Chapter 1 Blood and Memory

Iris Beaumont

The blood wouldn't come off. I scrubbed at my hands under scalding water, watching crimson swirl down the drain of my antique marble sink. Javier's blood. It had dried in the fine lines of my palms, nestled under manicured nails that had, hours before, traced patterns on his skin—living skin, warm skin. The mansion stood silent around me, its centuries-old walls accustomed to keeping secrets. This secret lay sprawled across my Egyptian cotton sheets upstairs, cooling rapidly despite the summer heat that pressed against the windows like a desperate lover.

I reached for the imported soap—lavender and rosemary, handmade by a witch in the Marigny who didn't ask questions when I placed my monthly orders. The tacky residue finally yielded, slipping away until my hands appeared pristine again. Deceptive. Like everything about me.

My reflection watched me from the ornate mirror; the glass bubbled with age in places, distorting my features just slightly. Appropriate. I'd been distorting my presence in this city for centuries, shifting and adapting like water finding new channels through stone.

The bathroom, with its claw-foot tub and marble countertops, had been modernized a dozen times since I'd acquired the property in 1857. I remembered each renovation with perfect clarity—the plumbing installation during Reconstruction, electricity in the 1920s, the art deco tiles I'd commissioned during a nostalgic phase in the '30s. Time moved differently when you had so much of it. Decades blurred together, distinguished only by changes in fashion and technology, by the parade of mortals who briefly touched my existence before withering away.

Like Javier upstairs.

The thought sent my mind skittering back through centuries, a defensive reflex when confronted with the present's uncomfortable realities. I remembered arriving in New Orleans in 1791, fleeing the growing unrest in France that would eventually claim the lives of my mortal family. The irony wasn't lost on me—I'd escaped the guillotine only to lose my life in a different way three years later, in a midnight encounter with a member of the Coterie who'd found my desperation and loneliness appetizing.

I recalled the first soirée I'd attended as one of them, drinking champagne I couldn't taste and pretending to enjoy food that turned to ash in my mouth—learning the rules. The careful dance of pretense. The art of becoming my daughter every few decades, of maintaining wealth through hidden accounts and properties held by shell companies with names that changed like seasons.

The Midnight Coterie had saved me, in their way. Les Immortels. The Old Guard. The Crescent Elite. So many names for the same collection of monsters playing at humanity. We preserved the city because it preserved us, its fluid morality and celebration of excess providing perfect cover for our particular appetites. We maintained our position at the top of New Orleans society with meticulous care, our black-and-gold invitations coveted by the city's elite, who never questioned why our gatherings always began after sunset.

I turned away from the mirror, drying my hands on a monogrammed towel. The initials weren't mine—not my current name, anyway. I'd been Iris Beaumont for only twenty-six years, the fictional granddaughter of the fictional daughter of the woman who had purchased this house over a century and a half ago. Before that, I'd been Isabelle, and Irene, and a half-dozen other names, all carefully chosen to maintain the illusion of humanity while allowing me to keep my true monogram on the linens.

Such small rebellions were all I permitted myself against the Coterie's stringent rules. Never acknowledge immortality in public. Contribute to the city's preservation. Protect fellow members from exposure. The rules had kept us safe, kept us hidden. And they had become increasingly suffocating over the centuries.

I padded barefoot across the Italian marble floor, through the master suite with its antique furnishings—some genuine, some reproductions acquired to maintain the fiction of inheritance rather than continuous ownership. My silk robe whispered against my skin as I moved, the fabric cool against flesh that hadn't generated its own heat since Jefferson was president.

When I stepped back into the bedroom, I froze.

Javier lay exactly as I'd left him, one arm flung outward, fingers curled slightly as if reaching for something. The sheets beneath him had darkened, the expensive fabric ruined by the evidence of his final moments. His eyes stared upward, confusion forever fixed in their depths.

I couldn't remember killing him.

This wasn't the first time I'd awakened beside a corpse. Our kind required blood to survive, after all. But I'd always remembered the feeding, remembered the choice and the hunt, and when I'd decided enough was enough. This—this was different. I recalled inviting him home after meeting at the Foundation Room at the House of Blues, remembering the flirtation and the initial kiss at my door. And then... nothing. A blank space in my memory until I'd awakened with the metallic taste of his blood in my mouth and his body cooling beside me.

I hadn't meant to kill him. I was sure of that much. The Coterie had strict rules about hunting within the city limits, rules I'd followed slavishly for two centuries. We fed discreetly, taking only enough to sustain ourselves without permanently harming our donors, who remembered the encounters as particularly vivid dreams or drunken blackouts. Killing attracted attention. The killing led to scrutiny. Killing brought detectives.

The one who would undoubtedly come looking when Javier failed to return to his French Quarter apartment would be like this.

I closed my eyes, pressing fingertips to my temples. This wasn't the first unexplained death. Last week, there had been another—David? Daniel?—found in an alley three blocks from Bourbon Street, drained of blood with no witnesses and no evidence. I hadn't made the connection until this moment, hadn't considered that my blackouts might coincide with the discovery of bloodless corpses. The implications turned my already cold blood to ice.

I moved to the window, pulling back the heavy damask curtain just enough to look out at my carefully maintained garden. The night-blooming jasmine released its sweet perfume into the darkness, the scent wafting upward to my second-story window. The wrought-iron fence that surrounded the property gleamed dully in the moonlight, the sharp finials pointing upward like warnings.

A sudden knock at the door shattered my contemplation—three sharp raps, authoritative and impatient.

Nothing good ever came from a visitor after sunset.