Red-Boar’s death had been a shock, but in reality it hadn’t left much of a hole—at least Rabbit hadn’t thought so. Now, though, an old, ugly fury kindled in his gut. “You’re dead.”
“I was. And I would’ve stayed that way if it hadn’t been for you.” Red-Boar spat on the ground, in a gesture that either meant respect for the gods or disgust for his son. Probably both. “The gods sent me back to find your ungrateful ass.”
Suddenly, the flash of magic Rabbit had felt when he killed the first ’zotz made far more sense. That didn’t stop the thudding pulse of what-the-fuck in his veins, though, didn’t make it any easier to say: “You used a blood-link.” Which was ironic, given that his old man hadn’t ever wanted to admit they were related.
Red-Boar nodded curtly. “I don’t know how the gods knew you were going to get your shit in trouble like this—history repeating, I guess—but rather than send me to the afterlife, they warehoused me in the fucking in-between for a while, and then gave me my marching orders and sent me back here. The reanimation spell will keep me going until after the war, and then poof.” He pointed to the sky. “Up I go.”
“They sent you back to find me.” It didn’t make any sense. He and the gods had forsaken each other long ago.
“Yeah. That was my first job—that, and letting the others know what happened to you, so maybe they could find a way to trust you again.” Red-Boar’s eyes were like his voice, hard and harsh. “After that, I’m supposed to bind your ass to your bloodline and fucking babysit you until the war, making sure that you’ve got your priorities straight this time, and knock off this shit about the demons being the good guys.” He made a disgusted noise. “For fuck’s sake. I—” He clamped his lips together rather than saying, “I taught you better.” Which would’ve been a joke, because they both knew he hadn’t taught his son a damn thing about the magic, or about being a man.
Before, Rabbit would’ve gotten in his old man’s face, not caring where they were or what else was going on as long as he got to defend himself and take a few hacks. Now, though, he shoved his anger deep down inside, and turned his back on Red-Boar.
He had more important things to worry about.
The others were ranged shoulder to shoulder in a defensive formation, like he was as much an enemy as the camazotz. Even Strike—who had practically raised him, for fuck’s sake—was looking at him cold and hard, as if he’d finally given up. That hurt like hell, but Rabbit couldn’t deal with that now, either.
Instead, he did something he’d never done before, never thought he would do. He knelt in front of the king and bowed his head. He heard a murmur of surprise, hoped it would be enough.
“Look,” he said, “I’m a piece of shit, and I fucking know it. I was wrong about the underworld, about all of it, and I’m sorrier than I can say. You probably don’t believe me—shit, I wouldn’t if I were you. But you’ve got to believe me on this one: Myrinne’s in danger.” He looked up, praying that Dez saw that he meant every word when he said, “I’ll take whatever vows you want me to, the second I’m sure she’s safe and Phee is dead. Once that’s done, I’ll be your fucking slave.”
The king scowled down at him, every inch the hard-assed serpent mage. “Myrinne is fine. She stayed back at Skywatch.”
But there was a stir in the crowd and JT stepped forward with a satellite phone in his hand. “No, she didn’t. She left the compound right after we ’ported out. Took the oldest Jeep and bolted.”
Dez’s breath exploded. “What rocket scientist let her through the gate without double-checking?”
“She let herself out.” JT’s eyes narrowed. “And nobody said she was supposed to stay put.”
Rabbit surged to his feet. “Screw the blame. We need to find her!” Then, wincing, he tacked on, “Sire.”
Dez shot him a black look, but said to Strike and Anna, “Can either of you get a fix?”
Anna shook her head. “She’s off our radar, remember, unless—”
“I’ve got her,” Strike said, eyes going grim. “Which means she’s in trouble.”
Rabbit didn’t know why that followed, but there wasn’t time for an explanation. His fingers tightened on his machine gun, and he grated, “Take me there.”
“We’ll all go,” Dez said. “But first we need to destroy this place.” He gestured to the warriors, and within seconds, the air hummed with Nightkeeper power. When the vibration peaked, Dez gave a curt “Now!” and fireballs flew.
