He was godsdamned freezing; the icy water was up to his chest and climbing. His head hurt; he was pretty sure he’d banged it on the side window when Dewey hit the slick patch and the car spun out. Or maybe he’d been whacked by one of the hockey sticks that were now floating around him, along with other bits of their gear. He shoved one of the sticks aside. Then he stared at it as inspiration worked its way through his spinning brain.
Hey, moron. Ever heard of leverage?
Almost sobbing now, he grabbed one of the sticks, jammed it against the opposite door handle, and pushed. The lock gave! His pulse pounded as he shoved against the inward press of the water. The door opened a few inches, letting in more water but offering a way out. He was so damned excited to see the exit that he forgot about the other problems.
He lunged across, got hung up on the belt, and screamed when his injured leg shifted and flesh tore.
“Fuck!”
Gods, it hurt. He grayed out for a few seconds, groaning.
As he started coming back, the world sharpening back into place around him, he heard Woody’s voice in his head. Don’t just react, the winikin had lectured time and again during Brandt’s fight training. For gods’ sake, think.
As if remembering the winikin ’s advice had thrown a switch inside him, the night got brighter, his vision clearer. He saw the bridge in the distance . . . and the splashing movement of someone swimming. Two someones. The others were okay!
“Joe!” he shouted. “Dewey!” But they didn’t react; he was too far away, the rushing water too loud.
Thinking now, he swung the hockey stick around, aiming it past the driver’s seat. His motions were slowed by the water and the beginnings of hypothermia, but the same lack of air bags that’d made the crash so gods-awful helped him now. He managed to jam the end of the stick on the column, and the horn blared.
The distant heads jerked around; faraway voices cried his name. He hit the horn a couple more times before a fat spark arced and the noise quit.
The Beemer’s back end was dropping faster than the front, thanks to the cinder blocks Dewey’s dad had loaded into the trunk for traction. The water lapped at Brandt’s throat, his chin. Touched his mouth.
“Brandt?” The shout was faint with distance.
“Here! I’m here!” Spurred by hope, he twisted, contorting yet again in an effort to reach the knife sheath that was strapped low on his good ankle. He had tried to get at it before and couldn’t reach.
This time, though, he got it. His hands shook as he slashed through the seat belt. He immediately floated up, then jolted against the tether of his lower legs.
He freed his good leg with a yank, but even that move brought a slash of agony from the other side.
And when he tried to pull on his torn-up leg, he spasmed and nearly passed out.
“Help! I’m stuck!” He shouted the words, but they came out garbled as the water closed in on him, filling his ears. He couldn’t hear Joe and Dewey anymore. He was pretty sure the car was all the way under, hoped to hell they’d be able to find him.
His consciousness flickered as he crowded up near the roof of the sinking car, tilting his head into the remaining air, which was leaking out in a string of silvery bubbles. On his next breath, he sucked water along with the air.
Don’t panic. But all he could think about was Woody’s stories of the barrier, the Nightkeepers, and the end-time war. The winikin had broken tradition by raising Brandt with full knowledge of his heritage even though they were in hiding, living as humans. But in all other ways, despite his easygoing nature, Wood was strictly traditional. He’d taught Brandt the old ways, and made him promise that he would keep himself fit and ready through the zero date, that he wouldn’t marry or have children before that time, and that he would keep the faith.
As the final string of silvery bubbles escaped, and panic chilled to grim desperation, Brandt’s mind locked on the last of Woody’s expectations. Faith, he thought. When all else failed, that was what it came down to, wasn’t it?
Tasting his own blood in the water he’d inhaled along with the last little bit of air, he searched for a prayer in the old language. When nothing seemed right, with grayness telescoping inward from the edges of his consciousness, he went with his heart, and said, “Gods. If you can hear this, please help me. I’ll give anything. I swear it.”
