Nightkeepers notfp-1

by Jessica Andersen

  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 mist 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 f
or 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.’’

  Then he palmed his father’s knife, which he now wore on his belt, and welcomed the bite of pain from the slash. When blood welled, he let it fall onto the coffin.

  Without the need for any spell casting, the droplets burst into flame where they fell. The wood caught greedily, the fire fueled by the magic Rabbit felt flowing through him like water, magic he hadn’t consciously called, magic he wasn’t sure he could control.

  Within two minutes, the heat had driven the others back. Within five, the coffin and the body within it were gone, leaving behind only a smudge of ash that stirred in the desert wind, blending with the darkened soil nearby.

  Eventually the others drifted away.

  Alone, Rabbit tried to feel peace but found only anger toward a father who’d never been what he needed. Tried to find forgiveness, and saw only the darkness around him. The angry part of him, the part he could mostly control now even as it grew stronger and started to press, rose up in him, urging him to leave Skywatch.

  I need to be by myself for a while, he thought. The pueblo. I’ll go to the pueblo. It wasn’t quite leaving, wasn’t quite staying. And there, sometimes, he found the peace that escaped him.

  But when he turned to go, he realized he wasn’t alone, after all. The twin boys, Harry and Braden, stood behind him, unusually silent. Harry held out a hand. ‘‘Rabbit come,’’ he said, though unlike his more brazen twin, he rarely spoke.

  ‘‘You guys go on,’’ Rabbit said. ‘‘I’ll see you later.’’

  But the kid didn’t move, just stood there with his hand out, staring at Rabbit like he knew what was going on inside him, like he understood somehow. ‘‘No cliff. Rabbit come.’’

  A chill shivered through him. ‘‘How did you—’’ He broke off as a touch of gold sparkled in the air between them. ‘‘Okay,’’ he said after a moment. ‘‘In we go.’’

  He followed the twins into the mansion, away from the darkness.

  It was late before things wound down and Strike finally found an opportunity to slip away with his woman. Okay, so he sort of interrupted her midsentence, picked her up, slung her over his shoulder, and cavemanned it down the hall to the royal suite, but who was counting?

  She squealed and squirmed, drumming her fists on his kidneys, but they both knew she didn’t mean it. If she had, he’d be flat on his back and gasping for air. Which was pretty much where he ended up the moment he got the suite doors closed, because she braced her feet on the wall and used the leverage to overbalance them both onto the carpet, then went to work on him with her hands and mouth the moment they were down.

  Not that he was complaining in the slightest.

  He fisted his hands in her long blond hair, holding her in place above him as he kissed her hard and hot, which didn’t do a damned thing to take the edge off the horns that’d been riding him since they got back to the compound. Mine, he thought fiercely, and again, mine.

  It wasn’t just the magic of the god, though they both felt it, a kernel of gold at the base of their souls, something they could draw on when they needed it in the months and years to come. They’d won only a single battle. The war was yet to be joined. It wasn’t just the relief of having her still there, either, though that was huge. The thought that he could’ve lost her had him sliding his hands down her shoulders to her waist and drawing her snug against the hard ridge in his jeans. And it wasn’t just the total turn-on of wearing their matching marks, the beloved marks.

  It was her. Leah. His woman. His love. There were no guards between them, no barriers. There were only the two of them.

  ‘‘I love you,’’ he said when they came up for air.

  ‘‘That’s convenient, ’cause I love
you back.’’ With a lithe twist, she slipped out from underneath him and came up with her fingers wrapped around his belt. Tugged him toward the solarium. ‘‘Come on. Jox finally gave up and moved a bed out under the stars. We’ve got a box spring and everything.’’

  ‘‘No shit?’’ Strike laughed. ‘‘There might be some romance in the old guy’s soul after all.’’ But he pulled her farther down the short hall. ‘‘I’ve got a better idea.’’

  The torches came up when he opened the door to the small ritual chamber, and the air smelled of copan even though he hadn’t burned any. Leah flowed past him, shedding clothes as she went, so she was naked by the time she turned and hiked herself up on the chac-mool, put one foot up onto the poor guy’s head, and crooked a finger at Strike. ‘‘I like your thinking.’’

  He went to her, putting his feet in the red outlines on the ceremonial mat, and fitting the rest of his body exactly where it was meant to be—up against his woman. His queen. And when they kissed and the torches dimmed, and he glanced into the obsidian mirror behind the altar, he saw only the strong, delicate curve of Leah’s spine, and her face in half profile as she turned it into his neck and breathed him in.

  The ghosts, and the past, were gone, leaving them to live the future yet unwritten.

  Together.

  The End

  SIGNET ECLIPSE

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,

  Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2,

  Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124,

  Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,