The wards broke at midnight.
It started as a tremor, barely felt beneath the city's pulse—a subtle shift in the rhythm of the streets, a nervous quiver in the bones of old houses. Étienne felt it in his fingertips as he pressed the trumpet's valves, a dissonant vibration that warned of something slipping past the city's ancient protections. He stood on the levee, eyes on the Mississippi, his heart thrumming with dread and determination.
Magik was already there, her silhouette etched in the fog, Soul Sword in hand. She didn't speak. She didn't need to. The air between them was charged with understanding: the battle was beginning, and neither of them controlled the tempo now.
From the shadows, a cold wind swept across the river, carrying with it the stink of Limbo—sulfur, ash, and something rawer, like the exposed nerve of a wounded world. The fog thickened, swirling with shapes not wholly of this earth. The water itself seemed to recoil, lapping anxiously at the banks.
"He's here," Étienne said, voice low.
Magik's lips barely moved. "He's not hiding anymore."
They moved as one, crossing the levee to the threshold of the old crypts. The ground was soft, trembling with the aftershocks of broken wards. Candles guttered in their glass cups, flames bending toward some invisible point of gravity. The city's ghosts clustered in the corners, their faces drawn with worry.
A scream split the night—inhuman, echoing up from below, shaking loose the moss from mausoleum stones. B'dash burst through a shattered gate, his glamour peeled away by the rawness of his power. His true form was monstrous—horns glistening, wings torn and twitching, ichor streaming down his arms. He bared his fangs, and the air warped around him.
In his clawed hand, the brittle parchment with the relic's legend burned with desperate magic.
"Out of my way, Queen," he spat at Magik. "The relic is mine by right of suffering. Tonight, all debts are paid in full."
Magik stepped forward, eyes blazing. The Soul Sword shimmered, its light burning away the last threads of B'dash's protective spells. "You have no rights here, demon. This city is not Limbo. Its pain is not yours to claim."
But B'dash barely heard her. His focus was on the river, on the half-submerged stones where the relic's song pulsed like a hidden drumbeat. He pressed the parchment to his chest, chanting in a tongue older than nightmares. The water churned, rising in a slow, monstrous wave.
Étienne felt the city's magic twisting, trying to resist. He lifted his trumpet and played—one sharp, clear note that cut through the demon's chant. The spirits rallied, their forms coalescing into a shimmering barrier between B'dash and the river's heart.
B'dash roared. With a sweep of his arm, he hurled curses at the ward, each word a fracture in the air. The ghosts shuddered but held their ground, bolstered by Étienne's music.
Magik lunged, Soul Sword flashing. B'dash met her with a burst of hellfire, claws clashing against steel. The impact shook the ground, splintering stone, sending ripples through the river itself.
For a moment, the world narrowed to the two of them—queen and exile, rage and resolve. Magik's blade carved through B'dash's magic, searing away his defenses, but the demon fought with the desperation of the damned. Each blow he landed left a stain on reality, a wound that bled shadow.
Étienne played on, weaving protective spells into the air, guiding the spirits to reinforce the city's wards. He felt the relic's presence—a thrum beneath his feet, a harmony that threatened to unravel if the wrong hands touched it.
B'dash, battered but unyielding, broke away from Magik and staggered toward the river. "You don't understand!" he howled. "The relic is suffering! It calls to those who've lost everything!"
He plunged his hand into the water, chanting louder. The river boiled and parted, revealing a stone chamber beneath the surface—slick with algae, carved with music notes and runes.
Magik started forward, but Étienne put a hand on her arm. "Wait," he murmured. "If the relic wakes angry, the whole city pays. Let me try first."
She hesitated, but nodded. Étienne stepped to the river's edge, trumpet raised. He played a melody older than the city itself—a song of mourning and hope, of funerals and second lines, a promise that the living and dead would remember each other.
The water stilled. The chamber glowed with blue-green light. The relic rose from the depths: a tarnished horn, etched with glyphs, its bell choked with river mud. Music thrummed from within—pain, longing, defiance.
B'dash reached for it, face twisted with need. "It's mine. I paid the price in Limbo, in blood and exile. It belongs to the broken."
Magik stepped between him and the relic, Soul Sword crackling. "You paid, but you learned nothing. Power won't heal what you lost."
B'dash lunged, all teeth and talons. Étienne blew a single, piercing note that froze the demon in his tracks. Spirits surged forward, binding B'dash in a web of music and memory.
The relic hovered in the air, pulsing with wild energy. Étienne hesitated. He could feel its hunger, its desire to be played, to be heard. But he also sensed its danger—the way it remembered every sorrow, every betrayal, every drop of blood shed in its name.
Magik watched him. "You're the only one who can touch it safely. Do it, Étienne. Guide it home."
He nodded, hands trembling, and reached for the relic. The instant his fingers brushed the metal, a flood of visions crashed through him: the founding of the city, storms and funerals, jazz and gunfire, the endless cycle of grief and celebration. He saw B'dash's pain, Limbo's cruelty, Magik's burden, and his own quiet loneliness.
He lifted the horn to his lips and played.
The sound that emerged was neither joy nor sorrow, but something deeper—a reckoning, a recognition that all things broken might still be healed. The river shimmered, its surface reflecting not just the living, but the dead who had shaped the city. The ghosts sang, their voices rising with the music, weaving new wards into the bones of New Orleans.
B'dash screamed, trying to break free. Magik knelt beside him, pressing the Soul Sword to his chest—not to kill, but to burn away the last of Limbo's corruption.
"Let go," she whispered. "You can't win here. The city won't let you."
For a moment, B'dash's eyes cleared. He looked at Étienne, at Magik, at the city that had repelled and forgiven so many before him. Then he sagged, defeated, as the spirits pulled him gently away—back to Limbo, or perhaps to whatever peace awaited those who finally surrendered their pain.
The relic dimmed, its power settling into Étienne's hands. He lowered the horn, breathing hard. The city's ghosts faded, their duty done. The river flowed on, calm and endless.
Magik sat down on the levee, exhaustion etched into every line of her body. She watched Étienne, her expression unreadable.
"You saved them," she said quietly. "All of them."
Étienne shook his head. "The city saved itself. I just played its song."
They sat in silence as the sky lightened, the first rays of dawn breaking through the mist. In the distance, a streetcar bell chimed, ordinary and reassuring.
Magik stood and looked down at Étienne. "What will you do now?"
He considered, trumpet in one hand, the relic in the other. "Guard the city. Remember the dead. Keep the music playing."
She smiled—a small, tired thing. "That's more than most rulers ever manage."
A ripple of laughter. "And you? Will you go back to Limbo?"
Magik's gaze turned inward. "I don't know. Maybe I'll stay awhile. Learn a new song."
They walked together along the river, the city waking around them. The threat had passed, but the balance was never permanent. New Orleans would always be a battleground—between old wounds and new beginnings, between memory and forgetting.
But for now, the city breathed easy. The wards were whole, the relic at rest, and the music rising—unbroken, unending, as it had always been.
And somewhere, in the cracks between worlds, even Limbo paused to listen.