Alexis had expected questions, or sympathy, or something after her dire pronouncement. Instead, Izzy had a seriously weird look on her face.
‘‘Iz?’’ Alexis asked after a moment. ‘‘Are you okay?’’ Her problems with Aaron took a quick backseat to a spurt of worry. She’d lost both her parents before her second birthday. If she lost Izzy, too . . . Panic backed up quickly, closing her throat and making her force the words. ‘‘What’s wrong? Are you sick?’’
Izzy shook her head but remained silent as the bartender delivered their drinks. When he was gone, she said quietly, ‘‘You know all those stories I told you growing up?’’
‘‘Of course,’’ Alexis said, puzzled. Granted, the first words out of Izzy’s mouth weren’t I went to the doctor, or I have cancer, but she wasn’t sure she was relieved yet. Her godmother’s expression was too strange. ‘‘What about the stories?’’ she asked, then as a thought occurred: ‘‘Are you finally thinking of getting them published? ’’
Izzy had all these great stories about gods and ancient magical warriors. More detailed than Tolkien, more mythos-based than Star Wars . . . Alexis had always thought the book would sell in a heartbeat. God, she could practically see the cover, with a handsome, dark-haired warrior who wore a hawk’s insignia at his throat, and—
She jolted, then coughed and grabbed for her drink to cover the depth of her response to the image. Where the hell had that come from? More important, where can I meet him?
‘‘Not exactly.’’ Izzy reached over and took her god-daughter’s right hand, turning it palm up to show the lighter underside of Alexis’s forearm, where she’d neglected her tanning. ‘‘What if I told you that all of those stories were true?’’
Cara Liu frowned at her father, Carlos. ‘‘I’d say, ‘Bullshit, ’ but you raised me better than that.’’ She pulled off her Stetson and messed with her long, dark hair, feeling the different texture of the white section in front, the one her friends called a skunk stripe. Beneath her, Coyote, the blue roan gelding she’d raised from a foal, shifted his weight and flicked an ear back as though sensing her distress but realizing she wasn’t in any immediate danger under the wide-open Montana sky.
The horses stood on a low ridge that sloped down to the farthest fence line of the Findlay Ranch, which Carlos had managed for more than two decades. It was Cara’s home. Her sanctuary. She’d come back for the summer intending to take stock of her life. Instead, it looked like she needed to deal with the distinct possibility that her father was losing his mind.
She glanced at him, searching for a sign that this was some sort of elaborate setup, maybe for a welcome-home party. Hell, she’d even settle for one of his famous ‘‘I feel like you’re going in the wrong direction’’ talks.
At sixty-three, Carlos sat straight in his saddle, his spine stiff as always, as if he were forever trying to combat his five-foot-nine-inch stature. His dark hair was short and gray-shot, his skin deeply tanned with the color neither of them lost completely even during the long winter months. Now, as she’d seen him do so many times before, he stared off toward the horizon, where blue-gray mountains rose up to touch the low-hanging clouds, and the look in his eye made her think he was seeing something else entirely.
‘‘This is a joke, right?’’ she said. ‘‘I’m being Punk’d. Where are the cameras?’’
Carlos shook his head. ‘‘No cameras, baby, and no joke. Twenty-four years ago King Scarred-Jaguar and the Nightkeepers sacrificed themselves in order to close the intersection, but in the last minutes before the spell took hold, terrible creatures came through and killed all but a few of their children.’’ The faraway look in his eyes darkened. ‘‘I was there. I saved and raised the child entrusted to me. Now the king’s son has called the survivors home.’’
‘‘This is home,’’ Cara protested automatically.
‘‘Give me your hand.’’
‘‘Seriously, where are the cameras? Who put you up to this? It was Dino and Treece, wasn’t it? They haven’t forgiven me yet for that thing with the goat.’’
‘‘Your hand, Cara Liu.’’ He was deadly serious.
A tremor started deep down inside Cara’s stomach and spread outward. She’d known her father had been depressed since her mother’s death eighteen months earlier, but she hadn’t realized it’d gotten this bad. She should’ve come home more, should’ve called more.
