They were in a trick cave, a damned magical hot spot.
The Nightkeepers’ original intersection, a circular ceremonial chamber buried beneath the main pyramid of Chichén Itzá, had been able to magically seal itself off and drop into the subterranean river below it, subjecting the magi trapped inside it to a near-death experience by drowning: one of the most sacred sacrifices, bringing the sufferers close to the gods themselves. The room at Chichén Itzá had been designed for the Godkeeper ceremony, and had worked only during the cardinal solstices and equinoxes. But although this was no cardinal day—it was just another freaking Tuesday—when Sven looked up, he saw that the zoo was way closer than it had started. More, only the lower halves of the coyotes were visible. Cara’s eyes, wide and terrified, snapped to his. “What is this place?”
“Doesn’t matter, because we’re getting out of here.” He threaded her fingers through his weapons belt. “Swim as hard as you can and don’t let go of me, no matter what. Okay?”
At her nod, he got an arm around her waist and, with a powerful thrust of his legs, launched them off the altar toward the cave opening.
The current grabbed them, tumbled them, but they fought it inch by inch, swimming hard. She struggled gamely beside him, but he could feel her flagging, her cold-sapped strength no match for his enhanced reserves. “I’ve got you,” he said over the rumble of the ceiling and the rush of water. “Just hang on.” He would get her out of there, get her safe, get whoever had done this to her. And then… Shit, he didn’t know what he was going to do then.
Suddenly, a new sound joined the rumble and the rush: a stone-on-stone grating noise that had the knots in his gut coiling to the snapping point.
“Look! Hurry!” Her voice cracked on the words, and she started swimming harder with a burst of terrified energy, headed for the place where a stone slab was sliding across the little bit of the cave mouth that was still visible.
“Shit.” He called his magic and threw a shield spell into the narrowing gap, but it fizzled and died, warning him that, same as the ceremonial chamber beneath Chichén Itzá, his magic wouldn’t work in the chamber. The low-level foxfire spell was the best he could do, and even those lights were dimming as the ceiling crowded them down to the waterline while, with a grating noise, the slab slid into place, trapping them.
Cara gave a wordless cry and stopped swimming to stare at the place where their exit had been. She turned back, looked up at him with pleading eyes. “Tell me you brought backup.”
“They’re on their way.” Gods willing, Mac had got the message across. “But without magic…” He trailed off. Even if Strike or Anna could detect them within the stone chamber, they wouldn’t be able to ’port in. And if they were truly locked inside a ritual chamber—and that was sure as hell what it seemed like—all the fireballs in the world wouldn’t be able to get them out until the cavern’s spell had run its course.
But what spell? What ritual? And by the gods, how was he going to get her out alive? She wasn’t a mage, didn’t have the same natural resilience he did. And although her big personality and the huge effect she had on him made him forget how small she was sometimes, he was acutely aware now of the size difference between them. She was light and lithe against him, and so fine boned he thought he could break her if he held on too hard.
Either she had shifted or he had changed his grip; he wasn’t sure. But they were holding each other now, wrapped around each other as they treaded muddy water. The magic must have closed off whatever outflow normally let the subterranean lake drain, because the water gradually stilled around them, leaving only the rumble of the ceiling as it dropped nearer and nearer still.
There was less than a foot of headroom left. They were running out of time. His mind raced. He had to do something. But what?
Cast the spell. It came to him on a whisper of thought, an urgency that seemed to come from the moist air around them. One of the foxfires touched the surface and blinked out, even though the spells could usually withstand water. This wasn’t normal water, though; it was water inside a ceremonial chamber, a magical hot spot. And maybe that was the answer. He might not know what ritual he was supposed to perform, but he was a coyote, and there were coyotes on the wall. Maybe his magic would be enough to trigger whatever spell needed to be completed before the chamber would drain. Please, gods, let it be enough.
