Spellfire

by Jessica Andersen

  The little girl—or whatever entity was speaking through her—said, “There is a ruby skull hidden within the chac-mool at the center of your home. It holds the key to your powers and the secret of the true gods.”

  Anna fought not to gasp. According to the archive, thirteen life-sized crystal skulls had come out of the sinking city with the earliest of the Nightkeepers, the ones who had built the barrier to contain the demons in Xibalba. Four had been sacrificed to the underworld, four had been sent into the sky, and four had been given to mankind. The last and final one had been split into thirteen smaller amulets, one for each of the itza’at bloodlines. As far as she knew, hers was the only one left.

  What if there was another? What if it could awaken her powers? Excitement whipped through her and her voice shook as she said, “Who are you?”

  But Rosa’s expression didn’t change and she didn’t answer. After a moment, she said, “Greetings, seer.” And Anna’s heart sank as she repeated the message, word for word.

  “She just keeps saying the same thing, over and over,” David said. “What does it mean?”

  Anna jolted at the doctor’s question. Keep it together, she warned herself. Don’t let him guess what’s really going on. How could he, though? The truth was so far out of normal reality that it wouldn’t even compute for most rational humans. He’d think she was insane.

  She chose her words carefully. “It’s ancient Mayan, sort of. But it’s gibberish, like someone taught her a few words, but not their meanings or syntax.” There was no reason for her to feel guilty about lying. It was for his own protection.

  “You’re sure?” Behind the face shield, his eyes were too perceptive.

  “I’m sorry.” That was no lie. “What were you hoping for?”

  “Something . . . more.” Expression going rueful, he shot a glance at the now-dozing child and said in an undertone, “The way that woman was calling her the devil and blaming her for the outbreak and all . . . Intellectually, I know she was raving, that both cases are just atypical presentations of the virus. But after reading the stuff you sent over, about bloodletting, rituals, sacred incense and gods and stuff, when one of the volunteers told me she thought Rosa was speaking an old Mayan dialect . . . well, I guess I was hoping she might tell us something useful.”

  She did. Thank you for calling me. “Like what?”

  “More herbal remedies, maybe, or an incantation.” At her startled look, he shrugged. “The station where I grew up put the ‘out’ in outback. I was making potions long before I learned about chemical drugs, so you’re not going to get any guff about traditional medicine from me. Some of the other doctors, maybe, but not me.”

  Rosa was murmuring in her sleep. The same thing, over and over again. There is a ruby skull . . .

  “It’s not a cure,” Anna said softly. Worse, the message was specifically for her, which meant she was the reason the child had been chosen. The gods had seen her as a way to get to Anna. Why not just send me a damn vision? she thought viciously. But they couldn’t, of course, because her subconscious was blocking her magic. Her fault. Swallowing, she asked, “What will happen to her?”

  “If she lives? Foster care, probably.”

  Anna knew she couldn’t afford to get any more involved than she already was—not with Rosa, her aunt, or any of the other motionless figures bound to their beds in rooms nearby, and certainly not with the handsome doctor. They were part of the larger fight, not its focus. But she said, “I’ll keep looking for cures.”

  He grimaced. “I didn’t mean to put this on you. It’s not your fight.”

  Oh, yes it is. “I’ll call you if I find anything.”

  “Do that. Or, hell, just come to the main entrance and have someone track me down.” His hazel eyes locked on hers through the shield, going suddenly intent. “How much longer are you going to be here?”

  “I don’t know. A few days, maybe longer.”

  “Where are you staying again?”

  “I don’t . . . I can’t . . . shit.” She didn’t want to lie to him. He was a good man. Faking a look at her wristband, she said, “I’ve got to go. I’ll call you.”

  She was through the door before he could say anything else, heading up the corridor at a fast walk as the panel thunked shut.

  Moments later, it wonked back open. “Anna, wait!”

  I can’t. Pretending not to hear, she ducked through a makeshift decontamination area that led from the inner area to the outer ring of buildings. There, she shucked off her protective clothing and sailed through a half-assed monitoring station, giving a vague wave when the guy called after her in Spanish.

