by Ann Gimpel
“Only one?” Viktor asked.
Ketha rolled her eyes. “Where there’s one, there are always others. Those bastards pack up. You should know.”
Viktor winced. Juan felt for him. Neither of them had adapted to being Vampires, but nothing could erase the years they’d spent as Raphael’s minions.
“How do you know what you saw wasn’t in the past or the future?” Juan asked.
“I don’t. The type of enchantment I summoned normally taps into real time, but it might not be accurate in a location over ten thousand miles away.”
“Next question,” Viktor spoke up, “is whether you not seeing Shifters means there weren’t any.”
“I don’t have an answer for that, either,” Ketha said. “Not much in the way of houses or any other structures were left. If Wyoming had perpetual winter too, snow avalanches could have wiped out those buildings, but it would take way longer than ten years.”
“Earthquakes?” Tessa furled her dark brows.
“Who knows?” Ketha stood straighter, rolling her shoulders back as if the motion cost her. “What I did next was tag a different location, a closer one. Since I’m not very familiar with cities in South America, I settled for Buenos Aires. At least I’ve been there.” She took a measured breath, either collecting her thoughts or buying time.
“It looks a lot like Ushuaia did. Piles of rubble from collapsed buildings. Rowana had to help me. My glass wasn’t particularly cooperative.”
“Is there a way you could share what you saw via telepathy? Or even better, go back for another scan?” Juan asked. “I was born there, and I know it well. What it used to be like, that is.”
“Yeah. It’s a great idea. I should have thought of it.” She held her hands out, and the women closest to her took hold of them, extending their free hands in turn.
“Easier if we’re touching?” Recco asked.
“Much,” Rowana replied.
Once they were all joined in a large, ragged circle, Ketha said, “Clear your minds. Take a few deep breaths. Closing your eyes will help. I’ll feel it when the energy is right.” She began to chant, low and lyrical, in Gaelic.
Juan promised himself he’d prioritize learning it. He was good with languages; adding one more wouldn’t be difficult.
The air around him crackled with power and drove thoughts of language lessons out of his head. He’d hated Vampire magic. It always made him feel like he’d been rolling in a vat of sheep shit. Shifter magic was clean, energizing, with a tang unique to whoever spun the spell. Ketha’s magic smelled like Antarctic beech trees mingled with vanilla.
He shut his eyes and gave himself up to the heady energy swirling around him. Deep in his mind, his cat purred. Made sense. As a magical creature, it would be drawn to power. He sent gratitude inward, reassuring his mountain cat he valued and respected it and thanking it for not deserting him.
“You’re welcome.” It hesitated. “You have no idea how close I came to relinquishing our bond.”
Unfamiliar emotion created a thick place in Juan’s throat. He’d never been the praying type, but he vowed to do whatever it took to fulfill his part of the Shifter pledge. The cat was privy to his thoughts. It would recognize his intent.
Intent isn’t good enough. This will require action, follow-through.
Clouds eddied across the blackness behind his closed lids. Silver-blue, they reminded him of the Arctic in high summer. He could have lost himself in those clouds. The cat seemed to agree, its purring growing in intensity. Or maybe it was happy and relieved he’d finally come to his senses.
With zero warning, the clouds fell away. Juan looked out at Buenos Aires, a deeply changed city from the one he remembered. The streets were crowded, like they’d always been, but similarities crashed to a halt there. Cars, trucks, and buses sat at odd angles, blocking every road. It appeared they’d run out of gas and been abandoned. Piles of rotting bodies were fair game for ravens, rodents, and black flies.
The stench must be horrible, and Juan was thankful smells didn’t translate through Ketha’s sending. He sent his consciousness ahead, pushing through what had once been a sprawling city of better than twenty million people. Roughly half the buildings still stood. Deep rubble piles spoke to the fate of the others.
Humans dressed in rags and looking malnourished as hell hustled this way and that. They might be hungry, but he didn’t pick up on fear oozing from their pores. They might face problems, but at least they weren’t expecting a Vampire to pounce at any moment.
So far, so good...
