Rain hammered Bourbon Street as if the sky itself were trying to drown the city.
The woman stood before Verrès, unmoving, her black coat clinging to her frame like wet velvet. Neon lights from the bars bled across the pavement between them, red and violet reflections twisting through the rain.
For a moment neither of them spoke.
Verrès listened.
Her heartbeat slowly.
Too slowly.
Not human.
But not like his own either.
Curious.
"Who are you?" Verrès asked quietly.
His voice was calm, but the muscles along his spine had already tightened into readiness.
The woman tilted her head slightly. Rain slid down her cheek like a tear.
"My name is Amara."
Her accent carried something old beneath it—something that didn't belong to Louisiana, France, or anywhere Verrès had walked in the past three centuries.
Her smile widened.
"And you are Verrès."
Not a question.
A statement.
Verrès did not react, but inside something cold tightened.
"You seem very certain."
Amara's eyes gleamed beneath the streetlamp.
"The Master described you perfectly."
That smell again.
Faint.
Rot.
It drifted from her like a ghost of the grave.
Verrès' gaze hardened.
"You've seen him."
Amara nodded slowly.
"Yes."
The word hung in the rain like a curse.
Three hundred years.
Three centuries of silence.
And now the world suddenly contained two things Verrès had believed were gone forever.
The Master.
And others like him.
Verrès stepped closer.
The rain flattened his dark hair against his forehead, but his eyes never left hers.
"When?"
Amara studied him for a moment.
Then she laughed softly.
Not cruel.
Not kind.
Amused.
"You still think you're the hunter," she said.
Her voice lowered.
"But you don't understand what's happening, do you?"
Behind them a group of drunken tourists stumbled from a bar, shouting over the music. None of them paid attention to the two figures standing motionless in the rain.
To them it looked like a couple arguing.
But Verrès could hear everything.
The pulse in their throats.
The blood moving through their veins.
The fragile warmth of life.
And Amara could hear it too.
Her nostrils flared slightly.
Verrès saw the change instantly.
Her fangs slid a little farther into view.
"You're new," he said.
Amara's eyes flashed.
"I am not new."
"Then you're careless."
Her gaze sharpened.
"Careless?"
Verrès gestured toward the tourists.
"Your hunger is showing."
Amara glanced past him.
The tourists were laughing loudly now, completely unaware of how close death was standing to them.
For a moment something dark flickered behind her eyes.
Then she forced it away.
"You're observant," she said.
Verrès shrugged faintly.
"I've had time to practice."
Amara leaned closer.
"He is waking them," she whispered.
Verrès felt the words like ice sliding down his spine.
"The Master?"
Amara nodded.
"All across the world."
Lightning split the sky above the Mississippi.
Thunder rolled through the Quarter.
"How many?" Verrès asked.
Amara smiled.
"More than you would like."
Anger stirred in Verrès' chest.
"Why?"
"Because" Amara said softly, "he has finally found what he lost."
Verrès' eyes narrowed.
"And what would that be?"
Amara looked directly into his eyes.
"You."
The word landed like a blade.
For the first time in three hundred years, Verrès felt the old instinct rising again.
The instinct of prey.
The Hunger
The rain intensified.
Water poured from the balconies above Bourbon Street in silver sheets, turning the pavement into a black mirror broken by neon light.
Amara had gone very still.
Her eyes were no longer on Verrès.
They were on the tourists.
Five of them now, stumbling down the sidewalk in a loose drunken pack.
Two men.
Three women.
One of the women lagged slightly behind the others.
Her pulse fluttered fast in her throat.
Fear.
Alcohol.
Excitement.
The rhythm throbbed through the storm like a drum.
Verrès heard Amara inhale.
Not loudly.
But enough.
The hunger moved through her like lightning beneath skin.
Her fingers curled slightly.
Her fangs slid lower.
Verrès recognized the moment instantly.
The first surge of bloodlust.
He had seen it countless times.
New vampires always believed they could control it.
They were always wrong.
"Don't," Verrès said quietly.
Amara did not look at him.
"You smell that?" she whispered.
Warm blood.
Fresh.
Alive.
The woman behind the group laughed again, tilting her head back toward the rain.
Her throat stretched.
Exposed.
"You've been awake how long?" Verrès asked.
"Two months."
Ah.
That explained it.
Two months was the most dangerous time.
The hunger was strongest then.
The blood still sang too loudly in the veins.
"You should leave," Verrès said.
"I can control it."
"No," Verrès replied calmly.
"You can't."
The woman stumbled slightly.
Her friends continued walking ahead.
Amara stepped forward.
Verrès moved instantly.
