by Ann Gimpel
“I doubt it,” Karin said. “Without an ongoing energy source herding it, the unlinked DNA will become more and more disorganized and unruly. Won’t take much time for it to devolve into the same bits and pieces scattered across Arkady’s deck.”
Viktor, Ketha, and the others joined them.
“We’re off,” Boris said. “Good hunting to you. Wish us luck.”
“Hang on.” Viktor grabbed Boris’s arm. “Where exactly will you be? So we know where to search if the Zodiac is still here when we return.”
Boris leaned close and spoke into Viktor’s ear. Aura didn’t bother to listen in.
“Can’t thank you enough.” Ted turned and hurried across the beach with Boris next to him. Both men peered anxiously about.
Aura scanned the empty beach. Up close, the yellow prefab buildings had serious structural defects. They’d been set on pier blocks to protect them from unusually high tides, but floors had fallen in, and windows were either boarded over or broken.
Wind scoured the open shoreline; cold and sere, it smelled like snow. What a desolate, lonely place. During the Antarctic winter, which lasted from April through August, darkness would be unremitting for at least two months.
“People actually volunteered to live here?” she muttered.
Juan nodded. “Yes. Maybe two or three hundred if you count all the settlements in this area. McMurdo is well over a thousand miles away, and it had maybe seventeen hundred residents. Then there was Scott base nearby. It—”
“We need a plan,” Viktor broke in.
“So long as it entails remaining together, I’ll support it,” Juan said.
Aura did a nose count. Four men and eight women. The other four Shifters—two wolves, a mountain lion, and a bear—were guarding Arkady. “We’re twelve,” she ventured. “Maybe we should form two groups. We could cover more ground that way.”
Juan shook his head. “Nope. We have three weapons, only one of which we’re certain of. If the Remington has enough stopping power to be effective, then we could split up, but at the moment it’s an unknown.”
“May as well be methodical,” Viktor said. “We’ll begin with the closest building and work our way through them.”
Aura spread magic around her. If even the slightest ping didn’t feel right, she’d be all over it. They moved from building to building, traveling fast but making sure they weren’t missing anything, either. Clearly, the yellow boxcars had come in sections on ships because they were all the same. Each core building was roughly fifteen feet square. Sometimes two or three had been cobbled together to make a larger structure.
“This was the main gathering place,” Juan said and stepped into a building that appeared in better repair.
Aura glanced at a mudroom with boots still lining cubbies on two walls. Past the entry hall, a display case held a three-dimensional likeness of the Antarctic continent. Although she couldn’t have articulated quite why, her sense of unease had grown with each dilapidated building, running deeper than the bleakness of deserted habitations. Ushuaia had been full of them, but they hadn’t given her a good case of the heebie-jeebies like this place did.
“This whole settlement feels wrong.” She trailed into a large room after Juan. Most of the windows were intact, but they held years of grit and grime and were impossible to see out of.
“Know what you mean,” Ketha said. “It’s probably ridiculous, but it seems as if someone is luring us right where they want us.”
Her words struck a chord, one that curdled Aura’s gut. She felt like someone had doubled up a fist and socked her in the stomach, but she was afraid if she sounded a general alarm, invisible trap doors would slam shut. She recalled Ketha’s vision about how everything had fragmented after they arrived on the beach. Maybe the seer’s prediction wasn’t as far off as they’d assumed.
She made her way to Juan who’d moved through to yet one more room. This one held trestle tables and benches and had clearly been a dining hall. A door obviously led outside. She trotted toward it, twisted a very rusty dead bolt, and threw it open.
“Nothing in here,” she said, cheerily. “Come on. I prefer the fresh air. Everything inside these boxcars smells musty.”
Juan caught her up. Two of the four wooden steps had collapsed, so he jumped down like she had. “I have a lot of warm memories of meals in there.” He crooked a thumb at the building with its peeling yellow paint.
Karin poked her head out the open door, took in the damaged steps, and said, “Eh, I can go around the other way.”
Aura ran lightly to her. “No need,” she said brightly. “Let me help you.”
