At first he paddled to stay afloat, angling his body, and started swimming for the shore. But then he stopped himself, knowing that wasn’t how the spell worked. One near-death experience had been required to get to the in-between; another was necessary for absolution. Near death within near death.
Double the sacrifice. So be it, he thought, whispering the second set of spell words and then letting himself go limp as the river churned around him.
The Other howled a warning and the muk rose up within him, but Michael held on to his control and forced his lungs to unlock, forced himself to inhale water rather than air. The brackish flow gushed down his throat and windpipe and he gagged, choking and spasming, spinning in the rapid current. The water slammed him into a rocky outcropping and the world went dim. Starbursts detonated behind his eyelids, and for a second he thought he heard music. Then it went away. Everything went away. As he passed from consciousness, pain ripped through his chest. Life drained from him; hope fled.
Despair welled up. He needed help, needed the gods. Needed Sasha. Please save me, he thought, sending the prayer into the brackish water around him. Please help me be worthy.
There was no answer except the darkness.
The tomb of the First Father Sasha bent over where Rabbit and Michael lay on the floor, desperate and exhausted. She had a hand on each of their chests, her palms leaking her blood onto them, her touch giving them healing power, though not enough of it. They were still alive, but that was about all she could claim. She couldn’t find their songs, couldn’t follow their ch’ul flow to where they had gone. She was acting as little more than a magical life-support system, bleeding power into them, only to have it drain away just as quickly.
She needed the miracle. She needed help. The ch’ulel was supposed to be able to heal. Why couldn’t she find the way to that piece of her talent? What was she missing? What wasn’t she doing right?
She was dimly aware of activity surrounding her in the temple room, where the others bent over the sarcophagus and spoke words of magic and reverence. She felt something deep inside her, a growing connection that brought more magic with each passing minute, though still not enough. It was the solstice, she realized. The stars and planets, the sun and moon were coming into position and the barrier was weakening.
Strike moved up beside her and dropped a hand to her shoulder. “We’re down to thirty minutes.”
The Prophet had to be created during the moment of true solstice, when the barrier was at its thinnest and a connection opened up, very briefly, very tenuously, to the place where the library had been sequestered. In the moments leading up to that, the Nightkeepers had to make their soul sacrifice.
Iago hadn’t shown up, hadn’t taken the bait. The only magic users available were the ones in the tomb.
Sasha stared down at her bloodstained hands and nodded shortly, in acknowledgment rather than agreement.
Strike tightened his fingers on her shoulder—in warning, in support, she didn’t know. Then he moved to rejoin the others clustered around the sarcophagus, where they labored to trip the remainder of the thirteen magically timed latches securing the lid in place.
When he was gone, she bent over Michael and Rabbit once again. She tried to summon a prayer, tried to find some hope, but in the end all she could come up with was an inner snarl: For gods’ sake, get your asses back here.
But despite her refusal to give up on them, and her internal bravado, her eyes filmed as they locked on Michael, lying so still, his muscles lax beneath her touch. She hadn’t been able to live with every aspect of his too-multifaceted personality, but there were parts of him she loved deeply—like his strong sense of honor, his honest efforts to be a better man and a worthy Nightkeeper. She couldn’t even fault the need for justice that had drawn him into the FBI, and from there into the Bryson’s employ. He’d never said as much, but she suspected that she’d been destined for a less battered version, one that had been raised within the traditions and canons of the Nightkeepers. And she suspected that was the man she’d glimpsed within him, the one who combined warrior, killer, lover, and friend into one honorable core that some might find frightening and violent, but she found exactly right. That man was the one she wanted.
Leaning over him, aware that two more latches had come undone on the sarcophagus and she was running out of time, she leaned over him, touched her lips to his cool, unmoving cheek, and whispered in his ear, “Come back to me, Michael. Come back and bring me the man I could love.”
The in-between The man I could love . . . Michael awoke with the quiet, powerful words whispering around him, inside him. Humming agreement, he reached for Sasha, and touched only sand.
