Nightkeepers

by Jessica Andersen

  ‘‘For what?’’

  She squeezed his hand briefly in passing, then tugged him out into the hallway so she could shut and lock her office door. ‘‘For being you.’’

  Which left him completely baffled as she marched off, her heels clicking and her long, red-highlighted dark hair swinging opposite the motion of her walk, which he was pretty sure had an added wiggle in it as she turned the corner.

  Damn it, she was going home to make nice with her husband, he realized, which led to a second realization: He really would’ve preferred if she’d been lying to him. He hated thinking of her with the Dick, hated knowing she was trying to save something that everyone around her could see was fatally flawed.

  ‘‘Or maybe you’re the one who’s fatally flawed,’’ he said aloud when he realized he was standing in the middle of the damn hallway, staring after her with his tongue hanging out.

  He turned his attention to her office door, and after a quick check up and down the hallway, gave the knob an experimental rattle.

  The lock held, which was no big surprise. It was also a no-brainer that he didn’t know how to pick the damn thing. That was the sort of thing the people he read about knew how to do—it wasn’t the sort of skill that’d been easy to pick up in the ruthlessly middle-class neighborhood where he’d been raised. However, he and his sisters had been awfully good at sneaking in and out after curfew. And, if he remembered correctly, Anna had been in such a hurry to get home to the Dick that she hadn’t latched the window.

  ‘‘Here goes nothing.’’ He headed outside and around the building, took a quick look around to make sure nobody was watching, slid the casing up, and climbed through.

  At least being a skinny, too-tall beanpole was good for something.

  He landed hard in a disorganized heap, but there was nobody there to laugh, so he didn’t worry about how he looked, only that he didn’t knock anything over and break it. Then, after he’d managed to right himself, he got to work, trying to figure out where she would put something she didn’t want the casual observer to see.

  No doubt she normally carried the codex fragment with her for safekeeping, but he was pretty sure she hadn’t grabbed it in the rush of hustling him out of her office. She hadn’t dared, because she’d known he would’ve asked about it.

  Therefore, the text was still in the office somewhere. All he had to do was find it.

  Anna headed for her car, which was stashed in one of the minuscule lots that peppered the gigantic campus, which had approximately one parking space for every ten students and faculty members. She figured she’d grab a bite to eat and then double back once Lucius left for the night.

  She’d hated leaving the codex behind, but hadn’t had a choice. It was safely hidden, and if she’d pulled it out in front of Lucius the unshakable, she never would’ve gotten away. And besides, she could use an hour without feeling the power scrape along her nerve endings, whispering promises, whispering threats.

  After Strike had mailed the package back to her with a pleading note—the bastard—she’d ignored the codex fragment for as long as possible. Which had been about a day. She’d deciphered only the first few lines so far, but what she’d gotten both thrilled and profoundly disturbed her.

  Why? she wanted to ask her brother. Why are you trying to pull me back in? But she didn’t, partly because she didn’t want to run the risk of falling any farther back into the past, and partly because she already knew the answer: because he needed her. The world was about four years from ending and it was up to him and Red-Boar to fix things, with good old Jox holding their coats.

  Anna sighed as she dropped into the driver’s seat of her car, a powder gray Lexus with more than fifty thousand on the odometer. Dick had wanted to trade the car in last year, but she’d refused, partly because she didn’t see the point in more payments, and partly because there had been something disturbingly symbolic about the argument.

  ‘‘And here I am,’’ she said aloud over the engine’s purr, ‘‘trying to decide between a husband who might or might not want to trade me in when I hit fifty thousand miles and a brother who wants me to—’’ She broke off. Hell, she didn’t know what Strike wanted at this point. He hadn’t tried to contact her directly. He hadn’t even brought the codex fragment in person the first time. He’d sent Red-Boar, one of the few people in the universe she actively disliked.

  Telling herself that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, Anna slapped the transmission into drive and hit the gas far harder than she’d intended. She gasped as the Lexus launched itself out of the parking spot, then shrieked when another car suddenly materialized in front of her. She went for the brake, but missed, stomping down in shock when she recognized Dick’s beloved Explorer right in front of her.

