by Ann Gimpel
He closed his fingers around hers, and she reveled in their strength and warmth.
Focus! she chided herself.
“Close your eyes. Join your mind to mine. My cat is already chattering away to yours. Can you hear them?”
He shut his eyes and leaned back against the cushions. “Now that you mention it, I can.”
“Good. Your reward once this lesson is over is we can shift and chase each other around the ship. Cats love a good game of chase.”
He tightened his grip on her fingers, and the fluttery feeling behind her breastbone turned into a torrent of longing. She buried that too, and damned fast before it leaked out and embarrassed her.
“Your cat has a story,” she said. “Have you ever asked it to tell you about its life?”
“No.” A chagrined expression crossed Juan’s face. “I owe it a major apology. Again.”
Aura shut her earth eyes and readied herself for a rare treat. She knew her bond animal’s story, but she’d never heard any of the other animals recount their beginnings. “Encourage it,” she urged. “I’m ready for it to begin.”
Deep within her, her cat purred its encouragement.
Chapter Ten: A Cat’s Tale
Juan loved the feel of Aura’s skin against his. Her nearness made him yearn for more. For her arms around him and the touch of her mouth against his. Her scent intensified, maybe because they were mind-linked. She smelled of candle wax and old leather and jasmine, comforting and stimulating by turns.
“It seems I’m forever apologizing,” he told his cat. “I skipped over the same basic courtesy I’d extend to any new acquaintance, and we’re so much more than mere acquaintances. Please. Tell me about you. I want to know everything you’re willing to share.”
“Apology welcomed and accepted,” the cat replied. “You should have asked if Aura and her bond animal could be part of what is normally a private conversation betwixt bond animal and Shifter, but I forgive you because you do not know our customs. Not yet, anyway.”
“Can they be part of what comes next?” Juan asked and held tighter to Aura’s hand. If his cat said no, he’d have to let go of her. He didn’t want to, but he wouldn’t risk any further missteps where his cat was concerned.
A riffling sound that might have been feline laughter rolled through his mind. “Of course. Her cat already knows everything there is to know about me. You must agree to one thing, though, before we begin.”
“Anything,” Juan replied, delighted Aura could remain.
“You may not reveal what I tell you to anyone. Our histories are private.”
“I won’t,” Juan said.
“Neither will I,” Aura cut in without being asked.
“Thank you for that,” Juan’s cat said. “I didn’t wish to offend you by insisting, but nor could I have begun without your assent.”
“I know,” she replied.
The cat purred, soft and rich and low. It soothed Juan, made progress healing the mutilated places from his years as a Vampire. He hadn’t fully appreciated how much self-respect he’d traded to keep on living, and the truth of it shamed him.
Yeah, and if I’d known, I’d have somehow found the strength to refuse Raphael’s wrist.
“Let the past lie,” the cat instructed. “Nothing was ever accomplished chewing over old bones.”
“I respectfully disagree.” Juan spoke slowly and deliberately. “Those who ignore their mistakes are doomed to repeat them.”
“You may not be a historian,” Aura murmured, “but that’s a variation of a very famous quote from George Santayana.”
“Quiet. Both of you,” Juan’s cat commanded. “Do not interrupt until I am finished.”
Juan leaned closer to Aura. The gesture was spontaneous, and he breathed her in hungrily. He held awareness of her thoughts, his own, and his bond animal’s. Aura’s mind was warm, welcoming. He couldn’t sense her cat, but it had to be there. The experience was rather akin to watching different movies on triple screens. He smiled wryly at his backward foray into the life he’d left behind.
No more movies, probably. Not new ones, anyway. No more Internet or television or radio or modern conveniences. If Earth recovered, it would be a long, slow, painful process. Hopefully, mankind would pay more attention to potential consequences as people rebuilt.
“Focus on me,” the cat intoned, its words mingling with a growl.