He moved upward and refocused the lens of his concentration, spreading it wide. Ketha and her sister Shifters could troll for evidence their kin had survived. What he wanted to know was if the Cataclysm still held Buenos Aires captive. His newly gained aerial perspective would accomplish that.
He hoped.
Juan panned out until he saw the Atlantic Ocean and the inlet for Rio de la Plata. Breath whooshed from him, followed by relief so profound his knees felt like jelly. If Buenos Aires had been trapped by the Cataclysm, its fell energy was gone.
“Hold steady,” the cat cautioned him. “Do your part not to disturb the spell.”
“Got it,” Juan replied.
Ketha was still chanting. If anything, the magic surrounding her had grown thicker, more compelling. Since he had the opportunity, he searched for the distinctive magic that meant Vampires were near. The alchemy was impossible to miss.
“I can help,” the cat spoke up. “My senses are sharper than yours, and we’ll be more efficient.”
Juan breathed easier as they romped through sector after sector of the old town and found zero hint of Vampires. Established by a Spanish expedition in 1536, the city had a rich and varied history marked by civil unrest, and Juan felt sorry to see so much of it lying in ruins. His old neighborhood was one of the hardest hit. Had his family escaped? He’d left a father, mother, and four brothers when he went to sea. Plus assorted grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.
“Your pack?” the cat asked.
“Yes, my family lived in this area.”
“No one lives there now. Will you ever return?”
“I have no idea. Not much to go back for.”
The cat snarled, sounding fierce. “Shifters are your pack now. It’s how things work. Your family wouldn’t understand.”
Juan rolled his mental eyes since his earth eyes remained shut. Talk about an understatement. Like many families in Buenos Aires, his had been staunchly Catholic. For him to be able to take on an animal’s body would scare the shit out of them. Furthermore, once they got over the shock, they’d shun him.
He hurried to complete his transit of Buenos Aires’ spread-out geography. The city was huge, covering close to a hundred square miles. “What do you think?” he asked his cat.
“No Vampires. I sense other, darker magics, but not theirs.”
Juan waited until Ketha’s chanting ceased; he opened his eyes to a sea of solemn expressions. Ketha released Viktor’s and Rowana’s hands, and the power swirling around the room dispersed.
The women exchanged glances, looking worried.
“Anyone feel like something hot to drink?” Juan asked.
“Sure. If you put a shot of whiskey in it.” Aura raised her green eyes and zeroed in on his face. “It’s been a bitch of a day.”
Juan glanced around the room. Seeing nods, he walked briskly to the coffeemaker and got it going. He also plugged in the electric kettle next to it after checking it was full of water.
“I’ll fetch liquor from the bar,” Viktor said and ducked out the door.
Juan dragged a package of Styrofoam cups out, along with powdered milk, tea bags, and sugar. He’d been disappointed, but not surprised, by the damage in his home city. The world had gone through devastating changes this past decade. That anything remained was a miracle.
Viktor dropped two bottles—scotch and blended whiskey—next to the cups. Uncapping one, he took a swig, not both
ering to add it to coffee or tea.
“Better?” Juan eyed him.
Viktor shrugged. “Too soon to tell, mate.” He strode to the windows, and Juan joined him, waiting. Viktor had something on his mind, but prodding wouldn’t make it happen faster. Snow and sleet battered the glass, and the wind howled around the ship, making him glad he’d battened everything down.
“What’d you see?” Viktor asked, still staring out at what remained of Grytviken.
“About what you’d expect,” Juan replied. “Lots of rubble. No Vampires, but something dark and foreboding lurked in shadowed places. I couldn’t identify it, and neither could my cat.”
Behind them, rustling suggested everyone was helping themselves to the drinks Juan had pulled together.
Viktor curled his fingers around the grab bar running beneath the windows. “I picked up on a sense of foreboding.” He pressed his mouth into a tight line. “It rattled me. Also, I was shocked to see so much of the city in ruins. It’s been standing for hundreds of years.”
