Congratulations!
Strike sent.
Come back down, okay?
He and Leah were on the ground near the hellmouth, she knew; Kulkulkan was a separate entity, one they could call to earth and link with mentally on the cardinal days. When the equinox was past and his job was done, he would return back up the skyroad.
As if knowing that time was near, the flying serpent bugled a trumpet blast of joy and approval, and turned north, powering up for the race back to Chichén Itzá. Though the demons could come through Iago’s hellmouth, the gods had to use the intersection. Alexis raised a hand in farewell as she flew through the sky astride a giant hawk.
And that was pretty messed-up, she realized as the fight drained and reality began to intrude. She was riding Nate, and Nate was a hawk. A shape-shifter. The Volatile.
Like her thoughts, the sky went dark, returning to the blackness of night with the passing of the magic.
When we get home I’m going to eat about a gallon of mac and cheese and crash for a week,
he sent along their mental link.
How about you?
She knew he felt her unease, and was trying for something light, something that would avoid the strangeness that suddenly loomed between them.
“Chocolate and Tylenol,” she said as her stomach growled in syncopation with her headache. “And a bubble bath.”
I could get behind the bath idea,
he said, projecting an image that made her blush and heated her blood to boiling.
But her response was tempered with unease. “Nate, listen. I—” She broke off, not because she didn’t know what to say, but because she suddenly couldn’t breathe. Her lungs were locked, not shut, but bloating, like they were full of water. Heart hammering, she grabbed for her throat, mouth working, trying to scream but unable to get out a sound.
What’s wrong?
Nate asked quickly.
The goddess,
she sent along their mental link.
Something bad is happening!
In the distance Kulkulkan’s glowing golden form faltered, and they heard a trumpet of distress. The creator managed another few faltering wing beats, then began to lose altitude. Soon he disappeared from sight.
Alexis felt the world constricting around her, inside her. The rainbow magic sparked within her head, arcing wildly, loving magic gone wrong.
Help,
she cried as she slumped sideways and started to slide.
Help me!
Hang on!
Nate folded his wings and dived for the earth, for the Nightkeepers, but it was already too late. Alexis’s vision went dim, then dark.
The last thing she heard was Rabbit’s voice screaming,
Stop it; you’re killing them!
The mage stood in the altar room beneath Chichén Itzá. The torches belched purple-black smoke, and the air rattled with foul magic. Desiree’s body lay sprawled on the now-cracked
chac-mool
altar, leaking blood. The crimson wetness filled the lines carved into the stone, highlighting the sacred patterns and pooling in a horrible parody of the good, pure magic the Nightkeepers had performed in that same chamber. On the floor lay what was left of the ancient artifacts bearing the demon prophecies, which had been broken to dust beneath Iago’s boots as an added source of power.
Rabbit could feel the equinox, could feel a battle raging on the magic plane, light against dark, but he couldn’t follow it. All he knew was the part he was being forced to play, his magic joined with Iago’s as the Xibalban’s plan came to fruition.
When the Nightkeepers had appeared at the hellmouth and joined battle against the death bats and the
Banol Kax
, Rabbit had expected Iago to throw his powers on the dark side of the battle, to swing the fight in his favor. But he hadn’t. Instead, he’d smiled and ’ported directly into the altar room, and begun a set of spells Rabbit had never heard before. Hell, he’d never heard of them before, didn’t know what they were intended to do. But though he wasn’t able to follow the intricate spell casting in the old language, he’d readily pulled the intent from Iago’s mind.
The bastard was dismantling the skyroad.
If he succeeded, Strike, Leah, and Alexis were all in jeopardy, as they were linked to their gods. Even worse—if there was anything worse than losing, like, a quarter of the Nightkeepers’ fighting force, along with the royal couple—if the Xibalban succeeded in destroying the skyroad, there would be no more hope of the gods coming to earth. No more Godkeepers. Potentially no more visions, save for those sent by the ancestors, who were on a lower plane than the gods.
Rabbit knew he had to stop the Xibalban. Too bad he didn’t have a fucking clue how he was supposed to do that. Iago controlled both of their minds, and his magic was so much stronger.