Juan did, knowing better than to give voice to the questions spilling through his mind. Did the cat require his energy, now they were bonded? Was it a mutual state of affairs, where he was stronger for having the cat’s essence to draw from, but the cat needed him as well?
Aura squeezed his hand lightly. He took it as a yes to both questions.
“I was not one of the first Shifters,” the cat began. “The ones who opened our world to those insistent mages who refused to take no for an answer. Yet I didn’t come far behind them. What it means, the way you calculate time, is I have lived thousands of years. Over that span of time, I have bonded with only two others before now.
“Why, you might ask,” the cat went on.
“The answer is simple. A human’s need had to be great for me to take on the responsibility of bonding with them. While some bond animals welcomed the messiness and disarray and unpredictability of bondmates, I did not.”
A sharp, riffling growl punctuated its words.
“My first bonded one was Jeanne d’Arc. When the bond sang to me, it was too alluring to resist. She had power, that one. True power that could have done so much good in this world. Instead, she ignored my warnings.”
The cat hesitated, still growling. “No. She did worse than ignore me. She repudiated the true source of her power, insisting its roots lay in the evil, evil church. Jeanne viewed Shifter magic as blasphemous, but I, fool that I was, was certain I could change her mind.
“You must know history,” the cat continued. “Not only did I fail to alter her headlong rush to her own doom, but the selfsame church that sent her to her death canonized her in 1920.”
Juan opened his mouth to say it was scarcely the cat’s fault, but he remembered its instructions to remain silent.
How many other historical figures had been Shifters? Or Vampires for that matter? Or other iterations of magical beings? It reminded him of a television series he’d watched voraciously until the network canceled it. The world drawn by Grimm’s creators depicted a layered reality marked by secret magical strata coexisting with human reality, except none of the humans knew about it.
“My next bondmate,” the cat went on, “was Albert Einstein. The world needed the knowledge locked inside his head. He skirted madness his entire life. Not unlike Jeanne, he saw me as a manifestation of his unbalanced mind, but he listened to me, and we established an uneasy détente.”
“Wasn’t his son mentally ill?” Aura asked, adding quickly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“His second son,” the cat corrected her. “Madness such as Einstein carried runs in families. At least I did more good with him than with Jeanne. I first suggested—and then insisted—he not return to Germany in the early 1930s. The Nazis stripped him of his professorship, confiscated his home, and burned his books. Even after all that, he was reluctant to leave Europe behind. In his last years, he welcomed me. Even took my form so we could run.”
The cat paused. Maybe it was thinking.
“You view the bond from the human side of things,” the cat went on. “You never consider it from the animal’s perspective. We do our best, but in the end you make your own choices. I couldn’t save Jeanne from her folly. I had better luck with Albert, perhaps because he was a different personality. Neither ever acknowledged being a Shifter, though. I never understood how Albert came to terms with becoming a mountain lion and running through forested glades in my body. Once he was human again, it was like those episodes never existed.”
Juan wanted to ask why the cat purposefully chose such hard cases, but then he reali
zed it was the way the cat viewed him.
“I lay low through the Cataclysm,” the cat went on. “You should know I was one of the animals wishing to close our world off from the human one permanently. I was outvoted. Enough of my kin were bonded—and they loved their mated ones—that they overruled the few of us counseling a return to our insular status.”
“I am so glad we got past that little wrinkle,” Aura’s cat spoke up, but didn’t open its mind to Juan.
“You got your way,” Juan’s cat snarled. “It’s wise not to gloat.”
Aura’s cat hissed.
Juan’s hissed back but then said, “I was encouraged when your group succeeded against the Cataclysm. Once that happened, I set my cynicism aside and lent my efforts to rebuilding what had been lost. It turns out Aura’s cat’s contingent was correct. I’d given in to my baser instincts, the ones devoted to preservation of my kin no matter the cost. It was an error on my part.”
“Why were you so certain we’d lose against the Cataclysm?” Juan asked over a choking sense of outrage. The cat had said not to speak, but Juan was furious—and disappointed by its lack of faith.
