Skykeepers

by Jessica Andersen

  He’d tried to talk her into coming back to Skywatch for the solstice, had even offered to call in a favor with Strike and get him to ’port her there and back, just an overnight. She hadn’t wanted to, though, which had bummed Rabbit out even more. She was drifting, and he didn’t know how to hold on to her without turning into a creepy stalker . . . or using magic on her, which he’d promised not to do.

  He reached into the pocket of his jeans and touched the little box he’d been carrying for a couple of weeks now. He’d been waiting for the right moment to give it to her, and now tried not to think the right moment might’ve already passed.

  Michael’s breathing hitched, reminding him to keep his mind on the damn job. But what exactly was he supposed to do? The spell was cast—he’d felt the magic. Michael was still bleeding out, though, and now his breathing was getting bad. How far was he supposed to let it go before he pulled the plug? And how, exactly, was he supposed to do that? Reaching out, he touched Michael’s cool flesh, expecting to hear an echo of his consciousness, feel the thread that connected spirit to flesh. He got nothing. Michael wasn’t home anymore; there was no sense of him, no clues where he’d gone or how Rabbit could follow, or bring him back. Shit. Now what? He couldn’t leave Michael, hadn’t brought his cell. How the hell was it that neither of them had brought a damn phone?

  Maybe he could go into Michael’s mind, find the connection forged by his sexual liaison with Sasha, and use that to mind-speak to Sasha. That might work. Maybe. But the longer he sat there and thought about it, the more he wondered whether he should blow the whistle. If he did, guaran-fucking-teed they wouldn’t let him try the spell later. Was that selfish? Maybe. Probably. But like Myrinne said, there wasn’t anyone looking out for their interests at Skywatch except the two of them.

  Temptation spiraled, and something inside Rabbit whispered, Do it. You know you want to. It sounded almost, but not quite, like Iago’s voice.

  “Shut up,” he said savagely. “You’re not real!” Iago couldn’t get through the wards unless Rabbit initiated contact, and he sure as shit wasn’t doing that. Which meant the voice was his own mind playing tricks on him. It had to be.

  Cut yourself, the voice said, feeling somehow oily and dark. The world grayed out, then cut back in, and he found Michael’s knife in his hand, though he was pretty sure he’d set it aside. Cut yourself and go after him. The voice didn’t sound so much like Iago’s now. In a weird-ass way, it sounded like Red-Boar, except without the insults. He needs your help, it said. The suggestion put a new spin on things. A rescue mission wasn’t the same thing as deserting his post. The exact opposite, in fact.

  Urgency gripped Rabbit, the sudden certainty that Michael was in deep shit and sinking fast. Or was that what he wanted to think, because it called for the course of action he so desperately wanted to take?

  Magic hung thick in the air; the spell was still active. All he’d have to do would be to open his wrists. Yeah. He snorted inwardly. That’s all. No biggie.

  He’d do it, though. For Michael. For his future with Myrinne. But which thought was motivating him now? Was the voice in his head real, or a figment he was turning into an excuse?

  He had to think, had to make the right call. He couldn’t fuck this up; it was too big, too important. But he had to move fast, because even as he sat there, trying to figure out the right answer, Michael’s chest hitched and his breathing rhythm stuttered. Hitched again. Stuttered.

  This was it. He was dying.

  Don’t be a pussy. Do something right for once and fucking go after him! That was definitely Red-Boar’s voice now. And though Rabbit could probably count on one hand the number of times he’d actually done what his father had told him in life, he was inclined to go along on this one. He took two swigs of pulque and got a serious buzz on. He could see and think, but the world was getting pleasantly fuzzed. Took another big swallow and quickly passed to hammered. Swaying, he lifted the knife, set the point against his wrist, and slashed. The pain was far away, but enough to make him want to puke. Instead, he gagged down another swallow of pulque. The world spun and yawed as he took a hack at his other wrist. Blood sprayed. Magic gathered and something went boom in his chest. For a second he feared it was his heart. Then it didn’t matter because he was sliding, falling. Dying.

