Dawnkeepers n-2

by Jessica Andersen

  She looked strong and tough, her movements graceful, as though she’d finally stopped wishing to be small and delicate and finally embraced the fact that she was an athlete, a warrior. Her high cheekbones stood out sharply, suggesting that she’d lost weight when he hadn’t been watching, or maybe the magic and responsibility had burned away the last of the human softness, leaving the Valkyrie behind.

  “Nate,” she said finally, nodding and moving toward him, because one of them had to do something besides stare across the room.

  “You look good,” he said, forcing himself not to reach out to her, because he’d given up that right rather than get into something he hadn’t been ready to deal with, might not ever be. Nightkeeper sex wasn’t about love; it was about power and necessity, and he’d played that game too many times already.

  “You too,” she said, though he had a feeling the return compliment was a formality. He was pretty sure he looked like shit. He’d been eating too little, working out too much, and working on VW6 long into the nights, hunkered down in his parents’ cottage, typing furiously.

  The rest of the story had finally started coming together when he’d realized the source of his block.

  Hera hadn’t totally clicked with any of the mates they’d sketched out for her—even Nameless—

  because she hadn’t needed anything from them. Things hadn’t started to flow until he’d hit on the idea of giving her a childhood trauma that had driven her to fight. Once she had that small chink in her armor, covering a larger vulnerability, he’d been able to bring the story line forward, which was why he’d been up way too late, way too many nights lately.

  That and the realization that as Hera was becoming vulnerable, Alexis was growing into herself, becoming the woman she’d always wanted to be . . . and he wasn’t part of that change.

  “Alexis,” he began, then stalled because he didn’t know what the hell he wanted to say. The things he wanted were all tangled up in his brain with the stuff he knew were supposed to happen according to the gods, and that was crammed against things he knew didn’t work for him, couldn’t ever work.

  Her lips turned up at the corners in a small smile that was more acknowledgment than emotion.

  “Yeah. I know.”

  “Okay, gang, let’s do this,” Strike said, breaking up their nonconversation, which was both frustrating and a relief.

  At the king’s gesture, the Nightkeepers took their positions, forming a circle within the circular room, with Strike and Leah standing with their backs to the chac-mool . Because they were going to be enacting the three-question spell, Nate and Alexis stood outside the circle, one on each side of the altar.

  With them outside the circle, Red-Boar dead and Rabbit still missing, the Nightkeepers’ circle seemed very small.

  “Ready?” Nate said, and Alexis nodded. She pulled her ceremonial knife and used it to blood her palm, then hesitated and held the knife out to him.

  The act of using her knife to carve a bloody furrow in his palm seemed very intimate, and he held her eyes as he returned the knife and they joined hands over the altar. The background hum of magic sparked at the contact, jolting through him and lighting him up, sending his power higher than it’d ever been before, even when linked to the king. Gods, he thought, then amended it to, Goddess.

  Because that was what he was feeling: Ixchel’s power. Alexis’s power.

  “You remember the spell?” Alexis said quietly.

  Nate nodded. “Yeah. Let’s do this.”

  They drew strength from the altar, and from the ashes of ten generations of Nightkeeper magi mixed into the mortar beneath the carved stone. They drew strength from each other, though he feared it wouldn’t be enough. Too much divided them, when the Godkeeper’s magic relied on the catalyst of her Nightkeeper mate.

  Leaning on the magic they made together, and the humming pool of energy created by their uplinked teammates, they locked eyes and said in unison: “Pasaj och.”

  They blinked into the barrier on a flash of gold and rainbows, with none of the lurching, rushing sensation Nate was used to. One second he was in the sacred room at Skywatch; the next he was in the barrier, standing facing Alexis, their hands linked. They stood on a flat, faintly spongy surface that they couldn’t see because gray-green mist swirled to their knees. The sky was the same gray-green, and the horizon—if there were such a thing in the barrier—was lost in the gray-green monotony of it all. Their entry to the barrier had been far smoother than ever before; before there had been a jolt, a rush, and a churn of nausea. But the barrier itself was the same as before.

