“So, early thirties, light-skinned female in an old-timey dress and headscarf. You remember anything else about her? Name or anything?”

“She said her name was Marie. But if she led historical tours, she would, right?”

“Right.” Cyrus nodded. “Anything else you remember about her?”

Nora stared up at the sign again.

“Earthquake eyes,” Nora said.

“What?”

“I remember thinking the woman had earthquake eyes. You look in them and shake a little.”

“Scary witch?”

“Not quite scary,” Nora said. “I don’t know. Powerful maybe. She made me a little nervous.”

“Hell, if she made you nervous…” Cyrus said, then whistled. “Let’s keep looking. If the voodoo store folk don’t know her, maybe the other tour guides do. Come on.”

“Where are we going now?”

“To interview a vampire.” Cyrus headed into the crowd.

Nora didn’t follow at first.

“You know vampires?” Nora called out. Cyrus only raised his hand and waved it, indicating she needed to get her ass in gear and follow him. Nora ran a little to catch up with him.

“If you know vampires and you’ve been holding out on me,” she said, “I’m not going to be friends with you anymore.”

“Vampire tours,” Cyrus said. “Witch tours. Ghost tours. Gotta be a voodoo tour, right? There’s one vampire guide who’s been doing this forever. He’ll know your witch if she even once ran a voodoo tour ’round here.”

Cyrus started forward, but Nora was separated from him by a sudden crush of drunk frat boys leaving a bar en masse. One of them bumped into Nora, hard, and her foot slipped out of her shoe.

When she stumbled, the glassy-eyed frat kid grabbed her around the waist, not to steady her like a good guy, but just to grab her.

“Hey, there,” he said, grinning. He smelled like an overpriced Hurricane (the drink, not the storm). “What’s your hurry, baby?”

“I’m thirty-eight,” Nora said. “I’m not a baby, baby. Let me go.” She started to walk away, but the dumb drunk who didn’t know what he was getting himself into, slid his arm around her waist and pulled her back against him.

“Don’t leave me,” he said. “We just met.”

“Fuck, please don’t make me kill you tonight,” Nora said. “I’m busy.”

Unfortunately, the kid was strong. And he had a whole lotta liquid courage in him. He pulled her back against him once more, and Nora decided she was ready to break a law or two—especially when two of the boy’s “boys” noticed what was happening and started to cheer him on.

“Nice catch, man,” one said.

“Dude, don’t get us arrested,” a slightly sober one said.

Arrest was the least of their troubles. Nora raised her foot, fully intending to bring her high heel down on the boy’s toe.

And break it.

In many pieces.

She hoped he played football or soccer, that he was a prodigy, in fact…just so she could ruin his future.

Then one of the frat boys went flying.

Really, seriously, flying. One second, he was standing. The next second, he traveled through the air at a high velocity and landed a good ten feet away on the street. Bourbon Street. Which meant he was about to get a very nasty bacterial infection just from touching the concrete.