Three months earlier they’d been normal people, CEOs and screwups, therapists and number crunchers. Now they were magi. They were the Nightkeepers.
And, he thought with a sick churning in his gut, they were mortal. Which had been an unacknowledged sticking point for him, one of the reasons he’d held himself away from them for as long as possible. He hadn’t just been fighting for his old life, or for the promise of a new one with Leah. He’d been fighting not to care about his teammates, or, failing that, struggling not to have to lead them into battle.
His father had led his family and friends to their deaths. What if he did the same? What if the greatest sacrifice was the remainder of the Nightkeepers? What then?
‘‘Then we go out fighting,’’ he said aloud, and crossed to them, the scepter magic still churning in his blood, keeping the turbines revving high. ‘‘Join up and hang on,’’ he ordered, and when they linked hands, the power nearly took off the top of his head.
He leaned on it, pictured the Yucatán rain forest, and the clearing outside the hidden tunnel leading to the sacred chamber, and zapped.
The moment they blinked in, a group of makol massed in the tunnel mouth opened fire.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Strike ducked and started running for the leafy tree line, bellowing, ‘‘Take cover!’’
His pulse pounded and adrenaline hammered through his system alongside power and rage as the entrenched makol blasted away with a combination of green fireballs and M-16s. The Nightkeepers bolted for cover as Michael threw up a shield spell that blocked the first volley.
Strike dove behind a low, partially crumbled wall carved with what looked like the flying-serpent glyph he wore on his arm. ‘‘Over here!’’
The others scrambled in behind him and hunched down as a second salvo whistled over their heads and smashed into the rock wall mere feet from their position.
‘‘I’ll get their heads down.’’ Red-Boar angled his autopistol up and over the wall and started firing off short bursts designed to keep the makol pinned. Grim faced and resolute, he looked every inch the soldier he’d once been.
Risking a look around the wall, Strike took stock. There were probably fifty of them, their green eyes glowing in the fading light. The good news was that they’d be easy to contain in the cave mouth.
The bad news was that he needed to get the hell past them.
‘‘We need to draw them out,’’ he said, hunkering back down behind the wall. ‘‘How about this?’’ He grabbed a stick, swiped a layer of leaves away, and started drawing a rough approximation of their positions in the moist earth of the rain forest floor. ‘‘The makol are fierce as hell and hard to kill, but they’re not that smart. I say four or five of us work our way around to here’’—he marked a spot on the east side of the cave mouth—‘‘and make it look like our flank is exposed.’’
Red-Boar fired and grunted in satisfaction when there was a cry of pain from the other side of the clearing. Then he glanced at the diagram. ‘‘Not much of a shot from there, for either side.’’
‘‘Granted,’’ Strike said, ‘‘but I’m counting on that. I need to draw them out, get them away from the tunnel while the rest of us sneak through on the other side and attack from the rear.’’
‘‘Too simple,’’ Red-Boar said dismissively.
‘‘But it’s relatively low-risk, and we don’t have time for anything fancy,’’ Strike countered. ‘‘I want Patience, Brandt, Sven, and Rabbit on the east side, drawing them out. Brandt, you’re in charge. Nate, you take Alexis, Michael, and Jade to the west, and see if you can get in behind them. Red-Boar, Anna, and I will use the distraction to get into that tunnel.’’
Red-Boar looked back at him. ‘‘You want me with you?’’
‘‘No, but you’re the best power boost I’ve got.’’ Strike hated splitting his forces, but he didn’t have time to waste battling the makol, and he couldn’t risk them following. He needed a clear shot at the chamber. And Leah.
Even now, he could feel the stars coming into alignment. He needed to save Leah, save the god—the fear and the mad fury of it pounded in his veins, making him feel larger than himself, and powerful with it.
‘‘Any questions?’’ He got head shakes and resolution all around, and nodded with grim satisfaction. ‘‘Good. Once the rest of you have taken care of these bastards, follow us down into the tunnel. We’re going to need you.’’
With that, he pulled his autopistols and the others did the same, and they split up, moving in opposite directions to flank the makol, and hoping to hell the plan worked.
If it didn’t, they were screwed.
Leah was running out of time. Through her weak link to the golden light of the god she could feel the alignment coming to bear, feel the power opening up, blooming within her, but she couldn’t do a damn thing with it. All the training, all the spells . . . useless.
She wasn’t a Nightkeeper. Never would be. And Strike hadn’t come for her. Did he think she was dead already? Worse, had something happened to him? Fear crushed down on defeat, adding to the sense of suffocation that was growing ever more intense with each second.
Jox’s words spooled through her head in a depressing loop. Self-sacrifice isn’t a sin . . . it’s the ultimate way . . . to honor the gods.
Was that what it was going to come down to? She cast around the chamber for a weapon, but saw only the screaming skulls and dying gods carved on the walls, and braziers that gave off red-hued copan smoke. She needed a knife, or preferably a gun. Quicker that way.
The thought twisted her belly with fear and despair. Strike, where are you?
A noise from the chamber entrance had her whipping her head from the altar surface, her heart jolting with the crazy thought that he’d locked on and come for her. But no, it was Zipacna who strode through the door, followed by a second green-eyed makol she recognized as the mimic in its baseline form. Both were wearing flowing robes the same gray-green color as the barrier mists.
Zipacna palmed a long, wickedly curved black knife from the belt knotted at his waist, and raised an eyebrow. ‘‘Last chance. You accept the spell and you’ll live beyond tonight.’’
‘‘As a makol? No way.’’