Think,
Rabbit told himself.
Fucking think!
It was hard to focus as Iago repeated the short spell for the eighth time and the chamber started shaking itself apart, locked in an earth tremor that felt like it was going to take out most of Mexico, never mind just the tunnels.
The Xibalban stepped up to the broken altar and withdrew a sharp stone tool from his belt—not a knife, but an awl of sorts. Bracing his chin against the edge of the broken
chac-mool
, he stuck out his tongue and drove the awl directly through it.
Agony flared in Rabbit’s mouth as though he’d made the sacrifice himself. He tasted blood and magic as Iago stood and felt in the pocket of his dark robe, then pulled out a long string that was knotted at regular intervals, with each knot holding a wickedly pointed thorn. The thorn rope was one of the oldest of the Maya’s sacrificial tools, one that had been used to allow the kings to talk to the gods.
Now the Xibalban used it to close the lines of communication. He threaded the string through the hole he’d punched in his tongue and started pulling it through as he recited the spell one last time, nine repetitions for the nine layers of hell that would hold sway once the earth was cut off from the thirteen layers of heaven. As he did so, the tremors became a quake, not just on the physical plane, but on the magical one as well. Rabbit could feel the barrier itself shudder with the force of the attack, could feel the skyroad starting to come apart.
Don’t be such a girl,
he heard a familiar voice whisper at the back of his mind.
Do something!
His old man wasn’t there; he was long gone. But he was right too, Rabbit knew. So he gathered his magic and scraped his tired self together, preparing for one final attack. Iago wasn’t paying attention to him except to drain his power and use his strange half-blood magic to fuel a spell that shouldn’t have existed, shouldn’t have worked. Rabbit knew he couldn’t cut off the connection; he’d tried and failed already. He couldn’t take over Iago’s mind, either, because the bastard was watching for that. But what if he added to it? Could he use a power surge to kick the bastard offline, maybe fry his synapses?
Maybe,
he thought.
Possibly.
It was worth a shot. And if he fried his own cortex in the process, that’d suck, but at least he would’ve been a hero once in his life. The thought of dying made him sad. But the idea of taking Iago with him almost made it okay. Almost.
Knowing there was no hope for it, no other option, Rabbit closed his eyes and thought of fire. Thought of telekinesis. Thought of mind-bending. Thought, quite simply, of magic in all its forms and glory. He felt the power grow within him, felt the madness and heat of it batter him, swirl around him, making him feel larger and smaller all at once. When it reached its apex, when he could call no more magic, contain no more power, he turned out of the small corner of Iago’s mind that he’d been occupying and flung himself at the mage’s consciousness.
He sensed Iago’s focus shift in the last second before impact, felt the Xibalban bring his own magic to bear. Then they collided, and the world blew apart.
Magic was a firestorm, a power surge that overloaded Iago’s mind and derailed his spell casting. Rabbit grabbed on to the mage’s consciousness, hung on, refused to let go. The Xibalban tried to flee back along the connection to Rabbit’s body, but there was no way Rabbit was letting the bastard wake up in Skywatch, so he dug in, feeding power into the spell, pumping it up. He sensed Strike, Leah, and Alexis caught in the dying skyroad. Instinctively knowing that he couldn’t do anything to repair the road, that it was already too late, Rabbit turned his attention to his teammates, feeding them all the magic he could muster, trying to overload the connections and kick them free.
Iago roared and fought his hold, scoring at him with harsh, destructive magic that burned like cold fire, biting deep into Rabbit’s mental self. But Rabbit just screamed and held on, and kept pushing power to his friends, trying to save them if he couldn’t save himself.
As he reached the absolute end of his power, and his consciousness flickered and dimmed, he sensed the others starting to blink out of the skyroad: Strike first, then Leah, then Alexis. After that, Rabbit’s consciousness went blank.
Then there was nothing, only darkness.
