The Voss estate sat behind old iron fences and dark trees. It looked like a museum at night, all soft lights and cold stone, but the halls inside were awake. Guards moved in pairs. Doors that were always open were shut and locked. The city's noise felt far away. Only the slow tick of a clock and the hush of shoes on tile cut the silence.
Francis stood in the long room they called the library, though many of the books were locked behind glass. The windows looked out over the river. He watched the water moving under the moon and thought about the ash that had fallen on his shoes one hour ago. He was used to hard choices. Tonight, had given him a different kind. A choice about the city itself.
Elena came in first. She had walked Noah home, then doubled back to be sure he was not followed. She moved fast, took off her coat, and placed a phone on the table. It was Noah's. She had copied the files to a secure drive and wiped the live stream app. She hated to do it. She also knew what a single clip could do to the city if it went viral.
"He is safe," she said. "He does not trust us. But he did not run."
Francis nodded but did not answer. He did not want to pull his eyes from the river. There were times when the dark water spoke to him, not with words, but with a steady warning. Tonight, it said, Be quick.
Anabell entered next with a small bag over her shoulder and ink on her fingers. She looked pale. There was a stiffness in her movements that had not been there earlier. She would not show weakness in front of a vampire House, but Francis could feel the cost in the way she avoided bright light.
"Sit," he said.
"I can stand," she replied.
"Sit," he said again, and this time she did.
Peter Hale came after her with Calla at his side. He had changed shirts. There was still a line of dried blood at his wrist where he had cut his palm. His eyes went to the windows first, then to Francis, then to Anabell. He did not waste time on greetings.
"Your grounds are clear," he said. "Two Mallory scouts kept a distance. I left them looking at a brick wall."
"Thank you," Francis said.
Calla stood guard by the door. She kept her hands open and empty, but the message was clear. She was here to fight if the night demanded it.
Francis turned from the river at last. "We do not strike anyone tonight," he said. "No raids. No message jobs. Not until I know what is under our feet. If we act like fools, we will give the city to whoever opened that door."
Peter did not like the order. Francis could see it in the set of his jaw. "Holding is easy to say in this house," Peter said. "It is harder for me. My pack smelled of demon ash and heard a priest's bell all at once. That kind of sound does not leave the body quickly."
"I know," Francis said. "That is why I am asking you to hold anyway."
Anabell opened her bag and placed three items on the table: a thin bottle of black ink, a piece of chalk, and a small vial with a red fleck at the bottom. Elena stepped closer.
"What is that?" Elena asked, pointing at the vial.
"Dust from the circle," Anabell said. Most was ash. This did not burn like ash. It sank in water. It stained my fingers. It is part of the sigil that formed when the elder fell. I think it is a key. Not to close the door. To find who turned the handle."
"Demon," Peter said.
Anabell shook her head. "It smells like demon law. But it feels like a human hand."
Zeross arrived without being announced. No one had heard the door open. He was simply there, as if a shadow had decided to stand where a man should be.
"You are half right," he said. "Demon law. Human hands."
Calla took one step forward. "You do not walk into a private room without knocking," she said.
Zeross's mouth tilted. "I never knock. I am always invited by need."
Francis did not invite him to sit. "You said the First Gate," Francis said. "Say the rest."
"Nine in all," Zeross said. "Nine, when the old world was young and wanted to be large. They are not doors you can see. They are debts written into places. To open one, you must pay the right price. Blood. Year. Name. Soul. The choice belongs to the buyer, not the seller."
Elena folded her arms. "And what do the buyers want?"
"To rule," Zeross said. "To erase. To be remembered after they are dead. It is always one of those."
"Who pays?" Peter asked.
Zeross's eyes moved to the bottle of ink. "People who do not want to be human anymore."
Anabell pulled a notebook from her bag. She drew the ring with the nine door marks in a quick hand. Then she added a set of three lines that intersected the ring like a compass. "The lines under St. Roch meet here," she said. "The Vein pulled at me when I worked. It took a memory to slow the door. I think more Vein points are mapped to the other doors. If we can find the marks, we can guess where the next opening will try to break the ground."
"Seven nights," Elena said. "We do not have time to search a whole city."
"Then you do not search a whole city," Zeross said. He took out a small coin of old brass and placed it next to Anabell's drawing. The coin showed a tiny door with a bar across it. "There are nine of these," he said. "They are not money. They are markers. When a contract is paid, a marker appears near the buyer. If you find the marker, you find the buyer's path."
Francis did not touch the coin. "What is your price for this help?"
"A truth," Zeross said.
"From me?" Francis asked.
"Yes."
Francis did not like the game. He also did not waste time. "Ask."
"What do you fear most tonight," Zeross said, "that does not have teeth?"
Francis thought of sunlight, then pushed it away. He thought of a list of names he did not say aloud. He thought of a face he had not seen in years. He thought of a sister whose absence had kept the House from breaking.
"Diana," he said.
Zeross's eyes warmed by a degree that most men would never notice. "Thank you," he said. "You are paid up to dawn."
Peter picked up the coin and lifted it to his nose. It smelled faintly of old ink and the river. He looked at Calla. "We know that smell," he said. "Club Saint Felix. The alley off Chartres. The drain there always smells like this after a storm."
Calla nodded. "I smelled it tonight. Thought it was city rot. It was not."
Francis did not waste a second. "Go," he told them. "Take two of my guards. Stay in human form unless you must shift. If you see a mark on a person, do not engage. Call me first."
