by Ann Gimpel
“Goddammit!” Ilona gasped between words. “Where are we?”
“Transiting some kind of void. It guards the demarcation between the plateau and the world beyond the obstruction.”
“What do you suppose it does to outsiders?”
“Not sure.” Talking was a struggle, but he forced a few more words. “I hope far worse than what it’s doing to us.”
“This is amazing,” the wolf spoke up. “We’re viewing one of the mysteries. Other bond animals have spoken of them—described invisible walls just like this one—but I never believed the stories.”
It took all Jamal’s energy to keep moving. This might be shifter magic, but it was so potent it made him want to fall to his knees and call on all the gods for strength. He hunted for words to ask the wolf for clarification, but they eluded him.
Ilona started to fall back. He dragged her forward and clamped an arm around her waist. He wanted to reassure her this would end, but his lungs burned and he understood another problem with this in-between zone was it lacked oxygen.
“Keep going,” the wolf urged. “I sense others—Rom and shifters—very close.”
Rom. If Ilona were struggling, how the hell had they managed this barrier? On the heels of that thought came grim satisfaction that Meara had discovered something to stymie both Nazis and vampires.
Not discovered. Merely leveraged and employed.
Was that his thought, or had Meara been inside his mind, answering him?
His lungs seized painfully and he inhaled, desperate for air. Maybe it was his imagination, but it seemed as if he could breathe a little better. The iron band that had wrapped around his temples wasn’t quite so tight, and his lungs didn’t burn as much.
As quickly as it had formed, the airless vacuum spit them out with a loud, sucking thunk. He glanced at a mesa, twin to the one they’d left behind except the sky held three moons, suspended mid-heaven.
“What is this place?” Ilona asked, still panting from their sojourn through the barrier.
“There you are.” Tairin ran lightly to them with Elliott right behind her. She scooped Ilona into a hug. “We’ve been worried about you.”
A chorus of wolf howls rose from ahead. Jamal tossed his head back and let his wolf’s voice emerge in greeting. The howls were invitation to join the pack, and he gestured to Tairin, Elliott, and Ilona.
“We know,” Elliott said. “Everyone is gathered around a council fire. You two were the last.” He lowered his voice and spoke near Jamal’s ear. “Other first shifters are here. It’s how they manipulated enough magic to move all of us to wherever we are.”
Excitement coursed through Jamal, and he named the ancient Egyptian wolf deity. “Is Anubis among them?”
“My wolf says so,” Tairin cut in and let go of Ilona.
“Mine too,” Elliott concurred. “It hasn’t shut up since we fought our way through the void.”
“I’ve never felt this much power concentrated in one place,” Ilona murmured, her gray eyes luminous with wonder. “The air is so rich with it, just breathing will make me drunk on magic.”
Her wonder was infectious, and Jamal took her hand. He moved toward where the other wolf voices had hailed him. As he got closer, others of his kind called his name, and he greeted them in turn.
“It’s a big family, kind of like gypsies,” Ilona said into his mind.
“Yes, it is. I recognized the similarity during the time I lived and traveled with a caravan.” Jamal didn’t say any more. When he’d suggested to Aneksi that their peoples weren’t really all that different, she’d shut him out.
“Now is a time to forget all that,” his wolf suggested. “Long past time, actually.”
It wasn’t the first time the wolf had harped on that, but Jamal vowed to take its advice to heart. He’d done everything in his power, and Aneksi hadn’t listened to him or to reason. Her intransigence had spelled her death. He couldn’t have prevented it. What he could have done was make a different choice regarding Tairin, but the goddess had seen fit to offer them a second chance to be a family.
An enormous circle with a fire in its center came into view. The Rom wagons were bunched off to one side sans horses, which meant they had to be hobbled somewhere out of sight. Wagons and horses were one thing since they were part of the natural world. Jamal was almost certain his Mercedes wasn’t within the vacuum-protected enclosure. It didn’t matter. The car had been an indulgence, and possessions could be replaced. Money had never been a problem or a motivator. It wasn’t for most shifters because they had centuries to accumulate wealth.
