The eviscerated starling nailed to the tree was a violent blemish on Margo Farm’s bordering bayou land. The body was the fifth one Odette had found this week.
It was only Wednesday.
Her knuckles bleached white against her grip on her Winchester. “Grandpa,” she called, eyes unmoving off the tiny avian entrails dangling down the trunk; a niggling reminder that, at 25, she should have been desensitized to death by now. On the farm, animals died all the time. Rarely, so did people.
Granted, they were never arranged with their intestines strung up on bark spurs, or had the skin peeled back from their skulls to reveal bloodstained bone and hollow eye sockets.
Perhaps that was why she could feel the chill of unease freezing the hairs on her neck upright.
“Come look.”
Grandpa Bernard's footsteps were hasty on approach, gradually slowing to a hesitating crawl before he came to a stop at her side. She felt his stocky hand, calloused and sun-damaged under decades of working the fields, settle on her shoulder and gently pull her backwards. The insinuation of the dead bird’s presence must have stirred the gene-deep overprotectiveness that powered his everyday functions.
“Gods almighty,” he said, his steady exhale catching on the afternoon breeze settling among the thick foliage overhead and the overgrown reeds at their booted feet. He slung his own rifle—his weathered Remington 700; the one he’s sworn by since Odette was in diapers—over his shoulder before stepping closer to get a better look. What he couldn’t see with his perfect vision that she could through her obnoxiously thick glasses, she didn’t know. She didn’t want to know.
“Our bird population’s going to be down before the winter rolls around.”
“What—or whom—do you suppose is doing it? It’s not an animal,” Odette said.
“That’s for damn sure,” Bernard said. He angled his head to squint at the left wing, which was missing most of its feathers. Likely lost in struggle. The longer Odette beheld the ghastly crucifixion, however, the more certain she was that there was no struggle. It was instant. Or rather, for the poor starling’s sake, she hoped it was.
“I want to say this is the work of a disgruntled powrie, but I don’t think any packs live out here.”
“Convenient that this is happening right after the VIPER overlords started moving in.”
As if to underscore her suspicion, the pops of a hammer striking wood soared over the hilly land and through the thick canopy of pine leaves and cypress branches snuffing out the sunlight. Odette couldn’t tell if it was just her slick sense of hearing picking up on it, or if whoever was banging away was really taking their anger out on that wood.
“I’m sure they’re too concerned with their construction to have the time for this. I also don’t know any nāga to leave behind this much flesh after a hunt.”
The fact that his response wasn’t a resounding agreement made her kick the dirt. Bernard was too fixated on the starling to notice.
“Okay. Then it’s another Abhorrent.” She paused, wondering if she should say what else had spilled to the tip of her tongue. “Or Chupacabra coming back out of the woodwork.”
Silence draped over them like a slab of concrete. Although she wasn’t looking at him, she could feel Bernard’s sidelong leer tilling her cheek.
Neither of them wanted to think about the last time there were Abhorrents terrorizing these woods and the bayou they led into. The one in question was never apprehended. Or identified. Even after what it did.
The exorcist’s Consortium dubbed it “Chupacabra Margo,” as was standard with unidentifiable and uncapturable Abhorrents, and left it at that. No closure to speak of.
“Well, whatever it is, it’s trying to make a statement,” Bernard said in a huff, trying to hurry the conversation along, and she couldn’t blame him. She knew the proverb well.
Sicut manifestum est, sic erit.
So it is manifested, so it shall be. This wasn’t something he wanted to see come to fruition. She watched him knock on an unsullied tree trunk for good measure.
That was assuming the threat hadn’t already returned. Disemboweling birds wasn’t Chupacabra Margo’s original MO, but it was adjacent enough. Surely manic entities could switch up their preferred targets in 20 years.
“Pretty cowardly to make statements and not show face,” Odette mumbled.
“A warning, then,” Bernard surmised, finally stepping back. “Of what, I would need an exorcist to decipher.”
“We don’t affiliate with starlings; we’ve never used the astral arts in a day in our fucking lives. So how is a dead starling a warning to us?”
The strict glare Bernard threw Odette’s way left her clenching her teeth with juvenile indignation. He didn’t need to say it; she’d heard him bark the order enough times that it was practically embroidered on the grooves of her brain. Watch your mouth.
Owls were the standard aves affiliation for witches who leaned on the green arts. Odette generally preferred their wisdom and penchant for total recall to the heightened psychic and empathetic nature of starlings. Their varied sizing among species was also quite convenient.
As if she’d read Odette’s thoughts—not that she could—Solene seemingly manifested from the western depths of the forest, where the solid ground gradually gave way to bug-infested swamp, the Onyx river carved through the land in a wild zig-zagging curve, and the year-round humidity seemed to rise up from the fiery districts of Abaddon itself. Her sleek black body came to a perch atop Odette’s left shoulder, chest rising and falling with quick trepidation.
“I’m sorry!” she chirped. “I flew over as soon as I smelled the—“
Odette didn’t get a chance to warn her. Upturned eyes rounded at the edges when she laid them upon the starling’s remains. Her feathers puffed with that involuntary fear response, and a gasp shrill enough to send a pack of dogs into a tumult broke past her beak.
“Goodness me…I-I didn’t see— I didn’t hear—“
“It’s alright, Solene,” Bernard reassured her. “We just found it. Are you sure you didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, though?”
“I-I’m certain! I’ve been on high alert since we found the chickadee!” she insisted, flailing her wings so hard that they smacked Odette in the cheek. Not an uncommon occurrence when Solene was panicking. She barely felt it.
“O-oh, goodness me, I’m so sorry…wings to the High Aves, I did not see anything…”
“I believe you,” Odette said. “I think if whoever was doing this had wanted you to see them, they would. And you wouldn’t live to warn us.”
Not a single deceased bird had been an owl. Just songbirds. Two starlings, a chickadee, and a wren.
That fact wasn’t at all reassuring, but definitely not indicative of a warning directed at the Cinq-Mars coven, or anything Solene would have picked up on.
“Don’t say that! Do you want to speak that into existence?” Solene slammed the bone of her wing into Odette’s forehead for scolding emphasis. It hurt a little when she was being deliberate.
Relenting, Odette reached over to knock another tree. Better safe than sorry.
“Then maybe it’s trying to make nice. In its own exceedingly roundabout and horrifically incorrect way,” Bernard said.
He’d said it ironically, but Odette couldn’t stop her brain from running off with that possibility. An Abhorrent—whether it was Chupacabra, a wandering powrie with a vendetta, or something else—trying to make friends with a family of green witches by killing birds and putting them on grim displays in the forest felt like the punchline to a bad joke. She would rather entertain the idea that a powrie was just aggravated by the sounds of the auger platforms and drapers speeding by at all hours and wanted to flex its intimidation muscle, but even she knew that was highly unlikely. As malevolent as powries were, they wouldn’t keep repeating the same crime over and over. They also wouldn’t have any reason to steal the bird’s eyes straight out of their skulls before skinning and flaying them.
She decided to find reprieve in the idea that a bloodthirsty agricultural powerhouse like VIPER was behind it. Somehow. Brutally murdering defenseless birds matched her image of the tycoon nāga clan coming dangerously close to infringing on the Cinq-Mars’ rightful land. And considering the last time nāgas appearing near Margo Farm marked a period of turmoil for their coven, she felt justified in her wariness.
Okay. Maybe VIPER’s new farm was about half a mile off their property line, so the chances of actual infringement were low. She also knew it was bad karma to let the atrocities of a few nāga Abhorrents from two decades ago negatively affect her view of the entire race. However, wondering what VIPER was doing in small town Limbo County—so close to a coven-owned farm doing well in its own right, no less—in the first place was slowly fraying the edges of her nerves. It bothered her even more that Bernard, ever the skeptic, wasn’t sharing in her chagrin.
“Let’s get it down,” Bernard said. “It doesn’t need to be out like this any longer.”
Before he could move back toward the tree, Odette swung her rifle over her back, Solene hovering to avoid the strap, and tugged the sleeve of his cotton button down—the solid khaki green one that really accentuated how tan he’d gotten in the past month. The Louisiana sun had been particularly brutal in its dying days before the autumn chill was due to move in. “Let me get it, Grandpa,” she said when he arched his greying brow at her. “I’ll give it a proper burial with the rest of them.”
With four other birdy crime scenes preceding this one, she’d gotten the cleanup procedure down to a science. Bernard knew that, but he wavered anyway.
“Alright,” he relented. “But let me dig the hole. And try not to get any blood on you, please.”
They were quick about preparations, from the weaving of a small coffin, to the digging of the grave, to the hunting for a decent headstone. They buried it near the other victims, all marked with their own small boulders, engraved with the dates they were found and warding sigils to sway species of a graverobbing nature away. After meeting such gruesome ends, the least the unfortunate songbirds deserved was peaceful rest.
Unlike the crystals, spellbooks, and curated herbs she’d gathered over the years, the makeshift cemetery was a growing collection Odette was not proud of.
“This is bullshit,” she said under her breath while she and Bernard stood to examine their reluctant handiwork. She braced for the tongue lashing, but only felt Bernard’s hand fall back onto her shoulder. Sometimes he let her expletives slide, during the times when even he couldn’t deny their necessity.
