Her mind was wandering, no doubt as an antidote to the crippling sense of responsibility that left her with a breathless, choking sensation. She cleared her throat. “Group two will be comprised of…”
It only took a few minutes to divvy up who’d be doing what. “Remember.” She let her gaze settle briefly on each of them. “Your job is not only to create an opening in your layer, but to keep it that way so the team who comes after you has space to work. It will become progressively harder—and require more magic—the deeper we get into the Cataclysm. It will fight back. Guard your minds. Even better, ward them if you have any power to spare.”
“It’s time.” Tessa jerked her chin toward the cave’s entrance. Night’s blackness was yielding to a pallid gray.
Raziel trotted in front of Ketha. “You failed to assign me.”
She furled her brows. “I figured you wouldn’t accept my direction. Add your power where it’s needed most.” She bit her lower lip. “Will Raphael—er, Jorge—show up?”
Fierce light flared from the depths of Raziel’s blue eyes. “This much magic concentrated in one place will be impossible to ignore—even for a Vampire.”
“You wanted an assignment?” She curled her lips back from her teeth. Even thinking about what remained of the Master Vamp made her ill. “Make sure Jorge doesn’t interfere. No one else will have enough power left over to deal with him.”
“Easier said than done.” Raziel bowed low. “Better get moving, or you’ll lose the advantage of an auspicious juxtaposition of the sun, date, and time. I know you can’t see the sun, but trust me, it’s still up there.”
Ketha headed outside with Viktor right behind her. “Thanks for being my partner,” she murmured.
“Wouldn’t have it any other way.” His deep voice rumbled near her ear. “Even if you’d tried to split us up, I’d have traded with one of the other Vamps.”
Aura joined them, looking pale but determined. “We have the innermost layer. It will be the hardest.”
“And the most dangerous.” Ketha narrowed her eyes. “If you want to swap places with one of our sisters—”
“Stop right there. If we fail, we’ll be first to be swept into the Cataclysm, but everyone else will end up there too. For once being on the front lines isn’t any riskier. Too bad the prophecy isn’t in play.”
“I thought it was unfinished,” Viktor cut in. “Doesn’t that mean you don’t know how it ends?”
“Of course.” Aura stared him down. “But another Archangel would almost have to skew things in our favor, and the odds of one showing up are nil.” She hesitated a beat. “Prophecies are allegory, though, so this might be a version of the one I recognized—even absent the real Raphael.”
A sheepish look crossed Aura’s face. “Sorry. I wish I could pin things down better than that.”
Ketha didn’t agree about Archangels conferring advantages, but she kept her mouth shut. From what she knew about Raziel, she wasn’t at all sure two of him would do anything beyond muddy the waters. Especially if the Archangel Raphael was as high-handed, conflicted, and bitter as Raziel appeared to be. Besides, the prophecy suggested they had to pick one.
We did. Raziel.
She sent a prayer winging skyward, hoping to hell they’d done enough, that the prophecy would play itself out in their favor.
The Shifters who cast the tarot had determined the most auspicious spot for their spell was on the far side of the mesa. As the sky lightened, the first group gathered, forming a ragged line with Juan at its center. Condors emerged from their nesting caves, cawing and shrieking before some of the birds—no doubt the ones with younglings—retreated inside. Others took flight, filling the air with outraged squawks. Long, black feathers fluttered down.
Ketha didn’t blame them for their fury. They’d likely hidden out here since the Cataclysm, raising generations of condors in the absence of human interference. Scant days had passed since Viktor discovered the place, and the birds’ survival was already threatened.
She focused her attention on the four Shifters and Juan. The women’s magic surrounded the Vampire. He was there to potentiate Shifter power, strengthen it with his very different brand of supernatural ability.
“This is going to happen fast, isn’t it?” Viktor spoke near her ear.
Ketha nodded, never taking her gaze from the tableau unfolding before her. “Everything magical happens fast, but it won’t seem that way. It might feel like several lifetimes elapse before we’re done. Assuming this doesn’t blow up in our faces before we get anywhere near the finish line.”
