Final Prophecy 04: Demonkeepers

by Jessica Andersen

  “Lucius!” Jade screamed.

  He couldn’t answer, couldn’t look at her, could only drop to his knees in agony as an alien presence entered him, invaded him, became him. Come on, come on, hurry up! He had to get the demon inside him, had to gain control somehow and pit it against Akhenaton before the bastard took Jade.

  The shimmering nearby grew more distinct, then flared bright white with a boom of detonation. When it cleared, the other Nightkeepers stood on the canyon floor, bloody and bedraggled, staring around in themselves in shock.

  Gods. Lucius sagged as greasy brown vapor wisps surrounded him, but he managed to make his mouth work enough that he could croak, “Win the game. Free the god.”

  Then his vision washed green and he wasn’t just himself anymore. He was Akhenaton too.

  Akhenaton?

  It didn’t make any sense, but it was true. He could see the pharaoh’s thoughts, his history, his greed—everything that made him the monomaniacal murderer he had been. The makol seemed equally shocked to find itself inside the human male rather than the mage woman; Lucius caught the demon’s thought-pictures, though no language was transmitted. Then Akhenaton saw the Nightkeepers: Michael and Sasha were freeing Jade from the guard, while the others raced toward Kinich Ahau, who still had control of the ball but was under siege by the five animal-heads. Seeing its plans crumbling, its opportunity to rule the sun sliding into jeopardy, and fearing the wrath of its Banol Kax masters, Akhenaton’s demon spirit thrust itself brutally into Lucius’s psyche, grabbing for control of their shared body.

  No! Lucius roared inwardly. Never again! Using every iota of mental discipline he had learned from Cizin, he slammed mental shields around Akhenaton’s essence and forced the damned soul away. Power surged and magic swirled, forming a vortex Lucius remembered from the Prophet’s spell. Added to that now was the power he’d felt before, that hollow, rushing sensation of a connection forming between worlds. He caught a glimpse of black nothingness, and pushed the demon’s soul toward it.

  Akhenaton howled in outraged protest. Too used to commanding through fear, the demon didn’t know how to dominate someone who wasn’t afraid.

  Die, Lucius grated. Die!

  The pharaoh’s spirit scrabbled for purchase, lost its grip, and tore away, pinwheeling. A terrible, thin scream trailed off as the makol’s incorporeal soul was sucked into the void.

  There was a flash of luminous green. Then the pharaoh was gone.

  For a moment, there was only emptiness inside Lucius. Then fierce triumph roared through him. He’d done it. He’d defeated a makol! He wanted to scream victory, wanted to pump his fists, wanted to snatch Jade up and spin her in a circle, kissing her until she admitted that she loved him too, that they would muddle through, make mistakes, and make it work.

  But Lucius’s eyes wouldn’t open. His body wouldn’t move. In fact, he was looking down on his body, which was lax and slack- muscled. He saw Jade racing toward him, bending over him. And, strangely, he seemed to be floating up to the pale brown sky.

  Jade crouched down beside Lucius. Tears stung her eyes when she couldn’t find his pulse. Akhenaton was gone; she’d seen its shadow leave Lucius. But then she’d seen another, glowing mist rise from his beloved body. The faint shimmer was gone now, but she thought she knew what it meant.

  He’d sacrificed himself for her, in all possible ways. And she’d be damned if she would let that be the end of things for them.

  Leaning in close, she whispered in his ear, “I love you, so stay the hell alive.” Then, nearly blinded by unshed tears, she scrambled up and lunged toward the field of play, where the magi were jockeying for position as the pharaoh’s guards and animal-headed minions passed the ball among them, heading for the sun god’s goal. For a moment, she didn’t understand what was going on; Akhenaton was gone, so who were they playing for? Then she saw that beast-shadows lined the high walls of the ball court. The Banol Kax had come to watch, lending their weight to the play.

  If the Nightkeepers’ team won, they would be free and Kinich Ahau would return to Earth. If not, they would all remain trapped in Xibalba. Forever.