  The Lexus was accelerating when it hit.

  The impact jolted her against her seat belt as a crunching, rending noise surrounded her on all sides. She screamed again, mostly out of surprise and dismay, and then just sat there for a second, staring at the Lexus’s popped-up hood, the Explorer’s caved-in quarter panel, and the shocked expression on her husband’s face.

  Oh, shit. She’d T-boned Dick’s Explorer.

  She hadn’t been going fast enough to hurt herself— not even fast enough to detonate the air bags—but she’d sure as hell been going fast enough to do some damage. Hands shaking, she fumbled for her seat belt and shoved open the door. Her legs trembled as she stood and tried to think of something—anything—she could say to undo what she’d just done.

  ‘‘Are you okay?’’ He appeared around the back of the Explorer, almost running, his eyes wide and his hands outstretched to her. ‘‘Anna, are you hurt?’’

  She shook her head, feeling the tremors drain away, leaving the beginning of tears in their place. ‘‘No, I’m okay. But, Dick, the cars . . .’’

  ‘‘Hush. It’s fine.’’ He caught her hands and squeezed; then, as if that weren’t enough, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her tightly. ‘‘I’m sorry.’’

  ‘‘What are you sorry for? I’m the one who didn’t look.’’ Her words were muffled against his shirtfront.

  ‘‘Fuck the cars; I’m talking about us. I was a jerk to you just now, and I’m sorry.’’

  ‘‘Oh.’’ She relaxed against him as sneaking warmth unfurled within her chest. She settled against him, feeling safe for a second. Feeling loved. ‘‘Me, too.’’

  This was what it was all about, she thought. Forgiveness. Normalcy.

  ‘‘Where were you going in such a hurry, anyway?’’

  ‘‘I was coming after you,’’ she said without thinking, without having even realized that was what she’d been doing. ‘‘I wanted to say I was sorry for being a bitch.’’

  ‘‘By wrecking my car.’’ But there was a thread of amusement in his voice, and faint laughter rumbled in his chest beneath her ear.

  She grinned up at him. ‘‘Got your attention, didn’t it?’’

  ‘‘Next time try an e-mail. Or flowers or something.’’ But his arms tightened around her, and he dropped a quick kiss on her lips and lowered his voice. ‘‘What do you say we see if these heaps still run, and go find ourselves a little wine and candlelight, and a table set for two?’’

  ‘‘You’re on,’’ she said, smiling up at him and consciously letting go of the petty resentments and the nagging sense that she should be working on the codex.

  This was the life she’d chosen, the life she wanted. It was up to her to make it work.

  It took Lucius twenty minutes and one duck, here comes the security guy before he struck gold, or rather parchment.

  He found the packet wedged between two fat dictionaries of the modern Quiche Mayan language. He worked the packet free and held it carefully by its edges as he carried it to Anna’s desk and set it down.

  Then, very slowly, he opened the brown paper wrapping and the conservatory paper beneath, feeling the textures change as he worked his way through several layers of oilclot
h. When he’d pulled the last one aside, he stared at what he’d uncovered.

  Dear God, it was beautiful. And horrible. Terrifying and wonderful. He saw the skull in vivid whites and blacks, the date, the jaguar . . . the blood soaking the burning earth. It was all there, and more. It was . . .

  It was everything he’d been looking for, everything he was trying to make the others believe with his theories and papers, the final proof for a dissertation that had started losing momentum months ago.

  It was perfect. And she’d been keeping it from him.

  Anger coiled in his chest, red-black and foreign-feeling, and when his face felt strange and stretched tight, he realized he’d bared his teeth.

  This should’ve been my discovery, he thought. Mine, not hers.

  He reached out, wanting to touch the colors, wanting to inhale them, bring them into his body and breathe them out again as shapes and sounds. The room spun, contracting his attention into a grayish cone that began and ended with the piece of painted bark.

  He’d originally intended—to the extent that he’d had a plan at all—to do a rough translation of the fragment right then, without removing it from her office. He’d planned to use it to springboard additional research, then use his findings to convince her to give him access to the full text. Or so he’d told himself. Now, as he reached out and carefully refolded the packet layer by layer, he knew that he’d never meant to do that at all.

