Nothing lights a fire and warms the soul quite like the need for revenge. Both bitter and sweet, it powered man and monster alike. It raised nations and crumbled entire cities in one gulp. And a witch hellbent on getting justice, no matter the cost, was something entire civilizations had feared throughout history. It was no wonder witches were hunted to the ends of the earth some three hundred years ago. An angry, vengeful witch always left a trail of dead bodies and beheaded chickens in their wake, and I was devilishly enraged, looking up bulk chicken purchases. My soul twisted with regret, retribution and reasons hell would be worth the trip, sooner rather than later. Cisco, my friend, dead and dumped without a head, would be worth sitting in a cage in the pits. Innocents being tied down for the slaughter would be worth flaying my soul over and over. I’d done it once already. I could do it again. What better way to slide into hell than covered in the blood of my enemies? Justice, revenge…same difference, same outcome. But this time, I wouldn’t go to hell alone. I’d drag those evil and deserving bitches with me.

Shakespeare got it right. Hell was empty, and all the devils were here. I’d met the worst of them since stepping foot off the plane in Mexico. The lowest, most vile monsters of them all…humans. Hell—the original social experiment, the creator of Stockholm Syndrome, the maker of gambling and addiction, the reason mothers drowned their children with a smile, the patient holder of nightmares—had nothing on the dark side of humanity, and I got a front row ticket to the dark underbelly in Mexico. Every single day since leaving Van had been one ongoing nightmare that only I had the power to stop, if I were willing to pay the price of ending it. When the total at the bottom of the bill was one soul, it tended to make a witch take pause and make sure it was worth it. There were no refunds. I couldn’t change my mind later. Hell didn’t work that way. Nothing really worked that way.

My vacation had gone from painful to bad, to worse and finally turned into another trip through hell, only this one took parts of my soul that I’d never get back—pieces that kept my mind from thinking up ways to kill those responsible for the deaths of many and the torture of my friend in the worst possible of ways. But those parts were gone now, and I was an awfully creative witch when I was pissed off. At least my first stint in the pit only left me with a broken soul, not chunks pissed down the drain. Sure, it was smashed to bits, but all the pieces were still there, last I looked. They just needed to be reglued every now and again. Mexico, on the other hand, stole from me, and I’d never see those shards of my soul again. Soon, there’d be nothing left to keep me from knocking on the door of those to blame, reminding them of why they never should have taken someone I cared about. They never should have pinched from a witch. There was a reason not many sane people meddled with full-blooded witches. Our vengeance was long-lasting and cursed the line of those who scorned us. Generations would feel the mistake of one fool, long dead, in an unmarked grave. Just ask any parent of a ginger child. That curse was still alive and well…and a bright red beacon that told the rest of the world that one of their ancestors had pissed off the wrong person.

After owing a favor and getting on a plane to pay it off, things had gone downhill faster than the fall from grace that had opened the pit, and each day passing had got worse and worse. My grandmother had once said I was a magnet for trouble. I couldn’t argue that point, not with scabs on my arms, dried tears on my face and a death sentence with my name on it. I wasn’t just a magnet. I called it from the rooftops into my waiting arms every chance I got. I danced with the devils, then cried when my feet hurt and my soul was a few ounces lighter. I learned nothing the easy way, and coming to Mexico was a lesson I’d likely die before learning.

Discovering the lie of a lifetime, being attacked by what I had once thought was folklore and signing up for the ‘you-might-die-on-the-next-full-moon’ club was all just the tip of the iceberg, the start of a very deep fall into misery. Because those twenty-four hours weren’t rough enough, I tempted fate by thinking it couldn’t get any worse. Foolish little witch. Things can always get worse, with or without a pulse. I had been eating dinner in a five-diamond resort in sunny Mexico, after having been mauled by a Lycan when my point was proven. It was the first real meal since landing, and with fresh bandages covering claw marks on my arm, I had watched my friend Cisco suffer a cruel death because I was too scared to leave with two witches. Leaving would have meant that he and I would have both died together. I hadn’t even tried to save his life. I hadn’t asked. I hadn’t bargained. I hadn’t begged. I’d sat back and watched his ending play over the screen of a small black tablet. A Lycan, a man, an officer of the law, a son, a soon-to-be marine biologist, had been gone in an instant. His life had flashed across a screen, and the fate of two witches had been sealed in a five-minute livestream. They were dead witches walking. I just hadn’t kicked the dirt over their bodies yet.

The two witches had taken a seat at my table and slid a tablet toward me, one witch bleeding because of it. For however short the witch’s life would be, I hoped every time she flexed her hand, she remembered the moment I’d stabbed her. On the screen, Cisco had sat tied to a chair, swollen and bloodied. His smile would stay with me forever. His cut lips and broken teeth had been something made of nightmares, but somehow, it made him look braver. The stone room he had been held in was built for torture and looked like it had seen the end of many lives before Cisco’s had come to a sudden halt.

