Nightkeepers

by Jessica Andersen

  Given all that, she wouldn’t have been surprised to find recruiters working the room, and a signup table at the back. Instead, the decor actually came off as sort of restful and interesting—or she thought it would have if it hadn’t been for the crowd. Or, rather, her awareness of the men.

  She pretended she was scanning the scene, not looking for anyone in particular, but she knew damn well that was a crock. She was looking for him, for the warrior she’d dreamed of. The one she told herself couldn’t possibly exist.

  Yet she looked for him in the crowd.

  There were plenty of wannabes in the assembled group, men who caught her scan and tried to intercept. Under normal circumstances, she might’ve even given one or two of them a chance to impress her. But tonight she glanced past in search of cobalt blue eyes, dark, shoulder-length hair, and a jawline beard, and felt a beat of disappointment when she came up empty. Which was just stupid, because he was a fantasy. But still.

  ‘‘Focus,’’ she told herself. ‘‘Be a cop.’’

  From her new sense of perspective on the whole Survivor 2012 thing—i.e., maybe Zipacna wasn’t actually the serial killer who’d murdered Matty—she could maybe see what’d attracted her brother to the group. Matty’s fiancée had broken their engagement for unknown reasons—at least, Leah didn’t know what they were, and hadn’t pressed nearly as much as she should have. His programming job had been in jeopardy due to corporate restructuring and hints of trouble at work. It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d left a job under suspicion, either. He and Leah had been diametric opposites—she was truth and justice, where he’d liked to cut corners and find the easy money, though he’d stayed out of actual legal trouble. He’d always been a bit of a follower, too, and once Cheryl had left him, he’d been in need of a leader, and some peace. He’d bumped into Zipacna at some club or another, and they’d gotten into a conversation that’d ended with an invite to the very mansion she was standing in now.

  A few weeks before Matty’s death, he’d said Survivor 2012 had made him feel like he was a part of something. At the time, she’d mocked the Zipacna shtick and offered to make her brother a tinfoil hat. After his murder, she’d focused on the group of nutbags he’d joined, needing to blame someone else. Now she wished she could take back the mockery, wished she could go back in time and really listen to her brother. Wished she’d pushed him more, helped him more.

  If she had, he wouldn’t have needed to turn to a group like this for a sense of family support . . . and he might not’ve been in the wrong place at the wrong time during the equinox.

  ‘‘A penny for your thoughts,’’ a man said from directly behind Leah.

  She stiffened, then relaxed as she identified the voice. Turning and dredging up a smile, she said, ‘‘Hey, Vince. Just getting my bearings.’’

  The programmer was wearing a tux as uninspired as his penny-for-your-thoughts line, and his medium-brown hair was brushed neatly—and uninspiringly—flat in defiance of its usual haphazard nonstyle. His eyes were a bland hazel, his smile unassuming as he said, ‘‘I’m glad you came. I wasn’t sure you would after the other day.’’

  They’d gotten into it on the phone a few days earlier, when she’d told him her suspicions were moving away from Survivor2012. Vince had been so fervent in his insistance that Zipacna was the Calendar Killer that Leah had started to wonder if he had another agenda altogether, one that she’d gotten caught up in because she’d needed someone other than herself to blame over Matty’s loss.

  ‘‘I’m here,’’ she said noncommittally. ‘‘You said you wanted to show me something.’’

  She was already regretting having come. Should’ve broken it off the other day, she thought. Her grief had moved past the point where she needed to lean on Vince as a connection to her brother. But as she’d started to ease away he’d gotten clingy, suggesting he wasn’t there yet. So she’d decided to stick it out a few more weeks or months, figuring she owed him a little longer in the lean-on-me department.

  Besides, his background check had come back whistle-clean and he didn’t register on her cop creep-o-meter. He was just a guy who’d lost a friend, and was looking for someone to blame. Unlike her, though, he didn’t seem to be moving past his conviction that Zipacna was the serial killer responsible for Matty’s death. Not yet, anyway.

  ‘‘Matt told me about a special room where they perform their rituals.’’ Vince’s throat worked. ‘‘I want to check it out.’’

