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.
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