The fiery bolts slammed into the stones with a rending boom and sent them toppling into each other, sheared off at their bases. The noise was deafening, underscored by the sharp pings of shrapnel deflecting off a shield spell that sparked with Dez’s signature lightning sizzle.
“Again!” the king commanded, and the Nightkeepers sent a salvo into the tunnel. The ground beneath them rolled and shook, and a gout of limestone ash erupted. “Last one!” Dez called, and they hammered the tunnel mouth with a final round of detonations that blazed and blasted, collapsing the dark-magic portal in on itself and sealing off the threat.
Rabbit had to lock his legs to keep from stumbling—not just because the ground was moving, but because of the flat-out fucking power the Nightkeepers had just unleashed. Before, he had been the strongest of the magi, the only one with multiple talents and the wild magic of a half blood. Now, he had almost nothing, yet it seemed that the old legends had been right about the Nightkeepers’ powers increasing exponentially as the end date approached.
“Link up!” Strike called, and the teammates scrambled to form an intricate network of clasped palms and other handholds that would connect them to the teleporters’ magic.
Shaken, Rabbit moved into the uplink. He found himself flanked by Dez and Michael, two men he would’ve called friends before, but who now acted as an implied threat: Don’t try anything, or we’ll fry you.
Michael wielded death magic. If anyone could kill the crossover, it was him.
The crossover. Shit. The label had gotten slapped on Rabbit thanks to his dubious bloodlines and an enemy prophecy, but nobody had a clue what the name meant. Unless . . .
He looked over at Red-Boar, and found himself caught in the steel of his old man’s stare. Something twisted inside his chest, a logic-fuse that said no way, impossible, he can’t be alive. But he was there, flesh and blood, and maybe he would have some answers.
Then Strike and Anna triggered the ’port magic, and Rabbit was surrounded by the familiar-strange sensation of moving while staying still. And alongside the urgent need to get to Myrinne, it hit him like a ton of fucking bricks that he was leaving the island. He wasn’t going to die there, wasn’t going to be sacrificed to the Banol Kax—at least not yet. Instead, he was going to get another chance. More, he was going to get an opportunity for revenge . . . and maybe, if he was really fucking lucky, some sort of atonement.
CHAPTER THREE
Chaco Canyon, New Mexico
When the Nightkeepers materialized in the badlands northwest of Skywatch, rapid-fire impressions slapped at Rabbit like physical blows: He felt the cooler, drier air of New Mexico, saw the yellowed-out sun, the wind-tortured rocks, and the jagged outline of a stone-block Chacoan ruin. Its upper levels had fallen in, but the ground floor was relatively intact, with rows of tall, dark windows the width of arrow-slits and a single narrow door. An older Jeep leaned at a drunken angle in the sand some thirty feet from the road, near the turnoff to the ruin.
Stomach dropping, Rabbit stepped away from the others. “Is she—”
He broke off as a white-robed figure darted around a corner and swept through the narrow doorway into the ruin, followed by a dark, winged blur.
“No!” He bolted for the ruin, not waiting for orders or permission.
His boots skidded in loose grit and pounded over rock, and if Dez yelled for him to wait the hell up, he didn’t hear it over the hammering of his pulse. The machine gun was an awkward weight that banged as he ran, but he flipped the clip and slapped it h
ome, and then did his damnedest to be quiet as he reached the ruin and slipped inside.
The single door led to a narrow hallway. He headed for the far end, where the fallen-through roof let in the fresh air. The room beyond stank of dark magic, making him want to howl and fling himself into the attack. Instead, he paused in the shadows, pulse thudding. He might get only one chance. He had to make it good.
The far doorway opened to a larger space, where several rooms had fallen in to form one. There, Phee and the ’zotz stood shoulder to shoulder with their backs to him. Faced opposite them, cornered, was Myrinne.