The gypsies sat in a large group between their wagons and the fire, conversing among themselves. Shifters, sorted by the animals they’d bonded with, spread around the blaze like spokes in a wagon wheel.
Meara stood near the fire with two other figures, their heads bent in conversation.
Jamal focused his magic and recognized wolf energy from one of them, so it had to be Anubis. The first wolf shifter was cloaked in black with his back to Jamal. The other man was probably a first shifter as well, but Jamal didn’t know whom he might be.
He squared his shoulders. “Take Ilona with you,” he instructed Tairin and Elliott. “I will join you in the wolf group as soon as I’ve offered my obeisance to our leader.”
“Should we do that too?” Tairin asked, looking uncertain.
Jamal smiled at his daughter. “I have no idea what the proper protocol is with our primary ancestor. For all I know, he’ll turn me into a tower of dust for having the temerity to approach him.”
“We’ll wait and see how you do.” Elliott started toward the wolf group with Tairin, but Ilona held back.
“I should sit with the Rom,” she said.
Jamal gazed at her. She was so striking—her beauty harsh and stark—he could have looked at her forever. He wanted her by his side, but not if she felt out of place. “Is that where you’ll be most comfortable?”
She nodded. “Of course. It’s what I am. We can catch up with each other afterward.”
He watched her skirt the edges of the circle for a moment before he followed the initial part of her path, veering toward Meara and the two men.
Meara turned toward him. Her long silver-gray hair gleamed with energy, and her amber eyes were pure vulture. Nothing human about them. “Jamal.”
He bent his head in a show of respect. “Meara, first of the bird shifters.”
The cloaked man twisted so quickly his body blurred. By the time he faced Jamal, his cloak had slipped from his head. Coal black hair streamed down his shoulders and back to knee level. Keen dark eyes with golden centers bored into Jamal’s soul, and he fell to his knees.
“Sire. It is an honor to meet you.”
“Get up. I do not require slavish devotion.”
Jamal scrambled upright. “Yes sire. Of course.”
“What about me? Do you recognize me as well?” The other man, dressed in formfitting hunting leathers, looked like an ancient Viking with white-blond hair, ice-blue eyes with silvery centers, and slabs of muscle from shoulder to calf.
Jamal shuffled through possibilities. “Are you the first bear shifter?”
The man’s roughhewn features broke into a broad grin. “Good guess, Jamal wolf shifter. I am Nivkh.”
Jamal opened his mouth to say he was glad to meet the other first shifters, but Meara beat him to the punch.
“Sit!” She pointed toward the wolf shifter group. “We are late because of you, and time is precious.”
Jamal bolted for the wolves, selecting a spot on the ground near Tairin and Elliott. This might be a type of parallel universe, but the ground on this side was dry, sandy, whereas what he’d left in the other world had been wet and muddy.
Meara paced around the circle, projecting her voice with magic. The fire burned behind her with a life of its own since no one fed tinder into it. “I have heard you talk among yourselves,” she began. “The question I heard most often regarded what this p
lace is, yet I cannot answer that without some background.”
Jamal leaned forward, listening intently.
“It became clear to me,” Meara went on, “that we had to have a safe place, a staging area if you will, from which we could launch a coordinated attack against the Nazis and their pet vampires.”
Anubis elbowed her and said, “If you were to ask the vampires, they’d say the Nazis fiddled for them, not the other way round.”
Meara cracked a rare smile. “True enough. I had thought the last spot I selected for two gypsy caravans that have joined with us would be safe from discovery. I was wrong. It was then I knew I had to split the worlds and create a place no one could find us. A place we can come and go as we undermine the Nazi war effort and their hideous work camps.”
