Tarnished Legacy: Shifter Paranormal Romance (Soul Dance Book 2)

by Ann Gimpel

  Dead was better than raped, and an idea took form. Later this morning when her group was on its way to the garment factory, she’d summon power—while she still had some—create an invisibility illusion, and run. Better not to go far. She’d go to ground the first opportunity she found and wait out the day. When night fell, she’d make her way out of Dachau.

  Saliva flooded her mouth, and her gut clenched from nausea. She might have vomited from nerves if she’d had anything in her stomach. Could she pull this off? Why hadn’t she done something before? When the answer came, she felt ashamed. She’d been waiting for Valentin—or someone—to rescue her. Or for the Nazis to announce they’d made a mistake. She was innocent, and they were releasing her.

  Except that hadn’t happened to anyone during her brief tenure in Dachau. The only way out of this place would be in a box if she didn’t take matters into her own hands. Soon, she’d be too weak to leverage the amount of power required to vanish from prying eyes. It wasn’t just cloaking herself. She also had to plant a suggestion in the guards’ minds that they’d never seen her.

  Hard to raise an alarm for someone no longer on your mental roster of prisoners. They might have a paper list, but she’d never seen them use one.

  Ilona scrunched her eyes shut. They felt hot and gritty, and a headache pounded behind one temple. Where would she go—assuming she pulled off her escape? Not back to the caravan. Associating with gypsies wasn’t safe. The guards had stolen her rings and bracelets and hoop earrings, so nothing marked her as Romani. Her hair was dark and curly, but she had gray eyes, and lacked the sharp facial features common to her people. She couldn’t pass as Aryan, but at least she might not be pegged as Rom absent her jewelry and colorful, flowing skirts.

  Her prison clothes would have to go…

  Stop! One thing at a time. My first focus has to be escape. Once I’m hidden somewhere, I can work out the rest of it.

  She relaxed her muscles, which had tightened into rocks, but sleep was out of the question. Dawn couldn’t be far off. She had a plan. One she’d put into action because it was better than fading away and dying in Dachau. The guards dragged dead bodies out of her barracks each morning. If she waited too long, she’d meet the same fate. She’d been young and strong when the Nazis captured her, but those resources were dwindling.

  Fear—the same terror that turned all of them into mewling ninnies dancing to a malevolent Pied Piper—lodged behind her breastbone and accentuated every beat of her heart. She pushed it back. She’d need its energy for her flight, and only a fool frittered away resources.

  Ilona walked at the tail end of the line of women plodding to the garment factory. Dawn was just breaking, and the gunmetal sky spit sleet. She knew better than to talk, and she kept her hands clasped in front of her. With downcast eyes, the human queue moved like an undulating snake through deserted streets. Dachau might always have been quiet at this hour, but she bet it had never been this quiet. Everyone avoided the Nazis for the best of reasons. They no longer needed a reason to imprison you in a world that had turned upside down. A world where no one asked questions anymore.

  Sleep had continued to elude her for what was left of the night, but she’d traded her ambivalence for acceptance. She’d try her best. If it worked, she’d be on her way to freedom. If it failed, death would end her misery.

  The woman in front of her stumbled but recovered and kept moving before a guard could swat her with a baton—or shoot her outright. Prisoners were a commodity. Nothing more, nothing less. Easier to kill the weak and move on. New prisoners arrived daily. So many, some of the barracks stuffed them two to a narrow bunk. At least it was warmer that way.

  Ilona girded herself and tapped into her magic. One more block and she’d have to do this. If she waited much longer, they’d be at the factory, and escape would be much harder.

  Impossible after the women were herded inside.

  Once she began, she’d have to be quick. If any of the guards felt her magic—and they might if they were gypsies hiding what they were—the jig would be up. Of course, it would be all over for them too because she’d finger them for being just like her.

  Takes one to know one.

  A grim smile parted her lips, but her head was down so no one saw it. Her hands shook where they were clutched in front of her, so she gripped them hard enough to hurt. Casting spells was easier if she had the use of her hands, but that part would have to wait until no one could see her.

  She inhaled deep, blew it out, and did it again aiming for a calm, clear center. Her power had always been strong for a Romani. Her fortunes smacking of clairvoyance rather than pretense. Ilona let her power build. She wouldn’t get to do this again if it turned to shit.

  Means I have to get it right the first time.

  Magic spilled through her. So much, she feared luminance dancing around her might give her away. Working fast, she reached into the minds of the half dozen guards flanking them.

  “You have never seen me. You will not miss me.”

