She pulled a knife from the sheath that hung inside her robes and gutted the fish. Once that was done, she focused a thin beam of magic on a large flat stone to heat it. Soon, her fish were sizzling merrily. The scent of them cooking flooded her mouth with saliva, and her stomach cramped from hunger.
Unable to wait, she plucked a trout from the stones, pulled the bones out in a single piece, and ate hungrily. She inhaled a second before her frantic attack on the food receded. She eyed the third trout and decided to save it for the other Shifters. She’d had enough for now.
Speaking of her sisters. Where were they? She’d figured it would take them a while, but they should be here. Rowana hadn’t been kidding when she’d said their power was too depleted to shift. Ketha got to her feet and ran lightly to the side of the mesa leading back to the trail. She climbed to the top of the ridgeline and looked down.
Aura, Rowana, Karin, and the rest were strung out single file, moving slowly, their faces blotchy from exertion. Aura glanced up and saw her. Worry twisted the woman’s blonde beauty into something harsh.
“What happened?” Ketha sent.
“What didn’t?” the other Shifter retorted. “All of us are safe, but more Vamps showed up. Viktor and Juan are at the bottom, fighting them.”
Breath curdled in Ketha’s chest. “Why didn’t you stay to help them?”
“Five of us did,” Aura clarified, sounding bitter. “The five young ones.”
“We tried to argue that they needed us,” Rowana jumped in. “They sent us packing. Said we were too out of shape to be more than a liability.”
“They didn’t appreciate the value of mature magic.” Aura curled her lips into a sneer.
“Ha!” Rowana countered. “They knew we had little enough to spare.”
Five more minutes brought the three Shifters, along with Becca, Moira, and Zoe to the crest. They tumbled over it and sat, panting, on the rocky ground.
Moira’s nostrils quivered. “Is that fish I smell?”
“It is,” Ketha answered absently, her mind on fire with worry for Viktor. If he got himself killed defending her, she’d never forgive herself. Aside from that, he, Juan, and four other Vampires were necessary for her spell to have even a faint chance of success.
She sank to the ground next to the other Shifters. “Tell me,” she demanded. “What happened? How many Vamps attacked?”
“Well, now, ’tisn’t as if they don’t all know one another,” Zoe said in her soft, Irish brogue. Red hair fell to her waist in tangles, and her brown eyes were pinched with weariness. “Four of those bastards showed up, and all of them got into a shouting match. I’m guessin’ Raphael’s dead, but he’s been born again or some such crap.”
“Anyway.” Rowana took over. “Your Vamps made it abundantly clear they weren’t turning us over to the four. Round about that time, the rest of us chugged up the trail and wove an immobility spell. Problem was it trapped all six of the Vampires, so it took a wee bit of doing to extricate the good ones. Once they were free, they shooed us on our way.”
“Said they’d take care of the others and would be along presently.” Aura tottered upright. “I’m getting water and, if there’s enough fish, I say we cook a passel of them. We’ll need a full complement of power before this day is over. For that, we must be fed.”
Ketha got to her feet and returned to the ridgeline, casting worried glances down the empty mountainside. She focused telepathy and called each of the five Shifters presumably with Viktor and Juan.
No one answered.
It didn’t soothe her worried places. She turned to Rowana. “I’m going down there to see if I can help.”
“You’ll do no such thing.” Rowana pushed heavily to her feet and wrapped a hand around Ketha’s arm. For one thing, your Vampire most specifically said you were to remain here.”
“He’s scarcely my Vampire,” Ketha protested.
Rowana sent a meaningful glance Ketha’s way. “Oh, but I believe he is. There’s something about him when he thinks of you, and when you think about him—”
“Enough.” Ketha made a shooing motion with both hands. “I’ll give them half an hour. If they don’t show up, I’m going down there to help. My magic’s somewhat recharged.”
“Have it your way.” Rowana smiled sweetly. “Meantime, you can lead us to where you found fish. It’s been years since they disappeared from the ocean, and they’ll be a rare treat.”