The first sight of her in so long punched a fist beneath his heart, and he felt a twisted mess of relief, guilt, love, shame and a thousand other things that he couldn’t deal with right now. But there was also surprise, because she didn’t look like he had expected, like he remembered. She had her dark hair swept back in a soft, loose braid, but there was nothing soft about the set of her jaw or the anger in her eyes. She was wearing low-slung jeans he recognized and a curve-hugging hoodie he didn’t, and she was brandishing a small wooden stick, a freaking magic wand, like it was going to do something against Phee and the ’zotz.
The last time he’d seen her, she had been weak and broken, barely alive. Even before that, she had wanted to fight but hadn’t always trusted her skills. Now she looked strong, capable and somehow brilliant, like she was in sharper focus than everything around her. But she wouldn’t be for long if he didn’t get in there and save her. Please gods.
His prayers had gone unanswered for so long that he almost didn’t feel the click at the back of his brain, almost didn’t recognize it. But then the heat of battle readiness changed inside him, gaining a subsonic hum and suddenly feeling like magic. Liquid energy flowed from deep inside him, bubbling up to fill the empty spaces, and the air around him glistened with red-gold sparks.
His heart clutched. Holy shit. This was really happening.
Through suddenly numb-feeling lips, he whispered, “Pasaj och.” And, as if it had never been blocked, the barrier connection formed.
Power hammered through him, lighting him up and making him feel like he could do damn near anything. He didn’t stop to question why or how. He just summoned the magic into him, knowing there wasn’t a second to lose.
Phee hadn’t sensed him yet; she was too focused on Myrinne. Dark energy crackled in the air as the demoness raised her hands to cast a spell. “Xibal—”
“No!” Rabbit shouted, lunging through the doorway, out of the shadows and into the light. And, as Phee and the ’zotz spun toward him, he slammed a thick, fiery shield spell around Myrinne, protecting her.
The flame-threaded shield blurred the details, but he saw her jolt and heard her cry his name in a tone of horror. But then, without warning, emotions blasted through him: shock and anger, followed by a sharp lash of resentment.
What the fuck? His senses spun under the sudden onslaught, which was coming from the magic, from Myrinne. It was like they were mentally connected all of a sudden, like his mind-bender’s talent had fused their perceptions. Only he wasn’t using that part of his magic. This was something else.
Focus! His self-directed snap was almost too late, because Phee quickly shook off her shock, and when she saw that he was riding high on the Nightkeeper magic she coveted, her eyes went bright and brilliant. Her arms swept wide and she flung a bolt of dark magic at him.
Rabbit raised his hands, spread his fingers and shouted: “Kaak!” And for the first time in months, the fire came at his command. Pure and cleansing, it poured from him in a brilliant stream of Nightkeeper power.
Dark magic met light and detonated, hammering him back with its shockwave. The ’zotz screeched and took wing, narrowly escaping the blast. But the bat demon recovered almost immediately, and beelined straight for him with its fangs bared and its talons outstretched, attacking before he could call more fire.
Shit! He threw himself flat and rolled aside.
Without warning, a streak of green fire—like his, only not—seared through the place where he’d been, hit the camazotz and blasted it back. The strange flames clung like napalm and spread, engulfing the bat demon, which fell to the ground and lay writhing, emitting shrill shrieks.
As it died to ash, a suddenly wild-eyed Phee cast a shield spell around herself, yanked a pair of carved stones from her robe, and started a transport spell. The bitch was trying to escape!
“She’s mine!” he bellowed, not sure which of the others had taken out the ’zotz or how they’d summoned the green flames, but not really giving a shit as long as they gave him a clear shot.
The knife was suddenly in his hand, his palms bleeding, though he didn’t remember making the sacrifice. It added to his power as he called the fire magic, gathering it from the depths of a soul he’d thought was dead and gone, used up and kicked aside when he’d betrayed his teammates. Now, though, he felt whole in a way he hadn’t for a long time—farther back even than his imprisonment. He wasn’t the whipped dog anymore, wasn’t the betrayer, the prisoner or the mage.
He was all of those things and none of them.