Then the grayness closed in. The cold took over. And—
The cold vanished, the car and the river disappeared, and Brandt found himself hanging weightless and immobile, completely deprived of all sensory input save for that created by his body: the pulsing whine of blood through his veins, the sensation of swallowing, the repetitive act of breathing.
His brain spun as he fought to shift gears.
As he did so, he was aware that this wasn’t the first time he’d made the transition, or the second.
More like the hundredth. Sick dread latched itself on to his soul as he realized all over again that the Triad spell had trapped him in his own private Groundhog Day. He was reliving that night over and over again, an endless loop in which he sank into a vision, became his teenage self and experienced the terror of that night, then switched back to his adult self, only then becoming cognizant of what was going on.
He didn’t know how long he’d been cycling, but he knew for damned sure that he had to get out of this fucking loop, and fast, because it wouldn’t be long before it started all over again.
This wasn’t part of the Triad spell. By now, he should be fighting to assimilate—or be assimilated by—his ancestors. Instead he was reliving the night he’d almost died in that river. At the thought, though, adrenaline kicked. A near-death experience formed a link to the gods. The Godkeeper ceremony involved near death by drowning. Maybe the Triad spell did too.
But he was already having an almost-dead-by-drowning experience within the vision. What more did he need to do in order to complete the spell?
He didn’t know.
And then it was too late, because the temperature dropped, chilling him to his bones.
For the last few seconds he was himself, he let his mind fill with a warm memory, that of Patience’s face aglow with happiness as they swapped marriage vows in front of a JP and half a dozen friends, needing nothing more than each other, really. Even though they had both lied about why their godparents—aka winikin—couldn’t be there, beginning the chain of small lies that had shaped the early, happy years of their marriage, the memory brought only a poignant ache.
No matter what had come after, that had been a good day. One of his best.
As the small peace dissolved, he closed his eyes and whispered into the blackness, “Sorry, sweetheart. I’m lost and I can’t figure out how to get back.”
Then the bottom fell out of his world, his soul lurched, and his consciousness regressed to that of a terrified, dying teen.
Skywatch Just past dawn, Patience jolted awake with her heart pounding and Brandt’s voice echoing in her mind.
“Hey,” she said, a smile blooming as she rolled toward him, having finally crashed in the bed, albeit clothed and atop the comforter. “You’re—” She broke off at the sight of his still form, the lack of animation in his angular features. “Not awake,” she finished, disappointment thudding through her as she saw that he looked the same as he had when she’d fallen asleep—his breathing too slow, his skin gray despite the IV taped at the crook of his elbow.
After recharging, she and the others had tried everything they could think of the night before, from a joint blood sacrifice to a one-sided attempt for her to call sex magic and awaken their jun tan bond.
Their mated link had remained stubbornly silent. Yet now she could swear his voice had awakened her.
Although the other mated pairs could share thoughts when they were uplinked, her and Brandt’s bond had always been different. Their jun tan link had carried a magic of its own, one that allowed them to transmit power, pleasure, and thoughts, sometimes even from a distance. S
o it wasn’t impossible that she’d heard him, but still . . .
“It was probably just a dream,” she murmured, knowing too well how much false hope could hurt.
But that didn’t stop her from taking his hand, interlacing their fingers, pressing their scarred palms together, and sending part of herself into their jun tan bond, just to see. The mark on her wrist warmed momentarily, but that was it. His half of their mated bond didn’t respond.
It wasn’t a surprise. But it hurt with a dull ache that gathered beneath her breastbone and lay leaden, weighing her down. She didn’t let go of his hand, though. Instead, she inched closer to his big, warm body and let her eyes drift shut. I’ll just lie here for a minute longer. . . .
Shrieks and laughter pulled her out of sleep into the warm drowsiness of yellow morning sunlight and the weight of her husband’s arm across her hips, the curve of his body behind hers, enfolding hers. Through the open bedroom door, she saw Rabbit spinning around in the main room, roaring demonlike while Braden clung to his shoulders and Harry battered at his knees, two miniature magi fighting to bring down one of the fearsome Banol Kax . With a final roar, Rabbit fell back onto the couch, flailing in pretend death throes while the twins pounced on him.