“I know,” he huffed. “I’ll call my friend at the Consortium station tonight; see if we can get a survey out here tomorrow. Hopefully that’ll be the last gore scene any of us find.”
Odette had a sinking feeling that was just wishful thinking. She tried her best to cling to Bernard’s optimism, but he didn’t sound too sure, either.
“I would like to hope that will be the case,” Solene muttered from her new spot on a nearby branch. Her wings were clasped in an evident silent prayer.
“I’m calling this walk a wash. Let’s head back.”
He didn’t need to tell her twice. Odette was at his heels like a duckling tailing its mother all the way back down the vaguely paved trail. Solene wasn’t too far behind.
“I’m going to go do another survey,” she declared. “Certainly I must be missing something.”
“Please be careful, and try not to trouble yourself too deeply about it. This doesn’t feel like anything any of us could have foreseen.”
Solene nodded, but Odette could tell by the pained shroud over her black pearl-adjacent eyes that she wasn’t taking it to heart.
Odette truly missed the days when these woods didn’t carry the oppressive weight of violent death. It was hard to believe that there was a time where she was allowed to toddle past the fences on her own, despite having lived it firsthand. Nowadays, Bernard wouldn’t even let her near the treeline without double checking that her rifle was in her hand.
But she had plenty of time to dwell on that. There was a more pressing matter snagging her attention.
“Something about starling blood that isn’t good for witches?”
Bernard didn’t immediately answer. She wouldn’t have thought twice about it were he better at reeling in his uncertainty. It was so palpable, it nearly stuck its foot out and tripped her.
“I’ve been studying magic for 20 years and never saw anything about it being bad to get starling blood on me. How’s it any different than the Diomedes horses? Or the hadhayans?”
Animals really did die all the time, whether from age or just through the necessary meat processing. Handling rowdy creatures also came with the territory of their frequent bodily harm. The horses, vicious as they were, enjoyed the occasional herd-sanctioned bloodsport, which Odette had the hapless honor of breaking up more than once. Often, at least one of them trotted away with a substantial injury, only to repeat the cycle again once they recovered.
Eerie as the sight of the starling was, compared to what she’d witnessed growing up, a little animal blood on her hands was just a fact of life.
Again, Bernard trudged on under his infuriating hush. Her frown pulled her brow down with it, and she snuck a glance at the back of his mint-condition boots, namely the slightly raised heels crunching over the dead leaves and gnarled weeds creeping along the dirt. There was nothing he hated more than having the backs of his shoes kicked or stepped on, and she realized that with a slightly wider stride, she had the perfect leverage to stomp his heel right out.
“I’m gonna step on you if you keep ignoring me, and I know these are new.”
“Because.” He sighed like his age had finally caught up with him. “Our new neighbors invited us over.”
She stopped cold. “You spoke to them already?”
“Not in-depth. Just in passing, on my way back from town yesterday. It was quite pleasant, and I said we’d come by today.”
“And you were going to tell me this when?”
“Preferably in the safety of our living room, but you’re a little too observant for my intentions.”
He quickly realized that she was not following him anymore and cast a prudent look over his shoulder. She still made no move to catch up, hip popping under her shifted weight as she crossed her arms. With another sigh, Bernard stopped to rub his wrinkled temple.
“What does getting blood on me have to do with meeting the Bonhommes? Is there something you’re not telling me?” she retorted.
“No, Odette. Nāgas have a strong sense of smell; this clan for sure. I just don’t want you strolling up there reeking of a bloodbath. You know that’s a scent that lingers.”
“Oh, that’s why you’re so certain they’re not the ones flaying the birds.” Her laugh was sour enough to pucker Bernard’s lips. “You’re already buddy-buddy with them.”
Now he was massaging hard circles into his face. He clearly did not want to be having this conversation. Not like this, anyway. “Mr. Bonhomme and I spoke for all of five minutes. He had a particularly potent energy; much higher than I’ve seen of other nāgas, which tells me they’re nagaraja. I’m just trying to play it polite and safe.”
That was news to her. She’d known the clan surname since she found out they were buying up that neighboring land—she’d had her best friend, Noel, who lived near the town outskirts on his coven’s orchard, do a quick search on them and subsequently wasted three hours on a gossip-fueled bitch session over the findings—but she hadn’t realized they came from the upper echelons of the nāga power hierarchy. She mentally kicked herself for not asking Noel to do a deeper dive.
“You want to play it safe, yet you want to walk into a house full of nagaraja because…?”
“Call me petty, but I enjoy scoping out the competition. Even if they are on a completely different level,” he smirked, with a coy, almost childish shrug to pair. “There’s always something new to learn in this business, and it doesn’t hurt to befriend the titans. It also doesn’t hurt,” he sauntered back over to brush one of her black braids, slightly frayed with the grit of her day so far, over her shoulder, “to get a soul read on them.”
With him close enough, she could finally see that skepticism—the one she’d been hunting for since they found that damn starling—adding another layer of shadow to his darkened eyes. “Certainly it’s not lost on you how strange it is that the family responsible for a company like VIPER is setting up shop in BFE Limbo County, Louisiana?”
Once in a Blood Moon, Odette wondered how they were related. It was times like this that made her wonder why she kept questioning it.
“Cheap land?” she offered in a weak attempt to exhaust all their options, as she’d been trying to do all day. That’s how he’d taught her to approach everything in life, from hypothetical problems to life-altering decisions.
Bernard nodded thoughtfully. “Could be. But conveniently so close to a coven-owned farm? I have my doubts that it’s that simple.”
He looped his arm in hers. She willingly matched his step as they walked onward.
“I don’t like to judge or assume anything before I see for myself, of course. Hence why I jumped at the opportunity for a visit. You and I will have a chance to get to know our wealthy new neighbors and see what Margo Farms is in for.” He snorted to himself. “And with your grandmother and mother out of town, and thus, not here to tell me it’s a bad idea, I can’t think of a better time.”
He did know his wife and daughter remarkably well. Nana would definitely be up his ass, and Maman would either agree, or want to know if the Bonhomme patriarch was single.
“I respect the approach,” she said. “But my question remains as is.”
Bernard’s chuckle was far more lighthearted than she was comfortable with hearing. “As powerful as I fear they are, I can’t imagine they’d have the gall to cross a coven of witches.”
“Right, because nāgas are very well-known for their astonishing lack of gall.”
“Hun, c’mon,” he chastised. “I have my reservations too, but—“
He’d rolled his eyes—whether out of general annoyance or the required level of parental strictness he needed to apply, it didn’t matter—and barely made it to the other side of the path before something wrenched both his attention and the rest of his scolding words away from him. He tugged Odette to a halt, allowing her to follow his widened gaze to a partially raised mound mere feet from where they stood. It was visible under a dense puddle of dead leaves and the dehydrated remains of fallen branches and bushes lost to time.
Bernard released a groan, stockpiled with layers upon layers of his aggravation. He leaned down and plucked a long yet relatively hardy-looking branch from the ground before approaching the mound like he’d rehearsed the steps. With a thrust of the branch, the rusted remains of an anti-heal bear trap clamped down on it, sending the leaves flying and making Odette start involuntarily at the sound of the cruel metallic SNAP.
“Gods,” Bernard seethed under his breath while he examined the old trap. He might as well have been looking at an invasive pest with the way he glared at it. In a sense, that’s exactly what it was. “When I get that survey out here, I’m going to have them sweep for these again. No damn reason we should still be finding them.”
Odette pursed her lips, vaguely remembering that young exorcist cadet who’d assured her and her coven that all of the traps, initially put out to aid in catching Chupacabra Margo, had all been collected once the team realized they were more of a liability than an asset. The fact that her coven had collectively pulled up seven—eight now—since then meant either someone royally fucked up, or the Consortium really needed to reevaluate their bear trap collection practices. It was a wonder nobody had stepped on one yet.
“Might be a blessing in disguise if our bird serial killer is actually Chupacabra,” Odette muttered. It wasn’t low enough to make it past Bernard’s ears. He narrowed his eyes at her in a way that ensured she heard the “Quiet!” without him ever having to open his mouth.
“Let’s head home. I’ve had enough of these woods today,” he said. She had a hard time disagreeing.
The sight of their two-story coven house peeking up over the fields of radishes and peas was a calming one. She felt the effects of the windchime-laden wraparound porch long before she could see it, the army of chimes swishing away the negativity she always lugged out of the woods. The perimeter of home signified that a safe space was close; that only her blessings existed beneath those black eaves and behind those sun-bleached grey slatted walls. The purple front door was a beacon in the neutral greens, greys, browns, and beiges of the surrounding world, always there to welcome her back behind its protection at the end of any day.
With blessings in mind, she noticed that fluffy cat sithe they left curled up on the porch swing, unmoved in the hour and a half they were gone. Until she heard them approaching.
Enora was a barn cat sithe in name only, and that was still a very generous title. She was enlisted to help keep the property clear of pests, but she proved rather quickly that she was better suited to be a pretty house ornament, or better yet, a bed-bound security blanket. The dirt of the barns—and the roads, the fields, the equipment, and essentially everything in between—did not mix well with her immaculate white fur. The only color Enora ever wanted to see on her body was her flaming orange tips, and gods help anybody in her vicinity should anything else mar her appearance.
