Chapter 16 The Taste of Decay
Detective Morrow
I woke with the taste of copper pennies and silk dust. I could physically taste the dust in the air, each speck carrying with it the smells of rot, sweet scents, and a hint of long-lost treasures. My eyes stayed shut as I took an inventory of feelings my body shouldn’t have felt: the pulsing hearts of pigeons perched three floors up, the hushed debate of lovers two houses over, and the gentle sigh of New Orleans as dawn broke. Wrong. Everything felt wrong — a glorious and terrifying feeling.
My fingers twitched against sheets so fine they whispered secrets against my skin. Egyptian cotton, woven by long-dead hands and softened by a gentler than gentle wash, each thread called to me. The weight of a blanket pressed against my chest with the gentle insistence of a lover’s palm, but beneath it, something else pulsed. Something inside me that wasn’t there before.
I forced my eyes open and immediately regretted it. The room was dark, heavy drapes pulled against the coming dawn, but I could see everything with unbearable clarity. Dust spiraled in the thin beams of morning light that infiltrated the edges of the curtains. The ceiling above featured hand-painted cherubs whose expressions now seemed mocking rather than beatific, each brushstroke visible as if illuminated from within.
I raised my hand before my face, half-expecting to see through it like some cheap horror flick ghost. Instead, I observed a soft, internal light ripple under my skin, mimicking the veins’ paths, much like a captured storm’s lightning under a dark sea’s surface. My breath caught. Not a hallucination. Not a dream.
“What the fuck,” I whispered, and even those three syllables carried strange harmonics in my ears, resonating with unfamiliar depth.
Memory returned in jagged fragments: Iris Beaumont’s mansion, her soirée filled with beautiful predators disguised as New Orleans elite. My badge heavy in my pocket as I crashed her carefully orchestrated gathering. I saw her eyes, cold, ancient, and afraid, as I told her I knew what was coming.
Then chaos. Figures moving too fast for human perception. Weapons that glowed with unnatural light. Pain blossomed in my chest as I threw myself between Iris and a blade meant for her heart.
I remembered her face above mine as I fell, the mask of control shattering to reveal something I’d never seen there before—desperation, perhaps even something like care. Her hands cradled my head. The scent of her skin as she bent close, her lips against my throat, and then—
My hand flew to my neck, fingers probing for puncture wounds, for evidence of what I suspected but couldn’t bring myself to name. The skin was smooth, unbroken. But when my fingertips pressed against my carotid, I felt only the faintest flutter of a pulse, too slow to sustain human life.
“You’re not what you think.”
I jerked upright, the movement so swift it blurred even to my enhanced vision. Iris stood at the foot of the bed, one shoulder leaning against the ornate bedpost. She wore a simple black dress, her hair pulled back in a severe knot that emphasized the sharp planes of her face. If I hadn’t spent months studying her, I might have missed the tension in her jawline, the almost imperceptible tremor in her right hand.
“And what do I think I am?” The sound of my voice was different, fuller, with an unexpected depth I’d never heard before.
“A vampire.” She spoke the word without inflection, as if discussing the weather. “You’re not. At least, not entirely.”
I stared at her, searching for the lie. In my months of investigation, I’d assembled a dossier on New Orleans’ undead population that would have earned me a one-way ticket to psychiatric evaluation if my captain ever found it. I’d tracked Iris through historical records, connecting her to women with different names but identical faces throughout the city’s bloody history. Documented by me were her habits, her nocturnal ways, and habits. I’d even broken into the morgue, where the scent of formaldehyde filled my nostrils, to examine victims whose deaths matched certain patterns—bodies drained not just of blood but of something less tangible.
“So, if it’s not that, what should I call myself?” The question emerged more vulnerable than I’d intended. I swallowed, and the unfamiliar chemicals in my saliva burned slightly.
Iris approached the bed with a liquid grace I recognized as inhuman. She sat on the edge of the mattress, close enough that I could smell her perfume, an older, earthier scent that differed from her usual floral perfume. Beneath it lay the iron tang of blood, though whether it was hers or mine, I couldn’t tell.
“The Archivist calls it a bridge.” Her gaze dropped to my chest, where beneath the thin cotton of a borrowed shirt, the strange light continued to pulse. “Between worlds. Between states of being.”
“The Archivist,” I repeated. “The creature beneath St. Louis Cathedral.” At her startled look, I managed a grim smile. “I’ve done my homework, Ms. Beaumont. Or should I say, Mademoiselle Laroque? That was your name during the Civil War, wasn’t it?”
Her lips tightened. “You’ve been more thorough than I gave you credit for.”
“So, you’re saying I’m a survivor,” I said, with my usual humor. Her face was not having it. I cleared my throat for a more somber conversation. “Was. Why I am still alive.”
“You’re not dead, Detective.” She reached out, her pale fingers hovering over mine but not quite touching. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. When you were stabbed, I... I attempted something I should not have. Something incomplete.”
I remembered the sensation of her mouth against my throat, the initial pain followed by a rush of pleasure so intense it bordered on a religious experience. “You tried to turn me.”
“Yes.” No apology in her voice, just the flat acknowledgment of fact. “But I stopped. Before the last exchange that would have completed the transformation.”
“Why?” I pushed myself higher against the pillows, needing the illusion of control.
