Final Prophecy 04: Demonkeepers

by Jessica Andersen

  “ ‘Play his game,’ ” Michael repeated. “You think the prophecy is talking about the Mayan ball game?”

  “I know it is,” Lucius said with bone-deep certainty. “The entire game was one big metaphor for the sun’s daily journey, first across the sky, then through the underworld. It stands to reason that it would be a way to reach Kinich Ahau.” I hope. Because if this didn’t work, they were pretty much screwed.

  “It’s like volleyball, right?” Sven asked. “Bounce the ball back and forth, no holding, and keep the ball off the ground using the nonhand bodypart of your choice.” He paused. “But I thought the point of the game was to sacrifice the winners. Are we sure that’s a good idea?”

  “We’ll do whatever it takes if it means gaining access to the only god not currently trapped in the sky,” Strike said implacably. “We need the gods—or at least a god—to form the Triad. No god, no Triad. No Triad, no hope in the war. Are you following?”

  Yeah, Lucius thought inwardly, I’m following. Because they didn’t just need at least one god; they needed the damned Triad spell, and they didn’t have a clue where to look for it. They had exhausted all the possible searches on earth. Which left them with “not on earth” as their last option.

  Aloud, he said, “Although sacrifice was sometimes part of the game, it wasn’t necessarily the winners who died. Sometimes it was the losers, and sometimes there weren’t any deaths at all. It depended on who was playing, and why. But that’s getting ahead of things. Strike asked me to give you guys the quick four-one-one on the ball game, so here it goes: First, to understand the game, you’ve got to keep in mind that it’s the progenitor of almost all modern ball games. Before its evolution, game balls were always made of wood or leather, and fell dead when they hit. That changed when the Olmec figured out the trick of mixing the sap from latex trees and morning glory vines to create a bouncy, elastic rubber polymer.” He paused. “For the record, that was good old human ingenuity, circa 1600 B.C., not something you guys taught us.”

  He got a couple of snorts for that, a couple of nods.

  “Anyway, because rubber seemed to have a life and mind of its own when it bounced but was otherwise inanimate, it was considered spiritual, sacred. It was used in medicines, burned with sacred incense as a sacrificial offering, made into human-shaped effigies, and poured into spherical wood or stone molds and turned into balls.” He held his hands a little less than a foot apart. “We’re not talking hollow basketballs, either. They were heavy as hell, though sometimes their makers lightened them up by using a sacrificial victim’s skull as a hollow center, and layering rubber around it. Regardless, these things could do some serious damage, which is why body armor evolved along with the game.”

  He passed out a couple of pictures he’d printed off his laptop; they showed photos of various ball game scenes. “Here are some pics to give you an idea. Some were painted on slipware.” Including the scene that had been showing on-screen when he’d brought Jade back to his cottage. Their eyes met when he sent that one around; her cheeks pinkened. “Others are from the actual ball court walls.” These included the famous scene from the great court at Chichén Itzá: that of a kneeling ballplayer being ritually decapitated, the blood spurting from his neck turning into snakes. “Finally, here are some some three- D models that were made of clay.” He sent around the last of the printouts, showing replica “I”-shaped courts, with armored teams facing off over the ball, referees keeping an eye on out-of-bounds, and fans sitting up on top of the high walls. “In a couple of them, you can even see piles of fabric and other trade goods, sort of the A.D. 1000 version of a stadium concourse.”

  “Huh.” Michael flipped through the pictures. “It was really a ball game, the way we think of it.”

  “Definitely. But like so much of life in the Mayan-Nightkeeper culture, it also had a strong set of symbolic elements. Although the game itself existed before the Nightkeepers arrived, things got far more organized after 1300 B.C., when you guys showed up. The Egyptians had formalized games with rules and scoring, amphitheaters, and such. Odds are, those came from the Nightkeepers, and the First Father brought them along for the ride to this continent.”

  “Including the sun connection?” Nate asked without looking up from the pictures.

