She made her way back to the door and craned her neck to look at the touchpad controlling it. If it was a mechanical latch system, she might have a chance. Anything electrical worked on a frequency her magic couldn’t modify because magic predated electricity by a good, big bunch.
Ketha tilted her head and poured power into listening intently. If the lock was electric—which wasn’t likely—she should hear something. Some small motor sitting on standby, waiting for a command.
Silence.
So far, so good. Not electric also meant the door wouldn’t trip an alarm somewhere at Vampire Central—if it opened. Ketha gazed around the cell. Everything she owned was on her back. If she got lucky, she could sprint down the tunnel the moment the door opened and confront the second locked gate.
The narrow trail leading back to Ushuaia mocked her. She’d need to be fortunate indeed to both escape her cell and make it to where she could blend in with the city’s alleyways and backstreets while she located the rest of the Shifters.
“We could shift,” the wolf suggested.
Ketha mulled it over, but not for long. “We could,” she agreed, not wanting to hurt her wolf’s feelings, “but then I wouldn’t have any clothes when we returned to the city. Besides, this is only the first of two locked barriers.”
“I understand.” The wolf’s tone was formal. “I will be here if you have need of my form.”
Emotion sluiced through her, and she blinked back the hot prick of tears. “Thank you, heart of mine.”
“We’re bondmates. No need for thanks.” The wolf subsided into whuffly growls.
Driven by a sense of increasing urgency, Ketha sent a finely tuned jolt of magic right at the touchpad. Something hummed and then quieted.
Hope flared, so sharp it hurt. This was like picking a lock. If she played the damn thing right, the door would open. Ketha thought about what she’d just done and mixed a small amount of air with earth magic, trying again. This time, nothing whirred.
She flexed her fingers and called fire to mingle with her native earth power. Humming reached her sensitive ears, along with the sound of tumblers churning. The door shuddered, but the latch didn’t give. Resisting a desire to curl her fingers around the bars and shake the door into submission, Ketha forced her racing heart to slow down. Crappy control over her emotions had already fucked up one thing today.
Time for success. Not failure.
She was shooting in the dark, but she summoned water. It flowed obligingly across her cell, eager to do her bidding. Her hands wove an ancient pattern in the air as she blended water, fire, and earth. Once she had them in balance, she focused them right at the touchpad and held her breath, urging the incantation to work.
With so little fanfare—no humming, no whirring—it shocked her, the door sprang open. Ketha wasted precious moments staring at it with her mouth ajar.
“Get going.” The wolf’s harsh command jolted her into action. She leapt through the opening and raced down the tunnel toward freedom.
I did it. I did it!
Save the champagne for later, a different inner voice shot back in far more sober tones.
One down. One to go.
Ketha reached the overgrown entrance to the prison cells. She ground to a halt at the barred gate while she peered outside, her magical senses on high alert for Vamp energy. She didn’t sense anything, but she scanned once more to double-check.
Could the fuckers cloak themselves? She didn’t think so. Vampires had been at the top of the food chain so long, they probably never bothered to conceal themselves—from anyone.
One more lock stood between her and freedom. Her heart thudded against her ribs; she gulped air. Water was farther away, harder to access, but she summoned it just the same, blending it with fire and earth to replicate what had worked on the inner lock. Chanting, she repeated the same incantation.
Nothing.
She curved her hands around the bars. Shaking them provided an outlet for her frustration and her fear.
“Try harder,” her wolf urged. “I’ll help.”
She felt it weave its magic with hers, strengthening the animal side of her nature. It had been a long time since they’d joined their power this way with her in human form. She yearned to stop and savor the heady sensation, but time was a luxury. Raphael could return at any moment. Once he did and discovered she’d broken the inner lock, he’d bind her with iron, and she’d never, never leave these cells.
Ketha called her spell once more, taking time to build it from the ground up, one magical thread at a time. She made certain the elements were well seated before she focused a beam of compulsion at the touchpad next to the gate. This time when she uttered the Gaelic command to ignite her working, the door creaked open.