Ketha stalked across the mesa, aware of other Shifters both in front of and behind her. Why had she become defensive about Viktor? When the answer came, it was so obvious, heat rose to her face. She was falling hard for him, and there wasn’t a damned thing she could do about it.
Please, she prayed to no one in particular. Keep him safe. And keep me on track so I can lead the confrontation against the Cataclysm. If I make it through that, I’ll sort through my feelings for him.
Time dripped past. She paced while her sisters ate and drank and visited. They stopped trying to engage her in conversation early on, probably because they sensed her attention lay elsewhere. With each five-minute increment, her fear and discomfort expanded by a factor of ten. At the twenty-five-minute mark, she couldn’t stand it any longer and ran headlong for the ridge, intent on summoning magic to cushion her descent.
A Hard Sell
Viktor drew his fist back and punched Daide square in the face to get his attention. Every other attempt at reasoning had brought less than zero success. Viktor didn’t have high hopes for this one, but he was frustrated and running out of time. He held onto the other Vampire with his free hand to keep him from turning tail and catapulting down the mountainside.
Daide winced as his nose shattered, sounding like a gunshot. Blood mixed with snot ran down his face, but the damage began to correct itself instantly. He focused bleary, dark eyes on Viktor. “Let us leave, man. Raph’s dead, and yeah, I know Jorge might turn into him, but it hasn’t happened yet. Not completely, anyway.”
“You don’t get it,” Viktor snapped. “You’re part of what happens next. You and Recco need to follow those Shifters.” He jerked his chin toward the steep hillside.
Fate might play a hand, supplying the Vampires Ketha needed for her spell, but two of them were right here. Viktor had no intention of doing anything but delivering them to the mesa, no matter what draconian measures were needed to accomplish it.
Juan moved to his side, keeping Recco’s upper arm in a death grip. “What do you want me to do about him?” he asked Viktor. “Minute I let go, he’ll haul ass down the trail.”
“You damn betcha.” Recco drew his lips back, displaying elongated fangs. “I didn’t like it much when Raphael ordered us nine ways from hell. Not in a hurry to trade him for you.”
Viktor inhaled noisily. He’d sent the last five Shifters after the first batch once it became apparent the Vamps had zero interest in chasing them down. None of them had known about Raphael’s untimely exit. The second they found out, the four who’d been with Daide and Recco laid on the afterburners and ran off, whooping and hollering like a bunch of kids who’d been told school was canceled—permanently.
He curled his hand tighter around Daide’s bicep. “What were you before the Cataclysm?”
“Huh?” The other Vampire rolled his eyes. “Who the fuck cares? That life is long gone.”
“Whatever it was, whoever you were,” Juan said, “you can be that person again. The Shifters have a way to defeat the Cataclysm. Once it’s gone, Vampirism might disappear.”
Viktor closed his jaws with a clack. He wouldn’t have put it out there in quite that way. For all he knew, Daide and Recco valued their Vampire status and would fight claw and fang to hold onto it.
“What do you mean defeat the Cataclysm?” Recco drew his dark brows into a thick line.
Viktor tossed his shoulders back. The cat was out of the bag now. No reason not to answer. “The event that broke the world, creating the Cataclysm, was a small group of Vamps and Shifters ho
lding a secret spell-casting session somewhere in the far northern reaches of Siberia. They were trying to add Shifter ability to Vampirism—”
Daide burst out laughing. Loud guffaws rolled from him until tears joined the blood and snot dripping down his face. “That’s rich,” he scoffed when he could talk again. “You’re so full of shit, you’re drowning in it. Why the hell would Vamps ever want to sully themselves with Shifter magic?”
He twisted in Viktor’s grip and met his gaze straight on. “You were Raphael’s special pet for a long time. All the old Vamps are exactly like him. Arrogant dickwads who eat, live, and breath being Vampires.”
“It’s the same thing I thought.” Viktor shrugged. “Even Ketha said it surprised her, but she’s some kind of Shifter seer, and she saw the whole thing unfold in a mirror she uses to scry things.”
