Nightkeepers

by Jessica Andersen

  And the Nightkeepers—what was left of them, anyway— would stand and fight.

  Exhaustion drummed through him. Or maybe that was depression. Grief. It was impossible not to think about the massacre, about what it’d meant. If the barrier was fully back online and the Banol Kax had sent their ajaw-makol to prepare the stage for a dark lord’s arrival, then everything was happening right on schedule despite the ultimate sacrifice represented by the massacre. Which meant his father’s dreams had been lies. Or maybe he’d failed to follow the visions to their conclusion? Nobody knew at this point, which was a real bugger, because it didn’t give Strike a damn bit of insight into how to deal with his own dreams. Or Leah’s.

  ‘‘We’ve known each other only a few hours, Blondie, and we’re already up against it,’’ he said to the sleeping woman. He ached over the necessity of wiping her memories and sending her back where she belonged, but the alternative was impossible.

  Nightkeepers were born, not recruited.

  Footsteps sounded in the hallway outside the apartment, jolting Strike from his reverie. He rose to his feet, autopistol at the ready, and relaxed only marginally when he heard the tapping rhythm on the door that signaled friend.

  Moments later, a key turned in the lock and the door opened, and he saw the relief in Jox’s face, the condemnation in Red-Boar’s.

  The sight of the two men loosened something inside Strike, making him feel a little less alone in the world. The second the door shut at their backs, the exhaustion he’d been fighting back all night rose up to claim him. ‘‘Don’t hurt her,’’ he said. ‘‘That’s an order.’’

  And he pitched to the floor, out cold.

  The party at the garden center was in full swing by two a.m. Music pumped from the surround-sound speakers in the apartment, and someone had rigged the intercom to blast the tunes out in the warehouse. It was so loud, nobody cared that it sounded like shit.

  The apartment above the store was jammed, and there were probably fifty or so kids packed into the warehouse. They were dancing in the main aisle and climbing on the stacked pallets of seeds and fertilizer, jumping from one leaning tower to the next and making bets on who’d fall first. A stack of 5-10-10 had already bitten the dust, and it looked like the leaning tower of diatomaceous earth was next. The dancers ground the fertilizer granules to dust beneath their feet, making the air sparkle faintly in the red-tinged emergency lights.

  Rabbit stood above it all, watching from behind the wide picture window that opened from Jox’s office onto the warehouse. He’d declared the room off-limits by slapping a crisscross of yellow-and-black caution tape over the door and locking it behind him, and so far the barricade had held.

  The office lights were off, leaving him watching in the darkness as somebody started lobbing five-pounders of birdseed from the top racks of the thirty-foot-high warehouse. The bags exploded when they hit, sending up millet and sunflower shrapnel and making the dancers scream with laughter.

  Rabbit knew he should be out there. This was his frigging party, and he was going to catch hell for it when the others got back. But he didn’t move, just sat and watched instead, wishing he’d had the guts to go toe-to-toe with the old man when it’d counted. But he hadn’t, so here he was, stuck in the middle of nowhere, doing nothing important. As usual.

  ‘‘Rabbit?’’ There was a knock on the door. ‘‘You in there?’’

  The voice was female, which pretty much guaranteed he was going to answer. He cracked the door and saw Tracy Lindh, a dark-haired junior cheerleader he knew in passing, who scored about a seven of ten on the do-ability scale, mostly because her breasts balanced out her chunky legs. ‘‘Yeah?’’

  ‘‘I, uh, don’t want to interrupt or anything.’’

  ‘‘I’m alone. Just taking a time-out. You want in?’’ He let the door swing wide enough that she could get through, but kept it tight so she’d have to slide up past him.

  But she stayed put. ‘‘No, I, uh . . . You know that room in the apartment? The one with the padlock? Well, Ben Stanley and a couple of his buddies—’’

  Rabbit was out the door before she finished.

  He should’ve been cursing whatever asshole’d invited the terrible trio, when pretty much everyone who was anyone knew they’d made Rabbit’s life a living hell since junior high. It’d gotten so bad he’d actually studied so he could graduate early and get away from them.

