and around his body, holding his limbs tight in spots so the vines could take hold of his arms and chest.

  Then they yanked him against the back wall and straight through in a cloud of dust. Damballah dropped to the floor where he had been. It all made me realize just how prepared Laveau was for such an attack. Good on her for thinking clearly.

  “James, Rosa, we must go,” Laveau said, appearing in the doorway back to her quarters.

  My eyes darted to see her before my head could move. A line of blood was drawn down the center of her forehead. More of it dripped from an open slash on her palm, which she extended toward Damballah. The snake slithered to climb to Laveau’s shoulder.

  Rosa didn’t move, empty gun still raised and hands quivering. When I regained use of my body, I crossed the two steps to her and took her by the hands.

  “Rosa, Rosa, stay with me. C’mon!” I stared down the barrel of her Colt. Her finger hadn’t left the trigger.

  Growling from every direction informed my next move. The deceitful werewolf could wait.

  “Gotta move, sweetheart,” I said, soft. My thoughts were singular: I had to get Rosa to safety. She shook her head and blinked.

  “I-I-I…” The shock had her fully.

  “Rosa.”

  “E-Everything I gathered… Laveau’s stuff… I need it.”

  Her hips pivoted like she was planning to run somewhere and retrieve whatever Laveau had her fetching to contact her dead husband.

  “Don’t be a fool and join him!” I took her by the wrist. For a second, she resisted, then gave in as I followed after Laveau.

  Snarls resonated from outside. We raced through to meet Laveau in the hallway. She stood by the narrow door I’d assumed to be a closet.

  “In here,” Marie said. She opened the door, and it indeed appeared to be a closet. I felt foolish cramming in there with the two women, but then, Marie moved right through the back wall. Without waiting, I followed, and we, too, slipped beyond the illusionary wall.

  Instead of winding up in the backyard as expected, we stood in a four-by-four-foot space. The darkness was near complete, but I could see well enough to spot a staircase before us and a hole in the ground barely wide enough to squeeze through.

  “Down we go,” Marie said, pulling a lever I hadn’t noticed. The ground shook, sending dust billowing around us, and a real hunk of wall shifted into place.

  “That should keep us from their claws for a time,” she said. “Let me get a look at her.” She took Rosa by the shoulders and stared into her eyes for a few long seconds. Damballah did the same. “You will be okay. We can’t stay here.”

  With us blocked in from behind, she took something off the wall, but with her form covering it, I couldn’t see clearly what it was. After some low whispers, green light bloomed within a lantern.

  “Come,” she said, raising it up.

  In the sickly light, I saw Bram and Harker already waiting for us at the bottom of the stairs. The former leaned on the latter’s shoulder, conscious and upright. A few of Laveau’s followers were with them. None of it mattered. I turned to Rosa, who backed up to the wall breathing so quickly, I feared she might pass out.

  “Wh… Wh…”

  “Rosa, look at me.” I did as Marie had and took her by the shoulders. Her eyes seemed to stare through me. No, around me. Down at my side, where Roo’s claws had traced around my back and rib cage. My shirt was torn, revealing deep gashes yet no blood.

  “What are you?” she asked softly. Words I never wanted to hear. Not who—what—as, for the first time since we’d reunited, all the clues about my true nature merged in her head. Not exactly what I was, but the important part. That I, James Crowley, wasn’t human. Not like her.

  “Now is not the time, James,” Laveau said, hand on my shoulder. “We must get to safety.” She squeezed by me and took Rosa around the waist, comforting her as they hurried down the stairs.

  Rougarou’s words from earlier that day echoed in my brain, taunting me about living such a long life, watching everyone around me die. I couldn’t care less about that infernal tingling from Shar trying to scold me. I’d barely even realized my chest was burning like hot coals had been poured all over it.

  Fuck vampires and werewolves and this Betrayer… I had more important things to tend to.