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dumped out onto the black, damp cobblestone like so much garbage. The last of her blood dripped from the slash across her neck, adding only slighdy to the bloodstain on her white prom dress.
    She rolled once, ending up against the shallow curb, eyes open, staring unseeing up at the moss- and vine-covered buildings around her.
    “Hurry,” a hoarse whisper said from the driver’s seat of the black insides of the dented old Caddie.
    “Done,” another voice from the black interior said. “Go.”
    The rear door on the passenger side of the old car slammed, sending a hollow echo down the narrow street. Then, tires spinning on the damp surface, the car fishtailed forward, disappearing into the mist like a fleeing ghost, leaving behind only the echo of its passing.
    The mist swirled in the faint light over the young woman, closing down over her white face and dress as if trying to protect her from being seen in the night. Only the blue orchid corsage still pinned to her new dress marked her location like a flower on a grave.
    Two blocks away Remy LeBeau walked almost aimlessly through the mist, not seeming even to notice the pre-dawn night around him. His long brown raincoat was pulled tight across his chest, the collar up as if protecting his neck from unseen rain. A black headband held the long, unruly brown hair out of his face. A lit cigarette drooped from his lips, the orange glow of the ember giving his face sharp, deep
    ire umnm i-m
    shadows. In his left hand he carried a long staff, using it almost as a cane.
    His eyes seemed blank, as if he were walking the street at a different time. In a sense, he was doing just that. He was living the time of his youth. The time of his marriage. The time of his banishment from this, his hometown.
    The memories of those days swirled around him, mixing with the mist, filling the streets and buildings with his past life. This was his first night back in New Orleans in a very long while, and he wasn’t sure why he was even here now. Somehow, he just knew he was needed here. Over the years he had learned to trust that feeling.
    So now he walked in the mist through the streets of the Quarter in the hours just before sunrise, the only time le vieux carre ever was truly quiet, thinking of the past, of his life as it had been, and paying very little attention to the present.
    Suddenly he stopped and glanced around. A few blocks to his right a group of drunk tourists on Bourbon Street laughed too loudly, sending echoes of their party through the sleeping Quarter. Otherwise, the streets were empty.
    Yet suddenly the present called to him, pulling him from his memories of his wife and his family. He didn’t know how, exactly, but he knew something was happening.
    He turned away from the tourists and toward the edge of the quarter where it was bordered by the projects. At a fast run he followed his instincts, his raincoat flapping behind him like wings.
    It was only moments before he found her.
    “Oh, no, chere,” he said, kneeling beside her.
    He ignored the gash across her neck and gently picked
    n
    mmm in the hut
    up her head, looking into her open, staring eyes. Again his memories took over and he went back to the moment he’d last seen those eyes, beaming from the radiant face of a sixteen-year-old girl standing beside her father while they waited to board a plane back to New Orleans.
    Cornelia Hayward, daughter of Julian Hayward, the most powerful man in New Orleans, and one of the ten most powerful people in the country. Rumors were that he controlled the powers of the night, as well as the businesses of the day. Even the assassins’ and the thieves’ guilds didn’t cross Hayward and he in turn left them alone. But Remy knew him and had helped him a number of times.
    That day in the airport Remy had taken Cornelia’s hand and kissed the back of it, and she had almost blushed. Her father had smiled and shaken Remy’s hand. He had invited Remy to visit, even though he knew Remy was