  In the final instant of consciousness he heard a mocking chuckle, recognized it, and screamed inside because he knew in that moment it wasn’t his father, after all. Hadn’t ever been. It was Iago. Somehow he’d gotten through, grabbing onto Rabbit’s soul.

  Bastard! he shouted inside his own head, the rage and fear giving him a precious few seconds more contact with the world outside his failing body. Heart jolting back to a quicker rhythm, he sat halfway up, summoned the magic, and let rip with a hell of a fireball.

  It exploded away from him, flew through the round-edged opening leading out of the pueblo ruin, and blasted the fuck-all out of a tree near the edge of the cliff. He felt the blaze and burn, felt the huge, awesome pleasure of destructive magic, and slipped into the darkness of Iago’s hold on him. As he let himself fall, he sent a thought flying along a river of red-gold magic gone somehow gray: Sasha, help us!

  Sasha jolted upright from her doze amidst the cacao plants, her mind a confusing jumble of dream images and the sound of her name. “Michael?” she said aloud before she was fully awake. Then she remembered where she was, and why. With a quick, startled glance at her seedlings, which were furry, thriving plants now, she shot to her feet and hurried to the mansion. It was later than she would’ve thought, she realized from the angle of the orange sunlight. Nearly time for the final presolstice meeting, where they would decide whether she and Michael would stay at Skywatch or hang themselves out as bait for Iago. She hoped to hell the royal council would decide on the latter; she wanted another crack at the bastard, this time with her own mage powers, and Michael at her back. They’d already proven the two of them didn’t need a love bond for them to amp each other’s magic. Iago wouldn’t know what hit him.

  Finding the great room and kitchen empty, she hurried through to the residential wing, her warrior’s talent stirring to life, warning her there was something wrong. It was that warning spurring her on as she pushed through the door to Michael’s suite without knocking, half-afraid of what she would find. “Michael?” she called. “You in here?” She didn’t get an answer. Hadn’t really expected one. The sixth sense she’d developed when it came to him—a faint hum of magic and a sense of thereness that had come after they’d started sleeping together again—had gone dim inside her, but she didn’t know if that was because she’d given up trying to make their relationship work, or if it meant he was truly gone.

  Then she saw the note on his kitchen counter, and had her answer. In square, blocky letters, he’d written: Rabbit is with me. Either all will be well . . . or it won’t. If not, please remember the good stuff, and tell Tomas that he couldn’t have changed this. In the end, what is meant to be will be.

  Sasha’s blood chilled as she remembered the voice she’d heard in her dream, the cry for help that had awakened her. It hadn’t been Michael, she realized with a sudden, sinking burst of clarity. It’d been Rabbit. He’d been the one to call for help, because Michael was already unconscious, or worse. Anger flared, but she checked it and got her ass moving.

  Clutching the note, she burst out of the suite and bolted for the main room. Making a beeline for where Strike, Leah, and Jox were just emerging from the royal wing, she shoved the note in Strike’s hand and blurted, “We need to find Michael and Rabbit, now!”

  But Strike couldn’t find Michael with ’port lock, and a search of the immediate mansion and cottages didn’t turn them up. The magi and winikin gathered under the ceiba tree, trying to figure a next move. Panic gripped Sasha at the thought that the missing man had left the warded canyon and been grabbed by the Xibalbans. Michael couldn’t give her the security and inner strength she needed, but she cared about him, damn it. She didn
’t want to lose him. Not like this. Her mind flashing to the sight of a tattered skull atop a pyramid of rubble, she said raggedly, “I saw rock walls in my dream. A ruin . . .”

  A coyote howled near the back of the canyon, an almost human-timbred wail that drew her attention. She saw a smudge of smoke rising into the afternoon sky. “There!” she said, pointing. “They’re in the pueblo.”

  After a mad scramble for first-aid kits and combat gear, Strike ’ported them all out to the pueblo, landing them on a ledge near the smoldering tree. The smell of blood hung heavy on the air, sharp and stagnant. Following the smell, or her instincts, or maybe both, she lunged for a nearby doorway—a round-cornered rectangle leading into darkness. She plunged through and skidded to a halt as her eyes took a second to adjust, another to process what she was seeing.