His last words were a warning. As he looked his death in the eyes, he still tried to save me. “You were right all along. Don’t come. These bloodsuckers…”

And with that final warning, his life had been taken. He had been calm and hadn’t fought the knife at his throat. I had been his witness. I had been the last friend to see him alive, and as awful as it had been, I was thankful he had someone who cared about him with him in those final moments. I’d remember every detail with perfect clarity, whether I wanted to or not. The brain never lets go of such things. It would stain my soul until I brought those responsible to their shallow and unmarked graves. Nothing I would ever see or hear would compare to the moment Cisco had died. I’d closed my eyes for the finality of it. Watching someone have their head removed would have destroyed my mind and soul, and I was barely holding onto my tattered soul as it was. To have watched would have meant I’d lose my death grip on my morality. It would have been the final nail in my coffin and theirs. I’d have done things that would send me to hell faster than I was already chugging along.

I’d warned the witches as they’d sat across from me. I’d told them to kill me then or risk looking over their shoulders for the rest of their short lives. I would kill them both, sooner or later. My threats weren’t idle. Like demons, I had a lasting memory and would wait it out until the opportunity arose. I’d do everything in my power to end them and their reign of terror. If I had to pry open hell to get my revenge, so be it. What they had done to innocents and my friend would not go unpunished. Hanging, drowning or burning, I didn’t care how they chose to die, but they’d taste death before I returned home—on that I promised. I was pretty sure I’d taste my own death as well, but the price for revenge was steep, and I was prepared to pay. I might as well get something good out of this vacation.

Instead of listening to me, they’d threatened to take more innocents. Others would die in my place until I willingly helped them. They’d left me to my dinner and the misery of what I had just seen. Once the rage had settled, I had to tell Miguel about Cisco, and that hurt almost as much as why I had to make the call. Hearing the pain in Miguel’s voice crushed me. Cisco had been Miguel’s to protect, a member of his Pack, and had been mine to befriend. The pain of it all had rolled from my heart and soul, ending with me in the arms of the only person I had ever loved…Miguel. He had come, as he always did when my soul was torn apart. Like the first time he’d shown up, he’d done his best to put the pieces back together and held me until I could help hold myself up on my own. He had never been my knight in shining armor. He was my wolf with claws and teeth, and I would never doubt again what he would do to protect me.

Two bodies had been found dumped at a local clinic. Although their tags had been pinned to their chests—Cisco and his patrol partner for the day, Martins—the news had reported two unnamed officers dead at the hands of the cartels. They were just another statistic in the war on drugs. They were withholding Cisco and Martin’s names until notification could be given to the families. The general public would never know who killed them or why. Cisco deserved better than that. He had earned the truth with his own blood, but the truth would never be told. If I were to tell the world of his bravery, it would end my life faster than this nightmare could play out. The Lycan secret would remain as such, even if it meant Cisco would be just another dead cop.

Even though I knew some secrets were worth keeping, it still bothered me to watch the reporter talk about Cisco as though he were nothing more than a number on someone’s scorecard. He was a decorated officer, a protective Lycan. He’d fought for the lives of those who would never know his name. He had been worth more than being a pawn in the witch’s game. He was supposed to spend his life in the water, saving the parts of the world he loved. Cisco was a friend, someone who protected others to his very death. He wasn’t just another number. His body had been found dumped on the roadside of a clinic like garbage. I didn’t know what angered me more—his body thrown away, his life reduced to a five-minute news report or that no one would ever know of his sacrifices and his utter devotion to mankind.

All of it made me dig my heels in deeper. The bad guys would pay. They had to. That’s how things were supposed to work. Good guys win, and bad guys get punished. If I didn’t believe that, what was the point of any of this? If I didn’t want justice for those who died, wouldn’t I be one of the bad guys myself? Or was that what made me just another vindictive monster? Did I really care one way or the other? If my revenge killed them all and I damned myself in return, it didn’t really change the outcome of my life. I was going to hell, no matter what. When I left the first time, they’d marked me with a return order. A counted soul is a counted soul, so no, I guess I didn’t care—at least, not as much as I once had and not as much as I probably should. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. I’ll save the worrying for my damned soul for when I was back home, safe and still had a life to worry about. If I didn’t make it home, the worrying wasn’t going to help me get out of where I was going, so why waste time on it?

Of everything Mexico has taught me, the one thing I was absolutely certain of was that I’d never be whole again, not after coming here. I’m changed, stained and tarnished by too much pain and heartache. Could a person lose their humanity in a single moment? Could you get it back once it was gone? Was my humanity, what made me the human I claimed to be, lost for good, dumped on the side of the road like trash with Cisco? I didn’t feel particularly human right now. I think I craved payback far too much to feel anything else, and that included my soul, my mortality, the little voice inside of me that told me killing was bad. If I could ignore a monster in the corner of a room, I could ignore my wildly spinning moral compass for a few more days, couldn’t I?

