The rain had not stopped since dawn.

It fell heavy and slow over the French Quarter, washing blood into the gutters and neon into water.

Luca Moreau stood beneath the cracked archway of St. Roch Cemetery, cigarette balanced between his lips, watching the smoke curl through the downpour. His leather jacket clung to his shoulders, soaked through, tattoos peeking from beneath his collar like black serpents.

Cassian arrived without sound, as usual — the city’s ghost dressed in a dark trench, eyes hidden under a wet hood.

Luca didn’t have to turn to know he was there; he felt him like static in the air.

“You always pick the pretty places,” Luca said, voice lazy, smoke curling from his mouth. “Graves, blood, rain. It’s almost poetic.”

Cassian stepped closer. “You came.”

“Would’ve been rude not to.” Luca flicked the cigarette into the mud. “What’s the job?”

Cassian studied him. The Sight was quiet — too quiet. It unnerved him more than the visions themselves. “Someone’s moving weapons through the river docks. Not ours. Not the Marcellis’. It smells like foreign money.”

“Foreign as in Russians, or foreign as in… not human?”

Cassian’s silence was answer enough.

Luca grinned, but his hand hovered near the gun at his hip. “You’ve got to stop dragging me into your nightmares, Prophet.”

Cassian’s jaw tightened. “You think I enjoy this?”

“I think you enjoy having me close enough to hate properly.”

The thunder cracked above them, and for a second, lightning illuminated both men — tall, inked, lethal, yet impossibly alive. Two predators circling the same shadow.

Cassian turned toward the gate. “We don’t have time for your mouth, Moreau.”

“You sure?” Luca followed, boots sinking into the soft earth. “It’s one of my better features.”

They moved through the cemetery, past crumbling tombs and rain-slick statues. The world smelled of wet stone and decay. Somewhere in the distance, a jazz band played from a bar on Decatur Street — ghost notes drifting through the storm.

At the far end, near an old crypt sealed with iron, Cassian stopped. “This is where it started.”

Luca tilted his head. “Where what started?”

“The shipments. I saw them. Here. Three nights from now.”

Luca frowned. “You saw them.”

Cassian’s voice was low. “Don’t start.”

“No, seriously. You and your damn visions — do they ever show you anything good? Like… me winning a fight?”

Cassian’s mouth twitched. “Maybe in another lifetime.”

Something flickered — a shared glance, too long, too sharp. Luca broke it first, kicking the mud. “So we wait?”

Cassian shook his head. “We prepare. Whoever’s behind this isn’t human.”

Luca barked a laugh. “You’re joking.”

“I wish I was.”

The wind shifted, carrying the scent of roses and rot. Both men froze.

Cassian drew his gun. Luca followed suit.

The crypt door creaked open on its own.

Inside, candles burned without flame — soft, greenish light pulsing like a heartbeat. On the wall, symbols were painted in blood.

Luca cursed under his breath. “Voodoo?”

Cassian stepped closer, scanning the sigils. “Older. Something that shouldn’t exist anymore.”

He reached out — the Sight surged, violent, tearing through his head.

Flashes — a ship burning on the river, men screaming, Luca’s face twisted in pain — then darkness swallowing them both.

Cassian staggered. Luca caught him before he fell, hands gripping his shoulders.

“Hey! Cass— look at me.”

Cassian blinked hard, gasping. The world came back in shards. “It’s here,” he whispered. “Whatever’s coming. It’s already in the city.”

Luca held him for a moment too long, eyes unreadable. “Then let’s make sure it regrets choosing our streets.”

He released him abruptly, turning toward the exit. “Come on, Prophet. We’ve got work to do.”

Cassian followed, still shaken.

Outside, the rain had stopped. The air felt wrong — heavy, electric, waiting.

Neither man noticed the small figure watching them from the shadows of the crypt — her eyes black as spilled ink, her smile patient and knowing.

The docks were silent by midnight.

That kind of silence that hums in the bones, thick with the memory of screams.

Cassian crouched behind a stack of rust-eaten barrels, rain dripping from his hood. The river breathed cold mist over the concrete, turning everything into ghostlight.

