by Ann Gimpel
He made himself a promise to live through the battle to come and to make certain Tairin did too. Once it was over, he’d throw himself on her mercy. Tell her how much he loved her and what a terrible mistake he’d made. It might not work, but he had to try. The unsettled place within him receded, making it possible to focus his concentration on what lay ahead. The pungent stench of death and rot reached him, which meant his worries about the vampires not being there had been stupid. They might be entertaining Nazis again, but Elliott wasn’t worried about the SS. They were mere men, and men were easy to kill. Even men with guns. Magic was faster than any bullet.
“Ready yourselves.” Jamal breathed the words into their minds.
Squawking from overhead sent his heart thudding into overdrive until he recognized Meara’s vulture form winging its way ahead of them. She’d been vague about her role, but at the moment she was functioning as a forward scout.
The leading group shot forward. It was part of their plan once vampires came into view. No hesitation. No “I’ll take this one, and you take that one.” They’d target whichever vampire didn’t already have a bunch of them ringed around it. The battle wouldn’t last long. An hour from now, they’d either be victorious—or drained of blood and turned. It wasn’t ideal. Far better to pit the strongest of them against the older vampires, but they hadn’t figured they’d have adequate time to determine such things. Not and remain undetected.
Surprise was a key element in their attack, and so far, it was panning out.
Elliott raced forward with his group. They came to the clearing. The groups ahead of them were fully engaged with vampires, except other vampires had gone to their companions’ aid.
“That one,” Jamal bellowed and pointed to a vampire with long, blue-black hair, who’d taken on one of their groups as it attacked a different vampire with silvery locks. The evil creatures were garbed in the same heavy, silken robes they’d worn last time Elliott was here. He sprinted in the direction Jamal indicated, but it felt as if he were running through molasses. His limbs didn’t want to obey commands from his brain.
The vampire they’d targeted turned liquid, dark eyes with golden centers on them. Magic pulsing from it was so strong, it was all Elliott could do to remain upright. The creature was beautiful in an unearthly way. Stopping in his tracks to stare at it was the right thing to do.
The only thing to do.
Magic crackled around him, and the vampire’s spell shattered. Tairin slapped him, Stewart, and Michael across their shoulders. “Come on,” she shouted. “Father is by himself up there.”
Jamal was indeed facing off against the dusky-haired vampire. At least it had left off trying to help its kinsman with the silver hair. Magic flared from Jamal’s raised hands, but it rolled right off the vampire, who opened his mouth and laughed.
“Come on little shifter.” He crooked a finger Jamal’s way. “If you stop this charade, I’ll make you one of us. It’s not so different from the power you have now.”
“What makes you think I’d be the least bit interested?” Jamal asked.
“Oh come now.” Compulsion flowed from the vampire. It had to have snared Jamal, but he didn’t seem fazed. “All of us want more power. All the power we can get our hands—or in your case paws—on.”
“Make it worth my while.” An easy smile crossed Jamal’s face.
Elliott understood what the shifter was doing. Flattery could divert the vampire just long enough for them to attack it. “Go around behind the vampire,” he told Michael and Stewart. “Do it while Jamal is keeping him busy.”
He pulled the sharpened silver stake from his coat pocket, keeping it cupped in a hand and hidden, while he readied himself to spring. This was going even faster than he’d anticipated, but things could still go seriously sideways. The crippling inertia hit again as another vampire targeted him, and likely other Romani as well. Tairin intercepted its poison almost immediately.
He glanced her way, but she was already spinning in another direction, magic jetting from her outraised hands. She’d braided her hair tight against her head, and her eyes glowed with delight. She was enjoying this. Battle was part of her birthright, and he loved her fierceness.
And her. If he’d had time, he’d have begged the gods for one more chance to make things right with her.
Around them, the stench of rot and death thickened until his gorge clenched in protest. In his peripheral vision, a vampire with a stake through its heart dissolved into nothing more than bones riddled with holes. So that was what Meara had meant, but at least one vampire was out of the way. Elliott would’ve liked to move around the battleground and take stock of how they were doing, but that was Meara’s job, not his.