“Anyway,” Juan cut it, “Ketha believes if we recreate the blending of Vamp and Shifter energy, we can finish what that group began ten years ago. It should end the Cataclysm. Hard to say what it will do to us—or them.”
“Handy for the Shifters if we become more like them,” Recco said smugly.
“Not really,” Viktor replied. “Beyond ridding ourselves of the barrier holding us prisoner—and the odds of success aren’t in our favor—the rest is a crapshoot. No one knows what will actually happen to Vampires or Shifters after we’re done.”
“Speaking of done, is Raphael really gone?” Daide asked. “Or is that some cock-and-bull tale you cooked up to convince us to throw our lot in with you?”
“Good question,” Recco chimed in. “If Raph’s not dead and he finds out about this, he’ll hang all of us by our nuts with thumbscrews.”
“Yeah. He’s really dead,” Juan said. “Go ahead. Test my words. All of us can sense truth so long as it’s straightforward.”
“Test mine.” Viktor shook hair back from his face. “Raphael’s body is gone, but Jorge drank his blood.”
“Which means, Raphael will live again in him,” Daide said, grinding his fangs against his lower teeth. “Might be an improvement—if Jorge can keep the upper hand at least some of the time.”
“Ha!” Recco snorted. “Not as strong as Raphael was.” He scrubbed a hand through his shorn locks. “If there’s a chance we can alter our fate, I’m up for giving it a shot. Daide never answered you, but he and I were veterinarians, the only ones in Ushuaia. We mostly treated stock and ranch animals, but we worked for the national park service too. Seabirds. Seals. Penguins. You name it. If it got sick, we tried to save it.”
Color rose to Daide’s face. “You had to go and out us.”
“No shame in what we did.” Recco faced his erstwhile partner. “It was a hell of a transition from saving things to draining their blood. And drinking it.”
The sound of someone moving downhill fast snapped Viktor’s attention upward. Rocks cascaded in the wake of a hasty descent. He scanned the slope with his hyper-tuned vision and acute sense of smell.
Ketha.
What the hell? He’d specifically told the other Shifters to make sure she stayed put. He dodged a basketball-sized boulder that passed inches from his head.
“Stop!” He used mind speech rather than yelling. She was making such an unholy racket, she’d never hear him, no matter how loud he yelled.
“I’m coming to help you.”
“We’re good, Ketha. Stop before you kill Juan or me with one the boulders you’re kicking loose.”
The slope above them quieted. A flame of satisfaction flickered deep within him. She was worried. About him. Worried enough she’d laid her exhaustion and her fear of the steep mountain aside.
“Stay where you are,” he told her. “We’re headed up.”
Viktor let go of Daide and motioned for Juan to do the same with Recco. “It could be a whole new world out there,” he told them. “Let’s do everything in our power to make certain the Shifters have what they need from us.”
“Fancy words.” Daide shook his head. “I stopped dreaming about ever being free a long while back. Figured the water and air and lack of food would do all of us in eventually, and I wasn’t mourning our passing.”
“Yeah. Me, either,” Recco muttered. “Let’s do this. Whatever it is.” He smiled crookedly. “I want to see if it’s going to work.”
Viktor motioned them toward the steep grade, bringing up the rear. Thanks to Vamp speed, strength, and agility, they defeated the elevation with little wasted motion or visible effort. Ketha leaned against a scrubby oak at about the halfway point. He reached for her, but she shook her head and started after Juan, Daide, and Recco. Viktor followed, wanting to be as close to her as he could manage.
“You found two of the Vamps from my vision,” she said.
“They found me,” he corrected. “I was hoping fate would deliver who we needed to the right place, but when Daide and Recco showed up, I decided to nudge it along.”
“What’d you say to convince them?”
Maybe because she’d conquered the mountainside once, she moved with authority, threading her way between rocks, stunted trees, and sparse bushes.
“I told them the truth,” Viktor replied. “Actually, Juan did. Once it was out in the open, I ran with it.”
“Interesting that it worked.” Ketha stopped and turned to face him, breathing hard. It cost her far more than it cost him to climb so steeply. “Maybe I underestimated how enamored you all are with being Vamps.”
