Nightkeepers

by Jessica Andersen

  Red-Boar’s eyes seared into him, gleaming with power, with hatred.

  Jox flailed, trying to shout at Red-Boar, to tell him to snap out of it, but all he could manage was a panicked gurgle. His vision went gray at the edges, telescoping down to the blackness of the Nightkeeper’s eyes.

  Then the other man blinked. And let go.

  Jox landed in a heap, gasping for breath.

  Red-Boar crouched down beside him, not to aid or comfort, but to hiss, ‘‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing, winikin?’’ In his rasping voice, the title was a slur. ‘‘You know better than to interrupt magic.’’

  ‘‘And you should’ve known better than to jack in the moment you felt the barrier come back online,’’ Jox got out between gasps. ‘‘You should’ve damn well checked on Strike first.’’

  ‘‘You forget your place, winikin. I—’’

  ‘‘He’s gone,’’ Jox interrupted, and had the satisfaction of seeing the other man go pale.

  ‘‘He jacked in without an escort?’’

  ‘‘He vanished in front of five witnesses.’’ Jox mimicked the woman downstairs: ‘‘Poof.’’

  Red-Boar’s breath hissed out as he made the connection. ‘‘Shit. Teleport.’’

  Strike’s father hadn’t had an innate talent beyond the warrior’s mark—only about one in three Nightkeepers did—but his father had been a teleport, as had a couple of other jaguars in the generation prior. So, yeah, that made sense. But it wasn’t good news by any stretch. Teleporting was a tricky talent—the user had to link to a person or place first, then initiate the ’port. Jumping blind was . . . well, it wasn’t good.

  ‘‘Can you track him?’’ Jox demanded, almost afraid of the answer.

  ‘‘I can damn well try,’’ Red-Boar said, yanking open the door and heading for the stairs.

  But his voice made it sound like ‘‘probably not.’’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Leah woke in pitch darkness, bound and gagged and draped over a man’s shoulder. There was no moment of confusion, no gap between unconsciousness and memory. She came around sick with rage over Nick’s death, and with fear at knowing she’d walked into Zipacna’s trap and given him exactly what he’d wanted.

  We’ll see about that, she thought, fanning the anger because she knew she couldn’t afford the fear. She had to be strong—for herself. For Matty and Nick. For her parents, who shouldn’t have had to bury one of their children, never mind both.

  Forcing herself to focus, she examined the situation, using her other senses when the darkness left her blind. Her captor’s footsteps crunched on gravel, maybe coarse sand, and there was a faint rasp, as though he was trailing his hand against the irregular wall she sensed right beside them. Other footsteps grated ahead and behind, suggesting a single-file line of five, maybe six people. Vibrations echoed from a wall and ceiling very close by, and that, along with the darkness, said they were in a tunnel of some sort. But water dripped into water on the other side—an underground river with a path beside it, maybe?

  The thought brought a jolt of fear, of memory, but she shoved it aside. No freaking way, she told herself. Impossible.

  She wasn’t in Miami anymore—she was sure of that much, though she couldn’t have said why. She was also pretty sure it was nighttime, meaning that she’d been out of it all day. Long enough to travel.

  Focus, she told herself. Be a cop. Wherever they were, it smelled old. Worse, the vibe reminded her of the grimmest crime scenes she’d ever worked, ones where the body counts had reached into the dozens and they’d had to use DNA to figure out which parts belonged in what pile. People had died down here—lots of them, though not recently.

  The shuffling line—creepy in its lack of chatter— turned a corner and the air changed, becoming drier as they moved away from the underground river. Then the faintest hint of a new smell prickled Leah’s sinuses, some sort of incense, and they turned another corner and firelight warmed the tunnel walls, barely detectable at first but growing stronger as they moved on.

  In the yellow-orange glow, she saw strangely fluid symbols and pictures carved into the walls—men and women with flattened foreheads and exaggerated noses, fierce animals with long fangs and claws.

  Her gut fisted and cold sweat prickled her skin. She wanted to tell herself it was a bunch of props, an elaborate set Zipacna had designed to put the fear of his gods into his disciples. Hell, rumor had it he’d built himself a fake temple in the swampside compound he and his fellow freaks called home. But the air was wrong, the sense of being far underground too strong.