  Habit and instinct told Jade to hide on the sidelines. Instead, she bolted straight for the action. Her breath whistled in her throat as she dodged a spiked club, spun past a snake-head that snapped and hissed at her, and lunged for Sasha. Tapping her on the shoulder, which had been their signal for a player to rotate out of the game, Jade shouted over the game noise, “Go help Lucius. He’s hurt.” She pointed toward where he lay, steeling herself against the sight of his motionless form.

  Sasha nodded and took off, leaving Jade to play her position. When she was just barely clear of the field, the sun god screeched an avian war cry. Holding the head-ball under one arm, it raced across the canyon floor, headed for the opposite team’s goal. The slack whipped out of the sinew ropes, which snapped tight and yanked the god to a roaring, thrashing standstill. The animal-heads boiled in pursuit, regenerating as quickly as the Nightkeepers cut them down. Kinich Ahau fought the bonds, which stretched but didn’t give.

  They’re too pliable! Jade thought suddenly. Heart pounding, she summoned the last dregs of her magic and shaped it into the now-familiar iceball spell. Cold touched the air and raced through her veins as she let the ice magic fly. It hit the ropes, which froze with a hissing, crackling noise. And turned brittle.

  With an exultant howl, Kinich Ahau snapped free, tossed the head-ball into the air, and leaped after it. As if the bonds themselves had contained the god’s magic, the man-form became the firebird, morphing midair to the fierce flame- clad creature. It flapped its wings once, twice, and on the third sweep, it caught the head-ball in its beak. Banking, the god swept past the hell-team’s goal, and flung the head through the hoop with a shriek of triumph. As the ball passed through, white light lit the sky and a soundless detonation rocked the firmament. The animal-heads and the last of the pharaoh’s guards dropped where they stood and lay, unmoving. Atop the high walls on either side of the ball court, shadows rippled and the Banol Kax disappeared, beaten by a game that was part of the fabric of the planes themselves.

  Drained of the last of her magic, Jade collapsed to the canyon floor and buried her face in her hands. She didn’t weep, not yet. Not until Sasha told her Lucius was gone. But somehow she knew, she knew that had been his soul leaving his body and heading for the sky, where warriors went after they died in battle.

  “Gods, please, no,” she whispered behind her hands. The pain was incredible, overwhelming, impossible to bear. But she didn’t wish it gone. She embraced it, wallowed in it, held it to her. And if that put her on the level of the most heartbroken patient she’d ever counseled, then it was a good level to be on, because she had finally taken the risk. She had loved. She had lived.

  “Jade.” It was Strike’s voice, oddly hushed. “Look up.”

  “I know,” she said, sighing as she let her hands fall. “He’s—” She broke off on a gasp.

  The firebird stood in front of her, flanked on either side by the big black dogs that guarded it. The flames that had wreathed it before had turned to soft red-gold feathers. It looked like a giant eagle with the plumage of a parrot, and it towered over her, dwarfed her as it stretched out one wing, unfurled its long flight feathers, and brushed them across her face and down her right arm. The touch tingled; it burned, but not unpleasantly . . . and in a familiar way.

  Pulse suddenly hammering, she looked down at her forearm. There she wore a new glyph, a third mark. It wasn’t static, though; as she watched, it morphed from one glyph to another and back again, oscillating between the two.

  The god was offering her a choice, she realized: the sun or the jun tan? Godkeeper or mate?

  She looked up at the firebird, her eyes blurring with tears. Even knowing that her choice might cost them a Godkeeper, she said without hesitation, “I choose to be his mate. Magic isn’t the answer. Love is.” And although he might already be gone, the sudden warmth that c
urled around her heart told her that it was the right answer for her.

  “Ho-ly shit,” someone said from behind her. She didn’t know who.

  The firebird dipped its head—in acknowledgment, she thought. It touched her again with its wing, and the jun tan firmed in place, stark and black on her forearm. Then the god swept its opposite wing toward Lucius’s motionless body. Sasha knelt beside him, trying to keep his body going in the absence of its soul.

  Jade’s heart shuddered as a white shimmer coalesced from the sky and drifted down toward him. She told herself not to hope, but she couldn’t stop the hot, hard anticipation from forming as the vapor settled over him, sank into him.

