An insidious thought intruded. Before he could stop himself, a treasonous path stretched dead ahead. He’d know where she was, which meant he could free her. In truth, he never had to lock her up at all. Too late, he felt the subtle edges of her magic probe his mind. He engaged wards, but a smile turned her face into something profanely beautiful.
“Lead out.” She hip-butted him. “This room stinks of Vampires, and it’s giving me a headache.”
Raphael snarled and lunged for her. He grabbed her shoulders and shook her until her teeth rattled against each other. “Keep a civil tongue in your head, or I’ll rethink my generosity. Never forget who runs things in Ushuaia. This is blood’s dominion. My dominion.”
Ketha stood her ground. “Funny, but I thought I and my Shifters were in charge. Besides, if you were going to kill me, I’d already be dead.”
Viktor tamped down growing admiration for the woman. As soon as Raphael let go, he hustled her out of the room.
“Remain quiet.” He kept his tone stern and herded her toward the stairwell. “Vampires have excellent hearing.”
We’re Out of Here
A few hours earlier
Ketha St. Ange crouched around a cooling hearth in the center of a group of twelve Shifters. The discussion had run much longer than she’d anticipated, so she added a shot of magic to keep the bricks warm. They’d run through most of the burnable fuel long ago, and this was the only way to stay comfortable absent a constant outflow of magic.
None of them had shifted in months. The shift mechanism blew through buckets of magic, and none of them had any to spare for anything nonessential. The concept—nonessential—mocked her. Talent sat in this room, ability that had close to zero application in their current circumstances. The women had worked in fields from anthropology to nuclear physics to medicine to chemical engineering to her own vocation of microbiology. If the University of Wyoming even still existed, it had long since severed her tenured faculty position.
That happened when you didn’t show up for work.
“We still don’t have a solid plan,” Aura complained, narrowing her green eyes. Eyes reminiscent of the mountain lion she turned into.
“How could we when it requires cooperation from the Vampires?” Ketha looked askance at the other Shifter, whose blonde hair was piled atop her head. Like the rest of them, she was wrapped in warm black woolen robes.
“Are you certain of that? About having to work with the Vamps, I mean?” Rowana asked. Silver hair fell to her waist, and her dark eyes looked tired. Her other form was an eagle, and she’d overflown the city to help Ketha find a way out until scant food and questionable water curtailed her power along with everyone else’s.
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
“It feels like a total screw job,” Rowana went on, “that you finally have a lead on how to defeat the magical shroud surrounding Ushuaia, and we need Vampire energy to kindle the spell.”
Ketha rocked back on her heels. “It is a screw job, but there’s not much we can do about it. Shifter power mingled with Vampire energy is what got us into this mess—”
“You can’t know that,” Aura interrupted. “Not for certain.”
Ketha thinned her lips into a harsh line. “Yes, I do know it for certain. Weren’t you listening?”
Breath steamed from the other Shifter, visible in the chilly air. “Oh I heard you right enough, when you said you’d scryed the past but you might not have gotten it right.”
Ketha lunged to her feet and stomped in front of where Aura sat, effectively cutting her off from the hearth’s meager warmth. “Of course I got it right. I’m a seer, or have you forgotten?”
“Then why’d it take you ten years to figure this out?” Aura shot back and stood, facing off against Ketha.
“Stop it, you two.” Karin, an older wolf Shifter with snow-white hair, made her way across the room and laid a hand on each of their shoulders. “We have enough problems without fighting one another.” Her once-plump face sagged into a web of fine lines, but her copper eyes radiated kindness. She was their doctor and hated conflict.
“It’s a fair question”—Ketha kept her tone neutral—“except I explained how shocked I was when I was able to break through this time. Every other attempt, something blocked me, and I’ve tried hundreds of times. My guess is that whatever was powering the wards around the information ran its course. Some spells are time-linked. Like as not, this was one of them.”
