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Witch's Hunger
Deborah LeBlanc


THE DANGER IN THEIR DESIRE As a Triad witch, Vivienne François knows better than to let Nikoli Hyland get too close. Her family's ancient curse means Viv can never be with the sexy human warrior. If she succumbs to the forbidden desires, she risks losing everything and putting all humanity in danger. Still, Nikoli affects her like no other…Nikoli swore an oath to protect the world from the Cartesians, interdimensional beasts bent on destruction. He needs Viv's help to defeat them, but the feisty beauty makes focusing on the mission difficult. Viv and Nikoli know how to fight evil; it's battling their hearts that could be their undoing.







THE DANGER IN THEIR DESIRE

As a Triad witch, Vivienne François knows better than to let Nikoli Hyland get too close. Her family’s ancient curse means Viv can never be with the sexy human warrior. If she succumbs to her forbidden desires, she risks losing everything and putting all humanity in danger. Still, Nikoli affects her like no other...

Nikoli swore an oath to protect the world from the Cartesians, interdimensional beasts bent on destruction. He needs Viv’s help to defeat them, but the feisty beauty’s company makes focusing on the mission difficult. Viv and Nikoli know how to fight evil; it’s battling their hearts that could be their undoing.


“I’ll get the bloodstones,” Viv said. “How many do you think we’ll need?”

“Twelve should do it.”

“I’ll bring sixteen. Always better to have more than not enough, right?”

Nikoli gave her a sultry look. “It’s always better to have more.”

Viv cleared her throat and rummaged through the bloodstones, but she felt her breathing quicken. There was no ignoring Nikoli’s scent—a mixture of leather, musk and fresh, rain-kissed air. No one had ever affected her this way. Viv narrowed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the bloodstones.

“I think we’re good,” she said, chancing a look at Nikoli’s face. Big mistake. When she’d turned to him, they were but a breath apart.

Both of them froze, eyes locked, and in that moment the rest of Viv’s world disappeared. All that existed was the scent of him, the brawn of him. The only thing either of them had to do was move a fraction of an inch and...


Award-winning and bestselling author DEBORAH LEBLANC is a business owner, a licensed death-scene investigator and an active member of two national paranormal investigation teams. She’s the president of the Horror Writers Association, Mystery Writers of America’s Southwest chapter and the Writers’ Guild of Acadiana. Deborah is also the creator of the LeBlanc Literacy Challenge, an annual national campaign designed to encourage more people to read, and Literacy, Inc., a nonprofit organization with a mission to fight illiteracy in America’s teens. For more information go to www.deborahleblanc.com (http://www.deborahleblanc.com) and www.literacyinc.com (http://www.literacyinc.com).


Witch’s Hunger

Deborah LeBlanc






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


For Pookie and Sarah.

It’s been a long, hard road without you...


Contents

Cover (#ua5547be3-e2db-58e6-91c0-299f1306eed0)

Back Cover Text (#u2e432684-eb8e-5360-9b2e-bc43c7c03886)

Introduction (#ue8034418-a0a8-5278-9c25-a36d51d212f0)

About the Author (#ucc4c8291-4791-5b2b-84e4-756a67dd14d6)

Title Page (#ub19bf352-be8e-5f85-8829-6f692b00707a)

Dedication (#u6af8cfcf-2a13-50b6-8920-28fa587ca45c)

Prologue (#ufd73432b-396d-50ed-a78f-27878a7a25ca)

Chapter 1 (#u8565bcd0-2bfa-5562-aa42-a0a3a036243b)

Chapter 2 (#u1804ac43-819c-5c93-885b-f720f472907b)

Chapter 3 (#ueeba6062-075d-545a-bb62-c73c75dfe87e)

Chapter 4 (#u9ceb1bd9-50b9-509e-a081-3000d00ec09c)

Chapter 5 (#u6099fa8a-5d3d-57a7-beed-a6f8d1e7a7b1)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


Prologue (#uf21d9e2a-b038-532a-9f58-7f76c230c128)

The triplets had known trouble since birth.

Near the north wall of a vast cavern southeast of Marseilles stood a wide stone table. Behind the table sat the Council of Elders for the Circle of Sisters—Magda, head of the council, Bayonne and Palmae.

Magda, shaking with fury, glared at the three young women standing before them. Esmee, the eldest of the triplets and most outspoken, and her sisters, Lisette and Julianne François. The girls’ shadows danced across the stone walls from the multitude of candles that illuminated the dank cave.

They were forced to wear sackcloth and walk the many miles to the meeting area. They stood dirty, sweating and trembling with fear at what they were about to face. They were identical in appearance save for their eyes. Each held a unique color. Esmee’s were brilliant blue, Lisette’s a shiny copper and Julianne’s blacker than any shade of night.

All three pairs of eyes were now downcast, the girls’ heads bowed in sorrow and submission. Coal-black hair fell across alabaster skin. The cave smelled of their sweat, burning candles and the earthy scent of the dirt beneath their feet.

Magda, as head of the council, held the staff of judgment so tightly in her right hand her knuckles had turned white. Her fury was undeniable. The staff of judgment was eight inches long, made of thick, polished Elder-wood and topped with a bloodstone the size of a small woman’s fist. The staff was the ballast used only in severe cases, of which this was definitely one.

Being responsible for an entire clan of witches spread throughout France, especially in the fifteenth century, was no small feat. She held fast to being firm and fair, and unwavering from protocol. Despite her anger, looking at the triplets made her heart ache and cluttered her thoughts.

This wasn’t the first time the sisters had stood before the council. Mostly for misdemeanors on other occasions. Their youth accounted for the majority of the dismissals of those cases.

Magda knew the council granted special favors to the triplets out of pity. Years ago, their parents had left a theater late one evening when a band of thieves shot out from a dark alley and murdered both of them. The triplets had only been two years old at the time, and by vote, the Council of Elders decided that Bayonne would take responsibility for them. They’d had no other choice. It was part of their culture. Neither adoption nor abandonment existed in their code of ethics. The Circle of Sisters took care of their own.

Magda always suspected Bayonne had been too lenient on the girls throughout the years, and today’s fiasco seemed to attest to that. At sixteen years old, with a full fourteen years under Bayonne’s tutelage, the young women should have known better.

“But, Elders, we beg of you,” Esmee said. “Please consider reason. Would you not have done the same? Would you have allowed such boldfaced betrayal to go unpunished? Would you not have sought revenge? How can you judge us when we were the ones wronged?”

“You demonstrated complete misuse of your powers,” Magda said gruffly. “Granted, your years may still be tender, and in many ways the three of you still inexperienced with many spells, but you are not naive to our laws. What you did changes the face of the human race. The monstrosities you created will not only kill and destroy other humans, they will breed and mutate, producing subspecies, and their numbers will become endless. Their nightmare will never end. You have executed your revenge, but these creatures will never know peace. They will never have the opportunity to make amends. You chose to be judge, jury and executioner, all of which you had no right. Punishment is due for this atrocity. And the punishment must match the crime.”

Magda glanced at Bayonne, whose eyes brimmed with tears, then at Palmae, who sat ramrod straight, eyes wide with shock. “Are we in agreement here, sisters?” she asked them.

Both gave almost imperceptible nods.

“Very well,” Magda said. “So shall it be.” She held the staff of judgment outright, its tip poised over the stone table.

Suddenly a sensation caught her attention, and Magda cocked her head slightly to one side to listen intently. She heard water dribbling from somewhere within the cave, the ragged, anxious breathing from the triplets and the other two Elders, but little more. Despite that, she felt certain...no...knew that someone was listening to their conversation from the mouth of the cave.

Trusting her instincts, Magda felt that someone was Tenebrus Cray, one of the most self-serving, power-hungry sorcerers she had ever known. Magda thought about storming out to confront him, then considered a better idea.

* * *

They might have gotten away with it, but there’d been too much blood. The entire city raged over the incident. It hadn’t taken long for the Elders to find out. Stupid girls.

Gnawing on that thought, and the piece of clove he had stuck in his mouth earlier, Tenebrus Cray squatted near the entrance of the cave. He leaned in as close as he dared to the opening so as not to miss one word spoken by the women.

The witches had gathered secretly in the stone belly of a hillside, far from prying eyes in Marseilles. He knew their location because he had spotted Magda, Bayonne and Palmae clomping out of town on horseback, each wrapped in their signature, floor-length capes—black, purple and red, respectively.

The three were master witches and all but recluses. They lived in a hovel away from the bustle of the city. Tenebrus had only seen them come out to work in their herb garden. To watch them head out of town was a novelty. To have them retreat so hastily, and on horseback, was unheard of.

Tenebrus knew that Magda had the power of teleportation. Why have an animal bear one’s weight when all one had to do was wave a hand, cast a spell and the three would have immediately teleported to their destination?

Wherever they were going, whatever they intended to do, had to be significant. And Tenebrus was not about to miss the event.

* * *

Magda pounded the stick of judgment on the stone table once. Then decided to complete the trial in their tribal language, Kaswah, a language rarely spoken and only understood by those within the Circle of Sisters.

They had been speaking in French until now. Anyone eavesdropping would only hear gibberish, including Tenebrus. Magda considered casting a silencing boundary, then dismissed the thought. The sorcerer would immediately open it.

She glanced briefly at Bayonne, noticed the tears trickling down her cheeks. Palmae’s expression was one of sheer dread.

Sitting arrow-back straight and lifting her chin, Magda scowled at the triplets. “Step forward.”

The triplets complied, instinctively grabbing a hand of the sister nearest her.

Magda pointed the bloodstone at each young woman, then looked over at the other two Elders and said, “Sisters...”

With that single word, the three Elders recited in unison.

“Jealous lovers,

Vengeance sought.

Defiling nature,

Havoc wrought.

To chastise thee,

We Elders three,

Bind ye now for eternity.”

Palmae and Bayonne slumped back in their chairs but Magda remained straight and focused and let out a sigh.

“From this day forward, you will be responsible for the creatures you have created,” Magda commanded, pounding the staff of judgment once on the stone table. “No longer will you have the freedom to live life as you please. Your purpose and your powers will be used to contain these monstrosities so they do not multiply and exceed the number of humans on earth. You will establish boundaries, you will set binding spells for control. You will supply them food, but only from natural sources.”

