Daide hunkered next to Recco in a Zodiac headed for a phalanx of crumbling piers. Viktor manned the helm, having left Juan to watch over Arkady. They’d worked together before the Cataclysm, running a polar adventure cruise service. Aura, Juan’s mate and a mountain cat shifter, was with them, along with Ketha and Moira, a vulture shifter. Recco’s coyote shifter girlfriend, Zoe, sat on Recco’s other side. Boris and Ted, two human refugees they’d picked up from the ruins of Arctowski research station on King George Island rounded out their shore team.

“Too bad about the piers,” Boris said. “It would have been convenient to make use of them.”

Viktor shaded his eyes with a hand, staring shoreward. “Yeah. I considered bringing Arkady in anyway. This bay used to be plenty deep enough to accommodate ships with her draft, but I wasn’t certain how much debris is littering the harbor. We’ve been here before, you know. For a couple years, we ran tours from Invercargill to McMurdo.”

“Why only a couple years?” Ketha asked.

“The trips ended up being mostly ocean and not enough shore expeditions for most of our clients’ tastes. Plus, they tied the boat up for a month. We made more money on twelve- and fourteen-day trips. Out and backs from Ushuaia to the Palmer Peninsula.”

“Sure and it always comes down to the bottom line.” Zoe smiled and leaned into Recco. He slotted an arm around her.

Daide cast a quick glance their way, trying not to be obvious about it. He was glad they were finding happiness together, and he hoped to hell it would last.

“I wore too many clothes for today.” Moira pushed her hood off her black hair. A bevy of curls tumbled in the breeze, and she gathered them at the nape of her neck and stuffed the mass of strands beneath her parka.

“You’re quiet, amigo,” Recco murmured, aiming his words at Daide.

He shrugged, not willing to rip open the can containing his raw emotions. As if to taunt him, dolphin fins cut the wake around them. Viktor killed the engine, and Leif swam close. “We’ll be over there”—he aimed a flipper to the east—“checking out the cetacean institute. If enough of the deep pools are left for us to take advantage of, I’ll let the whales know.”

His speech as a dolphin was garbled but understandable. To avoid thinking about the Shifter with his arm around Karin, Daide recalled the morphology of dolphin vocal chords. The topic was sterile enough, it had a settling effect.

“Make sure the whales keep their distance until we’re certain what we face.” Viktor shifted his attention to his wife and raised his eyebrows.

Ketha shook her head. “I’ve scanned and scanned, but if my magic is correct, nothing lives in Invercargill anymore.”

“It’s odd. I’m not even picking up mice and rats, and they’re ubiquitous. I always figured they’d be the last to go in Ushuaia.” Zoe scrubbed the heels of her hands down her face and unzipped her parka a few inches. “Damn, but I’m overdressed.”

Daide was sweating too. Once they left the Zodiac behind and the ambient wind off the ocean, it would be even warmer. Maybe he’d leave his thick waterproof jacket in the raft—along with his life vest.

Recco leaned closer. “You seem off to me. Is something wrong?”

“Nah. Only tired. That episode with Karin was difficult—and unexpected.”

Recco punched him companionably. Straight dark hair blew around his high cheekbones and square chin. His looks reflected his native South American heritage, the same as Daide’s own. “Yeah. I heard about it when Ketha told Vik. Why didn’t you call me? I’d have helped.”

“Everything happened really fast. My telepathy skills aren’t all that great.” He stopped shy of telling his old friend and practice partner he’d stormed the dolphins’ barrier and been tossed halfway across the room, landing on his ass.

“I’m glad she’s okay. What a stroke of luck Leif understood how to intervene.”

“Yup. Of course. Lucky, indeed.” Daide glanced away, feeling small and petty. He’d never cared about a woman before—not enough to let her get under his skin. Why the hell had Karin suddenly blossomed into prominence?

Because someone else wants her.

The thought made him feel even smaller and pettier. He’d never viewed himself as spiteful, and they were so few he had to get over his snit fast.

Viktor rose to his feet as the beach grew closer. “You know the drill, folks,” he said and cleared the bow, slogging through water with the anchor rope in hand.