What the hell was going on? And what was she supposed to do with a grown man who’d confused fiction with reality but otherwise seemed like his old self?
Using her knees, she cued Coyote to move up alongside her father’s sorrel, so the two horses were nose-to-tail and she faced her father squarely. She saw sadness in his eyes, and regrets. She didn’t see craziness, but what exactly did crazy look like?
Wishing she’d taken Abnormal Psych last semester instead of Ancient Mythology—most of which she’d already known anyway—she held out her right hand, expecting him to grab it, maybe give her something he thought proved what he was saying.
Instead, he drew the jade-handled knife he’d worn at his waist for as long as she could remember, and sliced the blade sharply across his palm. Blood welled up as Cara gasped. Before she could recover, he grabbed her hand and cut her as well.
‘‘Daddy!’’ She tried to jerk away but he held her fast, gripping her wrist tightly as she struggled. ‘‘Stop it. Let go!’’
Coyote shied sideways, but her father hung on to her wrist, dragging her from the saddle as the blue roan bolted off. She fell in slow motion, her father lowering her to the ground and following her down, still holding her wrist. Once they were both kneeling, he shifted his grip and clasped her bloody hand with his.
She thought he whispered, ‘‘I’m sorry.’’ But she couldn’t be sure, because there was a sudden roaring noise in her head, and the grass seemed to surge beneath her as he spoke in a language she’d never heard before, but that seemed to call to something deep inside her when he said, ‘‘Aj-winikin.’’
No cameras, she thought, gasping for breath as an invisible pressure grabbed onto her, holding her in place. It’s for real. Oh, God. Oh, shit. Oh, shit.
Terror flared alongside pain.
Carlos lifted his face to the sky and raised their joined hands so their mingled blood ran down the insides of their forearms, where he wore a couple of old tattoos. ‘‘Gods!’’ he shouted now in English, maybe for her benefit, maybe for his own. ‘‘Accept this child as your servant!’’
Wind erupted from nowhere, lashing the hot summer air against them, around them, forming a swirling vortex with them at its center. Cara’s straw Stetson blew off and her hair whipped free, plastering itself to her face and getting in her mouth when she screamed, ‘‘Daddy!’’
Then, as if that scream were a sign, the wind funnel abruptly reversed itself, sucking upward into the cloudless sky. And disappearing.
In the utter silence that followed, which was undisturbed by even the rustle of branches or the cry of a hawk, Cara scrambled up, eyes bugging. ‘‘You’re losing it. Or I am. Maybe both of us. Mass hallucination.’’
‘‘Hallucination?’’ He took her hand and turned it palm up, then held it beside his. The cuts were gone, leaving only long, thin scars.
Cara gaped. ‘‘That’s impossible.’’
‘‘It’s magic,’’ he said simply. ‘‘Push up your sleeve.’’
Numbly, dumbly, she did as she was told, unfastening the single button that held the bloodstained cuff of her denim work shirt in place and rolling it up, part of her knowing what she was going to see before she saw it.
Her forearm, which had been bare that morning, was now marked with the perfect outline of a canine head, a tattoo where there hadn’t been one before. Its nose was rounded, its tongue and teeth pointed, its mouth slashed in a snarl. Below it was the image of a hand touching a face. Her father made a sound of utter satisfaction and held his own forearm next to hers. There, he had the same two marks, along with a newer m
ark she didn’t remember having seen before, shaped like a bird of some sort. Maybe a hawk.
His voice was gruff with emotion when he said, ‘‘Welcome to the family, Cara.’’
She struggled to breathe normally, struggled to do anything normally as her heart pounded in her chest and low-grade nausea twisted in her gut. She looked around and saw that the ridge and fence line looked as they always had; the sky was blue and the sorrel grazed peacefully nearby. Coyote was long gone, but he’d always been spooky like that. Luckily, he also had a good homing instinct. No doubt they’d find him in his pen, chowing down on his evening ration of pellets.
That thought, that normal, everyday thought, lodged a ball of emotion in her throat, part panic, part . . . excitement. She glanced at her father and saw pride in his eyes, as though she’d just done something wonderful, just become something wonderful. Which she had, she realized. If her father was telling the truth, she’d woken up half a semester away from a journalism degree she wasn’t sure she wanted anymore, and in the space of the past five minutes she’d become Wonder Woman. A magic user. Holy crap.