Esmee dropped her head wearily. Lisette and Julianne began to weep.

Magda pounded the staff of judgment on the table again to emphasize yet another consequence for their actions. “You and the generations of triplets to follow shall be called Triads from this day forth. The name will serve to identify your wrongdoing. And because you have altered the human race, you and the triplets of future generations are no longer allowed to marry a human nor live intimately with a human.”

Esmee, Lisette and Julianne gasped in unison, as did Palmae. Bayonne let out a sob.

“Magda, this punishment is far too harsh,” Palmae said. “We must consult as Elders before casting such a spell upon these young women.”

“I will hear no more!” Magda shouted. “Did we not agree as a council that the punishment must fit the crime?”

“Yes,” Bayonne said. “But you cannot call this punishment on your own, Magda. Where is your mercy?”

“As head of this council, I am allowed to call the punishment, if punishment is agreed upon, as I see fit. And mercy, you ask? The men whose lives these women have altered are changed forever; who gives them mercy?”

Bayonne lowered her head and Magda immediately turned her attention back to the triplets. “The creatures you have created shall be named accordingly. The one condemned to thirst for blood shall be known as Nosferatu. The one doomed to hunger for flesh yet never be sated shall be known as Loup Garou. And the one you have caused to eternally search for the marrow of bone shall be known as Chenilles. You and future Triads shall protect humans from them, and with the passage of time, as each species interbreeds and mutates, you will assign constables and shepherds to help manage them.”

“But—” Esmee said.

“Silence,” Magda demanded. “Along with those tasks, you and every Triad generation to follow until the end of time will bear the mark of absolutus infinitus on their body as a reminder of this day.” She pointed the bloodstone at Esmee, and the cave echoed with the sound of sizzling flesh.

Esmee hissed in pain, lowered the coverlet of the sackcloth to examine her left shoulder and saw the mark of 8. The absolutus infinitus, at first red, faded quickly to black.

Julianne and Lisette huddled closer to Esmee, but it did not stop Magda’s mission. She aimed the bloodstone at Lisette, who let out a shriek of pain and clutched her right hip. Julianne came next, only hers Magda placed on her right ankle. Julianne bore the pain through gritted teeth.

“Now,” Magda continued, “to minimize the chances of this occurring again, each of you will compile separate tomes. Your tome must include every spell within your knowledge, whether innate or taught. You are to identify each spell, its purpose and the consequences that occur with use of each spell. These tomes will be known as Grimoires. Once they are completed, you will bind each Grimoire in Elder-wood for preservation.”

Magda waved the bloodstone over the stone table that separated the triplets from the Elders. Three palm-sized mirrors appeared on the table, one in front of each triplet. “Behind the front cover of your Grimoire, you will notch out an indention in the wood. One large enough to securely hold one of these mirrors. Understood?”

The triplets only stared at her.

“I said, do you understand?” Magda said loudly.

Esmee nodded slightly, and Lisette and Julianne quickly imitated her acknowledgment.

Seemingly satisfied, Magda continued. “You and every generation of Triads to follow must review your Grimoire daily. The first thing you will see upon opening your tome, however, is the mirror. It will reflect the death and destruction that will befall the world should you or any Triad not live up to her duties.”

Signaling the triplets closer, Magda pointed at the mirrors. “Come closer now and look at what your irresponsibility has set into motion, and why the consequences besetting you are so severe.”

All three sobbing now, the triplets drew closer until they stood at the edge of the stone table. Bayonne and Palmae leaned over to look within the mirrors themselves.

With another pounding from the staff of judgment, the reflective surfaces began to dance with a myriad of colors, swirls of red, purple, green, black. Within seconds, the colors settled into indescribable scenes so vivid it was as if they were seeing them firsthand.

Reflected in each palm-sized mirror was a sea of blood, dead bodies, some mid-decay, some fully decayed. Men, women and children, all strewn about the land like garbage. Blowflies, maggots and buzzards fed on the little bits of flesh that remained on corpses. From within these images, they heard great wailing and gnashing of teeth.

When Magda waved a hand over the mirrors, erasing the images, the triplets fell to their knees, sobbing. Bayonne and Palmae looked visibly shaken.

The shadows within the cave deepened, casting purple and dark gray lattices over each triplet. They were in shock, lost, a terrified look in their eyes.

Although her position as head of the council made it necessary for Magda to execute such punishment, she couldn’t help the pain she felt in her heart for the young women. She had handed down a life sentence that would change not only their lives forever but every generation of Triads to follow.

* * *

Still squatting near the mouth of the cave, Tenebrus, frustrated, strained to understand the words being spoken inside. From the occasional sob he heard coming from inside the cavern, Tenebrus assumed the punishment meted out was harsh. That angered him. Whatever limitations had been imposed on the triplets would limit him, as well.

He had known the three sisters since they were babies, and even back then he’d known something was different about the tiny witches. Triplets in any race seemed an anomaly, but in a tribe of witches, they were nearly nonexistent. So it only made sense that the three held special powers.

The day the triplets were born the Elders of the Circle of Sisters seemed perplexed as to what to make of the unusual birth. It was the beginning of a new race within their tribe. From each set of triplets, one triplet would bear triplets of her own, and so it would be until triplets no longer existed, which probably meant until the end of time.

Tenebrus had been right about them having special powers. All three girls had needed little training from a very young age. Most of the spells they conjured as children took many witches years to learn. Each triplet had special gifts in her own right, but he’d often wondered about what might happen if their powers were melded together. Well, he had to wonder no more. He had witnessed it firsthand the other evening.

The night of the incident, the one that resulted in the trip to this cavern, happened at Lord Chermoine’s castle. A prenuptial gathering prepared for the intendeds of the triplets—the wedding scheduled for the following day—and Tenebrus had garnered an invitation, which came as no surprise. He’d cast a simple yearning spell to make certain his name appeared on the roster.

An unfortunate delay, or fortunate depending on one’s point of view, caused Tenebrus to arrive at the castle late. Just in time to see the triplets standing outside the castle beside their intendeds, screaming about unfaithfulness. Women Tenebrus knew to be of ill repute ran out of the castle and scattered from the estate on foot, obviously not wanting any part of the tumult taking place outside.

Tenebrus hid behind a tree and watched as each triplet pointed to her intended, railing him unabashedly with obscenities.

Then the girls quickly gathered, joined hands and uttered words Tenebrus had never heard before. They swayed and chanted and from where he hid, Tenebrus felt the air thicken and begin to vibrate. Even with so much distance between him, he saw fear in the eyes of the men meant to marry these women.

Suddenly, Esmee pointed to the man she was to marry the next day and proclaimed, “You blame the drink for your actions, for your unfaithfulness. So let it be. From this day forth, you will thirst from your very core. You shall thirst for that which does not come easily and you will never know satisfaction.”

No sooner were those words uttered than the man’s face began to contort, widen and turn white. The hair on his head fell away as if someone with shears had been working behind the scenes, waiting for this very moment. His scalp was now white and bulbous with a large vein running up from the center of his forehead then branching out on top of his skull like tree branches. His mouth opened wide as he cried out in pain. His two front teeth became thin and sharp, incisor-like, and grew to unimaginable lengths. His eyes turned ruby red. The tips of his ears grew long and pointed. He stood frozen for only a moment, watching, feeling his own transformation, then ran for the woods behind the castle.

The two other men looked on in bewilderment and fear. Lisette pointed to her intended and proclaimed, “If you want to act like a beast, then you shall be a beast for all eternity. Your nights will no longer be your own. You will crave flesh like an animal.”

Her words caused an immediate transformation in the man. Her intended cried out in pain as fur covered his entire face, and his mouth and nose elongated, creating a snout. His body seemed to explode in width and height. His teeth were no longer those of a man but the fangs of a wolf.

The sisters appeared unaffected by the transformations taking over the men.

The man-wolf howled, confusion obvious in his eyes, and he, too, ran for the woods.

Julianne’s intended had evidently seen enough for he, too, began to run. Even if he had gained twice the speed, it would not be fast enough to escape Julianne’s spell.

She pointed at him, “You claim your excuse for unfaithfulness to the mindlessness that comes with drink, so you shall remain mindless. Always controlled by another. No longer will you have a mind of your own that allows free will, and you shall hunger for the bone marrow of the man you once were before engaging with that harlot.”

Instinctively, Tenebrus knew the sisters had no idea about the seriousness of what they had just done.

When Julianna completed her spell, the sisters joined hands. They raised them to the heavens and proclaimed that by the power of three and every element that made up the universe, no witch or sorcerer could break their spell, no matter how powerful he or she might be.

The mutation of the third man did not appear as hideous as the former two. Oddly, he simply grew taller, thinner, but something in his eyes went empty, like the life within him had drained away. Not even fear registered in them.

Tenebrus wanted that kind of power. Absolute control over the elements of fire, water, earth and air. Over all who existed on this planet.

He had studied the triplets for years and for the past ten years, Tenebrus had become obsessed with finding a way to combine their power with his own. A sorcerer could not drain the power from this special breed of witch. But if he studied them, then took what he learned and joined that with his own superior power, he’d be ruler over every being on earth. His power would be supreme. Ultimate.

* * *

Sensing Tenebrus’s presence even stronger caused Magda’s anger to boil in her veins. If for nothing else but spite, she would stop this event immediately. But she couldn’t. As head Elder, she had to set an example for the fifteen-hundred plus witches she, Bayonne and Palmae were responsible for.

Magda cleared her throat. “Should you or your siblings, including the generations to come, shirk their responsibilities, that Triad shall lose her powers. And the creatures they are responsible for will be freed upon the earth to kill and destroy at will.”

“But you are condemning us to be alone for the rest of our lives,” Lisette cried. “If we cannot marry nor live in intimacy with a human, nothing remains. Our lineage will die. Who will we marry? Who will father our children?”

Bayonne nodded in agreement and looked over at Magda. “Who?”

