Nightkeepers

by Jessica Andersen

  And fired point-blank.

  Anna screamed in horror. Leah’s head exploded and she went down in a heap. Ribs heaving, heart hammering inside his chest, Strike followed her down, unsheathing his knife. Working fast, telling himself not to look at her face, he cut her heart out, hacked off her head, and recited the banishment spell, sending the makol back to hell where it belonged.

  When it was gone, Leah’s body went limp.

  Strike stood, horror taking root when the corpse remained exactly as it was. ‘‘Please, gods,’’ he whispered. ‘‘Not like this. Please, not like this.’’ He’d been so sure it wasn’t her, so sure he was making the right call.

  Then, finally, the body shimmered. Shifted. And changed into that of a skinny man wearing a fungus-colored robe and a tattoo of a winged crocodile. Then purple-green light flashed, and the thing was gone.

  Strike’s bones went to water and he sagged in relief. ‘‘Thank you, Jesus. Gods. Whatever.’’ He exhaled, tried to get his breathing under control. ‘‘Shit. Oh, boy. Oh, shit. A mimic. It was a mimic.’’

  ‘‘How did you know?’’ Anna asked, her voice shaky.

  ‘‘I just knew. I had faith. I knew it wasn’t her.’’ Except for a few seconds when he’d thought he had it wrong, thought he’d bought into the thirteenth prophecy without even knowing it.

  But the attack had not been without a sacrifice, he knew. He turned to see Anna crouched on the ground with Red-Boar sprawled across her lap, both of them covered in the blood that still pumped from the older man’s torn throat in slowing spurts driven by a faltering heart.

  Sorrow cut through Strike, and he dropped to his knees beside the dying man. ‘‘Gods, no.’’

  Red-Boar’s eyes flickered open and locked on even as the life faded. ‘‘Happy now, boy?’’

  ‘‘Step off, old man.’’ But Strike choked on the words. He touched Red-Boar’s forehead, leaking him power, buffering the pain. ‘‘Safe journey,’’ he whispered. ‘‘Say hello to the king for me.’’

  But Red-Boar shook his head ever so slightly. ‘‘You’re . . . king now.’’

  ‘‘Yeah,’’ Strike said. ‘‘I am.’’

  As his life drained, Red-Boar murmured, ‘‘Forgive.’’ Then his breath faded and stopped, and his body went limp in Anna’s arms as she bent over him and wept, the soft sound lost beneath the burble of the underground river that flowed nearby.

  Shit, Strike thought. Just shit.

  The loss hurt keenly on too many levels to count, but they couldn’t stop to mourn. They’d already wasted too much time. The equinox was close now, very close.

  ‘‘Anna.’’ He touched her arm. ‘‘We’ve got to go.’’ She nodded miserably, shifted Red-Boar’s body to the side, and climbed to her feet, wiping her bloodstained hands on her blood-soaked pants. ‘‘We’ll come back for him. After.’’

  ‘‘Of course. He’s one of us.’’ Whatever he’d done, or hadn’t done, Red-Boar had been his own version of loyal. All else was washed clean by the sacrifice.

  They tugged the corpse into an offshoot tunnel and made a stab at obscuring the tracks and bloodstains. And then they ran for their lives.

  Crouching in the underbrush, fighting green fire with red, Rabbit felt as if he were burning up from the inside.

  His mouth was parchment dry, and his eyelids rasped across his corneas without the benefit of moisture. His skin crinkled as he labored by rote: lifting his arms, holding his hands a few inches apart, concentrating until flame flared to life between them, and then pivoting and throwing to block the incoming green flame, so the two streams met in a brilliant blast of white.

  His right shoulder hurt like hell. He was thirsty, hungry, and exhausted beyond all rationality, and his head felt like it was about to split open and spill his brains onto the rain forest floor. And he couldn’t have been happier.

  With Patience and Brandt fighting together on his right and Sven on his left as they worked with the other team, squeezing the makol forces and picking off the bastards one by one, he was part of something. He belonged. Even better, he was good at something.

  ‘‘Hold on,’’ Brandt said. ‘‘What the hell are they doing?’’

  It took Rabbit a few seconds to reorient, another to pop out from behind the crumbling wall he’d been hiding behind, to check out the scene.