Heart thudding suddenly in his chest, he lifted his knife and rasped, “I need to—”
“Do it,” she said. “I don’t care what it is; just do it. This is your world, not mine. You’re the one who’s got to get us out of here.” She tightened her grip on him for a beat, though he didn’t know if she was reassuring him or saying good-bye.
No, damn it. Not good-bye. He was going to get them out of there.
The ceiling bumped his head, forcing him down as he caught her hands in his and gripped them tight, holding on to her. In that moment, he was achingly aware of the way she fit seamlessly, perfectly, even though they were so different in size and temperament. But where those differences had loomed so large in the past, now they mattered far less than the heat that rose between them, making the water seem suddenly warmer than before. He couldn’t let that matter as much as he wanted to, though. He never could.
The water hit his chin and crept higher. His heart hammered in his chest, but he forced himself to stay calm and meet her eyes, hold them as he cut his own palms, first one and then the other, so he bled into the water. The air began to hum, singing the high, sweet note of power. Magic. The second foxfire died, then the third, but it didn’t matter, because the magic was there inside him, racing in his veins and lighting up the water around them with red-gold sparkles. It poured through him, expanding his very soul, until he felt bigger, stronger, more powerful than ever, yet still not enough to fight the earth and stone that held them prisoner. He was going to have to rely on the gods for that.
The gods… and Cara. Because somehow he needed to bring her with him into the magic. It was the only way.
Drawing her close, he cut her palms to match his own and then threaded their fingers together so their palms aligned blood to blood. He didn’t feel a blood-link, didn’t feel anything but her narrow fingers in his, yet that was enough to shift his heart in his chest. Please, gods, he whispered deep in his soul as he took a last deep breath and straightened to sink beneath the water. When she did the same, trembling against him, he touched his lips to hers and whispered against her skin, “Pasaj och.”
The magic of a barrier connection flared inside him, even though it shouldn’t have been able to form with them still several days away from the equinox. The power was bottomless, eternal, and it reached out of him to surround her as her eyes went wide in the red-gold sparkles. Then he leaned in and kissed her, and this time he didn’t hold back, instead pouring into her all the wishes and longings he’d kept locked inside for so long. She stiffened, clutching at him. He could feel her surprise, her confusion, and the heat that leaped up in answer. Then there was a soundless detonation. The bottom fell out of his soul. And he dropped into the magic, taking her with him.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Somewhere in the magic
The surprise of Sven’s kiss—the heat, the intensity, the fireworks—turned instantly to shock as the cold water went hot and Cara’s world lurched like a trampoline.
Suddenly she was moving without changing place, her consciousness leaping out of her body and accelerating through a dizzying, zigzagging blur of gray, green, and brown. She still felt like herself, but an insubstantial version. Part of her was cold, wet, and drowning, while another part flew free. He had brought her into his magic. She hung on to his hands, squeezing tightly. It’s working!
They swerved and slewed, and then plunged down, up, sideways, and into a corkscrew spin that flipped her insubstantial self head over ass—wham, wham, wham—like an airplane barrel roll. Her heart leaped into her throat; she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream, couldn’t do anything but
jam her eyelids shut and hang on for the ride. The spinning got worse, until she didn’t know up from down and the motion stopped feeling like movement and became the spinning of her mind, which knew only that she was still clutching his hand like a lifeline.
Then, gradually, the spins slowed. Her vision cleared. And she found them standing together in a beautiful underground grotto, facing each other and holding hands as if waiting to hear, “You may now kiss the bride.”
It would’ve been a ridiculous thought—she wasn’t a wedding kind of girl—except that the color scheme carried the vibe too. He was wearing combat black-on-black without the body armor or weapons, while she was somehow wearing a filmy white dress made of a woven fabric so light it felt like she wasn’t wearing anything at all. It clung to her, seeming to be a single piece of fabric wound intricately around her body, showing every dip and curve. It ended high on her thigh on one side and trailed down to touch the ground on the other. Her hair hung loose down her back, fully dry; his was slicked back as if he’d just gotten out of the shower. To add to the what-the-fuck factor, they were both barefoot. Soft grains of sand shifted between her toes, and it was as if she could feel each inch of her body individually: the brush of her dress, the blunt pressure of his fingers on hers, squeezing as if to say, It’s okay.