“Who wants the weapons?” Boris asked. He dragged an iron saber off the raft, and Ted carted an old-fashioned Remington. Its main claim to fame was it had come with bullets fashioned from silver and iron, guaranteed to make short work of Vampires. The rest of them exited the raft, and Viktor tied it off to a wooden piling canting at a thirty-degree angle but with solid attachment to a concrete pier block.

“We’re nine,” Aura noted. “And we have two weapons. Maybe we should split up. We could cover—”

“Nope.” Viktor spoke over her. “We remain together. I’ll be the first to grant my magic isn’t particularly well-honed, but the absence of anything living seems damned odd.” He put out a hand for the iron saber.

“It is odd,” Aura said. “Also eerie and unsettling.” She turned in a circle, scanning the terrain. “Where are the bodies? Or the bones?”

“Maybe we’ll find them when we get more into the town proper, but it feels like something powerful masked the town,” Ketha said.

“What exactly does that mean?” Boris asked.

“Draped a spell over everything to make it appear nothing is here,” Moira replied.

Daide unclipped his life vest and tossed it into the raft. His jacket followed. Other outerwear joined the pile as most of them stripped off at least one layer. Where he’d been too warm with the parka, he felt chilled without it. Or maybe his shivers were more emotional than physical since the air felt heavy and oppressive. “What would be the purpose of such a spell?” he asked.

“To avoid being threatened by anything magical.” Ketha chewed her lower lip. “Although, it’s hard to imagine why they’d bother.”

“We won’t discover anything standing here.” Daide set off across a rock-strewn beach. Invercargill had been about the same size, population-wise, as Ushuaia. Both towns had around fifty thousand people, but Ushuaia was far more isolated and less sophisticated in terms of architecture and culture. He’d visited Invercargill twice for veterinary conferences and been impressed by the town square that could have passed for a nineteenth century European city with its old-fashioned, well-constructed edifices.

He tuned in his sharp, coyote hearing, but not so much as a chirping bird showed up. How could everything possibly be dead? It made no sense, but at least he had something other than Karin to occupy his thoughts. He reached what had once been a busy wharf area. Piers extended like spokes of a wagon wheel with boats still tied in slips. Cars, trucks, and motorcycles were neatly parked along the curb, covered with a thick layer of dust and dirt. A creeping wrongness pinged the edges of his power.

Where were the bodies? Ushuaia’s streets had been clogged first with bodies and then with bones. Hell, Ushuaia still had humans, granted not all that many, but still... How could fifty thousand people have vanished into thin air?

“I don’t like this,” his coyote said.

“Beyond the obvious, can you put your claws on why not?”

Viktor and Ketha caught up with him. Recco and Zoe chugged up behind them with the others strung out in a loose column. A bright flare of power surged among Ketha, Zoe, Aura, and Moira.

Zoe scrunched her face into a frown. “What if we don’t care overmuch for the results?”

“Results from what?” Viktor sounded annoyed. “You can’t just hatch a plan and put it into action without—”

“Wasn’t going to.” Ketha narrowed her eyes. “When did you stop trusting me?”

“Aye, we were simply tossing ideas about,” Zoe seconded.

Daide made come-along motions with one hand. “What ideas. Inquiring minds want to know.”

“The way I see it,” Recco spoke up, “either we march through town, poking through empty buildings until the bogeyman jumps out and snatches us, or we come up with something more elegant.”

“Might not be a bogeyman,” Moira muttered, “but it’s likely wishful thinking on my part. This is damned creepy. If all the people died, who the hell buried them?”

Aura cleared her throat. “The best idea we came up with is joining our power into a sphere and then feeding it until the container can’t hold any more. When the ball explodes, it will act like a magnet for anything magical and either expose or destroy it.”

“The risk, of course, is what we might uncover.” Ketha squared her shoulders. “Maybe it’s something we should leave hidden.”

“It’s enough to make me wish I had something to offer in the magical realm,” Boris muttered. Dark hair fluttered around his face, and his black eyes were serious.

“You mean besides a steep learning curve to absorb a world that includes monsters and demons?” Ted countered. As fair as Boris was dark, his white-blond hair had been braided close to his head, and his blue eyes gleamed with a sharp intellect. He and Boris were lovers, but they played their relationship very close to the vest.

