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The Edge
Annie Windsor
Redevence
Prologue
In the time before time, in those last days before mud huts and stone plows, on the dunes where
Ur would rise and give way to Babylonia and Assyria , The Seven stood facing the souls who had
called them.
It was sunset, and more than night was falling.
To the human eye, The Seven seemed naught but shimmers, rising from desert toward waking
stars like pillars, holding up the sky. They touched each other as long-time lovers, and spoke as
freely as eternal mates.
And then a dry wind stirred sand-whispers from the dunes, and the priests of men began their
deadly incantations.
Such hateful sounds to the ears of The Seven!
Crying out, they clung to each other like children. Hurt. Confused. Had they not come to serve?
Why were their former friends causing such pain, such harm? The Seven had no proper names
known to the priests, who simply called them by their animal natures—names later translated into
proper French: Léopard, Python, Éléphant, Hibou, Crocodile, Loup, and Lion.
To the priests of men, The Seven embodied an unspeakable threat. Keepers of true magik,
wielders of the Old Powers, The Seven were strong enough to turn the swelling tide of man.
And so the priests set out to destroy them.
And so the priests succeeded.
Almost.
In a desperate effort to escape mortal binding, The Seven cast a final spell, then released their
life forces to assure reincarnation under ancient spirit-laws, destined to return as full-human in
appearance. Fated not to remember their true identity until the moment of next death—or until
the right blood finally mixed in the right veins.
How the priests howled when The Seven vanished! How they tore their black frocks as the
dunes spit forth the spell’s spawn: seven guardians, in the image of their masters—Léopard,
Python, Éléphant, Hibou, Crocodile, Loup, and Lion.
And so the Montre were born, spell-bred watchers tasked with defending incarnations of The
Seven, those oldest of souls, later called the Redevence. The Montre would be night-walkers,
bound to their spirit-forms by day but fully human—and hungry—beneath the light of the moon.
From the moment of inception, they hated the enemies of their spirit masters. They hated the
priests of men.
As one, the beasts advanced on the priests, slowly shifting from animal to formidable human
shapes as darkness claimed the barren plains.
Terrified, knowing the guardians could not be defeated by any magik known to this Earth, the
priests fell back. They could but borrow a shred of power from the lingering Redevence spell.
Enough to counter the guardians…or so they fervently hoped.
 
And so the Empêche were born. Mirror-doubles of the Montre, the Empêche were spell-bred to
seek and slay the Redevence. The Empêche would be day-walkers, bound to their spirit-forms by
night but fully human—and hungry—beneath the light of the sun. From the moment of inception,
they, too, hated the enemies of their masters.
As one, the well-muscled men advanced on the Montre, slowly shifting from human to
formidable beasts as moonbeams glinted on the changing sands.
Even the priests knew the skirmish would be a draw before it began.
They soon fled, taking their Empêche guardians with them.
And thus the battle ended.
And thus the battle was joined, forever and across eternity.
Chapter 1
July 15, 1843
If ever you see a spotted cat, baby girl, a cat with no earthly business in this part of the world, run like
the gods bringin’ all they wrath. Don’t look back. Don’t look at nothin’.
And if you see two spotted cats, baby girl…pray. That’s all I can say, but you listen. That’s all I
remember…so it must be the most important thing.
Ruli Danbala
* * * * *
July 15, 1863
Late afternoon sun baked Ezri Danbala’s skin a fine brown as she worked the blunt-edged shovel,
ramming it into dry Arizona Territory earth. She wore nothing but a red cloth skirt. Her cotton shirt
bound her waist, leaving her breasts to feel the sun’s searing touch, like hungry kisses from the sky.
Like a true lover’s touch, with a true lover’s passion.
Ezri’s mound ached below her heavy skirt—strange time for that to happen. But she figured it for the
sun’s fault. All that heat. All those sky kisses. Shame on the sun for giving her dreams about a lover who
would excite her, who would tend to her satisfaction and pleasure, and not be frightened away by her
independence.
One clump at a time, Ezri hollowed a long hole as hot wind stirred dust and rustled through
water-starved pine needles around the edge of the campsite. The barren sound reminded her how little
she had left: a covered buckboard, two horses tugging at meager grass in the distance, and an old blind
dog.
White.
Papa Loa was white. And big and fuzzy, with a pelt as pure as fresh snow. The dog often made her
wonder if a bear-spirit had mistakenly chosen a canine body to inhabit. Papa Loa had traveled the
endless road from Louisiana to these godforsaken high desert woods, trotting all the way. Her husband
Delmont made the dog walk behind the buckboard because the bastard hoped Papa Loa would die.
 
