An annoying buzzing sound disrupts a dream that evaporates the moment my brain achieves something resembling a cognitive state. With a low grunt, I fumble for the twitching thing on my nightstand and catch it just before it can tumble off to its certain death over the edge.

“Yes?” I answer the phone, and my voice sounds as rough and hoarse as I feel.

“Check your e-mails, love.” I can hear a male voice in a thick Mancunian accent drawl on the other end of the line.

“I had a look at the files you sent me, and they were a bit of a ballache, to be honest. So I pulled an all-nighter, and I got them cleaned up real good. You was bang on, mate. There’s some really dodgy stuff going on. Brutal, man. You actually hit it from two different angles. I let AI help me enhance the lighting and smooth out the grain… man, that stuff is getting real good! Soon I’ll be out of a job because Skynet’s takin’ over the world. Mind you, Terminator’s a bit bollocks, innit? You try running high-level real-time facial recognition, voice mimicry, and tactical targeting on the go without cloud or signal? Thing’d conk out by lunchtime. And you ever seen a robot that didn’t need a firmware update every five minutes? Arnold would’ve bricked himself by scene two. Also…”

“Callum…” I croak in a desperate attempt to stop his rambling. “What time is it?”

There’s a moment of silence on the other end. Thank fuck for that. Then Callum says, “It’s mid-morning, love.”

I check my phone and growl, “The fuck it is. It’s 4:46am over here, arsehole.”

Callum mock-gasps: “Language, Rashid! Is that the way to speak to a tech god who just did you a gigantic favour?”

I rub my free hand over my face. “Sorry, mate. Not getting a lot of sleep lately.”

“It’s alright, love. Now stop faffing about with whatever bloke’s in your bed and check your e-mails. Had a rummage through the feeds, different angles as I said. I synced the timestamps, trimmed out the noise, and stitched the key bits together. It’s not Scorsese, but it’ll do. It’s all in your inbox. I also added screenshots of the lads involved. Got a good one of the kid; the other yobs are still a bit blurry, but I can program a tool that should probably fix that…”

“That’s fine, Callum, thank you. And there’s no one in my… never mind.” My head is still slightly spinning with whiplash from his verbal onslaught, and I’m only processing half of the information he’s giving me.

“Let me know if you need anything else, mate.”

“Thanks, Callum, I owe you.”

“Big time, bro. Shalom, my friend.”

“Wa alaikum salaam.” I answer. It’s our usual cross-cultural ritual, somewhere between banter and baseline respect.

I hang up and sink back into the pillows with a groan. As much as I usually like hearing a Mancunian accent, because it reminds me of home, 4:46 a.m. is not the bloody time for it.

Callum Levy, self-proclaimed tech god, and I have been friends since our time in university. I went to Oxford; he was in Cambridge. Arch enemies by default, but we were both Northern lads on a scholarship and both a little out of our comfort zone. We were also recruited by the Talamasca in the same year. He never shared any specifics, but I think he hacked their mainframe computer, and they didn’t have a choice but to offer him a job. I never really found out how they found me. They just did.

I don’t know what they saw in me, the South Asian kid with the big, nerdy glasses, but then you wouldn’t suspect Callum’s genius-level intelligence just by looking at him. He’s a walking contradiction. He looks like he just washed up on Bondi Beach, with a wild mane of blond waves tumbling around his sun-bleached skin and a body carved lean and strong like some kind of Adonis. Pair that with a mouth that would make every Salford dockworker blush and a mind sharp enough to rival Alan Turing’s logic, Ada Lovelace’s vision, and Albert Einstein’s brilliance all at once, and you’ve got a pretty good picture of Callum Levy.

After I followed Wendell around Armstrong Park two days ago – which, as insightful as it was, sadly did nothing to solve my case – I decided to go back to square one. The crime scene. Or rather footage of the crime scene. The NOPD still only had that one surveillance video I had already seen. I needed more, and I needed better footage. So I called Callum for help at an ‘almost’ socially acceptable time despite the six-hour difference between New Orleans and the UK. He hooked me up with a helpful little tool that he programmed while we were still talking on the phone that allowed me to scan social media for videos and images taken at a specific time and location.

I let the tool do its magic overnight while I caught up with some sleep. Yesterday in the morning, it presented me with three videos and a couple of selfies from the night of the attack in front of a pub, just steps away from where the massacre happened. The videos were your average cutesy TikTok influencer reels, none of the attack itself, but some of them showed a commotion in the background. I sent the links to Callum, who seems to have turned them into a Scorsese-adjacent masterpiece.

I roll out of bed with another deep sigh and peek outside my hotel room window. The sky is a bruised black, rain slamming against the glass in sheets while the wind claws and howls around the building. A single thunderbolt rips across the sky, flooding the pool area below with a stark white glare. For an instant the retro tiles and plastic loungers look like a snapshot from the sixties. Then the darkness folds back over it, as if time itself were stuck between frames.