“What the . . . ?” Cracking his eyes he saw a flow of brown water moving sluggishly past, along a riverbank a couple of feet from where he lay facedown, feeling wrecked. I’m still in between, he thought, recognizing the Scorpion River. Shit. He’d assumed that once he’d done the near-drowning thing, he’d be zapped back to his body. Apparently not. But as he dragged himself up to a fighter’s crouch, he realized something else.
The death’s-head talent mark that had been on his wrist was gone. He was back down to the stone and the warrior. The Mictlan urge, as far as he could tell, was gone. The muk connection had disappeared, as well. The Other was still within him, though. It was contained, but it was there, waiting to emerge when his defenses were low. And perhaps it was only fitting for him to have to keep those urges and memories as punishment for the choices he’d made. But if the Other had lost its access to the muk, it should be his own private torture, no longer endangering his sin balance, and through that, the other Nightkeepers.
“Thank you, gods,” he said softly. Yes, there would be consequences to his refusing the Mictlan’s target—potentially devastating consequences—but he’d deal with whatever happened. He’d refused to sacrifice a teammate, so the Nightkeepers would deal with it as a team. And Sasha . . . He thought of the whisper, thought of her. And thought that she’d been right about some things. He’d fought for Rabbit just now, and committed the Nightkeepers to future strife on the younger mage’s behalf. Yet he hadn’t fought nearly so hard to work things out with her, assuming it was a lost battle before it had even begun.
But not again, he decided. He was going back to her. And he was going to fight his ass off and see where it got him.
Buoyed by the thought, by the image of her that he held in his head, in his heart, he summoned his magic, not needing blood sacrifice during the solstice. The power came easily, gloriously red-gold, with no sign of muk. He was about to say the word that would take him back to the real world, back to his life, when he heard a low, pained moan behind him. He jerked around, then cursed viciously at the sight of another body washed up on the riverbank just beyond him.
At first he thought it was Lucius. But Lucius hadn’t been wearing a hoodie. And he sure as shit didn’t have a small army of marks on his inner forearm, one of which glowed bloodred among the black glyphs.
“Rabbit.” Michael surged to his feet. “Godsdamn it, you were supposed to fucking wait for me to come back!” He took a couple of steps toward the kid, then stopped dead when he felt the temptation of hellmagic and saw the dark, oily shadows clinging to the young man’s skin and clothes, making him look like he was lying beneath a blanket of darkness. “Aw, hell,” Michael said, softer now. “What happened to you? What did you do?”
“Iago.” The word was cracked, barely audible, forced through stiff lips. “He was trying to piggyback on the scorpion spell. When I blocked him, he slapped a second hellmagic connection on me. . . .” Rabbit’s voice petered out, his eyes rolling back in his head.
“Damn it.” Michael crouched down beside him, saw that his clothing was dry. The kid hadn’t made it into the river. Iago had wrapped him in layer upon layer of hellmagic and dropped him in the in-
between to die. The realization brought a glimmer of hope, and Michael reached out to shake the teen.
But then he hesitated, something deep inside warning that he shouldn’t touch the darkness. He’d severed his connection to the muk power, but the penchants of his bloodline remained. Instinct warned that if he touched the hellmagic, it would render him vulnerable to the darkness once again. And did he dare return to the river? The spell hadn’t said anything about touching the powerful waters twice.
One swim breaks the bond; a second forms it anew. The whisper came in the multitonal voice of his ancestral nahwal. Michael didn’t for a second think he’d imagined it. He wanted to rail at the nahwal, wanted to shout at the deaf gods, at the fates. But he knew that wouldn’t do a damn bit of good, so he gritted his teeth and crouched down beside his teammate.
“Come on, Rabbit,” he said, hoping he wasn’t too far gone to hear. “You’ve got to get up. It’s just a few steps to the river.”
But the younger mage didn’t respond. And as Michael watched, the dark haze around Rabbit thickened, and his breathing stuttered.
