Blood Spells

by Jessica Andersen

  It was like he could breathe up here in the mountains. Like things made sense. He’d barely needed the directions they’d gotten in San Cristóbal to reach the foothill village, not just because the road system thinned out to few options, but because he’d instinctively known where to go.

  The same thing had happened in the village itself. He’d parked the rental, ensured its safety with a couple of bribes and some low-grade mind-bending, and then led Myrinne out into the strange mix of old stone and bright cloth like his feet knew where they were going, even if he didn’t.

  Myrinne had gawked and lost herself in the first market they had come across. She had haggled delightedly over a brightly patterned scarf and a pair of rope-and-leather sandals, using a stumbling mix of the Spanish she’d picked up quickly at UT and the old-school Mayan trading language she’d absorbed at Skywatch, which bore zero resemblance to the modern dialects. Most of the locals had understood the Spanish far better than the other, but Rabbit had stood back and paid attention, picking out three men and one woman who had all gopher-popped their heads when they heard the ancient words.

  A quick sift of their minds—very low-level, tight-beam magic he didn’t think Iago could sense—had revealed that two of them had studied the trading language as part of the new revival movement. The other two, both men, recognized a few of the words from a dialect spoken high up in the mountains, in a small hamlet called Oc Ajal.

  It wasn’t exactly the “Ox Ajal” Jox had remembered Red-Boar mentioning as the name of the village where he’d stayed around the time of Rabbit’s birth, but it was damned close. More, some discreet questions revealed that there were rumors of dark magic connected with Oc Ajal. Which made sense if Rabbit—half Xibalban, half Nightkeeper—had been conceived there.

  It might’ve seemed like a terminally stupid idea for him and Myrinne to travel alone to a remote village that could be enemy territory. But although Rabbit’s old man might’ve been a PTSD-zonked asshole, he’d been a company man. He wouldn’t have visited the place—or left it standing—if it had been dangerous or against the tenets of the Nightkeepers.

  And besides, Rabbit had already mentioned Oc Ajal to Strike—not in relation to Red-Boar, but because of the potential connection between the Triad magic and the village’s name, which meant “thrice manifested.” He’d even passed along the rumors that the villagers worshipped Xibalba.

  Strike had filed the info with a “thanks, we’ll put it on the to-do list,” and Rabbit had figured his ass was covered. He and Myrinne were just going to look around, anyway. If there was anything doing up at Oc Ajal, they had promised each other they would call for backup, pronto.

  Of the two men who had known of the village, one had been far too interested in Myrinne. The other had been Cheech, who had been perfectly happy to overcharge a couple of gringos to take them up to Oc Ajal and play translator.

  Rabbit had stuck pretty close to the truth, saying that his father had recently died, and in going through his things they had discovered notes suggesting that he might have family up in Oc Ajal. Technically, Red-Boar hadn’t kept any souvenirs of that period of his life, unless Rabbit counted himself. But the rest was pretty accurate. And it had a fist of nerves riding low in his gut, tightening with every passing mile.

  “Hey.” Myrinne leaned forward against her seat belt to give his arm a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t freak. Whatever happens next is out of our hands. We’ve just got to let it play out, you know?”

  He took a deep breath that did zilch to quell his urge to have Cheech pull over so he could barf in the undergrowth. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  Cheech had been following the exchange but staying discreetly silent. Rabbit knew it was intentional because he’d kept a light link with the kid, so he could pick up big thoughts and emotions but not details, and hopefully get some warning if their driver—or his friends—were planning to roll the gringos for their wallets. So far, so good, though. There was no hint of duplicity as Cheech said, “We will reach the village soon, in five or ten minutes.” His English was schoolroom-perfect and a little stilted, but it was still way better than Rabbit could do in anything other than English. He knew a few dozen spell words by heart, and that was about it.

  “Thanks.” Rabbit glanced at Myrinne, and took a deep breath. “Well, here goes nothing.”

  “I’ve got your back.”

  “That’s one of the few things I’ve never doubted.” The backup was way more than figurative too; her shoulder bag held a pair of lightweight nine-millimeter ACPs loaded with jade-tipped bullets, along with spare clips. One of the many benefits of ’porting over the border rather than flying was the ease of getting arms down south. Granted, it meant they would have to ’port back, because customs tended to get pissy when U.S. citizens tried to reenter the country without there being any evidence of them having ever left. But he and Myrinne both had their satellite phones and panic buttons, so they were covered there too.

