The rain had been falling for three days straight. Not the kind of soft drizzle that tapped gently on windows—but a thick, angry downpour, like the sky itself was grieving. Zariah Baptiste watched it from the second-floor window of the Tremé row house she shared with her Aunt Imani, her breath fogging the glass.

There was something about storms that always unsettled her. She couldn’t explain it, but since childhood, lightning made her body feel… different. Like it was waking something up.

Behind her, gospel music played low from the old record player in the kitchen. Mahalia Jackson. Always Mahalia during storms. That was Aunt Imani’s rule.

“You feelin’ it again?” Imani asked, stepping into the room, her colorful headwrap tied tightly and her long fingers stirring a cup of steaming tea.

Zariah didn’t answer at first. She rubbed her arm, where goosebumps had risen despite the warmth of the room. “It’s stronger tonight.”

“Your blood knows,” Imani murmured. “Rain don’t just water the earth. Sometimes it wakes the dead.”

Zariah turned, arching a brow. “That’s comforting.”

But Imani didn’t smile. Her deep brown eyes, always ancient even in youth, watched Zariah too closely. “You’re twenty-five now. That’s when the callin’ begins. Same as your mama. Same as me.”

Zariah’s chest tightened at the mention of her mother. Dead for nearly twenty years—killed, she’d always been told, in a “car accident” that never made sense. No body. No funeral. Just a closed casket and a lot of whispered prayers.

A flash of lightning sliced the sky, followed by a thunderclap that shook the house. Zariah gasped and stepped back as a sharp pain pulsed behind her eyes. Suddenly, she was somewhere else.

A vision.

Blood dripping down stone steps. A woman’s scream echoing in an ancient tongue. A golden mask shattering beneath a boot. And fire—rising, twisting, devouring.

Then… darkness.

Zariah dropped to her knees, clutching her head.

Imani was beside her in seconds, cradling her like a child. “Shh, baby. Shh. It’s startin’. Ain’t no stoppin’ it now.”

“I saw something,” Zariah whispered. “A temple... burning. And a mask. I could feel the blood—like it was mine.”

Imani nodded solemnly. “That’s the memory of the blood. You ain’t just seein’ visions. You seein’ your lineage.”

“What are we?” Zariah asked, voice trembling.

Imani held her tighter. “We’re the keepers of a curse older than this country. You ain’t human, Zariah. Not all the way. And once your blood awakens, the others will smell it. They’ll come for you. Some to worship. Some to kill.”

Outside, the storm reached a roar.

And across the city, beneath the shadows of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, something ancient stirred in the crypts—a pair of glowing red eyes blinking open for the first time in decades.

The blood had awakened.