Michael and Stewart were in position. They stormed the vampire from behind, knocking it on its belly. The thing bellowed its outrage and writhed beneath the two men. Jamal jumped on the heap, but the vampire was strong enough to throw him off. Undaunted, Jamal leapt back atop the thing, but from a different angle.
Elliott didn’t hesitate. Whether he staked it from the front or the back made little difference. Jamal made space for him, chanting like a madman as his power flared, creating a blue-white nimbus.
Elliott straddled the vampire. Lodging the stake midway down its back, he pounded it home with a magical assist. Black blood spattered him, smelling worse than the ripest charnel pit. Small black bugs followed the blood and latched onto his hands, biting deep.
What the hell were they? He hadn’t read anything about them in the lore books.
The body beneath his bucked and writhed, but he held fast. More black ichor geysered, coating him in the noxious stuff. The biting insects disappeared into his hands and arms. They burned with an unholy fury, but he couldn’t let go of his stake long enough to claw them out of him.
Jamal noticed the bugs—beetle-sized with sharp beaks and hard carapaces. “No!” he screeched and swept the ones that hadn’t dug their way through Elliott’s skin off him, smashing them one by one.
The vampire’s movements ceased abruptly, and its body exploded, leaving nothing but bones beneath Elliott’s splayed legs. Bits of flesh and sinew flew through the air, splattering everything within a five-foot radius.
He might be coated with vampire blood and stinking of dead things, but victory was still sweet. “We did it,” he crowed, gasping and panting.
“Aye, lad, that we did,” Stewart dragged him off the vampire’s bones and to his feet.
Elliott surveyed the battleground. Two vampires remained, but gangs of shifters and Romani converged on them, so they’d be dead very soon. “We got lucky,” he ground out, still struggling for breath. “No SS. I worried about that, but only when we were almost here.”
“Not that lucky.” Jamal wound a hand around his arm. “How many of those bugs got inside you?”
Elliott shrugged. “I have no idea. Some. Why?”
Jamal’s nostrils flared, and he looked away.
“What?” Michael planted himself in front of the shifter. “What bugs?”
“They’re not really bugs,” Jamal said. “They’re part of a master vampire’s essence. This one must have sired the remainder of this nest. The things that looked like beetles are the way vampire lords ensure their survival and the survival of their line—even after death.”
Elliott’s mouth gaped open. He clawed at his hands and forearms, but the small holes the bugs that weren’t bugs had made were already closed. “Noooooo.” He moaned and shook his head back and forth. “I can’t become a vampire. I won’t. I’ll kill myself first.”
The euphoria from what he’d been sure was victory turned to ashes, bitter in his mouth. Spinning away from them, he doubled over and vomited. Even after his stomach was empty, dry heaves racked him, and he fell to his knees. At least Tairin was still alive. He’d kept her safe. It made his own death palatable.
“Any chance ye’re mistaken about this?” Stewart faced off against Jamal.
“None. I’ve se
en it before.”
“We’ll get him back to the caravan,” Michael announced, his face drawn into a mass of grief-torn wrinkles. “Surely if all of us lend our power, we can drive the vampiric essence out.”
“Won’t work.” Jamal spoke flatly. “I’ve seen this before.” He repeated himself. “It’s one of the worst journeys a creature that’s not evil to begin with can take.”
“We can save him,” Tairin’s wolf sounded frantic, “but we must begin now.”
Tairin looked from her father to Elliott. Apprehension and guilt streamed from her in bright, pulsing waves. “My wolf and I can fix this,” she said.
“No.” Jamal made a grab for her, but she sidestepped him neatly and ran to Elliott’s side.
“I admire your courage, but it’s too dangerous,” her father said.
Tairin knelt by Elliott and wrapped her arms around him. She exchanged a pointed look with her father. “I don’t want to live without him.”
Her embrace laved his soul, but Elliott pulled away from her. “Hang onto your anger from earlier,” he said, each word like stabbing a knife into his heart. “I’ll take care of my problem—before the vampire grows so strong inside me that I can’t.”