  She was pretty sure this was the real deal. He’d kidnapped her and brought her to Mexico, to a goddamn Mayan ruin.

  Then the guy carrying her turned the final corner, and the firelight resolved itself to a series of burning torches set around the perimeter of a circular stone room.

  In the center stood a dark-haired man, heavily muscled, barefoot and bare chested, wearing loose black pants fastened at the ankles with intricate twists of red twine. His eyes were green, one darker than the other, and he had a flying crocodile inked across his right pec.

  Zipacna, she thought with a jolt of fear, of hatred.

  His origins were a mystery aside from the claim of royal blood. He’d appeared in Miami eighteen months earlier, bought up a chunk of swamp, and set out to create a social movement. None of her background checks had turned up much more than the obvious: Money wasn’t an issue, but sanity was, and he had some serious charisma going for him.

  She tasted bile and told herself it was fury, but knew it was terror, a terror that only increased when she looked around and saw crude stone braziers hung from the wall leaking curls of reddish smoke. In between them, human skulls were carved into the stone, their mouths open in silent screams.

  Zipacna pointed toward the altar. ‘‘Strap her in and scram,’’ he said, his voice sounding jarringly normal. ‘‘Stand guard up at the tunnel mouth. Nobody gets in or out until I say otherwise. Understand?’’

  A howl bubbled up in Leah’s throat as her captor carried her across the room, trailed by four other guys with cold, mocking expressions and winged croc tats slapped atop older ink.

  She tried to block out the sights and the fear, concentrating on what seemed like her only chance for escape: the moment they’d have to undo the zip ties to get her hands and feet into the shackles. Her heart drummed in her ears as the guy carried her across the room and dumped her unceremoniously on the altar. She hit hard, landing on her tailbone with bruising force and cracking her head against the stone. Pain lanced and she cried out behind the gag, squeezing her eyes shut as she saw stars, along with a light so bright it hurt.

  ‘‘Careful,’’ Zipacna snapped. ‘‘Her blood is even more valuable than her brother’s.’’

  There it was, Leah thought on a howl of rage. Confirmation. Practically a confession. And it wouldn’t do her a damn bit of good, because it was the solstice. Two more bodies were due, maybe more because he’d brought them south, to the home of his ancient gods.

  Clammy hands pawed at her, and a knife touched her belly as her shirt and bra were cut away. She squeezed her eyes shut, partly to preserve the illusion that she was stunned, and partly because, deep down inside, she didn’t want to watch.

  Then, finally, she felt hands on her ankles, felt a tug and release as the zip tie was cut away. Adrenaline revved her senses. Terror. Rage. Come on, you bastards, she urged silently. Do the wrists, too. Can’t you see I’m not going anywhere?

  Instead, they shoved her farther onto the altar and pulled her legs apart. The moment she felt the touch of a shackle, Leah erupted. Screaming behind the gag, she opened her eyes, twisted, and dove for the floor.

  Surprise gave her a momentary advantage and she actually managed to break free. She hit hard, scrambled to her feet, and slammed her bound hands into the nearest guy’s gut. When he stumbled back, she bolted for the door, heart hammering.

  ‘‘Damn it, get her!’’ Z
ipacna shouted, and footsteps closed in behind her, moving fast.

  Sobbing, Leah flung herself through the arched doorway as Zipacna yelled something in a language she didn’t recognize, and the stones trembled beneath her feet. Fighting to keep her balance, she skidded around a corner and slammed into someone coming the other way.

  For a split second, she thought she was saved. Then she saw the glint of filed-sharp teeth, and knew she was dead, after all.

  ‘‘Sorry, baby,’’ Itchy said. ‘‘Wrong way.’’ He punched her in the temple and caught her when she fell. Over the roaring in her ears, she heard him shout, ‘‘Chill. I’ve got her.’’

  Moments later, she was back in the chamber. Seconds after that, the shackles clicked into place around her ankles, then her wrists. They took the gag off, but she didn’t bother screaming, because she knew damn well there was nobody around to hear, nobody to care.

  Backup—and home—was far away.