Delmont tried to kill everything Ezri cared for, probably hoping she’d be left with nothing but him.
Ezri paused in her digging again, this time long enough to cough, rub her baby-swollen belly, and wish
the sun would finish its day’s work. Soon, soon, her precious enfant would join her in this life, such as it
was.
Delmont fucked her, got her pregnant, tried to rule her—but she never loved the man. Mais, non. That
’s why she never married him. She couldn’t love any person so weak, so petty.
Sometimes Ezri thought Delmont fancied killing her, but then he wouldn’t have had a woman to hate
and insult. So he settled for her precious things. Her cats. Her birds. Her bébés , the dogs—especially
Papa Loa. All the creatures drawn to her by that special shine inherited from Ruli Danbala, her
coffee-Creole mother—and even from Aristed LeBron, her eccentric golden-haired and very white
father.
LeBron, one of the richest men in New Orleans , hadn’t hidden the fact he had a mixed race child.
Twenty-five years ago, on the day Ezri was born, the crazy man freed his slaves, sent his white wife back
to her white people in Boston , and moved Ruli and Ezri into his white-columned mansion. He hired the
best tutors for Ezri, and saw to it she was educated in both the European and Creole traditions. Ezri read
Shakespeare alongside the proper ways to construct a Voudon Oum’phor—a temple for what scared
Christians called devil-worship. Hoodoo. Conjuring.
Voodoo.
Oui . Best they can do to say Voudon. From the old words “vo”—instropection, and “du”—into
the unknown.
It had been Ezri’s experience that the bontemps in the big New Orleans mansions had little use for
introspection into the unknown.
“You’re a special girl,” Papa LeBron had told her even then, back in that time when Ezri never lacked
for love or tenderness. “A child of both worlds. You have more inside you than people understand. And
you’ll remember what your mother can’t.”
Remember.
Rappelez.
Remember.
Ezri sighed.
She’d heard that word, along with her mother’s cryptic warning about spotted cats, nearly every day
until her parents were murdered.
In a way, she almost missed the litany.
Ezri’s jaw clenched as she fought the dry heat and dry fatigue from her journey—and her task. Le
bébé cher in her belly lay uncharacteristically still, as if bearing the tiredness for her. Thoughts of her
parents made Ezri ache down deep, like her heart didn’t want to keep beating.
But it had to. And she had to dig.
The shovel made a loud thwack as she plunged it into the dirt again.
The locals back in New Orleans , white and black, got a little nervous with LeBron and especially
Ruli. If truth be told, Ezri had thought her parents were strange, too. Sometimes. The rest of the time, she
just loved them.
Folks said LeBron had taken an old-souled witch into his home—a mam’bo—an empress of voudon.
More than one person whispered that LeBron himself had taken up dark arts. But to Ezri, nothing about
 
