Overhead, heretofore silent monkeys screamed in fear, and parrots took wing in a thunder of brittle feathers. For a second, nobody moved. Then, without warning, an unearthly shriek split the air and terrible creatures with twisted, humanoid bodies and the heads of animals boiled out of the blackness of the tunnel. Snakes, jaguars, eagles, hawks, crocodiles, every sacred creature was mocked in twisted Egyptian parodies arising from dark magic. Their human parts were gnarled and gray skinned, with some parts grown too large, others shrunk to vestiges.
Jade screamed; she couldn’t help it. These were the creatures that had captured her and Lucius before, only now they were damaged even worse and pissed about it. She could feel their rage as a palpable force against her magic, and instinctively tamped down her power, her vulnerability.
Strike roared an order and the warriors let fly with a fireball salvo that detonated against the front line of animal-heads, sending body parts flying in a spray of blood, fire, and flame. Their screams were terrible; the smell was worse. Gagging, Jade reeled against Lucius. He grabbed her. “Back to the trees!” he yelled over a roar of fire as flames napalmed from Rabbit’s outstretched palms, turning the second rank of attackers to a pyre. “We need to take cover!”
Jade was turning to comply when sharp teeth seized her arm and dug in, pulling her the other way.
She screamed and swung out with her cudgel; it slammed into the shoulder of one of the big black dogs. For a second, she thought she was dead, that it was going to tear her throat out then and there. But it simply glared at her and bore down on her hand, almost—but not quite—breaking the skin. Its legs were braced, its ruff standing straight up in a vicious line along its spine, making it look like some prehistoric, spiked creature.
Lucius cursed and rounded on the companion, but she waved him off as understanding dawned. “We have to fight through,” she said urgently. “Kinich Ahau needs our help!”
At her shout, the warriors knotted together in a defensive formation. “We can’t help shit if we’re dead,” Michael said, then spun to unleash a stream of deadly silver muk into the horde; the death magic cut a swath as animal-heads crumbled to dust. Sasha stood behind him, her hand on his waist, her eyes closed as she fed him her lifegiving magic, balancing out the danger of using the ancestral magic that melded both light and dark halves.
The animal-heads kept coming, their ranks swelling to overrun the clearing. Some of the creatures climbed over their own dead, uncaring, while others stopped to feed on the bodies with a ferocity that made Jade’s gorge rise.
“The whole world is going to die if we don’t rescue Kinich Ahau,” Strike countered. “If Akhenaton’s ascension doesn’t spell the beginning of the end, our failure to rescue the last god remaining outside the sky plane might.” He looked from the companions to the cave mouth and back again, and Jade could see his anguish. His father had ordered the Nightkeepers to their deaths under far better odds. He didn’t hesitate long, though. Sweeping his cudgel in a high arc, he pointed to the tunnel mouth and shouted, “Go!”
The big dog released Jade’s hand, spun, and bolted away, with its twin right behind.
The other warriors picked up the cry and charged, clearing the way with fireballs and Rabbit’s humanflamethrower routine. Jade found herself screaming, “Kinich Ahau!” and running with them. Ice magic raced through her veins but she held it in, not sure whether it would douse the flames. Lucius was right with her, solid at her side, his fierce loyalty not up for question, even if their relationship remained hazy and uncertain.
The Nightkeepers’ charge carried them to the cave mouth before the animal-heads rallied. A huge creature with a crocodile’s head rose above the others, snarling something in that strange, guttural tongue she had heard before, in Xibalba. At their leader’s orders, the animal-heads reoriented and charged, surrounding the magi and killing the momentum of their charge.
“I’ve got it!” Michael shouted. He called a thick, sturdy shield spell and slapped it across the point where the cave mouth narrowed into a tunnel leading into the mountainside. A hundred animal-heads, maybe more, were trapped outside the shield, cutting the immediate threat in half. “Go!”
“Good man,” Strike said shortly as he and the others faced forward, to where a seemingly endless stream of animal-heads poured up through the tunnel. Under the next fireball onslaught, the narrow space filled quickly with burning bodies, their stench turning the air thick with an oily, choking smoke that made Jade gag. She reached for Lucius, who caught her against him, holding on tightly.