“Where are we?” she asked softly. “Is this the barrier?”
“No, not the barrier. We’re in a vision,” he answered, voice equally quiet, though the echoes were picked up by the arching walls of the circular cave.
“It feels so real.”
“It is, just on another level of reality.”
She stared around her, wide-eyed, heart drumming with a mixture of fear and exhilaration. This is what all the fuss is about, she thought, borderlining on awestruck. This is magic. The air was warm, humid, and redolent of the rain forest she could see through the fallen-through spots high overhead, where green vines draped through and sunlight splashed down at a late-afternoon angle. They stood together on a wide, flat spot beside a deep pool. In places, stalactites dripped down from the ceiling or stalagmites pushed up from the water, thick, blunt, and slick with moisture.
Then, suddenly, the shaft of light nearest them brightened, as if the sun had been cloud shrouded and now burst fully to life. Then it brightened further, went supernova. Sven shifted to put his body in front of hers, and Cara lifted a hand to shield her eyes, scared yet somehow not as scared as she probably should’ve been. When the light dissipated, a figure stood in front of them, man shaped but genderless, with thick skin that stretched over bone and sinew, and featureless black eyes that stared, unblinking, at her and Sven.
A nahwal!
She gasped, but Sven’s fingers tightened on hers, warning her not to back away. So she held her ground, staring at an entity she had never, ever expected to see for herself. Creatures of the barrier, the nahwal contained the collective ancestral wisdom of the Nightkeepers. Some held the experiences and personalities of the strongest magi of each bloodline; they passed messages to their descendants and could be both help and hindrance. Others were all-knowing and could answer questions, while some were cruel and vicious. This one’s forearm lacked the coyote glyph, which meant it didn’t belong to Sven’s ancestry, but it wasn’t volunteering information and hadn’t made any move to attack. So what was it? Why was it here?
“Are you the Father?” Sven asked quietly. “Are you the one we’re supposed to resurrect?” A shiver raced across Cara’s skin at the thought.
“No. I am his messenger.” The voice was a descant of many, as if a church choir were speaking. “The seer is blind and deaf, but the information must be passed, and here you are among us, son of the coyotes. So it comes to you.”
A message! Hope flared, tightening Cara’s throat. “What information?” she whispered, not sure whether the nahwal would even acknowledge her.
It kept its featureless black eyes fixed on Sven, but answered, “In order for the Father to arise, the magi must bring the screaming skull to Che’en Yaaxil on the cardinal day.” Then, shifting its attention to her, the nahwal said, “That was one question. You have two more.”
Cara gaped, first because the creature—the nahwal!—had acknowledged her, and then because of what its question meant. “You’re a three-question nahwal!”
Rabbit had killed the prior version of the oracle, defending himself when the creature went rogue and attacked him. The Nightkeepers had searched long and hard for another, needing the answers it could provide if it chose. The “if it chose” was an important caveat, though, because the answers given by the prior three-question nahwal had been riddles at best, useless at worst, and almost always seriously obscure.
“Is that your question?”
“No!” she said quickly. “That was a statement, not a question.”
“Careful,” Sven said in an undertone. “The last one had a temper.”
“No shit,” she said, anxiety pushing her tone sharper than she’d really intended. Blowing out a breath, she whispered, “What should I ask?”
“Request not of others what you must decide for yourself,” the nahwal said flatly. “These are your questions, not his. Ask for your true heart’s desire and the answers will be yours.” Its eyes bored into her, reaching inside as the thing said, “What do you want, winikin? Ask it of me now… but ask wisely.”
