Nightkeepers

by Jessica Andersen

  Thunder boomed, and Zipacna appeared in front of her in a swirl of purple-black mist, flanked on either side by two other makol. They slammed to the ground between her and the Jeep. Heart lunging into her throat, Leah skidded to a stop and tried to backpedal. She turned the MACs on them but got only the click of empty chambers. Before she could grab a spare clip, before she could do anything but scream, Zipacna grabbed her. He grinned horribly, his mismatched eyes glowing green. ‘‘You shouldn’t have gone beyond the Nightkeepers’ wards if you didn’t want me to find you, baby.’’

  "No!" she screamed, and turned one of the MACs on herself, knowing she couldn’t let herself be taken, couldn’t let them keep her alive through nightfall.

  She pulled the trigger. Got a click. Still empty.

  Red-Boar’s weapon chattered. Zipacna cursed and turned so the bullets plowed into his flesh rather than hers. He snapped, ‘‘Delay the Nightkeeper.’’ His men scattered, taking potshots toward Red-Boar as they ran.

  Then Zipacna tightened his grip on Leah. Power surged around them.

  And everything went purple-black.

  ‘‘No!’’ Strike landed running, heedless of the rattle of automatic weapons, his entire being focused on the sight of Leah covered in blood and struggling in the ajawmakol ’s grip as power whipped and the transport magic took hold. ‘‘NO!’’ he shouted, and flung himself toward their disappearing figures . . .

  And landed on his face in the sand, his outstretched hands clutching nothing.

  Bullets whined and automatic fire barked, the impact marks walking toward him as two lesser makol fired on him from the shelter of a small stone-walled room.

  ‘‘Stay down!’’ Red-Boar shouted, and lobbed a jade-packed grenade toward the makol’s shelter. It detonated seconds later, and the gunfire ceased.

  Strike didn’t stop to process. He was on his feet and in the room with the two bleeding, shrapnel-stung makol in an instant. He got one by the throat and the other by the scruff and smashed their heads together so hard their glowing green eyes winked out simultaneously. Then he got his knife off his belt and sank the blade in the first one’s chest, carving deep until he could shove his hand in there and rip out the fucker’s heart.

  Glory surged through him. Rage. Red-gold light. And for a second, as he held the makol’s heart aloft, he felt like a god.

  He did the other one’s heart, then both heads, and roared victory when the bastards puffed to nothingness. Then he sagged and took two shuddering breaths as Red-Boar’s footsteps approached, moving fast.

  Leah, he thought, his heart tearing in his chest. Gods, Leah.

  Straightening, he grabbed Red-Boar by the throat, spun, and slammed the traitor into the nearest stone wall, hard enough that rocks tumbled and broke free. ‘‘Why?’’ he grated, fury twisting inside him. Despair. ‘‘Why?’’

  ‘‘Don’t play a bigger fool than you already are,’’ the older man spat, his voice rasping against the choke hold. ‘‘I’m trying to stop you from making the worst mistake of your life.’’

  ‘‘No.’’ Strike tightened his grip as betrayal and killing rage washing his vision red. ‘‘You’re punishing me for my father’s choices.’’

  But Red-Boar’s breath rattled in his constricted throat. ‘‘At least he made his choices. You’re acting like a spoiled brat, sitting around and waiting for a godsdamned miracle.’’

  ‘‘I’m—’’ But Strike broke off when the accusation resonated too close to what Leah had said to him that morning, when she’d called him an arrogant prince who wanted everything his way. Was that really what was going on? No, he thought. That wasn’t him, wasn’t the man he wanted to be.

  But maybe it was what the darkness inside him had made him become, he thought, loosening his fingers and letting Red-Boar slide down the wall.

  Kulkulkan’s influence had shaded Leah’s brother toward easy living and self-justification. Was that so different from what his most trusted advisers were warning him against now? Or was that explanation in itself too easy? Was it more comfortable to blame the darkness on the god than himself?

  In the end it didn’t matter where it came from, he realized. Because he knew what he had to do about it. He owed it to his people to give them a ruler, owed it to Leah to make choices not just for them in the moment, but for the hope of a future.