  Ilona repeated the suggestion twice more. Three was a power number, and she wasn’t leaving anything to chance. No sooner had the third iteration left her mind than she drew invisibility from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet and stepped out of the line.

  She’d planned to wait long enough to see if any of the guards raised an alarm, but the specter of freedom was heady, and she couldn’t force herself to turn as she’d planned to watch the line move away without her.

  Heart pounding and throat clotted nearly shut with anxiety, she ran as fast as she could down a side street, and then another one, angling toward the road out of town. After the first few minutes where she’d expected bullets to rip through her spine, her breathing eased a little.

  She’d pulled it off—at least for now. Maybe going to ground wasn’t such a good idea. She had no idea if she’d eradicated herself permanently from the guards’ memories, or if her magical intervention would fade. She’d employed subliminal suggestion before, but always when her caravan was within hours of leaving a town. By the time a gadjo discovered she’d hoodwinked him, it would be too late to do anything about it.

  Not that no one ever drove after caravans demanding the head of the gypsy who’d cheated them, but Valentin always dealt with them. She didn’t know if anyone had ever come after her, claiming she’d played them false.

  She took stock of her magic. It was weakening, but she had enough left to clear the ancient town’s walls. Once she was outside Dachau, she could take to back ways, and she wouldn’t need to be invisible.

  Clothes. She’d need something other than her prison garb.

  Ilona scanned the street. Nothing here. She’d been to Dachau with the caravan numerous times, and she tried to remember where shops that sold clothing were located. And then she rolled her eyes. She had no money, and all the shops were still closed.

  Probably better. I can break in.

  She winced. Stealing a few reichsmarks from the gadjo paled in comparison with what she had in mind, but she had no choice. Her striped prison suit had to go, and it was too cold to be naked. Never mind the type of attention that would garner.

  A quarter mile to the east brought her to a lane of shuttered women’s dress shops. Most were multi-story, which no doubt meant the proprietors slept upstairs. Toward the end of the street, a door opened, and a buxom, blonde woman swathed in gingham and a white apron bustled out, leaving the door ajar behind her.

  If it wasn’t an opportunity, Ilona had never seen one. She hurried up the steps and inside a cozy room lined with samples. Except they were one of a kind. The sharp-eyed woman who’d just left—maybe to go to market—would notice if anything hanging from the hooks adorning the room were missing.

  A curtained alcove was inset on the rear wall. She hustled through it, hoping to find more clothing. After all, this place had to have stock to sell beyond the display samples. Her heart pounded so hard, she expected to hear footsteps clattering down the stairs
demanding to know what was going on, but silence reigned from the house’s upper levels. Piles of clothing scattered through the back room. Exactly what she needed.

  Without stopping to check sizes, she scooped a woolen skirt, wool tunic, cotton shirt, and thick jacket beneath one arm. A stack of sturdy socks beckoned, so she took a pair of them too and extended her invisibility illusion to cover everything.

  She’d just moved beyond the curtain, intent on the door, when the woman returned carting a bucket that smelled heavenly. Fresh milk. Meant a cow was nearby. Her mouth watered, but she froze in place willing the woman to move back upstairs with her pail. She’d obviously procured the milk for breakfast.

  So far, the goddess had shielded Ilona from harm, but she wasn’t under any illusions. The Nazis offered bounties for the return of escaped prisoners. This shop didn’t look prosperous enough for its owner to turn down a hundred Reichsmarks.

  The woman crossed the shop, moving carefully to keep milk from sloshing onto her shiny, wooden floor. Ilona would have employed a small spell to speed her on her way, but she needed to conserve her magic. It wouldn’t last forever.

  The woman stopped near the curtain, nostrils flaring. She made a face, as if she’d smelled something putrid. Ilona clamped her teeth together to keep them from clanking against each other and giving her away. She could shield her visual presence, but not her stench. She hadn’t had a bath since the Nazis captured her. Her nose had adapted, but she must be ripe as rotten cheese.

  “Piotr,” the woman yelled.

  “Yes, Momma,” a child’s voice floated down the stairs.

  “Get the mop, bucket, and lye soap. It stinks in here. Must be that smelly customer we had yesterday, although she didn’t seem to be quite that rank while she was in here.”

  “Before breakfast?” the child inquired.

  “Yes, before breakfast.” The woman sounded annoyed. “It will take me time to cook something and time for the floor to dry. No reason they can’t happen together.”

  Ilona edged toward the door, taking care to be silent and praying a squeaky floorboard wouldn’t give her away. The woman had closed the door, but if she’d just start up the stairs, her heavy tread would hide the snick of the latch when Ilona let herself out.

