Roaring, Zipacna reeled to the side, pawing at the protruding haft as blood and clear fluid poured down his face. ‘‘Get her!’’
But shock slowed the mimic’s reactions. She charged him, slammed her foot into the side of his knee, and sent him flying.
Then she turned back for Zipacna, intending to finish him, finish them both—only to see him puff out in a cloud of purple-black.
The mimic roared and charged her, and she turned and fled. Bolting through the door into the sand-floored tunnel leading to the sunken river, she ran in search of Zipacna. She had less than forty minutes to make sure neither of them lived past the equinox.
Strike peered through a leafy rain forest curtain, his body humming with the need to move, and move fast. ‘‘Come on, come on,’’ he chanted under his breath.
‘‘What are you waiting for?’’ Behind him, Red-Boar and Anna crouched in silence. The west-side team of Nate, Alexis, Michael, and Jade were waiting nearer the tunnel entrance, preparing to attack.
Then a single shot rang out from the bushes on the east side of the tunnel mouth. Another. The makol started to shuffle and move, shifting to the side of the cave overhang.
Strike tensed. ‘‘Get ready.’’
Suddenly, Sven leaped out of the vegetation, stood at the edge of the clearing, and unloaded most of a MAC clip into the tunnel mouth. The makol scattered, then spun and returned fire as Sven bolted for cover. Mindless with the killing rage, and only as smart as the degree to which their human hosts had accepted the evil, the makol followed.
‘‘Go!’’ Strike lunged to his feet and pounded the short distance to the tunnel mouth, with Anna and Red-Boar right behind him.
A makol at the back of the pack turned and shouted in alarm, only to be cut down in a hail of jade-tips as Nate burst from the undergrowth nearby, with Alexis and Michael right behind him, Jade bringing up the rear.
‘‘Go!’’ Nate shouted. ‘‘We’ve got this.’’
Strike didn’t argue; he bolted for the tunnel, gaining the mouth and disappearing down the stone throat, leaving the sounds of battle behind. But as he pounded down the tunnel with Anna and Red-Boar on his heels, he knew they were cutting it way too close.
The equinox hummed in his bones, stronger than the song of the summer solstice had been, stronger than he’d expected, but still he couldn’t pinpoint Leah. He kept trying to throw her a travel thread, kept getting bounced by whatever sort of shielding was at work within the tunnels.
They reached the underground river after what felt like an eternity, turned, and booked it toward the chamber. As they passed an intersecting tunnel, Strike caught a hint of motion, a flash of luminous green, and flung himself to the side with a shout of,
‘‘Makol!’’
Anna hit the deck as the creature lunged. Red-Boar roared a battle cry, grabbed the thing by the throat, and brought his pistol to its forehead. Then he froze.
It was Leah.
‘‘No!’’ Strike shouted, hiis voice cracking on the word. ‘‘Don’t!’’
Red-Boar looked at him. Hesitated.
And Leah drove a black-handled knife into Red-Boar’s gut, yanked it out, and slashed his throat on the backhand. Blood spurted, geysering in an obscene arc as the Nightkeeper’s knees buckled.
Anna screamed and reached for him, cradling him in her arms as he fell.
Leah—or the thing that had been Leah—turned on Strike. Her eyes glowed scary strange, and her mouth was distorted in a rictus of bloodlust. But when he looked at her he felt nothing but revulsion. There was no connection. No love.
‘‘Gods help us,’’ Strike said as he raised his MAC.
And fired point-blank.
Anna screamed in horror. Leah’s head exploded and she went down in a heap. Ribs heaving, heart hammering inside his chest, Strike followed her down, unsheathing his knife. Working fast, telling himself not to look at her face, he cut her heart out, hacked off her head, and recited the banishment spell, sending the makol back to hell where it belonged.
When it was gone, Leah’s body went limp.
Strike stood, horror taking root when the corpse remained exactly as it was. ‘‘Please, gods,’’ he whispered. ‘‘Not like this.
Please, not like this.’’ He’d been so sure it wasn’t her, so sure he was making the right call.
Then, finally, the body shimmered. Shifted. And changed into that of a skinny man wearing a fungus-colored robe and a tattoo of a winged crocodile. Then purple-green light flashed, and the thing was gone.