He shook his head. “No. You didn’t. Not for the pre-Cataclysm variety.”
“Any idea how many besides Raphael are in Ciudad de Huesos?”
“Yeah, maybe half our number were here before the Cataclysm.”
“Any other Masters like Raphael? Or goddess forbid, Nosferatus?”
“Uh-uh. Best I understand it, Raphael ended up in Ushuaia around 1900. He’d been in Buenos Aires prior to that and got into a turf war with other Master Vamps there.”
The corners of Ketha’s expressive mouth twitched, making him want to crush his lips down on hers. “I’m guessing he lost.”
“That was always my guess too. He never talked about any of it. Once he got here, he set about making new Vamps who’d be loyal to him. If anyone else ever had a hankering to create their own line, Raphael drummed it out of them fast.”
“Killed them?”
“If his actions after the Cataclysm reflect how he was before, it’s a likely guess. There’s the odd rogue Vamp here who doesn’t belong to Raphael, but they never made the mistake of starting a stable of their own.”
Viktor closed the short distance between them and cradled her face between his hands. “I don’t want to talk about him.”
She leaned into his hands, and her expression softened. “I was so worried about you, I couldn’t sit still. When Rowana told me you and Juan were fighting down below, it tore me up.”
He brushed a thumb over her lips. “Thanks for looking after me.”
“You’re making fun of me.”
“Not really. It’s been a long time since anyone’s cared what happened to me. It makes me feel like a man again.” In truth, it made him feel a whole lot of things, like humble and grateful and amazed anyone could hold anything but disgust toward the Vampire he’d turned into. He tried to articulate some of it, but his tongue tangled over the words.
Ketha kissed the thumb he’d been tracing her lips with. She trained golden eyes liquid with caring on him. “You bring out parts of me I was certain were dead too, but this isn’t the time—for any of that. We need to get to the mesa and finalize our plans. I spent hours with my spell book aboard your ship, plotting strategy.”
He kissed the tip of her nose and let go of her while he still could. Much more time that close and he wasn’t certain he’d be able to resist kissing her, running his hands under her robe to explore the tempting curves beneath it.
Ketha grinned wantonly. “Hold onto those thoughts, tiger.”
His groin tightened with unslaked need, and a fierce pr
otectiveness surged, running hot. “What I want from you runs deeper than thoughts. It will take the rest of our lives.”
The longing in her gaze deepened, sharpened, but she turned and strode uphill purposefully. The faint path didn’t offer space for him to walk by her side. Her scent kindled desire and filled him with optimism they’d find a way to be together once their task was done. For now, she was right to refocus them on what lay ahead.
“Are you going to tell me anything about it?” He followed her upward.
“You mean my strategy?”
“Yes. Before you start, though, describe the other two Vampires in your vision. I’m sure I know them, and maybe they’ll be as straightforward to convince as Daide and Recco were.”
“I can do that, but my visions aren’t always exact replicas of how things play out. Remember I told you I see many iterations of future events?”
“I remember, but that particular vision had six of us and twelve of you. You’re all present and accounted for. Doesn’t that mean we’re short two Vampires?”
“Possibly. The other two were mirror opposites. One was very fair. Shoulder-length white-blond hair, blue eyes. The other looked a lot like Raphael with his long, dark hair and intense, blue-gray eyes.”
Viktor shuffled through possibilities. The dark-haired Vamp sounded a lot like Jorge, which wasn’t necessarily good.
Ketha slowed near the ridgeline. “I can almost hear gears meshing in your head.” She turned to face him. “I could help myself to your thoughts, but how about if you just tell me.”
“It’s possible the dark-haired one is the Vamp who killed Raphael.”
Ketha slitted her eyes, nodding reluctantly. “I’m not thrilled by the idea, but it makes sense from a cosmic balance point of view.”
“Say more.”
“Raphael was in three of my attempts to scry the future. In one, he had hold of a dead Shifter. I didn’t see him kill her, but it looked as if he probably did. In the others, he was wretchedly ambivalent about helping launch the Cataclysm spell.”
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