Karin leaned heavily on her. Once she stood on the frozen dirt, she frowned. “It’s a relief to be out of that place. Nothing I can exactly put my finger on, but—”
Aura shook her head, and the other Shifter shut up fast.
“There you all are.” Viktor jumped down and angled his head toward the open door, calling Ketha’s name.
The sense of unease, which had begun as a trickle, turned into a torrent. Aura couldn’t hold still any longer, so she grabbed Juan’s arm—the one not busy balancing the Ruger. “We have to get everyone out of there.” She used telepathy, but it wouldn’t fool whatever they stood against.
Ketha emerged through the door and leapt nimbly down the splintered boards.
A deep, crashing boom built in Aura’s belly, gathering in intensity until she wasn’t certain where it was coming from.
The smile on Ketha’s face blew apart, and she screamed. “Get out, everyone. Break windows. Do what you have to, but get out now. This is exactly like the vision I had.”
“Goddamn it!” Viktor shouted.
Ketha ran back toward the open door, but he grabbed her shoulders, holding onto her. “You are not going back inside.”
Daide blasted through the door right before the entire structure ripped loose from its stanchions and began to spin. An out-of-control vortex, it formed a black cloud. Bits and pieces of it ripped off, and Aura ducked to avoid a club-sized chunk of wood. As bad as this was, it beat the hell out of her creeping certainty something had them in its gunsights.
She’d been right about that. Now they needed to figure out what it was. A chill wind stinking of death and rot with an overlay of ozone made her nose and lungs ache.
Daide picked himself up and limped toward them. “Fuck. What the hell is going on?”
“We’d all like to know.” Viktor stared at his wife. “If you scryed something beyond what you’ve already told us, Ketha—”
“I didn’t. Not really. I talked it through with Aura first, but—”
“Not how I run things.” Viktor’s voice was deadly quiet. “We play with all the cards on the table faceup. Not with factions who know things but keep them hidden.”
“I’m telling you I did not hide anything.” Ketha squared off against her husband, eyes on fire with annoyance.
“Stop it.” Juan faced Viktor down. “Six of us are left inside whatever that building turned into. How do we get them out?”
Aura counted. Recco, Zoe, Tessa, Moira, Rowana, and Becca were missing.
“By all the bluidy, fecking saints, what is going on?” Zoe pelted toward them.
Aura hugged her. “Bad shit. An ill wind has it in for us. Where were you?”
“Had to pee.”
“Your bladder saved you.” Aura exhaled sharply. “Crap. Five of us are trapped in there.”
Zoe raked her gaze across their small group. “Trapped? Recco and Rowana and Becca and Moire and Tessa?” At Aura’s nod, Zoe made a fist and shook it at the rotating house. It looked like something out of the Baba Yaga myth, minus the chicken feet.
Aura switched to her psychic view, hoping for information. Maybe the vortex was an illusion they could punch through. Zoe gripped one of her hands and Ketha the other. Karin joined them, and the four women focused magic at the whirling, stinking menace. Aura had been born to wield magic, but until the Cataclysm trapped he
r in Ushuaia, her power had been more abstract than practical. Even the years in Ushuaia, she’d mostly snuck around, muffling her gift on the rare occasions she was out so as not to tip off a Vampire.
Ley lines formed, but instead of glistening golden ropes, they were dull and frayed. Was this an extension of the damage Rowana had warned them about only a scant handful of days ago? How could it be so much worse here than in Grytviken?
Juan’s energy closed from behind her, along with Viktor’s and Daide’s. “What can we do to help?”
“Join your magic to ours,” Zoe answered. “Sure and we could use a boost.”
Aura felt a jolt as the men latched onto both ends of their line. The view through her third eye shifted. Other ley lines blasted into place, appearing more like they should. She squeezed her earth eyes shut, not expecting it to alter her psychic view. The gesture was reflexive, something she did when she didn’t believe what was laid out before her.
The new set of lines snapped into place, mocking her.
“Christ!” Ketha blurted. “Which ones are real?”
“These,” Karin said.
