Nightkeepers

by Jessica Andersen

  Behind him, the boluntiku screamed, spurring him on, but Rabbit’s foot snagged on something and he went sprawling on top of one of the other Nightkeepers, who was lying in the middle of the tunnel. Shit! Flipping onto his back, he checked behind him, but the heat was dimming as the boluntiku moved off, following Alexis.

  Rabbit hissed and turned to see whom he’d stumbled over. ‘‘For fuck’s sake, what are you—’’

  He broke off and screamed. It was his old man.

  Stone dead.

  Throat sliced open.

  Rabbit’s breath whistled out and he didn’t suck another in. Gods, he thought. Gods-gods-gods. Oh, gods. No, gods, please, no.

  ‘‘Rabbit!’’ Alexis’s shriek was scant warning as the air crackled with sudden heat and the boluntiku morphed up through the floor just beyond his father’s body.

  It glowed red-orange, painting Red-Boar’s slack features in sharp relief and making the jagged cut across his throat gape dark and obscene. The lava-creature hissed and reared back, extending a scaled arm and flaring its six-clawed hand for a swipe.

  Rabbit knew he should run, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t leave the old man. He stared down at the body, tears dripping off his chin. ‘‘Dad?’’ His voice cracked, and he didn’t care.

  The boluntiku attacked, going solid at the last possible second.

  Gunfire chattered, and a hail of bullets hit the thing in its scaled chest and gaping maw, driving it back. The creature screamed in pain and puffed to vapor, and the next volley went straight through, cutting off prematurely when Alexis’s MAC jammed.

  ‘‘Damn it!’’ She worked fast, jettisoning the mag and slapping another home, but it was too late. The boluntiku hissed and went for her, going solid before she could rack the first round. It swung for her. . . .

  And bounced off a shield when Nate appeared out of nowhere and threw up a block at the last moment. He dropped it almost instantly and put himself between Alexis and the creature. ‘‘Rabbit,’’ he snapped, ‘‘get behind me!’’

  But Rabbit still couldn’t move. He could only bow his head as the fiery creature rose above him and screamed fingernails-on-blackboard. It slashed at him, popping to solid as it did, and—

  Thunder cracked inside the tunnel. Lightning. A terrible wind howled through the narrow confines, driving the boluntiku back, sucking it up in a funnel of golden light. The few remaining makol were sucked up as well, pulled from the tunnels where they’d hidden while the boluntiku did its work. A howling, rushing noise rose to a horrible crescendo, so loud that Rabbit plugged his ears with his fingers and hunched down, waiting for it to pass. Power sang through him, the gold of the gods, and he knew that it was somehow traveling through him, racing through stone to the world beyond the tunnels.

  The noise died away a moment later, ending with the high, clear note of a trumpet and the smell of copan. A single crimson feather, nearly the length of Rabbit’s arm, drifted down to the tunnel floor.

  Nate watched it land. ‘‘They did it.’’ He shook Alexis, whom he was holding in a loose embrace, though neither of them seemed to have noticed. ‘‘They fucking did it!’’ He turned and started tugging her up the tunnel. ‘‘Come on!’’

  ‘‘Wait.’’ She held him back and pointed. ‘‘Look.’’

  Nate saw Red-Boar and cursed. He came close, crouched down, and laid a hand on Rabbit’s shoulder.

  Rabbit ignored him and kept staring at the old man, thinking about all the times he’d said it wouldn’t matter if Red-Boar up and died, for all the attention he paid.

  He’d been wrong. It did matter. It mattered a shitload.

  ‘‘We’ve got to go,’’ Nate said. ‘‘Strike and Leah might need us up on the surface.’’

  ‘‘I can’t—’’ Rabbit’s voice broke, so he coughed and tried again, not caring that there was a sob hitched among the words. ‘‘We can’t leave him here. Not like this.’’

  ‘‘We’ll take him with us,’’ Nate said. ‘‘But we have to go now. We have a job to do.’’

  Was that how the old man had approached each day? Rabbit wondered. Yeah, that was about it. His existence had been a chore, his son an afterthought, his whole being concentrated on what might’ve been.

  Hell. Rabbit sniffed and swiped at his face. Then he climbed to his feet, scooped up his MAC where it’d fallen when he tripped, and nodded. ‘‘Let’s go.’’

