I don’t know what I had expected, but it wasn’t an entire planet, complete with people, families, children. Stars in the night sky that didn’t match the ones I knew. A whole other universe. And somewhere over here, someone who was taking advantage of the holes the Sanguinary had been ripping open between worlds.
Whatever had been trying to push through when Reese and I had come across hadn’t been waiting for us. We didn’t know if it had passed over to our world, or if it left when it saw us coming.
Without us to hold it open, the portal had collapsed in on itself, taking its magic with it, leaving us standing alone in a quiet, cobblestoned alley.
But we had discovered other magics in this world—either that, or we’d honed the magic of our connection. Every time we touched, it sparked between us, the heat growing stronger, more palpable.
And the more we touched, the more we wanted to.
Even now, I could feel the strands of power stretching between us, tying us to one another. If I squinted, I could almost see them. Neon bands, blue and yellow and green, binding us with that mix of hope, fear, desire.
Maybe even love.
At the edge of the small city, a gated wall separated the street from the town, though keeping the streets free of sand was a losing battle.
No one guarded the gate. Humans here didn’t go out after dark.
The road widened outside the wall, and Reese reined back to ride beside me. “This caravan is setting up to do some trading tomorrow. According to the bartender, they don’t come into cities, and from what I could tell, the reason they stay outside the walls has something to do with their magic-users and portals.”
“From what you could tell?”
He shrugged. “It’s a miracle we can talk to these people at all.”
“Or some kind of portal magic.” That was my answer to just about everything these days.
Reese’s sound of agreement was almost swallowed up in the jingle of the not-horses’ harnesses.
The caravan’s campsite was almost an hour’s ride away. The glow of lights had been growing steadily for at least twenty minutes, so we weren’t surprised when we crested a hill and saw the brightly colored silk tents clustered below us.
But the sight of an enormous blue portal pulsating from the center of the camp took my breath away.
Reese let out a low whistle and his drawl came out in full force. “I think maybe we should scope these folks out before we try talking to them.”
“Unless they have a guard out.” I glanced around me, peering into the darkness, wishing that the portal glow hadn’t ruined my night vision.
“I don’t think so.” Reese settled his hat on his head and turned Sugar Pie back down the hill. “If they’re anything like the vamps in town, they’re too sure of themselves. No one here would cross them, so there’s no need to post a guard.”
We tethered the animals behind a small dune, but in sight of the road. If something happened to us, someone would take them. We weren’t quite willing to send them back toward town without more information about what we might find in the camp.
“How much power does a portal that size take?” I murmured as we made our way slowly around the perimeter of the grounds.
“I think maybe that’s what happens with thirteen sacrifices,” Reese whispered.
I sent up a small prayer that we really had stopped the Sanguinary. What had happened back on Earth after we left?
If we closed down the portals on this side, would we be stuck here forever?
It doesn’t matter, I told myself for the umpteenth time. As long as we keep the vampires from taking over.
Even if I was one of them now.
On the far side of the encampment, we found a small rise in the ground, just enough to hide us in the shadows as we stretched out prone behind it, peering over and down into the center of the circle of silk tents where the blue light of the portal flickered.
In front of the opening stood a tall, muscular man, dark-skinned and bald, wearing only a loincloth, his hand resting in a gesture of benediction on the man kneeling before him. He sang out incomprehensible words, his voice keening into the night and stretching out to the portal in long, thin strands of bright power.
The portal echoed the tones back to him, amplified and heightened, the sound pulling power from the ground as it pulsated across the desert sand.
The power surrounding the priest sparkled and expanded, brushing against the circle of figures sitting around the pair in the center.
Reese reached down and grabbed my hand. Our own energy sparked back and forth between us, encircling us.
Protecting us.
As the priest finished his song, he raised both arms and pulled all of the resultant power into himself until he glowed as brightly as the portal and the young man’s worshipful expression was spotlighted by the shine.
The priest dropped his palm back onto the supplicant’s head, light pouring from his hand. And the man, already on his knees, screamed and dropped to all fours. The priest stepped back as the figure in front of him began writhing, the sound of screaming enveloped in a rising hum that exploded in a flash of power washing over all the tents.
I grasped Reese’s hand even harder. The splash of power sparked against our own protective barrier, but didn’t breach it.
When the dazzle faded from my eyes, I barely contained my gasp.
Where the young man had knelt now stood a wolf-like creature.
Over the next few minutes, as the priest alternately raised and lowered his hand, as if conducting a symphony, the adolescent changed forms, back and forth—human to animal, and back again.
At some unspoken signal, or perhaps when he was satisfied by the quality of the shifts, the priest nodded, and the boy stepped through the portal. Within moments, the opening shrank away, closing with little fanfare.
Everyone stayed where they were for a few moments longer, giving their eyes time to adjust to the gentle starlight. With a few murmurs, the crowd began to stir.
In silent accord, Reese and I slid down the rise and made our way back to our mounts.
We had been on the road, headed to town for at least fifteen minutes before either of us spoke.
Reese broke the silence. “That was a werewolf, wasn’t it? A fucking werewolf.”
I nodded. “And I think they were sending it back to Earth.”
We stared at each other in dismay, our emotions roiling back and forth along the connection between us.
Finally, I said aloud what we both already knew. “We can’t do this by ourselves.”
Reese reined Sugar Pie closer and reached across the distance between us to clasp my hand. “Then we’ll find the help we need. Together.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Margo Bond Collins writes urban fantasy, contemporary romance, and paranormal mysteries. She lives in Texas with her daughter and several spoiled pets. Although writing fiction is her first love, she also teaches college-level English courses online. She enjoys reading romance and paranormal fiction of any genre and spends most of her free time daydreaming about heroes, monsters, cowboys, and villains, and the strong women who love them—and sometimes fight them.
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Sanguinary (Night Shift Book 1) Page 19