She ran lightly to the second group—two Shifters and Recco—and motioned them into position a short distance from Rowana, Moire, and Zoe, who were chanting furiously, power flashing from their fingertips. Tessa paced between the first two groups, looking tense. Ketha made sure the third and fourth groups were ready before sprinting back to Viktor and Aura.
The air developed an electric quality, and the stench of ozone made her nose prickle unpleasantly. Raziel stood off to one side, his hands lowered. Though the Archangel was still as death, Ketha wasn’t fooled. He’d compromised the part of him that hated supernatural beings like herself. This was one task that would have been easy to avoid, yet he’d attacked it head-on.
She offered him points, no matter what drove him.
“Look.” Viktor pointed toward the first two groups. Blue-white light arced from the Shifters’ fingers before shading to silver.
Ketha blew out a tightly held breath. Soon, very soon, she’d know if they had a prayer of this working. Would the Shifters have enough power to sever the strands holding the Cataclysm together? She focused her third eye, shutting off the mesa spread around her.
The Cataclysm formed in her psychic vision. A roiling mass of angry red, sickly yellow, and vomit-colored brown. Tentacles shot out from it in all directions. Some augured into the sea far below, which explained why it was poison and dead. Others reached toward Ciudad de Huesos, holding it in a death grip. The sight was so unsettling, it took all her fortitude not to turn tail and run.
A circular hole developed in one side of the Cataclysm, growing until their adversary reacted. Tentacles surged upward, splaying against the opening to keep it from getting bigger. A shower of blood-hued sparks danced away from the tentacles and headed right for the magical lines streaming from the three Shifters.
“Ward yourselves,” Ketha cried and raced forward intent on helping Rowana’s group. Magic spewed from her as she directed maximum damage at the tentacles. Still immersed in the world viewed through her third eye, the Shifters and Vamps appeared gray and insubstantial.
“I’ve got this one, Shifter.” Raziel swerved in front of her, surrounded by a nimbus of light that looked gold to her third eye. Thunderbolts of molten metal—gold mingled with silver—headed straight for the Cataclysm. The tentacles drew back, black smoke billowing from them, and the blood-colored sparks disappeared.
Ketha shook her head to bring the world back into focus. “We have to move fast,” she screamed, using magic to project her voice. “Second group. Go now.”
Viktor ran to her and gripped her arm. “We’ll never be able to hold our position long enough to get magic where we need it to destroy that thing.”
“Yes, we will. You have to believe in what we’re doing because there’s no going back. It knows we’re out for blood.”
“I do believe in us, but there are too many teams. Too much time for that thing to come up with ways to even the score. If everyone joins forces, we can move fast, blast our way inside.”
“I agree,” Aura cried. “Let’s get this done before that thing derails us.”
Almost as if the Cataclysm had glommed onto Viktor’s suggestion that it retaliate, the sky darkened. Ribbons of fire rained down, mixed with silver dollar-sized dark-brown bugs. Shrieks rose as Shifters and Vamps batted at places their clothing and hair caught fire.
“Goddamn it to hell,” Viktor roared and smothered flame
s on one side of her robe with his hands. Bugs congregated on his fingers. They looked like three-inch-long beetles with hard carapaces, but they were too round and had sharp little beaks. He shook his hands hard, but they clung like limpets.
Ketha plucked one off him. Its legs flapped uselessly, working to find purchase. Yellowish liquid spirted from its hind end, carrying the acrid stench of poison. There were thousands of the little shits, and more dropped from the skies by the minute. Killing them individually was impossible. Ketha inscribed a sloppy pentacle in the dirt with the toe of her boot and dropped the beetle inside it.
The thing scuttled to the edges of her spell line. When it discovered it couldn’t cross it, it reared back on its shell edge and made a sound like razor blades scraping glass. “Do not let them bite you,” Ketha shouted.
“How do I avoid it?” Viktor picked them off, crushing them beneath his boots, but more fell from the sky.
“Let me help.” Aura threw her magic wide open, strengthening Ketha’s pentacle until it glowed white-hot.
Ketha was too focused on integrating Aura’s power with her own to answer Viktor’s question. She focused a global destruction spell on the beetle she’d trapped on the ground in front of her.
