Chapter One

 

 

THE dreams were getting weirder.

Ghouls and spirits and things that went bump in the night, always at the edge of his vision even though Avery knew they were there just on the other side of the darkness. But there was something else in his dreams, something he wanted, yearned for, something he felt like he always reached for and never found. Whatever it was left him jerking out of an uneasy sleep at the sound of his alarm, heart pounding and out of breath. Like he knew there was something out there that he just had to find.

Don’t be a goddamn idiot.

It was work. That was all. Work was… getting to him.

Still, Avery lay there for a long time and let his pulse calm down. He had to get up and be Professor Cook soon. No time for nightmares so realistic he felt like he’d lived them.

The air in his house was sticky and warm, barely pushed around by his sluggish ceiling fan—and a glance outside his big bay window told him it might rain soon, which always made his commute to campus a pain in the ass. Avery thought for a moment about dragging his car out from the garage where he kept it stored for the few times a month he needed it. But it was also a huge pain to drive through the cramped streets of the Quarter. Easier to bring a change of clothes just in case it rained.

It was close to Halloween but still summer warm, something his Midwestern ass had never quite gotten used to, even if it had been nearly six years since he moved to New Orleans. Eighty degree heat and Halloween decorations felt weird to him still. He stretched and stared at his ceiling fan for a little while longer before he turned and dragged his cell off the nightstand to check the time. It had been a while since the thing went off. He was having a hard time pulling his covers off and facing the week. Aaand he had about ten seconds flat to get ready. Fantastic.

Of course.

Avery rarely left himself a big grace window, and that morning hadn’t been an exception. Because of his lethargy he had literally ten minutes to get his ass on his bike or he’d be sprinting to the college and probably be late for his first lecture. And it was a popular one. Nothing like strolling in sweaty and breathless to a lecture hall filled with a few hundred eager students.

He vaulted out of bed and into the quickest shower of his school year so far. Then he put on khakis and a button-up shirt, pocketed his phone, slid on shoes, and grabbed his messenger bag and bike helmet on the way out the door. At least he’d had the forethought to pack up his papers the night before or he’d be monumentally screwed.

Another Monday, another week… and the unit he was famous for on campus was starting in about an hour.

Local paranormal history.

It was the reason his Origins of Myth and Legend class filled up at lightning speed during registration—creepy tales of local urban legends and the truth behind them, ghost stories, neighborhood tours at night. The kids ate it up, especially the out-of-state ones hoping to soak in some local flavor. It was the university’s most popular humanities course and the reason Tulane had come calling when he’d graduated from his PhD program six years before with a newly published book and a bit more ego than he’d deserved to have.

Avery unlocked his bike and carried it down the short set of stairs to his gate right on Royal Street. It was the quiet side of the Quarter, past the bustle of the touristy blocks. There were no galleries, no street bands, just his neighbors and a few passing tours here and there.

He clipped on his helmet and wheeled his bike through the wrought-iron gate. Etta, his neighbor, who had to be close to ninety, sat on her porch, drinking coffee. Even as early as it was, she already had on a dress, stockings, and heels, and her silver-white hair was curled perfectly in place. As far as Avery knew, Etta didn’t even own a pair of jeans or a tracksuit.

“Morning, sweetheart,” she called quietly to him.

“Morning, Etta.” Avery waved. She and her husband, Clancy, had taken him in a bit when he’d first moved into his little cottage. He didn’t have his own family, so he’d appreciated her homemade treats and invitations to holiday dinners—especially before he’d made a social circle of his own. “Have a good day,” he added.

“You be safe out there,” she told him. Sometimes she treated him like a kid. He supposed he still looked like one, instead of the thirty that had recently come out of nowhere and shocked the hell out of him.

He swung his leg over the bar of his bike, tightened up the strap on his messenger bag, and headed down the street for the college… where he’d hopefully be early rather than barely on time.

 

 

HE was on time, but there were still students lined up outside the lecture hall like they were waiting for the doors to a concert to open. They looked everything from anxious to ready to burst. Avery tried to hold in a sigh. It was going to take him a while to get into the lecture hall.

