Spellfire n-8

by Jessica Andersen

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  December 19

  Two days to the zero date

  With fewer than forty-eight hours on the clock, the Nightkeepers sat in the great room while Lucius used his laptop to flash pictures of Egyptian paintings and carvings on the big screen. He’d already gone over Bastet; the ram-headed creator god, Khnum, who made the bodies of men from mud and then breathed life into them; and the sun god, Amon-Ra, who had the head of a hawk and ruled the lands of the living. All the good guys Bastet had mentioned.

  “Now for the not-so-good guys,” he said. “This is Anubis.” He clicked to a statue of a pointy-eared, pointy-nosed dog cast in gold and painted black. Lying on its belly with its front paws outstretched, it was positioned like the Sphinx and had gleaming gem eyes that seemed to scan the room even in 2-D. “And so is this.” The next slide showed a tomb painting with the same foxy head, but this time on the body of a bulky, muscular man. “Since jackals were often seen scavenging near the dead and their tombs, the ancient Egyptians worshipped them as the guardians of the dead. Anubis here is the god of death and the dying.” He hit the button again, skipping a slide and stopping on another animal-headed man. This one, though, had a strangely elongated nose, almost a beak, along with square-tipped ears, and what looked like scales. “And this is Seth.”

  As Rabbit frowned, trying to figure out what the hell it was, Myrinne leaned over and said in an undertone, “They had armadillos in ancient Egypt?”

  He exhaled a soft snort. “That’s good news for us—if we poke it with a stick, it’ll roll into a ball and wait until we go away.”

  Her grin warmed him, as did the press of her thigh against his where they sat together at one end of the big sofa. Quarters were tight with the full seventy-seven-person team crammed into the mansion’s great room, but he wasn’t complaining. Ever since that afternoon up at the pueblo, he and Myr had been hanging out pretty much every day, and things had been going well. The sex was incredible and having her back in his life was even better, though she still wouldn’t spend the night.

  Even that was probably for the best, though, because it meant he didn’t have to explain why he spent almost an hour each morning sitting cross-legged in front of the altar in the spare bedroom, burning incense and staring down at the carved stone surface while he made sure the dark magic stayed contained. And it meant he didn’t have to let on that it was getting harder each day.

  “It’s called the Seth beast,” Lucius said with a “shut it” look in their direction. “Seth is the lord of chaos, thunder and the desert. He’s roughly equivalent to the Christian’s devil, though he does his damage on earth. And this is Osiris.” He clicked to a tomb painting of a sharp-featured pharaoh-type guy wearing a tall white hat and the outer wrappings of a mummy. “He rules the underworld and resurrection.” He didn’t quite glance to where Red-Boar leaned against the back wall, doing his arms-folded-scowl thing.

  The resurrected mage had spent the past week lobbying on behalf of the old gods, making it damn clear he thought the Nightkeepers were headed for disaster.

  Lucius kept going, sketching out the Egyptian’s upper-and underworlds, and finishing with, “I think it’s worth mentioning that the Mayan religion didn’t have a good-versus-bad afterlife the way that we’ve been treating it. In fact, the Mayans believed that the sky and Xibalba were two planes that were equally populated with both good and evil gods, just like there are both good and evil people on earth.”

  “Hold on,” Nate said. “You’re saying that they had it right and the Nightkeepers had it wrong? The Maya learned the religion from us in the first place!”

  “Not from us,” Lucius countered. “They learned from our many-times ancestors, long before things started evolving and the Xibalbans split from the Nightkeepers, separating the light and dark magic.”

  “So you believe Bastet.”

  Lucius spread his hands. “Experience tells me that the Banol Kax are evil and that the sky gods oppose them. But that doesn’t rule out what Bastet told us.” He paused. “Not to mention that we found a new treatment for the xombi virus . . . in an Egyptian pharmacopeia.”

  There was a restless shifting of bodies in the jam-packed room.

  Anna said, “I passed it along to my contact inside the quarantine zone a couple of days ago, and as of this morning, most of the existing cases have stabilized. In addition, there haven’t been any new infections reported in the past five days.”