  “Wow. That was pretty painless,” Alexis said, mirroring his thoughts. She dropped his hands and looked around, as if to verify that they were really in the barrier.

  “Thanks to the king’s adviser.” Nate faked a bow in her direction.

  “Thanks to the goddess, you mean.”

  It’s all you, he wanted to say, but didn’t. Instead he said, “Stage two?”

  She nodded. “Stage two.”

  The three-question spell required petitioners to jack into the barrier, which meant that their physical bodies remained on earth—in this case, in the sacred chamber of Skywatch—while their incorporeal forms—their souls, for lack of a better term, though it made Nate cringe—entered the in-between gray-greenness of the barrier. Once there, the three-question petitioners had to perform a second bloodletting and another spell. Then, if Nate and Alexis had done everything right and had the magical chops to call the ancestor despite it not being a cardinal day, the three-question nahwal would appear.

  That was the theory, anyway.

  Nate reached into the pocket of his robe and withdrew a pair of stingray spines. He handed one to Alexis and kept one for himself. “I’m so not looking forward to this part.”

  “It’s not a sacrifice if it’s easy,” she answered, paraphrasing one of the writs. Then she shot him a look and a sly grin, knowing how he felt about scripture.

  Instead of answering, he stuck out his tongue, jammed the stingray spine into it, and ripped the barb free. Pain slapped and spiraled, so much sharper than the familiar bite of blade against palm. Blood flowed down his chin as Alexis did the same, hissing as she yanked out the spine, tearing flesh.

  The magic might heal them quickly, but it didn’t stop the pain.

  Both a little shaky now, they joined hands, leaning on each other, and chanted the second spell, calling the three-question nahwal.

  Alone in the barrier with blood running down his chin, Rabbit finished the chant that should have called the three-question nahwal, but nothing happened. So he said it again. And again. Each time he started the words in the old tongue he threw more magic into it, more of his own blood.

  Maybe it wasn’t working because he was alone, because it was the wrong day. Or maybe because he was nothing but a fuckup half-blood, like his old man had always said. But he refused to give up, because frigging Juarez still couldn’t find Myrinne, and Rabbit’s urge to get to her was growing by the hour, along with his conviction that she needed him, that she was important.

  His body buzzed with the power and the pain as he said the spell again, taking the magic into him and sending it outward, summoning his ancestors’ wisdom. He wasn’t sure where he ended and the mist began. He was the mist and the mist was him, and he was all alone.

  Then, suddenly, he wasn’t alone anymore. The nearby fog thickened, coalescing into a vaguely human shape that stepped forward into the shadowless gray-green light.

  The three-question nahwal looked like the bloodline-bound nahwals that had come to the trainees during the talent ceremony. Both types of nahwal looked pretty much like desiccated corpses that happened to be up and moving around; they had no nipples or genitals, and their eyes were pure black, with no whites or emotion. But where the bloodline nahwals were each forearm-marked with their bloodline glyphs, this one was unmarked. And although they were supposed to be emotionless, this one looked seriously pissed off, with
V-grooved frown lines between its dead black eyes, and its fangs bared.

  Shit, fangs? Rabbit thought on a jolt of fear and surprise. Why hadn’t anybody mentioned the fangs?

  Holding his hands away from his sides in a gesture of I’m unarmed; please don’t fuck me up, he said, “Ah, um. Are you here to answer my three questions?”

  The thing hissed and charged, reaching for him with hands that’d grown claws.

  Rabbit let out a yell and dove to one side. He felt the breeze of the nahwal’s swipe, but no pain. He bounced up from the springy surface underfoot and spun to face his attacker. “What the hell?”

  The thing apparently wasn’t in the mood for convo, questions or otherwise. It spun and lunged for him again, scratching and snapping, and howling with rage when Rabbit danced aside. Palming his father’s knife, which he still wore on his belt, Rabbit dropped and rolled, coming up inside the nahwal’s guard and leading point-first when he stood. The blade cut through the thing’s skin with little resistance, but deflected off bone and skidded aside. Which just pissed the creature off worse.