  The small rectangular room was a charnel. Blood had saturated the sandy floor, then pooled and coagulated, bright with oxygen in places, dark with death in others. The liquid formed a single commingled pool beneath the two men who slumped shoulder-to-shoulder against the far wall, their legs stretched out before them, their heads lolled back to rest on the wall . . . and their slashed wrists turned up to the sky.

  A hiss of air escaped from Sasha as her heart twisted in her chest. She was dimly aware of the others crowding into the doorway behind her, but her entire attention was focused on Michael and Rabbit. She crossed the room and dropped to her knees between the men—the bodies, her gut told her, because there was no way they could survive something like this. Their mingled blood soaked through her jeans to touch her skin, but she ignored the disquieting sensation as she touched Michael’s face, his chest, his throat. And felt nothing. Grief backed up in her chest, making it impossible to breathe. She leaned into him, opened her magic to him, trying to find music and hearing only emptiness. On the physical level, though, she thought she felt a faint flutter. A heartbeat . . . maybe? Yes, there it was. “He’s alive!”

  “They both are,” Strike said. He was crouched down beside Rabbit. “I’ve got a pulse.” But his grim expression said, They’d need a miracle to pull through.

  A miracle. “I’ll heal them,” she said as the others crowded into the circular room. “I made my plants grow earlier this morning; I’m getting better with ch’ul. If we link up, I can feed them our energy; I can do it.” But even as she made the promise to herself, to the others, doubts crowded in on her. She’d never found Rabbit’s ch’ul music, and Michael’s song didn’t always behave the way she expected it to. Yes, she could channel energy into them, but her gut said it would just pour right out again unless she could find their songs. Regardless, she fixed Strike with a look. “I have to try.”

  “I know you do.” Strike hesitated. “I’ll ’port us to the temple, and we’ll carry them down to the tomb. You’ll need extra power, and that’s the strongest power sink we’ve found yet.” He paused, expression darkening. “Besides, we’ll need to be there in a couple of hours for the solstice ritual . . . and we’re going to need a sacrifice.”

  “No!” Sasha said sharply. “Not them. One of the Xibalbans. With Michael and me both in the tomb, you can set the ambush, just like we planned. When Iago comes for us, you’ll get your sacrifice.”

  “If Iago doesn’t come, we’ll still need someone,” Strike reminded her.

  “Maybe this was meant,” Jox said quietly from behind the king, where he stood holding a first-aid kit that wouldn’t even begin to address the problems confronting them. The others were ranged behind him, Nightkeepers and winikin alike. Anna was weeping silently, her eyes fixed on Rabbit. Tomas stood grim and stone-faced, but when Sasha met his eyes she saw real grief beneath, and thought she could almost hear him whisper, “Please,” though his lips didn’t move.

  She nodded, resolve hardening within her. “Fine. Zap us to the tomb. But I want your word that you won’t sacrifice them until I agree there’s nothing more I can do.” When he said nothing, she held out her bloodied hand. “Swear it.”

  They traded stares for several heartbeats, and in his expression she saw the war she was just beginning to understand would be a part of her life from now on, the struggle to choose between destiny and desire, between duty and emotion, friendship . . . and love. Then, finally, he nodded. “Their lives are yours.”

  Which wasn’t what she’d asked for. But there was no way she was letting either of them die. Rabbit was too special to go out like this, and Michael . . . well, he might not have been ready to fight for her, but she was sure as hell going to fight for him, because if he died, she suspected a piece of her would die along with him, whether either of them liked it or not.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The in-between

  The creature that lived in the Scorpion River was easily three times the size of a normal boluntiku, and had a whiplike tail that broke from the water to curl up and over its back, scorpionlike. As he ran down the ferry dock toward the creature, Michael let rip with twin salvos from his autopistols.

  The jade-tipped bullets passed right through the damn thing.

  “Shit!” He’d forgotten that part, how jade-tips could kill the magic-sniffing, hellborn creatures, but only when they were in their solid form—which they usually took only right before making contact with their prey.