Aura liked the answer so she didn’t grill the other Shifter on why she was certain. Male energy potentiated female-driven magic. Synergistic, more than additive, perhaps it had kicked the door open to what was really there. A high, keening howl ripped through her. At first, she thought she might have screamed, but it came from outside herself.
The whirling boxcar began breaking apart, and the shrill ripping, tearing sound grew so loud her ears burned with white-hot agony. Debris careened through the air. A piece of wood two feet long, several inches wide, and studded with nails hurtled toward her. She met it with magic and it exploded a foot in front of her body, shooting upward as she’d planned.
All around her, the women blocked, dodged, and ducked. The air was so thick with wreckage, she couldn’t see the men.
“Fall back,” Juan screeched. “We have to put some distance between ourselves and the house.”
“But our companions are in there,” Karin protested. Light blasted from her fingertips, and a bowling-sized ball of mortar exploded, forming harmless dust.
“We can’t help them if we’re dead.” Viktor dragged his end of the line back a few feet.
Aura couldn’t stand her ground, launch defensive action against incoming crap, and fight the pull of their joined hands moving backward.
“Fall back.” Viktor repeated Juan’s order. “We’ll regroup once we’re beyond the worst of this.” They moved back a step at a time, still joined together. The sea lapped around her feet before they were finally clear of the rubble piling up between them and where the joined boxcars had stood.
The grinding, tearing, shearing hadn’t slowed one whit. It formed a hole in the ether. The ley lines shuddered, and Rowana came into view. The old Shifter’s face was white with strain, and her lips were skinned back from her teeth. She had hold of a horizontal line and was using it to drag herself forward. Recco was behind her with the others lined up behind him.
“My God. Her hands,” Karin gasped.
Aura stared at them and saw bone where flesh had been. Ley lines carried high voltage magic. It had stripped Rowana’s hands to bone. Shifters healed fast, but fear for her friend filled Aura with dread.
“Focus all our power where she is. Help her break through,” Aura screamed, but her ears were so trashed, all she heard was a gurgle as if she were yelling from the bottom of a well.
Magic formed a multihued arc shot with pure, brilliant white. Aura reached deep, giving it everything she had. Rowana was taking the brunt of the punishment. By the time the others dragged themselves forward, the power had eaten through Rowana’s fingers and dissipated to some extent.
Pressure built around them until breathing hurt. Aura’s lungs felt crushed, and something harsh pressed against her throat. “Push. Through. It.” She gritted the words out.
All of a sudden, the compression released. Rowana flew through the air toward them, followed by Recco, Moira, Tessa, and Becca. They landed on rocks, dirt, and jagged rubble from the boxcar.
Karin launched herself at Rowana, healing energy shooting out in quick jabs. Blood gushed from Rowana’s shredded hands, one of her legs was bent at an unnatural angle where she’d landed on a large rock, and she yowled with pain. Aura knelt on Rowana’s other side. The woman’s body was so broken, it was hard to know where to touch her.
“Help me,” Karin said in a strained voice. She built a healing shroud around Rowana, chanting furiously.
Aura opened herself, so Karin could borrow strength from her magic.
Juan squatted next to Aura. “Will she—?”
Aura turned eyes that felt like sandpaper his way, and the rest of his question died unspoken. She’d only seen a healing shroud once before, and the Shifter had died. The last-ditch effort would drain Karin to her foundations, which was why she’d asked for help.
The others gathered close. “She was so brave,” Recco said. “I wanted to take the lead, but she said I didn’t have enough magic. Damn it. Do not let her die.”
Karin didn’t even glance up. Tears streaked her cheeks. “Goddammit, Ro. Try.”
The eagle Shifter’s dark eyes fluttered open. Cloudy at first, they cleared. “Let me go. I love you, Karin, but you’re all that’s holding me here. It’s not only my hands, and you know it. No one can touch the lines and live, but it was our only way out of there.”
Blood bubbled past her lips, staining her chin, and she fought to get more words out. “It’s not what we thought. Those twisted shapeshifters are powered by a dark mage. Strongest bastard I’ve ever run across. He’s who blew up the house. He...” More blood shot past her lips, and her words disappeared in a strangled gurgle.
