A howl bubbled up in Leah’s throat as her captor carried her across the room, trailed by four other guys with cold, mocking expressions and winged croc tats slapped atop older ink.
She tried to block out the sights and the fear, concentrating on what seemed like her only chance for escape: the moment they’d have to undo the zip ties to get her hands and feet into the shackles. Her heart drummed in her ears as the guy carried her across the room and dumped her unceremoniously on the altar. She hit hard, landing on her tailbone with bruising force and cracking her head against the stone. Pain lanced and she cried out behind the gag, squeezing her eyes shut as she saw stars, along with a light so bright it hurt.
‘‘Careful,’’ Zipacna snapped. ‘‘Her blood is even more valuable than her brother’s.’’
There it was, Leah thought on a howl of rage. Confirmation. Practically a confession. And it wouldn’t do her a damn bit of good, because it was the solstice. Two more bodies were due, maybe more because he’d brought them south, to the home of his ancient gods.
Clammy hands pawed at her, and a knife touched her belly as her shirt and bra were cut away. She squeezed her eyes shut, partly to preserve the illusion that she was stunned, and partly because, deep down inside, she didn’t want to watch.
Then, finally, she felt hands on her ankles, felt a tug and release as the zip tie was cut away. Adrenaline revved her senses. Terror. Rage. Come on, you bastards, she urged silently. Do the wrists, too. Can’t you see I’m not going anywhere?
Instead, they shoved her farther onto the altar and pulled her legs apart. The moment she felt the touch of a shackle, Leah erupted. Screaming behind the gag, she opened her eyes, twisted, and dove for the floor.
Surprise gave her a momentary advantage and she actually managed to break free. She hit hard, scrambled to her feet, and slammed her bound hands into the nearest guy’s gut. When he stumbled back, she bolted for the door, heart hammering.
‘‘Damn it, get her!’’ Zipacna shouted, and footsteps closed in behind her, moving fast.
Sobbing, Leah flung herself through the arched doorway as Zipacna yelled something in a language she didn’t recognize, and the stones trembled beneath her feet. Fighting to keep her balance, she skidded around a corner and slammed into someone coming the other way.
For a split second, she thought she was saved. Then she saw the glint of filed-sharp teeth, and knew she was dead, after all.
‘‘Sorry, baby,’’ Itchy said. ‘‘Wrong way.’’ He punched her in the temple and caught her when she fell. Over the roaring in her ears, she heard him shout, ‘‘Chill. I’ve got her.’’
Moments later, she was back in the chamber. Seconds after that, the shackles clicked into place around her ankles, then her wrists. They took the gag off, but she didn’t bother screaming, because she knew damn well there was nobody around to hear, nobody to care.
Backup—and home—was far away.
Tears stung her eyelids and spilled free, tracking down her cheeks, and she whimpered when Zipacna leaned over her. She expected him to gloat, to taunt her.
Instead he touched her right wrist, where her sleeve was pulled down over a faded scar. ‘‘The gods marked you as their own long ago. Your brother’s blood began the process. Yours will complete it.’’ He lifted a black stone blade, turned it so it glinted in the torchlight. ‘‘I’m offering you power. Immortality. A place in what the world will become beyond the zero date.’’
She was trapped in his mismatched eyes, frozen in their magnetic pull, unable to look away. A warm pressure kindled at the base of her skull, urging her to accept whatever it was he was offering. Yes, a voice seemed to whisper. Join us. Help us.
He leaned closer, so her entire world became his lopsided pupils, the crackle of the torches, and the heavy smell of incense. ‘‘Just relax,’’ he said, voice dropping to a hypnotic whisper. ‘‘Don’t fight it.’’
‘‘Fight what?’’ she managed to ask, nearly beyond herself with the fear and the spinning pressure inside her head, the drumming urges that seemed to come from outside her, telling her to do things she didn’t want to do, like give in to him, join with him. He’s the enemy! she screamed inside her own skull. He killed Nick. He killed Matty. How could she know that, yet feel the power, the fascination?