  The muddy brown water churned, boiling up from below to erupt in foul-smelling belches within the va porish creature, which rose above him, screaming its soul-curdling battle cry as it took a swipe at him, turning solid in the last second before it made contact. Michael stood his ground, letting rip with his pistols, then dropping flat to the dock. The boluntiku’s long, curving claws whipped over the top of him as the creature jerked back and screamed in outraged pain. He rose up and tried for another salvo, then heard Lucius’s shout of, “Down!”

  Too late, he saw the wicked whip of the ’tiku’s tail slashing through the air toward him. Then a heavy weight hit him, knocking him down and to one side as Lucius, body-slammed him to safety.

  The creature’s tail crashed into the place where the man had just been. The stone dock shuddered beneath the force of the blow.

  “Thanks,” Michael said raggedly, his ribs aching from the tackle. He dragged himself up, slapped fresh cartridges in the pistols, and snapped, “Get your ass in the water and do your best to almost drown while you’re saying the spell.” He rattled off a two-line prayer in badly accented Maya. “It might do something about that makol problem of yours. I’ll hold off the ’tiku until you’re out of sight.”

  Michael knew that he’d been meant to find the other man, that their meeting had been far from a coincidence. He had to help the human, had to give him a chance to break the makol’s hold on him, and maybe even make it back to the Nightkeepers, back to Jade. Which meant distracting the giant boluntiku long enough for Lucius to get out into the strong current at the center of the river. When Lucius hesitated, Michael shoved him. “Go!

  The human clapped him on the shoulder. “See you on the outside.” Then he ran across the dock at an angle away from the ’tiku and jumped as far out into the center as he could. There was a huge splash when he landed, then ripples going to nothing.

  The lava creature reared back and turned toward the sound, hissing.

  “No, you bastard!” Michael waved to get the thing’s attention. “I’m the one you want. Fight me!” Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Lucius’s head breaking the surface, only to sink below again. Then the river whipped him around a corner, and the human was lost to sight.

  “Gods go with you,” Michael muttered. Then, biting his tongue hard enough to draw blood in a quick and dirty autosacrifice, he summoned his shield magic . . . and got nothing. Not even a flicker of red-gold power responded to his call. Which meant he either unleashed the muk, taking the risk of tipping his soul so far that the river couldn’t save him . . . or he and Lucius both died.

  “Shit,” he whispered, feeling the muk crowding the edges of his brain, his soul. Then, roaring a denial
, he opened himself to the power and the Other’s memories. He smashed through the sluiceways and yanked down the dam, then hammered at the older, stronger bastions within him, destroying Rabbit’s work, and Horn’s. His divided brain shuddered under the impact of the Other’s thoughts and memories, and the oily whip of ancient magic. The muk surrounded him, took him over, while the Other howled in triumph. Michael’s vision went gray, but still he could see the boluntiku rearing up, towering over him.

  His heart fought to reject the corrupting silver magic. And as it did, he was helpless. Powerless.

  Then the boluntiku screamed as it attacked, going solid at the last possible second. Michael ducked the creature’s attack and spun aside, but could evade for only so long; he needed to attack. Knowing he lacked the power to fight the creature, heart breaking and soul crying out as he did so, he yielded himself to the Mictlan and its terrible weapon. Muk slammed into him, channeled through him, as, for the first time in his mage life, he called fireball magic and his warrior’s talent responded, not with a ball of fiery light, but with one of bright, brilliant silver. The flames seethed and grew in his hand as the boluntiku reoriented on him and closed in, drawing back its terrible claws for a killing swipe.

  It swung, turning solid again. Michael threw, hurling the gleaming muk straight into its gaping maw. Howling, the ’tiku snapped its jaws shut on the ball of anti-ch’ul. It paused for a second, then let out a another unearthly howl, this one of pain rather than rage. Head whipping from side to side, it roared and cycled from vapor to solid and back. The unearthly glow of molten orange lava dimmed and died as the creature solidified a final time. Its motions slowed, grew sporadic, then stopped. The thing grayed. Then it went limp and drooped, losing form and substance as it coalesced into the river.

  Water splashed, then stilled, leaving Michael alone on the stone-and-bone dock. Only he wasn’t really alone. He was Michael. He was the Mictlan. He was the Other. And it was time.