Cara suddenly had to swallow hard, choking down the bitter thought that she didn’t remember the last time someone had asked her what she really wanted. She wasn’t even sure she knew anymore, and boy, did that suck. This wasn’t the time for selfishness, though, either in questions or dreams.
Her mind raced, bringing a skim of panic. What should I do next? she thought frantically, but didn’t say it aloud because it would be too broad a question. How can we get out of the cave? she thought to try—she might feel solid and real, standing there in the lush cave, still hanging on to Sven like she had the right, but in reality their bodies were far away, drowning. Maybe even near death. But she hoped—prayed—that the nahwal’s message meant there was a chance she and Sven would make it back to the magi. Why didn’t I get my mark? she almost asked, because the nahwal was talking to her, not Sven, and that had to mean something. Unless it didn’t.
Think! This was a shared vision, a shared message. Focus on the details. There wasn’t enough to the message for the brain trust to work with, was there? Taking a deep breath, she said, “What does this screaming skull look like?”
“It is the size of a man’s fist, made of obsidian, and looks as you would expect it to from the name.” There was no tone or inflection, no hint that she’d asked the right or wrong question. Sven, though, tightened his fingers on hers and gave the shallowest of nods.
Taking too much solace from that, she said, “What is the location of”—she stumbled over the ancient words—“Che’en Yaaxil?”
“We are there.” The nahwal gestured to the subterranean pool and almost ethereally beautiful surroundings. “It is an hour’s walk from the tomb of the First Father. That is your third and last question.” Sunlight brightened through the opening once more, limning the nahwal with a white halo.
“Wait.” Sven held out a hand to the ancient being. “What about me?”
The halo brightened and blurred, forcing Cara to squint and then look away. From within the flameless white fire, the nahwal’s multitonal voice said, “I will not take your questions, mage, but I will give you your answers: The vision belongs to both of you; it is how you want to be seen. And this is your charge: Do not waste the gifts you are about to receive.”
Hope flickered. What gifts?
“What gifts?” Sven asked as if reading her mind. But even as he got the question out, the nahwal’s image grew thin and began to fade. “Wait. Come back!”
“Gods go with you both.” The multitonal voice was soft, almost wistful.
The pillar of light flared brightly, reaching out to surround them in a warm wash of energy and a thundering, shudd
ering noise that sounded like an off-balance clothes drier running at top speed: a syncopated thumpa-thud-thumpa-thud that sent Cara’s heart into her throat.
What was happening? What were they supposed to do next? “Stop,” she cried. “Stop this!”
Sven shouted something, but she couldn’t hear him over the noise, could only hang tightly on to his hand. THUMPA-THUD-THUMPA-THUD!
On the last thud, the ground shuddered beneath her feet and her palms burned sharply as the cuts reopened and split wide. She cried out in pain, and then with shock as the blinding light winked out and they were suddenly standing on a featureless gray surface, surrounded by a huge mass of fog that churned around them with a deep-throated, windy roar.
She gaped, paralyzed by helplessness as the mist became tendrils that snaked out, reaching toward her and Sven.
“Get back!” He lunged in front of her and called a shield spell but nothing happened; he cast a fireball and cursed as it failed.
Standing there in warrior black, unarmed and shouting into the fog, he looked at once majestic and vulnerable, and her heart shuddered with a sudden gut-deep certainty that this would be the last time she would see him like this.
“Sven, don’t!” She reached for him, but just as her fingertips brushed his sleeve, the tendrils whipped around him and yanked him forward. Her heart stopped and her voice broke on a shattered scream of, “No!”
He shouted and fought the mist’s inexorable grip, lashing out with magic that fizzled as it was cast. Twisting back, he reached for her with one hand while warding her off with the other. His eyes were tortured, his face stark with horror. “Cara, I—”
The tendrils yanked him into the mist, and he disappeared.
“No!” She bolted after him, but stopped after only a few steps because she was suddenly, utterly sure that he wasn’t just gone from sight, but from the vision, the plane, wherever the hell they were.
Magic Unchained Page 15
