Panic hit me in a way it rarely does. I can heal and survive many things, but my body being ripped apart by these adolescent predators? I wasn’t sure even Shar could reverse that—or what’s more, that she would.

I’d always made a habit of shirking Shar’s “suggestions,” and who knows, maybe that makes me a fool. But I can’t just sit back and watch innocent people die and do nothing about it. Beats the hell out of me how she can.

Even more than my predicament, the young woman beside me didn’t deserve to be a goddamn posthumous snack.

“Who is this?” the de facto leader asked.

“Got dumped off with her,” my captor said. “No clue. Some hillbilly who won’t be missed. Figured they could use the extra meat, growing fast as they are.”

“You figured.” I heard whoever it was stand. This man was huge, that was for sure. And I couldn’t see it from how I was positioned, but the one who’d dragged me was smacked hard enough to hit a wall. “What do I always say about unprocessed bodies?”

The man coughed, then sniveled, “They got baggage.”

“Exactly. Doubly so in a city this size. Could be the loneliest man alive and still have eyes on him. And you just figure?”

“What’d you want me to do—leave him out in the front yard?”

“You should have sent him back with those useless shuckers!” A throat was squeezed. I could tell by the gargling. “I pay for discretion. Otherwise, I’d have the children handle it. Let the Voodoo Queen take the heat, not us. Is that understood?”

I heard only a gag.

“I said is that understood!”

“Y… es!” my dragger managed to squeeze out.

“Good. When we’re done here, pay a visit to our partners and shuck out an eye on each of them. They taste better than the gobs those ingrates peddle us anyway.”

The man nervous-chuckled. “Y-Yes, boss.”

“Now, let’s get a look at this stranger.” Heavy feet stomped closer to me. As they did, I listened closely. Now, I could hear my flesh and sinew slowly mending and the soft crackle of bones fusing. From what I could see, my whole hand twitched. Then my jaw. Foot.

My reanimation was near complete.

I dared not test any longer and reveal my secret too early. All I did was let my right hand gradually slide toward the grip of my pistol out of sight and bide my time. The leader took a big whiff through a nose that didn’t sound quite human.

Then he came around to my front, and I saw his yellow eyes. That was why he sounded familiar. It’d been over a decade since our last encounter, but this was a werewolf. And not just any. Rougarou, ruler of the underworld beneath the human underworld of Crescent City, when last we met. Though back then, he made his home in the city sewers by the water and not all the way out here.

Funny enough, he was to be my next visit after the morgue. We hadn’t left things on very favorable terms, so I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. But I guess fate has a way of screwing with me.

Good old Roo belonged to a rare breed of weres known as loup-garou who didn’t only rely on the full moon to bring about their horrific transformations. They turned each and every night, which made them far more frightening, though also more reasonable. They had time to grow accustomed to their monstrous, ravenous alter egos, whereas the more common weres turned so sparingly, they usually wound up more crazed for blood and chaos.

Sort of a pick-your-poison situation if you ask me.

Two grotesque, hairy feet with claws dug into the dirt. He hunched a bit, but loup-garou were different from their cousins. More human and upright from the neck down. And even in their faces, there remained human lines to show personality. Shorter snout. More defined neck. Familiar musculature all around.

That, and most wore clothes. With their shifting being more of a routine, they didn’t tear through trousers on the full moon. In Rougarou’s case, he had a suit jacket and pants custom-tailored for his proportions. Might as well plop a bowler hat on his dome.

He gave me a whiff from afar. “Stinks worse than the French Quarter.”

His men forced a laugh.

Rougarou leaned in closer. I waited until the right moment when he was off-balance, then sprang up, drawing a pistol and shoving it right under his furry jaw. One of my legs wobbled—I still wasn’t perfectly intact—but my hand stayed true.

“Nice to see you again, Roo,” I growled, slurring a bit as my vocal cords sorted themselves.

Growls issued all around. But old Roo’s shock dissipated fast, and instead of anger, he sneered in the best way his wolf mouth could.

