It was called the Cauldron. A stupid, tacky name. These public “magic” shops were usually where witches sold junk to rubes, tossing in the occasional cursed item when they wanted to have fun.

  Mary strode in. The smell of Incense and cheap patchouli hung in the air like bad perfume. Any real witch had sensed her presence already. They’d leave a familiar or a useful idiot to watch the place. Today they were bold.

  “Sorry, folks, we’re closing early!” the woman in the center directed. The customers moaned and started moving toward the entrance with their purchases.

  Mary reached deep and pulled out the terror her kind could induce. “They dropped their bags where they stood and ran, faces pale, eyes wide with animal panic. Only a brief traffic jam at the door, then they were gone.

  “I’ve never heard of your kind coming to talk,” the witch said. “But if I’m not dead, I imagine that’s where we are.”

  “What does Inanna want with my daughter?” Mary’s voice was low, lethal.

  The witch seemed to choke on the words. “Your daughter. The one you had with Daniel? We don’t cross werewolves. Certainly not you and Daniel.” The witch raised her hands defensively.

  This was the trouble with servants of evil. They lied as easily as they breathed. The more powerful, the more they lied. This one’s confidence intrigued Mary. She stepped closer.

  “You lie, witch.”

  “What reason do I have to lie?”

  Mary knew subterfuge was being used. “You’re a witch.”

  “Would a speech about being Wiccan and a lecture on ‘good witches’ help?” She raised her hands again, palms out.

  “What does Inanna want with my daughter!” Mary demanded. “I can smell deception. And you reek of it!”

  The eight-pointed star appeared in the witch’s hand. It flashed to life, sending fire roaring toward Mary. Her clothes burned to tatters. But the woman beneath remained unscathed.

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  “Cute,” Mary growled, grabbing the witch by the throat. “What does Inanna want with my daughter!”

  “Justice!” the witch cursed as she burst into flames.

  Mary tossed the burning corpse aside. It only fed the fire already sparked by the witch’s attack. The shop became an inferno.

  Mary stood in the flames, sniffing the air. Over the smoke and crackling heat she caught it—the scent she’d come for. She strode through the blaze with singular focus, body shifting into her hybrid form: muscular, burgundy-furred, wolf-headed.

  She tore open the back wall like swiping curtains aside. Behind it was the Lotus shrine and a room full of real power—artifacts, talismans, relics pulsing with stolen energy. Mary let the fire do its work. She stayed long enough to watch them all burn before crashing through the rear wall into the alley.

  People screamed. It was early evening. Mary intended to make a scene.

  With one leap she landed on the mall roof across the alley. She shifted back to human form and sat, waiting.

  The destruction of the shrine would alert them all. Making sure she was spotted would send the warning. She wanted them to know they were being hunted.

  Individually, witches—even powerful ones—were no match for her. But in groups they could be dangerous. Not this group. Inanna hadn’t asserted herself in centuries. Mary had thought her influence culled by Fenrir.

  Whatever witches served her now barely registered on the power scale—except this one and the one called Annie. Even Annie paled by comparison to the ancient ones.

  But Inanna was a proud demon. Even Enkidu, Mary’s sire, feared her minions at their peak. Rightly so. One of them had killed him. Her servants would show again. They wanted Mary—the last of Enkidu’s pack.

  She smelled them as they arrived at the mall.

  “And where is your mate, Nin-urta?”

  “Mary’s lip curled. Nin-urta. A name she hadn’t been called by that name in centuries.

  “If he was here, you would already be dead.” She turned to face the witch. It was Annie—but projected. Her body was elsewhere.

  You can’t trust a word from a witch’s mouth. But occasionally, if you get them talking, they give useful information. “Why did you poison my daughter?”

  “Why did you and Gilgamesh hunt our order to extinction? Why nearly kill our queen herself? You have the nerve to ask why, Nin-urta?” Annie’s projection sneered. “Does your mate know you bore that name?”

  “Does he know the bloody swath you and your lover tore across our great land?”

  “He isn’t the talkative type.” Mary said dismissively as she charged.

  Many of the witches held bubbles of light, or were chanting. She killed three before she even fully transformed.

  The rest were a joke. After the shift, their magic was useless. The mall roof had only one entrance—easy enough to block. Annie watched helplessly as twenty women were torn to shreds.

  When it was over, the projection looked around, appalled. “These spirits all went to Inanna. They will only fuel her power! As will all you hold dear.”

  And there it was—the answer Mary had already suspected. They were after Daniel.