“What happens if we do nothing?” Daide asked. “Just wander through town, grab what we need, assuming we find things we could use aboard Arkady, and leave.”

“We can’t leave until we’ve worked on the whales.” Recco cradled the Remington beneath one arm.

“Yes, I haven’t forgotten about them,” Daide said.

“That approach—the wandering through town one—holds risks too,” Zoe muttered. “If magic-wielders live here, and they’re choosing to remain hidden, all is well and good. What if we do something to piss them off, and they uncloak themselves?”

“Deal with it then?” Viktor suggested. “I like Daide’s suggestion. No reason to whack the beehive unless we’re getting stung. If there truly are no humans here, I’m hoping no one’s looted the marine supply shops. Two are located at the end of this street. Or they used to be.”

“Let’s go look,” Daide said. His coyote hadn’t responded when he’d asked it for details. “Have any of the rest of your bond animals weighed in?”

“Oh hell yes,” Ketha said as they headed up a broad, flat street.

The town looked like it had been suspended in time. If it weren’t for the dust, grime, and rain-splattered glass, Invercargill could have risen out of Brigadoon’s mists, absent the singing Scottish lads and lassies. Daide rolled his eyes at his digression into a world that was no more. Not Brigadoon since it had never existed beyond the minds of Hollywood screenwriters, but a life where he watched movies and wasn’t constantly looking over one shoulder, expecting the worst to rear up and swallow him whole.

“Are you going to say more?” he asked Ketha as they trotted smartly past deserted cars, deserted shops, and through a bizarre quiet that gnawed at his innards.

“My wolf is chomping at the bit to shift. It wants to take over since I’m not turning every cobblestone upside down searching for what went wrong here.”

“First stop,” Viktor announced cheerily and pushed on a glass door blazoned with “South Island Premier Marine Supplies, Ltd.” He cursed in German. “Apparently the people who all vanished weren’t so distraught they forgot to lock up. Ketha, could you open it?”

“Probably.” She stepped close and extended her fingertips. Blue-white light shot from them like mini lightning forks. Rather than the click of a deadbolt giving way, the metal absorbed Ketha’s magic, almost as if it were tasting it. She fell back a pace and cut the flow of her power. “Hmmm. That’s not good.”

“Mayhap a wee alteration in the incantation,” Zoe muttered, and power jetted from her hands.

At first, Daide heard metal straining, tumblers groaning, but they quieted, and the tarnished copper key plate developed a dull-gray patina. He bent and picked up a good-sized rock. “How bad do you want inside?” he asked Viktor.

“Not a good idea.” Ketha had moved off to one side, but her gaze never left the shopfront.

“Do you suppose all the buildings are booby-trapped?” Viktor glanced to both sides.

“That would be my guess,” Ketha muttered.

“But why?” Zoe bent forward, peering through the filthy glass doors.

Aura, who’d turned in a full circle, flipped back to face them. “Clever. They’ve woven their power in with wood. Since wood is part of the natural world, it lends itself to such projects.”

Moira dropped both hands on Aura’s shoulders. “Who is ‘they’?”

Aura shrugged her off, ducking from beneath her grip. “It sure as hell isn’t Vamps. Nothing natural ever danced to their flute.”

“Leaves a whole lot of options. Witches. Druids. Mages. Shifters.” Moira ticked them off on her fingers. She’d removed her gloves, and they dangled from a metal clip on her bibs.

“Nah. Not Shifters,” Zoe said. “They’d welcome us.”

“Are you sure about that?” Daide asked. “The sea Shifters are far from our friends.”

“Sea Shifters wouldn’t have bothered to ward these buildings,” Aura replied.

“Aye, ’tis true enough,” Zoe cut in. “For centuries, they’ve had little interest in aught that lives on land.”

Viktor squared his shoulders. “You may as well drop that rock,” he told Daide. “The question is, what do we do now? Press forward? Or return to Arkady?”

“So long as we’re here,” Daide said, “I’d like to explore a bit more. Invercargill had two universities. Both the Southern Institute of Technology and Otago maintained campuses here. Maybe their science wings won’t be as tied up as these buildings on Main Street.”

“I’m game,” Recco said. “We’re missing a whole lot of instrumentation and drugs.”

Ketha shivered. “Whatever we’re about, we need to be quick. Something’s not happy we’re here.”