“Professor Cook, did you get my paper on banshees? I emailed it last night.”

“Professor, did we need to do the reading on the Carter brothers? I wasn’t sure if that was today or next Monday.”

Welcome to the week.

He was usually greeted with a barrage of questions that could all easily be answered by the syllabus or over email, but he supposed there was some comfort in getting a personal answer. He’d probably been ten times worse back when he was in school. Of course, he’d started college at fifteen and had looked about twelve. Self-management hadn’t been one of the skills that came easily to him.

“I haven’t checked my email, and yes, vampires are starting today. You have about ten minutes to skim the chapter if you haven’t yet.” A few students in the crowd chuckled. Like they hadn’t been looking forward to this section since the start of the term.

“Guys, the hall is empty. You can head in and take a seat. I need to do my setup. I’ll answer the rest of the questions during my office hours as usual.”

He wove his way through the crowd until he managed to get to the door and cracked it open to slip in.

Avery used the few minutes he had to shuffle through his notes, open his PowerPoint, and get mentally ready. He’d been teaching his Origins of Myth and Legend class for quite a few years and knew it like the back of his hand. Hell, he’d written one of the books they used back when he was a kid who was too young and too smart and probably annoyed the hell out of the other students back at Yale. He didn’t know why it always made his hands sweat, like somehow he wasn’t local enough to be a real expert and someone, someday, was going to call him out. He supposed it was too late to worry about that.

Local Legends. His favorite and somehow least favorite unit.

Time to get started.

 

 

AVERY always opened the unit with vampires. He knew that was what they all wanted, and even if there were so many other things—stories of wolves and voodoo queens, hauntings and curses—he always felt like they held their breath until he uttered the V word for the first time, so he got it over with quickly and then let the class settle into the rest of the section. There was no point in teasing them, after all. He began his lecture with local legends of girls brought from Europe, smuggled in caskets like some old-school Dracula, locals coming out of the swamps bloodthirsty and ready to feed, brothers who hid in plain sight, murdering innocents until one finally escaped—all fiction, if fascinatingly so. And it told so much about the culture of society at different times.

The students were so silent he would’ve been able to whisper and the kids in the very back row could’ve heard. He never ended the day with the real stuff, the origins, the stories of fear in a new land. He liked to let them stew in the mythology for a little while at least and end the sessions with questions.

Well… liked was a strong term. Maybe more found it necessary, because the questions happened whether he planned for them or not. It nearly always turned into a debate on what was “real” and what was totally fake, and the students got surprisingly heated about it. But still he sighed when he was done with the lecture and opened the floor to questions.

“Professor Avery, what do you think the police did with the records of the people the Carter brothers killed?”

“He already said it was an urban legend. Don’t be stupid. There are no police records.”

Well, that didn’t take long.

Avery settled in for what was likely to be a very… fraught twenty minutes.

 

 

EVEN if he thought, underneath all the intrigue and interest, that there wasn’t anything to the vampire stories and they were all basically, well, silly bullshit at worst and cultural commentary at best, something about his local lore unit always got Avery freaked-out. He remembered years ago, researching the stories, compiling them, interviewing experts—there were nights he barely slept, and that was back when he was just obsessed with New Orleans and its lore, not when he actually lived there, surrounded by buildings that had seen things he couldn’t even imagine.

After a day of teaching, two sections of Pre-Revolutionary US History and two of his Myth and Legend class, he was sufficiently creeped out. The students asked so many questions… which of course they did. And there were the ones who believed. The kids who had creepy, hard-to-explain experiences that seemed to lend themselves to things that went bump in the night. Their stories were enough to get Avery all jittery. Especially when he went home at night to his little old house that had been standing longer than he liked to think about.

It was all bullshit.

It was.

The more times he told himself that, the better.

 

 

AVERY walked into his cramped little office to sit out his office hours, correct a few papers, and plan all the things he was going to eat for dinner, since he’d been too rushed and busy to manage breakfast or lunch. He collapsed into a chair that was a little too cushy to be good for his back—fuck, he felt old, worrying about his back already—and gave a long look to the stack of theme papers he needed to grade for his history class. They were studying Roanoke, another subject that didn’t foster comforting thoughts.

