He barely had time to curse at the sight of the empty rental car parked across the fucking road right in front of them. Then they were on top of it, going too fast to stop. Reese locked the brakes as they flew toward the dust-covered sedan. But it wouldn’t be enough.
“Grab something!” he snapped, shooting a hand across the cab and pulling her seat belt extra tight as he called on his drug-depleted magic for a half-assed shield spell that crackled to misfiring electric life.
They hit with a slewing jolt of impact, a roar of destruction, and the muted gunshots of the airbags that thwumped into them from the front and sides. Dez’s head snapped on his neck and he tasted blood. Keban’s abandoned vehicle flew off the road and into a shallow ditch on one side, but the Compass caromed the other way and headed straight for the guardrail that marked off a steep embankment. Beyond was only darkness.
Reese’s eyes locked on his for a second; he saw a flash of grief and heard her voice crack when she said, “It wasn’t supposed to go like this.”
“Story of our lives. Hang on.” Spitting blood in sacrifice, he shouted, “Pasaj och!” A deeper barrier connection slammed through him, lighting him up and pouring out of him in a surge. He did his damnedest to fill the vehicle’s interior with shield magic as the Compass hit the guardrail, peeled through it, went airborne for a few seconds . . .
And fell.
CHAPTER FIVE
The SUV plummeted and hit with a bone-jarring impact, but instead of pain and the crash of breaking glass, Reese found herself surrounded by a sizzling noise and a whirl of lightning arcs. The blue-white strobes of Dez’s shield magic—which wasn’t like anything else she had seen in her five-day crash course at Skywatch—showed a rocky embankment that fell away from them on a steep slant, with jagged rocks at the bottom, trees beyond that. Not good.
Then the Compass bounced and all she could do was hang on white knuckled as the vehicle slewed sideways and rolled—wham, wham, wham—three dizzying revolutions that spun her head over ass and left her fighting for breath. They landed upright—thank Christ—and skidded down the incline, finally thudding into a pine tree that splintered and rained needles on them, but held.
It fucking held. And in doing so, it saved their lives.
In an instant that seemed to take forever, the crash chaos faded and the world went still.
And Dez’s magic skimmed across her skin like a caress.
She closed her eyes, trying not feel it, to feel him sitting way too close beside her. By the time she left Skywatch, she had almost convinced herself that this was just a job, that she was doing what anyone like her would do given the chance to be part of the whole save-the-world thing.
But that was bullshit: This was about Dez, pure and simple. That was where anything “simple” ended, though, because she didn’t have a clue if she’d come after him to get some sort of final closure, because she still felt like she owed him, because Strike said the Nightkeepers needed him, or because some weak, perpetually nineteen-year-old part of her wanted to believe he had gone back to being the boy she had loved.
It almost hadn’t mattered, either, because she’d nearly killed both of them doing the high-speed-chase thing. She was supposed to have outgrown this shit. All of it.
“Reese!” He dragged off his belt, took his knife to the airbags, slapped on the overhead light and loomed over her, his eyes worried and so damn familiar they peeled back the years in an instant. “Gods. Are you okay?”
She swallowed hard and whispered, “Yeah. I’m fine.” But she was suddenly having trouble breathing, and it wasn’t because of the crash.
Intellectually, she had accepted that he was alive, that he had come into his full powers, not just as a warrior but as a Triad mage. And the five days she had spent at Skywatch had helped her get over her awe—or most of it, anyway—when it came to the Nightkeepers she had grown up dreaming about. The magi were big and glossy, yes, and they had powers she didn’t. But on another level, they were normal people. Sasha shared her sweet tooth, Alexis had a thing for shoes, and Nate had kicked her ass twice on Grand Theft Auto before admitting that he’d been a game developer in his previous life. Strike was more distant, and seemed troubled, but she had gotten him talking baseball one evening and he’d seemed grateful for the diversion. Over the past week the magi had become acquaintances, some even friends, and she had thought, Okay, I can do this. I can deal with seeing Dez.