Gratitude and disbelief swelled through her. “Thank you,” she told the wolf. “Thank you, my heart, my life.”
“Move,” it exhorted. “We are far from safe.”
Shaky and light-headed, she stepped outside into a chill, gray dawn and ran down the path toward Ushuaia. She had one chance. That chance was now. As she pelted downward, the phrase, he who hesitates is lost, repeated in rhythm with her steps.
The city spread beneath her. Victory was close, but it didn’t mean she could let her guard down. Breath steamed from her mouth; she did the best she could to muffle her presence with spells. Vamps ranged day and night. If any found her, she was done for.
She was panting, sour-smelling sweat dripping down her sides, when her booted feet landed on asphalt. She edged along the mountainside’s border, keeping to back streets and skirting piles of bones—human and animal. Because these roads weren’t used much, no one bothered to create trails through the rubble.
Soon, the webbing of debris-clogged streets would give way to a place she could duck into, the underground warren of byways cutting beneath the city. Once there, she’d risk stopping long enough to raise her sisters telepathically.
The characteristic scent of rot and death that meant Vamps sent her heart into triple time. Where were they? She was almost safe, goddamn it.
“Not fair,” the wolf piped up. “Shift, bondmate. We’ll fight our way to freedom.”
Ketha shushed it fast. Life wasn’t fair. So what? She increased the warding around her and ducked behind the remains of a concrete-block building. It damn near killed her not to run, but she forced herself to stand stock-still.
Vamps had a well-developed prey drive; running would trip it. Her best chance was them not noticing her. Brief jolts of shielded power told her three of them—Raphael and two others whose energy she didn’t recognize—were headed right for the path to the prison cells, but on the main street. She felt certain they intended to interrogate her. Predicated on the outcome, she’d have ended up their next meal.
If she’d been there.
She suppressed the shudder threatening to make her teeth chatter and give her away. Waiting was hard, and she didn’t have much time. Vamps moved fast. It wouldn’t take long before they discovered her gone. Ketha wasn’t under any illusions about what would happen once they found the empty cell. Raphael would explode, his fury driving him to hunt her with single-minded intensity.
The moment the Vamps were on the trail, she raced down the alley, running for all she was worth. Her chest burned, but she forced her legs to pump faster. Having the Vamps throw her back into a cell—or murder her on the spot—provided more than enough motivation. Familiar landmarks flashed by until she reached the first manhole cover on the edges of the more developed part of what had once been Ushuaia.
Ketha blasted the concrete round out of the way with magic and clambered down the ladder like a monkey, instructing the cover to reseat itself to conceal her escape route. She didn’t need as much warding down here because she could borrow earth magic to hide herself. Not having to bleed off power for shielding would free up more energy to run. It also meant her mage light would do a better job illuminating her way. Fear of discovery imposed limits on how much
light she could deploy, but the tunnels were the remains of a sewer system, and their surface was far from even. Navigating them, while moving fast, required concentration. And light.
She’d barely escaped, the margin narrow enough to turn her blood to ice. If her last casting—the one where she’d summoned water to join earth and fire—hadn’t worked straight away, she would’ve been on the path and met the Vamps head-on.
Or I’d still have been in my cell.
She shivered from far more than cold permeating the warren of tunnels beneath the city. Was she close enough to her sisters to risk telepathy? Ketha had no idea, mostly because she didn’t know where the other Shifters were. She needed a destination, a place she could stop and catch her breath and clear her racing thoughts.
Catch my breath, maybe, but I can’t stop. Not for long, anyway. I’ll never be safe anywhere near Ushuaia. Not after today.
Truth in her thoughts rocked her to her foundations. Maybe contacting her sisters was a bad idea. They’d be as vulnerable as she was if she reconnected with them. Ketha reconstructed her last vision. The one that had risen from her glass. She had to locate that mesa. It was the key to everything. Only problem was, she’d never seen any place like that anywhere around the city.
