by Ann Gimpel
Juan gave the Ruger to Daide along with a handful of shells. “See the women back safely.”
“I will. Who’s coming with me?”
Before anyone could answer, Viktor said, “Juan, Aura, Ketha, Recco, and Zoe will remain. The rest of you return to the ship.”
No one argued. Viktor pried a wooden box in the empty raft’s stern open and looped coils of ratty-looking rope around his body. Motioning to the others to follow, he set a fast pace through piles of broken wood, shattered glass, and clumps of mortar.
Styrofoam insulation reminded Juan of macabre, blue snow as the wind moved it from one spot to another. He cast sidelong glances at Aura. Her expression was so harsh, it could have been carved in stone. He wanted to comfort her. Hell, he wished she’d returned on the raft with Karin, but he didn’t have the right to tell her what to do. Viktor tried that approach with Ketha, and she’d told him to piss up a rope.
Something Viktor had said hit home. Is this what it’s going to be like every single fucking place we drop anchor? Some hideous manifestation of evil waiting to pounce?
Juan ground his jaws together. Apparently, the answer was yes. The new normal was they couldn’t let their guard down. Not ever. The Cataclysm had altered something elemental, made it easier for wickedness to rise to the top like curdled cream.
Viktor slowed, and Juan peered at stacks of wreckage. The bulk of the building had been where they were standing. “Here?” he asked.
Viktor narrowed his green eyes. “I have no idea. It all looks the same. I figured we’d find a hole in the ground, but it will take days to systematically move everything.”
“I’m game.” Recco didn’t sound anything like his usual, easygoing self. His words were terse with a bitten-off aspect.
Ketha, Aura, and Zoe joined them. “We can narrow this down with magic,” Aura said.
“Aye, if anything lives down there”—Zoe jerked her chin at the debris-strewn beach—“we’ll find it.”
“Can you sort out if it’s the dark mage or someone human?” Viktor asked.
Aura screwed her face into a scowl. “Maybe. Depends how much power the mage has left to cloak himself with.”
“We’re wasting time. Let’s scrap the conversation and search.” Ketha extended her hands. Aura and Zoe grasped them, and the women began to chant in Gaelic.
The feel of their magic, clean and fragrant with their combined scents, was like a balm. Juan shielded himself from a warm complacency because it threatened to blunt his anguish over Rowana’s death. He needed every sharp edge at his disposal.
“They’re over here.” Aura jumped a splintered boxcar panel, skirted more debris, and stood over a pile of lumber stacked at crazy angles.
“Alive?” Viktor grunted the word out.
“Barely, but I can’t tell how many,” Ketha replied.
“The energy feels human to me,” Zoe added, “but the mage fooled us good when he lured us into that building.”
Aura had already begun dragging the topmost slab of insulation-coated wood out of the way. Juan grabbed a corner and helped her heave it aside. The wind worsened, fighting them every step of the way as they rearranged wreckage. The sky darkened until it developed a bruised gunmetal cast. Snow began, whipping into bundles of ice crystals that stung when they hit his exposed skin.
They formed three groups of two, but even working as fast as they could, an hour passed before a small opening emerged.
Juan knelt and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Boris!”
A flurry of Spanish was followed by, “Thank God it’s you. I had a pretty good idea what trapped us. What I didn’t know was who was digging their way in. Hang on. I’ll move the ladder.”
Scraping noises wafted upward, and Juan motioned for Viktor and the others to make the hole big enough for someone to climb through. Because they had to work from the top down, another half hour dripped past before they’d cleared a space large enough to accommodate a person.
“I don’t like this,” Aura muttered.
“Yeah. It’s taking too much time,” Ketha said.
“Can you sense darkness?” Juan asked.
“Maybe,” Zoe replied.
“I’m not sure, either,” Aura said. “A nasty patina from the warped magic the sorcerer used to turn the building into a maelstrom is coating everything.”
“We have to hurry.” Ketha bent close to the opening. “Boris. Get your people moving now.”
A wraith-thin brown-eyed blonde woman swathed in filthy rags emerged first. Her hands were patchy with frostbite. “I’m Diana,” she said in a gravelly voice with an American inflection.