Magda pointed the staff of judgment at Lisette, giving her a stern look. “You will have at your disposal what remains. Fae. Sorcerers who have transcended, or one of the creatures you have created.”

Palmae gasped so loudly it sounded like she’d nearly swallowed her tongue. “Magda, no! This is far too harsh and—”

“Enough!” Magda proclaimed. “It is done.” She struck the stone table once more with the staff of judgment. “Isonno, funjusa, orlato—so it is said, so shall it be done and so shall it ever be!” Then under her breath, Magda recited another incantation, only this one was for that nosy, good-for-nothing Tenebrus, who dared to eavesdrop on such a sacred meeting. After slamming the shaft of judgment on the table for the last time, the bloodstone atop it shattered. Everyone in the cave gasped in shock, and the collective sound reverberated throughout the hollow space.

The shattered bloodstone came as no surprise to Magda. In fact, she’d half expected it—for she had just done the very thing to Tenebrus that she had placed judgment for on the triplets who stood before her.

Only this time no one but she would ever know.


Chapter 1 (#uf21d9e2a-b038-532a-9f58-7f76c230c128)

Vivienne François stood behind a forty-foot gate that was topped with silver-tipped barbwire, watching blood, fur and some chunks of flesh fly in every direction, and wondered where she’d gone wrong. The air smelled of dirt, blood, urine and musk.

It was mid-October in Algiers, Louisiana, but witnessing this much brutality made her break into a sweat like it was high-noon in August.

Wearing jeans, boots and a light blue pullover work shirt, Viv took a fighting stance. Feet spread apart, fists at her sides. She closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, then said loudly, “I bind thee now, powerless until released by my word. So shall it be. So it is by my command!”

She opened one eye slowly and groaned. The blood and fur still flew.

“I don’t understand what the hell is going on,” she said to Socrates, who sat beside her right foot. “That’s the fifth damn binding spell I’ve tried and it’s like everyone has gone deaf, including the universe. Either that or I have turned into a frigging toasted marshmallow.” She kicked angrily at the ground with the toe of her boot.

“Do you always have to be so abrasive and surly when you’re upset?” Socrates asked. He was a pompous Bombay with gold eyes and had been Viv’s familiar since her birth. He yawned and gave a swish of his tail. “Truly, Viv, can you not see why your spell isn’t working?”

“No.” She huffed. “The way it works is I do a spell and the recipient responds immediately. This isn’t a show-and-tell game or three-card monte. I’ll be damned if they’re not going to listen.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Socrates said with an exasperated sigh. “Must I point out every detail to you?”

“With that attitude, buddy, you’re lucky if I don’t ship you off to Siberia.” Not that Viv would really ship Socrates anywhere, but she was so frustrated she didn’t know what to do with herself.

She stood out here alone, behind a gate that served as the compound entrance to a fenced-in, five-hundred acre lair. The compound held the North End pack of Loup Garou, whom she watched over herself, since she didn’t live far. Just north of the compound was another three hundred acres that served to feed and grow livestock she and her sisters used to feed the breeds they were responsible for.

Viv was one in a set of triplets, the oldest by ten minutes and responsible for the Loup Garou. The middle triplet, Evette, took care of the Nosferatu, and the youngest, Abigail, dealt with the Chenilles. All breeds were netherworld creatures that she’d had to work hard not to resent over the years. For Viv, it was like babysitting a gigantic pack of prepubescent teens.

To feed their factions, they raised cows, goats, pigs and mules specifically for that purpose. Fortunately, Viv had three humans whom she trusted to handle the cattle in the farm area. One of them was Charlie Zerangue, a fifty-two-year-old cowboy who’d worked with her for the past ten years buying cattle. He made sure his two hands sent that cattle through the feeding shoot that led them directly to an area south of the Loup Garou compound. This was the feeding territory.

Once the cattle were sent through the shoot to the feeding area, the Nosferatu were ferried from New Orleans near the river bank to Algiers. There they were loosed upon the cattle to gorge on as much blood as they wanted. The idea was to have each so satiated that they would be easier to manage around humans during their daily or nightly chores.

Once the Nosferatu were ferried back across the river, the Loup Garou from the North, West and East packs were allowed into the feeding area to rip through as much meat as their stomachs could handle for the exact same reason.

And lastly, the Chenilles, Abigail’s brood, were ferried across the river to the compound and allowed to feast on the marrow of all the bones that remained.

This maniacal ritual occurred every day without fail between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m., when most of New Orleans was either asleep or too drunk to understand or care about what was going on. They used a family-owned ferry for the transports, something not easily obtained in New Orleans. But it was nothing that a little magic and a lot of money greasing the right political palms couldn’t manage.

Aside from tending the feeding shoot, Charlie was also responsible for a thirty-one-year-old, hard working farmhand named Bootstrap from Ville Platte, Louisiana, and Kale Martin, a forty-six-year-old wrangler from East Texas.

The men were paid well and had free housing in a two-story ranch house near the front of the property. The one thing Viv appreciated most about Charlie, Bootstrap and Kale was that they never asked questions. They worked hard and kept their mouths shut. Not once had any of the men asked about the cattle sent through the shoot. Their job was to keep the livestock area full, the cattle healthy and fat, then send whatever was ordered through the shoot each morning.

The North End pack of Loup Garou that lived beyond the gate where Viv stood now clocked over three hundred strong, all of them Originals. Not the watered-down version of werewolves that existed in other areas. Viv was responsible for all of them, but she had worked hard at putting together a strong team of leaders to manage different territories.

Viv let out a heavy sigh. Some job she had. People thought that just because you were a witch, a real witch, not a Wiccan wannabe, all you had to do was snap your fingers and everything became beautiful. You got exactly what you wanted when you wanted it and how you wanted it. Nothing was further from the truth.

“Miss Viv,” called Whiskers, a small female Loup Garou with blond fur. She peeked out from her den, a bramble of bent tree branches that wasn’t far from the fight taking place center court. “Please make it stop. Warden and Milan I mean. They’re going to kill each other!”

“Aw, let them have at it,” said Moose, another Loup Garou hiding fifty feet away. “It’s healthy to see a good fight every now and again. Puts a little spark in you, you know?” Moose was one of the largest Loups in the Northern pack, but not the brightest bulb in the lamp.

Yazdee, a female Loup who denned with Whiskers, gave Moose a little growl. “You’re sick, you know that? Leave it to a guy to watch two other males fight to the death over a little tail. I mean, I don’t get it. It’s not like there aren’t plenty of females to go around.”

“Yeah,” Moose said, “but we’re talking about Stratus here. Everybody wants a piece of that alpha female when she’s in heat. Hot stuff there, baby doll. Hot stuff.”

“Pervert,” Whiskers barked.

“Prude,” Moose shot back.

Yazdee snorted. “Better a prude than pitiful. If you’re so hot for it, why aren’t you in the middle of that tangle?”

Moose grunted and ducked back behind a thicket of trees.

Amid the chaos, Stratus lay with her head resting on her paws at the door of her den, which sat on the opposite side of the compound in direct view of Whiskers and Yazdee. She watched the fight, her expression flickering from curiosity to boredom.

A growl rumbled so close to Viv it made her jump. The mauling, biting and clawing were reaching a fevered pitch. She threw a quick glance around the compound. It seemed most, if not all, of the Loups in camp had gathered in a wide circle to watch the fight. Everyone kept a safe distance away.

The two alphas in combat were Warden, the North End alpha, whom Viv had chosen to mate with Stratus; and Milan, who belonged in the East End pack. Evidently, Milan had found a way to sneak in, hoping to get a piece of Stratus’s action.

Viv thought about having Socrates go fetch Jaco, who oversaw the East pack, but the last thing she needed right now, leader or not, was another alpha thrown into this mix.

Finally, after attempting another binding then a freezing spell, both of which failed, Viv let out her own little growl. She ran her hands down her arms, mumbling words beneath her breath. Immediately, all that was visible of her was the vague silhouette of the tall, slender, black-haired woman who stood there seconds ago. Invisibility was a hard accomplishment for any witch, yet at thirty years old, she nearly had it down pat. Partial invisibility was better than none at all.

“And just what do you think you’re doing?” Socrates asked, suddenly standing at attention. “Do you think you can simply walk in there and physically stop those two alphas from ripping each other apart?”

Viv grabbed a two-by-four that leaned against the gate and said, “Watch and learn how simply, cat.”

She reached for the huge latch that bound the gate to a silver pole but before she could pull it up and open, Socrates rammed into her shins and began to hiss. He darted in and around her legs, threatening to trip her if she took a step.

He hissed again, loudly. “Don’t be ridiculous, Viv. Some things are stronger than magic. Put your anger aside for a moment and feel what’s coming from that lair. You’ll see and understand why your spells have been ineffective.”

“Get out of my damn way or you’ll get a swift kick that’ll land you right in the middle of that mess.” She put a hand on her hip, knowing full well, as did he, that her threat was empty. For once, she gave in to his suggestion. She reined in her anger and allowed all of her senses to stretch to full alert.

She knew what was going on and for all intents and purposes, there was only one way she could see to stop it. She couldn’t call Charlie, Bootstrap or Kale out to help. They had never even seen the Loup Garou. They had never been allowed on this end of the property. Her sisters would be useless, for their spells only worked for their own broods.

Pondering all of it put Viv in an even crappier mood. It was eight o’clock in the morning, when normal people usually sat down for coffee and eggs, and here she was dealing with this. She just wished for a normal life. Often dreamed about what that might be like, feel like. Just as she often wondered why certain people were born a certain way. Some rich, some poor, some white, some Asian. Others Chenilles, another Nosferatu. Or as Socrates had so aptly put it moments ago—a Triad.

It was hard enough having been born a triplet when life seemed to be about “finding” oneself. How did you find yourself when you were a tether of three? And an odd tether at that; a tomboy prone to wrangling cattle and sharing a beer with one of three cowboys. Her sisters carried themselves with grace and reeked of femininity. She, on the other hand, usually reeked of sweat.

