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 he
r 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
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 r
epeated. “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.”
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