Her lips curved and she touched the marks on her arm, feeling a faint buzz jangle through her system at the contact. ‘‘Does this mean I can do all those things you used to tell me about? It’s all real? I’m a . . . a Nightkeeper?’’
‘‘Um. Not exactly.’’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘‘What do you mean, ‘not exactly’?’’
Quick hurt flashed across his face and was just as quickly masked. ‘‘You’re my true daughter. My heart. My blood.’’ Then he waited, as he’d done ever since she was a little girl when he wanted her to figure out something for herself rather than telling her the answer straightaway.
When it clicked, Cara shot to her feet, elation morphing to betrayal, anger, shame—a sickening mix of emotions that cranked her volume as she shouted, ‘‘You’re fucking kidding me! I’m a winikin?’’
He didn’t chide her for her language, which just proved she was right.
She wasn’t Wonder Woman. She was a sidekick. Even worse, she was a sidekick to—
‘‘Oh, no.’’ She backpedaled, nearly falling when she stumbled on a rock. ‘‘Oh, hell, no. You’re shitting me. Sven?’’
But if—even for an instant—she bought into the delusion that the winikin were real, then her adopted older brother fit the description of a Nightkeeper all too well. Where she and her father were small and olive-skinned, with dark hair and eyes, Sven was their exact opposite in every way. He was over six-three and as wide as two of her father standing side by side. His skin was fair, his dark blond hair prone to bleaching in the sun, and where she had always been happy with the small pleasures of ranch life, he’d lusted for bigger and better, for the next challenge, the next conquest.
Sven lived life right out loud and loved being the center of attention. He was the true golden boy. At least, he had been. She hadn’t seen him in close to five years, and that wasn’t nearly long enough for her.
Her father nodded. ‘‘Yes. Sven is a Nightkeeper.’’
‘‘How fitting,’’ Cara said, looking at the mark on her wrist. ‘‘He’s a dog.’’
‘‘The Coyote bloodline is old and respected, as are its winikin,’’ he said, voice chiding.
‘‘Don’t call yourself a servant, and don’t call me one, either,’’ Cara snapped. ‘‘I’m nobody’s slave.’’
‘‘A winikin is no slave,’’ her father said with quiet dignity. ‘‘We protect the magic users, and help them stay the moral path.’’
‘‘News flash. You didn’t do so hot on the morality thing.’’ No wonder he’d never wanted to face the truth about Sven. That would’ve meant accepting that the child—the Nightkeeper child—he’d raised wasn’t perfect. Far from it, in fact. Sven had been a spoiled, mean-tempered brat who’d grown into a moody teen, and from there to a young man who’d been far too attractive for his own good, and did his own thing regardless of how it affected others.
‘‘Cara—’’
‘‘I don’t want this,’’ she said, scrubbing at the mark on her arm. ‘‘Take it back.’’
‘‘I can’t . . . I need you. The Nightkeepers need you. The king has recalled the survivors, but one among them has lost his winikin. They’ve asked me to teach him, which means I need you to take my place watching over Sven.’’
She glared at him, furious that he’d done something like this without asking her. ‘‘Fine. I’ll slap some makeup on it, or get a coverup tattoo. Maybe scrub it with some bleach first.’’
‘‘That won’t change anything.’’ He didn’t even have the grace to look ashamed. He seemed calm now, calmer than he’d been since the funeral, or maybe even before that. It was like he knew where he was going for the first time in a long, long while.
The realization terrified her.
This shit was for real.
‘‘Daddy,’’ she whispered, her heart breaking a little when she realized that nothing would be the same ever again. ‘‘I don’t want this. I can’t . . . work for him, whatever you want to call it. I can’t be around him.’’
He looked sad. ‘‘You don’t have a choice.’’
She didn’t argue with that, because there was a hum in the back of her brain that hadn’t been there before, an impulse that made her want to walk, to pace, to jump on the sorrel and ride hard, covering ground, headed southeast to the Carolina coast, where—the last they’d heard, anyway—Sven was wreck diving for conquistador gold.