Even as children, Viv and her sisters never dressed alike, each seeking their own identity. Aside from the need for singularity, they had always remained very close. Oftentimes, if one of the sisters wasn’t feeling well or even experienced a startle, the other two felt it just as strongly. In fact, she was surprised with all she was going through right now that Abigail and Evette weren’t here standing beside her. Surely they had to know something was going on with her.

Maybe the universe had gone deaf. Whatever the case, with her senses heightened, the intense sexual charge in the air didn’t help matters one bit. She hadn’t had sex in over a year, all because of some stupid curse that had been handed down too many generations ago.

Because of that curse, every mother or Elder responsible for a Triad lived out their days twisting and turning just to keep them chaste. They weren’t supposed to be intimate with humans and marrying one was a huge no-no.

Chances were, the other no-goes for a Triad had gotten twisted around so much that their literal meaning had been tweaked in one manner or another as they made their way to the twenty-first century. She knew they couldn’t marry a human, but having sex with one was something she considered left to interpretation. Not that she or her sisters had tried it...yet. They were too chicken to tempt fate.

All Viv knew for sure was that every damn morning before she came down to the feeding shoot, she had to look through her Grimoire and face the horrid mirror. That mirror showed the most horrific scenes regarding the devastation of the world if they shirked their duties. The book itself listed spell after spell, consequence after consequence. And if that wasn’t enough to shove her tainted ancestry in her face, she and her sisters each bore a birthmark. An absolutus infinitus. Viv’s was about two inches long and sat on her right hip. An ugly reminder of some big bad no-no done a gazillion years ago by a grandmother thirty times removed.

Taking that into consideration, all that remained for Viv and her sisters when sex came to mind—which was often—were Fae, leprechauns, one of their brood or a sorcerer who had taken the dark side to devilry and had paid for it with his humanity. Fae and leprechauns did nothing for Viv. Both were too short, and short turned her off. As for sorcerers, there were only three that she knew of in the area. Trey Cottle, a weasel and whore-monger, Shandor Black, who always had his nose stuck so far up Cottle’s butt, Viv didn’t know how he breathed. And there was Gunner Stern, a sorcerer, but a nice old guy. There being the problem. He was old, like seventy-something old. That certainly didn’t make Viv’s nipples tingle.

When too much time had passed, and it was either have sex or go blind, she’d have a row with one of her Loups. When not matted with fur and fangs, many of the males were quite handsome. Big and muscular, with long, flowing hair, and they knew what to do with genitalia. There was always something missing, though, when having sex with a Loup. The act felt animalistic, which wasn’t all bad at times, but she was a woman, damn it, and a bit of romance would be nice occasionally. Romance, however, was not in a Loup’s vocabulary. All they knew was get it while it’s hot, then sleep it off until it’s time to eat.

Sometimes, though, as Socrates said, some things were stronger than magic, and she gave into her urges and had sex with a Loup. She couldn’t get attached to any one of them in particular because the other males would see that as a weakness in her leadership abilities. She certainly wasn’t going to marry a Loup Garou, much less a sorcerer.

Viv kicked the dirt again, angry she’d allowed herself to jump on that train of thought. Her frustration level now matched Everest’s peak.

Here she was watching two alpha males fight over a female Loup Garou just because she twitched her tail. Viv wanted to beat the two males upside the head with the two-by-four to mellow out her own sexual frustrations. Also so she wouldn’t have to babysit them.

It was far from easy being on twenty-four-seven watch over a bunch of sniveling, whining, horny wolves. And when Viv François had enough, she had had enough.

She picked up the two-by-four, gave Socrates a little nudge with her boot when he hissed at her, then unlatched the gate. She immediately closed and locked it behind her.

Still partially invisible, she didn’t think she had to worry about the warring Loups turning on her. Even if they glanced her way, they’d only see a shimmer in the air, like heat rising from a desert highway. There was the two-by-four that appeared to be floating in midair, however.

Viv walked slowly toward the alphas, realizing she probably could’ve stepped up to them in full view. They were too wrapped up in which one would go down first so the other could hop Stratus, who seemed unable to care less about who won the fight. Really.

Socrates started caterwauling, weaving through the bars of the gate, going inside of the compound then quickly back out, as if not knowing what to do or how to stop Viv.

Milan was a large black Loup with a mane that reached to the middle of his back. His ears were long and pinpoint straight, and his bared fangs were at least six inches long. He stood upright like a man, though his paws were those of a Loup, and he swiped at Warden with long, sharp, black claws. Warden was a blond Loup and nearly twice Milan’s size. Yet he showed the worst of the wear simply because of his color. More blood stained his fur. It was difficult to tell if most of it came from his own wounds or was splatter from his opponent’s. Suddenly, Whiskers and Yazdee started whooping and jumping up and down with excitement. Evidently Socrates’s noise had caught their attention and they had zeroed in on the floating two-by-four.

Viv dared to move faster, fearing the racket stirred up by her cheerleading squad might capture Warden’s or Milan’s attention.

It did rouse Stratus. The alpha female lifted her head from her paws, looked past the two-by-four and directly at Viv as if she were in full view. Viv could’ve sworn she saw Stratus smirk. She hated when that Loup went into heat. It always turned the compound upside down. Throw in a stray male alpha from a different compound, and she had World War Seven.

Viv kept her focus on the alpha males, inching closer, dodging left, back, forward in rhythm with their fight. It felt like an odd war dance as she juggled around the fight, trying to avoid getting clawed, yet get close enough to make impact.

She took aim. Whichever Loup cleared first was the one she planned to whack.

They tumbled, clawed, she dodged left. Blood from one of the Loups sprayed across her shirt and jeans, then again before she felt it splatter across her face and slide down her neck. These guys were really getting out of control, and if she didn’t do something soon, one of them was going to die. And that was not an option.

The closer she moved in, the harder they fought. She ducked left, more blood sprayed across her face. She felt it splat onto her head and through her hair, which she kept in a braid that reached the small of her back.

Finally, seeming to gather what strength he had left, Warden leaped out and took a huge swatch of flesh from Milan’s chest, turning him in place. Blood sprayed everywhere, especially over Viv, who now looked like she’d bathed in it. Milan’s eyes appeared dazed as he whirled about from the blow.

Before he could refocus for the fight, Viv grabbed the two-by-four in both hands and swung at him, whacking him across the head as hard as her tall, slender body would allow. That pitched him off balance and dropped him to the ground.

As Milan scrambled to get upright, Warden had enough time to race over to Stratus and attempt to mount her even before she stood.

Milan mewled when he saw Stratus begin to take all Warden had to offer.

Viv allowed herself to return to full view, tossed the two-by-four aside and snarled at Milan’s mewling. “Oh, grow the hell up,” she said, then whirled about and headed back for the gate.

En route, Viv pointed at Stratus, making sure she had her attention. “You want to play games with these guys, sistah? Then get ready to play hard because I quit.”

Viv stormed off for the gate, her head buzzing with an ache so painful she could barely see.

No sooner did she unlock the gate, let herself through and relock it than Socrates started yelling at her. She ignored him, catching only a word or two from his rampage because of the buzzing in her head.

“You can’t just leave, Viv,” Socrates yelled after her.

She stormed past him, turning her back on the fortress bound with silver-tipped barbed wire. In the distance, she caught the sound of Whiskers fretting.

“Wait, wait! What do we do? Stop! Yazdee, what do we do now? What? Our leader has absconded!”

* * *

Socrates scrambled to the other side of the gate and watched Viv storm off. He knew he couldn’t stop her, not when she was this mad, this disgusted. It worried him that her spells hadn’t worked. Even under the circumstances, with all that just happened, leaving hadn’t been the answer.

If Viv thought things were bad now, she was about to discover a new definition for worse.


Chapter 2 (#uf21d9e2a-b038-532a-9f58-7f76c230c128)

Nikoli Hyland and his cousins, Lucien, Gavril and Ronan, sat in brown leather captain’s chairs across from one another in pairs. A small dining table separated them.

They were flying from New Zealand to New Orleans on the family’s Gulfstream G200 jet as instructed. They’d received the alert yesterday evening with orders to leave immediately. The orders came from their fathers, who were brothers and retired Benders.

Although involved in the family business for the past ten years, the onset of a mission always settled hard in Nikoli’s gut.

He was thirty-five years old, and his cousins only a year or two younger than he. It was still hard for him to intellectualize that they were the new generation of Benders. The tenth generation, to be exact. And, as usual with the onset of a mission, Nikoli pondered what that something was. Sometimes it felt like pride—heavy responsibility—purpose.

Tuning out his cousins’ banter about the witches they were about to meet, he glanced out of the plane window, soaking in the sight of dawn beginning to light a blue-black sky. A finger snap brought his attention back to his cousins.

“Where’d you go, bro?” Lucien asked, grinning. “Neverland?”

“No, I heard everything you guys said. But it doesn’t matter what these women look like,” Nikoli said, knowing full well the appearance of each woman. His father had given him pictures to verify their identification. Each one was drop-dead gorgeous. He’d kept that information to himself, knowing how crude a couple of his cousins could be. “We’re going over there for one reason and one reason only. Remember our mission creed. Keep your dick in your pants and your eyes and ears sure and mindful.”

“Right,” Ronan said.

Now it was Gavril’s turn to roll his eyes.

“This is our biggest job ever,” Nikoli continued. “And from all indications, it’ll get even bigger before we land. We’ve been nickel and diming Cartesians for the past three years. One here, three there.”

“Hey, don’t forget about the fifteen we knocked off in Brazil last year,” Lucien said. “That was no small bite of potato.”

“It is when compared to what we’re about to face,” Nikoli said.

“How many we talking, cuz?” Gavril asked.

“From what I hear, we might be talking a hundred or more.”

Ronan turned his attention back to his cousins and let out a low whistle.

Lucian grimaced. “How in the hell are just the four of us going to handle a hundred or more of those monstrosities? Especially if they pile up into one big-ass troop.”

“Like we always do,” Nikoli said. “We get ’em one at a time, bro. One at a time.”

Cartesians were a nonentity to almost every human and many breeds from the netherworld on the planet. Reason being, Cartesians were rarely, if ever, seen. Nikoli didn’t understand the entire story about how his family had initially gotten involved with fighting them, but he did know the enemy. He’d seen them.