The only thing that kept me on this side of the crust for this long was my grip on my humanity. What a waste it would be if I let go. All that suffering for nothing, for it to be taken from me by second-rate kitchen witches. I had fought to be called human my entire life, that being a witch didn’t make me one of the bad guys. But I couldn’t fully hold onto that argument for much longer. I wouldn’t be human once I lost what made me one, when I crossed the line to punish those deserving of it. It should have bothered me more. But right now, I needed to be the bigger monster—bigger and badder. I couldn’t be weighed down by any emotion that could break me. Monsters didn’t have room for love of anything other than wicked things, and I was about to unleash the beast within that hungered for vengeance. Revenge, something I considered to be a much-belied concept, made sense now. It felt right, and it gnawed on me like a starved rat. This time, I would feed it. I would let it gorge until it puked. It was the only way to win. I understood perfectly how an otherwise kind and loving person could become a monster and need to be hunted down. A soul could only take so much, and mine was done fucking around.

I sat on my bed in a hotel I hadn’t seen much of and picked through a file from the local Pack Leader, Caser, and the police reports from Miguel with a determined eye. No detail was too small. Ordinarily, I came into the game late. The bodies were gone and picked apart for the second time by the medical examiner. This time, I was on the scene before the bodies grew colder than the stones they were found on. Although I wasn’t a detective or a crime scene analyst, I knew evil. I knew monsters. I knew them better than most. We can’t be good at everything, but the one thing I was good at made me more valuable than I wanted to be. Going to hell for two long minutes, lifetimes for a soul, had left me tainted and allowed me to see the world for what it truly was—a sunnier version of hell with parking tickets and taxes.

I flicked through the pages and photos of horror and death, last moments frozen in time. I couldn’t shake the feeling in my gut that I had missed something, but I couldn’t quite figure it out. But that was the thing about looking at evil. The devil was in the details. I kept going back to the same group of photos. I compared them to each other. Each victim was roughly the same height and size as the other, but they were too different in appearance to think there was a preferred brand of victim. Most serial killers had a specific type of victim—twenty-eight, blonde with blue eyes, size thirty-two hips. They were particular with who they selected, down to the details no one else would notice but them. But with these victims, aside from Lycan blood and living a somewhat humble life, they shared nothing more. Like most of their community, they went to church, were unmarried virgins, led normal lives outside of turning furry and shopped at various local markets. Like the tune of a favorite song that I couldn’t remember the lyrics to, it sat on the tip of my tongue. I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

I went back to the notes I had made on my laptop, reading and rereading every detail about where they’d gone missing, when they’d last been seen, who’d last seen them, every physical attribute, right down to the size of their shoes. I made myself another coffee and rubbed my eyes. There was something. There was always something. But I was missing it. I was either too tired to see it, too emotionally invested or my mind had seen enough and simply refused to help me traumatize myself more. But I wasn’t a ‘call-it-quits’ kind of witch.

Rather than give up, I called Samuel. A live video feed on my laptop filled my screen. Sure, it was against the rules to share information, but if it got the job done, I’d break more than a few rules. I’d go for kneecaps. It wouldn’t be the first time Samuel had helped me pick through a case. He’d seen worse. Even if he had virgin eyes, I’d have scarred him willingly. A few bad dreams were worth saving a life. The moment he answered, I went straight to it. Time wasn’t a luxury I had. And just as he did, every other time I consulted with him, he pulled out a pad and pen to take notes while I showed him every scrap of paper in the file. I didn’t hold anything back. From the lack of surprise and questions, he knew about the unmentionable Lycan. I was thankful there wasn’t a need to keep Pack’s secret a secret from him. It would have limited our conversation and the ability to find what I couldn’t see or think of.

I wondered for a moment while Samuel took notes. If he didn’t know, would I have risked his life with the knowledge of Pack to save more lives? It was Samuel, the closest friend I’ve ever had. He was like family to me, and the only family I had left. If I were being honest, I’d have watched more die before I willingly served him up on a silver platter. But from his nods and murmurs, I wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know.

Showing Samuel each page didn’t stir so much as a flinch in me. The photos and reports didn’t bother me as much anymore. I had gone through the files enough times that the blood didn’t look as brilliant. The bodies were just bodies. They weren’t people. They were nothing more than a book read too many times. It didn’t carry the same weight as the first few glances and would never be as bad as seeing it all firsthand. Samuel didn’t recoil a single time. It made me sad for him to know he had seen so much over his lifetimes that horror like this didn’t faze him.

“What’s going on, Ailis?” Samuel stopped the show. “Something, not just this, is bothering you. Spit it out. I can’t focus on your crime scene when I’m worried about you. You’re off—and don’t tell me it’s these crimes.”

I groaned. “I think you already know. It’s Miguel. It’s always Miguel.”