Despite her overall high maintenance, nobody on the farm could deny her affectionate nature. She was up and leaping off the swing before Odette and Bernard were past the gate to the front fields. A welcoming, rumbling “mrrorw,” vibrated within her as she leapt down the porch steps to meet Bernard first. She politely brushed against his legs, accepting the light scratches he gave to her left ear with a purr almost loud enough to trigger an earthquake.
“Thanks for waiting up for us, pretty girl,” he chuckled. He didn’t get very long with her before she rushed toward her real target.
Affectionate as she was, she did have a clear favorite.
When Odette scooped her up, any remaining residuals of the wood’s overpowering energy faded away. There was no such thing as the past, or VIPER, or even mutilated songbirds when she was holding Enora.
“Was your walk alright?” Enora projected, falling into a fluffy limp in Odette’s arms. “You feel distressed.”
“I’m fine now,” Odette said. That much was true.
“You head down to the barn and feed the chickens and turn out the horses, then come on back, wash up, and we’ll head out,” Bernard called between his stomps up the porch steps. He stopped just to offer Odette another leery look.
“And please try to be mindful of what I said without being petty.”
Odette tried to puff her chest with blatant umbrage. It was blocked entirely by a plume of fur.
“Fine. But is it okay if I smell like cat sithe?” she asked, taking a hard whiff of Enora’s belly for good measure. She smelled like a heavenly mix of Nana’s favorite fabric softener and sunshine.
Maybe Enora wasn’t the right sithe for this taunt.
“Considering this cat sithe would bathe in your mother’s perfume collection if she’d let her, by all means,” Bernard chuckled. Enora regained eager tension in her lithe body at the mention of a bath, and Odette couldn’t stop herself from affixing more kisses to the side of her perfectly groomed head.
“I make no promises. If the horses fuck…mess,” she corrected when Bernard scowled at her, “with me today, it’s fair game.”
Bernard couldn’t argue with that. He left her with a shrug, trudging past the bushes of rosemary, planted like bodyguards on either side of the entrance, and slipping inside. Odette's eyes lingered on the door for a few seconds before streaking across the black-salted protective sigils meticulously lined over the frame.
Nana truly took her place as the family artist, and thus, the family sigil enscriber, seriously. Never had Odette seen such immaculately painted symbols on the outside of a house before. Whereas the sigils on Noel’s were cracking and chipping with the effects of time and the Louisiana elements, hers looked as fresh as they were the day Nana finished repainting them over a decade ago. They were due for an update soon, but there was no doubt in Odette’s mind that no matter the shape, they would always look perfect by Nana’s hand.
A needle of envy poked a hole in her chest. What she wouldn’t give to be able to hone her own artistic gifts so flawlessly. Her songbook had long shifted from a bound trove of hope to an unremitting reminder of her own inability to release the past.
“Not today,” she snapped to herself. Enora flicked her head up, ears pinned back with some of that innate predatory zeal she still had. Odette shook her head.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”
She rerouted her thoughts toward the rest of her chores. Dealing with the Diomedes horses would require every last bit of her attention and willpower. Her nagging discontent about the birds and scorching irritation about the Bonhommes would need to wait if she wanted to turn them out without one of them taking a bite out of her or trampling her flat.
That would get me out of meeting them…
She genuinely considered the options before deciding it would be more pain—and danger—than the outcome was worth. Running into those snakes was essentially guaranteed, whether she was nursing a flattened limb or not.
“You wanna come with me to the barn?” she asked between kisses on Enora’s head. “We can see if Isaur finally got Loic.”
Enora’s blue eyes drooped at her. Not with contentment, but with a firm doubt. It gave Odette pause until she broke into an abrupt laughing spell.
“Yeah, I know,” she snickered, trudging toward the golf cart parked in its typical spot on the left side of the house. It was the only vehicle occupying the dead space between that and the standalone garage aside from Bernard’s heffer of a pickup truck. “She’s never going to catch that rat.”
The cart ride to the livestock compound was as uneventful as Odette hoped it would be. The winding road around the perimeter of the corn fields was rocky as normal, and the roar of the combine harvester was a welcome, familiar one. She took her eyes off the road just to see if she could catch who was driving it. Of the six non-related workers Margo Farms had employed—all close friends of Bernard’s and Nana’s—she knew only Axel, Davy, and Manon were out in the fields today, while Ida, Willow, and Tino were in town, running their stall at the market. With the summer season wrapping up, the harvesting load was light in anticipation for the new crops that would be promptly planted the morning following the Harvest Moon. After that, the fields would be in full swing. Autumn was always the busiest season, and Odette’s personal favorite. Nothing beat an overcast fall day, when the leaves were browning and the breeze was prickling with the far off call of frost.
The pale waving hand that signaled back to her made her grin. Manon seemed to always see Odette before Odette saw her. Poor eyesight, even with glasses as big as hers, could be such a nuisance.
“Enjoy your walk?” Manon screamed out to her.
“Could have been better,” Odette yelled back, making Enora flinch. Manon rolled too far out of her earshot for her to hear the reply.
The telltale cacophony of the horse’s impatient kicking and whinnying reached her before she turned into the livestock roundabout. That either meant they were going to be agreeable, eager to get out into the pastures, or they were itching for a fight. She wouldn’t know until she walked into the stables. Before she did that, she needed to make sure Isaur hadn’t inadvertently set anything on fire.
Margo’s other employed cat sithe, the cobby grey spitfire that was Isaur, was a little more committed to her role as a pest guard. She was by no means bad at her job—she had the heft to prove it—but she’d have had a lot more success were she not so dedicated to catching the single rat that had managed to evade her. She’d also avoid a lot less accidents. Davy was still patching a hole in one of the silos from the last big chase Isaur instigated.
When Odette clicked the golf cart off, she didn’t need to search long to find that shorthaired tail, twitching about like an armed turret while its front end stuck her nose into a small crevice between two cockeyed stable slats. Odette exchanged a weary look with Enora before stepping out onto the gravel.
“Isaur!” she cooed, patting her jean-covered thigh. “Come say hello. I haven’t seen you all day.”
“In a minute,” she projected back, unmoving. Bright orange eyes were trained on the darkness on the other side of those burgundy wood pieces. “I can smell him. I know he’s in here.”
“If you want to catch him that badly, let Solene help you.” Wherever she’d flown off to.
“No! I don’t need help from that pretentious ninny bird,” Isaur hissed.
“I happen to like that pretentious ninny bird. She’s good company,” Enora purred.
“Takes one to know one,” Isaur said.
She was barely done growling through her quiet insult when the rat in question, simultaneously the most limber and most pudgy rodent Odette had ever had the pleasure of witnessing, scurried out from behind one of the worn columns holding up the stable overhang. She never looked twice at him at first, but once it became clear that he was destined to live his life giving Isaur a run for her tuna, Odette affectionately named him Loic. He accepted with no protest; the only thing needed for a creature to officially be acknowledged as a witch’s familiar.
That didn’t stop Isaur from trying to eat him, nor did it stop Loic from doing whatever he could to ruin her day. Odette tried time and time again to facilitate mediations, and after the third attempt ended in her bedroom nearly being torn apart by another one of their chases, she realized that was the universe’s chosen dynamic for them; a tale as old as time itself. It was also a sign that she had no business, or patience, trying to change it.
Knowing better than to infringe on their literal game of Cat and Mouse, Odette watched Loic cautiously approach Isaur’s backside, stepping on the tips of his claws. She silently willed Isaur to stop tunnel-visioning on the damn slats, because surely she’d be able to sense him if she were paying a lick of attention to her surroundings.
That was not in Isaur’s nature. Loic sinking his teeth into her left hind leg solidified it.
Isaur didn’t waste any time anguishing over the tiny wounds. She was fast on her turn. Loic was just a hair faster. She remained right on the tip of his tail as they looped under the cart, around the columns, and toward the chicken coop. Between them squeezing through the fence around the coop and bolting inside, Isaur ran straight through a feed bag, unwittingly spreading the kernels all over the grassy perimeter. Streaking through the coop spooked the chickens enough that they were sent flying outside, but their fears were quashed immediately upon seeing the buffet laid out for them. Cat sithe and rat ran on without another interruption, soon disappearing back toward the fields.
Odette sucked her teeth, lazily waving away the cloud of gravel dust they kicked up in their chaotic wake. “Thanks for knocking that one out for me, you pinnacles of fucking goblinism.”
“I don’t know why she tries. Her energy could be better spent working on her manners,” Enora chuffed. She curled back up on the golf cart seat and began to groom her paws. So much for asking her to come into the stable.
The horses were definitely in a mood to fight. Their kicking picked up intensity as soon as she pulled open the door to the corridor. Iron bars flinched through incessant bucking and gnashing teeth, and Odette swore she could see the whole building rocking due to the collective commotion.
“Alright. Alright,” she spat. Immediately, the noise dialed back to a murmur. What was an equine madhouse had shifted to a still, almost anticipatory atmosphere, with every pair of those saucer-like eyes gazing at her from between the stall bars.