Hannah and Woody were making a big breakfast in the kitchen nook beyond, in what had become a weekend tradition, a way to carve some family time out of the daily demands of life at Skywatch.
Catching Patience’s look, Hannah grinned and turned her palms to the sky in an “I tried to get them to keep quiet” gesture belied by the amusement that snapped in her good eye. She had a brightly patterned kerchief tied pirate-style over the other side, where six parallel scars trailed down her face, tugging her smile slightly off center as she pretended to whack Woody’s knuckles for snitching an underdone pancake off the stove.
In the main room, Rabbit rolled off the couch to pounce on Harry with renewed roars and a growl of
“Gotcha!”
Braden shrieked and dove into the fray, and the three of them went down in a laughing, squirming tangle.
“Welcome to chaos,” Brandt rumbled against Patience’s neck, his voice amused. Beneath the bedcovers, he slid his hand up from her hip to her breast and began a slow, seductive morning fondle that was all the more enticing for its semipublic nature. More, it said that he was in a good mood, not sharp or distant as he had been too often lately, stressed by the transition to their new lives.
Her blood fired as she shifted to fit herself closer into the curve of his body, so she could feel the heavy throb of his morning erection. “Silence is overrated,” she whispered in return, keeping her voice low in the hopes of protecting a few more minutes together before the twins noticed that Mom and Dad were up.
And Dad was most definitely “up”; he rolled his hips a little to seat himself more firmly into the cleft of her buttocks, then slid his hand down to press her into him, with his strong, clever fingers drifting across the very top of her mound, sending spears of sensation that left her breathless. His breath was hot on the back of her neck and the side of her face, air-feathers that sent shivers coiling through her, making her yearn.
“Breakfast is ready!” Hannah announced brightly from the kitchen, her voice pitched to carry.
“Last one out to the patio gets rotten eggs!”
Rabbit lunged upward, roaring something about food, and slow-motion charged for the sliders leading out to the kid-proofed deck at the far side of the main room. Braden scrambled to beat him; Harry lagged and shot a look toward the bedroom.
“Your mom and dad will be with us in a minute.” Woody hustled him along, kicking the bedroom door shut on the way by, with an amused “Or twenty minutes, half hour, no rush.”
Brandt’s chuckle vibrated through his body and into hers. “Points to the winikin .” He slid her panties down but not off, so the waistband caught at the tops of her thighs, holding her legs together and creating deliciously wicked friction as he positioned himself to rub against her slick folds from behind, teasing them both. She purred and arched against him, heating to his touch and moving restlessly as urgency built. Then he shifted to slide into her, stretching and filling her—
Patience’s body shuddered, and the movement snapped her from her light doze, jolting her back to reality.
She opened her eyes to find herself in the master bedroom, lying beside Brandt as the yellow morning sun came in through the window to warm the cool blue room. But that was where the parallels stopped. She wasn’t wrapped in Brandt’s arms, and he sure as hell wasn’t making love to her.
He hadn’t for longer than she wanted to count. Yet arousal ran through her, making her shiver hot and cold, and wish she had stayed asleep a few minutes longer.
“Damn it. That wasn’t fair.” She didn’t know who or what she was pissed at, just that she was pissed. Frustrated. Sad. Depressed.
No. Not going back there.
Forcing herself to get moving, she headed for the connecting bath, then through to the boys’ room, where she usually slept. There, she changed into clean jeans and a long-sleeved blue T-shirt, and dragged her long hair into a ponytail. Every few minutes, she looked through the bathroom to the master bedroom, where Brandt lay unchanged, looking as isolated as she felt.
Outside the bedroom window, the sun shone brightly, warming her chilled skin when she pressed her palms against the glass and rested her forehead for a moment. “I could use some help here, gods. I need more to go on than just ‘make him remember.’” She waited a long moment, hoping for a sign. A clue. Something. Anything.