  “Which suggests it has nothing to do with a treatment that started two days ago,” Red-Boar interjected. “For all we know, the demons just put the poor bastards in a holding pattern so they’ll be ready to use as a standing army when the calendar hits zero.”

  Rabbit wanted to roll his eyes, but couldn’t. Because even though Red-Boar was looking seriously strung out these days, he was still making sense. That was the problem, in fact: the arguments were almost perfectly weighted between “it’s a trap” and “it’s for real.” Which meant that somebody needed to be the one to make the call, flip the coin, or what-the-fuck-ever.

  “I guess that’s my cue.” Dez stood.

  This time the rustling was louder, lasted longer. Rabbit found himself edging forward in his seat, and Myr’s nails dug into his palm. This was what they were all there for, not Lucius’s info or Anna’s report, but to hear what Dez had decided to do about Bastet’s command that the Nightkeepers reject the sky gods.

  The king met Red-Boar’s narrow-eyed glare. “Don’t worry. We all know how you’d vote if this was a democracy.” To the rest of them, he said, “The thing is, it’s not a democracy. Our ancestors set things up with a king and a fealty oath . . . maybe because they knew it would come down to this. I don’t know. It’s a hell of a decision to put on one guy, king or not.”

  “Shades of ’eighty-four,” somebody muttered from up near the kitchen, where most of the winikin were gathered.

  A shiver crawled down Rabbit’s spine. He’d had another of the dreams last night, where he was inside Scarred-Jaguar’s head in the minutes leading up to the Solstice Massacre. He was pretty sure it was a warning, a pointed reminder that one wrong decision by a powerful mage could make the whole fucking world go boom. It wasn’t as if he needed the reminder, though. The knowledge haunted him, gnawed at him, and had him staring at the ceiling each night while Myr’s pillow cooled beside him. And when the dawn broke, it drove him into the spare room, determined to lock his brain down tight.

  When the time came, he would use the dark magic. But he would do it on his terms, and he wouldn’t give in to the anger and chaos that came with it. The magic was just magic; the other garbage belonged to the parts of himself that he’d left behind.

  “There’s one major difference between the old king and me.” Dez shot a sharp look at the winikin, then scanned the room, so it was clear he was talking to all of them when he said, “I’m not going to force anybody to do anything.”

  There was a startled silence. Rabbit glanced at Myr, got a “no clue” headshake, and looked back at the king. His own warrior’s talent was humming, amping his senses and sending adrenaline into his bloodstream. It was time. Whatever came next, it was going to change the course of human history.

  After giving that a moment to sink in, Dez continued. “I realize that our ancestors intended for the king to order his troops into battle . . . but we’re not our ancestors. We’re the last survivors, the children of the massacre. We didn’t ask for the lives we were born into, but each and every one of us stepped up and answered the call when it came.”

  His eyes went around the room, and when they hit Rabbit, he felt a bit of the old “holy shit, this is real” that he used to get when they all first gathered at Skywatch, back when the whole save-the-world thing had felt so damn faraway. Myr’s fingers tightened on his fingers, as if she felt it, too.

  When he’d locked eyes with each and every one of them, Dez reached for Reese’s hand and brought her to stand beside him. “Now I’m going to ask all
of you to step up once more, this time going against so much of what we were taught.” He paused while a murmur went through the room—one that seemed, to Rabbit anyway, more resigned than truly surprised. Then the king said, “In forty hours, Reese and I are going to ’port to Coatepec Mountain, stand at the intersection and renounce the kohan. I’m asking all of you to join us. More, I’m asking the godkeepers to break their bonds. I believe what the goddess told us. I believe that it’s up to the Nightkeepers to defend the earth against both the sky and the underworld.”

  “You’re asking us?” Red-Boar’s eyes narrowed. “Not ordering us?”

  “You heard me.” Dez swept the crowd once more. “If you choose not to join us, you will be released from your fealty oath and given weapons, cash and a ’port wherever you want to go.” He dropped his voice. “Wherever you think you can defend yourself best.”