‘‘I won’t go to him,’’ she whispered. ‘‘You can’t make me.’’
Her father stood and strode toward his horse, and for a half second she thought he was going to ride away and leave her there. Instead, he leaned down and retrieved her hat from where it had snagged on a thick stand of heavy grass. He dusted off the straw brim and crossed to her, holding out the Stetson like a peace offering. ‘‘Please. He needs you. We all need you. There are so few of us and so little time.’’ He paused. ‘‘Remember the stories I told you about the end-time?’’
She stiffened, thinking back to the darkest of his dark stories. ‘‘The apocalypse?’’
He nodded, glancing once again up into the sky. ‘‘It’s coming, baby. You and me and the others . . . we’ve got a little over four years to save the world.’’
Patience White-Eagle lowered the phone and pressed her palms to the kitchen countertop.
Gods, why now? After all those years she’d wished the magic worked, wished she really were the person Hannah claimed, why did everything have to change now?
She lifted the phone again. ‘‘Are you sure?’’
‘‘I wouldn’t have made this call otherwise,’’ her godmother replied simply, and with quiet dignity. Hannah was more mother to Patience than godmother, having raised her from infancy. She’d insisted on the distinction of being called ‘‘godmother,’’ though, just as she’d insisted on so many things relating to Patience’s biological parents. Some days it had seemed stifling and unnecessary. Other times, like when the winikin had started teaching Patience about the responsibilities of her bloodline, the rules had made sense.
Now, though, nothing made sense. Or, rather, it did, but Patience didn’t like the sense it made. Not one bit, which left her standing in her utterly normal-looking kitchen outside Philadelphia, talking on a disposable cell phone about things that were far from normal.
She’d believed Hannah’s stories . . . or at least she’d thought she did. Now, though, she wondered whether on some level she’d seen them as a lovely fantasy, fairy tales that made her feel special without really changing anything. Because if she’d believed in the Nightkeepers and their purpose, really believed it deep down inside, she wouldn’t have made some of the choices she’d made, would she?
Maybe, she acknowledged. Maybe not.
She glanced at the gleaming toaster she’d bought just the week before, catching her reflection in the chrome and wondering how she could still look like a normal,
if overly tall, blonde-and-blue twenty-four year-old, when she was, apparently, also something more.
‘‘Where and when?’’ she asked finally, because there had never been a question of whether she’d come when her king called—she had a king; how messed up was that?—it was purely a question of how to juggle the other responsibilities Hannah knew nothing about.
‘‘I’m flying out tonight. If you like, we can meet at the airport and drive over together.’’ Hannah always made everything seem so matter-of-fact, regardless of whether she was talking about a quick swing through Jiffy Lube, or the end of the world.
Patience mentally ran through her options, which were pretty limited. ‘‘I’ll have to check into flights and stuff, and get someone to cover my classes for the foreseeable future.’’ Fortunately, as the owner of White-Eagle Martial Arts, she didn’t have to ask for the time off. She could just make it happen. Other things, however, weren’t so easy. ‘‘How about you e-mail me the directions and I’ll meet you there?’’
‘‘Sounds like a plan,’’ Hannah said. Patience expected her to hang up without saying good-bye, which was her way. Instead, the older woman’s voice softened. ‘‘Are you okay with this?’’
Do I have a choice? Patience thought, but she didn’t ask the question aloud, because she’d been raised knowing that she wasn’t like the other kids—she needed to be better, faster, smarter, a little more of everything. ‘‘I’m fine,’’ she said, willing herself to believe it. ‘‘I’ve waited my whole life for this call.’’
‘‘Good girl,’’ Hannah said. And hung up.
Patience just stood there for a long moment, staring at the toaster.
She was a magic user. A Nightkeeper. Her king was calling her home.
Thing was, she already was home.
Keep yourself apart, Hannah had taught her. Be ready to disappear at a moment’s notice. Once the end-time has passed you can live the life you want. Until then you belong to the Nightkeepers. There is no other attachment more important than that.
Nightkeepers Page 11