  Makol parts were strewn across the clearing, most of them still moving, which was just beyond weird. But until the Nightkeepers got in there and did the head-and -heart thing, the creatures weren’t actually dead, just dismembered. Which was kind of cool.

  What wasn’t cool was the way the dark-haired makol with the flying-croc tattoo and pointy teeth, who seemed to be in charge, had gathered the remaining dozen makol into a knot.

  Then, without warning, a huge green fireball the size of a VW Bug erupted and screamed toward where Rabbit and the others were hiding.

  ‘‘Take cover!’’ Brandt shoved Rabbit off to one side, grabbed Patience, and dove in the other direction. Groggy from doing too much magic, Rabbit lay dazed.

  The fireball hit right where he’d been and detonated, blasting heat and energy in all directions. The world went white and noise roared over him, flattening the rain forest and sending trees flying in a spray of wooden shrapnel.

  When the echoes died away, Rabbit lay gasping, trying to figure out why he wasn’t mulch.

  Then he felt the humming power of a shield spell a few inches away from his face and realized he was lying on someone’s foot. Craning his neck, he saw Sven lying nearby, looking dazed, but holding on to the shield spell he’d thrown over both of them.

  ‘‘Hey,’’ Rabbit said, breathing hard. ‘‘Thanks.’’

  Sven nodded. ‘‘Yep.’’

  And that was all that needed to be said. They were a team, after all.

  They scrambled up, Rabbit and Sven from one side of the fireball crater, Brandt and Patience from the other, just in time to see the makol breaking ranks and bolting for the tunnel, charging toward the position held by Nate, Alexis, Michael, and Jade.

  ‘‘Nate, incoming!’’ Brandt shouted, and started running after the makol, with Patience, Rabbit, and Sven on his heels.

  But the makol charged right past the other Nightkeepers and down the tunnel.

  ‘‘Get them!’’ Nate shouted, bursting from cover with his team behind him. ‘‘Don’t let them reach the chamber! We’ll take care of these guys and catch up.’’ He dropped beside one of the downed makol and dispatched it in a flash of purple light. ‘‘Go!’’

  Rabbit bolted down the tunnel, skidding on the loose sand beneath his feet, firing jade-tips as he ran. He heard Brandt call his name but didn’t stop.

  His old man was down there.

  Seeing one of the bastards up ahead, he put on the afterburners and hauled ass. He wound up in a wider section of the tunnel, where three others joined in.

  There was no sign of the makol. Shit!

  Brandt, Patience, and Sven burst into the chamber moments later, sliding to a stop when they saw Rabbit. Nate and the others weren’t far behind.

  ‘‘I lost them,’’ Rabbit reported. ‘‘We’ll have to—’’ He broke off as sudden sweat popped out all over his body, and he started shivering. The world hazed red and orange with flame, and a rushing noise started low, at the very edge of his hearing.

  ‘‘What’s wrong?’’ he heard Patience say, but the words sounded like they were coming from far away. He couldn’t feel the hand she put on his shoulder, couldn’t feel the stone beneath his feet, couldn’t feel anything except the heat—the terrible, awful heat that crisped his skin and made him feel flayed alive.

  ‘‘Something’s coming,’’ he whispered, hunching over as the rushing noise rose up through the octaves, higher and higher until he jammed his hands over his ears to stop himself from screaming.

  Then he was screaming, they all were, because the heat in his body was suddenly everywhere, searing their hands and faces and driving them deeper into
the cave. The sandy floor went scorched black, then melted to liquid, and then warmed further to molten orange-red. Then that orange-red liquid lurched up from the floor of the cave, elongating and stretching, taking shape as a faceless scaled creature that was almost entirely made of teeth and claws, and didn’t so much as flinch when Michael unloaded an entire clip of jade-tips right into it. Or rather through it.

  ‘‘Boluntiku!’’ Rabbit screamed, and turned to run.

  The thing hesitated at his shout. Locked on.

  And followed.

  Strike edged around the doorway leading to the sacred chamber and bit back a vicious curse when he saw Leah shackled to the altar, saw Zipacna standing over her, and saw the blood—so much blood, too much blood. She saw him and her eyes filled as she strained toward him. ‘‘Strike! Help!’’

  He didn’t think. He reacted.