Massive creatures. Some Cartesians stood eight to ten feet tall. Their bodies were covered with long thick scales like an armadillo’s, only a hundred times thicker, and those scales hid beneath a heavy mat of black and brown fur. Six-inch, razor-sharp claws served for fingers and every tooth in a Cartesian’s mouth was a lethally sharp, four-inch incisor.

One didn’t simply stab a Cartesian in the heart or brain to kill it. In fact, Nikoli didn’t think any Bender knew for sure if they could be killed. To destroy a Cartesian, Benders had been taught to shock it back into another dimension. The farther the dimension, the better.

Somehow Cartesians were able to cross over the wrinkles of time and space from one dimension to another through the smallest dimensional tear. And they traveled swiftly, always on the lookout for other netherworld creatures. Their purpose appeared to be total netherworld domination, no matter the kill. Vampire, werewolf, fae, leprechaun, djinn, anything and everything that did not make up the human race. A Cartesian killed any and all it found to absorb its victim’s power.

The creatures had a leader, of that Nikoli was sure, but no one knew his name, not that it really mattered. It wasn’t like someone could Google him.

What they needed to do was destroy him, by pushing him into the dimension of no return. The eleventh. Vanquish the head, the rest of the body dies. From all accounts, this so-called leader stood nearly twenty feet tall, but Nikoli would have to see that with his own eyes to believe it. All he had to worry about was destroying whatever Cartesians he found in his missions, hoping that luck or fate might hand him that leader one day.

It wasn’t that Benders had any particular liking for vampires, werewolves and the like. But the secret society of Benders knew that if the Cartesians dominated the whole of the netherworld and became one sole power, that power would then take on the human race in order to achieve world domination. And with all that power wrapped up in an army of monstrous, furry armadillos with fangs and claws, world domination would be a cinch. Every Bender had sworn a solemn oath to do all in his power not to let that happen.

Not letting on his thoughts to his cousins, Nikoli secretly worried about the mission that lay before them. It was hard enough to destroy a Cartesian, but even with their massive size, they were difficult to spot due to the speed with which they traveled between dimensional folds.

Benders were trained to recognize a Cartesian’s proximity by scent. The creatures emitted a horrendous odor, a mixture of sulfur and cloves. And for some odd reason, on occasion, Nikoli had picked up a vibration that ran up his spine right before he caught a whiff of the odor. He thought it might come from the disturbance of a dimensional fold, right before a Cartesian made its way into their world.

A Bender’s job was to push Cartesians back through the dimensional rift with a scabior, an odd-looking tool that for all intents and purposes looked like a child’s toy. It was an eight-inch-long metal rod with a marble-size bloodstone topping one end of its one-inch circumference.

Harmless-looking, but if held in the right hand and used in the right manner by a Bender, the scabior let out such a strong current of electrical power that it refolded the dimension from which the Cartesian had entered, pushing him back inside. With each dimensional backward thrust, the scabior emitted a loud, sizzling pop, heard only by the Bender. The number of pops told the Bender the number of dimensions he had been able to push the Cartesian through. To date, Nikoli had only managed six, still the highest number among his cousins.

Each cousin sat quietly, staring off into the distance, probably thinking about what lay ahead.

A full five minutes went by before Lucien broke the silence. “Any of you have an idea about how those ugly mother-effers were created?”

Gavril cleared his throat. “All I know is that eons ago somebody pissed somebody else off, and that somebody else turned somebody number one into a Cartesian. How they multiplied from there, I don’t have a clue.”

Ronan leaned over and crossed his arms on the small table. “The first one was created as punishment, for what I’m not sure. I don’t think any Bender still alive really knows for sure. But Cartesians multiply by kills.”

Frowning, Lucien cocked his head to one side. “Huh?”

“Kills,” Ronan repeated. “When the first Cartesian made his first kill in the netherworld, it gave him enough power to create another one just like him. That new Cartesian makes a kill, it now has the power to reproduce itself, but only if the original Cartesian allows it. And you can bet he does. Who wouldn’t want the biggest army in the universe?”

“You mean they don’t breed like everybody else?” Lucien asked.

“No,” Ronan replied. “As far as I know, and this comes from two of the oldest Benders I know in Switzerland, Cartesians don’t even have sex organs. Not only do they not procreate, they don’t even have genders.”

“That’s fucked up,” Gavril said. “No wonder those things are always out hunting, killing, destroying shit. I’d probably be that way, too, if I never had sex.”

“But if they’re genderless, why are they usually referred to as male?” Lucien asked.

“Probably because they’re big sonsabitches,” Nikoli chimed in.

Gavril shook his head. “Well, all I’ve gotta say is whoever or whatever did the punishing sure screwed up. Bet they didn’t count on the bastard wanting and working toward ruling the entire universe.”

“Did everyone get the info on why so many suddenly hit New Orleans?” Ronan asked.

“One of the Triads,” Nikoli said.

“You mean those witches we’re supposed to meet out there?” Lucien asked.

“Yes,” Nikoli said, then signaled for the steward standing at the back of the plane to bring drinks to the table.

“Why are they called Triads?” Lucien asked.

Nikoli waited for the steward to place four glasses of cold, sparkling water on the table then head back to his station before he responded. “Because they’re triplets.”

“Oh, man, sweet!” Gavril said, twitching in his seat.

“Down, boy,” Nikoli warned. “Remember the code. No funny business while on a mission.”

Gavril groaned and tossed his head back against his seat. “Spoil sport.”

“Do these triplets run their own coven?” Ronan asked.

Nikoli shook his head, then took a long, much-needed drink of water. “Triads belong to a sect of witches called the Circle of Sisters. They don’t have covens like other witches. The Circle of Sisters is small, comparatively. Maybe fifteen hundred worldwide.”

“All of them sets of triplets?” Lucien asked.

“No. There’s only one full set of Triads per generation, and each triplet has a specific duty.”

“I’d like to give one a specific duty,” Gavril said, then turned his head quickly when Nikoli scowled at him.

“One of them is responsible for the Loup Garou, another for the Nosferatu and the third the Chenilles.”

“Wow,” Gavril said. “You’re talking original breeds there, cuz. Before vampires, werewolves and zombies and shit.”

“I know,” Nikoli said. “That’s why this mission was put together so quickly. Those breeds have never been hit by Cartesians. The Triads always kept a tight rein on them.”

“So what happened,” Lucien asked. “Who screwed up and how?”

Nikoli shrugged. “No idea. Guess we’ll find out when we get there.”

Lucien whistled through his teeth. “Must have been a pretty huge screw-up to cause a rift big enough to let that many Cartesians through.”

“Not necessarily,” Nikoli countered. “All it takes is a miniscule tear. Once one gets through, any number that want to follow can.”

“How many of the Originals have been destroyed so far?” Ronan asked.

“By the time we land and get to the Triads, over a hundred Loup Garous.”

“Since they’re witches,” Lucien said, “can’t they just cast some hoodoo spell and close the rift themselves?”

“Nobody can mess with a Cartesian except a Bender,” Gavril said proudly.

“True, but they don’t even know what’s about to hit them,” Nikoli said. “The tear hasn’t been completed yet.”

Ronan leaned back in his seat. “Are they ever in for a surprise.”

“Sadly, yes,” Nikoli agreed. He felt bad for the Triad he’d yet to meet. Chances were she’d created the rift by accident. Probably didn’t even know that rifts existed—or Cartesians for that matter.

As they closed in on New Orleans, Nikoli sensed a circling of sorts. Like the four of them were pioneers, traveling out west by wagon and surrounded by a massive tribe of banshees they could not yet see.

Nikoli sensed something big was about to break loose. He feared this fight might be bigger than any Bender generation had encountered before, and there had been many.

He looked over at his cousins, who were talking softly among themselves. Except for Ronan, of course. Mr. Sole Man was staring out the window, probably thinking about the quest ahead.

The four cousins couldn’t have been closer if they’d been brothers. And in his heart of hearts, Nikoli trusted each one with his life. They were equally strong, talented and vicious warriors against the Cartesians.

Regardless, a small nagging voice inside his gut warned that four of them were heading to New Orleans ready to fight, but only three would be returning home.


Chapter 3 (#uf21d9e2a-b038-532a-9f58-7f76c230c128)

By the time Viv had ferried to the opposite side of the river, it was almost ten o’clock in the morning. She smelled coffee and beignets from nearby cafes, and it made her stomach rumble. What she wouldn’t give for one of Evette’s special hickory-blend coffees and chocolate-drizzled beignets right about now. But food had to wait, she realized as she hurried to her home in the Garden District.

She shared the Victorian with her sisters. It sat on the corner of St. Charles and Washington Avenue. The house had belonged to their mother, who’d died in an airplane accident when they were nineteen.

They never knew their father, as was often the case with Triads. For some odd reason, the fathers of each generation of Triads took to the hills as soon as they discovered their wife was pregnant. Wrong men? Wrong timing? Who knew. Not that it made any difference to Viv.

Although she was definitely heterosexual and struggled with raging hormones from times to time, she didn’t need a man to make her life complete. She had enough on her plate. Maybe her ancestors had felt the same way for none of them had remarried, which was why the François name still held strong today. Although exhausted, Viv picked up her pace, anxious to get home. Each sister had a floor with a bedroom and bath to call her own. Evette, whom they called Evee, had the first floor; Viv, the second; and Abigail, whom they called Gilly, had the third.

Evee owned a café off Royal Street called Bon Appétit. She opened at eight o’clock in the morning and closed at two o’clock, right after the lunch crowd dispersed so there was a good chance she wouldn’t be home.

Gilly, on the other hand, would be home. She owned a bar-and-grill off Iberville Street called Snaps. It opened at two o’clock in the afternoon and closed at two o’clock the following morning. Those long hours gave Viv some confidence that Gilly would still be sleeping right now, which meant she had a good shot at getting into the house and into her bedroom undetected.

Thinking about her sisters and the broods they were responsible for made the twinge of guilt Viv carried for her Loup Garous grow stronger.