  “Yep. On one level, the ball itself represents the sun, the ball court the underworld. You’ve got two teams—or sometimes just two opposing players—competing to control the sun.” Lucius paused, trying to decide whether the parallel with their current situation was creepy, prophetic, or both. “Different versions of the game had different ways for players to gain or lose points, depending on how they returned, or failed to return, the sun ball to the other team, up to a match point of fifteen or so. Because teams could lose points as well as gain them, evenly matched games could last for days. But in a twist that’s more billiards than volleyball, if a player got the sun ball through a vertical-set hoop high up on the ball court wall, it was an instant win. Eight ball, corner pocket. Game over; hit the showers.”

  Sudden understanding lit Jade’s face. “The hoop represents the dark spot in the center of the Milky Way galaxy, which they thought was the entrance to Xibalba.”

  “Exactly, which makes the symbolism twofold. In the context of the sun passing through the entrance to Xibalba, the game reenacts Kinich Ahau’s daily journey into and out of Xibalba, even as the arc of the ball itself symbolizes the sun traveling across the sky. From the perspective of the dark center of the Milky Way, putting the ball through the hoop represents the sun traveling through that dark center, which is the astronomical event that’s going to coincide with the winter solstice of 2012, precipitating the barrier’s collapse.”

  There was a moment of silence before Brandt said sourly, “When you put it that way, seems kind of dumb we haven’t been playing the game all along.”

  Lucius tipped his hand in a yes/no gesture. “I’m distilling out the points that relate to Kinich Ahau, but there are a ton of other connections within the game: to reptiles and birds, to harvest festivals, different gods and events, even to the class system itself. Chichén Itzá had seven ball courts located at various positions relative to the different temples and neighborhoods, which were stratified by socioeconomic status. If you give me enough time, I could probably make an argument for tying the game to almost any god or prophecy you cared to throw at me.”

  Brandt pressed, “But you think this connection is solid?”

  He nodded. “I do. In fact, I think my subconscious has been trying to tell me about the connection for a while now. I kept gravitating toward ball game artifacts, when the game had never been that big a deal for me before. So, yeah. The connection is solid.”

  The other man nodded. “Then I guess we’re playing. What are the rules?”

  “In the ancient versions of the game, serves were typically made with the hands or forearms, returns with the hips, legs, and feet, which were protected with light armor, some of which got pretty elaborate. In addition to the shin and body protectors, there were hand stones, which worked on the same principle as brass knuckles, adding weight and force to the return hit, and yokes, which covered the hips, lowered the player’s center of gravity, and increased the power of a body hit.” Lucius sketched in the air as he spoke. “There were face masks and helmets, of course, because the balls were heavy enough to do some major damage. And there were other pieces that were largely decorative, which the players wore for the opening ceremonies and then stripped off for the actual game.”

  Michael grinned. “Sounds like a cross between a WWF grudge match and the Super Bowl.”

  “Mix in some major religious overtones, and you’re not far off,” Lucius agreed. “The ballplayers were the rock stars of their day. Even after retirement, they were revered for their wins, and some became the boon companions of their kings. To be buried with your ballplayers’ gear was a huge sign of power and respect.”

  “How much of these raiments survived into modern
day?”

  “Of the original stuff, very little. Most of it was made of wood and leather, some of rubber itself. None of that lasted long, given the climate. The artifacts we’ve got now are mostly pottery replicas, like the ones in the pictures I passed around.” He paused, grinning. “However, rumor has it that there’s a pile of modernized equipment in the back of one of the storerooms, along with a couple of experts who are going to show us how it’s done.”

  That got him a few confused looks, until Jox, Carlos, and Shandi all rose from their places at the far end of the table and came around to its head. Carlos was carrying a banged-up cardboard box. All three winikin, it turned out, had played seriously before the massacre, and had been among those responsible for teaching the younger generation the moves of the ritual game. What has happened before will happen again, Lucius thought. Circles within circles, past, present, and future.