  They carried the body out so they could bring it back to Skywatch for the proper rituals. But really, none of those things were necessary, were they? Finally, the old man was where he’d wanted to be all along.

  He was with his family.

  Strike zapped them to the surface as the golden serpent blasted through the tunnels and out into the open sky. Anna staggered and nearly fell from the teleport sickness, and he caught her on the way down. That left Leah on her own for a second, without his power or blood link, but that was okay. She stood apart, her feet braced on the leafy ground and her face turned up to the sky.

  Part of her watched the winged serpent gain altitude, sweeping over the pyramid that bore its name. She saw the glitter of golden scales in the moonlight, and the darker hue of brilliant plumage that would be bright red in the daylight, but looked black against the darkness of night. She saw all that, just as she saw Strike settle Anna on a crumbling carved wall nearby, and felt him take her hand, linking his power with hers through the bond of their love.

  She saw and felt all that with part of her consciousness. But another part of her soul flew with Kulkulkan.

  She felt the joy of flight and freedom, the burning need to drive the demon back to its hell. An exultant cry burst from the god, a clarion call of trumpets that echoed in the night sky above Chichén Itzá. A battle cry. A challenge.

  For a moment, there was no response. The sky seemed empty.

  Then the winged crocodile appeared from behind a cloud, screeching a banshee wail that spoke of death and the flames of Xibalba. The god Zipacna, son of the underworld’s ruler, was full of hate and anger and pride, his sole purpose to kill the feathered serpent and clear the way for the rest of his kind to come to earth.

  Screeching again, the winged crocodile twisted in midair and dove, with his fearsome claws extended and his giant mouth open in attack.

  Leah grabbed onto Strike as the god swerved and spun and slapped at the demon, scoring a deep line in the crocodilian scales and then dropping down and raking razor-sharp talons along Zipacna’s back, creating bloody furrows that had the demon arching with a scream of pain as the god beat feathered wings to flit away.

  Kulkulkan dodged and slapped again. And again. Blood ran from the winged croc’s armored hide, raining down on the forest below and flaming as it hit. But through her connection to the entity Leah could tell that its time was running out. The barrier was thickening as the equinox ebbed, leaving only minutes more to push Zipacna back through the intersection, or risk giving the Banol Kax free rein on Earth.

  ‘‘He needs help,’’ Leah said. ‘‘We have to help him!’’

  ‘‘We will,’’ said a new voice. It was Alexis’s voice, Leah realized, and suddenly the others were there, all of them cutting their palms and linking up, and offering their joined power to their king. Strike took the link, then turned to Leah and touched his lips to hers.

  Heat sparked and power blasted, a door opening in the barrier, channeling through the young magi and into Strike, from him to Leah, and through her to Kulkulkan.

  The god screamed exultantly as the golden mists flared sun-bright with the power of the Nightkeepers. The flying serpent snapped its wings taut and thundered up into the sky, trumpeting the attack as it slammed into Zipacna, raking and clawing at the croc’s softer underbelly. God and demon beat their wings together, fighting the air to stay aloft, fighting each other to stay alive.

  But Zipacna was no match for the combined might of the god and his Nightkeepers.

  The demon faltered and keened a dying cry, and as he did so, golden m
ist expanded and wrapped around both of the creatures, enfolding them, then beginning to rotate, spinning faster and faster, creating a vortex of energy that sucked them inexorably down, toward the mouth of the sacred tunnels.

  ‘‘Leah,’’ Strike said, his voice going urgent. ‘‘Pull out.’’ But she was caught up in the vortex, caught up in the power and the golden light as the feathered serpent trumpeted victory and the winged crocodile Zipacna fought his fate, fought the barrier that sucked him in, seeking to bind him to hell.

  Strike grabbed her and shook her. ‘‘Leah. Break the connection before he takes you with him. Remember what almost happened with Anna and the nahwal!’’

  He was right, she realized as she tried to sever the Godkeeper bond and Kulkulkan resisted, taking her with him as he morphed to an insubstantial form and raced through dirt and rock, headed toward the Night-keepers’ sacred chamber, and the intersection beyond, which glowed golden on one side and shimmered with lightless black on the other. She could feel the god’s joy in dragging the struggling demon toward the dark side, and his thrill in being free of the skyroad. His longing to return to the sky, bringing her power with him.