Aura looked at her feet. “It wasn’t that I didn’t hear you. I have a hard time believing it’s not some kind of a trap.”
“Set by whom?” Ketha asked.
“The Vampires. Who else? To lure us into some deadly snare where they turn us into dinner.” Aura raised troubled eyes. “We can’t afford to make any mistakes. Not even one. If we don’t get something right soon, we’ll all starve to death. Humans aren’t growing enough, even with our magic assisting them, and we’re becoming weaker each month.”
“Which is exactly why we have to come up with a foolproof plan to get the Vamps to cooperate.” Ketha licked at dry lips. “They can’t be doing much better than we are. They need blood, and there’s not much left besides rodents and that pack of jaguars north of town.”
“There’s us, and the humans who’ve figured out how to stymie them with our help,” Aura said dourly.
“None of that.” Karin shook a motherly finger her way. “Negative energy will come back to bite us in the ass.”
Rowana got up slowly, as if her joints pained her. She usually shooed Karin away when the other Shifter offered healing potions, telling her to save her magic for someone who had real problems. “Let me be certain I’ve got this right.” She kept her voice low.
“If you’re going to recap what I said,” Ketha broke in, “use telepathy. I don’t sense anyone about, but it pays to be cautious.”
“That was exactly what I was about to do,” Rowana replied. “I want to make damn good and sure I understood you because it’s a pretty fantastic tale.”
“Telepathy,” Ketha urged again.
The other Shifter nodded, and magic flickered around her. Guilt pricked Ketha. All magic cost something, and none of them had any to spare.
“According to your vision,” Rowana began, “a small group of Shifters and Vampires met somewhere in northeastern Russia, right before the Cataclysm, to figure out how to blend their different types of magic—”
“That’s where I got stuck,” Aura cut in. “Since when do Vamps want to change anything about their pathetic selves? We already consume blood in shifted form, so what the hell would we have gotten out of this trade?”
Ketha turned her hands palms up. “Don’t have the answers for that. All I know is what I saw in my glass. I agree it wasn’t a complete picture. Maybe my next go will flesh things out better.”
“Anyway,” Rowana went on, “one of us had sex with one of them, and it broke the world.”
“It’s more complicated,” Ketha said. “From what I gleaned, the Cataclysm resulted from a combination of the spell we hatched up to give Vamps the ability to shift and the forbidden mating. If it hadn’t been for the sex, the spell would probably have run its course.”
“And there’d have been no Cataclysm?” Rowana raised one eyebrow into a question mark.
“Precisely,” Ketha replied.
“Why would Vamps even want to be more like us?” Aura spoke up. “I thought they loved lording it over everyone and sucking them dry.”
“Can’t answer that, either.” Ketha switched back to talking to conserve magic. “There are other enclaves like ours scattered throughout the world, though. I have no idea how many, but I’ve caught pulses of life outside Ushuaia. For the first couple years, we could communicate with them, but then the barrier grew stronger.”
“Doesn’t make sense to me,” Aura muttered. “The deal with the Vamps. Not that I’ve spent much time around them, but it flies in the face of everything I thought I knew.”
Ketha
exhaled wearily. “I have no idea why they wanted to change themselves—or what we would have gotten out of the deal. I don’t have to explain how magic works to you. It usually takes several passes at something complicated before the whole picture emerges.”
She took another breath, collecting her thoughts. “I don’t want to work with them, either. They make my skin crawl. About the only good thing we have going here in Ushuaia is total separation from those bastards, but”—she employed mind speech once again—“we have to mirror the original sin to make things right. And then we’ll be free from here. I hope.”
“Including sex?” Rowana drew her lips back in distaste.
“I didn’t see that part. All I saw was the need to comingle our power with Vamp energy so the spell that started ten years ago can run to its conclusion.”
“It can’t be that simple.” Rowana’s nostrils flared.
“Like as not, it won’t be,” Ketha agreed. “But at least it gives us a place to start. Before my last vision, we didn’t even have that.”
