by Ann Gimpel
“Not really. It’s been a long time since anyone’s cared what happened to me. It makes me feel like a man again.” In truth, it made him feel a whole lot of things, like humble and grateful and amazed anyone could hold anything but disgust toward the Vampire he’d turned into. He tried to articulate some of it, but his tongue tangled over the words.
Ketha kissed the thumb he’d been tracing her lips with. She trained golden eyes liquid with caring on him. “You bring out parts of me I was certain were dead too, but this isn’t the time—for any of that. We need to get to the mesa and finalize our plans. I spent hours with my spell book aboard your ship, plotting strategy.”
He kissed the tip of her nose and let go of her while he still could. Much more time that close and he wasn’t certain he’d be able to resist kissing her, running his hands under her robe to explore the tempting curves beneath it.
Ketha grinned wantonly. “Hold onto those thoughts, tiger.”
His groin tightened with unslaked need, and a fierce protectiveness surged, running hot. “What I want from you runs deeper than thoughts. It will take the rest of our lives.”
The longing in her gaze deepened, sharpened, but she turned and strode uphill purposefully. The faint path didn’t offer space for him to walk by her side. Her scent kindled desire and filled him with optimism they’d find a way to be together once their task was done. For now, she was right to refocus them on what lay ahead.
“Are you going to tell me anything about it?” He followed her upward.
“You mean my strategy?”
“Yes. Before you start, though, describe the other two Vampires in your vision. I’m sure I know them, and maybe they’ll be as straightforward to convince as Daide and Recco were.”
“I can do that, but my visions aren’t always exact replicas of how things play out. Remember I told you I see many iterations of future events?”
“I remember, but that particular vision had six of us and twelve of you. You’re all present and accounted for. Doesn’t that mean we’re short two Vampires?”
“Possibly. The other two were mirror opposites. One was very fair. Shoulder-length white-blond hair, blue eyes. The other looked a lot like Raphael with his long, dark hair and intense, blue-gray eyes.”
Viktor shuffled through possibilities. The dark-haired Vamp sounded a lot like Jorge, which wasn’t necessarily good.
Ketha slowed near the ridgeline. “I can almost hear gears meshing in your head.” She turned to face him. “I could help myself to your thoughts, but how about if you just tell me.”
“It’s possible the dark-haired one is the Vamp who killed Raphael.”
Ketha slitted her eyes, nodding reluctantly. “I’m not thrilled by the idea, but it makes sense from a cosmic balance point of view.”
“Say more.”
“Raphael was in three of my attempts to scry the future. In one, he had hold of a dead Shifter. I didn’t see him kill her, but it looked as if he probably did. In the others, he was wretchedly ambivalent about helping launch the Cataclysm spell.”
Viktor considered the information. “Even though Raphael wasn’t in the vision you chose to go with, Jorge may have been.”
“About the size of it,” she said, and set her mouth in a resolute line. “Some things are destined, preordained. Raphael—or his energy—appears to be linked to whatever will unfold once we set the spell in motion.”
“How long will it take?”
“I’m not certain. It has multiple layers, each dependent on successful completion of the previous one. I sketched out one possible deployment to accomplish all of the necessary elements.”
“Give me some idea,” he persisted. “Minutes? Hours? Days?”
“If everything goes well, maybe an hour or two. If something doesn’t work the way I expect it will, and we have to make last minute adjustments, it could take longer.” Ketha hesitated, wrapping her arms around herself.
He folded her against him, surprised at the shudders racking her. “What?”
“If it takes too long, the Shifters will run their magical wells out of juice.”
“So? We’ll start over.”
She shook her head against his shoulder. “Doesn’t work like that. We have one shot at this. The Cataclysm is sentient, alive. It will fight back once it figures out we have a way to dismantle it. If it can, it’ll tighten its noose around Ushuaia and kill us all.”
Viktor drew back so he could look at her. “I don’t understand how magic could be so powerful.”