Magic pumped harder and higher, flowing through his synapses and setting fire to neurons long unused. He could do this. He could.
Raising his bleeding palms, he drew breath and shouted the command again: “Kaak!”
Sound, heat and fury detonated; flames speared from his outstretched fingers and hammered into the demoness. Her dark-magic shield cracked and then imploded, sucking back into its maker as she screamed, flung her arms wide, and caught fire.
“Rabbie!” she cried. The word trailed up at the end, going to an inhuman screech as she began morphing away from the human form she’d flaunted. Her fire-wreathed shape stretched, blurred, elongated . . . and became a huge dark shadow, with glowing green eyes that blazed with hatred and pain.
“Son of a bitch,” Rabbit grated. It was a makol, a soul of such terrible evil that it had descended to the lowest of the nine levels of Xibalba, to be tortured there, honed by fire and pain until it emerged as a green-eyed wraith.
The luminous eyes dominated his vision, locking him in place as her voice spoke deep inside his head. In time you will know me for real . . . Son.
“No!” He poured himself into the spell, into the flames, aware that the others had arrived and were adding their magic to his as he shouted a final: “Go to hell!”
The fire flared higher and the makol writhed, screeched and clawed the air, fighting hard enough to make him think it wasn’t simply being dumped back in the underworld, but was being destroyed utterly. And who knew? Maybe it was. The rules were changing as they got closer to the end date; the magic was stronger, the stakes higher. Good fucking riddance.
Her face appeared in the flames, human once more, and tortured as it screamed, “Rabb-ieeeeee!” Then the luminous green eyes winked out, the shadow disappeared, and the flames guttered and died. And Phee was gone, leaving behind only a few char marks scored deeply into the stones.
Rabbit stood, staring at the scorched spots.
Phee was gone.
Dead. Kaput. No more.
The burning need for revenge drained suddenly, leaving him hollow and aching, with no clue what he was supposed to do next. He could hear the thud of his own heart, the rasp of his breathing. He was very aware of the others standing behind him, partly as backup and partly—no doubt—to protect Myrinne from him. Which was a hell of a thought. I won’t hurt her, he wanted to tell them, but history said otherwise, driving home the fact that one part of the battle might be over, but another had only just begun.
Taking a deep breath, he turned his back on the Nightkeepers—on his resurrected father, his king, all the people who had every right to hate him—and faced Myrinne. Who had the most right of all of them to hate his ass.
She was standing at the midway point between him and the far wall, at the edge of where he’d set his shield spell—gone now, though he didn’t know when or how it had fall
en—and very close to the smudgy ash pile that was all that was left of the camazotz.
As their eyes met, she lowered her ridiculous magic wand. And his power went out—poof, gone.
“I didn’t need your help,” she said coolly. “I had it under control. So, hey, thanks for nothing, don’t let the door hit you on your way out.”
Shock seared through him and he took a step toward her. “Myr?” There were a dozen questions in that one word, but he couldn’t articulate a damn one of them, not when she was staring at him the same as he’d stared at his old man, like he had come back from the dead and wasn’t all that welcome. And when a gesture from her had severed his link to the magic.
What was he supposed to do now? What was he supposed to say? An apology would be a good place to start, but there was really no way to apologize for what he’d done to her. Still, he wiped his freshly healed palms on his grubby rag-pants and started toward her, holding out his hands in a gesture of no harm, no foul, and hoping to hell that was the truth. He had harmed her, he knew, had fouled their relationship beyond repair. But if he could just—
She flicked the wand up and a shield spell slammed into place an inch from his nose.
He froze as another shock piled up on top of the others. “What the hell?”
The force field was clear, but threaded through with an almost imperceptible gleam of the same green he’d seen in the flames that had killed the camazotz. And suddenly things started lining up, sort of. His magic had come back when he got near her. He had sensed her emotions, felt a connection. Green fire magic—like his own, only not—had taken out the ’zotz. And his magic had cut off with a flick of her magic wand.
Spellfire Page 4