“No, it hasn’t,” Juan corrected him. “It’s been rebuilt many times. Fires. Earthquakes. The occasional flood when Rio de la Plata jumped its banks.” Juan tapped Viktor’s shoulder. “Amigo. Look at me. What’s eating you? It can’t be multiple opinions about how we proceed from here. Or that spat between Ketha and Aura about how to organize a curriculum.”
Viktor made a sour face. “It’s not.”
“What then?”
“Lots of unrelated factors from insufficient crew to man this boat to the phalanx of unknowns we face. You know me. You worked with me for almost twenty years. I thrive on order. On having everything tacked down.”
“Not true. You’d have opted for a desk job if you weren’t addicted to the adrenaline rush of solving problems on the fly.”
“Yeah, but I used to have a cache of resources.” He shook his head. “That’s not it. Not exactly. I’m still captain. Which means I’m responsible for the ship and everyone aboard. I sense danger no matter which direction we head. There’s no safe harbor, and there never will be again. It’s an adjustment.”
Juan understood. They’d run into kickass storms before, but they’d always found somewhere to sit them out, like the leeward side of South Georgia Island or the South Shetland Islands off the Palmer Peninsula. Now their entire existence had turned into a storm, albeit a metaphorical one.
“Yeah. I get it.”
Viktor angled his body so he faced Juan. “No. I don’t think you do. You’re what’s left out of my cache of resources, which is why I’m not thrilled about you playing Vampire hunter under the barracks. What happens if you’re killed? It takes both of us to keep Arkady going.”
Juan straightened his back. “You’d manage, and I have no plans to sacrifice myself to those fuckers. It’s enough they stole ten years of my life.”
“What are the two of you chatting about?” Ketha walked to them and offered Viktor a cup of steaming coffee that smelled like it had whiskey in it.
Aura thrust a mug Juan’s way. “Rather than Styrofoam, I thought you’d prefer your cup.”
“Thank you. I could have gotten my own, but I appreciate your thoughtfulness.”
Color spread across Aura’s high cheekbones. “You’re welcome.”
Juan breathed in the welcome mix of dark-roasted coffee and spirits before taking a sip. He glanced at the others, gathered in small clusters.
“Come on back to the group.” Ketha crooked two fingers. “We can share what we saw in our vision.” She slanted her gaze at Juan. “No Vampires, right?”
“No Vampires,” he concurred, “but—”
She held up a hand. “Wait and tell everyone.”
Juan crossed the small space with Viktor, Aura, and Ketha right behind him. “Did you find Shifters in Buenos Aires?” he asked.
Zoe smiled. “Aye. Many remain, and they seemed to be flourishing. Makes my heart glad.” She chewed on her lower lip. “Were there ever Vampires in Buenos Aires because I couldn’t find a trace.”
Everyone looked Juan’s way, and he shrugged. “I’m scarcely the one to ask. I never believed in such things before the Cataclysm.”
“Raphael supposedly came from there,” Viktor said. “He relocated on account of some Vampire turf wars.”
“Do you think he was telling the truth?” Aura asked.
“Now, there’s a good question,” Juan replied. “Raph’s worldview was skewed. That’s for damned sure. He believed his own hype, but whether it was grounded in reality was hard to verify. What do you think?” He elbowed Viktor. “You were closer to him than I was.”
“The old bastard made himself the hero in his own stories. Every single one of them.” Viktor’s mouth turned downward. “I always figured he adjusted reality to suit his needs. After all, none of us were around in the 1600s in Europe to know what really went down. No matter what he said, he didn’t risk losing credibility. I never believed his shit about Nosferatus being at the top of the Vampire heap until Ketha confirmed it.”
“This is interesting, and I’m glad Shifters are thriving in Buenos Aires”—Juan sucked in a tight breath—“but what I want to know is if anyone else sensed evil. Darkness not linked to Vampirism.”
“Yes.” Rowana bit off the word.
Juan waited, but she didn’t say anything further.
“Did you recognize it?” he prodded.
Aura drew her blonde brows into a thick, worried line. “Not precisely. In ways, it reminded me of what we ran up against in the barracks. Vampire but not.”