  From up near the kitchen, JT called, “You’re assuming the deserters—”

  “Not deserters,” Reese put in. “Just no longer allies.”

  “Whatever. You’re assuming you won’t wind up fighting them.”

  Dez shook his head. “I’m not assuming anything. I’m hoping that won’t happen, but I’ll be damned to the hell of your choice if I lock people up in the basement just because they believe differently than I do, and I’ll fucking step down before I conscript an army the way Scarred-Jaguar did.” He nodded to Strike, then Anna and Sasha. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” Strike rumbled. But his knuckles were white where he gripped Leah’s hand.

  Dez continued. “It’d be stupid for me to tell you to think about it—gods know that’s all I’ve been doing for the past week and I’m sure you’ve all been doing the same. But if you figured I was going to make the decision for you, you’re out of luck. You’ve got twenty-four hours to let me or Reese know if you want us to arrange to teleport you out, forty if you don’t.”

  “Who’s going to be doing this ’porting?” Strike asked.

  Anna said, “I’m already in. The message, the skull . . . I have no doubts.”

  “This is strictly voluntary,” Dez reiterated. “But I hope you’ll all step up and keep the team intact. I believe with all my heart and soul that this is the right thing to do.”

  There were more questions after that, especially from the winikin, who seemed to be looking for loopholes in the king’s offer to release them. They might have their magic now, but some still didn’t trust their freedom.

  While those questions and answers were ping-ponging, Myr leaned in and whispered, “Dez has balls of steel.”

  Rabbit nodded. “And a legacy he’s trying like hell not to live down to.”

  “Rabbit?” Dez called. “A word?”

  The meeting had started breaking up around them, so he rose, caught Myr’s hand and tugged her with him when he headed toward where the king was standing with Reese and his advisers. Rabbit didn’t miss the way Red-Boar’s eyes tracked him, seeming to say: Remember your loyalties, boy . . . I won’t even need to touch her.

  Fury spurted through him, lighting his senses and bringing a surge of magic. Tensing, he fought it down. Deep inside him, though, his own voice whispered, You can take him. You’re better than him, stronger than him, and—

  “What’s wrong?” Myr’s voice echoed strangely in his ears, and when he looked down at her, all he could see were her eyes, gone dark and worried. When he focused on her, though, the fog cleared and the magic receded. Within a few seconds, it was as if it hadn’t ever been there at all.

  More, his inner vault was still secure, sealed shut by this morning’s meditation. So where the hell had that come from?

  Or was he fooling himself with the whole vault thing? Was the dark magic playing him?

  “I’m okay,” he said, even though he was anything but. “Come on.”

  They joined Dez, who said without preamble, “Okay, Rabbit. Here’s the thing. You know how you’re usually the exception to every rule? Well, the same thing goes here. I’m sorry, but I can’t give you the same choice as the others.”

  “You’re ordering me to renounce the sky gods?”

  The king snorted. “I don’t care what kind of spell your father cast, I don’t believe for a second that I could force you into betraying something you truly believe in.” He paused. “I’m asking you to renounce the sky gods and fight with me . . . but if you choose not to, I’m going to lock you in the basement for the duration. I just can’t risk having you running loose.”

  “What makes you think I’ll stay put if there’s no spell that’ll hold me?”

  “Welded cuffs with a shield spell will.”

  He couldn’t picture himself in the storeroom. But he couldn’t picture himself renouncing the gods, either. “How long do I have to decide?”

  “Forty hours, just like the others.”

  “Right.” Because there wouldn’t be any ’port escape for him. “What about Myr?”

  The glint in Dez’s eyes might’ve been sympathy. “It’s her decision.”

  And although Rabbit had been the one to say he didn’t want her fighting beside him when the time came, now he wanted the king to say that he and Myr were a pair, that they needed to stay that way, fight that way. Hell, he wanted to say it himself.

  Instead, he nodded woodenly. “Yeah, good. That’s . . . good.” He caught Myr’s frown out of the corner of his eye, and squeezed her hand.