Her spell kindled, and the creature burst into sulfur-smelling fumes. That one might be dead, but Ketha was far from done. She reached through its destruction, sending ruin to each of its kin. “Die,” she exhorted. “Faigh bás.” She repeated the Gaelic curse three times in unison with Aura.
One by one, the bugs exploded and caught fire. A noxious smell, reminiscent of carrion rotting in the sun, rose around them. Ketha lowered her hands, breathing hard.
“We did good, sister.” Aura beamed and hugged her hard before letting go.
“We did, but shit!” Ketha rubbed a grimy hand down her face. “Much more of that, and we won’t have anything left for the Cataclysm.”
“Which is exactly where it wants you.” Raziel materialized out of nowhere. “Nice work, by the way.” He rubbed his hands together. “Love it. It’s like the plagues all over again.”
“Except we’re hardly in Egypt,” Viktor muttered and held up his hands. “No bites. Guess they didn’t care for Vampire blood.”
“Good thing. Did you smell the poison?” Ketha asked.
“Of course I did.” Viktor shut his mouth with a clack.
Ketha looked upward. The sky was still coated in menacing gray-black clouds, but the fiery ribbons had disappeared. “I don’t get it. Was the fire attached to the bugs?”
“Me.” Raziel tapped his chest. “I killed the streamers.” He gestured at the growing group of Shifters and Vamps a few yards away at the edge of the mesa. “The fourth group is almost done. Time for you three to strut your stuff. Be fast, not elegant, and we might have a chance.”
A blood-curdling yell froze her in place. Ketha pivoted to see Jorge hurtling toward them with a band of half a dozen Vamps strung out behind him. “Noooo,” she screeched.
“We can take him.” Aura raised her hands, light crackling from her fingertips.
“Save your magic. This is my war.” Viktor bolted toward Jorge, shrieking his fury in German. The two Vampires crashed into one another, and Viktor drove the other Vamp to the ground.
“We did not need this,” Raziel snarled, stopping between each word for emphasis.
Ketha ignored Viktor’s exhortation to save her magic. She gestured for Aura to follow and raced to where he rolled in the dirt, grappling with Jorge. The Vampire legion caught up, fury blazing from them. One headed right for her, but Aura stopped him with a blast of magic to his heart. It wouldn’t kill him. Only beheading could do that, but it did knock him out, and he crumpled to the ground. At least it halted forward motion for the other five who circled around their fallen companion, snarling and muttering. Fangs extended, their rotten sulfur smell mingled with the dying beetles into a noxious mélange.
Beheading.
Where was the saber Viktor had mentioned? Iron was far from Ketha’s friend, but she’d do what she had to. Time was running out. The group holding the hole in the Cataclysm would run out of magic, and then they’d all be screwed.
The Cataclysm would win on a technicality.
“We need that blade,” Aura shrieked. “I saw it. Where’d it go?”
Raziel ran between Ketha and the Vampires and scooped it up. Shouting in a language she’d never heard before, he cut a broad swathe with the blade. Heads rolled. Two of the Vamps took off with speeds only a Vampire could manage and dove headfirst off the mesa’s edge. The other three fell as blood geysered from their headless necks. A metallic reek joined the other nauseating smells.
“Cowards! You’d better keep running,” Aura yelled after their retreating backs.
When Ketha looked at Viktor, he was straddling Jorge with his hands around the other Vampire’s throat. “You don’t want to kill me,” the Jorge thing said, except Raphael’s Slavic-accented voice emerged from its throat.
“Oh, but you’re wrong. I’ve imagined you dead for years. If I hadn’t been such a coward, I’d have ended you long since.”
“You don’t mean that. Why, you were one of my chosen,” Raphael crooned, his words hypnotic. They reminded Ketha of a snake immobilizing its victim.
She ran to Raziel and grabbed the saber. The iron burned her hands, but she carted it to Viktor. “You or me?” she panted. “Who kills that abomination?”
“I do.” Viktor let go of Jorge/Raphael’s neck, snapped up the saber with Vampire speed, and crushed the blade through the other Vampire’s neck. Blood and air bubbled through his windpipe, and then red-black blood sprayed from two severed carotids and four broken jugulars.