“It was more closely related to the demon in the church than anything else,” Ketha spoke up, but her words sounded strained.
Juan thought about it. “If demons invaded Buenos Aires, doesn’t it suggest Vampires had to open some kind of gateway like they did here?”
“Maybe,” Ketha replied.
“Could you say a wee bit more?” Viktor wrapped an arm around his wife.
“Och, and mayhap I could.” She aped a Scottish brogue that made Zoe grimace.
Ketha snorted. “Sorry, sweetie. Couldn’t resist.” She creased her forehead into a mass of thoughtful wrinkles. “The world has changed. I know it’s kind of a no-brainer, given what we lived through.”
“The long and short of it is, we don’t know what we face now,” Aura cut in. “Vamps used to leave us alone. If there are far fewer of them, it’s not unrealistic to expect another, different evil has risen to partially take their place.”
“You said something similar.” Viktor addressed his words to Ketha.
She nodded. “Indeed I did. Everything needs its opposite to exist. Vampires were our counterpart in the old world order. Even if we locate a few here or there, my sense is they’re on their way out.”
“So it kicks the door open for something else wicked to fill the void,” Juan muttered.
“Exactly,” Aura said. She turned the full force of her attention on Ketha. “We answered the Vampire question. Kind of. What did your vision reveal about where we go next?”
Ketha swept the bridge with her golden eyes. “Is there a whiteboard hiding somewhere?”
Viktor unwound his arm from around her waist and walked to the wall over the chart table. Reaching up, he unlatched two wooden cabinet doors. When they swung wide, they revealed a writing surface and an array of colored pens.
“Perfect.” Ketha snatched up a green pen and began sketching out a rough map of the world.
Juan took advantage of the opportunity to reach inward. “Thanks again for your assistance when we hunted through Buenos Aires.”
“No thanks needed.” The cat paused. “Hunting is one of my specialties. If you want to return there, we could find places to run.”
“I thought you said it was a bad idea, that my family—if any remain—wouldn’t understand.”
“They won’t. That part is true, but I wasn’t taking what you wanted into consideration. It was your home. I felt longing within you.”
Juan didn�
��t know what to say. Evidence of his bond animal’s caring touched places in him that had been dead since the Cataclysm. Because he couldn’t articulate his gratitude without sounding like a broken record—how many times could you thank someone?—he said, “I’m looking forward to learning as much as you can teach me about Shifter magic.”
A deep, riffling purr filled his chest. “Finally,” the cat said, but stopped there.
Juan was relieved it was done with rebukes for his shortcomings. He’d do whatever it took and then some to hold up his end of their bond bargain.
“Ready,” Ketha said. “All eyes this way.”
Chapter Nine: The Sea Keeps You Humble
Aura watched her longtime friend work. She understood the other Shifter was gathering her thoughts, and her chalkboard exercise gave her a ready cover while she decided what to share—and what to keep hidden. Once she was done sketching out the continents, Ketha picked up a contrasting color and made a series of Xs and checkmarks.
Lastly, she drew a red circle right around where Aura thought the 50th parallel might be. Placing the pen back in its tray, she turned and said, “Ready. All eyes this way.”
Aura’s gaze was already riveted to the schematic. She rolled her shoulders to dissipate an uneasy feeling about what was coming.
“Here”—Ketha pointed at the red circle—“felt safest to me. As I scanned north, things grew murky. About here”—she tapped the equator—“my ability to see anything useful dissipated. Did anyone have a different experience?” She folded her arms beneath her breasts, waiting.
Rowana frowned. “Yes. Me.”
“And me,” Karin added. “Even though I didn’t find Vampires—which should have reassured me—something out there felt even worse, but it was everywhere. North. South. You name it.”
Ketha made come-along motions. “Something? Could you pin it down more precisely?”
Karin turned her hands palms up. “If I could, maybe this sense of foreboding would let up a bit.”
“Nowhere felt safe,” Rowana muttered in a flat tone. “Everywhere I scanned was bleak, dark. Evil even sought entrance among us when Aura and Ketha”—she looked pointedly at them—“squared off about teaching strategies.”