  ‘‘No!’’ Leah cried, and with an effort of will she wrenched away from the god, breaking the connection and yanking her soul back, fighting for the life she’d just found, the love she’d never expected to have. ‘‘Let me go!’’

  A detonation rocked the earth beneath her feet as she slammed back wholly into herself. She fell, but she didn’t hit the ground, as strong arms swept her up and held her hard. Recognizing the arms, the man, she returned his embrace, burrowing in and trembling hard as reaction set in.

  But she wasn’t the only one trembling, she realized. The earth was heaving beneath her, surging and groaning as though Zipacna were fighting the barrier’s hold, struggling to break free. Moments later, the cave mouth leading to the hidden tunnels collapsed with a roar, belching dirt and debris in the moonlight.

  Then everything went still. The earth quit moving and the buzz of power drained.

  The Nightkeepers stood staring dumbly, some at the cave-in, some at the sky. But there were no winged crocodiles, no feathered serpents. Just the Yucatán night. The world had gone utterly normal.

  ‘‘Holy crap,’’ Strike said.

  Leah levered away from him, beamed up at him, and started laughing, and her laughter became a whoop, a victory cry. ‘‘We did it!’’

  She was elated to be alive, to be victorious. To be in love.

  ‘‘Thank you,’’ she said, kissing him until neither of them could breathe. ‘‘I love you.’’

  ‘‘Goes both ways,’’ he said between kisses, holding on to her and squeezing so hard she thought she might break, though she never wanted him to let go. ‘‘You save me; I save you. That’s the way it works from now on.’’

  Then they were being mobbed by a sudden surge of cheering bodies, young and weary, but battle tested now, and victorious. Leah laughed with joy as she was variously hugged and backslapped, and returned the favor, aware of the sting in her palms and the aches everywhere else and the fact that none of that mattered just then. They’d won—for now. They could take a breath. Step back. Regroup. And figure out what came next. Most important, they’d do it together, as a team. As the Nightkeepers.

  She bounced off Strike in the scrum, laughed, and latched onto him as an anchor. As she did so, she saw a flash of black where there hadn’t been any before. She froze.

  Flipped her wrist. Stared.

  ‘‘Holy shit,’’ someone said. She didn’t think it was her.

  There were three marks on her forearm where the scar had been. One she recognized from her research: jun tan. Beloved. The mark of a mated Nightkeeper. The other she recognized from Strike’s arm: the royal ju. The third was unfamiliar, but there was no mistaking the flying serpent.

  Strike, when he flipped his arm, was wearing the beloved mark too.

  He smiled, his eyes for her alone. He touched her marks one by one and whispered, ‘‘Godkeeper.’’ The flying serpent. ‘‘Queen.’’ The royal mark. And when he got to the third mark, the beloved, he said simply,

  ‘‘Mine.’’

  EPILOGUE

  Twenty-four hours later

  Exhausted from a restless night plagued with half-remembered dreams of dragons or some such shit—like he hadn’t outgrown D&D years ago—Lucius mainlined about a gallon of instant coffee and dragged his ass onto campus and up the stairs of the art history building. Halfway down the hall to his office, he stopped dead when he saw that Anna’s door was open.

  His heart picked up a beat, as hope that she’d come back warred with the fear that admin was clearing out her desk, making it final. Holding his breath, he stepped into the doorway . . . and exhaled on a slap of relief when he saw her sitting at her desk.

  She looked up, and her lips curved in greeting. ‘‘Lucius.’’

  ‘‘Welcome back,’’ he said, grinning with a kick of pleasure as his world realigned itself.

  ‘‘It’s good to see you.’’ The words seemed a little too careful, but he could only figure she was trying to discourage him from asking how she was, where she’d been, where she was living—with the Dick or somewhere else?—and whether she was staying. Talk to me, he wanted to say. Tell me what’s going on and how I can help. But he’d left a dozen voice-mail messages to that effect on her cell, and her lack of response had been answer enough.

  ‘‘So . . .’’ she said into the sudden quiet. ‘‘Did I miss anything important? Any good university gossip going around? Aside, of course, from the rumors about me having a nervous breakdown and checking into a mental ward.’’