This was why she was still okay with dealing with them. There was something rewarding about listening to a herd of carnivorous horses fall nearly silent at her command. It was difficult enough to get one Diomedes horse to present you with that kind of respect, let alone 13. They could try to get on her nerves all they wanted, but at the end of the day, she held the reins. Deep down, the whole herd knew it, even if it wasn’t in their nature to always act like it.
“No games,” she demanded. “I want to turn you all out as much as you all want to be turned out, so if we can get through it without one of you trying to snack on me, that would be great. I’m not in the mood for any of your shit today.”
Fortunately, they were mostly receptive. There was little pushback while she made her way down the list. Diarmait, Salomea, and Peli were due to go into the south pasture. Coson and Fadila were going into the east—alone today, because the last time they went out with Eschive, Reigen, and Tassilo, they tried to kill those three for interrupting their moment of intimacy. Eschive, Reigen, and Tassilo would instead be going into the southern pasture with Inoe and Garsende, and they’d all just have to deal with it. Caretena, Gofraid, Tove, and Dulce would go into the east pasture, no issue.
That just left Ange, doomed to quarantine pasture.
The ghostly black Diomedes stallion in question was the only one who wasn’t up stomping around. He was instead curled up in a depressed heap on the floor of his stall, like he was sick with a bad case of colic. In reality, all he was plagued with was a well-aimed kick to the eye from Gofraid, thanks to a small tussle they’d gotten into on Sunday. It wasn’t a major injury; just bad enough that he needed to be separated until it healed.
Ange, very obviously, was not thrilled about it.
“Aw, Ange.” She folded her arms across the top of the stall gate. “Why the long face?”
She snickered to herself. When he didn’t get up to snap at her ear, or even give her that post-shitty-joke leer, she scoffed. Her humor was wasted on this homestead.
“Has anybody ever told you that you’re a drama king?”
His snort struck her like a taut rubber band. He didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t care.
“You know, maybe this wouldn’t happen if you stopped snapping at Gofraid’s balls. Not only is it really bad manners, it’s kinda weird and says a lot about your tastes. Pun intended.”
As anticipated, that got him to stir. He raised his battered umbral head off the wood shavings, turning to fire a guttural snarl at her.
“Why are you growling at me? I’m right.”
Ange snorted once more, short and curt, and slammed himself back into the shavings. She didn’t want to pull out the big guns so soon, but it looked like she didn’t have a choice.
Diomedes horses were carnivorous, yet as most horses did, they found their weakness at the bottom of a box of sugar cubes. The mere sight of just one could send all 13 into a bucking frenzy, and Ange was no exception. She pulled open the cabinet where she kept the fresh box, wrestling with some cobwebs to get to it, perched on the third shelf. It was brand new, so finding it nearly empty made Odette pause to question her own sanity. And her perception of reality. The rodent teeth marks, forming a haphazard frame around the large hole in the bottom right corner, was the only answer she needed.
“You know what, Loic,” she muttered, shaking four of the remaining cubes into her cupped palm. “I hope Isaur does catch you today.” She slammed the cabinet shut with a little more vigor than needed. “”Cause if she doesn’t, I will.”
Ange must have heard her shaking the box. By the time she turned to face his stall again, he was up, snout pressed to the metal bars expectantly. His swollen eye didn’t detract from the hungry way he stared at her.
She had to laugh. “You’re so easy.”
He didn’t bother trying to deny it. He knew just as well as she did that he was whipped by those sweet squares, going as far as to excitedly kick his door to prove as much.
It was easy to get the lead over his head with him smacking away at the treat. He trotted along beside her as she led him out toward his pasture, like he wasn’t having a mini tantrum just minutes before. That lasted approximately 30 seconds, ruined by the chorus of mocking whinnies coming from the east pasture. All four occupants were right at the gate, harmonizing in their jeers toward Ange, who’d suddenly regained his ability to growl. He shuffled his feet in anticipation to pitch up onto his hind legs, forcing Odette to jerk the lead to pull him back to reality.
“Hey!” she barked. “I just gave you sugar cubes; you’re supposed to be in a good mood now.”
His responding neigh was rebellious. Juvenile. They started it! it said. Tell them to shut up!
With a sharp exhale, she aimed a shrill whistle toward the east gate. “That’s enough from the peanut gallery!” she hollered. “Go frolic before I haul you all back inside.”
Odette expected them to challenge her, given the insistence behind their taunting. Gofraid shot his shot and released a shrill neigh that was highly reminiscent of a scathing laugh. She slit her eyes at him alone.
“One more time?”
She was pleasantly surprised at how quickly they split after that.
“Goblinism,” Odette grumbled, watching their tail ends disappear over a hill. “All of you. I swear to gods.”
Ange snorted; something along the lines of a good riddance or a go fuck yourselves. Now that they were out of eye and earshot, his muscles visibly relaxed and he fell back into a trotting step with her. Obnoxious as the exchange was, that being the worst thing happening on this turn out was a win in her book.
“Now, Grandpa and I are going out for a bit. Gods willing, I won’t be gone for long, but it’ll probably be a bit before I come back to check on you either way. If I catch you trying to piss off the others, I’m not going to–”
She didn’t think anything she was saying was out of line or petty; no angry tone or sense of sarcasm to speak of. The abrupt squeal that burst out of Ange felt entirely uncalled for as a result. Him kicking back onto his back legs, yanking her up off the ground with him, felt like a severe escalation, even for his standards. Her wrangler side launched into gear, and she drove herself back into the gravel, giving him a wide enough berth to avoid being kicked, but not wide enough to where she couldn’t keep hold of the lead.
“What the hell!” Her own yelp got lost in another shrill cry. He was now fighting against her, scampering backwards like he was trying to get away. This wasn’t the first time she’d had to play tug-of-war with a member of this herd, but it was the first time the game had occurred so abruptly. Usually there was a buildup of goading and clear disobedience. While Ange was being a bit of a brat, this behavior was entirely uncalled for for what he’d been giving her.
Between her struggling to keep her footing, trying to keep him down, and trying to avoid having her ribs minced by frantic hooves, she got a full frontal view of him. Muscles locked up, fur rippling, ears pinned to the back of his head, his one healthy eye constricted down to a thin, horrified line.
This wasn’t anger. This was fear.
No sooner had the realization hit did she feel it spread to her. An eerie numbness drilled into her head, anchored itself in her chest, and dropped straight through her core like a falling anvil, driving every single little hair on her body stock straight and releasing shivers to wreak havoc on her nerves. The sensation settled in her heels, triggering her urge to run, and run fast. Surely wild rabbits suffered the same affliction when they realized they were being eyed by a starving wolf.
The path back to the stalls, back to the golf cart, suddenly looked 200 miles long. She felt stranded. Naked. Like there were a dozen pairs of eyes needling into her skin, despite there not being a soul around aside from the horses.
“Ange!” she cried, reaching a hand toward him. “Calm down, it’s okay!”
She didn’t know why she was saying that. The words might have been more for her than him. But Diomedes horses were apex predators; to see one be reverted to a prey state of mind was plenty of reason to assume things were not okay.
She finally got him to settle enough to huddle close to him, her ears catching on the rapid rise and fall of his dense breaths. He was scared just as shitless as she was, but he was still a large, predatory creature; easily her best defensive bet with her rifle sitting stupidly in the trunk of the golf cart. He was itching to bolt before, but with her now clinging to him, he seemed to get a hold of himself a little.
Her eyes cut across the compound, down the paths, and toward the surrounding treeline. There was nothing noteworthy; no stirring or unordinary shapes. Just a smothering fog of dread, driving her closer and closer to the ground while whatever was left of her lunch was forced in the other direction.
Then, sulfur. The rotten, wretched stink of sulfur. If there was anything she remembered from her two decades of magic schooling in this moment of hopeless blanking, it was that sulfur usually didn’t precede anything benevolent.
“Odette! Odette!”
There was not much an owl like Solene could do in an a situation like this, but her arrival with a trickle of warmth in the ice that had crystallized around Odette’s guts.
“I’m here!" Solene screeched, landing in a puffed ball on Odette’s shoulder. “I don’t know what it is, but I’m here!”
It was at least minutely comforting that Odette and Ange weren’t just picking the same moment to lose their minds.
She chanced another helpless glance toward the trees. It couldn’t be anything on the homestead. She’d been working these lands since she was a child, so she knew that the only thing close to this level of scary were the horses. Even they didn’t reduce her to a quivering mess anymore. They didn’t keep any other livestock that were capable of instilling such a horrid sense of unease in her. There was nothing…
Nothing aside from whatever was probably killing the birds.
She’d manifested the source of her anxiety out in the woods, before the sanctum of her own home, and now in the presence of an invisible evil.
Sicut manifestum est, sic erit.
And so it became.
Odette couldn’t miss the silhouette. She constantly berated herself for her poor eyesight, but this entity presented itself as clearly to her now as it had then. Not close enough to see details, or get a close look at its anatomy, or face, Just close enough to see the stature that mimicked her own. The hairstyle that mimicked her own. The skin that mimicked her own.
Chupacabra Margo had grown since the last time she showed herself. Just like Odette had. She’d also learned to speak.