  He’d come to steal it.

  Mind numb, fingers moving automatically, he slipped the packet beneath his shirt and tucked the tails of the garment into his waistband to hold the bundle in place against his skin. He cinched his belt an extra notch to secure everything, and took a long look around to make sure he’d left no sign of his presence. Then he slipped out the way he’d come in, a thief in the night, prompted by a half-heard whisper in the back of his head, the feeling of stars coming into alignment, and the dark, sensual power humming just beyond his fingertips, whispering to him. Calling to him.

  Speaking words only he could understand.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  As Leah and the trainees filed into the sacred chamber for the Venus conjunction ceremony, her blue robes swished around her ankles and her stomach clenched with nerves. She didn’t think she was the only one fighting to stay calm, either. Sven was a funny gray-green color, his lips almost bloodless and pressed together in a thin line. Jade was sweating lightly, even though the AC was up and she’d be sitting outside the circle while the others underwent the ritual. Michael was his usual inscrutable self, with thick shields hidden behind a sexy smile, but she’d noticed him popping a Pepto tab when he thought nobody was looking. Brandt and Patience were hanging on to each other for dear life. Rabbit had lost some of his normal swagger, his nostrils flaring as he breathed in the copan smoke liberally scenting the air, and Alexis and Nate were clinging together in the corner, trying to look like they were fine. Yep, definite barf potential, all of them.

  Worse, if one of them went, it’d be a chain reaction. Hold it together, Leah told herself as the door opened to reveal Red-Boar in his black robes and Strike in royal crimson, both wearing feathered headdresses and celts, and resolute expressions.

  There were no nerves there, Leah saw, or if there were, they were well hidden as they all took their positions: the trainees in a circle around the altar with Red-Boar at the center, Strike on one side of the chac-mool, her on the other.

  The sight of Strike in full-on I’m in charge here mode went a long way to settling her nerves.

  Red-Boar flicked his black robes out of the way with a practiced move and sat cross-legged with his back to the altar. Over the top of the chac-mool, Strike and Leah faced each other and joined hands. Electricity arced across her skin at his touch, but it served only to bring the nerves right back where they’d been. What if the three-question ritual didn’t work?

  Worse, what if it did?

  She met his eyes, letting his apparent calm steady her fears. Letting the strength of his grip anchor her.

  At Red-Boar’s gesture, the trainees dropped to sit cross-legged. Then the winikin filed in, carrying bowls, parchment, and ceremonial knives that they passed out. When they were gone and the door shut behind them once again, everyone had a bowl and knife except Jade, who sat against the wall, her expression caught somewhere between relief and humiliation.

  Without a word, Red-Boar lifted his large, ornately carved stone knife, set it to his palm, and drew the blade sharply across his flesh. Blood welled, then dripped into the bowl, soaking into the layer of paper at the bottom. The others followed suit, then took turns passing a torch and using it to set the parchment aflame.

  At Red-Boar’s gesture, each of them leaned forward and inhaled the smoke of burning blood, and whispered, ‘‘Pasaj och.’’

  Seconds later they stilled and their faces went slack, indicating that they’d jacked into the barrier, sending their souls into the gray-green mist but leaving their bodies behind. When they did so, Leah felt . . . nothing. No power surge, no beckoning sense of urgency, no invitation to follow. Nothing except the edge of the altar digging into her ribs and the grip of Strike’s fingers on hers.

  This isn’t going to work, she thought, panic kindling in her stomach. Whatever the magic was, I lost it.

  ‘‘Look at me,’’ Strike ordered. When she locked her eyes with his, he said, ‘‘Don’t you dare give up.’’

  In the torchlight, his black hair and close-trimmed beard made his dark good looks lean toward dangerous, sending a quiver of awareness through her, a hum of nerves. He looked like he could be a demon, could be a king. He looked like a fighter, a warrior, like the man she’d dreamed of before.

  The one she still dreamed of every damn night, and then woke up aching and alone.