“Neither did I until I spent time with my book. Magical books are notorious for only giving you what you need when you actually need it. I’ve searched it before for information about the Cataclysm and how to defeat it, and come up empty-handed.”
Viktor turned her in his arms and prodded her up a few more feet to a sandy ledge tucked beneath the ridgeline, where they could sit. The sun was long since gone, and a cold wind blew. The ledge would offer some protection and give them a few minutes before they joined the others. He settled her next to him and wrapped his arms around her, offering his body as a windbreak.
“Why do you think the Cataclysm is alive?”
She leaned closer to him. “All spells are alive while they’re being created. Because this one was interrupted midstream, it held onto its sentience. The more I know about it, the surer I am that one of the original group sabotaged its making.”
“By accident?”
She tilted her head and looked at him. “Ha! Not a chance. Given what I know now, I suspect one of the Vampires caught wind the spell was really crafted to obliterate their Vampire power—whether it turned them into Shifters or not. He reacted and sabotaged the casting with sex.”
“How’d he find out?”
“How else?” Ketha made a bitter face. “One of the Shifters was in love with him and did what lovers have always done.”
“She told him, huh?” Viktor digested the new information. “Did the book clue you in on that?”
She shook her head cradled against his shoulder. “No. My wolf.”
“Any chance of meeting your bond animal?” Viktor held his breath. Now that the words were out, he understood how much he wanted to know all sides of the woman in his arms.
“If we get through this in one piece, of course. Assuming my Shifter magic isn’t perverted somehow—and doesn’t disappear entirely.”
“Then we have to make certain we win.”
He pressed his mouth into a hard line to keep from cursing Vampires from here to the Antarctic Circle. Fucking bastards. As usual, if there was a mess, they were smack dab in the center of it. “If we manage to defeat the Cataclysm, is there any chance everything else will go back to how it was before that group in Siberia mucked around in things?”
“Yeah, it’s possible, but not likely. Magic will change, but I don’t know what that will look like. Normally, I wouldn’t be so quick to run headlong into trying to kill off the Cataclysm, but we don’t have a choice. Not really.” She raked a hand through her tangled hair. “This whole thing stinks. It’s nearly been the death of Earth, and it still might be.”
She pressed against him a moment longer and then got to her feet. “Let’s join the others and sort this out. The other Vampire in my vision, not Jorge, but the blond. What do you know about him?”
“Not much.” Viktor creased his forehead, thinking. “He’s one of the old ones, but Raph didn’t make him. He’s a rogue, keeps to himself. Rumor has it he was here when Raphael showed up, and had been here for a long time. You might ask one of the other men. I didn’t pay much attention to my Vampire indoctrination. Do you want me to hunt him down?”
“Not yet. Let’s gather everyone together and kick this around. It’s one thing for me to strategize in a vacuum, but I’d be worse than a fool not to throw my plan on the table and let everyone poke holes in it. Once we have a direction, we can decide on Mr. No-Name.”
“Oh, he has a name.” Viktor stood and wrapped his arm around
Ketha again. “It’s Raziel.”
Ketha sucked in a startled-sounding breath. “This could get very interesting. Raziel is another Archangel, just like Raphael.”
Viktor started to protest it couldn’t possibly mean anything beyond pure coincidence, but Ketha shot a pointed look his way. “Don’t be so certain, and yes, I was in your mind. I admit Raphael scarcely evokes love, joy, laughter, or healing. But Raziel recovers what’s lost. Come on. Let’s launch this before I lose my nerve.”
He followed her over the crest and toward where the Shifters had gathered, along with the three Vampires. Respect for Ketha burned bright in his chest. She’d admitted she was scared, but she was forging ahead anyway. He’d have sold his soul—if he had one left—to spare her what was almost upon them, but things didn’t work that way.
Chapter Fourteen: Gathering of Unlikely Allies
Ketha raised a hand in greeting as she approached her sisters congregated around an impromptu hearth. The smell of cooked fish made her mouth water. The ones she’d devoured earlier hadn’t been nearly enough, given her half-starved state. Juan, Recco, and Daide sat off to one side, eating their fish raw.