  Outside, she dodged around a ragged knot of shell-shocked-looking locals she guessed were the family members of a newly made xombi. “Sorry,” she murmured as she got around them, apologizing for far more than crowding them, though they would never know it.

  “Wait, damn it.” A hand grabbed her arm and swung her around, and she found herself with her back against the wall, staring up at David, who looked frustrated and grumpy, and as flustered as she’d yet seen him. He had shucked off his gear, too, and his bare hand on her forearm seemed suddenly very naked, as did his bewilderment. “Anna, seriously. What’s going on here?”

  She tried to edge around him, but he didn’t budge. “This isn’t a good time. I really need to go.” Her mind raced, but even though she’d spent an entire career—and an entire marriage—playing human, with all the lies that had entailed, now she couldn’t come up with a damn thing.

  “What aren’t you telling me? Are you in some sort of trouble? Damn it, I told you to watch out for the cops.”

  “It’s not . . .” She trailed off, because she didn’t know what it was or wasn’t anymore, couldn’t wrap her head around anything with him touching her.

  When was the last time she’d been this close to a man who wasn’t one of her teammates? When was the last time someone other than Strike had crowded her overprotectively, trying to make sure she was safe? How sad was it that she couldn’t remember? The answer should’ve involved her ex, and maybe it did, but she couldn’t remember how it had felt to have Dick’s body this near hers, and he’d never been one to get big and protective, at least not over her.

  She had told herself she liked that he respected her independence, and maybe back then she had. Now, though, she was badly tempted to lean into David’s warm, solid strength.

  Instead, she braced a hand on his chest and levered him back several inches, until their bodies weren’t touching anywhere except at palm and wrist. Then she broke those contacts, too, dropping her hand from his chest and using it to pry his fingers off her wrist. He let go immediately, looking surprised to find that he was holding her at all. Which left them standing there at the edge of the hallway chaos, not touching anymore. But not moving either.

  “Talk to me,” he said quietly, urgently.

  She shook her head, denying more than just the question. “You’ve been on shift too long, doctor, with too many weird things happening. You’re imagining things.”

  “Am I?”

  “I’m just a linguist.”

  “No, you’re not.” He leaned in, voice dropping. “You’re a top-notch Mayanist who hasn’t published anything in nearly three years, and who’s been on sabbatical for the past year and a half, since not all that long after your grad student protégé got in trouble for defending a thesis on the twenty-twelve doomsday . . . which by my calendar is just over a week away. And that makes this outbreak—and your presence here—look awfully coincidental.”

  Anna. Couldn’t. Breathe. “You had me investigated?”

  “If you call spending five minutes on Google the same as having you investigated, then yeah, I did.” His features tightened. “Look, I’m not trying to freak you out or come off like Creepy Stalker Guy, but I was interested, okay? Even more so once you sent me the recipe for a wacky-sounding herbal mix that actually worked.” He lifted a hand, but then let it fall again without touching
her. “That’s why I called you when Rosa came in and started spouting ancient Mayan . . . because I need to know what’s really going on here. Is this the beginning of the end, an army of darkness, or what?”

  Close, she thought wildly. He’s too damn close. Not just to her, personally, but to the truth. The Nightkeepers weren’t sworn to secrecy, granted, and gods knew there were plenty of doomsday theories out there, but Dez would be furious if she blew this contact. Worse, he’d be disappointed.

  Play it cool. You can do this. If she didn’t, the doctor would have to be mind-bent, and she didn’t want that. She just didn’t.

  They were getting some sidelong looks from the hurry-scurry folk in the narrow strip of space separating the inner and outer tent rings, but nobody seemed to be paying attention to their conversation; they were too busy getting from point A to point B. Anna and David, though, seemed suddenly encased within a strange, human-made shield of privacy.

  Think. She had to think. She couldn’t, though—not when her head was starting to pound, harder and harder, reminding her of when—

  “I had an aneurysm,” she blurted.