“Just because I haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.” The sound of her voice steadied her. Having a goal helped too. If her vision that included the mesa was truly the key to defeating the barrier—and escaping Ciudad de Huesos and Raphael—it meant her sisters were part of the solution.
They’d been in her vision. All of them. She’d have to come up with Vamps too, but she could only face one problem at a time.
Hoping she’d interpreted the signs about the mesa correctly, Ketha ran until she was very close to the place she and the Shifters had taken refuge. When little more than a wooden doorway stood between her and stairs leading to the women’s underground grotto, she stopped and called for Rowana with her mind.
The other Shifter didn’t answer, so Ketha tried again. Over the next span of time, she cycled through everyone’s name, but no one responded.
Fear clutched at Ketha, turning her stomach into a roiling, burning mass of tension.
Crap! Did the Vamps kill everybody?
She didn’t see how since Aura, Rowana, and Karin had appeared an hour or two before in her glass. Beyond that, Vampires preferred their victims alive.
Ketha’s power was dwindling. She marshaled what she could and warded herself before creeping through the wooden door and up the stairs leading to her room, ready to bolt at the first indication of Vamp energy.
The wards on her room remained intact. She stopped long enough to inhale its familiar smells and test the hall leading to their common room. If Vamps had been here, they’d covered their tracks well. Ketha couldn’t see them being that careful, and she began to breathe easier.
“You’re correct,” the wolf corroborated. “No Vampires here. Not for a long time.”
Knowing her bondmate was within and vigilant drove her forward. She’d felt it withdraw from everything months back. “I’ve missed you,” she murmured, but it didn’t reply.
A transit of the rest of their home convinced her that her sisters had escaped. Most of their slender possessions were gone, along with all their food stores, which suggested the women had time to pack. Ketha scanned with magic to convince herself she hadn’t missed anything.
Something glimmered under the force of her spell, and she trotted to the long table they’d once sat around. A series of numbers flickered once, twice, and went out in a burst of Rowana’s characteristic magic. Ketha smiled grimly as she committed the coordinates to memory.
She plodded back to the room she’d occupied for years. Exhaustion dragged at her, but she couldn’t tarry. If things were bad enough her sisters had fled, she needed to at least make her way back to the tunnels. She rustled through a cracked dresser, taking what she wanted and stuffing things into an ancient backpack.
With the pack nearly full, Ketha looked longingly at her spell book. It had been with her since her moon blood began to flow, and she came into her own as a Shifter, bonding with her wolf. Because she couldn’t bear to leave it, she dropped it atop assorted clothing, herbs, and other magical assists.
She shouldered the pack, staggering slightly beneath its weight. If she had to run like she had earlier, she’d abandon it, but she was too tired to plan that far ahead. Intent on rest, she scooped her threadbare quilt and lumpy pillow off the bed and tottered down the stairs and out the door, sprinkling power to mask ever having been there as she went.
Her mage light was dim, reflective of her waning magic, when she stumbled into a stairwell a quarter mile from where she’d lived. Partway up, she stopped on a landing and dropped her pile of bedding and backpack onto it.
The wolf was back. Maybe it would watch over her and warn her of danger. The ward she created to keep her invisible was sloppy, but she fell asleep before she could craft anything more elegant.
What Are Friends For?
Viktor spent the last few hours of the night cutting the jaguar meat into strips. Eventually, he’d dry it for longer storage, but there wasn’t any rush. Cold would keep the meat from rotting over the short term, and he planned to package up a lot of it for Ketha. Hunting with Raphael hadn’t been any worse than usual. At least the Master Vamp had drained the big cat quickly and cleanly, tossing the carcass to Viktor in clear dismissal.
For once, Raphael hadn’t kept any of the meat for himself. Maybe he was sated on blood, but surely he had to understand he’d be hungry again before the next moonrise. Granted, Raphael preferred blood over everything else, but his uncharacteristic generosity set Viktor’s nerves on edge.