Strike’s bones went to water and he sagged in relief. ‘‘Thank you, Jesus. Gods. Whatever.’’ He exhaled, tried to get his breathing under control. ‘‘Shit. Oh, boy. Oh, shit. A mimic. It was a mimic.’’
‘‘How did you know?’’ Anna asked, her voice shaky.
‘‘I just knew. I had faith. I knew it wasn’t her.’’ Except for a few seconds when he’d thought he had it wrong, thought he’d bought into the thirteenth prophecy without even knowing it.
But the attack had not been without a sacrifice, he knew. He turned to see Anna crouched on the ground with Red-Boar sprawled across her lap, both of them covered in the blood that still pumped from the older man’s torn throat in slowing spurts driven by a faltering heart.
Sorrow cut through Strike, and he dropped to his knees beside the dying man. ‘‘Gods, no.’’
Red-Boar’s eyes flickered open and locked on even as the life faded. ‘‘Happy now, boy?’’
‘‘Step off, old man.’’ But Strike choked on the words. He touched Red-Boar’s forehead, leaking him power, buffering the pain. ‘‘Safe journey,’’ he whispered. ‘‘Say hello to the king for me.’’
But Red-Boar shook his head ever so slightly. ‘‘You’re . . . king now.’’
‘‘Yeah,’’ Strike said. ‘‘I am.’’
As his life drained, Red-Boar murmured, ‘‘Forgive.’’ Then his breath faded and stopped, and his body went limp in Anna’s arms as she bent over him and wept, the soft sound lost beneath the burble of the underground river that flowed nearby.
Shit, Strike thought. Just shit.
The loss hurt keenly on too many levels to count, but they couldn’t stop to mourn. They’d already wasted too much time. The equinox was close now, very close.
‘‘Anna.’’ He touched her arm. ‘‘We’ve got to go.’’ She nodded miserably, shifted Red-Boar’s body to the side, and climbed to her feet, wiping her bloodstained hands on her blood-soaked pants. ‘‘We’ll come back for him. After.’’
‘‘Of course. He’s one of us.’’ Whatever he’d done, or hadn’t done, Red-Boar had been his own version of loyal. All else was washed clean by the sacrifice.
They tugged the corpse into an offshoot tunnel and made a stab at obscuring the tracks and bloodstains. And then they ran for their lives.
Crouching in the underbrush, fighting green fire with red, Rabbit felt as if he were burning up from the inside.
His mouth was parchment dry, and his eyelids rasped across his corneas without the benefit of moisture. His skin crinkled as he labored by rote: lifting his arms, holding his hands a few inches apart, concentrating until flame flared to life between them,
and then pivoting and throwing to block the incoming green flame, so the two streams met in a brilliant blast of white.
His right shoulder hurt like hell. He was thirsty, hungry, and exhausted beyond all rationality, and his head felt like it was about to split open and spill his brains onto the rain forest floor. And he couldn’t have been happier.
With Patience and Brandt fighting together on his right and Sven on his left as they worked with the other team, squeezing the makol forces and picking off the bastards one by one, he was part of something. He belonged. Even better, he was good at something.
‘‘Hold on,’’ Brandt said. ‘‘What the hell are they doing?’’
It took Rabbit a few seconds to reorient, another to pop out from behind the crumbling wall he’d been hiding
behind, to check out the scene.
Makol parts were strewn across the clearing, most of them still moving, which was just beyond weird. But until the Nightkeepers got in there and did the head-and -heart thing, the creatures weren’t actually dead, just dismembered. Which was kind of cool.
What wasn’t cool was the way the dark-haired makol with the flying-croc tattoo and pointy teeth, who seemed to be in charge, had gathered the remaining dozen makol into a knot.
Then, without warning, a huge green fireball the size of a VW Bug erupted and screamed toward where Rabbit and the others were hiding.
‘‘Take cover!’’ Brandt shoved Rabbit off to one side, grabbed Patience, and dove in the other direction. Groggy from doing too much magic, Rabbit lay dazed.