  His face blanked. “You what?”

  She took his hand—warm and wide-palmed—and lifted it to her scalp so he could feel the ridged scar. “Surgery, a coma, long recovery, the works. I’m fine now, really. But by the time I was back on my feet, my cheating husband had divorced me, the university had put a perfectly good replacement in my position, and I realized that I wasn’t dying to go back anyway. I wanted something more.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m working on a book about the ruins and their inscriptions. That’s why I remembered the carving that talked about a plague.” Again, the lies pinched.

  “You’re writing a book.” His face had gone unreadable.

  She eased out from behind his big body. This time he let her go, which brought a pang. Facing him now, with her back to the flow of traffic, she said, “I’m sorry, Dr. Curtis. I really need to go.”

  “Dave.”

  “Dave, then.” His name felt strange coming off her tongue, like it was too close to “Dick,” yet nothing at all like it. Not that she should be comparing the two of them, really. They were very different men and the situations were worlds apart. “All I know about the so-called Mayan doomsday is whatever I couldn’t avoid hearing from my grad student, Lucius, and the tripe that’s been in the media. As for the outbreak, I’ve told you everything I know, except for the stuff I’m going to go look up now, based on what Rosa was saying.” She spread her hands and met his eyes. “Seriously. I’m not hiding anything.”

  It seemed like an eon before his shoulders dropped and he shook his head, chuckling a little at himself. “Shit. I could’ve sworn . . . well, maybe you’re right that I’ve been on shift too long. You wouldn’t be the first one to suggest I’m pushing too hard.”

  “You should rest.”

  “Yeah. I . . . yeah.” He raised a hand, hesitated as if surprised to see that it wasn’t wearing a glove, and then scrubbed his fingers through his thick hair, leaving it rumpled and standing on end. “Sorry I got weird on you. It was just that, back there in the room with Rosa, it was like there was something else in there with us. Some sort of presence, or power, or something.” He rolled his eyes, and his accent thickened. “My ma would say I’d been listening to too many stories again.”

  Anna made herself ignore the tug of his voice, and the way it made her think of open spaces far away from ground zero. “I really do need to get going, and not because I’m in trouble. I promised to meet friends. Outside the quarantine zone,” she added when he started to frown. And that much, at least, was the gods’ honest truth.

  “You’re taking proper precautions?”

  “I am. I swear.” Just not the kind he was talking about.

  “And you’ll call if you find anything else?”

  “Absolutely.” Well, once Dez cleared it.

  He hesitated, then nodded. “Okay. Well . . . right. I guess I’ll see you?”

  “I hope so.” And that, a little to her surprise, was also the gods’ honest truth.

  Still, though, as they parted with a wave and one too many over-the-shoulder looks back, her stomach was tied in serious knots over the entire exchange. As she headed for the outer perimeter, she tried to figure out why she didn’t feel good about how that had gone down. She had kept him as a contact, talked her way out of a sticky situation, and managed to preserve her cover. So why did she feel like shit? Or, more accurately, why did she hate having to lie to a virtual stranger when she’d been lying to her friends and coworkers—and even a husband—for decades?

  It doesn’t matter, she told herself. What matters is getting home and getting your hands on that skull. The thought brought a renewed buzz of excitement and a stir of magic, along with the nerves that came with the thought that she would need to tread carefully if she wanted to—

  A big, bulky form stepped in front of her, and a deep voice boomed, “Excuse me, ma’am?”

  She stopped dead, and an “oh shit” zinged through her at the sight of a security guard. It wasn’t the guy she’d waved her way past as she’d booked it out of the clean zone, but she had a feeling that had been her mistake. It’d gotten them talking, and they had realized that nobody had signed her in. Faking surprise, she blinked at him. “I’m sorry. Is there a problem?”

  He caught her arm and turned her back the way she’d come. “I’m going to need you to come with me, please.” His voice was polite, his grip inexorable, and Anna found herself being force-marched past row after row of doors that all looked the same, while her brain raced. What the hell was she supposed to do now?