  It’s time, his father’s voice whispered in his mind, though he couldn’t have said whether it was a message or a memory. But either way, the whisper was right. It was time. Avoiding the scepter hadn’t stopped the prophesied events from coming any more than avoiding Leah had stopped him from falling for her. And turning away from his people now would only cause more destruction.

  He was his father’s son, which meant more than a fondness for dreams. It meant the blood of kings ran through his veins, and the duty, the responsibility wasn’t his to set aside.

  It was only his to take.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Leah swam in and out of consciousness, sick and sore and feverish, her brain fuzzed with drugs. She couldn’t see more than a few feet in any direction before her vision went red-gold and blurry, but she didn’t need to see that far to know where she was. The stone slab beneath her, the echoes, and the hum of power told her everything she needed to know.

  She was back where it’d all started—strapped to the chac-mool altar in the ritual chamber that guarded the intersection of the earth, sky, and underworld.

  Worse, she was alive, and so was Zipacna. And the clock was ticking.

  Eventually her fever broke, or the drugs wore off, or both. Her brain cleared and the pain lessened, and she was able to take stock. She was still dressed in her combat clothes, but the weapons belt was gone. That wasn’t a surprise, but it was definitely a problem. Without the jade-tips and knives, she’d be powerless against the ajaw-makol, even if she did manage to escape. The spell was no good without a knife, and even at that it was going to be a long shot.

  Which left her bound to a sacrificial altar with no hope of rescue until too late, because Strike and the other Nightkeepers weren’t due at the intersection until the equinox, and she doubted Red-Boar was going to fess up to what he’d done. For all she knew, the bastard had lied and told Strike she’d gone to Zipacna willingly.

  Tears filmed her vision, and grief tore at her. Regret. She should’ve left a note, should’ve told Strike what she was planning so he’d have a place to start looking at best, a warning at worst. Because the way it was looking now, he was going to zap into battle and find her there.

  After everything they’d done to get around it, he was going to have to kill her and fulfill the thirteenth prophecy. If he didn’t, he’d be signing a death warrant for all mankind.

  When a tear broke free and trickled down her cheek, she swiped her face against her shoulder, brushing it away. And froze.

  The place on her right shoulder where she’d been been shot, which had been covered beneath a four-by-four bandage the last time she’d regained consciousness, wasn’t bandaged anymore. Instead, her captors had left the wound open. Only it wasn’t a wound anymore. It was a scar.

  A faint shimmer of excitement worked through her. She seriously doubted the makol’s magic ran to healing spells . . . and if she’d healed herself, maybe she could do other tricks as well. Maybe the equinox magic was strong enough to give her a slim chance of escape.

  She closed her eyes and focused inward, and thought she detected a trickle of power within. Without conscious decision, she touched the thin stream of magic and thought, Hello? Strike? Can you hear me?

  Footsteps sounded outside the arched doorway leading from the ritual chamber.

  Leah jolted, her heart bumping at the expectation of seeing Zipacna, the faint hope that it might be Strike. But it wasn’t either of them.

  It was her brother.

  ‘‘Matty?’’ Her breath whistled in her lungs as emotions slapped at her: disbelief and excitement, suspicion, and a longing so intense she could bare
ly suck in her next lungful of air.

  I’m dreaming, she told herself. He’s dead. This is all in my mind.

  His footsteps sounded real as he stepped inside the chamber, though. He was wearing the same sort of preppy shit she remembered from his college days, and his tousled hair fell over his forehead just so. His eyes seemed real when they locked on her, his smile was the one she remembered, and his voice was the same when he said, ‘‘Hey, Blondie.’’

  ‘‘You’re not really here.’’ She squeezed her eyes shut, struggling for sanity. ‘‘It’s the drugs. You’re a flashback or something.’’

  But he laughed. ‘‘I can live with being a flashback. You’ve called me worse.’’

  He was still there when she cracked her eyes open, standing next to the altar looking down at her, his eyes clear and blue like she remembered.

  ‘‘Magic,’’ she said before she could stop herself.

  He nodded, and held out his hand to show the slash across his palm. ‘‘They brought me back for you, Leah. To show you what you can have if you join us.’’

  Horror sang through her, alongside awful temptation. ‘‘I won’t become a makol. It’s wrong.’’

