Witch's Hunger. Deborah LeBlanc

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