  For a moment, nothing happened. Her world contracted, started to crumble around her.

  And then he began to breathe.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Joy exploded through Jade. Hardly daring to hope, to believe, she lunged up and ran to Lucius, choking on her sobs. He groaned and rolled toward her, then sat partway up and reached for her. She dropped to her knees, her tears finally breaking free as his arms closed around her, strong and sure. “I love you,” she said, the words muffled against the side of his face. “Gods, I love you.” Then he was kissing her, and she was kissing him back, and the world settled into a new, better shape around her.

  When they parted, Lucius looked past her, and his eyes went wide. And it was his turn to say, “Ho- ly shit.”

  The firebird was bowing down in front of Sasha. Michael stood at her side.

  Another hot wave flashed through Jade, this time one of relief. She hadn’t cost the magi a Godkeeper, after all. “She was meant to be Godkeeper to Kinich Ahau all along,” she said softly, although she suspected that when she and Sasha had jointly fulfilled the triad prophecy, they had both become equal candidates for the honor.

  Lucius seemed to follow her thoughts, because he lined up his forearm next to hers. On his inner wrist he wore a jun tan to match hers . . . and the quatrefoil hellmark had turned black. “Thank you,” he rasped, in a voice that had started out that of a stranger and become that of her mate.

  She looked at their marks. Despite the hot, hard joy that raced through her at the sight of the jun tan, she shook her head in pretend rue. “Shandi is going to kick my ass.”

  “First she’ll thank the gods that you made it home safely. Then, yeah, she might kick your ass.” They grinned at each other. He stood, his strength returning quickly, and helped her up. As they headed toward the others, hand in hand, power flashed red-gold, there was a thunder-loud clap, and the firebird sprang aloft as Sasha and Michael embraced, leaning into each other.

  Kinich Ahau gained altitude, winging into the sky. As the god rose higher and higher, flames limned the red feathers and trailed from the beat of its wings. Then, suddenly, white-hot light flashed. And the god was gone.

  “We did it,” Jade said, not quite ready to believe, though Lucius’s fingers were tightly threaded through hers. But then she stared up at the sky in dismay. “I thought winning the game would send us home. Why are we still here?”

  “Because it’s my job to get us home,” Lucius said. “The magic inside me originally belonged to Cizin. When its soul was torn away from mine, I somehow kept hold of that one piece of the demon’s power. You know how we’ve theorized that different makol have different skill sets? Well, I think Cizin was capable of forming temporary roads through the barrier. But you were right that I couldn’t touch the power until I got to the point where nothing else mattered . . . which happened when Akhenaton tried to possess you.” He caressed her cheek. “I’d rather live forever in the in-between than have you go through that.”

  She wanted to close her eyes and lean into his touch. Instead, she poked him in the stomach. He let out a surprised “oof” as she got in his face. “You’d better consider yourself lucky you fought off Akhenaton. If you hadn’t, I would’ve had to find a way to get to the in-between myself, because, starting now, I don’t intend to live without you.”

  His lips tipped up. “Yeah. I got that.” He turned to Strike. “I think this is going to take both of us. That first night, I think I called the road magic without really specifying a destination; at first Kinich Ahau’s need drew us to Xibalba. Then I called the magic a second time to get us out of there, but I still didn’t have a real destination in mind. In the absence of Cizin’s magic, I suspect the library magic would have drawn me straight to the library. As it is”—he turned his palms up—“if we can combine your ’port targeting with my ability to form a conduit through the barrier, we may have gained more than just a new Godkeeper and two new mated pairs just now.”

  Startled, Jade looked at Sasha’s wrist, where she too wore a new jun tan. Curious, Jade craned to pick out Rabbit in the crowd. Face set and angry, he deliberately looked away, but turned his forearm toward her. He wore no jun tan, and his hellmark remained bloodred. Her heart ached for him.

  “When I used the road magic previously,” Lucius said, “Jade’s and my bodies stayed safely back at Skywatch. This time we all came down here body and soul, via the hellroad. Problem is, the solstice is past and the hellroad is sealed, or close to it.”

  Sven glanced at his heavy-duty diver’s watch. “Shit. He’s right.”