  Roaring, he stepped into the chamber with his finger nailed to the trigger of the autopistol. The MAC-10 chattered, sending a hail of jade-tips into the bastard.

  Zipacna straightened, screaming with pain as he staggered away from Leah, his body jerking with the bullet impacts. But Strike didn’t care—he kept advancing, kept firing as the rage inside him turned to something else, something hard and hot and possessive. ‘‘Get away from her. She’s mine!’’

  The ajaw-makol fell against the wall, motionless, though not dead.

  ‘‘Cover him!’’ Strike tossed Anna one of his pistols and lunged across the room. When he reached the altar, his heart stopped in his chest and everything inside him went cold.

  Leah’s wrists bore crisscrossed cuts, and blood flowed into the shallow channels grooved onto the altar, running downward by gravity flow and collecting in the sacred bowl at the altar’s front, where a charred twist of parchment burned purple-black, its magic fueled by the power of her blood.

  Tears glistened in her eyes. ‘‘I’m sorry,’’ she whispered. ‘‘I got free, but when I tried to kill him he caught me again. I grabbed his knife, but . . . I’m sorry. So sorry.’’

  ‘‘No,’’ he said, leaning in and gathering her against him. He pressed his cheek to hers, and shuddered at the cool feel of her skin, the limpness of her body, which made it seem that she was already gone.

  Her breathing was growing more and more shallow. He felt the god’s power growing within her, felt the bonds of the skyroad falling away as Leah died and the creator prepared to return to the sky.

  When he pulled away, her eyes fixed on him. ‘‘Zipacna? ’’

  ‘‘He’s yours,’’ Strike said, voice rough with emotion. ‘‘He always was.’’ He unlocked her bonds with a touch and scooped her up off the altar, leaking her all the power he could spare, trying to heal her, to keep her heart going.

  He propped her up near the makol and pressed a knife into her hand. ‘‘Take him.’’

  Bolstered by his strength, and by the revenge that had carried her so long, she grasped the knife and bent over the ajaw-makol, getting his heart out, but faltering over his head.

  ‘‘I’ll help.’’ To Strike’s surprise, Anna moved in and finished the job, then linked hands with Leah for the spell. When they reached the end, Zipacna’s body disappeared in a flash of purple-green light. The Anna stood, wiping her hands on her bloodstained pants. ‘‘I’ll watch the tunnel.’’

  She headed out of the chamber, leaving Strike and Leah alone.

  Only they weren’t alone at all, he realized when a howling wind whipped through the chamber, and the skulls on the walls began to scream fire.

  The equinox had come. The intersection was opening. The Banol Kax were poised to enter the plane of mankind, their magic fueled by Leah’s blood and the sacrifice of their own ajaw-makol.

  Leah looked at him through eyes drenched with tears, and held out the knife. ‘‘Do it. You have no choice.’’

  Either she died, or they all did.

  Strike caught her to him, holding her hard, trying to give her all his energy, all his power, trying to beat back the passing time as he finally understood the impossible choice his father had died trying to avoid. He pressed his cheek to hers. ‘‘I love you. I fell in love with you when I wasn’t looking, when I was doing my damnedest to do anything but fall, just like I became king when I was trying to be anything but.’’

  She touched his arm where he wore the mark of the gods, of the jaguar kings. ‘‘You’ll be a good king.’’

  ‘‘And?’’

  Her smile went crooked. ‘‘And I love you, too. I don’t care if what I’m feeling is because of destiny and the gods, or that it’s all tangled up with the prophecies and the end of the world. I love you for you. Not because you’re king or Nightkeeper, but because you’re mine.’’

  They met halfway in a searing kiss that tasted of need and desperation, and the power of the equinox. Strike felt light and dark align, felt the powers within them start to meld. He felt the dark force of the true demon Zipacna poised behind the barrier, ready to spring free at the moment of alignment, when the barrier would thin enough for the creature to burst through. He felt the god Kulkulkan straining at the bonds of the skyroad, longing to be free, longing to fight. The god’s darkness battered him, latching on to his soul and dragging him down, away from gray-green neutrality and toward the underworld, which glowed the lumious green of a makol ’s eyes.

  No! he shouted in his soul. He fought the undertow, the temptation of power and madness, focusing on the feel of the woman in his arms. He poured himself into the kiss, willing love to be the thing that mattered most, the sacrifice necessary to bring the god to earth through the two of them, joined as a single keeper.