But she couldn’t, she realized now. Because thinking about seeing him again wasn’t the same as actually seeing him again.
She hadn’t been prepared for the way the Triad spell had rendered him hairless, like his bloodline totem. His scalp was sleek instead of trimmed to stubble, his jaw unshadowed, his brows smooth. Where the sleeve of his jacket rode up as he leaned over her, his muscular forearm gleamed in the dashboard lights, which caught the edge of his bloodline mark: a gape-mouthed, plumed serpent. And she hadn’t been braced for that. She hadn’t been expecting him to be wearing army surplus that looked far more like the second-hands they had scrounged as kids than the slick designers he had worn in later years. And she sure as hell hadn’t been prepared for the way the years—or maybe the magic?—had honed his wide cheekbones, ridged nose, and sardonic mouth. How, when he lifted a hand to touch her cheek as if needing to prove to himself that she was really there, the fine tremor in his hand would make her heart shudder.
“Damn it, Dez,” she said. She wasn’t sure whether she would have invited him closer or warned him away, because her throat locked.
The moment spun out between them.
Then a car roared by up on the road, snapping her back to reality. The engine noise didn’t change and there was no flash of brakes—the driver had either managed to miss the signs of a crash, or was pretending to—but the next one might not. “We can’t stay here,” she said softly.
He started to say something, then thought better of it and nodded instead. A shadow shifted across his expression, distancing him; it was his warrior’s talent coming on line, she thought, blunting his emotions and shifting his priorities. Or maybe she just wanted to think that.
“I’ll see how bad the damage is.” He shouldered open his door and hauled himself up and out. Winter air rushed in to fill the void as he headed around to the back of the Compass, where the darkness swallowed him up.
She knew she should go with him, but instead sagged back against the seat, head spinning with the realization that she was in big trouble. She had told herself she was taking the job partly to prove how far she had come. Instead it was clear that she hadn’t changed at all, not deep down inside: She was still the same adrenaline junkie who had damn near self-destructed.
Shaking her head in an effort to rattle some sense back into her brain succeeded only in waking a dull throb of a headache and making her neck twinge in protest. The pain got her up and moving, though.
The Compass was an accordioned mess of spider-webbed glass and skewed wheels, lit by a glowing foxfire spell that followed Dez like a ghost, floating near his shoulder as he tried a crumpled door, muttering under his breath.
She touched the high-tech armband that connected her to Skywatch. “I’ll call in, get us a ’port back to the compound,” she said, sticking with the practicalities. They had lost Keban and killed the car. It was time to fall back and regroup.
“Don’t,” Dez said sharply, turning to face her. The foxfire trailed behind his shoulder, throwing his face into shadow.
The word carried the punch of a command, but she lifted her chin and met the darkness that hid his eyes. “Newsflash: I don’t work for you.”
His face went unreadable. “Don’t turn me in this time. Please.”
The jab lumped a hard pressure in her chest, as did him ducking her question. “I’ve got a job to do.”
“Keban is my responsibility.” He paused, the shadows deepening. “Go home, Reese. This isn’t your fight.”
She shouldn’t have been disappointed . . . but, damn it, she w
as. She had told herself not to make excuses for why he had let her believe he was dead, not to think that the Triad spell was what had stopped him from reaching out to her because she wasn’t a mage like him. Strike and the others believed that her long-ago brush with the magic had marked her, putting her under the gods’ notice and making her part of the fight. More, they thought that she and Dez might have been destined mates, and that the gods were trying to make things right now by sparking the coincidences that had brought them together once more.
She had told herself not to buy into it, not to expect anything. But the prickle of tears and a sudden jones for tiramisu said she hadn’t done as good of a job with that one as she had thought.
Suck it up, she told herself. You don’t need his permission to drag his ass back to Skywatch. She didn’t have her Taser anymore, but Strike was waiting for her signal, and the magi could take care of the rest. You’re just a locator these days, remember?