Juan pulled her through and shouted. “Come on,” at whoever was climbing the ladder.
A man with a face like an overused roadmap dragged himself out next. His torso was covered by an ancient black down jacket with feathers escaping from multiple holes. He was panting like a steam engine that couldn’t get enough fuel. Bald, he turned haggard brown eyes on them and rasped, “Sasha,” with a Russian accent.
Ted stuck his head out. “James is dead. Nora is unconscious. I tried to carry her up the ladder, but I’m not strong enough. Neither is Boris. It’s why we weren’t faster.”
“Are you certain James is dead?” Recco asked.
“Yeah.” Ted’s reply was terse, and Recco didn’t demand details.
“Move over,” Aura ordered and slithered through the opening.
Juan tried to grab her, but she was gone. Had she fallen? Thirty feet was a long way down. “Aura!” he cried.
“I’m okay. Used magic to cushion my fall.”
Ted climbed through, moving like an old man. His face was streaked with dirt and grime, and his blue eyes were even more haunted than they’d been aboard Arkady.
Juan started down the hole, but Viktor yelled, “Stop. We can do more good from this end. I have rope. Aura didn’t need to go down there.”
“Toss it my way.” Juan grabbed an undulating coil and wrapped one end around his waist to make a primitive belay. He dropped the end into the ice cave.
“Got it,” Aura called, followed by, “Pull her out.”
The rope tightened around Juan’s waist. Viktor moved to his side, and between the two of them, they hauled the rope up. Recco stood next to them, ready to take over as soon as Nora was out.
Ashen faced, she hung in loops wrapped beneath her arms and tied across her back. Lank red hair fell around her, and she was barely breathing.
Recco gathered her into his arms, unlooping the rope and moving aside. Boris crested the ladder. Dried blood splotched his face, and his eyes held a horrified expression as if he’d traversed the backside of Hell. He scrambled out of the way and lurched unsteadily to his feet. Ted wrapped his arms around Boris, and the two men leaned into each other.
“Aura. Get out of there,” Juan yelled.
“I’m bringing the other guy. No way am I leaving any raw material for that mage bastard to turn into fodder for his power.”
A low, ominous booming began deep beneath their feet, followed by a tortured cry from Aura.
Juan clattered down the ladder, ignoring Viktor’s shouts. Aura was at the bottom chanting furiously with an emaciated, dark-haired man clutched in her arms. Magic boiled around her in a sickly luminescence as the booming gathered intensity.
“You cannot call magic down here,” Juan shouted. “It’s waking the fucker up.”
“How the hell could you possibly know?” Aura demanded. Her face twisted into a rictus of determination. “Shit. You’re as green as Shifters come.”
Her words stung. Did they reflect how she saw him? Stupid? Ineffectual? He shook off his hurt feelings. The only thing that mattered was getting her out of the cave. James—or whatever his name was—didn’t matter.
“Let go of him. We have to get out or we’ll be trapped here. Christ, woman! Do you want to die in this cave?”
Ice began to shatter around them, falling on their heads. It was uncannily similar t
o what had happened in the doomed boxcar. Pressure built around Juan, and he recognized the dark mage’s twisted magic. He reached for the dead man. “I’ll take him.”
Aura nodded once, sharply, and hustled up the ladder. The earth shook around them, and ice broke off, hitting unnaturally high notes that made Juan’s ears ache. He draped the man, who didn’t weigh much more than a child, over his shoulders and started up the ladder. The gray daylight streaming through from the top was blotted out by something, but whoever stood guard over the hole pulled the blockage aside.
“Jesus, Juan. Get the fuck out of there,” Viktor yelled in an anguished howl. “Things are turning to shit out here.”
Juan reached the top. Someone dragged the corpse off his shoulders, and he heaved his body through what was left of the opening. His arm caught on a jagged piece of something, and it ripped through his jacket. Maybe his skin. He was too cold to tell. The infernal booming kept right on pounding against him like a set of church bells on steroids.