Viktor focused his green eyes her way. They’d shaded darker, radiating concern. “What precisely are you homing in on? My raven has been squawking up a storm, but most of its commentary has been in Gaelic, and I’ve been lucky to pick up one word in three.”

“Hard to articulate, but something nasty and prickly is out there. Occasionally, it feints close and stabs me, but it’s gone before I get a bead on it. Come on.” She took off at a lope along cracked asphalt.

“Turn left in two blocks,” Viktor called before he raced after her.

“You still in there?” Daide asked his bond animal.

“Of course. Where would I have gone? You should leave now, while you still can.”

Footsteps pounded around him, and he quickened his pace. The farther he moved into the town, the more the creep-factor assailed him. The place felt like a science-fiction movie, but one leading into a dystopian hell. Within him, the coyote prowled, restless and silent. It had tossed its opinion down like a gauntlet, but Daide wasn’t complying with its plea to leave.

Why not? What had activated his stubborn streak?

He didn’t like the answer when it popped up. He was on a mission to prove himself. The only way he knew how to do it was via medicine, but he was on a fool’s errand, one which might get them all killed.

Ahead of him, Ketha careened to a stop. Viktor ran squarely into her and grabbed her so she wouldn’t fall. Daide caught up with them. “This was a stupid idea. We should go. My coyote was quite clear about that back at the marine supply store.”

Ketha’s eyes widened. “Women. To me. Now.” Power, indigo blue this time, crackled around her in a widening arc. Zoe added white to the mix. Aura and Moira’s colors turned the spinning magical vortex first violet and then deep green.

“Get in the middle.” Zoe grabbed Boris and Ted, forcing them through the throbbing magical nimbus.

“At least we’re about to find out what has this place in thrall,” Ketha growled, followed by, “Vik. Recco. Daide. Join our power circle. The magic flows one way. Out of you. Do not allow any to enter. If you didn’t understand, turn this over to your bond animals.”

Before Daide could request assistance, his coyote snatched their mutual power, and it fountained from him in a silvery cascade, joining the women’s magic. The air thickened around them until breathing became difficult. It reminded him of how the ether had felt on Arctowski, and he girded himself for some hideous mage swathed in black robes to march out of a fissure in the sky. Not that Arctowski’s sorcerer had ever shown himself, but it was how Daide had imagined he might look.

“I don’t like this,” Boris muttered.

“Neither do I,” Ted seconded. “Too much like déjà vu.”

Lightning flared off to one side followed by a ripping, tearing boom that grew louder and louder until Daide wanted to slap his hands over his ears. Except he couldn’t. They were part of maintaining the power flowing from him. His head spun, and his vision first hazed and then splintered as if he’d been looking through a glass that shattered.

The scents of ozone and rotting flowers buffeted him, sickly sweet and cloying until he wished he had a surgical mask to mute it.

“I know that smell,” Zoe cried. “Witches! Show yourselves. We mean you no harm.”

Cackling laughter rose above the shredding noise, and then abruptly fell silent. The fractured world he’d been viewing dropped away in streamers and chunks of unrelated colors. When the vista around him reformed, it looked a lot like Ushuaia. Rotting bodies and bones littered the formerly tidy thoroughfare. The neat, well-kept aspect of Invercargill had been nothing beyond illusion crafted by magic.

Three tall, thin women stepped out of a lightning bolt. It flickered behind them before vanishing to nothing. Dressed in rags, two of the group had braided black hair. The third’s was pure silver and fell to her feet unbound. She raked black eyes over each of them and angled her head appraisingly.

“All Shifters but two humans, eh?” She extended an index finger, jabbing it at Ted and Boris. “Why are you keeping such shoddy company?”

“They saved our lives,” Boris said.

“Leave,” one of the dark-haired Witches ordered. “We have no need of your magic or your presence.”

“Looks as if you’ve done a fair job covering up something.” Ketha took a step nearer the silver-haired Witch. “What I want to know is why? Did you kill everyone? Is that what you’ve been eating all these years?”

The Witch hissed at her, a long sibilant susurrus that raised the hair on the back of Daide’s neck. Magic still flowed from all the Shifters, but the Witches clearly weren’t impressed—or the least bit cowed.