  But all he could think as he bolted up the hallway and skidded through the front door of the apartment, heart pounding in his ears, was, Oh, shit. Oh, no. No, shit, please, no—

  He broke off when he saw that the door to the ritual room was splintered wide-open, with the padlock still attached to its hasp. Raucous male laughter sounded from within.

  Lunging for the door, hoping like hell he wasn’t too late, he shouted, ‘‘Hey, get out of—’’

  He stopped dead, heart slamming in his chest at the sight of three guys standing over the chac-mool altar, drinking beer from the ritual bowls.

  Ben Stanley—a big, arrogant blond jerk who was a second-stringer on the football team and acted like he was captain—stood in the middle. Rabbit didn’t recognize the guys on either side of him, because they were wearing the Nightkeepers’ sacred robes, one red, one black, with the hoods pulled forward to shadow their faces. The hems and sleeve points dragged on the floor, which was littered with broken nachos and what looked like a big spooge of string cheese.

  ‘‘Get. Out.’’ Rabbit tried to keep his voice even, but it shook with rage.

  They shouldn’t be in the ritual chamber. Hell, he shouldn’t even be in there. Not if the barrier had reactivated.

  He’d never doubted the magic, even when it failed to work year after year. Somehow he’d always known it’d work someday; he just hadn’t counted on being left behind. And in response, he was just now realizing, he’d made a big fucking mistake.

  Probably the biggest of his life.

  ‘‘Hey, Bunny-boy,’’ the black-robed guy said. ‘‘What the fuck is this? You part of a cult? You and your fucked-up father worship the devil or something?’’

  Rabbit ID’d the voice as belonging to one of Ben’s two usual partners in crime: brown-haired, pockmarked Zits Vicker. That meant Jason Tremblay, skinhead extraordinaire, was wearing the royal red.

  ‘‘Come on, guys,’’ Tracy said, surprising Rabbit because she’d followed him into the apartment. ‘‘Lay off. You’ve gotta admit this is a pretty cool place. You want to be invited back, right?’’

  Rabbit turned to her. ‘‘Go downstairs, okay? I’ve got this.’’

  He didn’t want her to see him get his shit knocked loose.

  ‘‘Aw, let her stay,’’ Zits whined. ‘‘We’re just gonna have a little fun.’’ He shook the black robe, making the stingray spines dance. ‘‘Is this your dress, Bunny? Or does your daddy like you in the red one better?’’

  ‘‘Go,’’ Rabbit whispered, his heart bumping unevenly in his chest. ‘‘Please.’’

  Tracy finally left, and Ben shut the door after her, giving it a shove so it wedged against the busted part and stuck fast. Then he crossed to the altar and dropped the bowl he’d been drinking from, giving it a spin so beer sloshed over the edges.

  Rabbit was tempted to tell them that the last thing to hit those bowls had been human blood. He was going to take a pounding anyway. Why not deserve it?

  But where before he’d more or less taken what they’d dished out—because resistance was futile and just earned him more of a beating—now he found himself squaring off opposite Ben as Zits and Jason moved up on either side of their leader.

  Outside the sacred chamber, somebody swapped out the music, and a heavy throb of drumbeats sounded, seeming to echo up through the floor.

  ‘‘Wanna tell us what goes on in here?’’ Zits asked. He slurped from his bowl, beer sloshing down the front of the sacred black robe.

  Rabbit wanted to kill him. Really and truly kill him— a quick slash across the
throat would do it, or even better, he could cut the bastard’s heart out of his chest and watch as Zits’s blood pressure crashed, his brain cut out, and he dropped dead. Better still, he could burn him, robes and all, and listen to him scream.

  For a second the image of it was so vivid in his mind, so perfect, Rabbit thought he’d already crisped the son of a bitch. Then the fantasy winked out and he was stuck back in the reality of high school torment, three months after he’d escaped the halls of hell.

  This time, though, he wasn’t the skinny kid who’d moved to town halfway through junior high and got caught doodling a black-robed wizard in his algebra notebook. This time he was . . .

  Nothing. He was nothing. A half-blood who couldn’t even jack in.

  ‘‘He’s not gonna tell us,’’ Ben said. ‘‘Guess we’ll have to make him.’’ He slapped the ceremonial bowl off the altar, sending it across the room. The thin jade shattered when it hit the wall, and the air hummed off-key.