Aura linked an arm through his. “Run! The ocean’s gone mad.”
Juan couldn’t look at it. He had to watch where he put his feet, so he didn’t end up sprawled over a stake, which might impale him. By the time he and Aura got to the Zodiac, everyone else was inside and the engine was revving. He ran through knee-high surf that sloshed into his boots with Aura by his side. She hurtled over a pontoon, and he followed her.
Juan was no sooner partway in the raft when Viktor gave it full throttle. Panting, Juan pushed to a sit and stared out at three-foot swells. The water had developed an eerie, rust-colored hue. Breath stuttered around a thick place in his throat.
“It looks like the Cataclysm,” he ground out, and added, “I’ve never seen surf like this here. It’s a bay for chrissakes.”
The raft shuddered as it hit the waves head-on. Juan eyed the pontoons. Zodiacs were sturdy. They had multiple air chambers, which meant one or two could sustain a puncture and the raft wouldn’t sink. But they were tippy bastards.
“At least we got him out.” Aura smoothed dark hair back from the dead man’s bony face. “How’s Nora?” She glanced at Recco.
“In shock. Malnourished, but I believe she’ll pull through.”
“James was her son,” Boris said. “He appears old, but he was only fourteen.”
Juan tasted salt spray on his dry, split lips. What a hell of a way for a young man’s life to end.
Viktor swung the raft to line it up with the gangway. Both the ladder and the raft bounced crazily. “You’re going to have to time how you leave the raft.” Viktor’s words were devoid of inflection. He was back in ship’s captain mode. “If you don’t, you’ll end up in the water, and it will be damned hard to rescue you.”
“How do we time leaving?” Zoe asked. Her voice cracked on the last word.
“Do exactly what Viktor and I say,” Juan replied. He helped Viktor secure the raft to the cleats, but not too tight. Waves this high could snap the ropes or drag the raft out of the water and upend it. At Viktor’s nod, he stood, grabbed the cage at the bottom of the gangway, and swung into it in one fluid motion. The ship bounced down a full four feet, and he stared at the raft’s occupants.
Viktor was readying Recco, who still had Nora in his arms. As soon as the raft and gangway were close to level, Juan clasped Recco’s outstretched arm and hauled him and Nora onto the platform. For one heart-stopping moment, all of them hovered over the hungry, red-tipped waves.
“Crap!” Recco gasped out the word.
“Never mind. Get moving up the gangway,” Juan directed.
The next person off the raft was Ketha, and her exit was much smoother since both hands were free. One to grasp Juan’s arm and the other to grab the cage around the bottom of the gangway.
One by one, everyone made the safety of Arkady until only Viktor and the corpse were left. “What do you want to do with him?” Juan shouted.
“Use the crane to drop the webbing,” Viktor shouted back. He undid the rope holding the raft in place and turned the small, bobbing craft toward the crane’s drop-off point. Waves crashed over the bow, dousing him.
Juan understood it would never work. There was no way to stabilize the raft sufficiently to drape the webbing around it and lift it out of the water. He started to yell at Viktor to come back when a series of waves hit the raft like a one-two punch and flipped it.
Juan crouched on the small platform, frantically scanning the waves for Viktor’s tawny head. He readied the ring buoy, ready to toss it the second Viktor surfaced. A minute dripped past then another.
“Come on, amigo.” Juan stared at the waves, willing Viktor to appear. Diving in himself would be suicide. Then there’d be no one who could pilot the boat. Finally, Viktor’s head broke the surface. Juan threw the buoy as hard as he could. Viktor latched his fingers around it.
“Pull,” he shouted, spitting out seawater.
Juan scarcely needed instructions. He hauled on the rope against the drag of the water, but it wasn’t working. He needed both arms to fight the waves, so he latched his feet around slats in the bottom of the gangway’s platform and lay on his belly. Water sloshed across the platform, but he was already soaked. It felt as if he battled a giant, tugging the ring buoy toward the platform, but Viktor was finally close enough for Juan to grip his waterlogged jacket and haul him to safety.