Avery had loved the mystery back when he was a student himself, before the PhD, before the vampires and werewolves and ghosts of the French Quarter. He had loved it, and he loved it still. Sure as hell didn’t mean he wanted to read forty papers on it. He looked at his phone and tried to remember when his TA got out of her seminar on Mondays. He could seriously use some help. Avery got to it, though, figuring one paper down was better than zero. He was a few pages into the third paper when a loud crash made him jump.

“Shit.”

One of the books from his overpacked shelf had worked itself to the tipping point somehow and was currently sprawled open on the floor. Avery went over and picked it up. He tried not to notice that it was flopped open to a chapter on Delphine LaLaurie, one of the very real spooky stories of the French Quarter—no, worse, a story from his actual street. She had tortured and killed for years, only blocks from where he slept at night. Creepy. He slammed the book closed and shoved it back onto the shelf. Maybe it was time to stop teaching that damn class. It was seriously getting to him.

“You okay, boss?”

Avery jumped again and then laughed at himself. Get a grip, man. It was Kelsey, his TA, who he was more thankful for than he could ever begin to say. Whatever academic gods had blessed him with her, back when the semester started, had been benevolent. She was smart, interesting, and more than eager to help with his workload.

“When did you get here?” he asked.

“Few minutes ago. You need help with the Roanoke papers?”

Avery could tell she was holding in a grin. It wasn’t every day that she startled him… but it had happened quite a few times. It had become a bit of a joke between them.

“Yes, please. I’d love that.” He handed her a stack of papers and one of his red pens and tried to shake off the overwhelming unease.

 

 

IT was nearing sunset when Avery left campus to ride back to his house. St. Charles was beautiful in the evening. The wide boulevard was canopied by old mossy trees and flanked on both sides by incredible mansions. The streetcar that ran up and down the middle of it only added to the charm, as far as he was concerned. Usually Avery appreciated every block of it. But he had an uneasy feeling that night, cycling alone in the growing darkness. He just wanted to get it over with. Get back to his house and lock the door.

The feeling got worse as he drew closer to home. There were shadows behind every tree, a weird tingling sensation on the back of his neck. He nearly got run over by a car crossing Canal, which made his heart race and earned him a jeer from an angry cab driver. Avery breathed a sigh when St. Charles turned into Royal and signaled that he was nearly home. Of course, nearly home meant he was back in the Quarter, the site of most of his tales of creepy bloodsuckers and ghostly ghouls. He hadn’t even considered another part of town when he moved in. Sometimes he wondered if he wouldn’t have been a bit more at ease somewhere else.

The Quarter was fine in the busy areas filled with tourists in various states of inebriation, street bands and people milling about, but as always the crowds thinned after he passed the church, and soon it was just him and a very quiet street. Avery could’ve sworn there were eyes staring at him from every window and figures in the shadowy alleyways. He judiciously avoided riding under the breezeway at the LaLaurie mansion, but that was nothing new. It had nothing to do with the book falling earlier. Nope. He never went on that side of the street if he could help it.

Soon, though, he was pulling up to his cottage and wheeling his bike through the gate that always screeched when he opened it. Home. He pulled his key out of his bag and went to haul his bike up the stairs to where he kept it locked on his porch.

“You okay, sugar?” Etta’s voice made him jump. It was just his neighbor. What was wrong with him? She was out on her porch with tea and a plate of cookies. Etta liked the quiet moments where the dark turned to dawn and the day faded into night. She’d told him that once, and Avery had thought it was a little poetic. She had her dressing gown on and a cap over what was certain to be a head of rollers. Her papery, crinkled face was friendly and warm, the closest thing to familial that Avery knew. He waved at her.

“I’m fine, Miss Etta.”