“I don’t care what you’ve done.” Viktor positioned himself next to Ketha. “We’d be glad to leave, but I need to pick up a few items for my ship. Surely you’ve no use for tools or lubricants.”

“Everything here is ours,” the silver-haired Witch informed him.

“Why?” Ketha shot back. “You can’t make use of anything manufactured. Your power is linked to nature, exactly like ours.”

“Our magic is nothing like yours, Shifter,” a dark-haired Witch who’d been silent until now said.

“Oh, come now,” Zoe inserted, her brogue in full bloom. “Sure and ye can see the similarities. Now, if we were comparin’ Vampire power to yours, then ye might have a leg to stand on.”

“Goddess preserve me from the Celts,” the Witch muttered. Raising her black eyes to stare squarely at Ketha, she repeated. “You appear to be the leader. Leave now.”

“Or?” Ketha countered.

The Witch shrugged. “We’ll incorporate you into our spell.”

“I’d like to see you try it.” Ketha bristled.

“No, you wouldn’t.” One of the dark-haired Witches narrowed her eyes. “Our magic is locked to the land. You won’t be able to defeat our spells. Hell, you weren’t able to figure anything out until we showed ourselves.”

“Only because we chose a peaceful approach,” Aura said. “Are there more of you?”

“What do you think?” the Witch retorted.

Magic circled them and the Witches, turning the air pregnant with menace. Black sparks ignited when the circles ran up against each other. Charm had always been Daide’s long suit, so he smiled disarmingly.

“So few of us remain. What’s the percentage in not working together?” He looked guilelessly from one Witch to the next.

“Shifters broke the world.” The silver-haired Witch drew herself up tall. “We have no interest in linking ourselves to slothful miscalculation. Furthermore—”

“We weren’t the ones to craft that ill-conceived spell,” Aura snarled indignantly.

“But we are the reason it’s receded,” Ketha said.

“Receded, but not gone,” one of the dark-haired Witches retorted. “If your magic were stronger, you’d feel it like a coiled spring seeking an opportunity to resurface.”

Zoe waved a hand, and a bolt of magic arrowed right at the Witch who’d spoken. She evaded it easily and laughed. “Save your power, Shifter, it’s—” Her gaze slanted toward the ocean, and something akin to hope frittered across her concave cheekbones.

“Well, I’ll be damned if it’s not sea Shifters,” the silver-haired Witch muttered. She brought one hand crashing down. “The rest of you will keep. We’ll return later and decide what to do with you.”

The same choking sensation he’d experienced earlier returned. Daide sputtered and gasped, but it didn’t create more oxygen.

“Reel in your power,” Ketha instructed.

“Aye, ’tis doing naught but making this worse,” Zoe said.

Daide cut the flow of his power. The world beyond where the nine of them stood turned into a nightmarish landscape. Partially the pristine world produced by illusion, partially a vista cluttered with bones and decomposing flesh. At least the insects and rodents were back. Birds too. A vulture cawed overhead.

Moira raised her head and cawed back.

Daide turned, intent on returning to the Zodiac, and realized he couldn’t move beyond an invisible perimeter. “Really? They trapped us? How the fuck could they do that?”

“If their power is truly linked to the land, it wouldn’t take much,” Ketha replied, a sour note beneath her voice.

“I don’t get it,” Zoe said. “Normally, the Earth barely tolerates Witches with their dirty spells and crappy hex bags.”

“Apparently, they established détente with it during the Cataclysm,” Aura muttered.

“So? We let the land know the Cataclysm is over.” Daide dusted his hands together.

“That one Witch said it wasn’t, though,” Recco spoke up. “Why were they so excited about the sea Shifters?”

“More importantly,” Boris cut in, “can you bore a way through their enchantment while they’re gone?”

“Not sure, and I have no bloody idea about why sea Shifters would ring their chimes,” Ketha said.

More cawing drew his attention skyward. Where before there’d been a single vulture, now half a dozen winged toward them.

“That’s our ticket out of here.” Moira pointed. “I hope.”

“We need more than that,” Zoe protested.

“This is only the forward guard,” Moira retorted. “Getting the lay of the land so to speak. My vulture asked for help. Be grateful the illusion that kept everything hidden has crashed and burned.”