Sasha moved to her mate’s side to boost his magic and keep him leveled off. She glanced at Jade and the friends—a former chef and an ex-therapist—shared a quick how the hell did we end up here? look, and then returned to their tasks.
Jade and Lucius followed Strike and the others as the small fighting force slaughtered its way deeper into the tunnel, winning forward one bloody foot at a time. Jade focused on the companions; they always seemed to know where to twist and turn in order to find their way through the surging melee. Lucius cracked his cudgel to his left and right, his jaw tight, his eyes reflecting the same sharp horror that rattled through her. In the underworld, the animal-headed warriors had regenerated quickly. Up on the earth plane, they just flat-out died. And although they resembled the ancient Egyptian gods, each of the head- types was also a species that had—or used to have—a corresponding Nightkeeper bloodline. Had Akhenaton harnessed the Nightkeepers’ ancestors as an army? Was that who the magi were killing?
“Don’t think about it,” Lucius rasped against her temple. He was still holding her close, using his body to shield her as they forced their way through. “Not now. Just go.”
So she went, following in the companions’ wake. They outdistanced the fireball-wielding magi, so she lashed out with bursts of ice magic that froze some of the animal-heads, slowed others by dumping drifts of snow. Time lost meaning, becoming a cycle of spell casting and advancing, with Lucius staying strong at her back. Then the tunnel opened up around them and they were standing in a ceremonial chamber with ritually carved walls and a wide altar. Jade didn’t process the details, though. Her attention was immediately commanded by the liquid shimmer of the far wall, which bent and flexed, seeming alive.
The companions bolted toward it.
“The barrier!” She surged after them, but Lucius yanked her back. “What—” She spun on him and broke off on a gasp. The tunnel was blocked with animal-heads and the Nightkeepers were nowhere in sight.
“They’re cut off,” Lucius reported grimly. “And this is a dead end.”
“No, it’s not. It’s the beginning of the hellroad. It’s open because of the solstice, or maybe because of the hellhounds and the ball game. Who knows? All I know is that we need to get through there.”
“We can’t—” He began, but then broke off when a jaguar-head started barking orders. “Fuck. Come on.”
They ran together to the back wall, which looked like stone but wasn’t. The companions had waited for them, and the four rescuers dove through together. As she passed through the barrier, Jade felt power ripple across her skin. Then she was caught up, sucked down, spun around. Her hand was torn from Lucius’s grip and she screamed. She heard him shout her name; then even that was lost to the roar of acceleration as the world whipped past her. She felt the same wrenching, sliding sensation as before, when she and Lucius had traveled to Xibalba. Only this time it was ten times worse, because she was experiencing it fully. Her physical self wasn’t safely at Skywatch anymore. She was traveling, body and soul, into hell.
Xibalba
This time, when Lucius and Jade blinked into existence within the dry, angular canyon, he immediately recognized it as a giant, “I”-shaped ball court, with the out-of-bounds lines marked by the faint shadow of dark shield magic. Then again, the association was a hell of a lot more obvious: The pyramid and its surrounding columns were gone, small vertical stone hoops protruded from halfway down each of the l
ong sides of the canyon . . . and there was a game in progress.
His mind snapshotted the scene. Akhenaton’s ghostly form was on one side with his guards and five animal-heads. The makol was a dark shadow. The other nine, decked out in full armor, held spiked cudgels and wore knives on their belts. Kinich Ahau stood alone on the other side in the guise of a horned, plumed man, not the firebird. The god wore a feathered robe with hints of glistening armor beneath but held no weapon. There were stone shackles on the god’s wrists and ankles; heavy sinew-threaded ropes stretched from the cuffs to a stone ring set low on one wall. A man’s head lay on the ground between the two teams, wide-eyed and staring, with fluid leaking from the stump. Lucius thought it might have belonged to the musician, who was nowhere in sight.
Oh, he thought. Of course.