  ‘‘It was included in the last warrant,’’ Leah argued. ‘‘They didn’t find anything.’’

  Actually, that wasn’t precisely true. The crime scene folk had said the room was a mosaic of semen stains, vaginal contributions, and blood—but the former weren’t illegal, and the latter hadn’t been substantial enough to suggest exsanguination, but instead had been consistent with the smaller ritual bloodlettings the members of Survivor 2012 readily admitted engaging in.

  ‘‘Humor me?’’ Vince’s expression went sheepish. ‘‘Look, I know you’re losing steam on this, and I understand. I really do. It’s just . . . I don’t know. I’m not ready to let go yet. I need something . . . more.’’

  Because she could relate, and because she figured it’d give their nonrelationship enough closure that she could walk away without feeling too much like a bitch, she nodded. ‘‘Okay. Let’s go.’’

  Keeping an eye out for security—half-naked or otherwise—they worked their way across the main room to an offshoot hallway, passing a glossy sign that told them they were headed into the Temple of Wisdom. Said temple proved to be a series of small classrooms furnished with tables and chairs, and flat-screen TVs running documentaries. There were a few partygoers in each room, and Leah slowed down enough to catch snippets of the narration as she and Vince passed.

  ‘‘The Maya used the tall pyramids as landmarks,’’ said the voice-over in the first room, which held five people deep in conversation. The TV showed an aerial image of three piles of rubble—presumably former pyramids— poking up from a sea of green leaves. ‘‘They could see them over the rain forest canopy, and navigate from one to the next.’’

  Which was pretty clever, Leah thought as they moved on.

  The screen in the next room, which had a few more people in it, most of whom seemed to be paying attention, showed a CGI rendering of the earth, sun and moon, and the narrator intoned, ‘‘. . . the Mayan Long Count calendar is based on astronomy and the end date of December 21, 2012, when the next Great Conjunction will occur. Other cultures, completely separate from the Maya, have also fixated on this date as a time of great change.’’

  ‘‘Guess we found the propaganda,’’ Vince said. ‘‘Come on.’’

  They moved past two more classrooms—another pyramid lecture and more astronomy, or else the same films running on different schedules—and stopped when the corridor teed into another. A table blocking the hallway to the left was hung with a discreet sign that read, NO GUESTS BEYOND THIS POINT, PLEASE.

  ‘‘Not exactly high-level security,’’ Leah said as they squeezed past the table and moved into the corridor beyond.

  ‘‘The cops didn’t find anything,’’ Vince said, in what sounded a little like a dig. ‘‘Zipacna’s probably not worried anymore.’’

  Or he didn’t have anything to worry about in the first place, Leah thought but didn’t say, because she just wanted to get this over with and go home. The weird vibes coming off Vince only strengthened her resolve to end their nonrelationship ASAP. The only thing keeping her going now was the memory of how fondly Matty had spoken of his friend. Vince had been there for him when Cheryl had taken off. Leah, not so much.

  For that, she figured she owed the guy.

  ‘‘Here.’’ Vince stopped in front of a floor-to-ceiling glass-fronted case holding a bunch of worn stone statues, all stylized variations of the crocodile god Zipacna. ‘‘It’s behind here.’’

  ‘‘If you’re going to break something, I’m leaving.’’ Hell, she s
hould leave now. But she stayed put as he pressed his palm against the wall and said something under his breath.

  The display case swung inward on concealed hinges. The moment the door opened, torches flared to life, one at each corner of the room that was revealed in the firelight, and a trickle of water became audible. The walls were lined with stones—fake or real, she wasn’t sure—carved with row after row of glyphs. Unlike the ones out in the main room, these carvings looked more like formal writing, as though the walls could tell a story if she knew how to read the hieroglyphs. Above the writing, about chest-high, a wavy line of brilliant blue was painted all the way around the room. Above that, human skulls were carved into the stone in relief up near the ceiling. Water cascaded from each of their mouths, tumbling down to a shallow trench running the perimeter of the room and no doubt recirculating in the bizarre fountain.

