“Hold.” Dez raised a hand, stopping the group as the pathway ahead of them shimmered and then solidified to reveal Alexis astride Nate in his giant hawk form. “Anything?” the king asked the forward scouts.
Alexis shook her head. “Not a damn thing. Either the cenote is clear, or they’re hiding behind magic that I can’t sense.”
The teammates moved off again, cautiously, as the low trees opened up to reveal the uppermost level of the Cenote Sagrada, where a hundred-foot pit gaped in the earth and plunged down to a green-blue pool at the bottom.
Rabbit’s head said to get up to the small temple and start the spell.
“Fuck this.” He turned back and headed for Myr, knowing that his magic—and his heart—would be stronger if he said what he needed to say to her.
He had gone three steps when JT shouted, “Incoming!”
“Son of a—” He twisted too late, saw wide brown wings and a puke-ugly face headed straight for him, and threw all of his power to his shield. The ’zotz crashed into it at full speed, driving him back, off the edge of the raised roadway. He tripped and fell, and the impact jarred the shit out of him, just enough that he lost control of the shield spell for a split second.
The ’zotz screeched, lashed out with its barb-tipped tail, and sliced him to the bone. “Motherfu—”
Darkness.
* * *
Within seconds, a dozen camazotz swarmed the spot where Rabbit had been, tearing at him in a frenzy. There were others nearby, blackening the air and screeching as they attacked, but the Nightkeepers’ shields held them off.
Rabbit’s shield was down, though. He was down.
“No!” The world blurred as Myrinne screamed and unleashed a massive bolt of green fire into the flock, aiming high so she didn’t hit him. The fireball detonated and the fire magic clung to the creatures, eating into them and driving them to the ground as she raced to where he lay in a bloody heap. “Rabbit!”
He was sprawled in a spreading pool of blood; she wasn’t sure where it was coming from, but there was too much of it. And there was no sign of the golden magic, no sign of life.
The nearest ’zotz began to move again, regenerating even as its flesh smoldered, but before she could react, Strike and JT closed from opposite directions, knives out, ready to dispatch the camazotz. “We’ve got this,” the winikin said. “You take care of him.”
Around them, the battle raged on. She saw the Nightkeepers bringing down camazotz and strange, fishlike creatures that sliced through the air with sharp fins and tails, and snapped with piranha jaws. They weren’t the kax or kohan, though, just minions, guards put in place to stop the Nightkeepers from getting to the cenote.
That had to mean they were in the right place. But now they were missing a key player.
“Come back, you hear me?” She clutched Rabbit’s bloodied hand and sent her energy into him through the mind-bender’s magic. “We need you.” I need you.
The truth was stark and real: she wasn’t all that mad at him about hiding the truth about the dark magic. Instead, she was terrified of him, terrified for him, and just plain terrified in general . . . He hadn’t just claimed the magic, he had reclaimed the part of himself that scared her the most, not because she was afraid he would hurt her, but because she knew that it would put him in the worst sort of danger.
So what had she done? She panicked and bolted, even though she’d promised herself she wouldn’t ever run away from him again.
“Come on, come on.” She clutched his hand and sent her magic flowing faster, but his skin was chalky and cool, and there was no echo of his conscious self inside his skull. Panic sliced through her. “This isn’t working. I need Sasha!”
“I’m here.” The healer skidded to a stop on the other side of Rabbit and dropped down, breathing hard. She was sweating, and had dark spatters on her sleeves.
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” Myr said. “And I can’t find him with my magic.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
As Sasha bent over him, Myr looked beyond to where the Nightkeepers fought against the enemy’s thinning ranks. As she watched, Michael fried a fish-thing out of the sky with a stream of silver death magic, and hawk-Nate brought down a camazotz on the fly and then backwinged while Alexis fried it to dust. All of the Nightkeepers and their teammates seemed to be up and moving.
Except Rabbit.
Holding his too-cool hand against her face, she said, “He was so worried about what would happen to me when the demons zeroed in on the crossover, but he forgot to worry about himself.”