‘‘You can be more than you are, more than you ever thought you’d be. But you have to accept the power. Will you take a master inside you?’’ Without waiting for her answer, he lifted the knife and plunged it into her arm.
Leah shrieked when pain flared white-hot. She thrashed, trying to twist away as he stabbed her a second time, then a third, creating three parallel gashes on her right arm between her shoulder and elbow. Blood spilled from her wounds and onto the stone altar as she kept screaming, unable to stop even though she knew it wouldn’t do a damn bit of good.
The blood ran down a carved track, pulled along by the slight tilt of the altar until it pooled in a shallow stone depression between her legs.
Placing the bloody knife beside her head, he pulled a length of parchment from his loose black pants, and used the folded square to mop up the blood. The air thickened around them, going purple-black with incense and smoke. The humming whine grew louder, not just in her head now, but filling the chamber and sounding like a distant swarm of bees.
‘‘Stop,’’ she cried, sobbing now with the fear and the pain, and an increasing pressure that built inside her skull. ‘‘Stop it!’’
He shouted strange words, and the sound echoed in the chamber until it seemed to be coming from the skeletal mouths that screamed from high up in the walls. Then he spun and flung the blood-soaked parchment into one of the torches. The moment the paper caught fire, a detonation rocked the room, blasting outward from the flames.
The shock wave battered Leah and drove Zipacna back several paces as the purple smoke went black, and the air in the chamber snapped so cold that Leah’s breath fogged on her next shallow exhalation.
Expression beatific, Zipacna stared into the smoke, which thickened and twined, reaching tendrils toward him as he threw back his head and shouted, ‘‘I invite the masters into the woman. Into me. Och Banol Kax!’’
Leah arched her back, straining away from the altar, and screamed, ‘‘No!’’
Without warning, the entire chamber shuddered and dropped downward like some sort of ancient elevator gone wrong, falling a few feet and then stopping with a jolt and a loud bang. Moments later, a rushing noise gathered, then grew louder. Then water blasted inward, geysering from the screaming skull mouths and crashing down to the chamber floor.
Leah moaned, beyond herself from terror and the splitting pressure inside her brain. Zipacna leaned over her, running the flat of the knife softly across her belly before he lifted the blade and slashed it across his tongue. Blood welled up and spilled over as he shouted the same words as before. ‘‘Och Banol Kax!’’
The torches flared higher around the edge of the chamber, above the rising water. A tentacle of black smoke reached for Leah, caressing her cheek, then dropping down to stroke her ribs and belly, blatantly sexual.
Please let this all be a bad dream, she prayed, and felt a mocking chuckle rise up from deep inside her.
Zipacna grinned a gory, horrible smile. Blood dripped from his mouth and spattered on her stomach. Around them, the water pooled and collected, climbing to his ankles, then his knees. He pressed the knife just beneath her breastbone and spoke a string of words in that strange language, only now it somehow translated itself inside her head in a mix of purple and bright gold. As the masters have commanded, I have opened the intersection. With blood I offer myself, offer the gods’ keeper, to become makol, to become a tool for your—
Leah could barely hear him anymore over the howling scream that filled her head, where darkness and light spun together, fighting for dominance.
She heard words in that strange language, though she didn’t know what they meant, knew only that they were there, and the warm golde
n light urged her to use them. Filling her lungs, she arched her head back and screamed as loud as she could, ‘‘Och jun tan!’’
At the words, a tornado blasted through the room.
One second Strike was hanging motionless, suspended in the barrier—a murky gray-green mist that had no beginning or end, no point of reference, no way out except a magic that he didn’t know how to manage. Then words echoed—a spell he didn’t recognize, spoken in a woman’s voice that sent shivers down the back of his neck.
And the bottom dropped out of his world. A hole appeared in the fog and he plummeted through, straight back to earth. He knew it was earth the same way he knew it was hours later, nearly the solstice, because the magic of it, the power of it hummed in his bones. Then the world came clear around him, and he realized three things at once.
One, he was in the sacred chamber beneath Chichén Itzá, where his parents and the others had died.