  Jox stepped forward, with the other two behind him, looking grim, efficient, and suddenly very coach-like. “Everyone ready for the rules of the game the way your parents played it?”

  Almost in synchrony, the magi turned and looked at the tall parallel walls of the ball court. “I guess I always thought of it as another artifact,” Brandt said. “It’s just always there, you know? Like it’s watching over us.”

  “And now maybe it’s going to do more.” Jox nodded to the other two winikin; they dug into the box and started handing out thin booklets that were heavy on diagrams, light on text, and laid out the basics. Lucius had snagged one earlier and already had it memorized. He’d even run through some of the moves, which had come back to him with an ease that had surprised him. He’d never been much into sports before. Then again, that was before.

  “We’re just going to study pictures?” Rabbit asked from the far end of the table. Lucius glanced over, surprised to see him and Myrinne at the outskirts of the group. He hadn’t noticed the young couple’s arrival, and he wasn’t used to Strike letting the girl sit in on meetings. More, it seemed, had changed than just Rabbit’s level of pyrokinesis.

  “Only briefly.” The corners of Jox’s mouth kicked up. “Then we’re going to practice.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  June 20

  Two years, six months, and one day to the zero date

  Jox’s idea of practice turned out to be two days of sweaty, hard-hitting, brutal play, without the benefit of helmets or arm and wrist guards, which he claimed were only for ceremonial use anyway. By the time the winikin declared them competent enough not to embarrass themselves in front of the gods, Rabbit’s nose was sore and swollen, and his knees and elbows were skinned to shit. They hurt badly enough to remind him of when he and his old man had lived briefly in a cheap apartment that would’ve been more of the same old, except that there had been a half-pipe down the street, and a couple of kids who’d taught him a few tricks on their boards. That had lasted until his old man had shown up in his penitent’s robes, with his head shaved and his eyes crazy-wild; that had been the end of Rabbit’s half-pipe friends, and they’d moved on soon after.

  This isn’t about the old man, Rabbit reminded himself as he trailed after Jox, heading out of the ball court. Not directly, anyway.

  He and Myrinne had done some digging on their own, but hadn’t come up with much info on the Order of Xibalba that wasn’t already common knowledge. Rabbit had negged the idea of hiring a PI, first because he’d thrown money in that direction once before with minimal results, and second because he might not agree with all of Strike’s tenets, but he had to believe it was better for the magi to stay well under the human radar. With his luck, he’d hire a PI, the guy would find something on the Xibalbans, and the next thing he knew, the Enquirer would have a headline like: Mayan Doomsday Cult Implicated in Black Magic Slaying! or some such shit. No freaking way. He was trying to be smart these days.

  It seemed to be paying off too. Despite the knee-jerk piss-off of having Jade and Lucius break into his place and sniff around—hello, personal space—when he’d called Strike to bitch, the king had actually been pretty conciliatory about it. He’d even gone back on his keep Rabbit and Myrinne at UT through the solstice decree, and zapped out to get them. Then, when Jade’s panic button went off, Rabbit hadn’t just gotten to come along for the ride; he’d been front and center of the rescue when he’d said he thought he could crisp the makol without doing the head-and-heart thing. Strike hadn’t been too keen on his doing so much killing, but it wasn’t like they were people anymore. Once a makol was fully bound, the human host was dead one way or the other. Rabbit had just sped things up.

  In the aftermath of the op he’d been pumped, even after the drag of twelve hours in the Jeep with Michael and Lucius, who weren’t bad guys, but had both been in pissy moods and had argued about every stop. Didn’t matter, though, because when he’d gotten back to Skywatch, Myrinne had been there, waiting for him with a smile and the bright idea to ask Jox about his mother. Not in so many words, of course, but that was the basic plan. If anyone living knew anything, it would be the winikin.

  Subtle, Rabbit reminded himself as he lengthened his strides to catch up. You’re going for subtle.