“No time to rest on your laurels, children,” Raziel exhorted and dragged Viktor to his feet. Blood sheeted off him, dripping onto the mesa, but his green eyes shone with victory.
“Run,” Raziel screamed. “Or the Cataclysm will find a way to repair the damage the others have generated.”
A quick scan told Ketha her power was waning, but she might have enough. Maybe. A jolt of energy buffeted her. Aura yelped. “What the fuck was that? It felt like a cattle prod up my ass, but I feel rejuvenated.”
“Raziel making sure we have enough juice to finish this.” Ketha ran hard for the group of Vamps and Shifters enveloped in layers of spells. All of them were panting. Lines of strain carved deep into their faces.
Ketha and Aura flanked Viktor. The other Shifters and Vamps parted to let them through. Once they were at the leading edge of the spell, Ketha raised her arms and began to chant. Aura did the same. Neither Shifter held back. Destruction flashed from the ends of Ketha’s fingers. Her flesh was raw from handling the blade, and the abraded places burned as if someone had immersed her hands in lighter fluid and tossed a match atop them.
She wasn’t conscious of switching to her psychic vision, but the Cataclysm—a churning, tempestuous Cataclysm—took shape not a foot in front of her. Heat from the thing made her hands hurt so much she screamed, but she kept magic flowing.
“You cannot win, Shifter,” pounded into her head from all sides. Along with the words came an inexorable pull toward the pulsing, roiling mass ahead.
Ketha diverted power into wards, but it didn’t help. She felt herself slipping forward. Viktor hooked an arm around her and his other around Aura, dragging them back a few inches. Even with him hanging on, holding her ground wasn’t easy. Ketha had to add more and more power to her warding before her footing stabilized.
The voice that had begun by telling her she couldn’t win kept up a steady patter about how nice and warm and restful it would be inside the Cataclysm. “Let go,” it suggested, its voice—sometimes a seductive male, sometimes a maternal female—silkily hypnotic. When it got around to, “You’ll like me once you get to know me,” she rebelled.
“Shut up!” she screeched. “Just shut up.”
“Glad I’m not the only one,” Aura yelled from Viktor’s other side.
/> “Finish this!” Viktor shook both of them. “Drain me dry if it’ll help. I can’t do a fucking thing on my own. I’m not the one with magic.”
Ketha was breathing hard, and she heard Aura’s gasping pants through the Cataclysm’s perennial roar. “On my count of three,” she told Aura and hoped the Cataclysm hadn’t heard. The thing was impossibly strong.
Ketha wound her magic in with Viktor’s and felt Aura do the same. Anchored in Vampire energy, the women loosed destruction right into the heart of the Cataclysm. If this didn’t work, they were done. She and Aura wouldn’t have enough magic for another try.
Tears streaked her cheeks, and bone-deep hopelessness churned through her. How could they, puny magical beings, ever dream they could conquer something as potent as the Cataclysm?
Anguish surrounded her, its strands like sticky, ominous spiders’ webs. She recognized the Cataclysm’s hand in her despair. Anger boiled from her guts.
Ketha squared her shoulders, latching onto her fury like a lifeline. “We can destroy you because we’re who made you in the first place,” she cried as another blast of destruction rolled through her, targeted right at the heart of the Cataclysm.
Booming crashed around her so loud it ruptured her eardrums. Pain battered her. Fluid ran down the sides of her face, but she was too busy shaping spells to brush it aside. Forked black lightning joined the thunder. The ground they stood on rolled in the throes of the mother of all earthquakes.
The booming intensified until she felt consciousness slipping. Worse, the spell still flowing through her, anchored to Viktor and the earth, was ripped away, siphoned into the Cataclysm. Once that happened, the world went black.
Despair ate at her, a strong acid that made the ache in her hands and ears pale by comparison.
They’d lost.
If they weren’t dead yet, surely the Cataclysm would claim them soon, just like it had claimed her spell. Viktor still had an arm around her. Presumably his other arm circled Aura, holding her safe from the Cataclysm’s maw.
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