“That’s because he loves you,” Sasha said, not taking her eyes off her patient. She said it with a “duh” tone in her voice, but not unkindly. More like she’d been there, done that, and come out the other side of it.
Myr ducked her head to hide the tears, and also so Sasha wouldn’t hear her whisper in his ear, “Don’t you dare leave me.”
Her voice caught on the words, her heart twisted, and pain bit so deeply that she sucked in a breath. Sudden panic crushed in on her, and she tightened her grip on him, afraid that if she didn’t hold on to him, he would disappear. Don’t leave me. Her parents had dumped her in a strip club. The Witch had disappeared, leaving her locked out of her home. At the time, Myr hadn’t known that Iago had killed her; all she had known was that she was alone and didn’t have anywhere to go until she found the Nightkeepers. But while they had given her a family of sorts, the team was poised to break up after today, one way or another.
Don’t leave me. Everyone she had depended on over the years, right or wrong, had left her. Except for Rabbit. Because this time, she had left him before he could leave her . . . but that had been a stupid move, a coward’s move. She loved him. She always had. And she was going to lose him . . . unless he came back, so she could tell him that she was sorry, that she loved him, that she’d been afraid.
“It’s not working.” Sasha shook her head. “His magic and mine just aren’t compatible.”
“Keep trying,” Myr said. “There has to be something else you can do. Some spell or incantation, or . . . oh.” She stopped, suddenly very aware of the green-threaded shield she had been automatically maintaining around her and Rabbit, the mind-bender’s magic that linked them, and the fireball spell that shimmered at the surface of her soul, ready to attack at a moment’s notice.
It was her magic . . . but it was his, too.
“I know what to do. Stand back.” She took a breath, knowing this was the only way. And, more, knowing that she was okay with it—he could have every last spark of her magic, if that was what it took to bring him back.
Pulling her knife, she bloodied her palms, took his hands in hers, and whispered raggedly, “Pasaj och.” Then as the barrier connection formed—feeling suddenly unsteady—she said the transfer spell and opened herself up to it, to him.
I love you. She sent the words into him on a wave of green-tinged magic. Come back to me. Magic poured through her, and from her into him. Something inside her tore loose, just as it had the last time they used the spell. This time, though, nothing stayed inside her—all of her power drained. All of her magic left her. And she let it.
“No.” It was a moan, a soft sound of denial, but she didn’t pull back or block the magic from leaving her. This was her choice. Her sacrifice.
Sasha gasped. “Look!”
Myr’s eyelids felt heavy, but she cranked them open, then stared as a pair of butterflies flitted down toward her and Rabbit—one green, the other streaked red and orange. It couldn’t be the same two from Oc Ajal . . . but it sure looked like them.
As the last of the magic drained from her and the spell died away, they landed on Rabbit’s chest. The moment they made contact, he took a convulsive breath, opened his eyes, and locked on her. “Ah, baby.” His voice was low, and ragged with emotion. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. I’m not giving up on us this time. I’m going to fight. I’m going to do whatever it takes.”
Myr gave a low cry of joy and relief. He shoved himself up and reached for her, and she met him halfway. The move startled the butterflies, which flitted upward as they embraced.
His arms went around her, strong and sure; she almost couldn’t believe it—couldn’t believe that he was alive, that they were kissing.
“I’m sorry,” she said against his lips. “I didn’t mean what I said. I was scared and I lashed out. I love you. Oh, how I love you.”
He silenced her with his lips, with his kiss, and when they parted, he said, “I was coming back for you. I need you so damn much, and I’m not letting you go. Never again. Because I love you.”
A delicious rushing sensation suddenly flared inside her, and, as if that had turned the key in a lock, a connection bloomed open at the back of her mind. Suddenly, the magic raced through her once more. It had come back!
“Rabbit!”
His face lit with fierce joy. “I feel it!” It was the same as before, only not. Because this time, she was sharing his magic. And, more, this time she didn’t resent the connection that forged itself between them. She gloried in it, loved it.
Loved him, and was loved in return.
The butterflies circled them, drawing their attention up, and together, they watched the creatures flit away into a sky that was free of the enemy now, but buzzed with magic and anticipation.