  Roaring, its face contorted with rage and hatred, though neither was supposed to be in its repertoire, the nahwal spun and dove on Rabbit, grabbing his legs and driving him to the ground. They rolled together for a few frenzied seconds before Rabbit’s control broke under the onslaught of battle rage.

  Tipping his head back, he called the fire on a long scream of pain and magic: “Kaak!”

  The gray-green sky split, and flames poured down to spear straight through the nahwal. The burning energy lifted the thing up and off Rabbit and tossed it aside. The creature shrieked and writhed, wreathed in flames as its skin and ropy flesh burned away.

  “No!” Rabbit shouted. “Stop!”

  He tried to call the magic back, tried to cut it off, to do something, anything to stop the fire from consuming the nahwal. But nothing worked. He could only watch as the thing’s struggles slowed, then stopped, and the only visible motion became that of the greedy flames and the mists that swirled at the periphery of the blaze. Eventually—it’d probably been only a few minutes, but it felt like forever—

  even the flames guttered out. The gray-green mist moved back in to cover where the nahwal had been, and it was as though nothing had happened. Only it had, Rabbit knew, horror and guilt vising his chest and making it hard to breathe.

  He’d fucking killed the three-question nahwal.

  “It’s not working,” Alexis said, looking around the gray-green fog and not seeing a nahwal, not seeing anything except mist and more mist. “The opposition magic must not be strong enough to power the spell.” Or else we aren’t.

  “Let’s try it again and give it everything we’ve got.” Nate’s eyes were steady on hers, his grip firm.

  Alexis nodded, not wanting to admit defeat. Please, goddess, she thought, help us. Help your warriors on earth figure out what the hell they’re supposed to do. It wasn’t the most eloquent of prayers, perhaps, but it was heartfelt, and she thought she sensed a little power bump at the back of her brain, a shimmer of color that might’ve been a response. “Okay,” she said, reaching down deep and drawing on the magic. “Once more, with feeling.”

  They started reciting the spell again, and before they’d gotten past the second grouping of words in the old language, she knew something was different this time. She could feel the power gathering and expanding outward, could hear the hum of magic.

  Then, without warning, the hum escalated to a scream and wind slapped at them, driving the mists to a frenzied funnel cloud in an instant and yanking them off their feet.

  “Nate!” she screamed, grabbing for him as the gale knocked her back, ripping her hands from his.

  “Alexis!” He dove for her, hooking her around the waist and flinging them both to the yielding surface beneath the wind-whipped mist. “Down,” he ordered. “Stay down!”

  He flattened her body beneath his and hung on tight while he cast around, trying to find a handhold to anchor them. She did the same, but there was nothing to hold on to but the moist squishiness of the barrier surface, formless and alien.

  “I’m slipping,” she cried, feeling the slick surface moving beneath her, feeling the wind grab hold and not let go. “What’s happening?”

  “The spell misfired.” He shouted the words over the rising howl of the wind. “I can’t find the way home!”

  Cursing herself for not thinking, Alexis closed her eyes and pictured the sacred chamber back at Skywatch, imagining her and Nate on either side of the altar, the others forming a ring in the center of the circular room. Tapping the power of the barrier, she thought, Na otot. The words, which meant

  “house” or “home,” should’ve dropped her out of the barrier and back into her body.

  They didn’t.

  “It’s not working for me, either!” she cried.

  They were moving in a circle now, being dragged along by the force of the funnel cloud as it reached down lower and lower still, coming for them. Worse, the funnel cloud didn’t stretch up to the sky, but rather folded double so the spitting mouth, which bellowed mist and wind, was pointed downward, toward the underworld. Where it touched the barrier surface, the gray-green had gone black, suggesting that they were about thirty seconds from a one-way trip to Xibalba.

  “The goddess,” Nate shouted. “Call on the goddess!”