When…will you…sing…for…me…again?
It was only Wednesday.
Her knuckles bleached white against her grip on her Winchester. “Grandpa,” she called, eyes unmoving off the tiny avian entrails dangling down the trunk; a niggling reminder that, at 25, she should have been desensitized to death by now. On the farm, animals died all the time. Rarely, so did people.
Granted, they were never arranged with their intestines strung up on bark spurs, or had the skin peeled back from their skulls to reveal bloodstained bone and hollow eye sockets.
Perhaps that was why she could feel the chill of unease freezing the hairs on her neck upright.
“Come look.”
Grandpa Bernard's footsteps were hasty on approach, gradually slowing to a hesitating crawl before he came to a stop at her side. She felt his stocky hand, calloused and sun-damaged under decades of working the fields, settle on her shoulder and gently pull her backwards. The insinuation of the dead bird’s presence must have stirred the gene-deep overprotectiveness that powered his everyday functions.
“Gods almighty,” he said, his steady exhale catching on the afternoon breeze settling among the thick foliage overhead and the overgrown reeds at their booted feet. He slung his own rifle—his weathered Remington 700; the one he’s sworn by since Odette was in diapers—over his shoulder before stepping closer to get a better look. What he couldn’t see with his perfect vision that she could through her obnoxiously thick glasses, she didn’t know. She didn’t want to know.
“Our bird population’s going to be down before the winter rolls around.”
“What—or whom—do you suppose is doing it? It’s not an animal,” Odette said.
“That’s for damn sure,” Bernard said. He angled his head to squint at the left wing, which was missing most of its feathers. Likely lost in struggle. The longer Odette beheld the ghastly crucifixion, however, the more certain she was that there was no struggle. It was instant. Or rather, for the poor starling’s sake, she hoped it was.
“I want to say this is the work of a disgruntled powrie, but I don’t think any packs live out here.”
“Convenient that this is happening right after the VIPER overlords started moving in.”
As if to underscore her suspicion, the pops of a hammer striking wood soared over the hilly land and through the thick canopy of pine leaves and cypress branches snuffing out the sunlight. Odette couldn’t tell if it was just her slick sense of hearing picking up on it, or if whoever was banging away was really taking their anger out on that wood.
“I’m sure they’re too concerned with their construction to have the time for this. I also don’t know any nāga to leave behind this much flesh after a hunt.”
The fact that his response wasn’t a resounding agreement made her kick the dirt. Bernard was too fixated on the starling to notice.
“Okay. Then it’s another Abhorrent.” She paused, wondering if she should say what else had spilled to the tip of her tongue. “Or Chupacabra coming back out of the woodwork.”
Silence draped over them like a slab of concrete. Although she wasn’t looking at him, she could feel Bernard’s sidelong leer tilling her cheek.
Neither of them wanted to think about the last time there were Abhorrents terrorizing these woods and the bayou they led into. The one in question was never apprehended. Or identified. Even after what it did.
The exorcist’s Consortium dubbed it “Chupacabra Margo,” as was standard with unidentifiable and uncapturable Abhorrents, and left it at that. No closure to speak of.
“Well, whatever it is, it’s trying to make a statement,” Bernard said in a huff, trying to hurry the conversation along, and she couldn’t blame him. She knew the proverb well.
Sicut manifestum est, sic erit.
So it is manifested, so it shall be. This wasn’t something he wanted to see come to fruition. She watched him knock on an unsullied tree trunk for good measure.
That was assuming the threat hadn’t already returned. Disemboweling birds wasn’t Chupacabra Margo’s original MO, but it was adjacent enough. Surely manic entities could switch up their preferred targets in 20 years.
“Pretty cowardly to make statements and not show face,” Odette mumbled.
“A warning, then,” Bernard surmised, finally stepping back. “Of what, I would need an exorcist to decipher.”
“We don’t affiliate with starlings; we’ve never used the astral arts in a day in our fucking lives. So how is a dead starling a warning to us?”
The strict glare Bernard threw Odette’s way left her clenching her teeth with juvenile indignation. He didn’t need to say it; she’d heard him bark the order enough times that it was practically embroidered on the grooves of her brain. Watch your mouth.
Owls were the standard aves affiliation for witches who leaned on the green arts. Odette generally preferred their wisdom and penchant for total recall to the heightened psychic and empathetic nature of starlings. Their varied sizing among species was also quite convenient.
As if she’d read Odette’s thoughts—not that she could—Solene seemingly manifested from the western depths of the forest, where the solid ground gradually gave way to bug-infested swamp, the Onyx river carved through the land in a wild zig-zagging curve, and the year-round humidity seemed to rise up from the fiery districts of Abaddon itself. Her sleek black body came to a perch atop Odette’s left shoulder, chest rising and falling with quick trepidation.
“I’m sorry!” she chirped. “I flew over as soon as I smelled the—“
Odette didn’t get a chance to warn her. Upturned eyes rounded at the edges when she laid them upon the starling’s remains. Her feathers puffed with that involuntary fear response, and a gasp shrill enough to send a pack of dogs into a tumult broke past her beak.
“Goodness me…I-I didn’t see— I didn’t hear—“
“It’s alright, Solene,” Bernard reassured her. “We just found it. Are you sure you didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, though?”
“I-I’m certain! I’ve been on high alert since we found the chickadee!” she insisted, flailing her wings so hard that they smacked Odette in the cheek. Not an uncommon occurrence when Solene was panicking. She barely felt it.
“O-oh, goodness me, I’m so sorry…wings to the High Aves, I did not see anything…”
“I believe you,” Odette said. “I think if whoever was doing this had wanted you to see them, they would. And you wouldn’t live to warn us.”
Not a single deceased bird had been an owl. Just songbirds. Two starlings, a chickadee, and a wren.
That fact wasn’t at all reassuring, but definitely not indicative of a warning directed at the Cinq-Mars coven, or anything Solene would have picked up on.
“Don’t say that! Do you want to speak that into existence?” Solene slammed the bone of her wing into Odette’s forehead for scolding emphasis. It hurt a little when she was being deliberate.
Relenting, Odette reached over to knock another tree. Better safe than sorry.
“Then maybe it’s trying to make nice. In its own exceedingly roundabout and horrifically incorrect way,” Bernard said.
He’d said it ironically, but Odette couldn’t stop her brain from running off with that possibility. An Abhorrent—whether it was Chupacabra, a wandering powrie with a vendetta, or something else—trying to make friends with a family of green witches by killing birds and putting them on grim displays in the forest felt like the punchline to a bad joke. She would rather entertain the idea that a powrie was just aggravated by the sounds of the auger platforms and drapers speeding by at all hours and wanted to flex its intimidation muscle, but even she knew that was highly unlikely. As malevolent as powries were, they wouldn’t keep repeating the same crime over and over. They also wouldn’t have any reason to steal the bird’s eyes straight out of their skulls before skinning and flaying them.
She decided to find reprieve in the idea that a bloodthirsty agricultural powerhouse like VIPER was behind it. Somehow. Brutally murdering defenseless birds matched her image of the tycoon nāga clan coming dangerously close to infringing on the Cinq-Mars’ rightful land. And considering the last time nāgas appearing near Margo Farm marked a period of turmoil for their coven, she felt justified in her wariness.
Okay. Maybe VIPER’s new farm was about half a mile off their property line, so the chances of actual infringement were low. She also knew it was bad karma to let the atrocities of a few nāga Abhorrents from two decades ago negatively affect her view of the entire race. However, wondering what VIPER was doing in small town Limbo County—so close to a coven-owned farm doing well in its own right, no less—in the first place was slowly fraying the edges of her nerves. It bothered her even more that Bernard, ever the skeptic, wasn’t sharing in her chagrin.
“Let’s get it down,” Bernard said. “It doesn’t need to be out like this any longer.”
Before he could move back toward the tree, Odette swung her rifle over her back, Solene hovering to avoid the strap, and tugged the sleeve of his cotton button down—the solid khaki green one that really accentuated how tan he’d gotten in the past month. The Louisiana sun had been particularly brutal in its dying days before the autumn chill was due to move in. “Let me get it, Grandpa,” she said when he arched his greying brow at her. “I’ll give it a proper burial with the rest of them.”
With four other birdy crime scenes preceding this one, she’d gotten the cleanup procedure down to a science. Bernard knew that, but he wavered anyway.
“Alright,” he relented. “But let me dig the hole. And try not to get any blood on you, please.”
They were quick about preparations, from the weaving of a small coffin, to the digging of the grave, to the hunting for a decent headstone. They buried it near the other victims, all marked with their own small boulders, engraved with the dates they were found and warding sigils to sway species of a graverobbing nature away. After meeting such gruesome ends, the least the unfortunate songbirds deserved was peaceful rest.
Unlike the crystals, spellbooks, and curated herbs she’d gathered over the years, the makeshift cemetery was a growing collection Odette was not proud of.
“This is bullshit,” she said under her breath while she and Bernard stood to examine their reluctant handiwork. She braced for the tongue lashing, but only felt Bernard’s hand fall back onto her shoulder. Sometimes he let her expletives slide, during the times when even he couldn’t deny their necessity.