His hand closed around her wrist.
Iron.
She froze.
"You think you can stop me?" she asked.
"Yes."
Rain hammered down around them.
"You feed on them," she said.
"Of course."
"And yet you pretend to be their guardian."
"I pretend nothing."
"They are cattle," Verrès said calmly.
Amara blinked.
"But cattle must be managed."
"You speak like a farmer."
"That is exactly what we are."
He gestured toward the retreating tourists.
"Take one tonight and five more will come tomorrow."
Amara watched the woman disappear around the corner.
"You deny the hunger?"
"No."
"Then how do you live with it?"
Verrès looked down Bourbon Street.
Thousands of heartbeats filled the Quarter like a living ocean.
"I choose when to listen."
Amara studied him.
"You've had three hundred years to practice."
"Yes."
Thunder rolled.
After a moment she sighed.
The hunger faded from her eyes.
"You are different than he described," she said.
"The Master called you… savage."
Verrès said nothing.
"He said you ran."
The rain seemed colder.
"You escaped him," she continued.
"That must have made him very angry."
Verrès' eyes flicked toward the dark alley behind him.
The smell of rot was stronger now.
Significantly stronger.
Something was moving there.
"What is it?" Amara asked.
"You smell that?"
She inhaled.
Her eyes widened.
"Yes."
Rot.
Decay.
Old death.
And something else.
Blood.
Ancient blood.
The shadows at the end of the alley shifted.
Something moved inside them.
And then—
a hand crawled into the light.
The Alley
It was gray.
Not pale like human skin.
Gray like wet ash.
The fingers were too long, the joints bending slightly the wrong way as they dragged across the pavement.
Another hand followed.
Then a shoulder.
The creature pulled itself from the alley shadows like something rising from a grave.
Amara stepped back.
"What the hell is that?"
Verrès listened.
Three more sets of footsteps behind it.
Fast.
Hungry.
The creature lifted its head.
Milk-white eyes.
Blind.
Its nose twitched violently.
The smell of rot flooded the street.
Its mouth opened.
Rows of jagged teeth.
Not fangs.
Something worse.
"That isn't one of us," Amara whispered.
"No," Verrès said quietly.
"It isn't."
The creature lunged.
Verrès moved faster.
His hand shot out and seized its throat.
Bones cracked beneath his grip.
The creature did not die.
Instead, it screamed.
A shriek that echoed down Bourbon Street.
And three more creatures burst from the alley.
"Oh, fantastic," Amara muttered.
One launched toward her.
She pivoted and drove her elbow into its skull.
The pavement cracked.
The creature barely slowed.
Its teeth snapped inches from her throat.
She smashed her knee into its ribs.
Bone shattered.
Still, it fought.
Behind her Verrès twisted the first creature's neck.
Snap.
Still, it clawed at him.
"That's new," he muttered.
Another creature leapt onto his back.
Verrès flipped it over his shoulder and smashed it into the street.
The asphalt dented.
The creature crawled forward anyway, its broken leg dragging.
Amara kicked her attacker through the window of a parked car.
Glass exploded.
The alarm began screaming.
The creature crawled back out.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me."
The first creature bit into Verrès' forearm.
Black blood spilled.
The monster froze.
Its body convulsed violently.
Then it collapsed.
Interesting.
His blood was poison to it.
Amara wasn't so lucky.
Her creature tackled her into a pile of trash cans.
She forced its jaws away from her face.
Its breath smelled like rot.
"Seriously?" she snarled.
"You people need dental care."
Another creature slammed Verrès through a metal café table.
Its claws tore into his chest.
Pinned him.
Trying to bite his throat.
Verrès sighed.
"You are extremely annoying."
He grabbed its head.
And tore it off.
The body collapsed.
But the severed head kept screaming.
Amara stared.
"That is deeply disturbing."
Her attacker lunged again.
She caught its arm.
Twisted.
Ripped it free.
The creature kept fighting.
She threw the limb aside.
"I officially hate these things."
Across the street the last creature dragged itself toward Verrès.
It shouldn't have been able to move.
But it did.
Verrès crushed its skull beneath his heel.
Silence returned to Bourbon Street.
Rain fell.
The car alarm continued screaming.
Amara stared at the bodies.
"You're telling me the Master made those?"
"Yes."
She looked toward the alley.
"How many more?"
Verrès inhaled slowly.
The smell of rot was still in the air.
Stronger now.
"Too many."
Something moved deep in the darkness behind them.
Something bigger.
Amara exhaled.
"Please tell me that isn't another one."
Verrès' eyes darkened.
"No."
A low growl rolled from the alley.
"It's worse."
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