Spellfire

by Jessica Andersen

  His old man closed the distance between them, got in his face and glared. “You will not revoke your allegiance to the sky gods. Do you hear me? You. Will. Not. Do. It.”

  “Be interesting to see how that goes up against my oath to follow Dez’s orders, if he decides to follow Bastet’s lead.” But although Rabbit kept his voice level, he wasn’t nearly as in control as he wanted his old man to believe. Because suddenly the inner darkness was straining against his hold—twenty years of insults, anger and hatred jonesing to go after the man who’d raised him but hadn’t ever been any sort of father.

  Red-Boar’s eyes flicked to the side, as if he was looking for witnesses. Then, in a low growl, he said, “That can be dealt with.”

  The third order, Rabbit thought. Was the old bastard really so convinced of his own infallibility that he would use it to go up against the king? “Bullshit.”

  “Don’t forget, I fucking own you, boy.”

  Bile soured the back of his throat. “You own my bloodline connection. I’ll break it if I have to.” Pain sliced through him, racing from his forearm to his heart, as if the oath was warning him just how bad it could get.

  Red-Boar’s eyes blazed. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Fucking try me.”

  The old man flushed an ugly, murderous red. “Back atcha, asshole. You do it and you’ll find out what it means to watch your woman die.”

  Fury hammered through Rabbit in an instant, not coming from the dark magic, but welling up from inside the man he wanted to be, the one who’d fallen asleep last night with Myrinne in his arms. Because that was no idle threat. As far as Red-Boar was concerned, humans were little better than clever pets. Expendable.

  He had his hands on his father’s throat before he knew it, lifting the old bastard onto his tiptoes and snarling, “You so much as go near her and I’ll fucking end you. Oath or no oath, you’re dead.”

  Put. Me. Down.

  The words shouted inside his mind and headed instantly for his central nervous system, short-circuiting the whole damn thing. His arms came down, his hands opened.

  Red-Boar sucked in a ragged breath as he stepped back. And if Rabbit had thought before that he’d seen his old man in a rage, now he knew different. This was true rage, he thought. It was hatred.

  Dark eyes narrowing to evil slits, his father sent into his brain: Choke. Yourself.

  Rabbit’s mind fought, but his body obeyed the commands like a fucking puppet. His own hands closed around his throat and bore down hard, thumbs digging into the vital veins.

  His vision went blurry almost instantly, though he didn’t know if that was real or the power of suggestion. He went for his mental blocks, tried to figure out where the old man was getting through, but couldn’t. Tried to cast a counterspell, but couldn’t do that, either. He couldn’t move his legs. Couldn’t move anything. He tried to . . . shit. What was he trying to do again? Panic had his heart thudding even as rage coiled inside him, useless against the magic.

  He tried to break his father’s hold on his mind, tried to stay on his feet when he swayed and gray closed in from the edges of his vision.

  Tried . . . to . . .

  “Enough.” Red-Boar snapped his fingers and the compulsion was gone.

  “You son of a bitch!” Rabbit lunged, but ran face-first into a shield spell. His nose crunched, making his eyes water. He reeled back, yelling, “Godsdamn it. I hate you!” like he was fifteen again.

  His old man stood, implacable behind his shield. “I won’t have to go near her. You’ll do the job yourself.”

  Fury roared through Rabbit, but he held it together, barely, because going off on the old bastard wasn’t going to change a damn thing. Glaring, he rasped, “I’d kill myself before I’d hurt her again. But first I’d kill you.”

  “Or you could just fucking do as you’re told and we won’t have to find out which one of us has a bigger dick. And by the way, it’s me.”

  A few months ago, Rabbit would’ve gone for a tape measure. Now, though, he wrestled the ugliness down, shoving it deep behind the enemy lines he’d drawn inside his head. Because what was he proving by being pissed? Nothing, except that he could be just as nasty as his old man.

  “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “I thought you were bad before. What the fuck happened to you on the other side? I thought death was supposed to give a guy some godsdamned perspective.”

