AllFreeNovel
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There were still some of us left. They were older, far older than I.
The old witch by the sea had been one of them. He, too, had been part of a pack once. He, too, had loved a wolf. He would have been my first call, if not for his heart stopping the moment we’d left. I remembered what he’d seen in the bones.
You will be tested, Gordo Livingstone. In ways that you haven’t yet imagined. One day, and one day soon, you will have to make a choice. And I fear the future of all you hold dear will depend on that choice.
I still didn’t know what he’d meant. But it felt like it was happening now.
There was a woman in the north. She was borderline cliché, cauldrons bubbling, hunched over spell books that were more often bullshit than real. She claimed to speak with those who had crossed over from this life, though I didn’t think she could be believed.
“Does she live in a broken-down cabin in the middle of the woods?” Rico asked me. “Like, eating children and shit? Is that offensive to witches? Are you offended? I’m sorry if you’re offended.”
“Aileen lives in an apartment in Minneapolis,” I said.
“Oh. That’s… disappointing.”
“Livingstone,” she said, her voice crackling through the phone. “I wish I could say that this was a surprise.”
“I need your help.”
Aileen laughed until it shattered into a dry cough that stretched on what seemed like ages. “Damn cigarettes,” she finally managed to say. “Quit smoking, boyo. You’ll regret it eventually, what they do to you. That I promise.”
I ground out my cigarette in the overflowing ashtray.
She knew nothing. She’d never even heard of tethers broken from the outside. “I’ll look,” she said, but she sounded apologetic. “See what I can see. Put some feelers out there. You hang in there, boyo.”
“Have you—”
“No. No, Gordo. I haven’t heard anything about your father. But….”
“But?”
“There are whispers.”
“I don’t have time for you to be vague, Aileen.”
“Bite your tongue, Gordo, lest I hex it from your mouth.”
I sighed.
“There’s movement.”
I closed my eyes. “Witches.”
“And wolves.”
“Heading our way?”
“I don’t know. But now that you’ve told me what you have, I wouldn’t be surprised. This feels… different. Things are changing, boyo.”
“Shit.”
She coughed again. “You always had a way with words. Watch yourself. And your pack. I’ll do what I can.”
THERE WAS a man in New Orleans. He had albinism, his skin preternaturally white. His hair was a pale red. Dark, rusty freckles across his face. His voice was smooth jazz and warm whiskey. He practiced white voodoo, his magic sharp and filled with rough edges. He was a healer, and a powerful one at that. “Pauve ti bête,” Patrice said quietly. “Dat’s all dey got. Dem tethers.”
“I know,” I said through gritted teeth.
“But it’s always been more with you Bennetts. Something extra. Why is dat, you tink?”