Some time later he cut back in, just long enough to realize that he wasn’t inside Iago anymore. He was back in his own body, only not. It was more like he was floating over it, waiting. Then, finally, he started floating away, up toward the sky, where warriors went directly after they died in battle.
As he did, he found himself wishing he’d kissed Myrinne when he’d had the chance.
“That’s it,” a voice said from somewhere above her. “Come on; you can do it.”
It was Nate’s voice, she realized, just as it was Nate’s hand holding hers; she knew the good, solid feel of him like she knew herself. Only did she really? As the mists cleared, she remembered the hawk, and Nate’s newly discovered talent, which left them . . . where? She didn’t know. And as she opened her eyes and found herself lying on the ground outside of the torchlit hellmouth, she knew Nate saw her fear, because his expression blanked as he squeezed her hand once and let go.
“Nate,” she said, just his name, then fell silent because everything was too much, too confusing. He was wearing someone’s shirt tied around his waist like a loincloth, and another thrown over his shoulders but not buttoned. Apparently clothes didn’t shift with the man.
That detail, that confirmation that what she remembered had really happened, was almost more than she could handle.
“I’m glad you’re okay.” He held out a hand. “You ready to sit up?”
The rest of the Nightkeepers were clustered behind him, including Strike and Leah, who looked as ragged as Alexis felt. “The gods are gone, aren’t they?” she said dully. “The skyroad is gone.”
“We’re still here,” Strike said. He lifted his satellite phone. “The
winikin
are okay. Jox thinks there was enough of Lucius left in the
makol
that he forced the creature to escape rather than killing anyone, though I guess it was a pretty close thing. And Rabbit . . . we’ll have to see about him when we get back.” He paused, exhaling. “At least the barrier is still intact, thanks to you.”
“Me and Nate,” she corrected.
“Yeah.” The king nodded. “Blackhawk too.” It didn’t escape her notice that he’d gone back to Nate’s bloodline name, though, or that the others were giving him a wide berth. The realization angered her, but shamed her too, because wasn’t she doing the very same thing? He was no different from the man he’d been before. He’d simply discovered his talent.
It was a small effort to put her hand in Nate’s, but well rewarded by the glint of thanks in his eyes as he pulled her to her feet. She kept hold of him when he would’ve let go, and together they linked up with Leah as they formed the sacred circle that would allow Strike to ’port them back to Skywatch.
The king initiated the ’port, and as the magic took hold, Alexis sent a prayer into the barrier, even though she suspected the gods couldn’t hear them anymore:
Please let Rabbit be okay.
He’d saved her, she knew, somehow pushing her out of the Godkeeper link just as the skyroad collapsed.
She hoped to hell it hadn’t been his final act on earth.
In terms of numbers and absolute power, the Nightkeepers were stronger with him than without, but from a more realistic standpoint, the amount of chaos he dumped into their lives probably came close to outweighing the benefits. And while Strike and Jox loved the kid like he was an exasperating family member, and Anna herself felt strongly about him because he was his father’s son, the feelings of the other Nightkeepers and
winikin
could probably be described as ambivalent at best.
Which, again, more or less applied in her case as well. At least it ought to. She’d brought Lucius into their midst and refused to sacrifice him. Somehow the
makol
had hidden behind Lucius’s humanity long enough to get through the wards and lull Jox into believing the danger was past. Then, as Jox had described, the creature had gone full
makol
and attacked. Then at the last possible second, the creature had frozen and seemed to struggle within itself, then shrieked in rage and agony and bolted from the compound. Anna wanted to think that had been the spark of Lucius retained within the creature, wanted to believe that he would come back to himself once the equinox passed. Unfortunately, Strike hadn’t been able to get a ’port lock on him, which meant he was dead or underground . . . or Iago had him.
Now, more than ever, they were going to have to find the Xibalbans’ encampment. They needed to recover Lucius before Iago got at the knowledge inside his skull. Ditto for Sasha Ledbetter. Both recoveries were going to present new problems, but it wasn’t as if they had a choice. Each cardinal day from there on out would bring another opportunity for the
Banol Kax
to assault the barrier, and now the Nightkeepers were going to be functioning without the help of the gods. It was unclear how much—if any—of their Godkeeper powers Leah and Alexis had retained, but they had to assume a massive power drop. Which brought her thoughts circling back to Rabbit.