  ‘‘Hey! Knock it off.’’ Heart hammering in his chest, feeling faintly sick, Rabbit crouched down and picked up the largest piece of jade, which had broken off in an elongated triangle with knife-sharp edges.

  Ben stuck his chin out. ‘‘Make me.’’

  The humming got louder, reverberating in Rabbit’s ears. ‘‘Just go,’’ he whispered, gripping the shard of jade and feeling it cut into his palm. ‘‘Please, just go.’’

  Heat surrounded him. Built inside him.

  There must’ve been something in his eyes or voice, or maybe the heat and the humming weren’t just his imagination, because Jason started edging toward the door. He pulled off the red robe and dropped it on the floor. ‘‘Come on, guys. We don’t want to get in trouble with the ’rents. This shit looks expensive.’’

  ‘‘There aren’t any ’rents,’’ Ben scoffed. ‘‘Just his stoner dad. You ever see him wandering around here in his brown bathrobe? What a loser.’’ His eyes flicked to Rabbit’s hand. ‘‘What’re you gonna do, stab me with that?’’ He spread his hands and stuck out the beginnings of a gut. ‘‘Have at it, Bunny. You don’t have the stones.’’

  Red washed Rabbit’s vision, narrowing it to a pinprick focused on Ben’s face. All the jeers and indignities, every kick and punch, came back to him in a flare of humiliation.

  ‘‘Go,’’ he said again, his voice shaking with fear, not of them, but of what was happening inside him. Say it, a voice whispered. Say the word.

  ‘‘His hand’s bleeding,’’ Zits said suddenly. ‘‘And I think he’s gonna puke. Come on; let’s blow before he does.’’ He yanked the door and took off with Jason on his heels, tripping on the too-long robe and crushing the stingray spines into a twisted mess. But Rabbit was only peripherally aware of those small details.

  His whole focus was on Ben. His enemy.

  The humming in his head turned into a scream. The heat flared higher and higher still. Finally, Ben realized he was in trouble. His eyes got big and he started edging away, but it was too late for him to escape, too late to stop the thing that built within Rabbit, taking him over, thrilling him. Terrifying him.

  Pressure grew inside Rabbit’s skull and his fingertips burned, pain erupting as if the skin were peeling away. He tipped back his head and screamed, not sure whether he was trying to make it stop or urge it to keep going.

  Ben made a run for it, bolting for the door. He skidded on the nacho crumbs and string cheese and went down on his hands and knees, but kept going, crawling out of the room as Rabbit screamed.

  Finally, a word emerged, one he didn’t even know he knew—not even a word, really, more a long syllable. A cry for mercy. For vengeance. ‘‘Kaak!’’

  Power blasted from him like an orgasm. Flames rose up around him like lovers, touching him, stroking him, urging him on, and he said the word again, calling the fire to him and sending it higher and higher still.

  Dimly, far away, he heard screams and running feet. He felt the terror and pain of the others, and drank it in.

  ‘‘Kaak!’’ he said a third time, and clapped his bleeding palms together.

  Force and flame exploded outward, away from him, flattening everything in its path and leaving him untouched. Leaving him in control.

  Rabbit had a moment of pure, perfect joy as the apartment burned around him. Then he passed the hell out.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  When Leah awoke, she smelled Betadine and alcohol wipes, and heard the hum of ventilation and the turned-low chatter of daytime TV. Oh, crap. She was in a hospital. And she was lying on something soft, which meant she wasn’t doing the neck-crick nap-in-a-chair routine while waiting for a patient to wake up for questioning.

  She was the patient. Damn it, she hated being the patient. Worse, beside the first quick surge of irritation was another emotion, a hollow, aching sense of loss that made her want to curl into a ball and weep.

  She racked her brain, trying to find the source, but found only the sadness.

  ‘‘What happened?’’ She pushed the words through a parched-dry throat, and they came out slurred, like she had a serious hit of happy pills in her system, blocking some monster pain. Remembering the feeling from the year before, when she’d taken a bullet in the leg during a bust gone wrong, she said, ‘‘Did I get shot again?’’

  She heard motion nearby, and had the sense of a man leaning over her. She wasn’t sure why her eyes hadn’t come back online yet, but thanks to the drugs she wasn’t too worried about it. Besides, his presence was warm and reassuring, though he didn’t touch her.