“I miss our men,” Aura said. “Just a stroke of bad luck we ended up here without them.”
“We’ve been over that ground.” Karin shook hair back over her shoulders. “And more than once.”
Ketha scrubbed the heels of her hands down her face, hoping for patience and energy. Indeed, they had covered that ground. Their small group had traveled to Ushuaia to intercept an eclipse that would focus huge amounts of psychic energy at a point in the Beagle Channel right outside Ushuaia Harbor. The plan had been to harvest the power and carry the bounty back to their Shifter packs in Wyoming.
Nothing wrong with their strategy, except the Cataclysm struck before the eclipse was due, stranding them at the southern tip of South America with an equally unlucky bunch of humans and Vampires.
The expected eclipse never happened, probably because of the Cataclysm.
Ketha squeezed Aura’s shoulder. “I miss our menfolk too. And the rest of our pack. Maybe, if we’re successful, we’ll be reunited with them someday.”
“Seems like too much to hope for,” Rowana countered. “The men were never as sharp without us there. It’s possible the Cataclysm killed them.”
Ketha straightened her spine. “Stop right there. Christ! It’s only been ten years. We have no idea about any of that. They’re in Wyoming for chrissakes. A place where there’s lots of food, dozens of other Shifter females. Maybe the Cataclysm requires saltwater to feed itself. Maybe nothing’s changed back home.” She stopped long enough to take a ragged breath. “Hope is all we have. When we let it slip away, we’re finished.”
She shook herself from head to foot to dispel the disquieting image of everyone she’d known and loved, dead. “I’m going to take a walk. I’m exhausted. Maybe there’s some shred of Earth energy left for me to tap into. My poor wolf hasn’t asked to run in months.”
“Be careful,” Karin admonished.
“I will. I’ll ward myself. Maybe one of you could scrounge something up for supper?”
“We will,” Karin assured her. “I’ll stop by the human farm dome nearest us and collect payment for our protection and our magic.”
“Good plan. We haven’t been there in a while, and fresh greens would be welcome.” Ketha turned to leave.
She plodded to the stairs leading to the outside world and made her way to a well-hidden doorway, letting herself out into a frigid day. They hadn’t always lived in this basement, but it was far easier to heat their underground space than it would’ve been to keep a normal house warm. She wrapped power around herself, both to hide her presence and to keep from shivering. None of them had adequate clothing, and the temperatures just kept dropping.
When they’d flown into Ushuaia, no one planned to remain longer than a week. They’d brought a collection of robes for the ceremony to capture the eclipse’s psychic energy. Good thing, since the robes were woven with magic, and their fabric was self-repairing. All their other clothing had long since moldered into rags. Good for bedding material, but not much else. At least they all had stout winter boots.
A shiver tracked down her body as she made her way along what had once been the outskirts of the city. Mostly because the Vamps took over the center of Ushuaia, Shifters had planted themselves in a small area north of town, not too far from the swirling, roiling mess that held them captive.
As if her thoughts about the barrier summoned chaos, lightning bolts—dirty yellow tinged with red-gold fire—surged from the skies, striking scant feet from her path. Ketha made a face and moved over, skirting energy that made her hair stand on end. Back when they were stronger, she and the other Shifters had tried every spell in their collective knowledge to defeat the magical obstruction that imprisoned them.
Nothing worked.
The shielding seemed to feed on the energy they sent to defeat it, so they’d stopped squandering power years ago. Even though they weren’t providing raw material, the storms raging around their slender slice of land had grown progressively more powerful.
Ketha turned south, burying her hands deep in her robe’s pockets and thinking about Vampires. If ever a creature was entrenched in who they were, it was Vampires. Aura had brought that up, and the same inconsistency had troubled Ketha during her trance when she’d “seen” the past unfold like a Grade B movie. Maybe the small group of Shifters and Vamps in northeastern Russia had acted independently and didn’t represent anyone beyond themselves.