The fireball hit right where he’d been and detonated, blasting heat and energy in all directions. The world went white and noise roared over him, flattening the rain forest and sending trees flying in a spray of wooden shrapnel.
When the echoes died away, Rabbit lay gasping, trying to figure out why he wasn’t mulch.
Then he felt the humming power of a shield spell a few inches away from his face and realized he was lying on someone’s foot.
Craning his neck, he saw Sven lying nearby, looking dazed, but holding on to the shield spell he’d thrown over both of them.
‘‘Hey,’’ Rabbit said, breathing hard. ‘‘Thanks.’’
Sven nodded. ‘‘Yep.’’
And that was all that needed to be said. They were a team, after all.
They scrambled up, Rabbit and Sven from one side of the fireball crater, Brandt and Patience from the other, just in time to see the makol breaking ranks and bolting for the tunnel, charging toward the position held by Nate, Alexis, Michael, and Jade.
‘‘Nate, incoming!’’ Brandt shouted, and started running after the makol, with Patience, Rabbit, and Sven on his heels.
But the makol charged right past the other Nightkeepers and down the tunnel.
‘‘Get them!’’ Nate shouted, bursting from cover with his team behind him. ‘‘Don’t let them reach the chamber! We’ll take care of these guys and catch up.’’ He dropped beside one of the downed makol and dispatched it in a flash of purple light.
‘‘Go!’’
Rabbit bolted down the tunnel, skidding on the loose sand beneath his feet, firing jade-tips as he ran. He heard Brandt call his name but didn’t stop.
His old man was down there.
Seeing one of the bastards up ahead, he put on the afterburners and hauled ass. He wound up in a wider section of the tunnel, where three others joined in.
There was no sign of the makol. Shit!
Brandt, Patience, and Sven burst into the chamber moments later, sliding to a stop when they saw Rabbit. Nate and the others weren’t far behind.
‘‘I lost them,’’ Rabbit reported. ‘‘We’ll have to—’’ He broke off as sudden sweat popped out all over his body, and he started shivering. The world hazed red and orange with flame, and a rushing noise started low, at the very edge of his hearing.
‘‘What’s wrong?’’ he heard Patience say, but the words sounded like they were coming from far away. He couldn’t feel the hand she put on his shoulder, couldn’t feel the stone beneath his feet, couldn’t feel anything except the heat—the terrible, awful heat that crisped his skin and made him feel flayed alive.
‘‘Something’s coming,’’ he whispered, hunching over as the rushing noise rose up through the octaves, higher and higher until he jammed his hands over his ears to stop himself from screaming.
Then he was screaming, they all were, because the heat in his body was suddenly everywhere, searing their hands and faces and driving them deeper into the cave. The sandy floor went scorched black, then melted to liquid, and then warmed further to molten orange-red. Then that orange-red liquid lurched up from the floor of the cave, elongating and stretching, taking shape as a faceless scaled creature that was almost entirely made of teeth and claws, and didn’t so much as flinch when Michael unloaded an entire clip of jade-tips right into it. Or rather through it.
‘‘Boluntiku!’’ Rabbit screamed, and turned to run.
The thing hesitated at his shout. Locked on.
And followed.
Strike edged around the doorway leading to the sacred chamber and bit back a vicious curse when he saw Leah shackled to the altar, saw Zipacna standing over her, and saw the blood—so much blood, too much blood. She saw him and her eyes filled as she strained toward him. ‘‘Strike! Help!’’
He didn’t think. He reacted.
Roaring, he stepped into the chamber with his finger nailed to the trigger of the autopistol. The MAC-10 chattered, sending a hail of jade-tips into the bastard.
Zipacna straightened, screaming with pain as he staggered away from Leah, his body jerking with the bullet impacts. But Strike didn’t care—he kept advancing, kept firing as the rage inside him turned to something else, something hard and hot and possessive. ‘‘Get away from her. She’s mine!’’
The ajaw-makol fell against the wall, motionless, though not dead.
‘‘Cover him!’’ Strike tossed Anna one of his pistols and lunged across the room. When he reached the altar, his heart stopped in his chest and everything inside him went cold.