“If it ain’t James Crowley,” he said. “Everyone, settle down. He’s as harmless as my pups.”

“I got a bit of silver in here that says otherwise,” I spat back.

“Do you, now?”

“You wanna find out?” I cocked my gun’s hammer. He flinched. Almost imperceptibly, but I noticed. That got his men fussing again. In my peripherals, I noticed the two responsible for bringing me out here.

Roo lifted one of his claws and traced the still-healing gash on my neck. “You know, we always wondered what would happen if you or your kind lost your head.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“You and me both,” I said, shrugging. “Lightning bolt from the sky, probably. You know who we serve.”

He grunted. “Somehow, I think they’d just replace you. Easier than lifting a holy finger.”

My tongue caught. Was he right?

“Did I strike a nerve, Crowley?” he asked.

“I don’t got any,” I said. “And maybe you’re right, but the next ‘me’ sent here might not be so friendly.”

“Friendly? You?”

“You’re alive, ain’t you?” My gaze flitted to the jagged, pale scar on the right side of his chest, where a silver bullet from the chamber of this very pistol had once struck.

He grew cross. “That was a lucky shot.”

I exhaled in frustration. “Look, I ain’t here for you.”

“You said that last time.”

“And you got in the way. It doesn’t have to be like that this time. You can help willingly. Gain favor with my superiors.”

That got him to perk up. “Oh yeah?”

“Sure.” It was a little fib, but I still had cards to play. “Before we get to that, I’m gonna need you to return that girl’s body so she can go in peace.”

I wasn’t ever a religious man—I know, weird to say when I’m intimately aware the other side is actually there. And I was definitely unsure if a proper burial with a priest and all that fliberty jabby would help redeem her for the sin of taking her own life. Or if she had family that would care. Maybe a husband. Babies don’t just appear in bellies… Well, except for that famous one. Still, I highly doubted we were arguing over the next immaculate conception.

“No can do,” Rougarou said. “My children gotta eat.”

“So feed them a gator.”

He shook his head. “We eat plenty of game, but it just doesn’t quite have the same nutrition. Human flesh curbs the bloodlust. You know that. And I suspect we both would rather us eat the newly dead than the still-living.”

He wasn’t wrong there. Rougarou was a power in Crescent City well before I met him a decade or so ago, and still now, after all this time. He didn’t do that by unleashing his pack on unsuspecting civilians. He’d worked hard to instill a sense of patience in them. Teach them to operate in the shadows and manage their hunger.

“And I appreciate that,” I said. “But not her.”

“What’s she, your daughter or something? I know she ain’t a lover,” Rougarou said. “I heard the plumbing don’t work downstairs.” He laughed. “She’s nobody, Crowley! A whore from a brothel who not nobody will care about. And we have to lay extra low with all the feds sniffing ’round these days, what with senators dying.”

“Feds… Them marshals don’t know their assholes from their blowholes.”

“That may be, but there’s strength in numbers.”

This wasn’t getting us anywhere. To be expected, really. I’d shot him. And near-death experiences lend themselves to judicious behavior. Also makes things personal, but Roo wasn’t as dumb as most of his kind.

“I hear there’s a vampire problem in Crescent City these days,” I said, shifting the conversation in a direction I hoped would help. “That can’t be easy, what with you both having a taste for humans.”

“We manage,” he grumbled. But I could tell it was me who struck a nerve this time.

“Do you? Or is that why you’re stuck picking up the scraps from dead houses? You know, seeing as they’re stronger and faster than—”

Rougarou snarled and swung. The back of his thick, furred hand caught me in the chest, sending me flying against the stable wall. My gun went off before it flew from my grasp, just missing his ear.

It was an awful reminder of the day I died in a similar venue amid gunfire.

He stalked toward me, hunching and growing more grotesque and seemingly inhuman with every step. “There’s plenty of room in my city to share, Crowley. You come here all these years later thinking you still got a pulse on the place?”

I went for my other pistol. His foot slammed down on my forearm. Before I could reach for anything else, his two men hopped to restrain my arms.