I rub my knuckles across my eyes, fire up my laptop and head into the bathroom to splash some water on my face. Early mornings after short nights were considerably easier during my Oxford years. It’s too soon for room service, but luckily there’s a small coffee maker and a mini bar, where I find a small bottle of orange juice and a dark chocolate bar. Sounds like a reasonable breakfast.

I find Callum’s e-mail and open the attached video while the small, red drip machine in the corner is still spluttering and gurgling. I take a bite off the chocolate bar and settle in the chair in front of the desk. Callum added a visible timestamp counter in the bottom right corner. The video starts at 7:02pm. Six whole minutes before the surveillance video.

There’s no audio – Callum must have cleared the squeaky voices of the half-drunken TikTok girls – and it gives the images an almost eerie feel. If I remember the original video right, the girls were trying to film some kind of fit-check down the block. Callum zoomed and cropped the video so it only shows the action in the background. There’s a pub sign, which is hanging a little precariously on its hinges, that says ‘Clanton’s Pit’. A group of men stand in front of the entrance smoking and drinking beer from cans. I press pause, and my GPS confirms the pub is on Dumaine Street, just yards away from the crime scene.

I press play again and pick up the chocolate bar again for another bite when I freeze. A figure has emerged at the very left corner of the video. There’s a bit of a wobble, and the figure disappears out of the frame for a bit. I remember the girls fighting over who got to hold the camera. Then the image becomes steadier, and the figure appears again. Male, slender, skinny black jeans, black jacket and white sneakers. I don’t even need to see his face to recognise him.

Callum said he attached screenshots of everyone involved in the attack. “Got a good one of the kid.” The kid… I pause the video again to check out the screenshots and confirm my suspicion. It is him. Wendell. There is no mistaking that unruly mob of black curls. In the picture he looks up ahead, and I can see his features clearly: His oval face defined by strong, straight eyebrows – wide-set and subtly curved – above dark brown almond-shaped eyes. A straight nose, wider at the tip, high cheekbones, and a faint smile. What is he doing there?

I hit play again on the video and edge a little closer to the screen of my laptop. Wendell walks towards ‘Clanton’s Pit’; something makes him turn his head to the right, then duck and cross the street. He’s briefly out of frame again but then comes back. He keeps his head low. He flinches, stops and reaches for the back of his neck. I try to see what happened when suddenly four men appear around Wendell. The group who stood in front of the pub. I was so focused on Wendell that I hadn’t seen them move.

The oldest man is short and stocky, white-blond hair naturally tuffed up, and he’s slouched into a worn military-style jacket that looks like it’s seen a dozen decades. Beside him, slightly younger, stands a tall, lean figure with dark hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, every movement precise despite the booze. The other two lag behind, younger, somewhere between my own age and Wendell’s. One is short and wiry, a red baseball cap jammed on backwards, swinging his arms like he’s flailing for attention. The last is big, bulky, and his thick neck is marked with a tattoo that seems to crawl right out of the darkness. They’re clearly drunk with staggered, uneven movements. All of them are white.

They circle Wendell, shove him, nudge him like he’s a ragdoll. With lurching force, Tuffed Head barrels into him, knocking him off balance, and Slickback slides in, cutting off any step backward. Red Cap swings a lazy, sloppy punch, forcing Wendell to twist aside, while Tattoo Neck leans close from behind, weight shifting just enough to keep him contained. Wendell keeps low, head down, trying not to fight back. I can tell he’s hoping if he stays small, they’ll get bored and move on.

But hope dies fast. Tuffed Head jerks his head, and Tattoo Neck rams Wendell into a wall. He scrambles, trying to wiggle free, but they won’t let go. Another thrust, harder this time, slams him into concrete. He drops briefly, cowering – and I catch it: a thin trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth, barely visible, but enough to taste the fight. Slickback hauls him upright. Wendell pushes back, throwing a desperate shove at a man almost twice his size, only to get punched square in the face. A gut shot doubles him over, and Tattoo Neck yanks him upright again. The blood now runs a little more freely down his chin.

Tuffed Head blocks part of my view, but I can see enough: fists raining down, four against one. Wendell swings and kicks Red Cap in the shin, but it only earns him another thump on the head. He stumbles and hits the ground, lying still for a moment, dazed and motionless.

Tuffed Head and Slickback grab an arm each and drag Wendell behind a container in the alleyway behind them, out of sight. Tattoo Neck and Red Cap stay in front, scanning the area like they own it. Grinning like a loon, Red Cap bumps one shoulder into Tattoo Neck. I can’t hear him, but the gesture – grabbing himself between his legs, laughing – tells me everything. Then they follow the others.

I slowly push the laptop away. I get up and realise I’m still holding the remnants of the chocolate bar. It’s half-melted now, clinging to my fingers in sticky streaks. I set it aside and wipe the brown smear on a napkin from the box on the desk. I go into the bathroom to wash my hands. I need air and open the door to the small balcony. My hands grab the railing, and I breathe. It’s stopped raining, but water droplets dot every surface. It is still pitch dark.