But there was an edge of desperation in his eyes. A silent plea. And her instincts were suddenly telling her not to make the call, that this was one of those targets who might be better off staying lost, at least for a while.
When it came to Dez, though, history suggested that her instincts sucked. And the Nightkeepers’ writs said it best: What has happened before will happen again.
She met his eyes. “You don’t get to decide whether or not this is my fight, especially not when your king, my contract, an unlimited expense account, and the end of the freaking world all say it is.”
“I could drop you with a sleep spell, call them to pick you up, and be gone before they got here.” He suddenly seemed bigger and more menacing than before, though he hadn’t moved. The foxfire drifted ahead of him, illuminating his face but revealing nothing.
“I’d just hunt you down again,” she countered. “And the next time you wouldn’t even know I was there—I’d just dart you like a rabid dog.” He didn’t say anything, but for a second she saw something in his eyes. In another man, it would have been desperation. She softened her voice. “Come back to Skywatch. They need you.”
“They’re fine without me,” he said flatly.
Which was a total crock. The Nightkeepers were bracing for massive attacks as the end-time countdown passed the one-year threshold. The prophecies hinted at disasters but were frustratingly low on details, leaving the magi scrambling for answers and needing all hands on deck . . . but Dez knew that. Yet here he was, out here on his own, tracking Keban. And he didn’t want the others involved. Either his transformation wasn’t nearly as complete as the others thought . . . or there was something else going on.
“What are you hiding?” The slight narrowing of those pale eyes said it was a direct hit. Taking a deep breath to settle the sudden churn in her stomach, the one that reminded her of other arguments, other secrets, she pressed, “What don’t you want them to know?”
For a moment she thought he was going to ignore the question, or outright lie. But then he met her eyes. “I don’t have any right to ask you to trust me.”
The churn got worse. “Damn right you don’t.”
“I’m asking anyway. Let me go. I have to find Keban and the artifacts on my own. It’s important.”
For a second, she saw a flash of the boy who had saved her, the young man she had loved. Problem was, she wasn’t sure if that was real or calculated. “You want me to tell Strike I couldn’t find you?”
“I want you to go back to your life.” His expression darkened almost imperceptibly. “And I want you to live this next year like it’s your last, just in case it is.”
Somehow, that hit her harder than any of the strategy sessions she’d sat in on at Skywatch. During those meetings, the magi and winikin had talked about the barrier and their enemies—both earthly and demonic—and the first real stirrings of war, but now she realized that part of her had held itself apart, treating the threats as another set of stories. Fiction. Maybe a big, flashy movie.
Dez’s words, though, made her picture Denver a year from now, full of harried shoppers ramping up to do the holiday thing while bitching about the cold, and then—
Gone.
A shudder crawled down her spine at the thought, another as she tried to put herself into the picture. The offer was still open for Rabbit to tweak things so she could go back to that life, blissfully unaware that the tinfoil hatters had it right when it came to the countdown. Or she could return with her memories intact and, like Dez said, live the next year like it was her last. But those pictures refused to form. How could they, now that she knew about the Nightkeepers, knew what they were trying to do?
“I’m not playing you,” Dez said when she was silent too long. “And I’m not going to hurt the Nightkeepers. I swear it on my sister′s soul.”
It was the same oath he had used to convince her to go with him on that very first night in the warehouse tunnels. Back then she had sensed his honor and loyalty, had believed he would keep her safe. Now, when she looked at the older, tougher version standing opposite her with magic burning bright in the air around him, she saw an achingly familiar stranger. He had an earnest intensity that made her want to believe. But history repeated itself, and theirs wasn’t good. She shouldn’t—couldn’t—trust him. Yet her instincts said that she should let him go, that it wasn’t time yet for him to be found. More, they said he needed help.
“Time to choose.” Dez looked past her, up toward the road. “The cavalry is here.” Sure enough, sirens throbbed just at the level of her hearing, then grew louder. He glanced back at her. “You going to let me go this time?”