Rowana smiled broadly and patted the ground next to her, but Ketha shook her head. “It’s cold out here. Maybe we could move inside one of the caves. Not one of the condor ones, so we don’t disturb them, but somewhere out of the wind.” Ketha shouldered her pack and gazed expectantly at the assembled group of Shifters and Vampires.
“I’d be all for that.” Zoe got to her feet and wrapped her arms around herself. “These robes are warm, but they don’t cut the wind much.” Frowning, she peered at debris churned up by the brisk breeze.
“No shit.” Aura stood too. “I used to think the weather was bad in Wyoming, but at least we had summer there. I’ll bring the rest of the fish we cooked.”
Seeing nods from most of the Shifters and a thumbs-up from Viktor, Ketha walked briskly toward the nearest cliff, intent on finding which cave might be the most commodious for sixteen people.
“Second one from the far right should work,” Viktor called from behind her. “I explored all of them the first time I was here. That one’s large enough and dry. Even the ones without streams and pools tend toward damp places.”
Ketha angled right, not questioning his judgment. Viktor was a gem, and it was hard not to follow her heart where he was concerned, but it was a diversion. She focused her mind on Raphael—and Jorge who held what was left of the Master Vampire’s essence. The specter of dealing with him in any capacity made her blood run cold, but she didn’t see any choice.
For some reason she couldn’t fathom he was locked into the spell to break the Cataclysm. Maybe he was the negative energy the spell would need to ground itself. She felt out of her depth and longed for her mentors, but she may as well wish for the moon on a platter for all the good it did her.
Those first few years in Ushuaia, she’d yearned for her cozy lab and all its state-of-the-art equipment, but that hadn’t done much good, either.
She glanced at indentations in the cliff and picked the second one, ducking low to crawl inside. Because the opening was small and didn’t let much light into the cave, she kindled her mage light, keeping its output low to conserve magic. Ketha felt warmer immediately. Getting out of the wind was a relief. She made her way to the edge of a sandy floor and removed her pack, balancing it against a wall while she withdrew the spell book and her notes from earlier. By the time she was ready, everyone had seated themselves in a rough circle. Several mage lights bobbed near the Shifters.
“We can get by with a single light,” she said. “I’ll keep mine lit because I need to read.”
“What happens next?” Rowana asked. “You were quite closemouthed regarding details when we used telepathy.”
Ketha clutched the book against her chest and faced the group. “That’s true enough. I had no idea if anyone could intercept my mind speech, so it felt prudent to err on the side of caution.”
“Anyone like whom?” Karin asked.
“I didn’t think anyone but us held that type of magic,” Zoe added.
Ketha shrugged. “The Cataclysm might be far more sentient than we realize. I taught Viktor telepathic speech. It wasn’t difficult, only took a single suggestion. If he could master it, other Vamps likely could as well.” She stopped to take a breath. “Doesn’t matter. We’re together now, so I can speak freely without worrying someone is tapping into my telepathy.”
“Can you now?” Zoe sent a pointed look at the four Vampires.
“We need them,” Ketha said. “My vision inferred it will take all of us and half a dozen Vampires to cast this working. When I consulted my spell book, it seconded that impression.”
“Where are the other two Vampires?” Aura asked.
Ketha held up a hand. “How about if I tell this in order, and you hold your questions until I’m done?”
Hearing a chorus of yesses, Ketha dove in. “Vamps and Shifters combining their power started this, and that’s what it will take to end it. Make no mistake, the Cataclysm will fight back. The reason everything is dead or dying is because the Cataclysm has been sucking the life force out of everything it can. That and energy from the original spell gone bad are how it maintains itself.”
“That’s a dead-end street for the Cataclysm,” Viktor spoke up. “What the hell does it do once nothing is left to feed on?”
“Almost doesn’t matter,” Rowana said flatly. “We won’t be here to see it implode—unless we manage to defeat it.”