Something flickered across her face—regret, perhaps, or simply calculation. “Because you aren’t human. I cannot transition you into a full vampire; it's not possible. You’re a halfling.”
The city stirred outside, its morning rhythm penetrating the walls of this sanctuary. I could hear car engines turning over, the clatter of iron gates opening, the steady thrum of the Mississippi flowing in its ancient bed. Each sound registered with perfect clarity, yet felt removed, as if I were listening through water.
“The prophecy,” I said, the words rising from some locked chamber of memory. During the attack, as my consciousness faded, I’d heard Iris speak of it to one of her kind. “He will be the bridge between worlds, neither living nor dead, and through him, the veil will tear.”
A flicker of surprise widened Iris’s eyes. “You were not meant to hear that.”
“I hear everything now.” I laughed, the sound harsh in the quiet room. “So what am I bridging exactly? Life and death? Human and monster?”
“Both, neither.” She stood, pacing to the window where she pulled back the heavy drapes a fraction, allowing a thin blade of sunlight to cut across the floor. I tensed, expecting her to recoil, but she merely sidestepped the light with practiced ease. “The Archivist believes your bloodline has been cultivated for generations, interbreeding with seers and practitioners of old magic, all to prepare to bring the prophecy forward.”
“Lies.” The word felt good on my tongue, solid and human. “My father was a cop. My mother a healer, but nothing profound, herbs and oils.”
“Your mother claimed psychic abilities,” Iris corrected. “And your father’s lineage traces back to one of the first families to settle New Orleans after the Louisiana Purchase.” She turned to face me fully. “Magic runs deep in this city, Detective. It finds its vessels whether or not they’re willing.”
I looked down at my hands again, watching the shimmer pulse beneath my skin in time with my too-slow heartbeat. “And now I’m what—some prophesied hybrid who’s going to tear the veil? What does that even mean?”
“It means there are forces beyond the veil—beyond death, beyond life—that have been seeking entry into this world for millennia. Forces that my kind have kept at bay, not out of altruism, but self-preservation.” Her voice dropped, taking on the cadence of recitation. “The hunger and the human, merged into one vessel, will open the door for what waits beyond.”
The room suddenly felt too small, the air too thick. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, testing their strength. They held me, though I felt oddly buoyant, as if gravity had loosened its grip. The marble floor was cool beneath my bare feet as I stood, the sensation amplified to the point where I could feel the geological history of the stone.
My laughter was so loud it echoed through the room. I’ve never heard a joke that made me laugh so hard.
“This isn’t a joke.” For the first time since I’d met her, Iris sounded genuinely afraid. “This is survival—yours, mine, perhaps the city’s.” She stepped closer, close enough that I could see the faint blue veins beneath her porcelain skin. “Something is coming, Clive. Something that wants to use you as a doorway.”
As I was about to reply, an unfamiliar smell drifted over me: old paper, ink, and something else, an aroma that seemed to embody time. I turned toward the bedroom door, and then the knob turned, and it opened.
The figure that entered might once have been human, but centuries had worn away whatever humanity it possessed. Skin like yellowed parchment stretched over a frame that seemed more architecture than anatomy, joints moving at impossible angles. Its eyes, set deep in a face that resembled a medieval manuscript illustration of famine, glowed with an inner light similar to what pulsed beneath my skin.
“Archivist,” Iris acknowledged, her posture shifting subtly to place herself between me and the newcomer.
The creature’s gaze fixed on me with unsettling intensity. It carried several leather-bound books, their spines cracked and pages protruding at odd angles. When it spoke, its voice reminded me of autumn leaves crushed underfoot.
“The Vigil has found the mansion,” it said without preamble. “They know what he is becoming. They come with weapons forged to sever bridges and seal doors.”
“How long do we have?” Iris asked, already moving toward an antique wardrobe that looked older than the United States.
“An hour. Perhaps less.” The Archivist shuffled forward, extending one of its tomes toward me. “You must understand what flows through your veins, Detective. The convergence of bloodlines is no accident.”
I didn’t take the book. “I’m not interested in your fairy tales.”
“Then perhaps you are interested in survival.” The creature’s lips pulled back from teeth too many and sharp to be human. “The ritual they attempted last night went awry. Your intervention was unexpected. Now they believe killing you will reset the prophecy, allowing them to try again with a vessel they can control.”
Iris emerged from the wardrobe with a small leather bag. “We need to leave now. The tunnels beneath the garden will take us to safe harbor.”
“The Coterie will not protect him,” the Archivist warned. “They will see him as an abomination. Halfling. Dangerous.”
“I’m not seeking their protection,” Iris replied. “We go to the old places. The places before your kind, before mine.”
The Archivist recoiled slightly, clutching its books closer to its chest. “The risks—”
“Are necessary.” Iris turned to me, her expression brooking no argument. “Detective, I need you to trust me, at least until we’re somewhere secure. Can you do that?”
Trust the creature who had tried to turn me, who had left me in this halfway state between human and monster? The cop in me, the man who’d built his career on evidence and procedure, wanted to refuse on principle. But the new awareness stirring in my transformed body recognized the truth in her fear, in the Archivist’s warning.
“I have little choice, do I?” I moved to the window, peering past the heavy drapes. The Garden District sprawled below, deceptively peaceful in the early morning light. “But when we’re safe, you’re going to tell me everything—about what I am, about this prophecy, about these ‘old places’ you mentioned.”