“I don’t think so.” She spaced her words out and grasped his face between her hands.
“I love you, Tairin. Live a good life. Find a way to be happy. I’m touched you and your wolf are willing to try to save me, but your father says it’s perilous, and I won’t risk either of you.”
Elliott wrenched away from her and pushed heavily to his feet. He felt dark power rooting within him and understood he had to be quick about his next steps. If he waited too long, the vampire would never let him do away with their shared body.
Spinning, he sprinted into the nearby woods. He knew this country and headed for a waterfall studded with sharp rocks at its bottom, intent on running off the precipice. He was still human enough, the fall was certain to kill him.
It was for the best. He’d told Tairin he loved her. And she still loved him. He’d seen it in her eyes. Nothing more needed to be said.
Elliott cleared his mind as he ran. If he were going to die, he’d do it as himself, not as the insidious presence clawing its way through him. The pounding of a large animal crashing through the underbrush made him run faster. Whatever was back there would not catch him. He’d see to it. He was almost to the cliff over the abyss. Just a few more yards. He could make it.
Something heavy sprang on him, shoving him to the forest floor.
Tairin’s wolf.
Before he could roll out from beneath it, tell it he appreciated its efforts, but he was beyond salvage, the wolf sank its fangs into his shoulder. Pain shot through him, and a tortured scream rose from his throat. More agony than he’d ever have imagined possible from an animal bite seared him—and he’d had plenty over the years.
His shoulder caught fire. He could almost smell his flesh burning, but it had to be a magical illusion.
“Fight, goddammit!” the wolf urged and buried its fangs in his other shoulder.
“Fight what? How?”
“Drive out the dark. I’ve given you shifter blood. Sent a bond animal of your own into you. Find your wolf side and shift. If you waste my gift, you’ll drag us—Tairin, me, and your wolf—into night everlasting with you.”
Chapter 14
Tairin watched in disbelief as Elliott tore out of the clearing. She’d offered him a chance. Why hadn’t he taken it? Other shifters and Romani moved toward them, and the buzz of conversation rose and fell with people wanting to know what happened.
“Come on,” her wolf urged. “We have to do this now. I can’t bring him back from the dead. Hurry. I found a bond animal willing to take a chance on him.”
Clothing ripped as she shifted and bounded after Elliott before her paws were fully formed, with her father’s cries of, “Stop,” ringing in her ears. At first, she figured he’d be easy to catch, but the vampire’s supernatural speed was already taking hold. She’d never have caught up to him in her human form.
“Not good news that he’s so fast already,” the wolf said, mirroring her thoughts.
“Yeah, that vampire we killed must’ve been hella strong.”
“Sire to that nest and maybe several more we don’t know about,” the wolf replied.
Tairin didn’t respond. The thought of facing down more vampires wasn’t high on her list, but she’d do it if it meant sabotaging the Nazi war machine. “Did you know what those bug things were before Jamal told us?”
“Yes. I’ve never seen them, but other bond animals have, including the one who just agreed to bond with Elliott.” The wolf hesitated. “It’s why I know what we need to do. It’s dangerous. We all might die.”
“I gathered that from Jamal’s reaction, but if we don’t intervene, Elliott will destroy himself.”
“I have your assent to move forward?” The wolf ran faster. A few more leaping bounds and they’d reach Elliott. Not a moment too soon, judging from the deafening noise of an enormous waterfall.
“Yes.”
The wolf sprang, using its weight to hold Elliott down while it bit deep, infusing shifter essence into the wound. Tairin felt the new bond animal transit into Elliott. He screamed, a tortured howl as shifter blood battled the vampire inside him. Tairin would’ve saved him from the agony, but she couldn’t. All she could do was hope the four of them would be strong enough to defeat the vampire.
“Fight, goddammit!” the wolf urged and buried its fangs in Elliott’s other shoulder.
“Fight what? How?” he asked, shuddering with pain.
“Drive out the dark. I’ve given you shifter blood. Sent a bond animal of your own into you. Find your wolf side and shift. If you waste my gift, you’ll drag us—Tairin, me, and your wolf—into night everlasting with you.”