“Because a third of you were Vampires.” Derision rang through the cat’s mind voice. “Vampires. Abominations. You should have died before subjecting yourself to such humiliation.”
“You know that,” Juan said, “but we didn’t. Not really. I never believed they existed. Faced with the reality, it was hard to—”
“Spare me,” the cat broke in acidly. “Given the same choice today, what would you do?”
“I’d let Raphael bleed to death before I’d drink one drop of his blood. Being dead trumps being a Vampire any day. Every day.” Juan ground his teeth together. “Earlier, you said there wasn’t any point in chewing over the bones of the past. Did you change your mind?”
“I like you. You have spirit. It’s why I offered to bond with you.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” Juan said, not willing to let himself be diverted.
The cat snarled; the sensation spread through Juan’s chest before it replied. “I didn’t change my mind, but I needed to know if you’d learned from those years as a Vampire minion.”
Aura tightened her fingers around his. He picked up thoughts tumbling through her mind. Disgust for Raphael and his ilk. Anger at his cat. Pride for the answer he’d given.
Juan pulled on their joined hands and drew her against him. He wanted her to be proud of him. Ketha may have fallen in love with Viktor while he was still a Vampire, but Juan wanted to come to Aura clean of evil taint.
“The thing about being bondmates,” Juan’s cat went on, “is it’s a lot like being married. A good marriage, that is. There are no secrets. You need to see me for what I am and love and respect me for those things. Not for what you’d like me to be.”
“I need you to believe in my side of the bond too,” Juan said, tightlipped.
“If I didn’t, I’d never have offered to bond with you.” The cat didn’t sound the least bit cowed. “You’re strong and capable and, for once, I’ve linked myself to someone who won’t disavow my existence. Those first two experiences taught me a lot. I can’t change anyone. Not even someone linked to me through the Shifter bond.”
The cat fell silent. Aura pulled away from Juan’s clumsy embrace. “While we have the animals front and center, I’d like to take a closer look at the ley lines.”
Juan shut his earth eyes, and a psychic view spread before him. He hadn’t paid attention to it while his cat was talking. “Are you done with what you wanted me to know?” he asked his cat.
“I appreciate you asking, and yes, I am. Did you find it helpful?”
Juan nodded. “Very. Before right now, I knew less than nothing about you, other than you were irritated because I hadn’t made more of an effort to immerse myself in Shifter magic.”
“Do you understand why?”
“Yes. It’s much clearer to me. But knowledge has to be a two-way street. You claim to know everything about me, yet you didn’t realize how much I hated being a Vampire. That means it’s also important for me to tell you things and not assume you can glean everything from trips through my mind.”
“You shielded your hatred for Vampires,” the cat pointed out. “To make certain the one who made you didn’t realize the depth of your antipathy.”
“Very true. I was also force-fed Vampire 101. It made me somewhat less enthusiastic about volunteering for more lessons in anything supernatural. That was a mistake on my part,” Juan hurried on. “One I’ve begun to make up for.”
Aura’s mouth twisted into half a smile. She glowed like a fey creature in his psychic view. “Ley lines?” she urged.
“By all means,” Juan’s cat replied.
“Tell me what we’re searching for.” Juan focused his attention on shimmery lines cutting through the ship’s bar. He supposed they’d always been there, but the evidence of a magical world layered beneath the one he’d always assumed was absolute still surprised him.
“Examine the places the lines intersect,” Aura instructed. “There are two spots in this room. One high above the bar and the other over by the bank of windows.”
The lines pulsed as he stared at them, alternating between shimmery white and pale gold. “Are they alive in some way?”
“Of course,” Aura replied. “It’s how we determine magic is active in the world. Ley lines both carry and are fueled by its power. Look there.” She pointed to the high spot.
Juan got off the couch and walked until he stood right beneath the glistening cords. When he altered his view, even walking behind the bar to see the node from behind, he noticed a spot that wasn’t as bright. “Is that it?” He stabbed his index finger at where the flaw floated above his head.