I sit outside and watch the sun come up. I’m on one of the rattan chairs, coffee mug cradled in my hands, shifting it between my palms. The horizon turns from a pitch black to a dark blue, then the first line of pink peaks through the buildings opposite the Maidstone, setting fire to the clouds still covering the sky.

My mind is still processing the pictures I have just seen, over and over again. I watched the video several times. In slow motion. Frame by frame. Again and again. I identified the object that hit Wendell, the pain making him flinch, reach for his neck and stop in his tracks. Something metallic caught the glow of a streetlamp, glinting in the darkness. A beer can. It arced through the air and smacked the back of Wendell’s head with a dull clang I can almost hear in the footage.

I watched the video to the end. 7:08pm is the timestamp when they drag him away. The vampires arrive at 7:11pm. Three minutes later. My mind brings up the picture of Red Cap groping his cock through his jeans. So much can happen in three minutes. My memory flicks back to a timer on my phone. Impressive wristwork. Less than three minutes. Bile rises in my throat.

No matter how many times I watch the footage, I can’t see how he could have provoked the attack. The kid I’ve been following along Royal Street two days ago, who scared out of his wits, on the verge of a mental breakdown.

After I arrived at my hotel two days ago, I confirmed with our agent Samir Das that Wendell reached his family home in Leonidas. There was no more to gain from watching the house, so I had told Das to call it off, thinking the boy was a dead end. Surveillance in a residential area, possibly a close-knit neighbourhood, is difficult and in this case not worth the risk. We knew the boy worked for Louis, but that didn’t have any bearings on the case. Or so I thought.

As it turned out, I was wrong. Wendell was the key piece.

I checked his file again. Apparently Wendell first made an appearance at the vampires’ townhouse in summer last year, with regular visits every other month since then. The recommended interval between blood donations (the Red Cross type) is 56 days. Eight weeks. Wendell’s last recorded visit to 1132 Royal Street was on 8 July, 77 days ago. Wendell was overdue for another feeding time. Was he giving the vampires more than just blood? I don’t know. It is possible. They certainly seemed to have formed an attachment.

I remember Damek, a guy Louis used to drink from regularly in Dubai. Had Damek been attacked on his way to the penthouse, would Louis (or Armand) have stepped in? I don’t think so. Certainly not Armand, and I have my doubts about Louis. But it is clear from the video that this is exactly what happened. Wendell was late for his appointment, and the vampires went looking for him. 7:11pm in late September is barely after sunset, much too soon for a casual stroll for vampires. Louis and Lestat went out with the purpose of finding their human associate. They wore cloaks, not to hide their identity, but to protect themselves from the last rays of sun.

They found Wendell. In time to save his life. When I saw him in the park the next day, taking off his hoodie and rolling up his top, I couldn’t see any wounds or bruises on his body. A dose of vampire blood presumably took care of that. His erratic behaviour and tremors? Vampire blood doesn’t heal emotional trauma. How he had bounced back from it so quickly and seemingly effortlessly? Still baffles me. The only explanation I can come up with is that this is maybe not the first time someone has raised a fist at him.

The violence the vampires used with Wendell’s attackers? They could have killed them swiftly. Although going back in Louis’ history, it’s easy to see how the assault on a Black, queer kid might have been a strong trigger. David Talbot himself mentioned the incident with Alderman Finwick, but there had been others. One of the Alderman’s agents, a guy named Mr Carlo, went ‘missing’ under suspicious circumstances around the same time. Or to put it in Louis’ own words: ‘It was both random and unfortunate the man picked that night to dabble in fuckery.’ And Lestat? Well, it’s hard to tell how much you can believe about the events surrounding his turning, but he might have his own reasons.

The coffee has gone cold in my mug. I put it down on the small table beside my chair, bury my face in my hands and inhale deeply. My palms still smell faintly of chocolate, but the air out here is heavy and sharp after the storm—ozone mixed with wet concrete and a lingering chemical tang drifting up from the pool below. The sun is fully up now, unforgiving, promising another hot, humid day in New Orleans.

I push back from the chair and move to the balcony railing, still in my boxer briefs, just as I was when Callum called hours ago. Alone up here, it doesn’t matter. The metal is slick under my fingers; the floor clings to my bare feet, and the sunlight filtering through the panels paints pale streaks across my toes. I should go back inside. Start the report. Make some calls. But I don’t.

I watched the surveillance video again. The first time, I was wondering about the unnatural posture of the men disappearing behind that container. Now I know they dragged a half-conscious body with them. Later when Lestat emerged, he was carrying a bundle. Carrying Wendell.

The police report has also been updated with the confirmed identities of the four victims of the massacre using dental records. They’re named as Earl Harkins (aged 62), Vernon Ray Cottrell (age 54), Terry Lee Laramie (aged 33) and Jebediah Cooter (aged 27), a.k.a. Tuffed Head, Slickback, Tattoo Neck and Red Cap. The file includes their criminal records and mugshots: aggravated assault, domestic battery, hate crime enhancement, harassment, and known affiliations with white supremacist groups and extremist message boards. It’s a bloody checklist of hatred, violence and aggression.

There hadn’t been four to five victims that night. There had been only one.