So that was the danger. Nice to have it spelled out.
“Listen to me,” Tairin said. “Latch onto your Romani power and fill yourself with earth magic. As much as you can hold. When you think there’s no more space, keep going.”
Elliott pushed his way out from beneath the wolf and rolled into a crouch, hands splayed on the dirt in front of him to maximize his contact with the earth. Power flared blue-white around him, Romani but with dark-tinged edges that had to be the vampire moving into ascendency. His long hair had come out of its leather thong and dragged in the dirt, shrouding his face from view.
“Hurry,” Tairin urged.
“I’m trying. Tell me what to do next.” His mind voice held a tortured note.
“There’s a wolf within you. Summon it. Don’t be gentle. They’re not gentle creatures. Command it to transform your shared body.”
Tairin sat on her haunches, willing Elliott to have the strength for the transformation. Shifters dreamed their animals, got to know them before their first shift. Even with an introduction, the initial transition was a jarring experience. Painful as bones, muscle, and sinew rearranged themselves. Plus, it was unnatural to cede control of your body to another.
Light pulsed around him, and Elliott grunted with effort. At first, the glowing nimbus grew brighter, and hope filled her that they’d pulled this off, cheated the vampire of another few millennia of life. As she watched intently, the glow began to fade.
“No!” Tairin shrieked. “Try harder.”
“I—I’m trying as hard as I can.” Elliott reverted to spoken speech, probably to conserve his magic. “I’m not strong enough. There’s a battle raging inside me, and it’s draining my power. Every time I try to latch onto more, it slips away.”
Footsteps pounded toward them, and Tairin sensed Jamal, Michael, Stewart, and Meara. The group skidded to a halt next to Elliott.
“Help him,” Tairin pleaded and rose to stand on all four feet.
“It’s exactly what I intend to do. You were brave but foolish.” Red light pulsed around the vulture shifter, and she hunkered next to Elliott, placing her hands over the bite wounds on b
oth his shoulders. “Do not fight me,” she instructed.
“I won’t.”
“You have to corral the vampire. Keep it out of the way while I feed power into your wolf.”
“Got it,” Elliott said through clenched teeth. Lines of strain furrowed into his forehead, and sweat beaded despite the chill of the day.
“What can we do?” Michael asked.
Meara angled her head toward him. “Can you strengthen his Romani magic by touching him?”
Stewart nodded sharply. “Aye.”
“Then do it.” Meara turned her attention back to Elliott. His body had begun to undulate, rocking where he crouched. The bright light around him had eroded to almost nothing.
Michael knelt behind Elliott on one side, Stewart on the other. Each grabbed one of his arms and began a low chant in Coptic. The scents of their combined magic—earthy and pungent—reminded Tairin of her long years traveling with gypsies.
Meara screeched, “Now!” in Gaelic, and a whirling red vortex formed around the tableau of Romani and her. Her power stung Tairin’s nose with its baked clay, hay, and rosemary scents. Jamal joined in with Meara’s Gaelic chant.
“What can I do?” Tairin asked her father.
“You and your wolf offered the gift of shifter ability to save his life. Your task is done,” Jamal said into her mind as he continued to chant.
Unsettled, frantic with worry, Tairin paced in a tight circle, remaining in her wolf form. She wanted to see what Meara was doing, but the swirling vortex blocked her vision.
“Do you know about castings like this?” she asked her wolf.
“No. Meara is one of the strongest of us, though. Have faith in her. I’ve never known her to fail.”
Elliott shrieked, a feral roar that sounded as if his soul were being torn out by its moorings. He did it again, and again. If Tairin had hands, she’d have covered her ears. For the first time, she doubted the wisdom of what she and her wolf had done. Elliott was suffering the torments of the damned, his screams testimony to his anguish. She loped to the precipice and looked at a hundred-fifty-foot waterfall splattering onto a knifelike constellation of rocks. Elliott had chosen well. It would’ve been a certain death—if he’d gotten there in time.