“You think you can tell us what to eat?” Roo slashed my collar with a single claw, revealing the black scar on my chest. “I ought to tear your head off all the way this time.” He spread the rest of his claws against my chest and started to dig.

Now would be a good time for that lightning bolt, I thought, channeling Shar. She’s never there when I need her, though.

“Be smart, wolf,” I said, trying not to show my very real concern. “There are worse enemies to have than marshals. I’m after a vampire lady, not you. As beautiful as she is deadly. Likes to get off while she drains men.”

At that, Rougarou backed off me. “Tourmaline?”

“Maybe.” Didn’t know her name; now I do.

“You’re after Tourmaline?” he asked, a slight chuckle in the question.

“Sounds like it.”

“Well, putain de merde. That’d be more fun to watch than anything I could do to you. You think you’ve got the balls to run up against her?”

“Sure I’ve seen worse,” I said.

He shook his big wolf head. “I doubt it.”

“If you’re done posturing…”

For all I knew, Roo had made that name up. He lies more than he breathes, and it wouldn’t have been unlike him to play games.

“She runs a brothel in the quarter. That was one of her cocottes,” he said, nodding toward the dead girl. “Not a vamp, though, clearly. So, the White Throne wants Tourmaline dead?”

I shook my head. “Her maker, I think. But sometimes other people get in the way.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“Would that appeal to you, Roo? Last we met, you had a nice setup downtown. I figure it can’t only be the law that’s got you hiding out here.”

“You think I’m scared of her?” he roared.

I pressed my palms placatingly. “Now, now. I’m just deducing information.”

“Well, you deduced wrong, cowboy. It’s safer for my children out here.”

“Right. And young vamps are simple. Mindless. I’ve heard what can happen when a highborn lord or lady sets up shop. They get their fangs in everything. Sooner or later, you’ll be cattle instead of wolves.”

Rougarou took a beat. I struggled to get a read on him, no doubt aided by his less-than-human features. He turned and strode toward the pups, who howled and squealed, eager for meat.

“Let’s just rip him apart here and now, boss,” one of the thugs holding me said.

“Yeah, you remember last time,” barked the other. “We can send him home to St. Louis Cathedral in a bag.”

“I don’t need your help, mongrels!” Rougarou snarled as he whipped around. “And you.” He stuck a razor-sharp nail in my direction. “You couldn’t even handle two lowlifes. You think you can take on Tourmaline?”

“I don’t get snuck up on twice.”

“Or you’re getting old.”

“I don’t age.”

Rougarou scratched lightly at the side of his head. “I mean in here.”

“Look.” I scooted back to a more upright position, attempting to pull free of the thugs. They resisted, but Rougarou nodded for them to allow it. “I can either go in there guns blazing and get more heat on the city. Or you can take me to her for a meeting, and we keep it personal. I prefer the latter.”

“And then you kill her?” he asked.

“I do what needs doing. And then you do what needs doing. You’ll have a favor from me and my benefactors in your pocket. And in exchange, all I’m asking is for you to find your pups another meal. Leave that girl be in peace.”

“And a meeting,” Roo said.

“That’s implied.”

He growled, low and thoughtful. Then he turned back to his pups. They yapped and jumped at him, nibbling on his claws. Wouldn’t be long before their teeth were big and sharp enough to tear them off.

“You got yourself a deal,” he said.

“But, boss, he—”

“I have spoken. Have her returned for rights. Then slaughter and bring one of the spare horses. If my children can’t eat well tonight, they’ll eat big.”

I swallowed. Save a woman. Damn a horse. I’d have to make sure Timp never found out, or she’d make life on the road a living hell for weeks, bucking and being obstinate.

Rougarou returned to me, picking up the pistol I’d dropped and handing it over. “You’re lucky I like you, Crowley. You’ve got a pair on you that drags in the dirt.”

I chuckled. “You’re gonna make me blush.” I stretched out of reflex, all my parts seeming to work correctly again. Moving to the pups, I stuck my pistol out and let them chew on the barrel.

“So, when do I get to meet their mother?”