Her wristband ticked below the ten-minute mark, but she gave herself these last few seconds of joy. Of love.
Then, when the butterflies had disappeared into the trees, he turned and held out a hand to her. “Come on. We have a sacred chamber to salvage, a barrier to seal, a shit ton of demons to defeat, and two undead armies to save.”
Incredibly, impossibly, she found a lopsided grin. “What are you planning for an encore?”
He smiled back with the devilish glint she had so missed in him, without even realizing she had missed it. “I was thinking of getting really wasted, making love to you, and then sleeping for twenty or so hours, possibly not in that order, and definitely including pancakes somewhere in there. But I’m open to suggestions.”
* * *
Finally feeling like he was exactly where he was supposed to be, doing what he was supposed to do, Rabbit led Myr to the temple, and then beyond it, to where a rocky outcropping speared out into thin air, hovering a hundred feet above the murky water of the Cenote Sagrada.
She balked. “Wait. Should you go alone? The crossover is supposed to be a lone warrior.”
“That’s the nice thing about being a rebel. I can pick and choose my rebellions. And this is one of them.” He tightened his grip on her hand. “Besides, we were together in the visions, like Jag and Asia.” And he could protect her. More, she could protect herself.
“Okay.” She nodded and stepped up beside him. “Let’s do this.”
His chrono said 00:05:32. Five minutes until the magic of the Great Conjunction would kick on, another ten after that until the barrier fell all the way.
It was time.
With the Nightkeepers behind them, shielding and protecting them, Rabbit and Myrinne faced the cenote. Heat flared in his veins as he called on his magic, and the world went gold. And Myr was right there with him, joined through their shared magic.
“Oh,” she breathed, tightening her fingers on his. “Yes.”
Almost instantly, the huge pool below them bubbled and churned, foaming up with dark leaves and muck, and brighter objects that glinted in the light—artifacts, maybe, or bones. Then the waters parted and fell back as a huge, ominous shape broke the surface. At first it looked like something strange and alien, a hidden spaceship. Then the water and weeds fell away to reveal a circular platform that was rising on some ancient mechanism, traveling up along the side of the cenote, drawn by their magic.
“It’s the floor of the sacred chamber,” Lucius confirmed. “I see the chac-mool altar!”
They had found the intersection where Jag and Asia had triggered the massacre. Rabbit only hoped to Christ—and the six true gods—that he and Myrinne didn’t do the same.
The chamber was huge and heavy, but it rose up like a pebble falling in reverse, until it was level with the stone outcropping. The moment it made contact, magic flared and it fused with the surrounding stone, which meant that he and Myr didn’t have to keep lifting. It also meant that the ancients knew this was going to happen somehow. Then again, so had his dreams. Because suddenly he was standing just as he had been in that last vision . . . with one very important difference.
In the vision, he’d been alone. Now, he had Myr by his side.
He glanced at her. “You ready for this?”
“I’d better be.”
A glance at Dez got the go-ahead nod. The Nightkeepers had a shield around the cenote and weapons primed. This was as good as it was going to get.
“Please gods,” Rabbit said, and meant it. And then, united in every way possible, he and Myr lifted their bloodied hands, and began Scarred-Jaguar’s spell. “Uxmal’aach tul—”
Wind whipped suddenly and a terrible ripping noise tore the air around them. The ground heaved, the nearby temple shuddered, and then the barrier tore at that spot, sending gray-green fog gushing out, pouring toward Rabbit and Myr. Figures appeared in the fog, racing toward the Nightkeepers.
“Fire!” Dez shouted, but Rabbit shouted in the same second, “Hold! It’s not the enemy!”
It was the nahwal. They were free!
Incredibly, impossibly, the ancestral beings were scrambling through the rift and beelining for their bloodline warriors.
The one that made for Rabbit was walnut-skinned, dark eyed, and wore the mark of the boar bloodline on its wrist.
Thoughts racing, Rabbit said, “Are you—” His chrono beeped, interrupting. It read: 00:00:00. The magic of the Great Conjunction was online.