Leah’s wrists bore crisscrossed cuts, and blood flowed into the shallow channels grooved onto the altar, running downward by gravity flow and collecting in the sacred bowl at the altar’s front, where a charred twist of parchment burned purple-black, its magic fueled by the power of her blood.
Tears glistened in her eyes. ‘‘I’m sorry,’’ she whispered. ‘‘I got free, but when I tried to kill him he caught me again. I grabbed his knife, but . . . I’m sorry. So sorry.’’
‘‘No,’’ he said, leaning in and gathering her against him. He pressed his cheek to hers, and shuddered at the cool feel of her skin, the limpness of her body, which made it seem that she was already gone.
Her breathing was growing more and more shallow. He felt the god’s power growing within her, felt the bonds of the skyroad falling away as Leah died and the creator prepared to return to the sky.
When he pulled away, her eyes fixed on him. ‘‘Zipacna? ’’
‘‘He’s yours,’’ Strike said, voice rough with emotion. ‘‘He always was.’’ He unlocked her bonds with a touch and scooped her up off the altar, leaking her all the power he could spare, trying to heal her, to keep her heart going.
He propped her up near the makol and pressed a knife into her hand. ‘‘Take him.’’
Bolstered by his strength, and by the revenge that had carried her so long, she grasped the knife and bent over the ajawmakol, getting his heart out, but faltering over his head.
‘‘I’ll help.’’ To Strike’s surprise, Anna moved in and finished the job, then linked hands with Leah for the spell. When they reached the end, Zipacna’s body disappeared in a flash of purple-green light. The Anna stood, wiping her hands on her bloodstained pants. ‘‘I’ll watch the tunnel.’’
She headed out of the chamber, leaving Strike and Leah alone.
Only they weren’t alone at all, he realized when a howling wind whipped through the chamber, and the skulls on the walls began to scream fire.
The equinox had come. The intersection was opening. The Banol Kax were poised to enter the plane of mankind, their magic fueled by Leah’s blood and the sacrifice of their own ajaw-makol.
Leah looked at him through eyes drenched with tears, and held out the knife. ‘‘Do it. You have no choice.’’
Either she died, or they all did.
Strike caught her to him, holding her hard, trying to give her all his energy, all his power, trying to beat back the passing time as he finally understood the impossible choice his father had died trying to avoid. He pressed his cheek to hers. ‘‘I love you. I fell in love with you when I wasn’t looking, when I was doing my damnedest to do anything but fall, just like I became king when I was trying to
be anything but.’’
She touched his arm where he wore the mark of the gods, of the jaguar kings. ‘‘You’ll be a good king.’’
‘‘And?’’
Her smile went crooked. ‘‘And I love you, too. I don’t care if what I’m feeling is because of destiny and the gods, or that it’s all tangled up with the prophecies and the end of the world. I love you for you. Not because you’re king or Nightkeeper, but because you’re mine.’’
They met halfway in a searing kiss that tasted of need and desperation, and the power of the equinox. Strike felt light and dark align, felt the powers within them start to meld. He felt the dark force of the true demon Zipacna poised behind the barrier, ready to spring free at the moment of alignment, when the barrier would thin enough for the creature to burst through. He felt the god Kulkulkan straining at the bonds of the skyroad, longing to be free, longing to fight. The god’s darkness battered him, latching on to his soul and dragging him down, away from gray-green neutrality and toward the underworld, which glowed the lumious green of a makol ’s eyes.
No! he shouted in his soul. He fought the undertow, the temptation of power and madness, focusing on the feel of the woman in his arms. He poured himself into the kiss, willing love to be the thing that mattered most, the sacrifice necessary to bring the god to earth through the two of them, joined as a single keeper.
I love you, he thought, or maybe she thought it in his head somehow; it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they were there, together. Forever.
At that thought, that single word, he felt a flare of power, a surge of golden light. Then the halves became whole, light blending with darkness, the two together making something so much stronger than either alone.
Deep within him something tore, a curtain ripping in half and letting through a ray of golden illumination. Instead of fighting it, he welcomed it, welcomed the light and the power and the sense of Leah that it brought. Yes, he said inside his own skull.
Jessica Andersen - Final Prophecy 01 - Nightkeepers (2008) Page 44