  To his surprise, his old man took a step back and exhaled a long, slow breath. “This is my perspective, shithead. I didn’t come back here to watch the Nightkeepers go off the godsdamned rails.”

  That had just enough logic to pinch. Jamming his hands in his pockets, Rabbit shrugged impatiently. “Fine. Whatever. But I’m not in charge here, remember? You want to swing the decision, then talk to Dez. Whether you like it or not, he’s the king.”

  “True. But you’re the crossover.”

  “Which doesn’t mean a fucking thing unless I can figure out what I’m supposed to do.” And if he believed Bastet, there was a good chance that the whole crossover thing was just another distraction, one that both the kohan and the kax had used to confuse the Xibalbans and Nightkeepers.

  “How about having some fucking faith?” Red-Boar growled. “When the gods want us to know something, they always find a way to get through.”

  “Seems to me they just did.”

  “That Egyptian horseshit was a lie, just like Phee’s ghost was a lie.”

  “I didn’t feel any dark magic when Bastet projected herself. Did you?”

  “The Banol Kax lie about every-fucking-thing. Why not about the magic, too? The barrier is barely hanging on. What’s to say they couldn’t hide their magic, make it look like something else?”

  And the damn thing was, as much as Rabbit wanted to argue with anything that came out of his old man’s mouth, he couldn’t. Not this time. “I don’t. . . . Shit.”

  Red-Boar’s eyes took on a satisfied gleam. “That’s better.” He didn’t move a muscle, but seemed suddenly closer, bigger in Rabbit’s field of vision. “Think about it. What’s the distraction here? Why did Bastet appear now, this late in the game?”

  “Because it took this long for Anna to be ready to receive the message.”

  “Bullshit. If I could get through to her off and on over the past few years, then sure as shit a god could do it.”

  It shouldn’t have kicked up a spurt of resentment to know that Red-Boar had contacted Anna from the other side. Clenching his jaw, Rabbit ground out, “Fine. Let’s say you’re right. I’m not saying I think you are, but if you are, then Dez is the one you need to be working on.”

  “I am. I will. But you’re the crossover, damn it. You’re the key.”

  “So you keep telling me. So how about telling me what the hell you want me to do right now. Why even come after me?” His lips twisted. “Or are you just blowing off steam at someone you figure has to stand there and take it?” Now that was an old, familiar pattern.

  “Poor you,” Red-Boar sneered. “You always had the basics and then some. Cry me a fucking river.”

  “Don’t,” Rabbit said flatly. “You really don’t want to go there.”

  His old man must’ve seen something in his eyes, because he cursed and turned away. “Screw this. I’ve got a meeting with the king. Think about it, though, boy. Think long and hard before you do something really fucking stupid.”

  “That’s one of the few lessons I think I have learned.”

  Red-Boar just growled back over his shoulder. “Use your head, for fuck’s sake.”

  Rabbit didn’t mean to watch him walk away, but his old man always could twist him around and tie him in fucking knots. Which left him standing there for a minute, debating. Logic said he should warn Dez how bad his old man was getting. Instinct, though, had him gravitating toward the path that led to his cottage . . . and beyond that to the firing range.

  At the thought of the range, warmth kicked in his chest and an ache tugged low in his gut, letting
him know that he hadn’t been heading for his cottage, after all. He’d been heading for Myrinne.

  His body knew where she was. His magic knew.

  What it didn’t know was what he was supposed to say to her.

  “Fuck it.” Deciding to let Dez and Red-Boar go the first round without him, he headed for his cottage, but ducked in only briefly to grab a couple of things. Then he kept going along the path, all the way to the range.

  When the Nightkeepers had first returned to Skywatch, the weapons training area had consisted of a boring-ass indoor range of the cubicle-and-paper-target variety, plus an outdoor sniper range that wasn’t much better. These days, thanks to Michael’s background as a government-trained assassin and his lust for gadgets, the training area included a faux Mayan ruin built in cement and rebar, along with a second indoor range inside a prefab steel building. There, trainees could work their way through an urban-jungle training course, blasting away at pop-up targets and holos, with a digital scoreboard in the corner tallying their speed, kills and collateral damage.