  ‘‘Ready?’’ he asked, his voice a harsh rasp that licked along her nerve endings like fire.

  She took a deep breath and nodded, but didn’t trust herself to speak. He wouldn’t even be bringing her into the barrier at all, except that the three-question spell was a once-in-a-lifetime deal, three questions per magic user per existence. And while she wasn’t a Nightkeeper, they were hoping she had enough of whatever magic she’d once possessed to get her into the barrier and call up the three-question nahwal with Strike’s help.

  Better that, Red-Boar had pointed out with his usual lack of tact, than letting the king’s son burn his three questions on his human girlfriend. Jade’s research suggested the questions had to be specific to the petitioner, meaning that none of the other Nightkeepers could ask for her. The meant it was Leah or nobody.

  ‘‘Let’s do this.’’ Strike released her hands so he could cut his own right palm, then hers. Instead of letting the blood fall into separate bowls, they locked hands so the red wetness mingled as it dripped into the king’s ceremonial bowl, which had a small piece of parchment at the bottom. When the paper was wet with their blood, Strike lit it with one of the tapers, and they both leaned in to inhale the smoke. That put them face-to-face, and Strike shifted and touched his lips to hers. ‘‘Trust me.’’

  Then he jacked in. Leah saw the change in his face, saw his eyes go blank and his expression slacken. Failure kicked her hard when she stayed behind, when she didn’t feel anything other than the burn in her palm and the tickle of smoke in her sinuses. Damn it, she couldn’t follow, didn’t have the power, didn’t know how to—

  Hey, Blondie, his voice whispered in her mind.

  Her nerves kicked. ‘‘Yeah?’’

  Close your eyes and grab on.

  ‘‘To what?’’ But then she closed her eyes and saw a faint glowing thread that wasn’t part of her usual eyes-closed landscape. Excitement kicked her pulse a notch as she reached out with her mind and touched the thread.

  There was a soundless explosion, a sense of flying while sitting still. Then her gut wrenched. Power screamed in her ears. And the bottom dropped out of her world.

  Leah shrieked as she jolted down, then side
ways, and the world went gray-green. She zapped in a few feet off the ground, several yards away from Strike, and fell face-first into a sea of mist, landing on something soft and squishy and vaguely mudlike.

  Heart hammering, she rolled onto her back and concentrated on breathing. ‘‘Guess we made it.’’ The relief was so sharp it was almost painful.

  ‘‘This far, at least.’’ Strike grabbed her wrist and pulled her to her feet. Once she was steady, he stripped off the headdress and set it aside, then reached inside his robe and withdrew a pair of stingray spines. ‘‘Now for stage two.’’

  She took the spine. Tested the point with her fingertip. ‘‘Not very sharp.’’

  ‘‘That’s what makes it fun. Not.’’ He paused. ‘‘You ready?’’

  She took a breath and nodded. At his signal, she opened her mouth and jammed the spine into her tongue, then yanked it out again. Pain was a quick slap and a longer burn, but she held herself still as blood filled her mouth and then overflowed, spilling down her chin and splashing on the blue robe.

  Then, for the first time since the aphelion, she felt something. Sudden power bloomed on her skin, in her core. She smiled through the pain of her torn tongue. ‘‘I feel it!’’

  ‘‘Good. Say the words.’’

  She began the chant, words she’d memorized phonetically but hadn’t really thought she’d use. Strike took position at her side, holding her right hand in his, joining their blood, boosting her power with his own. At first she was afraid the spell wouldn’t work. Then, as the mist thickened nearby and a human figure took shape, she was afraid it would work. Somehow, in that moment, getting the answers to the questions that’d dogged her the past few months seemed more frightening than not knowing the answers.

  ‘‘Steady,’’ Strike murmured at her side. ‘‘I’m here.’’

  She leaned into him as the mists parted and the three-question nahwal approached, stopping a short distance away. It was a sexless humanoid figure with dead black eyes and no forearm marks or other distinguishing features, no expression on its desiccated face. Its tanned, leathery skin was pulled tight across its bones, and it made no sound when it moved.