  In the center of the space sat a carved stone altar shaped like a man lying on his back, balancing a stone slab.

  ‘‘The chac-mool,’’ Vince said, indicating the recumbent figure. ‘‘Sometimes a throne, sometimes an altar.’’ He paused. ‘‘Sometimes a place of sacrifice.’’

  ‘‘Shit.’’ Leah stared at it, frozen. This was way freakier than she’d expected, and somehow familiar. She hated that she could picture Matty here, could picture him doing some of the stuff the task force had included in their reports, which ranged from small bloodlettings to full-on orgies, all part of prayers to a pantheon that hadn’t mattered since the fifteen hundreds, in an effort to avert a doomsday nobody sane believed in.

  ‘‘Come on, before someone sees us.’’ Vince pulled her inside before she could think to dig in her heels, and he let the door swing behind them.

  ‘‘Wait!’’ Leah spun and made a grab for the edge of the panel, but she was too late. It shut with a click. There was no latch on this side, no knob. No visible way of getting the hell out.

  She whirled on Vince, anger firing. ‘‘Open it, right now!’’

  ‘‘Shh.’’ He put a finger to his lips and whispered, ‘‘They’ll hear us. And don’t worry; there’s a pressure pad next to the door, just like on the other side. We can get out whenever we want. I didn’t want to leave it standing open in case anyone comes this way.’’

  ‘‘This was a bad idea.’’ Leah pressed on the carvings beside the door, searching for the pad. ‘‘Let’s go.’’

  ‘‘But we haven’t—’’

  ‘‘I’ve seen enough. We’re leaving.’’ Nerves flared to life in her stomach, knotting against one another. A throbbing beat rose through the floor and shook the air around her, sounding like a human pulse, only too fast. Like fear. ‘‘Vince,’’ she snapped, knowing there was no real reason to panic but unable to stem the rising tide of nerves. ‘‘Get over here and get this door open. Now!’’

  The throbbing grew louder, making her want to put her hands over her ears to block it out. But at the same time, it called to her, pulled at her. Tempted her. Pressure flared at the base of her brain. It wasn’t a headache, though. More like an entreaty.

  What the hell was going on?

  ‘‘Vince?’’ she said, barely able to hear herself over the pounding rush. She took a couple of steps toward where he stood beside the altar, calm and motionless, like he couldn’t hear the drumbeat, couldn’t feel the floor heave beneath their feet.

  He started toward her. ‘‘You don’t look so good. Maybe you should sit down.’’

  He helped her across the chamber and propped her up against the altar while her head spun and her stomach heaved. She wanted to lie down, but she’d be damned if she was going to nap on the altar. ‘‘Get us out of here,’’ she said, and this time she heard herself, heard how weak her voice sounded. ‘‘Please.’’

  ‘‘I want to show you what I found first.’’ He produced a black blade, held it out to her. ‘‘Looks like it could be the murder weapon.’’

  Everything inside her rebelled. Put it down, she wanted to scream as every chain-of-evidence nightmare she’d ever heard of fast-forwarded through her brain in a split second. Put it right back where you found it! Not that replacing it would fix things now. She had no warrant, no probable cause, no—

  ‘‘Here.’’ He handed her the knife. ‘‘Take it.’’

  No, she said, only the word didn’t come out, and instead of warding him off, she found herself reaching for the blade with unsteady hands that weren’t entirely under her control. She touched the knife, grabbed onto it blade-first, and felt the edge bite into her palm. Vince started backing away as blood flowed, and she thought he whispered something in words she didn’t comprehend.

  A detonation rocked the room, sending them both staggering.

  Three other people appeared in the chamber with shocking suddenness, two men and a woman, wearing black-on-black combat gear and armed to the teeth with automatics and grenades. They advanced on Vince with deadly intent, their backs to Leah.

  The drumbeats stopped. The world stopped. Her head cleared, rage flared, and she swung into cop mode and launched herself into the fight. She’d lost the knife in the blast, and she didn’t know if the newcomers were part of Survivor2012 or something else, but she wasn’t waiting to find out.