Viktor spat more seawater. “You saved my life, mate. The ocean turned deadly. I couldn’t figure out which way was up. If it hadn’t been for my raven, I’d have kept right on swimming toward the bottom of the sea.”
Juan untangled his feet and stood. He tied the ring buoy back in place. “Get moving and out of those soaked clothes.” His voice was gruff to cover his relief. He’d been certain Viktor was dead.
“No more heroics for corpses,” Viktor muttered and slogged up the gangway.
Juan cursed himself for not leaving James at the bottom of the ice cave. He’d promised Aura he’d take care of the dead teen, but she’d crested the ladder, and he could have done whatever he wanted. She saw him as inferior, anyway. It had been one of his fears, and she’d hammered nails into that coffin when she mocked his opinion.
Her words—How the hell could you possibly know? Shit. You’re as green as Shifters come—rattled through his brain as he climbed the gangway and activated the electronics to lift it out of the water.
He wiped water out of his face. Every part of his body hurt. Good thing he’d found out what she really thought about him before he invested any more emotional effort in their relationship.
Aw fuck. Who am I kidding. I’m in love with her, and she just “dear-Johned” me.
A shiver started in his shoulders and ran the length of his body. Hypothermia was insidious. He needed a hot shower and hot coffee or soup far more than he needed to wallow in feeling sorry for himself.
An expert at clearing everything nonessential out of his mind, Juan picked up the pace as he headed for his cabin. Aura had been an enticing dream, but he’d be fine without her.
He was trashed, so it might have been his imagination, but he thought he heard his cat growl disapprovingly from the sidelines.
Chapter Nineteen: An Honorable Death
Aura grabbed the edge of a table for balance. Arkady was underway again. Viktor and Juan hadn’t lost any time pulling anchor and putting distance between themselves and King George Island. She and the other ten women were in the second dining room, a space they didn’t ordinarily use because so few were aboard.
Rowana was laid out on a table. They’d washed her body, dressed her in her dark robes, and said their farewells. Aura’s eyes felt hot and gritty. She hadn’t cried since her friend begged them to let her go on the shore beyond the ruins of the Polish research station.
“We owe her the full court press,” Ketha said. “My wolf wants to bid a formal farewell to her eagle and offer thanks to it for being a compassionate and loyal bondmate.”
Amid murmurs from the other women, everyone started
shucking their clothing. Aura pulled her jacket off her shoulders as she walked to Ketha’s side. She still wasn’t totally warm, but her mountain lion would fix that problem. “How are you doing?” she asked Ketha quietly.
The other Shifter turned toward her. “Viktor nearly drowned. Rowana is dead. How do you think I’m doing?”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to be intrusive.” Aura sat on the carpeted floor and took off her boots.
Ketha squatted next to her and did the same thing. “Sorry. I’m as edgy as a scalded cat. You were being kind and thoughtful, and I was a bitch. I’ll get over Viktor’s near brush with death, but Rowana being gone will hurt for a long time, maybe forever.”
“Know what you mean.” Aura undid her storm pants and her inner trousers, sliding both down her legs.
All around her, the air kindled with Shifter magic, and a variety of animals took shape. Aura stripped off her woolen underwear and let the shift magic take her. In cat form, she padded to Rowana’s body and laid her head on her friend and mentor’s chest. A painful yowl rose from her cat, followed by howls and screeches from the other animals.
Rowana’s eagle formed in the middle of a blaze of light and landed on her chest, displacing Aura’s cat. The eagle bent its feathered head and laid it against Rowana’s cheek, cooing softly.
The tears that had refused to come formed in Aura’s cat’s eyes; it blinked them aside. “She had an honorable death,” Aura’s bondmate said. “We cannot ask for more.”
Aura swallowed bitter knowledge. She could, indeed, ask for far more than that. She wanted Rowana’s soft laughter and understated sense of humor. She wanted her friend’s wisdom and compassion and the knowledge shining from her dark eyes.
Is this going to be our lives? she wondered. Where we die off one by one, killed by some abomination that got a new lease on life because of the Cataclysm?
By those standards, Rowana was lucky. Her tenure in this brave, new wasteland had been brief.