“I know,” he huffed. “I’ll call my friend at the Consortium station tonight; see if we can get a survey out here tomorrow. Hopefully that’ll be the last gore scene any of us find.”
Odette had a sinking feeling that was just wishful thinking. She tried her best to cling to Bernard’s optimism, but he didn’t sound too sure, either.
“I would like to hope that will be the case,” Solene muttered from her new spot on a nearby branch. Her wings were clasped in an evident silent prayer.
“I’m calling this walk a wash. Let’s head back.”
He didn’t need to tell her twice. Odette was at his heels like a duckling tailing its mother all the way back down the vaguely paved trail. Solene wasn’t too far behind.
“I’m going to go do another survey,” she declared. “Certainly I must be missing something.”
“Please be careful, and try not to trouble yourself too deeply about it. This doesn’t feel like anything any of us could have foreseen.”
Solene nodded, but Odette could tell by the pained shroud over her black pearl-adjacent eyes that she wasn’t taking it to heart.
Odette truly missed the days when these woods didn’t carry the oppressive weight of violent death. It was hard to believe that there was a time where she was allowed to toddle past the fences on her own, despite having lived it firsthand. Nowadays, Bernard wouldn’t even let her near the treeline without double checking that her rifle was in her hand.
But she had plenty of time to dwell on that. There was a more pressing matter snagging her attention.
“Something about starling blood that isn’t good for witches?”
Bernard didn’t immediately answer. She wouldn’t have thought twice about it were he better at reeling in his uncertainty. It was so palpable, it nearly stuck its foot out and tripped her.
“I’ve been studying magic for 20 years and never saw anything about it being bad to get starling blood on me. How’s it any different than the Diomedes horses? Or the hadhayans?”
Animals really did die all the time, whether from age or just through the necessary meat processing. Handling rowdy creatures also came with the territory of their frequent bodily harm. The horses, vicious as they were, enjoyed the occasional herd-sanctioned bloodsport, which Odette had the hapless honor of breaking up more than once. Often, at least one of them trotted away with a substantial injury, only to repeat the cycle again once they recovered.
Eerie as the sight of the starling was, compared to what she’d witnessed growing up, a little animal blood on her hands was just a fact of life.
Again, Bernard trudged on under his infuriating hush. Her frown pulled her brow down with it, and she snuck a glance at the back of his mint-condition boots, namely the slightly raised heels crunching over the dead leaves and gnarled weeds creeping along the dirt. There was nothing he hated more than having the backs of his shoes kicked or stepped on, and she realized that with a slightly wider stride, she had the perfect leverage to stomp his heel right out.
“I’m gonna step on you if you keep ignoring me, and I know these are new.”
“Because.” He sighed like his age had finally caught up with him. “Our new neighbors invited us over.”
She stopped cold. “You spoke to them already?”
“Not in-depth. Just in passing, on my way back from town yesterday. It was quite pleasant, and I said we’d come by today.”
“And you were going to tell me this when?”
“Preferably in the safety of our living room, but you’re a little too observant for my intentions.”
He quickly realized that she was not following him anymore and cast a prudent look over his shoulder. She still made no move to catch up, hip popping under her shifted weight as she crossed her arms. With another sigh, Bernard stopped to rub his wrinkled temple.
“What does getting blood on me have to do with meeting the Bonhommes? Is there something you’re not telling me?” she retorted.
“No, Odette. Nāgas have a strong sense of smell; this clan for sure. I just don’t want you strolling up there reeking of a bloodbath. You know that’s a scent that lingers.”
“Oh, that’s why you’re so certain they’re not the ones flaying the birds.” Her laugh was sour enough to pucker Bernard’s lips. “You’re already buddy-buddy with them.”
Now he was massaging hard circles into his face. He clearly did not want to be having this conversation. Not like this, anyway. “Mr. Bonhomme and I spoke for all of five minutes. He had a particularly potent energy; much higher than I’ve seen of other nāgas, which tells me they’re nagaraja. I’m just trying to play it polite and safe.”
That was news to her. She’d known the clan surname since she found out they were buying up that neighboring land—she’d had her best friend, Noel, who lived near the town outskirts on his coven’s orchard, do a quick search on them and subsequently wasted three hours on a gossip-fueled bitch session over the findings—but she hadn’t realized they came from the upper echelons of the nāga power hierarchy. She mentally kicked herself for not asking Noel to do a deeper dive.
“You want to play it safe, yet you want to walk into a house full of nagaraja because…?”
“Call me petty, but I enjoy scoping out the competition. Even if they are on a completely different level,” he smirked, with a coy, almost childish shrug to pair. “There’s always something new to learn in this business, and it doesn’t hurt to befriend the titans. It also doesn’t hurt,” he sauntered back over to brush one of her black braids, slightly frayed with the grit of her day so far, over her shoulder, “to get a soul read on them.”
With him close enough, she could finally see that skepticism—the one she’d been hunting for since they found that damn starling—adding another layer of shadow to his darkened eyes. “Certainly it’s not lost on you how strange it is that the family responsible for a company like VIPER is setting up shop in BFE Limbo County, Louisiana?”
Once in a Blood Moon, Odette wondered how they were related. It was times like this that made her wonder why she kept questioning it.
“Cheap land?” she offered in a weak attempt to exhaust all their options, as she’d been trying to do all day. That’s how he’d taught her to approach everything in life, from hypothetical problems to life-altering decisions.
Bernard nodded thoughtfully. “Could be. But conveniently so close to a coven-owned farm? I have my doubts that it’s that simple.”
He looped his arm in hers. She willingly matched his step as they walked onward.
“I don’t like to judge or assume anything before I see for myself, of course. Hence why I jumped at the opportunity for a visit. You and I will have a chance to get to know our wealthy new neighbors and see what Margo Farms is in for.” He snorted to himself. “And with your grandmother and mother out of town, and thus, not here to tell me it’s a bad idea, I can’t think of a better time.”
He did know his wife and daughter remarkably well. Nana would definitely be up his ass, and Maman would either agree, or want to know if the Bonhomme patriarch was single.
“I respect the approach,” she said. “But my question remains as is.”
Bernard’s chuckle was far more lighthearted than she was comfortable with hearing. “As powerful as I fear they are, I can’t imagine they’d have the gall to cross a coven of witches.”
“Right, because nāgas are very well-known for their astonishing lack of gall.”
“Hun, c’mon,” he chastised. “I have my reservations too, but—“
He’d rolled his eyes—whether out of general annoyance or the required level of parental strictness he needed to apply, it didn’t matter—and barely made it to the other side of the path before something wrenched both his attention and the rest of his scolding words away from him. He tugged Odette to a halt, allowing her to follow his widened gaze to a partially raised mound mere feet from where they stood. It was visible under a dense puddle of dead leaves and the dehydrated remains of fallen branches and bushes lost to time.
Bernard released a groan, stockpiled with layers upon layers of his aggravation. He leaned down and plucked a long yet relatively hardy-looking branch from the ground before approaching the mound like he’d rehearsed the steps. With a thrust of the branch, the rusted remains of an anti-heal bear trap clamped down on it, sending the leaves flying and making Odette start involuntarily at the sound of the cruel metallic SNAP.
“Gods,” Bernard seethed under his breath while he examined the old trap. He might as well have been looking at an invasive pest with the way he glared at it. In a sense, that’s exactly what it was. “When I get that survey out here, I’m going to have them sweep for these again. No damn reason we should still be finding them.”
Odette pursed her lips, vaguely remembering that young exorcist cadet who’d assured her and her coven that all of the traps, initially put out to aid in catching Chupacabra Margo, had all been collected once the team realized they were more of a liability than an asset. The fact that her coven had collectively pulled up seven—eight now—since then meant either someone royally fucked up, or the Consortium really needed to reevaluate their bear trap collection practices. It was a wonder nobody had stepped on one yet.
“Might be a blessing in disguise if our bird serial killer is actually Chupacabra,” Odette muttered. It wasn’t low enough to make it past Bernard’s ears. He narrowed his eyes at her in a way that ensured she heard the “Quiet!” without him ever having to open his mouth.
“Let’s head home. I’ve had enough of these woods today,” he said. She had a hard time disagreeing.
The sight of their two-story coven house peeking up over the fields of radishes and peas was a calming one. She felt the effects of the windchime-laden wraparound porch long before she could see it, the army of chimes swishing away the negativity she always lugged out of the woods. The perimeter of home signified that a safe space was close; that only her blessings existed beneath those black eaves and behind those sun-bleached grey slatted walls. The purple front door was a beacon in the neutral greens, greys, browns, and beiges of the surrounding world, always there to welcome her back behind its protection at the end of any day.
With blessings in mind, she noticed that fluffy cat sithe they left curled up on the porch swing, unmoved in the hour and a half they were gone. Until she heard them approaching.
Enora was a barn cat sithe in name only, and that was still a very generous title. She was enlisted to help keep the property clear of pests, but she proved rather quickly that she was better suited to be a pretty house ornament, or better yet, a bed-bound security blanket. The dirt of the barns—and the roads, the fields, the equipment, and essentially everything in between—did not mix well with her immaculate white fur. The only color Enora ever wanted to see on her body was her flaming orange tips, and gods help anybody in her vicinity should anything else mar her appearance.