  Fear rode Alexis, but the connection at the base of her brain had gone dim. Throwing power at the spot didn’t change the background glow; prayer didn’t make a dent. Knowing no other way to reach the goddess, Alexis turned beneath him and wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, offering herself to the heat and the magic. Lust rose quickly, slapping a vicious whip through her body, a feverish demand that seemed sharper than before, greedier.

  For a second she thought he might refuse her. Then he groaned, a harsh rattle at the back of his throat, and met her halfway in a kiss that was hard and hot and openmouthed. Something inside her said, Thank the gods, because this wasn’t the reserved man he’d been in recent weeks, or the one who’d given her that single, sweet kiss to celebrate her advisership and avoided her since. This was the man she’d mated with, the one who was never far from her thoughts or dreams.

  Lust revved her senses, making her achingly aware of the solid strength of him, the hard bulge of muscles beneath her gripping hands, and the good weight of him atop her. They kissed again and again, touching and tugging, finding their way through the ceremonial robes to combat clothes and the bare skin beneath. She arched into his touch as he found her breast and drove her up, his hands and mouth working together, bringing heat.

  Leaning into the magic that came with desire, Alexis called on the goddess, called on the powers of a Godkeeper.

  Luminous green lightning split the sky, burning her retinas, interrupting the build of magic. The funnel cloud roared and twisted as if gaining strength from the lightning, which flared again and again as an ever-increasing growl of thunder pummeled them. The firmament shifted, jolting them. Wind pulled at their bodies, and Alexis howled Nate’s name as he was torn away from her and up into the funnel.

  “Nate!” She reached for him, but missed as he was whipped away from her. “Nate!” She screamed for him, screamed for herself as the funnel plucked her up and tossed her in a wide arc. Her stomach lurched and fear grabbed her by the throat when there was no answer.

  Then she saw him up ahead, at the place where the world went from gray-green to limitless black.

  Not thinking, not caring, she pointed her body in that direction and pressed her arms flat against her sides, like a skydiver aiming for a target midair. She arrowed toward him, crossing the intervening distance quicker than thought.

  Halfway there she slammed into an invisible wall, one that shimmered with rainbows when she touched it. The moment she hit, the air went still on her side of the wall, leaving her hanging motionless in gray-green nothingness amidst deafeningly sudden silence. On the other
side of the invisible barrier the funnel spun unabated, drawing Nate farther and farther away.

  “No!” Alexis banged against the wall, drew her knife, and tried to hack through it. She grabbed for her holster but wasn’t wearing it; she had come to the ceremony unarmed, knowing their incorporeal selves would be brought into the barrier wearing all that they wore on earth, and thinking there was no reason to bring jade-tips into the barrier. At least, there normally wasn’t. Now, though, she was under attack, and defenseless. They had called the three-question nahwal and gotten chaos instead.

  Nate! her heart cried as the funnel spun him closer to her for a second and she could see his face. He mouthed something, and she knew in her gut that he was telling her to get away, to save herself. But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t.

  Flipping the knife so she held it by the blade, she sliced both her palms, cutting deep, letting the blood flow freely. Then she held her hands away from her in supplication, touched them to the invisible wall she instinctively knew had been put there by the goddess in order to keep her from being sucked into the funnel. But that meant the goddess was nearby, that she could act within the barrier. If that were the case, why wasn’t she coming into Alexis?

  The answer danced just out of her reach. Cursing the goddess, praying to her, Alexis tipped her head back and, compelled by instinct, or maybe a whisper from beyond, she cried, “Takaj, Ixchel!” Come, goddess!

  As though Ixchel had been waiting only for the call, the conduit came to life and a starburst exploded rainbows at the back of Alexis’s brain. Power flowed through her, passing out of her to the funnel cloud beyond. She was the goddess and the goddess was her. A contemptuous flick of her bloodstained fingers swept aside the rainbow-wrought shield that had both saved her and separated her from Nate. A word extinguished the funnel cloud. A gesture had an invisible hand plucking Nate’s limp form out of the edge of nothingness, and bringing him to where Alexis hung in midair.