He must’ve said it aloud, because as he and Jade scrambled to their feet, she whispered, “What is it?”
The players, locked in a preplay stare-down, seemed oblivious to the newcomers, but Lucius figured he didn’t dare count on how long that would last. Keeping his voice low, he said, “One of the creation stories in the Popol Vuh describes how the Hero Twins journeyed to the underworld and played ball against the Banol Kax themselves. If the dark lords won, the twins would be stuck forever in Xibalba. But if the twins won, their father would be reincarnated on Earth and they would be free to return with him. Akhenaton must not be able to rule the sky in his makol form. In order to take his place in the sky, he has to defeat Kinich Ahau and be reincarnated on Earth.”
A soul-curdling fanfare sounded from all around them, and the players scrambled to gain control of the game ball. The sun god lunged and hit the end of his tether, which stopped him several paces shy of the ball. The horned god shrieked with rage, the firebird’s cry coming from the man’s mouth as a snake- headed warrior snagged the ball.
Jade whispered, “Does that mean that if Kinich Ahau wins, he automatically returns to Earth?”
“That’d be consistent with the legend. Not much chance of that, though, unless—” Lucuis broke off as transport magic surged again, the air rippled nearby, and the sun god’s companions materialized midlunge. The big hellhounds hit the ground running, baying the attack. And all hell broke loose.
Akhenaton whirled toward the threat. His fury laced the air as he split his team, sending the guards after Kinich Ahau, the animal-heads toward Jade and Lucius, who had landed maybe thirty yards farther down the playing field, on the sun god’s side. The companions bolted toward Kinich Ahau; the sun god jerked its plumed head toward Jade and Lucius. Its eyes were anguished.
The animal-heads closed quickly; there were two snakes and three caimans, reptilian jaws gaping wide. Lucius stepped in front of Jade, suddenly feeling very human. But they’d damn well have to go through him to get to her.
“Down!” she yelled from behind him.
When a chill touched the back of his neck, he didn’t waste time asking questions or arguing; he pancaked it.
The air snapped freezing cold and a deep-throated roar of power sizzled through the space he’d just been occupying. An iceball the size of a MINI Cooper flashed at the animal-heads; it hit with a big whump, the ground heaved, and sand shot in the air. When the debris came back down, there was an ice- lined crater where the animal-heads had been.
Lucius flipped to his feet, mouth hanging open. “Holy shit.”
Jade was pale, her eyes huge in her face, but her expression was resolute. “We need to use the tools we’re given, right?” She sagged a little, and when he took her arm, she leaned into him. The iceball had drained her more than he liked, but she was up and moving, and ready to fight.
The gods got it wrong, he thought. She’s a warrior. Always has been.
Motion on the field of play caught his attention; two of the guards were heading for them, leveling those damned long pikes as dark magic rattled low at the threshold of hearing. The remaining guards were passing the decapitated head as they ran toward the sun god, aiming for the hoop high on the wall.
If they made the basket, it was all over.
“You’ve got to block that shot!” Jade shoved him toward the field. “Go. I’ll be right behind you!”
Lucius wanted to stay with her, to hold her close and shield her, but he couldn’t. Not right now. She’s a fighter, he reminded himself. She’s got your back. It was strange to realize that he’d never thought that about her before. He’d seen her as his friend and his lover, his adversary and his ideal, but never before as a teammate. Locking eyes with her, he said, “You can do this.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m tougher than I look.”
“About time you figured that out.” He flashed her a smile. And took off running.
Head down, he barreled into the first of Akhenaton’s guards, taking the brunt of the blow on his armored shoulder. It was like running into a side of beef mounted on a house. His shoulder sang with pain, while the other guy barely blinked, just raised his spiked cudgel and swung for his head.
Jade screamed his name. Then, inexplicably, she whistled a short, sharp burst, as though calling a taxi.
Lucius ducked, cursing when dark magic dug bloody furrows across his bare shoulder. A second guard arrived as the first raised his weapon for the killing blow. But before the guard could let loose with the magic, a growling black blur slammed into him from the side. Moments later a second snarling creature joined the fray. The companions! Summoned by Jade’s whistle, the big black creatures drove the guards away, giving Lucius time to scramble to his feet.