“Godsdamn it.” Michael hesitated. He couldn’t just leave Rabbit. He wouldn’t. He’d made his choice already. Steeling himself against the slick, oily feel of the mucilaginous film coating the teen, he got one arm under the kid’s shoulders, the other beneath his knees, and stood, lifting Rabbit with a groan of effort and heading toward the river. Everywhere he touched the teen, the darkness stuck and clung to his own skin. Every step he took toward the river put him another step back toward connecting with the muk power. He could feel the temptation, see the glitter of silver at the edges of his vision.
It was the curse of his bloodline.
Then he reached the edge and stepped into the Scorpion River, carrying Rabbit with him. He threw back his head and howled as the water washed part of the darkness out of Rabbit and into him, returning the Mictlan bond and his connection to the muk, though not the target mark. Gravity increased a thousandfold, the weight of his other self dragging him down, making his bones ache, making his soul cry out in pain.
Rabbit spasmed and jerked awake, thrashing. Michael lost his grip, regained it, and dragged the younger man to the surface. Then, realizing he still had to complete the spell, he shoved Rabbit’s head under, reciting the second half of the spell as he did so.
Rabbit thrashed. Convulsed. Went still.
As life drained from the young man, Michael knew what it felt like to be a murderer. But then he pulled the young man up and out, and dragged him onto the beach. He got Rabbit on his side, got the water out. Started with artificial resps.
Rabbit came around almost immediately, and grabbed for him, latching on hard, his fingernails drawing blood.
For a second, they were linked by blood and darkness, and Rabbit’s mind-bending talent. In a flash, Michael saw what Rabbit saw, knew what Rabbit knew. He felt the rage and despair of screwing up almost everything he touched, the hope that had come with finding Myrinne, the determination to turn himself around, make himself a man worthy of a mate. He felt Rabbit’s insecurity, his fears when it came to protecting Myrinne, keeping her happy, and understanding what she wanted and needed from him. He felt those same emotions echo from his own soul, where Rabbit was seeing his and Sasha’s problems firsthand. More, he felt the younger mage’s slashing sense of betrayal at seeing his own face in the mirror and grasping the enormity of Michael’s decision, the risks he ran by refusing his target.
Then it was done. The reciprocal link blinked out of existence as though it had never been, and Michael and Rabbit sagged into each other.
“Why me?” The younger man’s voice was rough and rusty, his eyes anguished. “Why did the gods want you to kill me?”
Michael shook his head. “No clue. Maybe they’re wrong.” But a shiver touched the back of his neck as he wondered whether that was what his uncle had thought: No fucking way I’m killing the king. The gods got it wrong.
“What if they aren’t?” Rabbit said, echoing his thoughts.
“You’d godsdamned better make sure they are,” Michael growled, knowing Rabbit needed to hear it, that he needed to say it. “I’ll buy into the structure of the legends, but I think the details are damn well mutable. Strike was supposed to kill Leah and now she’s his queen. The prophecies made it sound like the Volatile was a danger to us, but Nate’s an asset, not a danger. You see where I’m going with this?”
Something kindled in the hopelessness of Rabbit’s eyes. “Love helps us break the patterns.”
That rocked Michael back on his heels, slammed through him with an energy that felt like magic itself. Why had it taken a punk kid to point that out? Because damned if he wasn’t right. It was a small sample size, granted, but what if it held true? The Nightkeepers’ magic was inextricably intertwined with the man-woman connection of sex, of love. What if—maybe because theirs was such a small group, maybe because of another, higher layer of destiny—love sometimes trumped the prophecies and the signs?
The thought was humbling. Terrifying. Exciting.
Or it’s bullshit , logic said. The kid wants to believe he and his first real girlfriend are supposed to be together forever, and you want an excuse to think you can win Sasha back, even though nothing’s changed inside you. Which was true, Michael supposed. The Mictlan’s target bond had been broken, but he was still connected to the muk, still had the dubious talent and the Other within him. Damn it.
“Look,” he said, fixing Rabbit with a don’t mess with me glare, “I can’t promise you that things are going to work out with you and Myrinne, and you’d damn well better not hinge your good behavior on it. Be a man and do your best. That’s all any of us can ask of you.”