He could taste the tension—oil, gunmetal, and something older than either.

Across the wharf, Luca knelt in the shadows of a broken crane, eyes fixed on the warehouse doors. The half-moon carved silver over his tattoos. He raised two fingers—signal ready.

Cassian’s earpiece crackled softly. Two guards left entrance. Third pacing the catwalk.

He didn’t need the intel; the Sight had already whispered it minutes ago. But he answered anyway, voice steady: “Copy.”

Through the drizzle, he watched Luca move. The man was chaos given muscle—fast, silent, lethal. He slid a blade from his sleeve and ghosted behind one guard, steel flashing once. The body folded without sound.

Cassian’s heartbeat synced to the rhythm of Luca’s motion. He hated that. Hated how his body recognized the other man like an old language it had forgotten but still dreamed in.

He forced himself forward, slipping past the second guard. The muzzle of his silenced gun kissed the man’s throat; one soft pop and the world went still again.

When they met behind the warehouse, the air between them was electric.

“Clean,” Luca murmured.

Cassian nodded. “For now.”

They pushed through the side door. Inside: crates stacked high, labeled with nothing but a serpent emblem scorched into the wood. The stench of salt and sulfur.

Luca kicked open the nearest crate—and froze.

Inside lay weapons wrapped in velvet, etched with runes that shimmered faintly under the flickering light.

“Holy hell,” Luca breathed. “What kind of toys are these?”

Cassian stepped closer, fingertips hovering over the sigils. The Sight shuddered to life. Blood ritual. Possession. A weapon that drinks souls.

He jerked back. “Not toys. Traps.”

The doors slammed shut behind them.

Every bulb overhead exploded at once.

“Company,” Luca muttered, pulling both guns.

Figures emerged from the dark—half a dozen men, skin grey, eyes vacant, veins pulsing with green fire. The stink of decay hit a moment later.

Cassian whispered, “Dead men walking.”

Luca grinned, almost delighted. “Guess that makes this fun.”

The first corpse lunged. Cassian fired, silver bullets tearing through its chest. It staggered but didn’t fall. Luca met another head-on, knife slicing through its neck, black ichor spraying the wall.

“Headshots,” Cassian barked.

“Already there!”

They moved like a storm: Cassian precise, Luca feral. Where one faltered, the other filled the gap. Their rhythm was brutal and beautiful, violence in perfect sync.

Cassian spun to reload; one of the dead charged him. Before he could react, Luca slammed into it, both crashing to the floor. He drove a blade through the corpse’s eye and glanced up, breathless.

“Next time, Prophet,” he growled, “you buy dinner first.”

Cassian almost laughed—almost—before another vision hit him. A spark. A scream. Fire.

“Down!” he shouted.

The world erupted. A crate detonated, flames rolling through the room. The undead shrieked, catching fire. Cassian’s ears rang; smoke clawed at his lungs.

He dragged Luca toward the exit, both stumbling through heat and light until they burst into the rain-soaked night.

Behind them, the warehouse burned, casting hellish reflections over the river.

They collapsed beside a parked truck, chests heaving. For a long time, only the rain spoke.

Finally Luca turned, blood streaking his jaw. “That your Sight again?”

Cassian nodded. “It warned me in time.”

Luca exhaled hard, a laugh caught somewhere between relief and disbelief. “Guess I owe you one.”

Cassian’s gaze locked with his. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“Yeah,” Luca said softly, voice rough. “That’s the problem.”

He reached out, brushing ash from Cassian’s cheek. The touch lingered—heat under the rain. For a moment, everything else—the fire, the city, the corpses—fell away.

Then Cassian pulled back, too fast. “We should move. Someone will come.”

“Always running,” Luca murmured. But he stood.

As they walked toward the waiting car, thunder rolled over the river. Cassian glanced at the flames one last time and saw shapes writhing inside them—faces forming, whispering his name.

Whatever they’d fought tonight wasn’t finished.

Luca opened the passenger door. “You coming, Prophet?”

Cassian hesitated, eyes on the burning docks.

Then he slid in beside his rival.

The city swallowed the fire behind them, and New Orleans kept breathing—slow, dark, hungry.