Page 16 of Langiappe & Lost Legends

"You think we might find clues about their original rituals so we can find them?" Phi asked as she examined the map. I could see her scientific mind churning.

"More than that," Kaveh said. "These tunnels could show us exactly how they're planning to use the anchor points now. Sometimes to understand the present..."

"You have to understand the past. And in this case, that requires us to go underground," I finished, already seeing where this was headed. "When do we start?"

Above us, reality hiccupped again. It sent ripples through the air like stones dropped in a temporal pond. The jazz musician's song still echoed for multiple decades. Although, now it felt less like background music and more like a countdown. The question wasn't whether we'd explore the tunnels. It was whether we'd find what we needed before the Lost Legends took over everything.

CHAPTER 6

DREYA

“At least we aren’t going into the demonic underbelly,” I observed as we squeezed through a passage that was narrower than my hips were in high school.

Lia chuckled and shot me a smirk. “That’s only better if the critters down here aren’t as hungry as the demons.”

I snorted at that and continued. Holy mother of everything magical. I was getting tired of crawling through places that smelled like something had died there a century ago. And yet here we were, squeezed into tunnels beneath the French Quarter like rats in a maze. Except the rats we'd met earlier had better fashion sense than whatever lived down here.

"Tell me again why we couldn't just blast our way in through the street?" I asked as I ducked under yet another cobweb. The thing was practically prehistoric. I was pretty sure it had been around since the Battle of New Orleans. "I'm pretty sure my dry-cleaning bill is going to be higher than our fee for the Light Fae party."

"Subtle is better than creating a sinkhole in the middle of tourist-central," Lia replied from ahead of me. Her voice echoed weirdly in the narrow space. "Plus, do you really want to explainto the mundane authorities why we're excavating without a permit?"

"Point taken." I grimaced as something squishy smashed under my boot. My stomach roiled. "But I'm billing the Lost Legends for these shoes. These were my favorite pair of ass-kicking boots. They were worn in perfectly and everything."

"You say that about every pair of boots," Kota called from behind me. "Remember the ones you wore until they got ruined when we dealt with that lake monster?"

"Those boots saved my life! They gave me the purchase to keep it from dragging us into the lake!" Since moving to Willowberry, I’d discovered there was nothing better than a trusty pair of boots.

We'd discovered the entrance to these tunnels behind a false wall in one of the old buildings near Jackson Square. The kind of discovery that would have been way more exciting if it hadn't involved moving aside a bookcase that probably weighed more than all six of us combined. After nearly breaking our backs to move it, we encountered our second problem. The tunnel entrance had been sealed with magic that felt older than dirt and was twice as stubborn.

"This is definitely not on any city planning maps," Phi muttered. Her phone's flashlight beam swept over ancient brickwork that definitely predated modern building codes. "Some of these passages look older than the city itself. Look at these markings. They're not French or Spanish. They might even predate European settlement."

Dani ran her fingers along one of the walls. She was tracing symbols that seemed to shift under her touch. It was reacting to her magic. "These aren't for decoration. They're old magic. Like, 'make Sanité DéDé look like a first-year student' old."

"Ah, splendid," I drawled. "Because grappling with magic from the last century was just too straightforward. Now we'vegot prehistoric hoodoo to worry about. Perhaps we should check if any pterodactyls left behind their spell books while we're at it.”

"Guys," Adèle's voice slid into our minds. "I'm picking up residual magic. It’s incredibly strong. And it feels familiar."

That got everyone's attention faster than a two-for-one Hurricane special. Our familiar rarely admitted to recognizing magical signatures. The few times I could recall, it had been connected to some seriously bad news. The last time she’d used this tone, she was leading us through the swamps. We’d been searching for someone trying to steal the magic of our city and leaving bodies in their wake.

"Define 'familiar'," I prompted at the same time I reached for my dagger. My hand settled on the grip of the weapon Fiona’s mate had made for me. It hummed with protective magic and responded to my unease.

"It's like," Adèle paused, and I could practically feel her trying to put the sensation into words. "Remember earlier at Marie's when Kaitlyn found traces of vampire magic? It's similar to that, but twisted. I can’t quite grasp it, but it almost feels like someone took protection spells and corrupted them. It feels wrong, like hearing a jazz band play rock music. It’s possible, but fundamentally incorrect."

"Wonderful," Kota muttered. "Because we needed another challenge. Hey Phi, remember when we thought the scariest thing we’d face was that Skinwalker the first time around?"

"Don't remind me," Phi's voice went hard. "That bastard's still out there. Manipulating one of my students into becoming a killer isn’t the last thing it’s going to do here. I should have ended it when I had the chance."

We rounded a corner and found ourselves in what had to be the creepiest ritual space I'd ever seen. Given our line of work, that was saying something. The chamber was circular. It also had sigils carved into every available surface. They glowed with asickly green light that made my magic want to curl up and hide. There was also a macabre altar. Why did evil insist on using altars so much? I couldn’t think too much about that because the power surrounding us made it feel like trying to breathe underwater.

"Are those our wards?" Dani asked, leaning closer to examine one of the symbols. "They look like the ones we used around the plantation. Only these are wrong somehow. Like someone took our protection spells and ran them through a demonic translation program."

"No one should have access to these," Adèle replied. Her voice was tight with concern. That didn’t bode well. "We designed these wards ourselves. The only people who know the exact configurations are me and the six of you."

"Sweet baby Jesus on a beignet," Kota whispered, her voice barely carrying in the heavy air. "Please tell me that's not blood on the altar."

Phi moved closer, her scientist brain clearly overriding her survival instinct. "It's not blood," she said after a moment. "Well, not just blood. It's some kind of magical construct."

"That's not making me feel better," I muttered as I scanned the chamber. Every instinct I had was screaming that we weren't alone. "Anyone else notice how the temperature keeps dropping?"

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