  Lucius held out his still-bleeding palm to Strike. “You can move bodies on earth. I can move spirits between planes. You want to see if between the two of us we can get our collective asses home?”

  “Fuck, yeah.”

  The men linked hands as the others nicked their palms and joined up in a circle, linked by blood and magic. Jade kept hold of Lucius’s hand, with Michael on her other side, which seemed fitting somehow.

  “Everyone think about Skywatch,” Lucius said. “The magic needs a destination.”

  “We should”—all think of the same spot, Jade started to say, but she was cut off midword when the magic triggered unexpectedly, the power leaping from zero to ninety in no time flat. She heard Lucius yell something but missed what he said; his magic roared in her head, masculine and commanding, blending now with Strike’s red-gold teleporter’s talent. The power grabbed them, snatching them out of the canyon in an instant. She saw a flash of dark, ominous shadows moving toward the “I”-shaped ball court; then it was gone. Xibalba was gone. And still they moved up, accelerating, the universe moving past them in a blur that wasn’t gray-green, wasn’t black, wasn’t any real color at all. Then, in the blur, she saw an image: a teenager’s face, smiling at her. “You’re so much smarter than I was,” the nahwal’s voice said. “So much braver than I. You fought for him.”

  Jade gaped even as truth and joy sang through her. “You died trying to save us. That’s as brave as it gets.”

  “If I had truly been brave, I wouldn’t have gone into the library that last time. I would have stayed. I would have found you . . . somehow.”

  Jade’s heart took a long, slow roll in her chest. What would it have been like to have her mother with her growing up? To have another senior mage alive when they returned to Skywatch? But she shook her head. “I don’t blame you.”

  “Maybe you should.”

  “I don’t,” Jade said firmly. “I forgive you. I hope you’ll forgive yourself.” She paused. “I’m okay now . . . Mom.”

  As if that had been what the nahwal—ghost?—had been waiting for, despite whether she knew it herself, Vennie’s lips turned up in a smile that Jade knew from seeing her own face in the mirror. Then the vision wavered and went thin. In the instant before it disappeared, though, Jade saw another shadow: that of a tall, broad-shouldered young man waiting for Vennie in the mist.

  Tears blinded Jade alongside a thought of, Thank you, gods. Then the air detonated around her and the magi materialized, their feet firmly planted on the floor for a change. Only they weren’t at Skywatch.

  They were in the library.

  Lucius’s hand tightened on hers and his face drained of color. “Oh, gods. Oh, shit!”

  Jade’s heart stuttered
in her chest. They stood in the study area Lucius had described: There were the racks and robes, the tables, the yes/no stones, and the way glyph. Beyond, shelves stretched into the distance. The fountain was just as he had described it, with one difference: It was working now. Water spilled from the wall spigot, filled the bowl, and trickled down the back of the stone jaguar’s gaping throat. Between its paws, the bowl was filled with flat, irregular rounds of corn bread.

  A disbelieving laugh caught in her throat and emerged sounding like a moan. “At least we won’t starve right away.” But could they get out again? Had she found love, inner strength, and a new sort of peace, only to lose it too quickly? More, had they just doomed the earth to—

  “That’s new.” Lucius’s eyes were locked on a plain wooden door that was inset beside the jaguar. Tugging on their joined hands to bring her with him, he crossed to the door. Seeing no latch, he pushed on it.

  The panel opened easily. Sunlight spilled in, blinding Jade. She squinted into the light, which was too bright, too white, too hot. . . . Her eyes were slow to adjust. When they did, she found herself blinking at canyon walls and a worn pathway leading to a small cluster of buildings in the middle distance.

  Skywatch. Oh, holy shit.

  “We’re home,” Lucius said. “And I think we brought the whole fucking library with us.” He let out a long, shuddering breath as the others clustered behind them, and they poured through the door as a team. The sky was very blue, the sun very white. The air felt drier than it had the day before, and the encroaching algae slime was already turning black and dying beneath the might of Kinich Ahau.

  Turning back to look at where they had come from, Jade let out a long breath of her own. “No,” she said softly. “We didn’t bring the library home. You did.”