Rabbit seemed to consider that for a moment. Then his shoulders squared and he nodded. “I’m working on it.”
“Keep working.” Michael clapped the teen on the shoulder. “Now, let’s go find our bodies.” And hope to hell they’re still alive for us to come back to.
The tomb of the First Father Wrung out from dividing her energies between the two injured men, Sasha felt Michael’s energy flow dip alarmingly, spike, and dip again, and knew this was the moment she’d been dreading, the moment he hit the end of his reserves and her strength was no longer enough to keep his heart going, his blood flowing through his veins. Refusing to give up, to give in, she gripped his limp hand and flung the last of her fading strength toward the place where she could feel his energy draining. Calling to the others, she said, “Help me. I need more!”
Strike looked over from the nearly open coffin and shook his head, expression drawn. “There isn’t any more, Sasha.” He paused. “I’m sorry. It’s almost time.”
She felt her fingers go numb, and thought she’d gripped Michael’s hand too tight. Then she heard a thrumming, electric chord and realized it was the other way around. She froze, afraid to hope as she looked down at Michael. His eyes were open. “Oh,” she breathed. “You’re back.”
She was peripherally aware of Strike’s amazement, of the others gathering around, but she was caught up in Michael, and in his energy, which was alive and vibrant, and calling to hers, drawing it inward. Almost too late she felt the silver muk reach out to her, felt it begin to drain her. She cut the connection fast, but felt the ache of loss left behind. “It didn’t work.”
The forest of his eyes went to dusk. “It did and it didn’t. Rabbit—” He broke off, glancing at the teen. “Oh, shit. He was right behind me.”
Rabbit’s body was still lying there, but he’d gone gray. And in Sasha’s grasp, his hand was cold as death.
Somewhere in the barrier Rabbit was halfway back into his body when he’d felt Iago grab onto his consciousness and follow, still trying to piggyback his way into the sarcophagus room, the bastard. More, through the psychic link, Rabbit could see inside the Xibalban’s mind and know his plans; that knowledge chilled him to the marrow with its scope and possibilities. No! Rabbit’s consciousness hung within the barrier’s energy flow as he fought the Xibalban’s hold, trying to find his way back to the in-between, to the gray-green m
ist of the barrier, hell, anywhere but back to the tomb of the First Father.
You can’t win , Iago mocked him, giving him a shove back toward his body. You’d be better off conserving your strength to fight me when we get there.
And the damn thing was, he was right. Rabbit’s strength was failing; his body was failing. Should he just let go of that connection? No, he couldn’t die now. He had to get back to the others and tell them what Iago was planning, had to get back to Myrinne and tell her he was sorry for being a dick, that she could have all the time and space she needed, even if it killed him to back off. Michael had turned away from the gods by refusing to kill him. He had to be worthy of that sacrifice. And somehow, though gods only knew how, he needed to break this ungodly link he shared with Iago. It left him too vulnerable.
But how the hell was he supposed to do that? The river had washed him clean of the extra hellmagic Iago had loaded him down with, but it hadn’t broken his connection to the hellmagic. What would?
Not a fucking thing, the Xibalban answered inside him, warning Rabbit that his mental shields were for shit, that the rest of his magic was falling down around his ears. His powers were crumbling, kaleidoscoping inward, along with his consciousness. Still struggling, he resisted the forces urging him back to himself, thinking that if he could stay out of his body, he could strand them both in the barrier, or the in-between.
Then he heard sudden music, a marching backbeat overlaid with electric guitar, and Sasha’s voice was inside his head, impossibly strong as she called, Get your ass back here, Rabbit. We need you!
Then she somehow grabbed onto him, latching her energy to his and pulling him home to his human shell.
Rabbit felt Iago’s startled delight and roared a denial, but it was already too late. The enemy mage had grabbed onto the connection, followed it to its source. Howling despair and the knowledge that he’d fucked up again, Rabbit flung himself back into his own body, hoping to hell he got there ahead of Iago.
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