Nothing.
Exhaling, she turned away from the window and headed through the suite, intending to grab some breakfast, check with the winikin to see how things were going in the outside world, and see if Jade and Lucius had gotten any further with the library research. But as she was passing through the main room, a flash of purple on the coffee table caught her eye and made her hesitate.
It was her first deck of oracle cards, part of a boxed set that she’d bought off Amazon on a whim, and maybe a bit of rebellion against the traditions that dictated too much of her life at Skywatch.
Mayan astronomy wasn’t part of the old ways; hell, as far as she could tell, most of the shtick had been lifted straight from tarot readings, glossed over with a veneer of Mayan glyphs and concepts designed to appeal to the human world, where there was a growing awareness that December 21, 2012, might be more than just some hype and a couple of loud movies.
Over the past few months, though, she’d realized that just because the codices didn’t mention the oracle, that didn’t make it bullshit. More and more often, she was turning over cards that related to—
or even predicted—what was going on in her life. In fact, she was starting to think that the oracle could tap into some type of magic, whether or not the others wanted to accept it. Which was why she didn’t brush off the instinct that told her to cut the deck now.
She crossed to the low table and chose a card at random, without even shuffling. When she flipped it, she froze at the sight of a jagged “X” formed of two step-sided pyramid outlines, joined at their crowns.
It was the mirror glyph, etznab.
Again.
A shiver worked its way down her spine, and her heart picked up a beat. What were the odds she would cut the same card twice in a row from two different decks?
Glancing at the sliders, at the shining sun and the blue sky around it, she said, “I get it. Brandt and I have unfinished business. And apparently he has some with his ancestors too. But I don’t know what else I’m supposed to take from this.” She reached for the dog-eared book that went with the deck, figuring she should reread the entire entry on the etznab oracle.
But then she hesitated, staring at the card.
What if it wasn’t signifying unfinished business? What if it was telling her something far more obvious?
“Mirrors,” she whispered. “Holy shit.”
The ancestors had held mirrors a
s sacred, believing they were doorways into the soul . . . and into memory.
Her hands shook as she fumbled out her phone and called the library. Thanks to a private cell covering the compound—Jox’s doing—the call went through immediately, though canyon country itself was a dead zone. “Hey there,” Jade said in answer. “Any news?”
“Brandt is the same.”
“I’m sorry. Anna’s in bad shape too.” Jade’s voice echoed with concern for her friend. “Strike and the others are at the hospital now.”
“Gods.” Patience closed her eyes and sent a quick prayer. She didn’t know Anna well, but she was a teammate, estranged or not. And, apparently, a Triad mage. She had collapsed within minutes of the Triad spell being triggered, and had wound up rushed to the ER with an intracranial bleed.
Jade continued, forcing a businesslike tone into her voice. “And in the ‘not sounding good’ department, Mendez’s winikin disappeared out of his locked mental ward yesterday right after Mendez dropped out of sight. Nate, Sven, and Alexis are up there now, looking for both of them.” She paused.
“But I’m guessing you didn’t call for an update.”
“No.” Patience let out a slow breath and crossed her fingers that this was going to work. “Did Lucius’s search for memory enhancers pull up anything related to mirrors, like a mirrored artifact or a spell that uses one?”
There was a beat of silence on the other end. Then Jade said, “There’s a mirror-bottomed pot on the
‘to be translated’ pile. The magic led Lucius to it, but we moved it down on the priority list because a rough translation of the first few glyphs suggested that it’s more aimed at breaking mental blocks than recovering actual memories.”
Patience’s heart drummed in her ears. “Translate it now. Please. I think it’s the one I need.”
CHAPTER FOUR
While she waited, Patience downed a couple of energy bars and a cup of coffee, and skirted gingerly around the coffee table, where the etznab card lay faceup.
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