“You know, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Ghosts don’t really exist.” Avery tried to roll his eyes. He wished he felt as sure as he sounded. He and Etta had had quite a few debates on that same topic over the years. They had to agree to disagree most of the time. Avery didn’t want to think of the possibility that she might be right. Everything around him was far too old for comfort if spirits really lingered on.

“If you say so, darling.” She gave him one of her knowing smiles. “Do you want some tea? I made lemon doberge cake.”

“That sounds fantastic, but sadly I have a pile of papers to mark.” He held up his groaning messenger bag. He would have another pile of them to grade soon, and as much as Kelsey helped lighten his workload, he still had a long night ahead of him.

“Come catch up soon. And don’t work too hard.” Etta waved. “You always work too hard, sweetheart.”

“Promise.”

 

 

HE always let out a sigh of relief when he got in the house. Avery had felt like he was at home the moment he’d followed the real estate agent in the front door six years ago. He’d had a big fat royalty check from his second book and a love of the French Quarter. He hadn’t expected to fall for the first house he stepped foot in. It was like a part of him sighed happily and said “Yes. This is it.”

The cottage wasn’t perfect—his kitchen could use an update, and he’d far rather have air-conditioning than some lazy ceiling fans—but it had wide-plank wooden floors and pretty built-ins, and his bedroom was surprisingly big. Plus, he loved his front porch and the street-level courtyard, where he could sit and watch the life on the quiet end of Royal go by.

He was usually tempted to do that, grab a snack and sit out on his porch to correct his papers and chitchat with his neighbors, but he was still weirded out, so he stayed inside with his work. Avery settled into his living room with a beer, some dinner, and a pile of papers to grade. He put on the TV in the background, nothing particular, since he couldn’t manage to concentrate on a show he really liked and finish his work at the same time.

Avery relaxed as he worked, happy to be in his own space. He hoped by the time he went to bed he’d have the day out of his system and he’d be able to sleep. No dreams allowed.

 

 

TYSON always felt like the morning came as a relief after a long stretch of darkness, even if he sometimes thought he wouldn’t mind dying. A fuzzy, downy gloom covered everything in warm drippy fog, and the light grew slowly. It was a day for people like him, for shades who lived on the outside of society. It wasn’t for friends and laughter and sipping wine in the sun. Tyson didn’t know the last time he’d done something like that. He didn’t know the last time he even wanted to. He stared out the window onto the misty street and wondered what the normal people were doing with their morning—getting up for work, eating toast, kissing their loved ones goodbye. It was all so foreign to him.

He sat up in his chair in the library, the one he’d been in all night. He couldn’t bother making his way up to sleep in his actual bed. He didn’t sleep well anyway, most of the time. It had gotten boring over the years, probably. Seemed like such a chore. The bakery down the street was baking—he smelled buttery croissants and frying beignets easily through the window he’d cracked just to listen to the night. It smelled like everything he wanted. Sometimes Tyson dreamed of shoving entire platefuls of pastries into his mouth, but he knew he couldn’t, as much as he might want to. At least… well, he shouldn’t. Not if he wanted to—

“Morning, dear.” Mrs. Peggs came bustling in. “Do you want your tea?”

“Please, Mrs. Peggs.”

“How many times do I have to ask you to call me Gemma?” she asked.

Hundreds, he assumed. Since she’d already told him countless times over the ninety-odd years she’d been with him. Tyson often wondered if she was sick of his company yet. It had been just the two of them for so, so long. It was a hell of a lot better than being alone. Or watching people he’d come to care about grow old and die. He’d tried both of those over his considerable lifetime, and he didn’t care to try either of them again. Luckily Mrs. Peggs had been on her own with no family since she’d been young, and she didn’t mind sticking around to dust his house and bring him his awful but necessary tea, and most importantly be a friend. Family. The only constant in his life.

Sometimes she jokingly chided him for not finding her before she had wrinkles on her face. But then she shrugged and said there were worse fates than being eternally middle-aged. Tyson always laughed.

“Maybe someday you’ll finally listen.”

“Doubtful.”