Nivkh stepped forward. “I am Nivkh, first of the bear shifters. Every shifter here understands our cliff dwellings. They’re sheltered from the rest of the world with strong magic. This place—” he spread his burly arms wide “—is an extension of the magic that formed our shelters. They don’t fully exist in the world, and this tiny slice of land doesn’t, either. Although, I must admit I’ve never seen triple moons before.”
Meara stood even straighter. “My hope is they signify that Arianrhod, Artemis, Khonsu, and every other moon god or goddess blesses our efforts.”
Anubis paced around the fire pit until he faced the Rom. “I am Anubis, first wolf shifter. We welcome you into our midst. I, for one, wish more than two caravans were represented here. You strengthen our magic, and the reverse is also true. Just as you found when you entered the vacuum sealing this place off from the rest of southern Germany, magic is required. It will be easier for you to both leave and return when you have a shifter or two with you.”
Stewart stood and bowed before Anubis. “How long can your magic maintain this place?” he asked in his pronounced Scottish brogue.
“As long as we need it to,” Anubis replied. “The gateway will require some maintenance, but any shifter could see to it, now that it’s here.”
“And without this maintenance ye referred to?” Stewart persisted.
“Then it reverts to what it was before we altered the warp and weft of space and time.”
“Thank ye for accommodating me and my questions.” Stewart returned to his place.
Meara raised her hands to quell the many conversations that had broken out. “Silence. Hear me. All of you. From this day forth, the enmity between shifters and Romani ceases. We are allies. Not just until this war ends, but forever. Do all of you understand me?”
A chorus of yesses and ayes rose from every group, but Jamal sensed a definite lack of enthusiasm. It would take far more than a command from a first shifter to overcome millennia of distrust and wariness.
“Good.” She dropped her hands to her sides. “Now that we have that out of the way, we must forge ahead. No time to waste. Some of us will team up to hunt down vampire nests. Others will sneak into the Nazi work camps and do maximum damage. When you are between assignments, you will return here to rest, eat, and recharge your magic.”
Michael stood and approached her. “Anubis said he wished for more Romani caravans. Perhaps an additional assignment could be locating others that have chosen to go into hiding. I fear the caravans that chose to flee Germany have been apprehended.”
“Are you volunteering?” Meara raised a silver brow.
Michael’s nostrils flared in his swarthy face. “Since I’ve already fought vampires, faced down my fears, that is where I should focus. But many Rom here could work at finding others to add to our ranks. Much as you did earlier when you flew off to alert shifters.”
“We will leave you in charge of that project,” Anubis broke in. “Do any of you know the location of vampire nests?” He paced around the fire, moving from group to group, but no one spoke up.
“I can probably get that information via scrying,” Meara said. “Meanwhile the rest of you will sort out who infiltrates which prison camp. My thought was we’d focus on the primary ones in Germany. Once we have them well in hand, we can branch out.”
“Name the locations and I will head up that effort,” Nivkh said, his pale eyes gleaming with anticipation.
“Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg near Berlin, Esterwegen near Hamburg, Ravensbrück near Brandenburg, and of course Dachau just a few miles from here.”
“Got it.” Nivkh raised his voice to a roar. “All who wish to volunteer join me. I require sixteen to begin, four for each prison.”
After a long pause, shifters and Romani moved toward the first bear shifter. Was their hesitation because of risk or because they were hesitant to work together? Jamal suspected it was a little of each.
Meara snapped her fingers. “Elliott. Ilona. Come with me. We must be on the far side of the barrier for our seeking ability to utilize the full extent of its magic.”
“Wolves who didn’t heed Nivkh’s call, join me,” Anubis commanded. “We will strategize how to best deploy our ability.”
Jamal had planned to at least try to join Ilona and Meara. He hadn’t been certain if Meara would allow it, but Anubis’s orders took precedence. If shifters understood anything, it was line of command.