Aura walked to his side. “Yes. It’s one of them. And the largest. Look over here.” She wrapped a hand around his arm and pulled him farther to one side.
Once he knew what to look for, he saw a second damaged place, and a third. “They’re subtle,” he said.
“Yes, they are,” she countered, “but I bet they’ve been growing for years.”
As he watched, light flared around the smallest defect. When it died down, the spot had fixed itself. He sucked in a surprised breath. “The ley lines are self-repairing?”
“To a point,” Aura said. “When the damage reaches the extent of the stain you saw first, I don’t believe it’s fixable.”
Juan thought back to Rowana’s statement. She’d said, “if we don’t intervene, make them whole again somehow, I have no idea what will happen.”
Juan held a hand out, and Aura clasped it. “I’m guessing this is something you’ve never had to deal with before.”
“It’s true.” Her expression turned grim. “Those years in Ushuaia when we were hanging on by a thread, never enough to eat and the air and water becoming more and more poisonous, no one was worried about how healthy the ley lines were. Hell, we didn’t think we’d escape the Cataclysm.”
“It’s too bad no one was keeping an eye on them,” he muttered.
“Indeed. I see that now. If we had, we’d have some idea how much more damage they’ve sustained—and when it began.”
“My assumption is the Cataclysm is responsible.” He shrugged. “Kind of like bad magic doing its damnedest to stamp out good magic.”
“Ask your cat,” she suggested.
“I was about to step in,” Juan’s cat said, “but I appreciate your confidence in my wisdom.”
Boots pelting down the corridor outside the bar made Juan’s head snap toward the door. The view through his third eye broke apart, and he blinked, forcing his normal vision to take over faster.
“Whatever happened, it must be serious,” Aura muttered and pulled her fingers out of his as she turned to face the doorway.
Recco burst through. “Come quick. Something’s happening in Grytviken.”
“What? When we left the bridge, you couldn’t even see it,” Juan sput
tered.
Recco tossed his hands skyward. “I have no fucking idea. But the whole skyline turned black. Ketha says we have to get in a raft immediately, so we can go there and cast some kind of counter spell.”
“Makes sense,” Aura said. “These things get out of control really, really fast. If we tarry, not much point in leaving at all, but if the darkness grows too much, it could swallow the ship.”
“What darkness?”
Aura directed pained green eyes on him. “We opened a portal into Hell—or the demon did when we cast it out of the priest’s body. My best guess is he’s returned with reinforcements. And he’s out for blood.” Pushing past Juan, she took off at a run.
“Get moving,” Juan’s cat exhorted. “I don’t want to miss this.”
Juan elbowed Recco. “We need to follow her.” He raced out of the bar, heading for the nearest staircase.
“Welcoming power takes some getting used to,” Recco said from behind him. “My wolf didn’t like it one bit when I detoured to get you. Told me we could use telepathy and be done with things.”
Juan didn’t waste breath replying. He reached the stairs and took them three at a whack. When he stormed into the bridge, competing conversations rang from all sides. A quick glance out the windows stopped him dead in his tracks. Breath whooshed from him. Beyond the storm that had been raging when he left, everything had turned black. Not gray, like the normal backdrop of an Antarctic storm, but black.
“Shit!” he muttered. “Is the Cataclysm back?”
“No,” his cat answered, “but what’s out there isn’t any better.”
“Do you know what it is?” Juan pressed.
“I do.” The cat didn’t sound the least bit pleased. “It’s the same demon horde that drove Jeanne to her death.”
“How can you know it’s the same?” Juan asked, following his question with, “Never mind.”
“Demons are immortal.” A jagged growl followed the cat’s words.
“We have to go now,” Ketha screamed at Viktor.
“No. It’s too dangerous.” He gripped her arm. “I’ll pull anchor and set sail into the storm before I let you go to Grytviken.”