“So far, this doesn’t make sense,” Recco said. “What Ketha described is a parasite, and they weaken their host, but don’t kill it.”
“Were you a doctor?” Karin asked.
“Yes, but for animals.”
“Focus, people.” Ketha made come-along motions with the hand not holding onto her book. “Maybe I’m wrong about the Cataclysm’s modus operandi, but I’m not wrong about needing to work together to annihilate it.” She withdrew her worksheets from the book and laid it next to her feet, keeping hold of the pages covered with her notes.
“The way I have this figured out, our spell will unfold in layers. Each layer requires two Shifters and one Vampire.”
“Can the same Vampire do double duty?” Juan asked.
“If you’re asking if a Vamp can be part of more than one layer, it would be difficult, since each group will need to hold their casting in place for the next group to build on.”
Ketha waited, but no one asked anything further. Fifteen pairs of eyes focused on her. She swallowed around a dry throat and went on. “Six spell layers mirror the six layers of the Cataclysm.”
“How do you know how the Cataclysm is put together?” Rowana asked.
“Like I told Aura, this would go faster if you held questions until the end,” Ketha replied. “I know because when I asked the spell book to assist me, that was part of the information I gleaned from it.”
She took another breath before going on. “It’s possible we could do this in five layers by combining the first two. The book wasn’t terribly clear about that part, but basically we’ll be working from the outer portion of the Cataclysm inward. By the time we get to the core where we do our serious immolation, we’ll all be in mortal danger.
“This is potentially a suicide mission,” Ketha went on. “If the Cataclysm is stronger than we are, it will swallow us whole. Suck us into its core where we’ll either burn or suffocate.”
“You make it sound like a black hole,” Daide said.
“I don’t know much about them,” Ketha replied, “but if you’re referring to an impossibly strong gravitational pull, then yes. Magic will be the only thing holding us separate from the Cataclysm while we focus power to destroy its center. The reason we’re doing this in layers is we have to open a passageway to access the thing’s core. Individually, or even in pairs, we don’t possess magic strong enough to do that in one fell swoop, so we’ll open it a section at a time. Each team�
��s job will be to hold their portion open so the following team can reach through it and unravel the next part.”
“A whole lot could go wrong,” Rowana observed.
“True enough,” Ketha answered her. “We don’t have to do this. But you need to know what you’re getting into if you agree.”
“I thought you needed all twelve of us,” Zoe said.
“Yes. Either we all concur in taking what is a significant chance, or none of us move forward.”
“Have you cast a tarot spread?” one of the younger Shifters asked. “To check the timing of our effort and such?”
Ketha shook her head. “My cards are back in our old grotto. They weren’t one of the things I rescued from there, but feel free to take a peek with your own deck.”
“What do we do about the two missing Vampires?” Aura asked.
“I’ll take care of that,” Viktor said.
“Take care of it as in find two more?” she pressed.
“It’s not quite that straightforward,” Ketha spoke up. “One of the other two that I saw in my vision is apparently an old rogue Vampire named Raziel, who hails from before the Cataclysm.”
“Mmph. Not sounding very promising,” Rowana muttered.
“Oh, it gets worse,” Ketha assured her. “Raphael is dead—”
“They already know,” Viktor cut in. “They were there when I told the other Vampires back by the bramble bush.”
Cheers rose from the Shifters, but Ketha waved them to silence. “Yeah, I thought him being out of the way was great too, except the Vamp who killed him drank from him, and apparently that means Raphael’s essence is now part of his killer.”
“Huh?” Aura focused her green-eyed gaze on the four Vampires and shoved blonde curls out of her face. “Why would one of you be that irresponsible?”
Juan shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “Power is a funny thing. I’m sure Jorge was so wrapped up in bloodlust, he figured he could control the old fucker. Add to it that we’ve been chronically starved for years. All that blood was likely too much to resist.”
“Raziel?” Rowana sputtered. “And Raphael. What the hell is this? A convocation of Archangels?”