He looked for her and his blood froze in his veins when he saw that she was headed straight into the scrum, where Kinich Ahau was down, wrestling with one of the guards. The remaining player and Jade were both zeroing in on the head-ball, which lay inert on the nearby sand.
One of Lucius’s attackers had dropped his pike when the dogs showed up; it had returned to its shorter form and no longer shimmered with dark magic. Instead it looked like a short, wickedly spiked club. Lucius grabbed the heavy weapon and bolted toward the field of play as Jade grabbed the head. The guardsmen of the other team converged on her as Lucius shouted, “Jade!”
Her head whipped around; she saw him and yelled, not his name or for help, but, “Here!” She threw him the head. A split second later, one of the guards tackled her, taking her down.
Lucius caught the head on the fly; the thing weighed more than he would’ve expected, and was slippery. He wound up grabbing it by the hair. Then he hesitated. The hoop on the opposite side of the court was unguarded. It was far above him, an almost impossible shot.
If he made it, he would return Kinich Ahau to Earth. But in doing so, he would lose Jade. Gods, Jade.
The writs told him to save the world. His heart told him to save his woman.
“Fuck it. Catch!” He hurled the head to the sun god, aware that the game was fixed, that the god’s bonds wouldn’t allow it close enough to score the vital point, barely allowed it to guard its own hoop. “Don’t let them have it. I’ll be right back.” He hoped the god understood English, or at least his intent.
Without looking to see if Kinich Ahau had gotten the head—or the message—Lucius spun and lunged toward Jade—
And stopped dead. The guards held her immobilized as Akhenaton’s dark shadow drifted toward her. The ghost soul lost its form as it approached, becoming amorphous, insidious. Lucius flashed hard on the memory of a dark shadow entering him, filling him up, making the world go green.
“No!” he shouted, his voice cracking on a howl that was echoed in the companions’ voices. Behind him chaos erupted as the animal- heads finished regenerating from whatever molecules had been left after the ice explosion, and rejoined the fray.
Duty, ambition, and his need to make a difference in the world said he needed to play the game, needed to save the sun. Duty, he decided, could go fuck itself. Turning his back on the game, on the god, Lucius gripped the spiked cudgel, though he knew it wouldn’t do any good against a s
hadow. He could think of only one thing that could go up against a demon on its own turf.
Another demon.
The shadow touched Jade, moved up her body. Her eyes locked on Lucius’s, wide and scared. His heart pounded, not with dread, but with an all-important realization that came far too late. “I love you,” he said to her. Then, when the words were lost beneath the animal roars from the game and the god, he raised his voice and shouted, “I love you!”
Her face went blank, then flooded with emotion, followed by quick understanding. Horror. “Don’t—” she began.
But he did. He lifted the cudgel and used one of the spikes to lay his palm open in a quick slash. Pain bit. Blood welled. Then, closing his eyes, he opened himself to her—not to her magic, but to the things he felt about her, the things he felt when he was with her. He threw himself wide, remembering their first night together, their last. He filled his senses with the image of her face, the soft brush of her hair, the taste of her when they made love. His love for her entered him, filled him, completed him. And as he invited the heat and wonder and awe inside him when he’d held it away before, power stirred and his vision flickered from normal to green hued and back again. He didn’t know whether it was Cizin or another makol, and didn’t think he cared. He needed a demon’s power, and this was the only way to get it.
Yes, he thought. That’s it, you bastard. Come into me.
Opening his eyes, he threw his arms wide and shouted, so it echoed across the canyon: “I love her! I love Jade.” In that moment, he put her above everything else inside him and gave over control to the magic, letting it have him in exchange for her safety. The air detonated around him, whipped past him. Power surged and crackled; motion caught his eye, and he turned to see that a few feet away the canyon wall had suddenly gone liquid and strange. Inside him, the place that had been empty for the past half year flared with bright, brilliant agony and began to fill up.
Final Prophecy 04: Demonkeepers Page 34