She’d left without tending to those who worked during the day at construction jobs or city maintenance. Certainly by now, especially at this hour, many would be wondering when they would be released from the compound to go about their chores. The only good thing was that Loups were infamously resilient. If no one released them for duty, they’d make use of the day by napping, prowling or watching Stratus get her fill of Warden.

It seemed to take forever for Viv to finally make it home. Just as she pushed open the back door, Socrates ran past her into the house. She hadn’t noticed him on the ferry nor on her walk to the house, yet here he was, skittering around the kitchen toward the hallway, where he started caterwauling at the top of his lungs.

Viv released her partial invisibility spell, which was useless around her sisters anyway.

“Stop that!” she demanded in a loud whisper. “What kind of familiar are you, trying to get your own mistress busted?”

Gilly slept on the north end of the third floor, so although Socrates was loud, Viv doubted Gilly heard him. What she didn’t count on was Elvis, an albino ferret with ruby eyes and a pink nose and ears. Gilly’s familiar.

Viv barely made it to the stairway when Elvis came streaking down the stairs like a bolt of lightning. The moment he spotted Viv, he came to an abrupt stop, flipped over one step, then jumped up and started racing back up the stairs, letting out a shrill chirping sound as he went. She knew he meant to fetch Gilly, and Viv tried to outrun the inevitable by taking the stairs to the second floor two at a time.

She raced into her bedroom but before she had a chance to close the door, Gilly shoved against it and pushed her way inside.

Dressed only in a pink silk sleep shirt, with her black pixie cut spiked from sleep, Gilly’s mouth dropped open when she saw Viv.

Before her sister uttered a word, Viv had a peculiar thought about Hollywood and witches. Had anyone been watching a movie, they would have expected Gilly to immediately cast a spell that would wash the blood from Viv and have any wounds appear in purple neon so they’d be easily detected.

But there was no spell-casting, and this wasn’t Hollywood. Witches were human, just a different race, and just as each race had their distinct features and culture, witches were no different.

A witch’s potential for power often depended on the clan from which she was born. Viv and her sisters came from the Circle of Sisters, a relatively small, close and extremely secretive group with maybe fifteen hundred witches worldwide at best. Viv, Evee and Gilly were even a subgroup within the Circle, since they were triplets.

“Wh-what the hell?” Gilly said, snapping Viv out of her daydream. All three of the sisters had olive complexions, but right now Gilly’s face blanched as she took in all the blood covering Viv.

“What happened?” Gilly demanded. “Who attacked you? Where are you hurt? Heavens, look at all that blood!”

Elvis scurried around his mistress’s feet as if trying frantically to weave a web around them. Then in the blink of an eye, he scampered up Gilly’s right leg, across her back and came to rest on her right shoulder.

“I’m going to call an ambulance,” Gilly said, and Viv grabbed her by the arm before she had a chance to whirl about.

“Stop, it’s not mine,” Viv said. It took a few seconds for frenzy to leave Gilly’s eyes and settle on Viv’s face.

“What do you mean, it’s not yours?”

Socrates rubbed up against Viv’s left ankle then made his way between the sisters and politely sat as if to create a boundary. Elvis leaned over Gilly’s shoulder, watching Socrates’s every move. Socrates hissed at him, gold eyes blazing. “Just that,” Viv said, obviously a little too nonchalant for Gilly’s taste. In that moment, she saw her sister’s black eyes turn auburn, which meant only one thing. Gilly’s specialty was astral projection, and whenever she zoned off somewhere, the telltale sign was the change of her eye color. Right now, Viv would bet dollars to horseshoes that some ghost of Gilly present was at Bon Appétit summoning Evee home.

“Then you’d better start explaining really quickly,” Gilly demanded. “Whose blood is it? Where did it come from?”

For the next ten or fifteen minutes, Viv tried to explain what happened at the compound. She kept stumbling over her own words, uncertain how to tell her sister why her own spells hadn’t worked against the Loup Garou. Truth be told, she didn’t know why they hadn’t worked. Back at the compound, she thought her crappy attitude might have played a part in making the spells ineffectual. But after giving it much thought on her way home, the only thing she knew for sure was that the spells should have worked despite her mood. And how was she going to tell her sister why she’d whacked Milan upside the head with a two-by-four, then walked away?

Viv had circled the conversation back to Milan in the compound and how he and Warden had gone to war when Gilly blew out an exasperated breath.

“You covered that already,” Gilly said. “Just spit it out. All of it.”

Suddenly Viv heard a loud squawking followed by the entrance of Hoot, a copper-and-white horned owl. Evee’s familiar. He swooped down, barely missing Socrates’s head, then rocketed back up, nearly knocking Elvis off Gilly’s shoulder.

“Damn it!” Gilly yelled and swung out an arm to keep Hoot from flying at her.

That sent Hoot into a high-pitched screech, which pushed Elvis’s squeal button to top volume. Socrates stood with his back arched, teeth bared, and hissed like a bucket of snakes.

“Y’all shut the hell up,” Viv shouted to no avail. The room continued to vibrate from all the hissing, shrieking, squawking and yelling.

The sisters looked at each other, perplexed. Time seemed to stand still in a deafening vacuum that neither of them could quiet. It wasn’t unusual for their familiars to snap at one another from time to time, but normally they got along like brothers and sisters. But this was as though each familiar was out to protect their own territory.

Finally Viv held her arms out at her side, hands out, palms up, and said, “Silence is all I care to hear, I command this noise away from here.”

Immediately, all three familiars went silent. Gilly blinked rapidly, then said, “Why didn’t I think of doing that?”

Socrates meowed, then said to Viv, “If I’m not mistaken, this is our domain. Would you please get that intolerable ingrate of a bird and elongated rat out of this room?”

Viv nudged him with a foot, signaling for him to hush. Fortunately, to Gilly, Socrates had only caterwauled since only the mistress of a familiar understood its voice.

She didn’t know how much time had passed after the racket died down, but it felt like only seconds before Evee burst into the room, out of breath, dressed in a smartly fitted, powder-blue pantsuit and black pumps.

“I—I left Margaret in ch-charge of the café and hurried over as fast as I could,” Evee said, panting. “What... Look at you! All the blood! What happened? Where did this happen? Did somebody attack you? We need to call an ambulance. We need to call nine-one-one! No, I’ll get the car. It’ll be faster.”

“We don’t need an ambulance,” Viv assured Evee.

“She said it’s not her blood,” Gilly added.

Evee’s copper-colored eyes grew wide. “Did you kill somebody?”

“Of course not,” Viv said, feeling guilt twist a bit harder in her gut. That answer might have been different had she hit Milan any harder with the two-by-four.

Now that all three sisters were in the room, Elvis, Hoot and Socrates settled down next to their mistresses.

Viv’s reassurance may have calmed Evee’s voice but seemed to do very little for her nerves. Evee reached out to touch Viv with a shaking hand, then quickly drew it back.

“Really,” Viv said. “I’m okay.”

Gilly grabbed one of Evee’s hands and pulled her sister to the edge of Viv’s bed, where they sat.

“Okay, enough bullshit,” Gilly said. “Tell us what happened.”

Viv sighed, glanced around for a place to sit. Then decided to remain standing so as not to get blood on anything and told them what had happened that morning.

“Why didn’t you just open the damn ground up where they were fighting and drop the dumbasses into a hole,” Gilly huffed after she’d finished. “If they wanted to kill each other, they could have done it in there. Saved you a lot of grief. And a pair of jeans and shirt.”

“Oh, please,” Evee said with a shake of her head.

Now that Gilly had mentioned it, Viv didn’t know why she hadn’t thought about opening the ground while at the compound. The shock of that might have stopped the fight. Once again, she blamed the brain pause.

“I didn’t want them dead,” she said to Gilly. “They were only fighting for some alpha tail.”

Gilly narrowed her eyes. “Wait—you mean those two alphas were fighting so close to the gate where you were watching that you got doused in blood?”

Evee nudged Gilly with a shoulder. “Stop interrogating her like you’re some kind of detective,” she said. “Give her a break. I mean, look at her. Don’t you think she’s been through enough?”

Gilly nodded slowly and clicked her tongue between her teeth. “Let me guess. You did that partial invisibility thing and went inside the compound to stop them didn’t you?”

Viv looked down at the highly polished oak floor beneath her boots.

Evee and Gilly stood up simultaneously.

“My word, please don’t tell me that’s what you did!” Evee said.

Viv glanced up at them. “I couldn’t think of anything else to do.”

Gilly stomped a foot. “I told you what you should have done. You had no business being in the middle of that compound. You could’ve gotten yourself killed. Two big alpha males like that. What were you gonna do, slap some sense into them?”

“What did you do?” Evee asked shakily, as if not really wanting to know the answer.

Viv glanced away, vividly recalling the scene as she described it to them.

When she was finished, Evee suddenly snapped her fingers. “This whole thing about your powers not working at the compound... Did you remember to read your Grimoire this morning before the feeding?”

“Now who’s playing detective?” Gilly said with a snort.

Viv glanced down again. “Yeah, well, it’s what we do every morning, right?”

“She asked if you read yours,” Gilly said, her eyes narrowing again.

“Okay, so maybe I didn’t this morning,” Viv admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t going to when I got back. I mean, we have this routine where we read it before feeding every morning, but that’s not like a hard and fast rule.”

“Oh, Viv,” Evee said. “You know the rules. That particular one may not be hard and fast, but it’s one we’ve stuck to for years. We have to stay sharp with study. Always armed and ready for anything.”

Out of nowhere, Viv felt a nudge in her gut, an urgency that they had to look at their Grimoires right now.

As if picking up on the unspoken message, Gilly and Evee suddenly raced out of the room, and Viv knew they were going to get their books. Hesitantly, she went to the top bureau drawer and pulled out her copy. It was nearly eight inches thick, the heavy parchment pages worn, its cover weathered Elder-wood. She placed it on her bed and within moments Gilly and Evee were standing on either side of her, books in hand. They each placed their Grimoire on either side of hers.

Without a word, the sisters reached for the front cover of their book and opened them simultaneously. The three gasped in unison. Recessed in the front cover of each book was a four-inch oblong mirror. Instead of the apocalyptic scene they were used to viewing each day, the only thing reflecting from the mirrors now were swirls of gray, like billowing smoke.