  ‘‘Vince, get the door!’’ she screamed, and lunged for the guy closest to her, aiming for a choke hold and missing because he was way bigger than she’d thought, nearly six-five if he was an inch. Sensation zipped up her arm when she touched him, arcing from his skin to hers like static electricity. She hissed out a breath but hung on and went for the choke a second time.

  He countered, spun and grabbed her, flipping her in a practiced move that put her flat on her back and drove the breath from her lungs. She lay there stunned for a second, staring up . . .

  ... into the cobalt-colored eyes of her dream lover.

  ‘‘You!’’ she hissed.

  Snapshot impressions bombarded her—the angle of his jaw, the piercing dark blue of his eyes, the black-on-black combat clothes that stretched across his muscular body. Reaction sizzled through her, feeling more like desire than fear.

  ‘‘Don’t worry; I’ve got you,’’ he said, which was ridiculous, because as far as she could tell, she should damn well be afraid of him. But somehow she couldn’t make herself protest as he helped her up and crowded her with his big body, backing her across the room. His voice was a deep, sexy rasp when he said, ‘‘You don’t want to watch this.’’

  ‘‘Watch—’’ Her question devolved to a scream when the other guy—older and sharp featured—pulled a MAC- 10 and unloaded the clip into Vince’s chest, point-blank. The noise was deafening, the blood spray horrific as Vince’s body jerked with the rapid-fire impact.

  Leah shrieked and flung herself toward her friend, but the blue-eyed guy grabbed her and held her close while she fought and scratched, still screaming. ‘‘Easy,’’ he said over her cries. ‘‘He’s not what you think.’’

  Then brilliant green light flared out of nowhere, and wind whipped through the chamber, though that should’ve been impossible. Leah stopped screaming, because a buzzing noise had taken up where the chatter of gunfire left off, rising in speed and intensity as Vince’s body slid down the wall, leaving a blood trail.

  In the center of the room, the altar began to glow green.

  ‘‘Get over here,’’ Blue Eyes ordered his companions. He held Leah tightly against his body, and as the others approached, he said quietly in her ear, ‘‘I’m sorry you had to see that, and I’m sorry that I can’t stay and explain. Trust me when I tell you I’m keeping you safer by staying away.’’ Then the others were there, hanging on to his arms, and he said, ‘‘Close your eyes.’’

  A flash of motion caught her attention, and she saw Vince pull himself up the wall and start limping across the chamber. Which was impossible. Had those been blanks? What the hell was going on? ‘‘Vince,’’ she screamed, heart pounding in her chest, ‘‘help me!’’

  Then the buzz racheted up to a scream, and th
e world exploded.

  Everything went gray-green for a second, and there was a sideways lurch. Then the air changed and a shock wave slammed into Leah and the man who held her, sending them flying. She landed first, with him atop her, driving the breath from her lungs.

  She heard him curse, heard the crash of debris all around them, and realized he’d used his body to shield her from the blast. Then she heard screams and shouts and the pound of approaching feet, the sounds echoing differently than they’d been moments earlier. The air was different, too.

  She felt the press of a kiss on the side of her neck, heard him whisper, ‘‘Stay safe.’’ Then his weight was gone.

  ‘‘How . . . ?’’ She struggled up on her elbows. ‘‘What the . . . ?’’

  She found herself lying in the hallway, staring at the sign asking people not to venture into the darkened wing. Beyond that was a wall of rubble where the hallway used to be.

  The warrior and his companions were gone.

  Leah lunged to her feet as a mob of half-naked 2012ers and dressed-up partygoers jammed the hallway, some running toward the explosion, some away, creating a milling, screaming chaos.

  With no suspects to chase, the cop inside her gave way to the woman. Grief slashed through confusion, battering her to her knees. ‘‘No!’’

  She’d lost first Matty, then Nick. Now Vince. And in a way, she’d lost her dream warrior too, because there was no way she could knowingly lust after a guy who ran with killers, with terrorists who used explosives to . . . what? Make a statement? Kill a man? And what was with the green light and the noises? Special effects, or something more?

  For the first time, Leah seriously considered that she might be losing her mind.