She blew out a breath and went with her gut. “Not exactly. I’m coming with you.”
His face blanked for a second, then clouded. “No fucking way,” he said flatly. “That is not an option.”
“Newsflash number two: You’re not calling the shots here.” Which was new, she realized. “So it’s time for you to choose: You want to stay out in the field chasing your winikin, we do it together. Otherwise, I’m bringing you in.” When he stayed stubbornly silent, she tipped up her chin. “Unless your Spidey senses are seriously long-range, you’re going to need help finding Keban.”
The first responders had arrived: The aah-woo, aah-woo of a police car was followed closely by the bwip-bwip of an ambulance, and colored lights strobed Keban’s crumpled car.
“Damn it . . .” Dez glanced up at the road, then back at her, and his voice dropped. “This is some serious shit, Reese. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Losing you hurt. Every. Single. Time. She didn’t say that, though, because this wasn’t about them. And if that meant she was thinking a little like a Nightkeeper, she was okay with that. So all she said was: “Pick a door, Mendez.”
“Shit. Fine. We’ll go after him together.” He spun and stalked to the back of the Compass, where the rest of her weapons were stashed in a hidden lockbox. “Get your stuff,” he ordered tersely, not looking at her. “We’ll hike back to my truck. Overland, it shouldn’t take all that long.”
Reese ignored his tone and pulled her laptop and knapsack out of the wrecked vehicle. But although she had won the argument, she didn’t feel any sense of victory. Instead, as she followed him into the darkness, her stomach was knotted into a hard ball of nerves and a panicked question was rocketing around inside her head: What the hell are you doing?
She didn’t have a clue. But history was sure as shit repeating itself.
Skywatch
When the landline started ringing in the main room, Sven ignored it to slouch deeper into the rec room sofa, his eyes glued to the screen. “Can someone get that?”
“Get it your damn self,” JT snapped as he passed the door and glanced in, his arms loaded with storeroom boxes. “Playing Viking Warrior version whatever-the-fuck does not count as being too busy to get the phone. And I’m not your godsdamn servant.”
Which would’ve been more cringe-inducing if the winikin didn’t say it at least five times a day.
“I’m watching Dog Whisperer, not playing games,” Sven muttered, but he headed out to the main room to grab the phone before JT came steamrolling back and made his point with his fists. A former army ranger who had spent the past seven years exterminating bat demons with a ceremonial knife and a bad attitude, he could more than hold his own.
So Sven got the phone his damn self.
“Skywatch,” he said into the handset, keeping it simple because he’d gotten a month of kitchen duty a year or so ago when Carlos caught him answering with “Screamin’ Demon Central. What is your emergency?”
“It’s Mendez.”
The low growl, coming with car noises in the background, brought relief. “Good to hear your voice.” Sven checked the caller ID, saw that it was the cell that had been assigned to Reese. “Guess the bounty hunter earned her rep. You guys headed back?”
“No, we’re staying on the winikin’s trail from out here. She said she promised to check in twice a day with Strike, so consider us checked in. And I want you to get some info to the brain trust.”
“Wait.” Sven looked around for something to write on other than his palm. “Shit. Give me a second.” He scored a pen and scratch pad. “Go ahead.”
He copied down Mendez’s message. “Statue. White god’s head. ‘T’ glyphs on its cheeks. Got it.”
“They can call us when they have something. We’ll be on this phone.”
“Good hunting.”
Sven decided to walk the message out to the brain trust—aka Lucius, Jade, and the Nightkeepers’ ancestral library, which had magicked its way into a cave at the back of the box canyon. It was a nice day, and he should probably work out some of the kinks. He had taken a pretty good hit the other day during a short, ugly fight with a dozen of Iago’s makol near a ceremonial cave system down in Belize. Even though Sasha had hooked him up with some healing juju the other day, he still didn’t feel right. So he jogged a little, trying to loosen up as he headed down the short flight of stairs beyond the pool area and hit the worn path that led past the picnic area.
Storm Kissed Page 8