“What does this mean?” Evee whispered.

“I have no idea,” Gilly said. “It’s the first time I’ve ever seen it do this.” She leaned over and sniffed at her Grimoire, then Evee’s and Viv’s. “You smell that?”

“What?” Evee copied her sister’s motion and sniffed her book. “It’s...” She frowned.

“It’s what?” Viv asked, following suit. Her Grimoire did smell a little funny. It not only carried its usual aged, worn-wood scent, there was something different, albeit faint, mixed in. “Is that nutmeg I’m smelling?”

“Cloves,” Evee said. She put her nose to Gilly’s Grimoire, then Viv’s. “Definitely cloves.”

“When the hell were these books ever around cloves?” Gilly asked. “Did you bring some back from the café?”

“Why would I do that? To stick cloves between the pages of our books?” Evette said smartly. She tsked. “That’s absurd. Absolutely not.”

Gilly shrugged and sniffed again.

Viv glanced at her sisters. “Do you think the gray in the mirrors has something to do with why my spells didn’t work at the compound?”

Gilly gave her a serious look. “It could be because of what happened at the compound. You’re the clairvoyant. What do you intuit from this?”

Viv studied the mirrors, the swirls of gray roiling ever faster. “That the future is uncertain because of something that must unfold. That’s why we can’t see anything. Something must’ve happened to change the order of what was to be.”

Gilly clamped a fist on her hip and turned to Viv. “Tell us exactly what happened when you were at the compound.”

“What are you talking about? I already did.”

“Do it again,” Gilly demanded. “Don’t leave anything out. It could have been something you did or something you said without realizing it that made this change.”

With a heavy sigh and slow shake of her head, Viv retold the story. Only this time, she included the very end. “So after I whacked Milan over the head, I turned around to leave, pointed at Stratus and told her if she wanted to play games she was on her own because I quit.”

Evee gasped.

“Wait. Wait one damn minute,” Gilly said, holding up a hand. “You said what?”

“How could you say you just quit?” Evee asked. “That’s why these mirrors are gray. I mean, did you really mean that, Viv? You’re not going to watch over the Loup Garous? You’re just going to leave them at the compound?”

“No,” Viv said. “I was just pissed off. Was in a real crappy mood. It’s not like I really meant I was quitting this whole gig for good. I just had enough for the day.”

Gilly closed her Grimoire and held it close to her chest. “Do you think the universe knows the difference between a bad mood and truth when it comes out of your mouth? You might have set something in motion, and we have no idea what that is.”

“I said I’d fix it,” Viv said, growing frustrated.

“It has to be done immediately,” Evee said, closing and picking up her own Grimoire. “Viv, you forget how powerful your words really are. When you said ‘I quit,’ you rubbed up against the aura that covers the Circle of Sisters. The universe itself. So if you’re really going to fix this, you have to go back there now.”

“I intend to,” Viv said through clenched teeth.

Neither sister responded.

Viv looked from Evee to Gilly. “Look, tell me the truth. Don’t either of you get tired of all this sometimes? What we do is not normal, even for witches. We can’t even use the spells we know to enrich our own lives. Everything gets sucked up taking care of the broods we’re responsible for. We have to babysit them because of something our great-great-times-thirty grandmother did. Why do we have to be punished for it? Don’t you get tired of it?”

“Of course I do,” Gilly said. “But quit acting like a martyr. We all get sick of it, just like any human gets sick of their job from time to time. But it is what it is. We have big responsibilities, and you can’t just throw words around like ‘I quit,’ then pretend you can just walk into your boss’s office the next day and say, ‘Oh, I really didn’t mean it. I take it back.’”

“Fine. Got it. Enough already!” Viv said, and whirled about, ready to leave the room. She had more than her fill of her sisters ragging on her.


Chapter 4 (#uf21d9e2a-b038-532a-9f58-7f76c230c128)

Any silence was short lived because Hoot, Elvis and Socrates started a cacophony of squawks, hisses, chirps and shrieks.

Amid the noise, the sisters heard someone pounding on the front door downstairs. Pounding hard, as though they meant to break the door down if it wasn’t answered right away. The sisters glanced at each other, then ran downstairs as quickly as possible.

Viv made it to the door first. Already angry and half expecting to see a wayward missionary standing on the front porch ready to show them the error of their ways, she yanked it open. “What in the hell do you—”

The words died in her throat when she saw four men standing side by side on the porch. For more than a few seconds, she stood mesmerized. As a clairvoyant, she didn’t sense danger. As a woman, she saw trouble times four.

All four men appeared to be in their early thirties, stood over six feet tall and were dressed in black. Black jeans, black T-shirts pulled taut over huge, muscular chests and biceps that rippled when they moved. Their shirts were neatly tucked into their pants and held in place by wide black belta with ornate silver buckles.

Although there were four, Viv seemed incapable of taking her eyes off one in particular. He had gray eyes the color of storm clouds and smoke. Walnut-colored hair fell to his shoulders. A cleft accented his chin, and his beard and mustache were trimmed into a perfect Van Dyke. Had he been ice cream on the lawn, Viv would’ve gladly licked him away from every blade of grass.

“May we help you?” Gilly asked, stepping up alongside Viv.

Viv blinked quickly, surprised and a bit unnerved by her sudden and blatant hunger for the man. Remembering she was still covered in blood, she darted away from the door and ran for the stairs, leaving her sisters to deal with the strangers.

“Is she all right?” Viv heard one of the men ask as she took the stairs two at a time. She wanted to hide in a closet for the rest of the day from embarrassment.

After showering and washing her hair in record time, she dried off. Although her long black hair was still damp, she whipped it into a braid, then headed to the closet, where she pulled out a pair of white linen pants and a light blue pullover to wear. She slid her feet into sneakers then bounded out of the room and down the stairs.

Viv found her sisters and the four strangers in the sitting room. It was a spacious area that Evee had tastefully decorated in mahogany and leather antiques. Two Chippendale couches covered in delicate beige fabric needled with gold-and-maroon filigree faced each other in front of a stone fireplace.

Three of the men sat on the couch to her left. The fourth, the one with the storm-gray eyes, sat in a maroon wingback chair beside it. Her sisters sat on either end of the couch on the right.

Six pairs of eyes locked onto her the moment she entered. Everyone looked cordial but grim.

“If you don’t mind,” Evee said as Viv walked toward her sisters, “would you please start again so our sister can be brought up to speed? This is Vivienne, by the way. You can call me Evee, her Viv, and Abigail goes by Gilly.”

On her way to the couch to join her sisters, Socrates suddenly darted into the room and ran between Viv’s legs, causing her to stumble. He jumped onto the couch between Gilly and Evee, while Viv flailed to find purchase.

A strong arm caught her mid-stumble, and she held back a hiss. In that second she felt ready to combust. The heat that abruptly shot through her body from his touch made her feel like she’d spontaneously combust. Viv didn’t have to see his face to know the arm belonged to Storm Eyes. She glanced up to confirm. Oh, it was him all right.

Regaining her composure quickly, Viv gave him a brisk nod, then hurried over to her sisters. Socrates scurried off the couch to make room for her, then darted out of the room as quickly as he’d entered.

When she sat, her heart thudding in her chest, Viv tried to appear nonchalant.

“Are you all right?” Storm Eyes asked Viv.

“Quite all right,” she said. “I apologize for disappearing so suddenly when you arrived. An incident at work... Well, I’m sure you noticed my appearance. I wasn’t injured. And as for the stumble just now...” Viv shrugged. “Cats will be cats. They have minds of their own.”

“They certainly do,” Evee said, tossing Viv an odd, questioning look. She turned back to the men. “Gentlemen, if you would continue...”

Storm Eyes smiled and nodded. “Once again, I do apologize for intruding without prior notice. We came as quickly as possible, directly from the airport. My name is Nikoli Hyland, and these are my cousins.” He motioned to the men sitting on the couch and named them from left to right. “Lucien, Gavril and Ronan Hyland.”

Each man looked like he deserved a front cover on GQ Magazine.

Lucien’s hair was the color of gingerbread, shoulder-length, and his emerald green eyes seemed to hold a perpetual sparkle. He had full lips and sported a well-trimmed beard and mustache.

Gavril had collar-length, tousled, soot-black hair. His eyes were violet and set deep into a well chiseled, lightly bearded face.

Ronan sat and moved with the precision of a drill sergeant. His serious black eyes were hooded by long-thick lashes, and his collar-length black hair was neatly groomed. His square-jawed face held the hint of a five o’clock shadow.

“Why are you here?” Viv asked Nikoli bluntly.

“According to them, they’re here to help us,” Gilly said, not giving him a chance to answer.

Viv felt her blood run cold. “What do you mean?”

“Allow me to explain,” Nikoli said. “As we were telling your sisters—”

“It’s complicated,” Evee said to Viv. “I’m still not sure I understand everything.”

Lucien nodded. “It certainly is complex, but we’re more than happy to go over everything again with you.”

“We’re Benders,” Gavril said to Viv. “And we’ve been commissioned to you.”

Viv frowned. “What’s a Bender, and who do we know that would commission you to us? How do you know us?”

“We’re the tenth generation of Benders assigned to keep watch over Triads,” Ronan said.

“Ten generations?” Gilly said. “Why haven’t we heard of you before? Our Elders would’ve told us about someone like you.”

“Not necessarily,” Nikoli said, then looked at Viv. “There are many generations of Triads who never knew we existed.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Evee said. “If you’re supposed to help us, how does anyone get that help if they don’t know you exist?”

“They didn’t know because they didn’t need us,” Nikoli said. “Unless there’s an emergency, we tend to be more of a blend-into-the-background sort of group.” He smiled, and his dazzling white teeth and full lips made Viv shift uncomfortably in her seat.

Gilly shook her head. “You’re going to have to start from the beginning because I’m totally lost.”

“If we were here to con you,” Ronan said, “wouldn’t we be asking for something?”

“Yeah, so?” Viv said, in Gilly’s defense. “We haven’t gotten the whole picture yet, so the bullshit might easily be hiding in the back story, and you just haven’t gotten to it yet.”