  ‘‘Actually,’’ he deadpanned, ‘‘you’re a closet meth-head and you went for rehab. Sheesh. Keep up, will you?’’

  ‘‘Great.’’ She rolled her eyes, but the tension between them relaxed a notch.

  ‘‘There was something a little weird you missed,’’ he said. He’d only half paid attention to the buzz because he’d been worried about her, but he didn’t think she needed— or wanted—to hear that. ‘‘Seems like Ambrose Ledbetter’s dropped off the face of the earth.’’

  ‘‘Really?’’

  Again with the too-careful tone, but he didn’t have a clue what it meant. Since she seemed interested, though, he continued, ‘‘Yeah, really. Granted, he goes off the reservation for months at a time, but it turns out there’s a daughter—maybe a goddaughter? I’m not sure, exactly. Anyway, she says he’s supposed to check in with her once a week, and he missed his last two calls. Sure enough, when she went down to look for him, no Ledbetter.’’

  ‘‘Who—’’ She broke off. ‘‘Never mind.’’ She flipped through some papers on her desk, and as she did so, he saw a flash of yellow at her throat, where an unfamiliar skull-shaped pendant hung on a delicate chain. ‘‘I’ve got to get out from underneath some of this backlog, but let’s do lunch. Sissy Burgers?’’

  He grinned, and more of the tension uncoiled. ‘‘Yeah, that’d be good.’’ He lifted a hand and sketched a wave. ‘‘Catch you then.’’

  Twenty minutes later he was on his way out the door when the lab phone rang. Figuring Anna would get it, or Neenie, he kept going, but it rang again. Grumbling, he detoured to the closest handset and answered. ‘‘Mayan Studies.’’

  There was a pause; then a soft voice said, ‘‘Is Anna Catori there? This is Sasha Ledbetter returning her call.’’

  Lucius should’ve said he was sorry about Ambrose. He should’ve said no, Anna had stepped out, but he could take a message. Something. Anything. But he didn’t. He just stood there, vapor-locked by the sound of her voice, which was weird, because it was just a voice, and there was no reason for it to reach inside him and squeeze a hard fist around his heart.

  ‘‘Hello? Are you there?’’

  ‘‘Yeah,’’ he squeaked, going soprano. ‘‘Yeah, sorry. Bad connection. Um, Anna’s not here.’’ At least, she hadn’t answered the phone. ‘�
�Can I tell her you called? Is there a number where she can reach you, like a cell or something?’’

  Okay, that was even borderline slick, he thought as she rattled off a number and he jotted it down on his palm. ‘‘I’ll give her the message.’’

  ‘‘Thanks,’’ she said softly. Then she hung up, leaving him staring at the handset, wondering why it felt like the world had just tilted beneath his feet.

  The night after the autumnal equinox, once the sun was down and the barbecue was long gone, came the time that Rabbit had been dreading. Red-Boar’s funeral.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t want to give the old man a proper send-off. It was more that he wasn’t sure he could do it right. The ceremony Jade had found in the archive said the torchbearer was supposed to say good-bye with ‘‘a heart full of grief and regret, and thanks for the one who was lost.’’ Which sounded great in theory. And yeah, he could find the grief and regret, and maybe even the thanks, but there were all sorts of other emotions tangled up alongside, emotions he wasn’t sure the old man needed with him when he set off on his journey.

  But Rabbit was the last of the bloodline. The torchbearer’s role fell to him.

  So when Strike signaled that it was time, Rabbit led the others to the coffin they’d made of ceiba wood and placed near the life tree, at the drip edge, where Red-Boar’s ashes would mix with the others’ and sink into the root system of a tree that shouldn’t be able to grow where it was growing.

  Nate, Sven, and Michael stood together, with Alexis and Jade opposite them, coexisting in uneasy accord. Brandt and Patience stood rock-solid, their unity an almost palpable force, while Strike and Leah were together at the foot of the coffin, surrounded by a faint halo of golden light Rabbit hoped would wear off soon, because it was freaky. The gathered winikin formed a second ring around the coffin.

  Rabbit took his place at the end of the simple wooden box and tried to think of something to say, just like he’d been trying on and off all day. But none of it seemed right, so in the end he said simply, ‘‘Safe journey, old man.’’