  Rabbit made for the big steel building, knowing that was where she would be even before he saw a flicker of reflected light and heard the generator kick on. The setup was like a full-scale video game. He couldn’t think of a better place for someone like him—or Myrinne—to burn off some aggression.

  As he approached, he heard a muffled pop-pop-pop from one of the holo-enabled training weapons, then the crackling roar of a fireball. The surge of magic lit his senses and tightened his skin as he stepped through the main door and into the small locker room that acted as an antechamber. The lights were off in the windowless room, creating a warm darkness that wrapped around him as he paused in the shadows and looked into the main room, seeing without being seen.

  Myr had changed out of the jeans and soft sweater she’d been wearing earlier, into close-fitting black workout gear that moved as fluidly as she did when she spun and snapped off a “shot” of laser light into a glowing lava demon, flung herself to the ground to avoid a hologram claw-swipe, and came up firing. Wearing her weapons belt along with the gizmos that made up the badass laser-tag system, with knives strapped to her thigh and calf, she looked deadly as hell, and twice as sexy. Her face was set in concentration, her eyes gleamed with reflected holo-light, and her moves showed the hours she’d put into her training, and the athleticism—and sharp edge—that had made her a natural at this from the very beginning. She didn’t think she was brave, didn’t think she had fought enough against the Witch, but he knew different. And could’ve stood there watching her all damn day.

  She crouched and spun, flattened three hologram camazotz in rapid succession, then nailed a fourth with a bolt of crackling green magic that surged and spit with a dangerous, feminine power that hardened his flesh. More, it brought his own fighting instincts to the fore, making him want to challenge her, tussle with her, make love to her, right here and now.

  Question was, what did she want?

  Steeling himself, he stepped out of the shadows and into her peripheral vision.

  She checked her next attack and spun to face him, cheeks flushed with exertion, eyes going wary and brittle at the sight of him. She raised her weapon but didn’t holster it, and didn’t let the magic ramp down. “I’m a little busy here. And really not in the mood for company.”

  “It’s a pretty night.” He lifted the six-pack that was the first of the bribes he’d grabbed from the cottage. “I was hoping we could sit out and watch the stars for a bit.”

  Her eyes didn’t give a damn thing away. “Why?”

  Because last night was amazing, but you still snuck out. Because you’re the one I want to be with, the only one I trust, even when I don’t trust myself. Especially then.

  He kept those answers inside, though, and went with the one that’d come to him as he’d stood there at the pathway’s fork, knowing he should go up to the mansion but wanting to be with her instead. “Because the first time around, we just sort of happened. We met, we liked each other, made sense together—at least as we saw it—and we got together and had some damn good times.” He paused. “But the thing is, I was so caught up in being a Nightkeeper, so convinced that we were destined mates that I coasted. I didn’t work for it, didn’t work for you.”

  Maybe she paled a little, but she didn’t back down, didn’t lower her defenses. “And now?”

  “Now I want to make it up to you. Hell, I don’t know what that even means, just that I hated waking up alone this morning, and I hate not knowing if you’ll be with me tonight, or ever again. What’s more, I know damn well that there’s not anybody else I want to be with right now, nobody else I want to talk to about the things that’re going down.” He reached into a pocket, pulled out a Ziploc half full of Sasha’s death-by-cacao brownies and held it out to her. He wasn’t even entirely sure what he was asking for, but he asked it anyway. “What do you say? Are you willing to give me another chance?”

  * * *

  Myr stared at him for a beat, telling herself not to be an idiot. Problem was, she didn’t know which answer counted as idiocy: accepting his peace offerings and risking what little hard-won balance she’d managed to get back after their night together . . . or telling him to get lost.