  He chuckled, sounding so much like himself that her heart shuddered. ‘‘That’s my sister,’’ he said with fond tolerance. ‘‘Black and white. Right and wrong. But what’s right in this case? Is it right that your boyfriend is going to have to kill you to let his precious god go free? What if I tell you there’s another way? A way for you to have it all?’’

  ‘‘Impossible,’’ she whispered, telling herself not to listen, that it was the same self-centered rhetoric she’d accused Strike of only that morning. ‘‘There’s a balance. You’ve got to give something to get something. You have to sacrifice.’’

  ‘‘Don’t you think you’ve already given enough?’’ Matty said, eyes and voice going sad. He leaned in close and whispered, ‘‘Give it a chance, Leah. Give us a chance. The Nightkeepers aren’t the good guys—they’re just going to screw things up and waste energy fighting the inevitable. Zipacna has the power to guide the coming changes and see mankind through 2012 and beyond.’’ He paused. ‘‘Please, Leah? For me? I’ve missed you so much.’’

  Tears lumped in her throat and poured down her cheeks. She wanted to say yes, wanted her brother back, wanted absolution for not being there when he’d needed her to help him stay the narrow path of good decisions. But she shook her head, denying the impossible because magic could do a great many things, but it couldn’t bring back the dead. ‘‘You’re not my brother. You’re not Matty.’’

  He tipped his head. ‘‘Of course I am. Here, I’ll prove it. Remember that time you, me, and Dad went—’’

  She didn’t listen, couldn’t listen. She shut her eyes, found that trickle of golden power, gathered it up, and threw it at him with a mental heave.

  His voice cut off with a hiss, followed by a mocking chuckle.

  When she opened her eyes, she found a stranger standing there, looking down at her with the bright green eyes of a makol. ‘‘Think you’re a clever bitch, do you?’’

  He had a crocodile tat on his upper pec, visible at the open throat of his preppy getup. She didn’t know him, but she knew what he was. ‘‘Get your ass out of my room, mimic.’’

  He just smiled down at her. ‘‘We’re offering you a chance, cop. You come over, we’ll give you your brother back.’’

  ‘‘He won’t be my brother, not really. And we’ll all die in the end anyway.’’ She shook her head. ‘‘I’m not dealing.’’

  The makol shrugged. ‘‘No skin off mine. You join us, we get a makol with the power of a god. You refuse us, we keep you alive and in a couple of hours you’ll be dead, Kulkulkan will be destroyed, and the skyroad will be kaput.’’ The creature grinned. ‘‘Win-win, baby.’’

  She wanted to scream at him, to curse him, to howl at the moon, but that would’ve been buying into the taunts, so she said nothing, watching him impassively as he slid the door shut.

  Then she let the tears come. Gods, she wanted to be back at Skywatch. She wanted Strike. She wanted a chance to apologize, to make up for going off on her own and fucking it up so badly they’d wound up in exactly the situation they’d been trying to avoid.

  Wanted to tell him that she loved him enough to die for him, but she’d far rather live with him, for as long as the gods allowed.

  Strike was carrying so much pissed-off power that the air slammed away from him and Red-Boar when they arrived back at Skywatch, sending Jox reeling back a few steps. Anna was there, too, her eyes full of worry and sorrow.

  ‘‘The ajaw-makol has Leah,’’ Strike said, his voice rasping on the words, his entire body vibrating with fear, with fury as he turned on Jox. ‘‘Do you hear me? The. Makol. Have. Her. Because you didn’t watch her, and because this one’’—he nudged Red-Boar roughly with his toe—‘‘decided to take care of her himself.’’ And, because Strike had let himself stray from what really mattered. Which ended now. ‘‘Where are the others?’’ he demanded.

  ‘‘In the training hall,’’ Jox said. ‘‘What are you—’’

  ‘‘Gather the winikin and meet me under the tree,’’ Strike interrupted, and stalked off, headed for the pool house. He got dressed, not in the ceremonial robes tradition called for, but in the combat clothes and weapons he was going to need.