“He planned to drain us,” Becca said. “Not our blood, but our essence. Once he had it, he would have used us like he used the others to form warped perversions for his entertainment.”
“Where is he now?” Viktor jumped to his feet and turned in a full circle, blade raised and ready.
“Even he needs to regroup,” Moira said. “Ro’s trick with the ley lines flattened him. He’d erected another set of lines to fool us, and she blew them out of the water.”
Rowana’s bloodstained mouth twisted in pain. “Hurts. Everything hurts. I’m dying. Let me go.”
Tears sluiced down Aura’s face. She bent over Rowana and gathered her into her arms, no longer worried about causing her further pain. “Safe travels, sister. We’ll never forget you.”
The warm honey of Karin’s magic dissipated. While Aura held Rowana in her arms, an eagle formed in her mind’s eye. The bird spread its dark wings and flew toward a brilliant horizon.
Chapter Eighteen: As Green as Shifters Come
Juan saw the outline of an eagle take wing and understood Rowana was gone. He knelt next to Aura. “I’ll take her now. We’ll bury her at sea, far from this place.”
Aura folded Rowana’s broken body into his arms, and he got first to his knees and then to his feet.
“Did all of you know?” Recco gazed at the three women who’d been trapped with him and Rowana. When they nodded, he said, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What good would it have done?” Becca asked, her voice vibrating with sorrow. “It was a sure death for all of us or certain death for one. Would you have taken her place?”
“Yes. I would have.”
“You couldn’t.” Karin got heavily to her feet. “Rowana was right. You didn’t have enough magic to absorb the ley line’s energy. If you’d taken the lead, two of you would be dead now. Maybe three.” She blew out a breath and scrubbed her hands across her wet cheeks, leaving bloody tracks. “We should leave this place. Before the mage recovers and seeks vengeance.”
Juan plodded across the shore toward where they’d left the rafts. Both were still there.
Viktor ran to his side. “Christ. Can this day get any worse? I have to see what happened to Boris and Ted and t
he others.”
“Where were they?” Juan asked, adding, “Good thing you had the foresight to find out before Boris left.”
“Beneath the building that blew up, but it should make locating them easier.”
Juan wasn’t sure about Viktor’s assessment. Rubble from the exploding building could have blocked egress from an underground lair. He laid Rowana in the nearest raft. “Take her back to the ship,” he told Aura. “I’m going with Viktor.”
Desperation vied with determination in Aura’s red-rimmed eyes. “Not without me, you’re not. What if you run into trouble?”
Juan opened his mouth to argue, but she shook her head. “Not up for discussion. I just lost a woman I loved like a mother. I am not losing anyone else today if I can help it.”
Ketha stalked to where they stood. “I heard you. I’m going too.”
Viktor’s harsh expression softened when he regarded his wife. “Go back to the ship. Please.”
Ketha shook her head. Her golden eyes turned to pools of molten pain. “This feels like my fault. I should have scryed our future earlier, made certain I understood the meaning of what formed in my glass.”
“It wasn’t as if we had a whole lot of time.” Aura touched her friend’s arm.
Ketha flinched, brushing her off. “If I’d started earlier, we would have.”
“Ketha. Please.” Viktor gestured toward the raft with Rowana’s body.
“No.” She grimaced, skinning her lips back from her teeth. “Ten years. For ten fucking years I managed to keep us all safe in the hellhole Ushuaia turned into. We’ve been gone for what? Less than a month, and Rowana is dead.” Her face rippled with pain, and she scraped the heels of her hands down her face.
“I’m going with you,” Karin announced. “You might need a doctor.”
Recco stepped in front of her. “I can manage any emergency that comes up.”
“But you don’t understand how to weave medical treatment in with magic,” Karin protested.
“Won’t matter. Boris and Ted and them are human. You only use magic to treat Shifters, right?”
Karin straightened her back as if the motion cost her. “Yes, it’s true. I’ll prepare Rowana’s body for our ritual ceremony to bid her farewell.”