His sire was up to something; the question was what.
Puzzling through possibilities, Victor returned with the jaguar, tapping Juan to help finish the task. Bellies full for the first time in weeks, they went in search of Raphael to receive their next set of orders.
Their sire wasn’t in his quarters, though. A cursory search of the building and Raph’s usual haunts turned up nothing. He and Juan combed the docks. Maybe Raph was torturing one of the poor unfortunate sods he kept locked in the bunker.
Viktor caught a glimpse of Glenn, another Vampire, and cupped a hand around his mouth. “Seen Raphael, lately?”
“Yep. Sure have. He passed by here an hour ago on his way to interrogate the Shifter.” White-blond dreads trailed down Glenn’s back, and his green eyes held calculation.
“Thanks. Saves me time looking for him.” Spinning in his tracks, Viktor sauntered away. Once he was out of Glenn’s sight, he took off like greased lightning with Juan right behind him.
Viktor ran so fast, his legs were a blur, but speed couldn’t quiet his racing thoughts.
Juan caught up, grabbed him by the shoulder, and spun him around. “Bad idea, amigo.”
“You don’t get it.” Viktor tried to break free, but Juan’s grip was like being shackled to a boulder.
“Of course, I get it.” Juan moved his mouth close to Viktor’s ear. “Raph went to the cells, and you’re frantic about what he’ll do.”
Viktor’s vision hazed with fury. “She fascinates him, but he hates her because of it.”
Juan dropped his other hand on Viktor’s upper arm. “There is nothing you can do,” he said, inserting a pause between each word. “What? Are you planning to charge in there like the cavalry? He’s your sire, for chrissakes. Mine too. You know what’ll happen if he catches even a whiff you might cross him.”
Viktor’s shoulders sagged, and he quit struggling. He had to remain alive, head attached to his shoulders. If Raph killed him, and he was more than capable of that, there’d be no one to shepherd Ketha to the protected mesa.
Juan let go and jerked his chin back the way they’d come.
“I can’t leave her there,” Viktor protested, fighting a welter of frantic feelings that made him long for the iron blade to end Rapha
el.
“You have no choice.” Juan’s hazel eyes bored into Viktor. “If Raph kills you, you won’t be any help to anyone.”
“Yeah. The same thought crossed my mind. So I just hope for the best, eh?” Viktor choked back bitter laughter.
“That’s exactly what you do.” Juan kept his voice low. “We return to town and pretend we could give a shit less what Raph is up to. Later today, after he’s occupied with something else, that’s the time for us to make sure the Shifter is all right.”
Viktor glanced up the mountain toward where the cells were, battling conflicting priorities. When Juan tugged on his arm, he followed him muttering, “If that bastard harms Ketha in any way, I won’t rest until he’s dead.”
“He won’t damage her. Not yet anyway.” Juan sounded certain.
“Why not?”
“She’s a novelty.” Juan shrugged. “They’re few and far between these days. Once he kills her, game’s over.”
Viktor turned it over in his mind. Perhaps his friend was right. Viktor had been reacting, so taken by Ketha, his primary focus was spiriting her to the mesa where she’d be safe.
Safe, so long as he was very careful how he orchestrated things.
The specter of Raphael in the cell with her, doing God only knew what, had pushed him to an ugly place, one where protecting her overshadowed everything, and he’d gone a little nuts.
He cast a sheepish look Juan’s way. “Thanks.”
“De nada. What are friends for?”
“I have no idea. You’re the only one I have left.”
Sadness flickered across Juan’s face, but it left fast, and the other Vamp quickened his steps.
Viktor’s nostrils flared with disgust. He’d caved under Juan’s arguments, but he wasn’t any happier about it now than he’d been when he reluctantly turned around. A rock sat square in his path, and he kicked it out of the way, wishing it were his sire’s head.
The air near him blurred, and Raphael took shape, dripping menace. “Nice, you finally detached yourself from the jaguar meat. That is where you were, right?”
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