Throom! A pillar of dark magic burst from the sacred well and speared up into the sky just as a huge bolt of lightning cracked down, bringing a matching pillar of sunlight and rainbows. The light and dark magic whoomed together in the middle, and the earth plane shuddered. Dark shapes poured up out of the Cenote Sagrada and bright, brilliant forms plummeted down from the hole in the sky, chilling Rabbit’s blood and making his instincts hiss enemy. But at the same time, mad joy sang in his veins. He had been bred for this, born for it.
“They’re coming,” Myr said, and clung into him for a moment before she pushed away. “It’s time.” She looked up at him, face etched with determination. “I love you. And when we get out of here, I’m buying the first round tonight.”
He kissed her hard and fast. “I love you back. And I’ve got the second round for the whole damn army.”
Suddenly, from behind him, a whole lot of voices all said at once, “Son of the boar bloodline. We are your army.”
“What the fuck?” He spun. And his jaw hit the deck at the sight of a hundred or so Xerox copies of the boar nahwal, standing rank and file, staring at him with their creepy black eyes. “Where the hell did you come from?”
Okay, dumb question. But he was in shock here. And when Myr grabbed his arm hard enough to cut off circulation, he knew he wasn’t the only one.
The nahwal said, in a hair-raising chorus, “You called us from the barrier, helped us cross over from un-death to the earth. While we are here, we have your powers, your magic. Command us.”
Cross over. Crossover. Rabbit froze in place, because oh, holy shit, this was it. This was the fighting force the Nightkeepers had needed all along, the numbers they lacked.
“Look!” Myr said, pointing at a cloud of winged shadows that were leaving the ground and flying up into the air. At first he thought it was the animal familiars of the winikin, but these were all the same size, huge and winged, and for all the world resembling—
“Holy fuck, it’s Blackhawk.” Or, rather, it was a hundred Nates, all in his hawk-shifter form, blazing up into the sky to challenge the kohan as they flew out of the rainbow.
Off to the other side
, silver bolts flared from the ground, launching up into the sky to slam into kohan and kax alike, as Michael and his nahwal soldiers attacked the enemy. Jade and her nahwal threw ice magic; Sasha’s battalion commanded plants that reared up, grabbed at the kax and dragged them back down; and suddenly there were teleporting nahwal everywhere, zapping in under Strike and Anna’s orders to throw vicious fireballs and then disappear before the enemy could launch a counterattack.
The fire and ice were failing, though. “Their shields are too strong!” Myr cried.
Rabbit grinned viciously. “Not for long, they aren’t.”
Forking his fingers, he called on the golden magic. And, using what he’d learned from the kohan back at Coatepec, he brought down the enemy shields.
Screeches and screams rang out over the battlefield as the kax and kohan found themselves suddenly vulnerable, followed by the Nightkeepers’ cheers as they regrouped and attacked.
Fierce joy exploded through Rabbit and he shouted to his nahwal. “Let’s fight these fuckers!” At the edge of the cenote a huge, smoky makol was climbing up and out. Behind it there were two more, four, a dozen. Rabbit pointed and bellowed, “Get them!”
His battalion shouted and charged.
The next few minutes were a blur of shields and fire as the boar army tore into the makol. Green flames burst amid the red as Rabbit and Myr fought shoulder to shoulder, back to back, however and wherever they could. The magic flowed between them, solidly intertwined, giving him an extra kick of power, an extra layer of fierce protectiveness at the sheer joy of her being his partner. His mate.
They were going to make it through this war, he promised himself. And they were going to make for themselves the kind of family neither of them had grown up with.
A makol attacked, then spun and screeched in triumph as a translucent, fiery red creature reared up and over him, swiping with its six-clawed paw and turning solid in the last second before it hit.
“Down!” he shouted, and he and Myr pancaked as the boluntiku’s slash whistled over their heads. Rabbit came up as the ’tiku reversed for the backswing, and blasted the back of its head with a golden fireball that clung like napalm, eating into the creature. It screeched and fell back into the cenote, leaving the area around the altar momentarily clear.
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