  Tears stung her eyelids and spilled free, tracking down her cheeks, and she whimpered when Zipacna leaned over her. She expected him to gloat, to taunt her.

  Instead he touched her right wrist, where her sleeve was pulled down over a faded scar. ‘‘The gods marked you as their own long ago. Your brother’s blood began the process. Yours will complete it.’’ He lifted a black stone blade, turned it so it glinted in the torchlight. ‘‘I’m offering you power. Immortality. A place in what the world will become beyond the zero date.’’

  She was trapped in his mismatched eyes, frozen in their magnetic pull, unable to look away. A warm pressure kindled at the base of her skull, urging her to accept whatever it was he was offering. Yes, a voice seemed to whisper. Join us. Help us.

  He leaned closer, so her entire world became his lopsided pupils, the crackle of the torches, and the heavy smell of incense. ‘‘Just relax,’’ he said, voice dropping to a hypnotic whisper. ‘‘Don’t fight it.’’

  ‘‘Fight what?’’ she managed to ask, nearly beyond herself with the fear and the spinning pressure inside her head, the drumming urges that seemed to come from outside her, telling her to do things she didn’t want to do, like give in to him, join with him. He’s the enemy! she screamed inside her own skull. He killed Nick. He killed Matty. How could she know that, yet feel the power, the fascination?

  ‘‘You can be more than you are, more than you ever thought you’d be. But you have to accept the power. Will you take a master inside you?’’ Without waiting for her answer, he lifted the knife and plunged it into her arm.

  Leah shrieked when pain flared white-hot. She thrashed, trying to twist away as he stabbed her a second time, then a third, creating three parallel gashes on her right arm between her shoulder and elbow. Blood spilled from her wounds and onto the stone altar as she kept screaming, unable to stop even though she knew it wouldn’t do a damn bit of good.

  The blood ran down a carved track, pulled along by the slight tilt of the altar until it pooled in a shallow stone depression between her legs.

  Placing the bloody knife beside her head, he pulled a length of parchment from his loose black pants, and used the folded square to mop up the blood. The air thickened around them, going purple-black with incense and smoke. The humming whine grew louder, not just in her head now, but filling the chamber and sounding like a distant swarm of bees.

  ‘‘Stop,’’ she cried, sobbing now with the fear and the pain, and an increasing pressure that built inside her skull. ‘‘Stop it!’’

  He shouted strange words, and the sound echoed in the chamber until it seemed to be coming from the skeletal mouths that screamed from high up in the walls. Then he spun and flung the blood-soaked parchment into one of the torches. The moment the paper caught fire, a detonation rocked the room, blasting outward from the flames.

  The shock wave battered Leah and drove Zipacna back several paces as the purple smoke went black, and the air in the chamber snapped so cold that Leah’s breath fogged on her next shallow exhalation.

  Expression beatific, Zipacna stared into the smoke, which thickened and twined, reaching tendrils toward him as he threw back his head and shouted, ‘‘I invite the masters into the woman. Into me. Och Banol Kax!’’

  Leah arched her back, straining away from the altar, and screamed, ‘‘No!’’

  Without warning, the entire chamber shuddered and dropped downward like some sort of ancient elevator gone wrong, falling a few feet and then stopping with a jolt and a loud bang. Moments later, a rushing noise gathered, then grew louder. Then water blasted inward, geysering from the screaming skull mouths and crashing down to the chamber floor.

  Leah moaned, beyond herself from terror and the splitting pressure inside her brain. Zipacna leaned over her, running the flat of the knife softly across her belly before he lifted the blade and slashed it across his tongue. Blood welled up and spilled over as he shouted the same words as before. ‘‘Och Banol Kax!’’

  The torches flared higher around the edge of the chamber, above the rising water. A tentacle of black smoke reached for Leah, caressing her cheek, then dropping down to stroke her ribs and belly, blatantly sexual.

  Please let this all be a bad dream, she prayed, and felt a mocking chuckle rise up from deep inside her.