her life or her father or her mother had been dark—except for Ruli’s skin, of course.
As for Ezri, she had ebony hair and the inner shine from her mother’s side, sapphire blue eyes and
stubbornness from her father’s, and golden skin and a mixed patois accent from the blending. The only
time she turned dark was when she tanned.
Like now.
Out here in nowhere, Arizona , digging a half-ass grave for a worthless bastard who made her last dog
walk too many miles.
Damn that man.
And damn me for taking up with him. In my right mind, I never would have put up with
Delmont.
Twenty-five years old. Homeless. Stuck in the middle of nowhere. Broke. Pregnant. And a murderer.
This was not what Ezri had planned for herself, and certainly not what her parents tried to give her. But
as tensions worsened and Civil War circled the south like a dark bird of prey, her parents had been
slaughtered for their open disregard of social custom.
Ezri’s childhood home had been burned. She’d been flogged, nearly hung, and finally thrown into the
streets to wander, dazed, until she ended up on the wrong side of Lake Pontchartrain .
That’s when Delmont “rescued” her. Made her his “high yalla” girl, and showed her off to all his kin.
Until he started beating her so badly she didn’t look pretty anymore. Until the war came South for real.
They left New Orleans then, trekking west like so many others. Meant to go to California , but true to
form, Delmont changed his mind just yesterday. They had stopped here, a hundred miles from anywhere,
on the brink of the high desert.
Delmont wanted to stay. He wanted Ezri to live on a dust farm carved into the side of a mountain,
overlooking a steep drop with a panoramic vista— mais, non. Thank you, no.
But in truth, Ezri knew it would have been fitting. She would have lived where she’d always lived.
Where she figured she’d stay for the rest of her life.
On the edge.
Right on the relentless, unforgiving edge.
She shoveled out more dirt, and a little more, then glanced at Papa, who sat close by on her right,
keeping his sightless eyes fixed on her every move.
Delmont had tried his hardest to kill that poor dog.
Papa Loa had ignored the jackass, though. The dog never lost his pace following behind their wagon.
A bad skunk attack ruined his eyes, left him blind—and sharp root cut off one of his toes. Still, Papa didn
’t slow down. He didn’t even limp.
Ezri made a kissing sound at the dog, who thumped his tail softly in the lengthening shadow of the
wagon.
Papa knew. Oh, yes. He did.
Mama finally took good care of a bad situation.
“Sweet dog.” Ezri tossed another shovel full of dirt from the pit. She could stand in the hole now. It
came near to six by six. “You be my only beau now, oui ?”
The dog didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. Ezri could sense his consent.
And the hole she dug—it was good enough for Delmont now, since she didn’t plan to give the son of a
 
bitch a proper coffin. She looked to her left and spit on his corpse. Her mouth ached from the effort, still
bruised at the corner from Delmont’s last punch.
By all the gods and rites of Voudon (and there were too many to name), she would never suffer
another bruise at a man’s hands. She rubbed the back of her shovel. The shovel that had killed le
bâtard and now helped her dig his grave.
“I told you you’d only hit me one more time,” she said to dead-as-dirt Delmont. “Guess you know
now I meant it.”
Chapter 2
Right about the time Ezri dragged Delmont’s carcass into the makeshift grave, she smelled something
unusual. Something like iron, hot from a smithy’s forge. She wrinkled her nose and glanced down at
Delmont.
Was he stinking already? Because it smelled a little like dead things, all sulfury and bitter and…wrong.
A blood-stilling howl rose from behind her, from somewhere back in the dry, dusky pines.
Papa Loa stiffened. His hackles bristled, and he growled, low-like.
Ezri raised her hand to shield her eyes from the setting sun—and caught a flash of movement. Like
butter, drizzling across the nearest tree trunk.
Was it a cougar? Some kind of wildcat?
If ever you see a spotted cat, baby girl, a cat with no earthly business in this part of the world…
Her mother’s warning washed Ezri like an unwelcome tide.
Raaaaooooowwwrr!
Gooseflesh broke across her arms and shoulders. Almost on cue, pain lanced her quickened belly.
“Not now,” she murmured, stroking the round dome of flesh still holding her offspring—but apparently
not for long. “Damn. Be still, child. Please.”
And then another cry—from in front! And another flash of white-yellow butter through the pines.
Ezri kicked dirt on Delmont’s body, just in case his dead-smell was drawing predators.
The sun hung on the edge of setting, snagged on a single line of clouds.
Shadows played tricks on Ezri’s mind, her senses.
A rustling noise made her spin around, and a shirtless man stepped out of the trees and into the
clearing.
Lightning couldn’t have struck Ezri faster than her body-shocking fear. She thought about putting on
her shirt, but there was no point. The man had already seen what there was to see.
He was golden, this man, from his long, waving hair to his skin. And he had a shine, a shimmer, like a
piece of sun. His eyes—bluer than hers. This was no Delmont-boy. This fellow towered like a tree,
muscle-heavy, square-jawed, and a damn near perfect example of manhood. A mark blazed on his right
shoulder. Ezri thought it might be some sort of star. Seven-pointed, drawn deep, deep in the man’s
golden flesh. A silver ring glinted on the third finger of his right hand, and he was dressed in white
 

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