  I love you, he thought, or maybe she thought it in his head somehow; it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they were there, together. Forever.

  At that thought, that single word, he felt a flare of power, a surge of golden light. Then the halves became whole, light blending with darkness, the two together making something so much stronger than either alone.

  Deep within him something tore, a curtain ripping in half and letting through a ray of golden illumination. Instead of fighting it, he welcomed it, welcomed the light and the power and the sense of Leah that it brought. Yes, he said inside his own skull. Welcome, my love.

  The kiss turned blatantly carnal, a celebration of both sex and love, and a promise made between them. He felt a cool burn on his arm, and knew from her jolt that Leah felt it, too.

  There was no time to look at the new marks, though. They had to bring the god through the barrier. He took her hand and looked into her eyes, and from somewhere deep inside his soul he found the spell they needed. ‘‘Och ta kaan.’’ Become the sky.

  Power detonated inside him, around him, but it was too late. Far overhead the stars aligned and the equinox came to bear without the greatest sacrifice having been made.

  The barrier fell, and a demon came to earth.

  Thunder blasted in the sacred chamber, driving Strike to his knees as he held Leah tight. Mist roiled within the room, thickening to dire clouds that flickered with unholy luminescence, and the stone surface beneath him began to shudder like a living thing. A roar split the air, driving his heart into his throat. On its heels, a terrible creature emerged from the mist. Its crocodilian head was the size of the room itself, all wickedly sharp teeth and dead dark eyes. Zipacna.

  The demon traveled through the intersection as an insubstantial spirit, like its boluntiku brethren, filling the chamber and overlapping the stone walls on either side as it passed, first a head and stubby neck, then short, powerful legs with razor-tipped claws the length of Strike’s forearm. It moved faster and faster as it came onto the plane of mankind and accelerated toward the surface, giving Strike glimpses of leathery wings and an armored belly, then powerful hind legs and a long, scaly tail with a trio of wickedly pointed barbs at the end.

  Then it was gone.

  ‘‘Oh, father of gods,’’ Strike said, the words coming from deep down in his chest as he realized
that he’d failed before he even began. He’d run from the thirteenth prophecy, hadn’t made the sacrifice required, and Lord Zipacna had made it through the barrier.

  The end-time countdown had begun. There was a demon on earth. He’d failed his bloodline and his people, failed the gods.

  ‘‘Not yet we haven’t,’’ Leah said, reading his thoughts through their bloodied hands. Her voice sounded strange, as though it carried the echo of trumpets. Then she turned to him, and his heart shuddered in his chest.

  Her eyes were the molten gold of a Godkeeper.

  ‘‘Leah,’’ he said, grabbing her by the arms. ‘‘Gods, Leah!’’

  ‘‘It’s okay.’’ She took his hands, gripped them hard. ‘‘Boost me.’’

  Instead of sharing the blood link, he cupped her face in his hands and touched his lips to hers. ‘‘I love you.’’ Then he sank deeper into the kiss, dropped the barriers that had once held their souls apart, and gave her everything that he had to give.

  And together, they called the feathered serpent god to earth.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Rabbit ran for his life, leading the boluntiku away from the others, then doubling back through the maze of tunnels, which were lit with bloodred light that came from everywhere and nowhere at once.

  He was doing his damnedest to keep the thing away from the sacred chamber, trying to give his old man and Strike a chance to save the world, but he was losing steam. His breath burned in his lungs, and his legs were on fire as he bore down and widened the gap, running with muscle and heart and a touch of magic, a litany of, Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit, sounding in his brain.

  The boluntiku screamed, sounding like a thousand fingernails scratching down a mountain-size blackboard.

  ‘‘Fuck!’’ Rabbit accelerated away from the scream, careened around a corner, and nearly slammed into Alexis.

  ‘‘Go!’’ She shoved him toward a cross-tunnel. ‘‘Shield yourself!’’ When the boluntiku appeared around the corner, she waved her arms. ‘‘Hey, over here!’’

  Realizing she was trying to tag-team the lava creature— and oh, holy hell, hoping it worked—Rabbit stumbled into the cross-tunnel and cast as much of a shield spell as he could muster in the magic-damping confines of the tunnel system.