  She had options, of course—she could knock him down with a sleep spell, use a chameleon spell, teleport away . . . But any of those things would send up some serious red flags for her already-suspicious doctor.

  A glance at her comm device showed that there weren’t any blinking lights, no evidence that anybody needed her. So, as the guard ushered her through an unmarked door into a prefab steel room that held a desk, a couple of chairs, a huge wipe board scrawled with guard shifts and notes suggesting that she was in what passed for their security hub, she followed his orders without question, figuring she would go with the flow, do her best to smooth things over, and talk her way out of starring in an incident report.

  Gods knew that in a place like this, with so many people coming and going, the left hand probably wouldn’t know what the right was doing half the time. Ten bucks said she could convince this guy that she’d been waved through the checkpoint on the strength of Dr. Dave’s name, asked some volunteer for help with her protective gear, and found him on her own. And if they couldn’t track down anyone to verify, they’d just figure it’d gotten lost in the chaos.

  Last resort, she’d lock herself in the bathroom and put in a call for some mind-bending support—which she was far less reluctant to do on the guards than she had been on David. Either way, she could deal with this. Hopefully, Rabbit and Myrinne could handle things on their end for a little longer without getting in major trouble.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Oc Ajal, Mexico

  Rabbit faced the fire pit and tried to block everything else out—the rain forest, the remains of the village where he’d been born, the latent hiss of magic surrounding him, the Nightkeeper powers that wanted to flare and combat the darkness—all of it. He was still aware of Myr standing behind him, though, with her shield running hot, ready to protect him . . . and to protect herself against him.

  Hoping it would be enough—hoping he would be enough—he sent a quick prayer to the gods he’d forsaken. Then, pulse thudding in his ears, he opened his hands and cast his blood into the cold, bare fire pit. “Cha’ik ten ee’hochen!” Bring the darkness to me!

  Blam! The floodgates slammed open, giving way beneath an onslaught of power. Dark magic hammered through him, terrible yet incredible, and as he staggered back a step, flames erupted fro
m within the stone circle, writhing like serpents.

  “Rabbit!” Myr cried, her voice sounding far away.

  “Stay back!” he shouted as the darkness surrounded him, swamping him with an incalculable power that gushed up from the depths of his soul. More, emotions tore at him—frustration, impotence, resentment, murderous rage, loneliness, all of it mixing together into a blinding fury that made him want to howl.

  No! He fought the impulses, but he wasn’t braced for fury, wasn’t buffered against one of the red rages that used to grab on to him, making him do stupid, impulsive things. For that was what raced into his mind.

  Suddenly, he wasn’t himself anymore, at least not the guy he wanted to be. Instead, he was the whipped dog he had become beneath the ’zotz’s lash. He was the pissed-off teen who had torched Jox’s garden center, the frustrated punk who’d wanted to make his mark on Skywatch. He was the impulsive asshole who’d led Iago to Oc Ajal, the gullible prick who had listened to Phee’s lies, sucking them up like soft-serve. And he was the stone-cold bastard who’d held a knife to Myr’s throat and made her bleed.

  He clenched his fists as his soul overflowed with every bad decision he’d ever made, every moment that he’d been unhappy, pissed off, pissed on.

  Burn it, whispered a voice inside him. Burn it all down.

  The fire climbed hotter and higher, sending out billows of dark, oily smoke that tore at his throat and filled his lungs. His heart hammered as his warrior’s instincts said to back up, back off and lock himself down. But another set of instincts said he couldn’t shut himself off now. Not if he wanted to become the crossover.

  “Oh, shit,” he said, not sure if he said it aloud or only in his mind. “I get it. I fucking get it.”

  This was why the Nightkeepers’ ancestors had deemed the dark half of the magic too dangerous and banished the dark magi . . . and it was why they had feared the wild powers of a half blood like him—because where the light magic tapped into the good stuff, like love, sex and the power of teamwork, the dark magic drew from all the bad stuff inside its wielder. It concentrated it, encouraged it, made it real.