Two, the blonde—the one he’d dreamed of—was there.
And three, she was in deep shit.
A guy appeared in midair at the edge of the circular chamber and hovered for a split second. He was a big man, wearing a tight black T-shirt over whipcord muscles, with ragged cutoffs below. His high cheekbones and piercing eyes were those of a warrior, and Leah knew them instantly from her dreams, just as she recognized his dark ponytail and jawline beard, and the ink on his inner forearm, two marks next to each other with a third above. In that instant of hovering, he looked at her, recognized her, and seemed more surprised to see her than he did to have materialized inside a Mayan temple.
Then gravity took over and he fell with a shout, slamming into Zipacna. The men went down together in the deepening water, which churned with their struggles. Leah screamed as they shot to their feet, streaming water and grappling for the knife.
She strained toward the newcomer, screaming, ‘‘Help me!’’
Zipacna twisted away and slashed a wide arc with the stone knife, forcing his opponent to dodge. The stranger moved like a fighter, but had no weapons. Zipacna slashed again, then spun and crossed to the altar.
Blood poured from his mouth, painting his front a gory red, and purple-black smoke twined around him like an unholy halo. Water licked over the top of the altar as he lifted the knife and said, ‘‘The heart of the gods’ keeper gives me life beyond the barrier, the power to become power itself.’’
The stranger lunged across the chamber, shouting, ‘‘Torotobik!’’
The cuffs at Leah’s wrists and ankles exploded, the shrapnel driving Zipacna back a pace without touching her skin.
She wasted half a second gaping before she flung herself off the altar, straight at Zipacna. She lacked leverage, but had the advantage of surprise as she got a fistful of his hair in one hand and drove her opposite elbow into his gut. The knife went flying and the stranger dove for it.
Zipacna bellowed and went down, nearly submerging them both in the cold water, which had started glowing a strange greenish white.
A rising howl echoed in the chamber, nearly drowning out the stranger’s voice when he shouted, ‘‘Get away from her, you bastard!’’
Zipacna thrashed and twisted, reversing their positions so she was the one neck-deep in the water. His eyes took on a strange greenish glow as he wrapped his fingers around her throat and squeezed.
His voice was gravelly and barely human when he said, ‘‘You’re too late, Nightkeeper. I am ajaw-makol, and she belongs to me.’’ He bore down, choking her. Leah’s vision went dim, then dark, and a rushing noise filled her head.
Over it all, she heard the stranger say, ‘‘Wrong. She’s mine.’’ He hurled himself forward and plunged the stone knife into Zipacna’s back.
Zipacna jerked and arched, screaming in pain. He staggered away from her, convulsing as he grabbed for a deep stab wound beneath his shoulder blade. Slamming against the wall near the doorway, he listed to one side, drawing a red smear on the wall.
But incredibly, horribly, he grinned, his mismatched eyes glowing pure emerald green. ‘‘Too late, Nightkeeper. ’’
He slapped his palm against the wall, spoke a low word, and lurched through the doorway. The stranger roared and lunged for the door, but a stone panel slid across the opening, sealing them in.
‘‘Oh, God!’’ Heart pounding, Leah splashed toward the door. She was halfway there when the chamber dropped a few more feet and the incoming water doubled, blasting from the screaming skulls with pounding force. Moments later, the torches snuffed out, leaving the room lit by the unearthly radiance of the water, which quickly climbed to her throat, then buoyed her off the floor until she was treading to keep her head above the surface.
Heart racing, she turned to the stranger. Remembering the grenade thing he’d done with her cuffs, she said, ‘‘Can you open the door?’’
He shook his head. ‘‘No, but I can try something else. Come here.’’ Swimming now, he gathered her close and fitted her body against his as the cool, white-green water edged up past her ears and touched her cheeks. ‘‘Hang on.’’
Leah grabbed onto him as her head bumped the ceiling. ‘‘Hurry!’’
His arms tightened around her and she felt that click of connection, the twist in her belly that said, There you are. He held her close, said a few words in that strange language. . . .