Elliott grimaced. “It’s not that I don’t want to lend my magic to Meara’s scrying gambit, but I’m not looking forward to another trip through that hellish blockade. See you both soon.” He jumped to his feet, reaching Meara and Ilona seconds before the trio vanished in a flash of white light.
“Now, people!” Anubis punctuated his words with a snarl.
Jamal shot upright and extended a hand to Tairin, helping her up. She was grinning. “Not so different from a caravan leader,” she said into his mind.
“Not different at all,” Jamal agreed, and they hurried toward where Anubis stood, waiting to command his shifters.
He wanted to be with Ilona, making certain she got through the barrier unscathed, but he smothered his desire to protect her. She’d been taking care of herself for a long time. Her independence was one of the things that attracted him.
Self-sufficiency.
Spirit.
Courage.
Determination.
He’d do well to nurture all those things. And tell her how deeply they touched him.
Tairin closed a hand over his lower arm. “My wolf is really, really excited. Is yours?”
“Probably, but it hasn’t said much.”
He focused on his bondmate. “What are you thinking?”
The wolf didn’t answer. It was there; he felt its presence, and its silence weighed heavy. The wolf knew something, something it wasn’t willing to give voice to. It was much older than Tairin’s wolf, which meant it may well have come across Anubis while bonded to an earlier wolf shifter.
Jamal fought through uneasiness and joined the other wolf shifters in the second of four ragged rows with Tairin by his side.
“You belong to me,” Anubis began. “That means my commands take precedence—over everything. Are we clear about that?”
Amidst a chorus of howls, Anubis smiled. Something about the expression, cocky and arrogant, sounded an alarm, but Jamal buried his reservations. Anubis had to be skilled at reading minds. The last thing Jamal needed was for his thoughts to sound a sour note that alerted the first of them that he might not be fully on board with whatever came next.
Chapter 11
Ilona shook herself once Meara led them back through the barrier and into the encampment. Its energy still felt strange to her, a reminder that it existed in a place that wasn’t quite part of the world. Maybe because she was weary, this last journey through the vacuum hadn’t been as excruciating as her first two trips.
Or maybe she was getting used to the barrage of odd sensations.
Elliott bid her goodnight and hurried away, presumably to find his wagon and Tairin. Meara vanished back through the barrier once she’d herded them through. The vulture shifter definitely marched to her own tune, answering to no one bey
ond herself. Ilona had no idea where she was off to this time.
Meara had called a halt to their joint scrying after they located a nest. When Ilona asked why they didn’t find all of them and be done with it, Meara replied they’d been lucky so far that their magic hadn’t alerted the vampires.
“Better to do this in stages,” she’d gone on. “Once we take on the nest we found, if there are others, they’ll be on the move.”
It made sense as Ilona thought about it. Vampires didn’t live in anything as permanent as a house. They did have coffins, though. Elliott had described the lineup at the nest he and Tairin stumbled across.
They probably don’t need those exact coffins. Or even coffins at all. Any dark, enclosed place that protects them from daylight hours would likely do.
A thought slapped her hard. The vampire who’d come through the gateway from her spell didn’t seem to be suffering because it wasn’t full dark. And the attack she’d seen in her earlier vision had occurred in daylight too. Taken in aggregate, it had to mean they might prefer to retire to their caskets to wait out the sunlight hours, but they sure as hell didn’t need to.
Jamal’s unique energy approached, and she moved toward him.
“There you are,” he said softly. “I was waiting with Tairin for Elliott to return. I figured once he was back, you would be too. How’d it go?”
She walked into his extended arms and wrapped hers around him. “If finding another nest means it went well, then we succeeded.”
He tightened his hold on her. “Where is it?”
“Right outside Berlin, which makes sense since that’s where Hitler is most of the time.”
“That’s over three hundred miles from here. It will take some planning to pull off the same type of raid we did in this region.”
“Meara didn’t seem overly worried, but she’s hard to read. Plus, she left as soon as she saw Elliott and me safely back.”