  ‘‘What is the last thing you remember?’’ His voice sent a skitter of warmth through her, a little zip of electricity that had her heart bumping in her chest.

  ‘‘I don’t know.’’ Memory was a thick cloud of gray-green mist. ‘‘Not much.’’ Had she hit her head? Did she have amnesia? The idea brought a jolt of fear. ‘‘Why can’t I see?’’

  ‘‘Give it a minute.’’ He paused. ‘‘Can you tell me your name, and your parents’ names?’’

  ‘‘I’m Leah Ann Daniels,’’ she said, relieved when the information came quickly. ‘‘My parents are Timothy and Ann Daniels, and they live in Boca. I’ve got a place outside town, and I drive a ’sixty-seven Mustang named Peggy Sue. My brother—’’

  She broke off, sucking in a breath as a big chunk of it clicked into place. Matty was dead, she remembered with a slice of grief so fresh it was like it’d just happened. Ever since then, she’d been trying to nail Zipacna and his 2012ers for the Calendar Killings.

  ‘‘We were meeting a snitch,’’ she said, remembering Nick’s unhesitating support and wondering why that brought another wash of grief. ‘‘Itchy. He showed up and . . .’’ She frowned, bumping up against that grayness again. ‘‘I don’t remember anything after that.’’

  She let the silence continue for a minute, sure the doctor—because that was what he had to be, right?— would either fill in the gaps or ask her another question. But he did neither.

  ‘‘Hello?’’ she tried, wondering if the silence meant she was missing more than a few hours. ‘‘What day is it, anyway?’’

  ‘‘Tuesday,’’ a female voice answered. ‘‘Welcome back, Detective.’’

  Leah frowned. ‘‘Where’s the doctor?’’

  ‘‘I’m Dr. Black.’’

  ‘‘What about the guy who was just in here?’’

  The newcomer ignored the question, instead taking Leah’s pulse, then running her through the exact same ‘‘who are you and who are your parents’’ questions she’d just answered for the other guy.

  Leah’s banged-up brain spun. Who the hell had she just been talking to? The easy answer was that he’d been one of Zipacna’s boys, sent to see what she remembered. Which meant there’d been something for her to remember, damn it. Problem was, she couldn’t convince herself the voice had belonged to a 2012er. First off, they didn’t tend to blend. Someone would’ve noticed. Second off, though she told herself she damn well knew better than to judge
on looks—or sound—it didn’t feel right. The owner of that voice wasn’t a member of Zipacna’s cult; he was . . .

  Nothing, she realized, coming up against that gray wall again. He was nothing to her. Probably just a dream, or a fragment of TV dialogue that she’d turned into something more.

  Yet the image of piercing blue eyes stayed with her, even though she hadn’t seen his face.

  When the doctor finished her exam, she said, ‘‘You’re looking good, considering.’’

  ‘‘Considering what?’’ Concentrating, Leah managed to open her eyes, wincing at the glare and the rasp of her eyelids. Her eyeballs felt like they’d been scorched, like all the tears had been burned away, and once the light leveled off, the dull pain at the back of her head increased to a steadily drumming headache. Her tongue was sore, too, and her body ached all over, though in a not entirely unpleasant way, like she’d had really good sex or something.

  Yeah, right.

  The doctor turned out to be a forty-something motherly type wearing round-rimmed glasses and happy-face scrubs that made Leah wonder if she’d gotten turfed to pediatrics. The room looked vaguely familiar, as did the view of Biscayne Bay. ‘‘I’m in Mercy?’’

  The doctor nodded as she scribbled something in Leah’s chart. ‘‘Yep. Miami’s finest.’’

  ‘‘How long am I going to be here?’’

  ‘‘Not long. I’ll run a few tests, make sure everything still checks out okay. You were unconscious for quite a while, but sometimes the body knows best. You may have needed to shut it off for a while. Considering what you went through, you’re in very good shape.’’

  That was the second time the doctor had given her the ‘‘considering’’ line, but since she’d avoided the question the first time Leah didn’t bother trying again. ‘‘My head hurts. And if I’m doing so well, what’s with the drugs?’’