  Doing the eyes-in-the-back-of-his-head thing he’d perfected over more than four decades of in loco parenthood, Jox stopped at the edge of the narrow, rectangular playing field, right on the out-of-bounds line. He raised an eyebrow. “Did you need something, or are we just headed in the same direction?” There was no asperity in the question; it was just a question. Jox was like that—a straight shooter who tried to do his best by everyone and, as far as Rabbit was concerned, didn’t take nearly enough for himself.

  “I thought you might want some help digging the stuff out of storage for tomorrow.” Rabbit didn’t quite stick his hands in his pockets and whistle innocently, but he sure imagined it.

  A year ago, Jox probably would’ve busted out laughing. Now he nodded, looking pleased. “Sure. Come on. These days, a winikin can’t afford to turn down free labor under the age of fifty.”

  They headed for the mansion, bypassed the construction crews by going in through the garage, and turned down a seldom-used hallway that had doorways marching down it on either side, numbered in sequence starting with one hundred. “These are more residences, right?”

  “They used to be,” Jox answered grimly. “Three floors of one-room studios for the unchosen winikin, single nonranking magi, out-of-town visitors, that sort of thing. Now it’s fucking storage space.”

  Rabbit held his hands up. “Sor-ry.”

  “Damn it.” Jox shook his head. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I really, really hate this part.” Stopping in front of door 121, he checked the number against a spreadsheet on his iPhone screen, muttering, “And I really don’t want to have to paw through any more boxes than absolutely necessary.” Pushing open the door, he flipped on the lights and waved Rabbit through.

  Jox had been in charge of the massive renovation and updating of Skywatch almost exactly two years earlier, when the barrier reactivated and the magi returned to their abandoned home. At the time, Rabbit had been sulking up in the pueblo, listening to tunes and hating the world. When his old man had bothered to hunt him down and nag about him pitching in and helping Jox with the cleanup, he’d sneered and done a fast fade.

  Now, looking at row upon row of moving boxes, stacked on floor-to-ceiling racks set with minimal aisles between, like something out of the closing credits of Cold Case, for the first time, Rabbit thought, really thought about what the winikin had been facing. Some boxes were marked with content lists, some with bloodlines, others with names. They were all carefully stored, cataloged, and cross-reffed in Jox’s database. And he’d done most of the work himself. He’d sorted through the residences of dead men, women, and children—family members, teammates, friends—and although he’d had a hired cleanup crew come in and strip the place of nearly a thousand people’s worth of daily living crap, he’d had to pull out the Nightkeeper-specific stuff first so it wouldn’
t hit the mainstream via Goodwill. He’d done it mostly alone too, wanting the rooms pristine, with no sign of their former inhabitants or their slaughter, before the other Nightkeepers and winikin arrived.

  Diverted from his stealth mission, Rabbit swallowed. “Shit. I’m sorry. I should’ve helped with this.”

  “You were too busy planting your head up your own ass at the time.”

  “No kidding.”

  The mild response earned him a longer look from the winikin, and a faint, approving nod. “So the rumors are true. You’re growing up.”

  “Doing my best.”

  “Glad to have you.” The winikin turned away before shit could get mushy, consulting his phone once again. “Back corner, six boxes here, another ten a couple of rooms down. We won’t need everything, but we’ll pull them all out and pick and choose.” He paused with a sidelong grin. “You get to carry the ones with all the five-pound hand stones.”

  “Screw you,” Rabbit agreed good-naturedly.

  They found the boxes. Jox tensed up when Rabbit popped the first one, then relaxed when it proved to be full of the promised shin guards and a couple of crazy-looking headpieces adorned with brittle parrot feathers. At Rabbit’s look, the winikin lifted a shoulder. “Let’s just say I was working fast back then, and was more than a little stressed. When I came looking for Gray-Smoke’s battle gear, to give to Alexis, I opened up what I thought was the right box and saw—” He broke off, jerked his shoulders irritably. “Ghosts. Not important now; let’s get these boxes back out into the light of day.”