  Wearing a black shirt, black cargo pants, and heavy boots, along with a webbed weapons belt that held a pair of MACs, spare clips of jade-tips, and a couple of no-nonsense combat knives, he strode across the rear yard to the ceiba tree his ancestors had worshiped as symbolizing the heart of the community.

  He halted opposite his people, who stood beneath the spreading branches.

  Called away from their practice, the Nightkeepers were dressed in black-on-black combat clothes and wore their weapons on their belts, save for Red-Boar, who wore penitent’s brown, and Anna in street clothes. Beyond the magi, the winikin were ranged in a loose semicircle, with the twins playing at Hannah’s feet.

  There were nineteen of them in total, ten Nightkeepers, seven winikin, and the boys. So few, Strike thought, but told himself it would be enough. It would have to be, because he had no other choice.

  He never had.

  Deep down inside, he knew that taking his rightful place meant the death of his dreams, the end of any hope of a life not ruled by tradition and the needs of others. He would cease being Strike and become the Nightkeepers’ king, putting them first above all others except the gods.

  Putting them above himself. Above Leah.

  ‘‘Gods,’’ he whispered, clenching his fists at his sides, not sure if it was a curse or a prayer.

  As a child he’d hated the Banol Kax for their part in the massacre. As an adult, he’d realized his father had played an equal part in the deaths, and hadn’t understood how a rational man could’ve sacrificed an entire culture in an effort to save his own family.

  Now, having known Leah and the promise of what they might’ve had together, Strike finally understood the temptation, the decision. But he couldn’t make the same choice.

  He wasn’t his father.

  ‘‘Kuyubal-mak,’’ he said, tipping his head back and letting the words carry to the sky. ‘‘I forgive you.’’

  A sudden wind blew up, sweeping across the box canyon and kicking up dust devils. The hum of power built to an audible whine, and the sun dimmed in the cloudless sky as though there were an eclipse, though none was scheduled.

  Knowing it was time, knowing it was right, Strike drew his father’s knife from his belt and scored both of his palms, cutting deep so the blood flowed freely and dripped to the canyon floor at his feet.

  Pain washed his vision red, but the smell of blood and its sacrifice to the gods sent the power soaring as he shouted his acceptance of the kingship, his accession to rulership of the Nightkeepers, the words coming from deep within him, some sort of bloodline memory he’d been unaware of until that mome
nt as he roared, ‘‘Chumwan ti ajawlel!’’

  A detonation blasted open the firmament in front of him, the plane of mankind splitting to reveal the gray-green barrier behind. Crimson light burst from the tear, silhouetting a figure within.

  Strike saw the wink of a bloodred ruby at the nahwal’s ear, and recognized it from before. Except its eyes weren’t flat black now.

  They were cobalt blue, and shone with pride.

  ‘‘Father,’’ Strike whispered, going to his knees before the jaguar king.

  ‘‘Son,’’ the nahwal replied, not in the many-timbred voice it’d used before, but in the one he remembered from his childhood. His father’s voice. The nahwal reached down. Gripped his shoulder. ‘‘Rise. A king bows only to the gods.’’

  Strike stood, dimly aware that the Nightkeepers and winikin stayed kneeling behind him. The crimson light formed a royal red cloak that flared to the nahwal’s ankles, stirring in the wind that howled through the box canyon. Then the crimson light parted, revealing a spear of golden power.

  The Manikin scepter.

  Carved of ceiba wood and polished by the hands of a thousand kings, the scepter was actually a representation of the god Kauil, with his forehead pierced by an ax and one leg turned into a snake, wearing god markings on each of his biceps.

  The nature of the god himself had long been lost to time, but the scepter represented divine kingship. The man who wielded the scepter wielded the might of the Nightkeepers.

  Fingers trembling not with fear, but with awe, Strike reached out and gripped the polished idol, which remained within the barrier unless called upon for cermemonies of birth or marriage. Or ascension of a new king.

  Racial memory told him the words should come in the old tongue, but this wasn’t the old days, wasn’t his father’s time, so he finished the spell in English, saying, ‘‘Before the god Kauil I take the scepter, I take the king’s duty and sacrifice, and vow to lead in defense against the end-time.’’ He paused, then said the three words that ended his old life and began a new one. ‘‘I am king.’’