‘‘Your loss.’’ He flipped the knife, caught it by the blade, and didn’t even wince when it cut deep and blood flowed. Glancing at his watch—a jarringly normal action— he said, ‘‘You’ve got forty-two minutes left. Any last words?’’
‘‘Yeah. ‘Fuck’ and ‘you.’ ’’
He waved his bleeding hand at her. ‘‘Tell it to someone who cares. Like your brother.’’
‘‘Leave him out of this.’’ Rage guttered low in her stomach, battling out the fear.
‘‘Why?’’ He grinned, baiting her while the mimic leaned against the wall and watched them with an eerie lack of expression. ‘‘What are you going to do about it, cop?’’
The sluggish swirl of power shone hotter, brighter in her mind’s eye, and she felt something stir. A faint tingle started in her fingertips and ran up the insides of her arms, tightening the skin across her breasts and pressing urgently at the center of her chest. But when she tried to use the magic, nothing happened.
The bastard chuckled, moving closer and leaning over her, so she could feel the inhuman chill of him, feel the tickle of his breath on her skin. ‘‘See?’’ he murmured. ‘‘You can’t do a damn thing to me. I am ajaw-makol. I’m untouchable.’’
She whimpered and stretched, trying to get away from him, but hit the ends of her shackles too quickly.
Clearly enjoying her fear, he chuckled and swiped his tongue along her cheek to the edge of her ear.
Anger flared. Revulsion. And somehow the two together were enough to put her over. She felt a click, felt a door open inside her soul. Golden power flared within her, exploding in a starburst as she touched Kulkulkan’s power. She sensed the god trapped within the skyroad, felt his power and anger, his blinding wish to be free.
Tapping that power, opening herself to it, she locked onto the spell Strike had used the first moment she met him, and shouted, ‘‘Torotobik!’’
Her shackles detonated, freeing her and driving Zipacna back with a shout. Adrenaline flaring hard and hot, she didn’t stop to think or plan. She lunged forward, grabbed the black knife from his hand, and plunged it to the hilt in his left eye, until she felt bone grate.
Roaring, Zipacna reeled to the side, pawing at the protruding haft as blood and clear fluid poured down his face. ‘‘Get her!’’
But shock slowed the mimic’s reactions. She charged him, slammed her foot into the side of his knee, and sent him flying. Then she turned back for Zipacna, intending to finish him, finish them both—only to see him puff out in a cloud of purple-black.
The mimic roared and charged her, and she turned and fled. Bolting through the door into the sand-floored tunnel leading to the sunken river, she ran in search of Zipacna. She had less than forty minutes to make sure neither of them lived past the equinox.
Strike peered through a leafy rain forest curtain, his body humming with the need to move, and move fast. ‘‘Come on, come on,’’ he chanted under his breath.
‘‘What are you waiting for?’’ Behind him, Red-Boar and Anna crouched in silence. The west-side team of Nate, Alexis, Michael, and Jade were waiting nearer the tunnel entrance, preparing to attack.
Then a single shot rang out from the bushes on the east side of the tunnel mouth. Another. The makol started to shuffle and move, shifting to the side of the cave overhang.
Strike tensed. ‘‘Get ready.’’
Suddenly, Sven leaped out of the vegetation, stood at the edge of the clearing, and unloaded most of a MAC clip into the tunnel mouth. The makol scattered, then spun and returned fire as Sven bolted for cover. Mindless with the killing rage, and only as smart as the degree to which their human hosts had accepted the evil, the makol followed.
‘‘Go!’’ Strike lunged to his feet and pounded the short distance to the tunnel mouth, with Anna and Red-Boar right behind him.
A makol at the back of the pack turned and shouted in alarm, only to be cut down in a hail of jade-tips as Nate burst from the undergrowth nearby, with Alexis and Michael right behind him, Jade bringing up the rear.
‘‘Go!’’ Nate shouted. ‘‘We’ve got this.’’
Strike didn’t argue; he bolted for the tunnel, gaining the mouth and disappearing down the stone throat, leaving the sounds of battle behind. But as he pounded down the tunnel with Anna and Red-Boar on his heels, he knew they were cutting it way too close.
The equinox hummed in his bones, stronger than the song of the summer solstice had been, stronger than he’d expected, but still he couldn’t pinpoint Leah. He kept trying to throw her a travel thread, kept getting bounced by whatever sort of shielding was at work within the tunnels.
They reached the underground river after what felt like an eternity, turned, and booked it toward the chamber. As they passed an intersecting tunnel, Strike caught a hint of motion, a flash of luminous green, and flung himself to the side with a shout of, ‘‘Makol!’’
Anna hit the deck as the creature lunged. Red-Boar roared a battle cry, grabbed the thing by the throat, and brought his pistol to its forehead. Then he froze.
It was Leah.
‘‘No!’’ Strike shouted, hiis voice cracking on the word. ‘‘Don’t!’’
Red-Boar looked at him. Hesitated.
And Leah drove a black-handled knife into Red-Boar’s gut, yanked it out, and slashed his throat on the backhand. Blood spurted, geysering in an obscene arc as the Nightkeeper’s knees buckled.
Anna screamed and reached for him, cradling him in her arms as he fell.
Leah—or the thing that had been Leah—turned on Strike. Her eyes glowed scary strange, and her mouth was distorted in a rictus of bloodlust. But when he looked at her he felt nothing but revulsion. There was no connection. No love.
‘‘Gods help us,’’ Strike said as he raised his MAC.
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 te
am, 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.
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