Despite her overall high maintenance, nobody on the farm could deny her affectionate nature. She was up and leaping off the swing before Odette and Bernard were past the gate to the front fields. A welcoming, rumbling “mrrorw,” vibrated within her as she leapt down the porch steps to meet Bernard first. She politely brushed against his legs, accepting the light scratches he gave to her left ear with a purr almost loud enough to trigger an earthquake.
“Thanks for waiting up for us, pretty girl,” he chuckled. He didn’t get very long with her before she rushed toward her real target.
Affectionate as she was, she did have a clear favorite.
When Odette scooped her up, any remaining residuals of the wood’s overpowering energy faded away. There was no such thing as the past, or VIPER, or even mutilated songbirds when she was holding Enora.
“Was your walk alright?” Enora projected, falling into a fluffy limp in Odette’s arms. “You feel distressed.”
“I’m fine now,” Odette said. That much was true.
“You head down to the barn and feed the chickens and turn out the horses, then come on back, wash up, and we’ll head out,” Bernard called between his stomps up the porch steps. He stopped just to offer Odette another leery look.
“And please try to be mindful of what I said without being petty.”
Odette tried to puff her chest with blatant umbrage. It was blocked entirely by a plume of fur.
“Fine. But is it okay if I smell like cat sithe?” she asked, taking a hard whiff of Enora’s belly for good measure. She smelled like a heavenly mix of Nana’s favorite fabric softener and sunshine.
Maybe Enora wasn’t the right sithe for this taunt.
“Considering this cat sithe would bathe in your mother’s perfume collection if she’d let her, by all means,” Bernard chuckled. Enora regained eager tension in her lithe body at the mention of a bath, and Odette couldn’t stop herself from affixing more kisses to the side of her perfectly groomed head.
“I make no promises. If the horses fuck…mess,” she corrected when Bernard scowled at her, “with me today, it’s fair game.”
Bernard couldn’t argue with that. He left her with a shrug, trudging past the bushes of rosemary, planted like bodyguards on either side of the entrance, and slipping inside. Odette's eyes lingered on the door for a few seconds before streaking across the black-salted protective sigils meticulously lined over the frame.
Nana truly took her place as the family artist, and thus, the family sigil enscriber, seriously. Never had Odette seen such immaculately painted symbols on the outside of a house before. Whereas the sigils on Noel’s were cracking and chipping with the effects of time and the Louisiana elements, hers looked as fresh as they were the day Nana finished repainting them over a decade ago. They were due for an update soon, but there was no doubt in Odette’s mind that no matter the shape, they would always look perfect by Nana’s hand.
A needle of envy poked a hole in her chest. What she wouldn’t give to be able to hone her own artistic gifts so flawlessly. Her songbook had long shifted from a bound trove of hope to an unremitting reminder of her own inability to release the past.
“Not today,” she snapped to herself. Enora flicked her head up, ears pinned back with some of that innate predatory zeal she still had. Odette shook her head.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.”
She rerouted her thoughts toward the rest of her chores. Dealing with the Diomedes horses would require every last bit of her attention and willpower. Her nagging discontent about the birds and scorching irritation about the Bonhommes would need to wait if she wanted to turn them out without one of them taking a bite out of her or trampling her flat.
That would get me out of meeting them…
She genuinely considered the options before deciding it would be more pain—and danger—than the outcome was worth. Running into those snakes was essentially guaranteed, whether she was nursing a flattened limb or not.
“You wanna come with me to the barn?” she asked between kisses on Enora’s head. “We can see if Isaur finally got Loic.”
Enora’s blue eyes drooped at her. Not with contentment, but with a firm doubt. It gave Odette pause until she broke into an abrupt laughing spell.
“Yeah, I know,” she snickered, trudging toward the golf cart parked in its typical spot on the left side of the house. It was the only vehicle occupying the dead space between that and the standalone garage aside from Bernard’s heffer of a pickup truck. “She’s never going to catch that rat.”
The cart ride to the livestock compound was as uneventful as Odette hoped it would be. The winding road around the perimeter of the corn fields was rocky as normal, and the roar of the combine harvester was a welcome, familiar one. She took her eyes off the road just to see if she could catch who was driving it. Of the six non-related workers Margo Farms had employed—all close friends of Bernard’s and Nana’s—she knew only Axel, Davy, and Manon were out in the fields today, while Ida, Willow, and Tino were in town, running their stall at the market. With the summer season wrapping up, the harvesting load was light in anticipation for the new crops that would be promptly planted the morning following the Harvest Moon. After that, the fields would be in full swing. Autumn was always the busiest season, and Odette’s personal favorite. Nothing beat an overcast fall day, when the leaves were browning and the breeze was prickling with the far off call of frost.
The pale waving hand that signaled back to her made her grin. Manon seemed to always see Odette before Odette saw her. Poor eyesight, even with glasses as big as hers, could be such a nuisance.
“Enjoy your walk?” Manon screamed out to her.
“Could have been better,” Odette yelled back, making Enora flinch. Manon rolled too far out of her earshot for her to hear the reply.
The telltale cacophony of the horse’s impatient kicking and whinnying reached her before she turned into the livestock roundabout. That either meant they were going to be agreeable, eager to get out into the pastures, or they were itching for a fight. She wouldn’t know until she walked into the stables. Before she did that, she needed to make sure Isaur hadn’t inadvertently set anything on fire.
Margo’s other employed cat sithe, the cobby grey spitfire that was Isaur, was a little more committed to her role as a pest guard. She was by no means bad at her job—she had the heft to prove it—but she’d have had a lot more success were she not so dedicated to catching the single rat that had managed to evade her. She’d also avoid a lot less accidents. Davy was still patching a hole in one of the silos from the last big chase Isaur instigated.
When Odette clicked the golf cart off, she didn’t need to search long to find that shorthaired tail, twitching about like an armed turret while its front end stuck her nose into a small crevice between two cockeyed stable slats. Odette exchanged a weary look with Enora before stepping out onto the gravel.
“Isaur!” she cooed, patting her jean-covered thigh. “Come say hello. I haven’t seen you all day.”
“In a minute,” she projected back, unmoving. Bright orange eyes were trained on the darkness on the other side of those burgundy wood pieces. “I can smell him. I know he’s in here.”
“If you want to catch him that badly, let Solene help you.” Wherever she’d flown off to.
“No! I don’t need help from that pretentious ninny bird,” Isaur hissed.
“I happen to like that pretentious ninny bird. She’s good company,” Enora purred.
“Takes one to know one,” Isaur said.
She was barely done growling through her quiet insult when the rat in question, simultaneously the most limber and most pudgy rodent Odette had ever had the pleasure of witnessing, scurried out from behind one of the worn columns holding up the stable overhang. She never looked twice at him at first, but once it became clear that he was destined to live his life giving Isaur a run for her tuna, Odette affectionately named him Loic. He accepted with no protest; the only thing needed for a creature to officially be acknowledged as a witch’s familiar.
That didn’t stop Isaur from trying to eat him, nor did it stop Loic from doing whatever he could to ruin her day. Odette tried time and time again to facilitate mediations, and after the third attempt ended in her bedroom nearly being torn apart by another one of their chases, she realized that was the universe’s chosen dynamic for them; a tale as old as time itself. It was also a sign that she had no business, or patience, trying to change it.
Knowing better than to infringe on their literal game of Cat and Mouse, Odette watched Loic cautiously approach Isaur’s backside, stepping on the tips of his claws. She silently willed Isaur to stop tunnel-visioning on the damn slats, because surely she’d be able to sense him if she were paying a lick of attention to her surroundings.
That was not in Isaur’s nature. Loic sinking his teeth into her left hind leg solidified it.
Isaur didn’t waste any time anguishing over the tiny wounds. She was fast on her turn. Loic was just a hair faster. She remained right on the tip of his tail as they looped under the cart, around the columns, and toward the chicken coop. Between them squeezing through the fence around the coop and bolting inside, Isaur ran straight through a feed bag, unwittingly spreading the kernels all over the grassy perimeter. Streaking through the coop spooked the chickens enough that they were sent flying outside, but their fears were quashed immediately upon seeing the buffet laid out for them. Cat sithe and rat ran on without another interruption, soon disappearing back toward the fields.
Odette sucked her teeth, lazily waving away the cloud of gravel dust they kicked up in their chaotic wake. “Thanks for knocking that one out for me, you pinnacles of fucking goblinism.”
“I don’t know why she tries. Her energy could be better spent working on her manners,” Enora chuffed. She curled back up on the golf cart seat and began to groom her paws. So much for asking her to come into the stable.
The horses were definitely in a mood to fight. Their kicking picked up intensity as soon as she pulled open the door to the corridor. Iron bars flinched through incessant bucking and gnashing teeth, and Odette swore she could see the whole building rocking due to the collective commotion.
“Alright. Alright,” she spat. Immediately, the noise dialed back to a murmur. What was an equine madhouse had shifted to a still, almost anticipatory atmosphere, with every pair of those saucer-like eyes gazing at her from between the stall bars.