  The fact that she could come up with a laundry list of why she should send him away probably should’ve made the choice for her. She hesitated, though, and not just because of the brownies. It was the mix of hope and “I dare you” in his eyes, and the shimmer of heat that snapped in the air between them, one that she couldn’t quite ascribe to the fighting magic that was pumping in her veins. And, to be honest, it was the shame of knowing she had wimped out this morning.

  Tell him to stay? Tell him to go?

  It would’ve been easier if he’d been just another guy, like the ones she’d hooked up with in New Orleans. But there were millions of those guys out there, and only one Rabbit. He awed her, impressed her, sometimes scared the hell out of her. He had the potential to save them all . . . and the potential to destroy her. She wanted him, yearned for him, and after last night she knew damn well it would be far too easy to submerge herself once more in a relationship with him.

  But he’d brought her brownies and beer, which had been a Friday night ritual during their year-plus together in college, a way to celebrate the weekend back when they’d thought they had it so tough and hadn’t had any idea what tough actually felt like. Now, she knew exactly how it felt . . . and it was asking her for a chance to get back with her, and to let things between them go deeper than she’d had any intention of going.

  She should tell him to get lost. Instead, she nodded to the six-pack. “Vitamin B?”

  The tense set of his shoulders eased slightly. “Something like that.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Wanna take a walk?”

  She really, really shouldn’t.

  She did it anyway.

  They ended up at the pueblo. Nostalgia tugged as she crested the narrow, winding trail leading up and saw the wide, flat ledge and familiar round doorways. This was where Rabbit had gone when they fought, where they had gone together to get a little drunk and make love under the stars, and—although she hadn’t told him—it was where she had hidden out in the weeks after he disappeared, while she recovered from his attack and tried to come to grips with what had happened between them.

  She hadn’t been back since she gained control of the magic. It didn’t look any different, though. She was the one who was different . . . or at least trying to be.

  Sitting on the very edge of the cliff, she let her legs hang and felt the shimmy in her stomach that said there was nothing to keep her from falling. Rabbit sat beside her, with a few inches separating them, extinguished the foxfire he’d used to light their way, and stared out as the night closed around them. The lights of Skywatch shone in the distance, but everything else was dark, save for the glimmer of stars up above.

  “About last night,” he began after a moment.

  “
I’m sorry I wimped out and did the tiptoe thing,” she said, knowing she owed it to both of them, especially after what he’d just said about wanting to make more of an effort with her. Wanting to, in effect, court her, even though they both knew the timing couldn’t be worse, and she wasn’t even sure it was what she wanted. “Look, last night was great. Better than great. It was incredible . . . but I didn’t want us to wake up together and be back where we started.” She paused. “I need some space, Rabbit. I went from living under the Witch’s thumb to being your girlfriend. Not that I’m saying the two are equivalent. I loved what we had together, loved learning about the magic and how to fight . . . but I never really learned how to be myself. I’m starting to figure it out now, and I don’t want to lose that.”

  He hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. Okay, yeah. I get that.” But the lines beside his mouth deepened.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again.

  “Don’t be.” He took her hand, lifted it to kiss her knuckles, and shot her a crooked smile. “Like I said, I didn’t really work hard enough for you the last time around. You want space, you’ve got it. But that doesn’t change the fact that I want you in my bed—or your bed, one of the Jeeps, a closet, all of the above . . . your call.”

  Her skin heated at the low rasp of his voice. She didn’t believe for a second that it was going to be that easy. Even if he stuck to a no-pressure, whatever-you-want arrangement, she wasn’t sure she would be able to stick to it, despite all her newfound determination. If the old Rabbit had fascinated her and made her feel like she wasn’t alone anymore, the man he’d become compelled her, made her yearn.

  Forcing herself to stay casual, she bumped him with her shoulder. “Does that mean I can still have a beer and one of those brownies?”

  “You can have whatever you want,” he said simply. “Whatever, whenever, if it’s mine, it’s yours.”

  “Rabbit . . .” Don’t say stuff like that. She wanted too badly to hear it, to believe it.