The more she thought about it, the surer she was it had to be true. For one thing, she hadn’t heard zip squat about some plan to add Shifter ability to Vampirism. News like that would’ve traveled like wildfire. Also, their chosen meeting site, huddled in a cave in a remote Siberian location, suggested they wanted to maintain absolute secrecy. Something about the northern latitudes made it easier to hide magical activity, and insofar as she knew, there weren’t any Shifters native to Siberia.
A wry laugh bubbled past Ketha’s lips. They were smarter than to lock themselves into Nature’s icebox. Unless they had no choice in the matter.
As if to mock her, a large icicle cracked off a nearby dead tree. Ketha pivoted to avoid being hit as it augured into the ground. She kicked the slab of ice, but it didn’t move much. Good thing it hadn’t landed on her head.
Dragging herself back to the problem at hand, she pondered what it would take to bring Vampires to the table. Would the possibility of escape be a potent enough incentive?
Why would they believe us?
When the answer came, its simplicity shocked her.
Because we’ve avoided them like the plague until now. We’d never seek them out if it weren’t a matter of life and death.
“Yeah, but just because I see the world like that is no reason they do,” she muttered.
She walked past the perimeter of one of the human enclaves. Half a dozen lay scattered around Ushuaia, mostly in spots where they could take advantage of runoff from acid rain and the tainted water running down from the Tiera Del Fuego. Grow lights suspended over hydroponic beds ran off a combination of magic and wind power. Ketha shook her head, fighting off hopelessness. Eventually, the poisons in the air and water would kill them—if starvation didn’t do it first.
The only reason humans were still able to grow anything was because of Shifter power. They’d died in droves right after the Cataclysm, mostly because Vampires had either turned them into new Vamps or used them for food. By the time they’d wised up and barricaded themselves into more-or-less Vamp-proof enclaves, only a few hundred remained. As far as she knew, they weren’t producing children, but she’d never been invited inside any of the communities to see what they were up to.
Ketha and her Shifters had kept to themselves. They could breed with humans. At least they’d been able to pre-Cataclysm, but she hadn’t seen the point in bringing children into the world only to see them suffer.
“Think,” she admonished to rein in her wandering attention. “What would lure the Vamps? What would induce th
em to parlay with us?”
“They have to want out of here as bad as we do,” her wolf spoke up.
Ketha grinned for the first time in a long while, surprised she still remembered how. “Bondmate! I’ve missed you.” She sent loving thoughts inward.
“The feeling is mutual, but it’s hard for me to do anything except sleep.”
“Do not give up.” Ketha swallowed hard. “You’re part of me. I need your strength.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“I know you will.”
A low, whuffly growl rose. If she’d had any magic to spare, she’d have slipped behind one of the falling-down buildings, stripped, and let the shift magic take her. Her wolf hadn’t spoken in weeks. Its appearance heartened her but didn’t yield any clues about how to address her problem. The dark clouds moved aside, and, for the briefest of moments, a sunbeam arrowed through. She took it as an omen—a good one.
Removing her hands from her pockets, she flexed her fingers. Perhaps she could scry an answer to her dilemma. Looking backward was easier than seeking information about events that had yet to occur, but that wasn’t a reason not to try. Her magic stores were adequate for something like that.
The Cataclysm hadn’t attacked their power directly. Which probably meant the Vampires hadn’t been affected, either. Their magic had never been anything close to Shifter ability, but they could cast simple spells. Most of their power was physical. They were faster than anything on two legs had a right to be and utterly without anything resembling a conscience. Some of the oldest could fly, swooping down on unsuspecting prey like a goddamned bat.
Stop right there. This will be hard enough without getting lost in how much I hate those fuckers.
Ketha glanced around, hunting for a spot she could settle in and spin a spell. She could return to the other Shifters, but things like this went down easier without distractions. Even if she closeted herself in the alcove she called home, Shifter energy swirling through their shared quarters might prove to be a distraction.
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