  “Forty hours,” Dez repeated, then paused. His voice roughened. “I don’t know if this’ll mean much—you and I aren’t tight like you and Strike or some of the others. We just don’t have that kind of history. But as one former fuckup to another, I hope you’ll fight with me. I’d really, really like to know you’re on my side, and not just because you’re the crossover, but because you’re a hell of a warrior. A good Nightkeeper.”

  Rabbit heard a muttered oath behind him, from where his old man was standing. Ignoring that, he stuck out a hand. “For what it’s worth, I think you did something good here today. Something very, very worth saving. And I’ll have an answer for you in a few hours.” More, he would catch the king in private and warn him about Red-Boar. He’d been putting it off, waiting to see what happened. He couldn’t put it off any longer, though.

  Dez turned away to face the growing line of Nightkeepers and winikin who had massed behind him, wanting to ask questions. Or maybe they were there to get their payouts and get a place on the Teleport Express.

  Gods, Rabbit hoped not.

  “Want to take a walk?” Myr was looking at him sidelong, as if measuring his mood.

  Well, that made two of them. “Yeah. One minute. I’ve got to take care of a little problem first.”

  But when he turned around, expecting to see that problem breathing down his neck and raring for a fight, there was nobody there. His old man had disappeared.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  A couple of hours after the meeting broke up, once Leah had gotten done easing the mob-mentality panic as best she could in her officially unofficial role as the keeper of morale at Skywatch—a role she blamed squarely on her old boss in the Miami PD, who had been a big believer in trust circles and desk yoga—she went looking for Strike, following the faint trickle of energy coming from their jun tan connection.

  She found him in their private shrine.

  When Dez took the kingship and she and Strike had moved out of the royal suite and into an apartment in the Nightkeepers’ wing, they had converted the hallway walk-in closet to a shrine almost identical to the one they’d had in the royal suite, with stone veneer, motion-sensitive fake torches, and a highly polished disc of black obsidian on the back wall that showed their reflections. Below the disc was a small chac-mool altar.

  Ever since the day Anna had beheaded the statue in the main ceremonial chamber, the altar in the closet had looked different to Leah, sort of grim and accusatory. Strike had seen it, too, but they had put it down to guilt and the power of suggestion. They hoped.

  Now, as she
opened the door and let herself into the shrine, her view of the chac-mool’s face was blocked by Strike’s bulk. His gaze met hers in the reflection, and although the polished black stone robbed his gorgeous blue eyes of their color, there was no mistaking the grim resignation. “I can’t get through.”

  He said it matter-of-factly, like he was doing a “can you hear me now?” on his cell phone, but she knew he meant that he couldn’t connect with the gods, couldn’t pray. And she could see the grief beneath the “it’s going to be okay” shell, felt its twin inside her. She’d been holding it together up to now, needing to put on a brave face for the others rather than spark a stampede, but now, with him, her bravery threatened to falter, her “it’s okay” face starting to crumble. Because by the gods, this was a terrible decision they were being asked to make.

  She hadn’t grown up with the Nightkeepers’ gods, but she’d sure as hell become a convert—and fast—when she’d seen the sky gods and their demon foe up close and personal, and she and Strike had become the joint godkeepers of Kulkulkan, a huge feathered serpent that flew high above the earth and carried their spirits with it to fight the Banol Kax on the Cardinal Days.

  If they did what Dez was asking, they would be giving that up. More, they would be betraying a creature—entity?—that had been one of their strongest allies. They shared a special bond with Kulkulkan, and through the winged serpent to each other. The godkeeper spell had brought them together, made them into the warriors and mates they were today. Had that been part of the true gods’ plan, or part of the distraction? Had they truly been destined mates, or was that whole concept some game of the false gods? What were they supposed to believe when faith itself turned out to be a lie?

  She must have made some sound, because Strike turned and drew her into his arms, and then leaned in to rest his cheek on the top of her head. They stood like that for a long time, holding on to each other, holding each other up. She didn’t let herself cling too hard, though, didn’t let herself think that this might be one of the last times they stood like this. Because once she started thinking like that, she wouldn’t be able to stop herself, and right now they needed to deal with the issue at hand.