And nothing happened.
Come on. Heart hammering, Strike tried again, bearing down and thinking of the garden center. For fuck’s sake, teleport!
He was wearing a new mark on his forearm, the talent glyph of a teleporter. But no matter how hard he concentrated on the garden center, giving himself a destination this time, the yellow travel thread refused to appear in his mind.
Focus, he thought as the water closed over them. Clear your head.
Still nothing.
The blonde bowed against him, convulsing. Gods, he prayed, help me get us out of here. Please.
But there was no answer as her heartbeat slowed and his own lungful of air grew stale.
Pulse racing, he tried again, this time picturing the studio apartment the Nightkeepers—or rather Jox— maintained near Chichén Itzá as a bolt-hole. Maybe the garden center was too far away. Maybe he could manage something local.
Or not.
Darkness closed in. Despair. How was it possible that he’d survived the massacre only to die like this, in the moment it seemed like the world might actually need him after all?
Gods, he thought, though he’d never been a big one for praying, help me out here.
And, incredibly, there was an answer. Golden light flared, the power of the sky and sun, the color of the gods. Strike’s heart stuttered in his chest as he heard a rattle of scales, a whisper of feathers. And what could only be the voice of a god, pure and clarion.
Accept my power, child of man, the entity said, and it wasn’t talking to him. It was talking to the woman he held cradled against his chest. The one he’d dreamed of.
The makol had called her the gods’ keeper. Yet the writs said that only a female Nightkeeper could become such a thing, and she wore no Nightkeeper’s mark.
Accept the magic and the light, the voice urged again, and there was a tinge of desperation in the words.
The Godkeepers were a myth, Strike thought, a dream. Prophesied to arise at the end of the age, destined to fight the Banol Kax for possession of the earth during the Great Conjunction with their warrior mates at their sides, they were part of the stories he’d been tempted to stop believing as he’d grown to adulthood and the magic had started to seem like a childhood fantasy. But he now had proof-positive the magic was real. What if the Godkeepers were, too? What if the dreams had been telling him that this woman—this human woman—was somehow destined to become his mate, his Godkeeper?
Come on, Blondie, he urged inwardly. Come on. Not because he was in any position to take a mate, but because the gods came first, and if the cosmic shit was really about to hit the fan, the Nightkeepers—or what was left of them—were go
ing to need all the help they could get.
She writhed in his arms, fighting the invading presence even as her heart faltered. Slowed. Stopped.
Come on! Strike shouted inwardly as his oxygen ran out and the universe coalesced to a pinprick of darkness. Terror howled through him, fear for himself, for the woman.
The god’s golden voice came again, aimed at him this time, the mental touch growing fainter by the second as the solstice passed. Save her, Nightkeeper.
‘‘I don’t know how,’’ Strike said aloud, the words emerging as precious bubbles carrying the very last of his air. But then he realized he did. For a god to pass through the portal and link with a Nightkeeper female, she had to be near death. That was the only way to touch the other side of the barrier, except for . . .
Sex.
He acted fast, cursing himself for having not thought of it sooner, for being hindered by modern ethics in a situation ruled by ancient law. He palmed the ajawmakol ’s knife from his belt, drew the blade in a quick slash across his tongue, and then opened her mouth to draw a matching scratch on hers.
Then, as he had done in his dreams, he held her close and kissed her.
A loud crack split the room, and the water rushed out, dumping them both on the floor, but he kept kissing her, willing her to respond. To live. To become what she seemed destined to be.
But she didn’t move, didn’t breathe.
She was dying.
In the space between the purple-black funnel that’d sucked her down and a vortex of golden light that called her onward, Leah found a world of gray-green mist that smelled of her brother’s cologne. The familiar scent beckoned her inside and cocooned her in warmth. ‘‘Matty?’’ she called, suddenly certain he was nearby, though that didn’t make any sense unless she was dead.
So what if she was? she thought on a sad, soft burst of acceptance. Would it really be so bad to turn her back on that life and—
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