  Zipacna grinned a gory, horrible smile. Blood dripped from his mouth and spattered on her stomach. Around them, the water pooled and collected, climbing to his ankles, then his knees. He pressed the knife just beneath her breastbone and spoke a string of words in that strange language, only now it somehow translated itself inside her head in a mix of purple and bright gold. As the masters have commanded, I have opened the intersection. With blood I offer myself, offer the gods’ keeper, to become makol, to become a tool for your—

  Leah could barely hear him anymore over the howling scream that filled her head, where darkness and light spun together, fighting for dominance.

  She heard words in that strange language, though she didn’t know what they meant, knew only that they were there, and the warm golden light urged her to use them. Filling her lungs, she arched her head back and screamed as loud as she could, ‘‘Och jun tan!’’

  At the words, a tornado blasted through the room.

  One second Strike was hanging motionless, suspended in the barrier—a murky gray-green mist that had no beginning or end, no point of reference, no way out except a magic that he didn’t know how to manage. Then words echoed—a spell he didn’t recognize, spoken in a woman’s voice that sent shivers down the back of his neck.

  And the bottom dropped out of his world. A hole appeared in the fog and he plummeted through, straight back to earth. He knew it was earth the same way he knew it was hours later, nearly the solstice, because the magic of it, the power of it hummed in his bones. Then the world came clear around him, and he realized three things at once.

  One, he was in the sacred chamber beneath Chichén Itzá, where his parents and the others had died.

  Two, the blonde—the one he’d dreamed of—was there.

  And three, she was in deep shit.

  A guy appeared in midair at the edge of the circular chamber and hovered for a split second. He was a big man, wearing a tight black T-shirt over whipcord muscles, with ragged cutoffs below. His high cheekbones and piercing eyes were those of a warrior, and Leah knew them instantly from her dreams, just as she recognized his dark ponytail and jawline beard, and the ink on his inner forearm, two marks next to each other with a third above. In that instant of hovering, he looked at her, recognized her, and seemed more surprised to see her than he did to have materialized inside a Mayan temple.

  Then gravity took over and he fell with a shout, slamming into Zipacna. The men went down together in the deepening water, which churned with their struggles. Leah screamed as they shot to their feet, streaming water and grappling for the knife.

  She strained toward the newcomer, screaming, ‘‘Help me!’’

  Zipacna twisted away and slashed a wide arc with the stone knife, forcing his opponent
to dodge. The stranger moved like a fighter, but had no weapons. Zipacna slashed again, then spun and crossed to the altar.

  Blood poured from his mouth, painting his front a gory red, and purple-black smoke twined around him like an unholy halo. Water licked over the top of the altar as he lifted the knife and said, ‘‘The heart of the gods’ keeper gives me life beyond the barrier, the power to become power itself.’’

  The stranger lunged across the chamber, shouting, ‘‘Torotobik!’’

  The cuffs at Leah’s wrists and ankles exploded, the shrapnel driving Zipacna back a pace without touching her skin.

  She wasted half a second gaping before she flung herself off the altar, straight at Zipacna. She lacked leverage, but had the advantage of surprise as she got a fistful of his hair in one hand and drove her opposite elbow into his gut. The knife went flying and the stranger dove for it.

  Zipacna bellowed and went down, nearly submerging them both in the cold water, which had started glowing a strange greenish white.

  A rising howl echoed in the chamber, nearly drowning out the stranger’s voice when he shouted, ‘‘Get away from her, you bastard!’’

  Zipacna thrashed and twisted, reversing their positions so she was the one neck-deep in the water. His eyes took on a strange greenish glow as he wrapped his fingers around her throat and squeezed.

  His voice was gravelly and barely human when he said, ‘‘You’re too late, Nightkeeper. I am ajaw-makol, and she belongs to me.’’ He bore down, choking her. Leah’s vision went dim, then dark, and a rushing noise filled her head.

  Over it all, she heard the stranger say, ‘‘Wrong. She’s mine.’’ He hurled himself forward and plunged the stone knife into Zipacna’s back.

  Zipacna jerked and arched, screaming in pain. He staggered away from her, convulsing as he grabbed for a deep stab wound beneath his shoulder blade. Slamming against the wall near the doorway, he listed to one side, drawing a red smear on the wall.

  But incredibly, horribly, he grinned, his mismatched eyes glowing pure emerald green. ‘‘Too late, Nightkeeper. ’’