“Good point, Viv,” Nikoli said, his smile broadening. “But I know you’re a clairvoyant, so you already know we mean you no harm. Isn’t that true?”

Viv looked at Gilly then Evee. “Did either of you tell him that?”

Both shook their head.

“We know of the Triads,” Nikoli continued. “The Circle of Sisters is a very cloistered group, and they keep knowledge of you close to their chest.” His eyes moved ever so quickly down to Viv’s covered breasts before he turned away and shifted in his chair. “Just the fact that we know all about you—where to find you, what you can do, what you’re responsible for—should tell you something.”

“If what you say is true,” Viv said, “then what are Benders supposed to help us with?

Nikoli’s eyes darkened and his face hardened. “Serious trouble is headed your way. An attack on one of your factions. More attacks will follow.”

All three sisters sat staring at him, open-mouthed.

“A-attacks?” Viv said.

Nikoli nodded slowly. “What’s expected is total annihilation of each of your sectors.”

The sisters moved to the edge of the couch like they were about to spring off it.

“Whoa!” Gilly said, holding up both hands. “What the hell?”

“All of them?” Evee asked, her hands beginning to tremble.

“H-how do you know this?” Viv asked, trying to keep her voice level.

“Because our job is to find, keep tabs on and kill Cartesians, many of whom are planning attacks on your territory,” Nikoli said.

Viv got to her feet and gestured for a time-out. “Hidden Benders, too much knowledge of what you should know nothing about, now you throw in these...these Corinthians?”

“Cartesians,” Gavril corrected.

“Whatever,” Viv said, starting to pace. “What are they?”

“Cartesians are monstrous creatures,” Nikoli said. “Many stand ten feet or taller. They have incredibly thick scales that cover their body, and the scales are hidden beneath a dense mat of fur. The scales and fur protect them from any form of human weapon. Even a grenade wouldn’t faze them. Their teeth are all massive incisors, made to rip and shred, and their claws are four to six inches long and butcher-knife sharp. They travel through dimensions and get into our world through rifts. Their sole purpose is to destroy the whole of the netherworld so they will have absolute power. Every time they kill a creature, be it a vampire, werewolf, djinn, or anything from the netherworld, they absorb that creature’s power into themselves. That power allows them to multiply in numbers.”

“That can’t be possible,” Viv said, her head buzzing with all the information. “If creatures that size were roaming around this planet, surely we’d know of their existence.”

“I remember the Elders talking about them,” Evee said, biting her lower lip. “When we were little. Much, much younger. Remember? Taka told us. She didn’t call them Cartesians, not that I recall anyway, but it sounded like bogeyman-talk to me. You know, something to scare us into being good.”

“I don’t remember any of the Elders or even Mom talking about that kind of creature,” Gilly said. She turned to Viv. “You?”

“No.”

“Wait,” Gilly said, standing up and whirling on the balls of her feet to face Nikoli. “What’s this about traveling through dimensions?”

“The reason Cartesians are not as widely known as others from the netherworld is because they hide between dimensions.” Nikoli placed one hand atop the other, indicating layers. “They’re able to travel through the folds of time and space, move from dimension to dimension. They attack, then simply vanish into another realm. Like they never existed at all.”

“How many dimensions are there?” Viv asked. “How much hiding space do the bastards have?”

“Ten dimensions,” Lucien said. “But we’ve only been able to push them back to six.”

“Actually, there are eleven dimensions,” Ronan said. “The eleventh is still controversial in today’s scientific think tanks, but it exists.”

“What causes a rift in a dimension?” Viv asked.

Nikoli slid to the edge of his seat, giving her his full attention. “Anything that produces a large amount of atmospheric, electrical static. Like a tsunami, Category Five hurricane... Words from a powerful Triad. Once the tear is created, one or many Cartesians will plow through it, capture whatever netherworldly creature it can, kill it, then return the creature’s power to the Cartesian’s leader to do with as he sees fit.”

“The creeps have a leader?” Gilly asked.

“Yes,” Nikoli said. “He’s the one all Benders truly seek. He wants to possess the power of every netherworldly creature in existence. Once he’s accomplished that, we fear his ultimate goal is to control mankind. To be the supreme power of the universe. He’d be able to control the very structure of planetary alignment with that much power.”

Gilly and Evee looked over at Viv, who lowered her head. She knew they were thinking about her saying she’d quit this morning. She wondered how Nikoli knew.

“Ten—eleven—dimensions, does it really matter?” Viv said, to get her sisters’ eyes off her. “How do you kill what you can’t see?”

“Oh, we can see them,” Lucien said, “but only after we track them by scent.”

“What kind of scent?” Evette asked.

Gavril wrinkled his nose. “Like rotten eggs and cloves mixed together.”

Evee’s head whipped in Viv’s direction. “Cloves?”

Viv swallowed hard, eyeing Evee and Gilly. She turned to Gavril then to Nikoli. “We’ve smelled it. The cloves, I mean.”

The cousins looked at each other, appearing puzzled.

“You smelled it?” Nikoli asked. “Where?”

“Here, in the house,” Evee said. “In our Gr... Our books. We opened three books and caught a whiff of it.”

“Why did the four of you look so...I don’t know...out of sorts when we mentioned the scent?” Viv asked.

“Because, normally, humans can only pick up a whiff of that scent at the time of a Cartesian’s entry or right after an attack. It concerns me that you smelled it in your home. What kind of books were you referring to?” Nikoli asked Evette.

The triplets eyed each other. No one knew of their Grimoires except the Elders or those within the Circle of Sisters. They were taught from a very young age that the books and their contents were not to be shared with anyone except another Sister.

“Personal books,” Viv finally replied. “Doesn’t matter what kind of book. The point you’re trying to make is that we smelled it in here, right?”

Nikoli stared at her, and Viv saw something in his eyes that made her insides feel hot and quivery. “Right.”

Suddenly a loud, frantic pounding came from the front door. Without a word, Viv, Gilly and Evee ran toward it.

Through the side windows that bordered the heavy front door, Viv saw Jaco, her East pack leader, standing at the front door, his face serious and drawn. In human form, he stood over six-four with a massive chest and a long mane of black hair that reached below his shoulders. He wore jeans and a white T-shirt. His eyes, usually a brilliant green, looked faded, dull. The sight of him made Viv’s heart stutter to a stop. Even though he had access in and out of the locked compound as one of her generals, Jaco never came here. For him to come directly to her home meant something had to be seriously wrong.

Jaco pounded on the door again and was about to give it another hit when Viv opened it.

Jaco took one look at her and took a step back. “I must speak with you immediately,” he said.

She motioned him inside.

He shook his head. “I think it is best if we speak privately.”

Viv motioned him inside again. “Whatever needs to be said can certainly be said in front of my sisters.”

Jaco nodded. “As you wish.” He stepped inside, and Viv closed the door behind him.

“Is there a problem at the East lair?” Viv asked.

“No,” Jaco said. He looked uneasily at Gilly and Evee. “May I speak freely?” he asked Viv.

She glanced toward the sitting room, saw the four cousins had remained inside. “Absolutely.”

He nodded, then lowered his eyes slightly. “The problem is not at the East lair. The problem is at the North compound, where you were this morning.” He hesitated and Viv signaled for him to continue.

This time he looked her square in the eye. “There has been a breach in the North compound. We have at least a hundred and fifty Loup Garou dead. The front and back entries were wide open and there are many gaps throughout the fenced territory.”

Gilly moaned and Evee gasped. Viv simply stared at him.

“If a hundred and fifty are dead,” Evee said, her eyes wide with panic, “then that means at least two hundred might be loose in the city.”

“Or dead farther back on the feeding grounds,” Jaco said. “I didn’t have a chance to check every inch of the territory.” He looked at Viv. “I had gone there to get Milan as I had been notified he was missing and suspected he would be near Stratus. I spotted the massacre as soon as I arrived. Did a quick check along the entire fence lines, then came here to let you know.”

Viv nodded, feeling like someone had thrown a fifty-pound boulder into her stomach. “Go back to the North compound. I’ll meet you there and get this figured out.”

Jaco nodded, turned on his heels, opened the front door and disappeared in a flash.

As soon as the front door closed, Gilly whirled about and faced her. A cocoon of hot air wrapped tight around Viv. Always an indicator of Gilly’s fury.

“Viv François,” Gilly said in a low, trembling voice. She took a step closer to her sister. “What the fuck have you done?”


Chapter 5 (#uf21d9e2a-b038-532a-9f58-7f76c230c128)

The first emotion to hit Viv full in the heart when she made it back to the ranch and the compound with Nikoli was shock. A huge sob suddenly locked up in her chest, and she feared if she released it, she’d be changed forever. She didn’t know what to think—how to think.

She didn’t even remember leaving the house. Somehow in the midst of the scramble to get to the compound, Nikoli appeared to take charge, ordering Lucien and Ronan to go with Evee to check on her Nosferatu, and Gavril to go with Gilly to check on her Chenilles. Gilly had started to protest, but instinct told Viv Nikoli was right and she told her sisters as much.

Viv stood, holding a hand over her mouth. Still a sob escaped. “Who could have... How did... Oh, this can’t be. It can’t.”

Socrates sat between Viv and Nikoli, his head lowered. Then he let out a loud mewl and said to Viv, “I told you not to leave! Oh dear, oh dear. This is so terrible, so horrific.” He sounded like an old, fretting, English butler. “What shall we do, Vivienne? What shall we do?”

Reflexively, Viv turned her head away from the scene before her and buried her face in Nikoli’s shoulder, never giving a thought to the fact that they’d only met hours earlier. He cupped her head with a hand. “How?” she whispered. “Who?”

“The Cartesians,” Nikoli said, his voice hard.

Viv forced herself to turn back. The very gate that she’d opened earlier, and knew she had locked before she’d left, had been torn away from the fencing that held it up. Rips and gouges ran throughout the fencing as far as the eye could see. Far worse were the bodies of her Loups strewn everywhere. Many lay in the area where Milan and Warden had been fighting earlier that morning.




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