They needed his power. Hell, in a way they needed his chaos too. He stirred things up, kept them thinking and guessing, which was going to be vital over the next few years as they got closer and closer to the drop-dead date.
“Which is why you need to come back to us, okay?” she said to the teen around lunchtime the day after the equinox, though time didn’t have much meaning down in the storeroom cell block.
Rabbit lay too still. His pallor was gray, his breathing slow and shallow. His profile was sharp and forbidding, his lips turned down in a sneer very like the one that formed his fallback expression when he was awake. The thought that she might never see that snotty ’tude again was a fist to Anna’s heart.
Leaning close to Rabbit, she kissed his cheek. “We love you. You hear? You need to come back.”
And, incredibly, his lips moved. A word emerged, breathy and faint, but still a word. A request. “Myrinne.”
Anna was on her feet in seconds. She pulled down the wards with a thought and yanked open the door. Jox, who’d been keeping guard out in the hallway, shot to his feet.
“Get the girl out of her cell,” Anna snapped. “I want her in here five minutes ago.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” the
winikin
said carefully.
I didn’t ask for your opinion,
she wanted to snarl, but knew it was just another sign of the larger trend, the one where Strike had been leaning more on Nate and Alexis than on her. The others viewed her as an outsider, a commuter who showed up for the ceremonies and then left again. But all that was what she’d wanted, wasn’t it? She didn’t get to complain now that she’d gotten the distance she craved.
“Fine,” she said to Jox. “Do what you have to do. Ask Strike for permission. Whatever.”
Strike agreed, of course, and less than five minutes later he and Leah brought Myrinne to Rabbit’s room themselves, locking and warding the door behind them.
Anna tried not to twist her fingers together, tried not to think that this could be a huge mistake, that she was making yet another call that would prove to have disastrous consequences. They didn’t really know anything about Myrinne’s ancestry, or her connection to the witch’s magic. For all they knew, they were about to throw gasoline on a smoldering fire.
But this was something tangible Anna could give him, something she could do. “He asked for you,” she told the girl, who was pale but defiant, and wore a sneer not unlike Rabbit’s own.
Myrinne looked like she was going to say something snotty in return, but then she got a look at Rabbit, and the sneer gave way to rage. “What did you do to him?” She crossed the room in quick, angry strides and checked his pulse with efficient movements that suggested training. Then she glared at Anna. “What did you give him?”
She shook her head. “It’s not drugs; it’s magic. He fought Iago.”
Myrinne stared at her, eyes narrowing. “And?”
“And he didn’t get out of Iago’s mind fast enough. I think he’s trapped somehow. I think he needs to be reminded that there are people here who care about him.” Anna paused. “He saved our lives last night.” Which was true. When all was said and done, he’d been a hero when they’d needed one.
Myrinne nodded, seeming satisfied. “That I believe.” Implying that she could think the best of Rabbit, but would cheerfully think the worst of everyone around him.
Which, Anna realized, was exactly what he needed.
Turning her back on the others, Myrinne spun the chair Anna had been using, so she could sit sideways on it and lean over Rabbit’s limp form. “Hey,” she said very softly. “You did good. Now it’s time to come back, okay? We’ll figure out the rest of it together.” She leaned in and touched her lips to his.
And damned if he didn’t react, jolting like he’d been zapped with a Taser, then drawing a deep, shuddering breath very unlike the shallow rasps he’d been taking up to that point. A long shudder racked his body. Then, slowly, his arms came up to her shoulders, her face. His eyes opened as he traced her cheekbones, then her lips. And he smiled, probably the first pure smile Anna had seen from him since her return to Skywatch.
“Now, that was what I forgot to do,” he said, his voice husky from disuse, and probably a few other things as well. “That was what I wanted to come back for.”
Then, as Strike, Leah, and Anna looked on, Rabbit kissed Myrinne for real. And magic hummed in the air.