Peter and Calla left without a noise. The door closed behind them, and the room felt smaller.
Elena looked at Anabell, then at her brother. "Noah has half a minute of clear footage," she said. "A shape, not a face. If the Bureau pushes him, he may break. I can hold him for a day or two, but no longer without making him an enemy."
"Then give him a reason to be a friend," Francis said. "Tell him enough truth to make him choose us over them."
"And if he chooses them?" Elena asked.
Francis did not answer. He did not need to. They all knew the shape of that choice.
Anabell pushed the notebook toward Francis. Her hand was steady now. "We need a quiet room below ground," she said. "The Vein lines are loud here. If I map them, I may see which two points feed the next door. We will lose time if I guess."
"The chapel," Francis said. "It was built when the House was young. Old stone. Dry air. Few visitors. I will give you two guards and the keys."
"Just the keys," Anabell said. "Guards make noise. Noise makes me lose more than I can give."
"Fine," Francis said. "Elena, with her."
Elena nodded.
Zeross adjusted his cuff. "You move well when the night is on fire," he said to Francis. "I admire that."
"Do not," Francis said. "You would only change your mind."
Zeross's smile flashed, then faded as fast. "One more note for your board," he said. Humans are not one group. Some want to hide you. Some want to hunt you. Some have sold themselves pieces at a time and now imagine they are holy. You will meet all three before morning."
"Names," Elena said.
"I do not sell names at a discount," Zeross said, and he was gone.
They split at once. Elena led Anabell toward the stairs. Francis stayed a moment longer in the library, listening to the clock. He had not told Zeross the whole truth. What he feared most was that she did not have teeth was not Diana. It was the old story that, if the Covenant failed, it would fail because of a choice he made.
He left the window. The river kept moving.
The NOPD building on Broad was busy even at night. The Bureau had taken a conference room and made it their own with two laptops, a box of evidence bags, and a coffee pot that smelled burned. Jules Park stood at the head of the table, watching clips from the French Quarter on a muted screen. Blurry lights. Screams. Then a blank patch of video, like someone had dropped a sheet across the lens.
"Where is the good angle?" she asked the room.
No one answered. They had taken four phones from drunk bystanders and one from a tourist who cried and said he only filmed parades. None of the phones had the moment that mattered. None showed the elder turning to ash.
A young officer cleared his throat. "We have a name, ma'am. Noah Rivera. Freelance. He was near St. Roch. He posted a short clip, then took it down."
"Find him," Jules said, and then she smiled a little. "Ask nicely first."
The officer left. Jules rubbed her temple and looked at her own phone. There were three missed calls from a number in D.C. She did not call back. She wrote one line in her notebook instead: Do not let the city see.
The alley behind Club Saint Felix was wet and smelled like metal. The storm drains clicked as water moved. Peter and Calla walked in slow, steady steps. Two Voss guards stayed at the mouth of the alley, backs to the street, eyes up.
Calla crouched and ran two fingers along a dark streak near the drain. "Ink and oil," she said.
Peter nodded. He pointed to the brick wall. A faint mark sat near eye level, as if someone had pressed a warmed coin there and held it until the stone drank the heat. The mark was a tiny door with a bar across it.
"Zeross's coin," Calla said.
"Marker," Peter said. "Buyer was here."
They followed the smell to a stack of broken pallets and a trash bin that did not sit quite flush with the wall. Peter pulled it away with one hand. A man lay behind it, on his side, eyes open, mouth parted. His chest had a symbol cut into it with a slow, careful hand. The same tiny door. The cut was deep but dry. He had been dead at least an hour.
Calla swallowed. "He is human."
Peter nodded. "Marked human," he said. He held his breath and lowered his face until his nose almost touched the mark. It smelled like the coin. It smelled like the river. It smelled like a choice made in a very small room.
Calla stood, watching the mouth of the alley. "Do we call Francis?"
"We do," Peter said, but he did not make the call yet. He slid a finger under the man's collar and pulled it aside. A faint tattoo sat on the skin there. Not the door. Another sign. Letters in a circle.
"Read it," Calla said.
Peter sounded it out. "Door… Four," he said. "There are numbers."
"Four of nine," Calla said. "What does that mean?"
"It means we are late," said a woman's voice at the end of the alley.
Peter stood and turned. Chief Lauren Batiste of NOPD stepped into view with two plainclothes officers at her back. Her face was calm. Her eyes were not. She looked at the dead man, then at the wall, then at Peter. She did not look surprised. She looked tired, like someone who had not slept in days.
"This is my crime scene," she said.
Peter did not move aside. "You brought no radio," he said. "No tape. No van. You came to see a mark you already knew was here."
A small muscle moved in the Chief's cheek. She took one step forward, then stopped. The lamplight caught the inside of her wrist when she lifted her hand. Calla saw it first. A scar in the shape of a ring. It was old, but not that old.
"Call Francis," Calla whispered.
Peter did not lower his eyes. "Chief," he said, "who paid for your scar?"
The Chief did not answer the question. She gave a small, almost polite smile. "You should both leave," she said. "You do not want to be here when this part of the street forgets how to be quiet."
Something moved in the drain. Not water. Something like a breath coming up through wet iron.
Peter's phone buzzed in his pocket. He did not look down. He met the Chief's eyes and felt a line he could not see stretch between them, tight as a wire.
"Call him now," Calla said again, but the alley's light flickered, and the mark on the wall began to glow from inside the brick.