He loved Mrs. Peggs more than he’d ever loved anyone in his long, long life. He smiled tiredly up at her and noticed how the wan, misty light shone off her glossy brown ponytail, and how the smile lines she’d had back when he first met her hadn’t changed much, even if her hair had gone from chin length and tightly curled to a chipper ponytail, and her clothes resembled a suburban soccer mom far more than the head housekeeper for a fading aristocratic British family that she’d been when they first met. Her face was familiar. Comforting. Even then, sometimes he wished she had more hobbies that didn’t involve talking so cheerfully to him so early in the morning.

“There’s a love,” she said when she brought him the foul-smelling brew. She had a cup for herself, and she sat in the armchair across from him. It had become something of a ritual for the two of them, to bring in the day with their tea together.

Tyson took a deep breath and contemplated not drinking it, thought about what would happen if he aged just one extra day that year. But then he sighed and sucked his first sip down. It tasted much better than it smelled, a little licorice-y with that dank metallic aftertaste of the life-altering minerals they used to brew it. Mrs. Peggs smiled and sipped at her tea as well.

“It’s not too far from Thanksgiving,” she said. They both smiled.

It was their one day. The day they didn’t drink the tea that kept them the same, the day they cooked and ate like normal people. Tyson had always liked Thanksgiving, although it was a bit barbaric if he thought about its origins. Maybe that was why he liked it. What was a holiday without a bit of a grim past?

“Are we going to have beignets for breakfast on Thanksgiving?” he asked. If he inhaled, he could still smell them frying down the street. Could probably taste them if he thought about it hard enough.

“Yes, and sausages and mashed potatoes and pie.” She sighed. “And garlic bread. I’ve been craving it lately.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Peggs,” he murmured. He thanked her every day. For staying with him, for choosing his life. He didn’t know quite why he still felt the need after so long. But he did, and she did the same thing every day as well. She tutted and kissed his forehead and treated him like the son she never had.

“I’m worried about you, love,” she said that morning. It wasn’t the usual. Tyson looked up from his final sip of the tea. “You seem out of sorts.”

That wasn’t news. He didn’t know the last time he’d been in sorts. He was bored. Stuck. But he didn’t know a way to make himself interested in life again without doing something… terrifying. Something that involved far more than being a shade on the edge of the world he used to take part in.

“I guess I am out of sorts.” He shrugged. “Might go and sign up for some classes at the university again. I haven’t gotten a new degree in a while.” Everyone had their hobbies. College was Tyson’s.

“What was the last one?” she asked.

“Archaeology. That was back in the ’90s.”

Mrs. Peggs smiled. “I liked the ’90s. That Kurt Cobain. Poor boy.”

Tyson sighed the sigh of the profoundly bored and let his cup clatter onto the tray Mrs. Peggs had brought it out on. The same tray they’d been using for at least the last twenty years. It might be time to do some upgrading.

“How would you feel about a little redecorating?” he asked.

Mrs. Peggs looked at him slowly. “Is that what you want to do?”

He only wished he knew. He felt restless, a roving itch under his skin that was always around in the background but rarely so unbearable.

Tyson sighed a long, gusty sigh. “I don’t know what I want.”

“Darling, why don’t you go learn some things. That was a good idea. School always makes you happy.”

He would’ve thought after so many decades—six centuries of them—that there wasn’t much else to learn. But he would always be a student, and Mrs. Peggs was right. More than anything, it did make him happy.

“Maybe I will. But we probably do need to update the kitchen too. Maybe in January. After the holidays. Can you find a new contractor this time?”

It wouldn’t do to have someone around who recognized him. After all, it had been a good fifteen years since they’d last had the work done. His house was memorable, and someone would be sure to notice he looked the same. Tyson supposed he was lucky New Orleans was fairly big. Easier to avoid questions that way.

“Of course, dear.”

Tyson went about looking on his computer for classes. He’d take them online, but there was something about the thrill of a full lecture hall, the way lecturers made him fall in love with their enthusiasm. At least he looked like he belonged on a university campus. His one day of aging a year hadn’t put him much past twenty. He’d visit campus on Monday. See if he could start after the holidays. It was a plan, and somehow it made him feel a little bit better. Sort of.