Page 9 of Vows & Violence
I find them near Bourbon Street, pressed into the shadows between a jazz bar and a tarot reader’s stall. Viper is scanning the crowd. Phoenix is pacing, She smells like dried herbs and smoke. Something clings to her that doesn’t belong to this side of the world. Her lip is split, and her knuckles are scraped. Something went sideways.
“What happened?” I ask.
Phoenix looks at me and shakes her head once. “Not here.”
She grabs my hand and squeezes. Her fingers are ice cold. We step into the crowd, swallowed by music and screams and strobe lights.
Someone pushes past me dressed like a plague doctor. Another laughs, splattered in fake blood. But none of it feels fake anymore, everything feels too real now.
And then I see him. A street performer crouched on the pavement, painting something in what looks like blood.
The spiral. Big and deliberate.
He’s chanting under his breath. Low and wet. Like the sound of dirt being poured into a grave. The performer looks up mid-stroke. His eyes are cloudy. Blind. But he sees me.
I look at Phoenix, and she’s already watching me. Viper’s gone still. Something's here.
Halloween’s always been masks and madness in this city. But this year? The masks don’t come off. And the madness doesn’t end at midnight.
Chapter Five
Phoenix
Viper and I walk into the bar half-expecting a theater. Tourists, smoke, neon voodoo masks. Instead, it’s too quiet. Low jazz croons from a radio behind the bar, and every eye turns toward us like they’ve beenwaiting.
Viper leans in and whispers, “Wrong. This place feels wrong.”
A man stands near the jukebox. He’s average built with a shaved head and a spiral tattoo just under his jaw. He looks at me, eyes flat like spoiled milk. Then he smiles too wide and lunges.
I meet him mid-air. My elbow connects to his throat. My knee finds its target in his gut. But hedoesn’t stop. Just grins with bloody teeth. He fights like something unhinged, more than drugs. More than rage. Like his pain doesn’t register.
Viper stabs him through the ribs, but he doesn’t flinch. He still comes at me like a man possessed. It takes a broken barstool leg to the throat to drop him. He doesn’t bleed right.
We leave him gasping on the floor and get the fuck out of here. We drag ourselves out through the back door, silence ringing in our ears. I text Ghost before the adrenaline fades, before I can second-guess what the hell I’d just fought.
A little while later, Viper and I are standing in the alley, waiting for Ghost. He finds us near Bourbon Street, pressed into the shadows between a jazz bar and a tarot reader’s stall. Viper is scanning the crowd, and I’m pacing. My lip is split, and my knuckles are scraped.
“What happened?” Ghosts asks as soon as he sees me.
I look at Ghost and shake my head once. “Not here.”
I grab his hand and squeeze. My fingers are ice cold against Ghost’s warm skin. We step into the crowd, swallowed by music and screams and strobe lights.
Someone pushes past us dressed like a plague doctor. Another laughs, splattered in fake blood. But none of it feels fake anymore, everything feels too real now.
And then the three of us see him. A street performer crouched on the pavement, painting something in what looks like blood.
The spiral. Big and deliberate.
He’s chanting under his breath. Low and wet. Like the sound of dirt being poured into a grave. Ghost looks at me, but I’m already watching him. Viper’s gone still. Something's here.
The bar smells like smoke, rum, and something older. Older than wood rot. Older than sin. Like bones buried too long in cursed earth.
Mama Dusk’s eyes glint like polished coal in the candlelight, tracking me and Viper like we’re already ghosts.
“You’re late,” she rasps, voice low and dry like paper curling in flame.
“We got delayed,” I mutter, jaw tight. “Some asshole tried to bite Viper’s face off.”