This was why she was still okay with dealing with them. There was something rewarding about listening to a herd of carnivorous horses fall nearly silent at her command. It was difficult enough to get one Diomedes horse to present you with that kind of respect, let alone 13. They could try to get on her nerves all they wanted, but at the end of the day, she held the reins. Deep down, the whole herd knew it, even if it wasn’t in their nature to always act like it.
“No games,” she demanded. “I want to turn you all out as much as you all want to be turned out, so if we can get through it without one of you trying to snack on me, that would be great. I’m not in the mood for any of your shit today.”
Fortunately, they were mostly receptive. There was little pushback while she made her way down the list. Diarmait, Salomea, and Peli were due to go into the south pasture. Coson and Fadila were going into the east—alone today, because the last time they went out with Eschive, Reigen, and Tassilo, they tried to kill those three for interrupting their moment of intimacy. Eschive, Reigen, and Tassilo would instead be going into the southern pasture with Inoe and Garsende, and they’d all just have to deal with it. Caretena, Gofraid, Tove, and Dulce would go into the east pasture, no issue.
That just left Ange, doomed to quarantine pasture.
The ghostly black Diomedes stallion in question was the only one who wasn’t up stomping around. He was instead curled up in a depressed heap on the floor of his stall, like he was sick with a bad case of colic. In reality, all he was plagued with was a well-aimed kick to the eye from Gofraid, thanks to a small tussle they’d gotten into on Sunday. It wasn’t a major injury; just bad enough that he needed to be separated until it healed.
Ange, very obviously, was not thrilled about it.
“Aw, Ange.” She folded her arms across the top of the stall gate. “Why the long face?”
She snickered to herself. When he didn’t get up to snap at her ear, or even give her that post-shitty-joke leer, she scoffed. Her humor was wasted on this homestead.
“Has anybody ever told you that you’re a drama king?”
His snort struck her like a taut rubber band. He didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t care.
“You know, maybe this wouldn’t happen if you stopped snapping at Gofraid’s balls. Not only is it really bad manners, it’s kinda weird and says a lot about your tastes. Pun intended.”
As anticipated, that got him to stir. He raised his battered umbral head off the wood shavings, turning to fire a guttural snarl at her.
“Why are you growling at me? I’m right.”
Ange snorted once more, short and curt, and slammed himself back into the shavings. She didn’t want to pull out the big guns so soon, but it looked like she didn’t have a choice.
Diomedes horses were carnivorous, yet as most horses did, they found their weakness at the bottom of a box of sugar cubes. The mere sight of just one could send all 13 into a bucking frenzy, and Ange was no exception. She pulled open the cabinet where she kept the fresh box, wrestling with some cobwebs to get to it, perched on the third shelf. It was brand new, so finding it nearly empty made Odette pause to question her own sanity. And her perception of reality. The rodent teeth marks, forming a haphazard frame around the large hole in the bottom right corner, was the only answer she needed.
“You know what, Loic,” she muttered, shaking four of the remaining cubes into her cupped palm. “I hope Isaur does catch you today.” She slammed the cabinet shut with a little more vigor than needed. “”Cause if she doesn’t, I will.”
Ange must have heard her shaking the box. By the time she turned to face his stall again, he was up, snout pressed to the metal bars expectantly. His swollen eye didn’t detract from the hungry way he stared at her.
She had to laugh. “You’re so easy.”
He didn’t bother trying to deny it. He knew just as well as she did that he was whipped by those sweet squares, going as far as to excitedly kick his door to prove as much.
It was easy to get the lead over his head with him smacking away at the treat. He trotted along beside her as she led him out toward his pasture, like he wasn’t having a mini tantrum just minutes before. That lasted approximately 30 seconds, ruined by the chorus of mocking whinnies coming from the east pasture. All four occupants were right at the gate, harmonizing in their jeers toward Ange, who’d suddenly regained his ability to growl. He shuffled his feet in anticipation to pitch up onto his hind legs, forcing Odette to jerk the lead to pull him back to reality.
“Hey!” she barked. “I just gave you sugar cubes; you’re supposed to be in a good mood now.”
His responding neigh was rebellious. Juvenile. They started it! it said. Tell them to shut up!
With a sharp exhale, she aimed a shrill whistle toward the east gate. “That’s enough from the peanut gallery!” she hollered. “Go frolic before I haul you all back inside.”
Odette expected them to challenge her, given the insistence behind their taunting. Gofraid shot his shot and released a shrill neigh that was highly reminiscent of a scathing laugh. She slit her eyes at him alone.
“One more time?”
She was pleasantly surprised at how quickly they split after that.
“Goblinism,” Odette grumbled, watching their tail ends disappear over a hill. “All of you. I swear to gods.”
Ange snorted; something along the lines of a good riddance or a go fuck yourselves. Now that they were out of eye and earshot, his muscles visibly relaxed and he fell back into a trotting step with her. Obnoxious as the exchange was, that being the worst thing happening on this turn out was a win in her book.
“Now, Grandpa and I are going out for a bit. Gods willing, I won’t be gone for long, but it’ll probably be a bit before I come back to check on you either way. If I catch you trying to piss off the others, I’m not going to–”
She didn’t think anything she was saying was out of line or petty; no angry tone or sense of sarcasm to speak of. The abrupt squeal that burst out of Ange felt entirely uncalled for as a result. Him kicking back onto his back legs, yanking her up off the ground with him, felt like a severe escalation, even for his standards. Her wrangler side launched into gear, and she drove herself back into the gravel, giving him a wide enough berth to avoid being kicked, but not wide enough to where she couldn’t keep hold of the lead.
“What the hell!” Her own yelp got lost in another shrill cry. He was now fighting against her, scampering backwards like he was trying to get away. This wasn’t the first time she’d had to play tug-of-war with a member of this herd, but it was the first time the game had occurred so abruptly. Usually there was a buildup of goading and clear disobedience. While Ange was being a bit of a brat, this behavior was entirely uncalled for for what he’d been giving her.
Between her struggling to keep her footing, trying to keep him down, and trying to avoid having her ribs minced by frantic hooves, she got a full frontal view of him. Muscles locked up, fur rippling, ears pinned to the back of his head, his one healthy eye constricted down to a thin, horrified line.
This wasn’t anger. This was fear.
No sooner had the realization hit did she feel it spread to her. An eerie numbness drilled into her head, anchored itself in her chest, and dropped straight through her core like a falling anvil, driving every single little hair on her body stock straight and releasing shivers to wreak havoc on her nerves. The sensation settled in her heels, triggering her urge to run, and run fast. Surely wild rabbits suffered the same affliction when they realized they were being eyed by a starving wolf.
The path back to the stalls, back to the golf cart, suddenly looked 200 miles long. She felt stranded. Naked. Like there were a dozen pairs of eyes needling into her skin, despite there not being a soul around aside from the horses.
“Ange!” she cried, reaching a hand toward him. “Calm down, it’s okay!”
She didn’t know why she was saying that. The words might have been more for her than him. But Diomedes horses were apex predators; to see one be reverted to a prey state of mind was plenty of reason to assume things were not okay.
She finally got him to settle enough to huddle close to him, her ears catching on the rapid rise and fall of his dense breaths. He was scared just as shitless as she was, but he was still a large, predatory creature; easily her best defensive bet with her rifle sitting stupidly in the trunk of the golf cart. He was itching to bolt before, but with her now clinging to him, he seemed to get a hold of himself a little.
Her eyes cut across the compound, down the paths, and toward the surrounding treeline. There was nothing noteworthy; no stirring or unordinary shapes. Just a smothering fog of dread, driving her closer and closer to the ground while whatever was left of her lunch was forced in the other direction.
Then, sulfur. The rotten, wretched stink of sulfur. If there was anything she remembered from her two decades of magic schooling in this moment of hopeless blanking, it was that sulfur usually didn’t precede anything benevolent.
“Odette! Odette!”
There was not much an owl like Solene could do in an a situation like this, but her arrival with a trickle of warmth in the ice that had crystallized around Odette’s guts.
“I’m here!" Solene screeched, landing in a puffed ball on Odette’s shoulder. “I don’t know what it is, but I’m here!”
It was at least minutely comforting that Odette and Ange weren’t just picking the same moment to lose their minds.
She chanced another helpless glance toward the trees. It couldn’t be anything on the homestead. She’d been working these lands since she was a child, so she knew that the only thing close to this level of scary were the horses. Even they didn’t reduce her to a quivering mess anymore. They didn’t keep any other livestock that were capable of instilling such a horrid sense of unease in her. There was nothing…
Nothing aside from whatever was probably killing the birds.
She’d manifested the source of her anxiety out in the woods, before the sanctum of her own home, and now in the presence of an invisible evil.
Sicut manifestum est, sic erit.
And so it became.
Odette couldn’t miss the silhouette. She constantly berated herself for her poor eyesight, but this entity presented itself as clearly to her now as it had then. Not close enough to see details, or get a close look at its anatomy, or face, Just close enough to see the stature that mimicked her own. The hairstyle that mimicked her own. The skin that mimicked her own.
Chupacabra Margo had grown since the last time she showed herself. Just like Odette had. She’d also learned to speak.
When…will you…sing…for…me…again?
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