  Sighing and muttering in German, the woman disappeared behind the curtain, pail still in hand. Before her son could appear with the mop and bucket, Ilona let herself out deploying still more magic to dampen the noise of the latch. Milk would have been wonderful, but she didn’t have time to hunt down the cow.

  She felt lightheaded from all the power sluicing through her, but ran anyway, picking a direct route that would lead out of town. A quarter hour later, staggering and panting, she cleared Dachau and hunted for something, anything, that would hide her from prying eyes for long enough to change clothes.

  A small stream cascaded down a muddy hillside before vanishing into a thicket of bushes and trees. With the last of her fading energy, Ilona staggered up the hill choked with a blanket of leaves and crisscrossing tree limbs. Her feet ached in their ill-fitting prison shoes, and her arm still clutching the stolen clothing cramped.

  Once she moved beyond sight of the road, she loosed her magic. Not having to maintain invisibility shored up her flagging strength, but not by much. Ilona worked her way through a slight opening in the vegetation and stopped in a grove of oak trees. The stream cut through them, which meant she could bathe. Maybe next time she stole something, her reek wouldn’t almost be her undoing.

  If she hadn’t been so exhausted, she’d have whooped aloud. She was free. She’d pulled it off against what felt like daunting odds. Locating a dry spot, she piled her new clothing atop it and stripped off her stinking prison suit. It would be better if she could find a place to hide it, but that wasn’t likely. When she was ready to leave, she’d wad it up and bury it beneath the thick carpet of leaves and debris.

  Unbuckling her shoes, she waded into the creek. Her teeth chattered from the cold, but she squatted in the water and washed weeks of grit and grime from her body. Even though she was beyond cold, she tilted her head until her hair was immersed and scrubbed her scalp with sand from the creek bottom, rinsing it well. Once she was as clean as she could get absent soap and shampoo, she moved upstream and drank her fill. Food would have to wait until her power wasn’t as depleted. She could lure small game—mice and suchlike—but not until she’d rested.

  She should have escaped right after they’d captured her. Today proved she could have, but fear had held her back. No more. She couldn’t eradicate her fears, but she was done giving in to them.

  Ilona made her way to where she’d left her clothes, gratified no one had come anywhere close while she bathed. She hadn’t seen any human tracks on her way up the hill, but it paid to be cautious.

  She aimed to remain free. Not an easy task, but one she was prepared to die for. As she wrapped herself in the clothing, she savored the finely woven fabrics next to her skin. The socks had been an indulgence, but they padded her feet, making the prison shoes less painful. It would be lovely to replace them, but she wasn’t about to return to Dachau. Maybe she’d risk a cobbler’s shop in another town, but not this one.

  Ilona eyed her discarded prison attire and stopped worrying about it. Surely, she wasn’t the first to escape Dachau. No one would associate the shapeless mass of sackcloth with her, and she’d left before they’d gotten around to stenciling a number into her forearm. By the time anyone found her prison clothing, she’d be long gone.

  Sleep beckoned, but she had to put some miles between her and her current location. As many as possible. She’d taken the southern route out of town—the opposite way from Augsburg. Munich was ten miles away. It might be a good place to lose herself. Maybe even a good place to find work. She couldn’t walk that far without rest, but she could maybe make half that.

  There were probably Rom caravans in Munich, but if she’d wanted a caravan, she’d have headed back to Augsburg. She wasn’t exactly done with being a gypsy, but she was done associating with them. Guilt nagged. The Rom were her people, but she couldn’t do much to save them from Nazi persecution. Hell, she was having the devil’s own time saving herself.

  Ilona made her way along the steep side hill until she came to a dirt track leading roughly where she wanted to go. She pulled the hood of her jacket over her head to hide her dark hair and made as good a time as she could.

  Where was Aron? Had he made it out of Dachau too?

  She started to raise her mind voice, and then remembered the vampire. If they were in league with the Nazis—and it certainly appeared that way—the one she’d seen that day could scarcely be the only one. Magic to hide herself was one thing. Projected power quite another. The last thing she needed was undue attention—or any attention at all.

  She’d been worse than a fool to deploy power standing in the yard outside Dachau’s gates. If she wanted to remain alive, she’d have to do a better job checking for who might be sensitive to magic before she deployed any.

  Ilona murmured a quick prayer thanking Isis for her escape and asking her to watch over Aron. Today had gone surprisingly well. Maybe it boded well for both their futures.

  Do not grow complacent, her inner voice cautioned.

  All it takes is one vampire—or a car full of Nazis—for my carefully balanced world to shatter.