  He’d done his best to think things through and be smart about this. Now, like she said, they would just have to let things play out.

  A few minutes later, Cheech eased up on the gas as they came to a bend in the narrow dirt track, then braked to coast into a wide, tree-flanked circle of packed dirt where the road dead-ended. Two seventies-era F-150s and a VW Bug—the old kind—were parked in a neat row. Cheech added the Rover onto the end.

  When he cut the engine, the world seemed to go preternaturally silent for a few seconds. Then there was a series of birdcalls—not the parrot screeches typical of the lowland rain forests, but rather the high, challenging cries of raptors: hawks, maybe, or even eagles.

  The sound shivered along Rabbit’s skin, kindling his blood and touching his warrior’s talent. His surroundings snapped into clearer focus as his senses expanded.

  He could feel Myrinne’s nervous optimism on his behalf, Cheech’s idle musing on whether he could soak his passengers for a second fee to drive them back down to the market village . . . and in the near distance, a few dozen people he perceived as pinpoint glows of consciousness.

  To his surprise, he didn’t feel the hum of energy that would indicate the proximity of a power sink, whether natural or man-made. Both dark and light magi tended to live near power sinks; Skywatch itself was built near the remains of a Chacoan pueblo, and Iago’s hideouts had gravitated to well-hidden ruins and modern sacred sites. Oc Ajal, though, didn’t seem to follow the pattern.

  Which meant . . . hell, he didn’t know what it meant. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.

  “I take it we’re hiking in from here?” he asked Cheech.

  “Yes. These people are very traditional, very spiritual. They don’t want cars disturbing their earth connection.” The driver hopped out, then paused and turned back. “No cameras either.”

  Myrinne slung her bag over her shoulder and held up both hands. “No problem. We’re not here to take pictures.”

  Rabbit was ready to step in with a mind-bend if the convo turned to weapons, but Cheech’s thought process didn’t go there. He just gave a “come on, then” wave and started heading up one of three trails that led away from the parking area. Myrinne glanced at Rabbit, who nodded to indicate that their guide was on the level. As they fell into step on the pathway, she whispered, “You getting any buzz?”

  “Not really.”

  She took his hand, threading their fingers together and squeezing, so he could feel the hard bump of the ring he’d given her.

  They hiked uphill through the trees for five minutes or so, picking their way over rocks and roots. Although the mountain trees were much lower growing than their giant rain forest cousins, their leafy branches wove together overhead, and the under- and middle growth was thick, giving the hikers little hint as to what was up ahead . . . until they reached two high stone columns that were topped by a crude archway held in place by a lintel stone.

  The construction wasn’t up to the ancients’ standards and didn’t resonate with power on the dark or light
level, but it definitely marked a boundary.

  Cheech paused to let Rabbit and Myrinne catch up. Then he waved them through the archway. “Oc Ajal.”

  Rabbit took a deep breath. Then, tightening his grip on Myrinne’s hand, he stepped through.

  He was braced for almost anything. What he got was a village that looked pretty much like the others they had driven through on the way up, with the exception that the pole buildings were made entirely of natural materials, with no tin or fiberglass. The villagers weren’t total purists, though: Two denim-wearing kids and a couple of skinny mutts wrestled over possession of a dingy volleyball off on one side, and although the four women clustered near a central fire pit were hand-grinding maize on traditional millstones, they were dumping the resulting cornmeal into brightly colored plastic bowls.

  As he and Myrinne stepped through the archway with Cheech right behind them, the women looked up, their eyes bright and interested.

  All too young to be her, Rabbit found himself thinking, even though he’d tried to talk himself out of expecting too much. He just wanted some info on the other side of his bloodlines . . . and to check out Myrinne’s theory that the only way his old man would’ve slept with a Xibalban and schlepped along the resulting bastard child was if that Xibalban had been part of a sect separate from Iago’s red-robed sociopaths.

  But although he’d told himself not to have any expectations, he went a little hollow when their only reaction was for one of the women to call what he assumed was the equivalent of “Got company!” to someone inside a nearby building. Then the women went back to grinding, while the kids and the dogs—which were barking now, belatedly warning of the intrusion—headed around the back of the hut circle and disappeared.

  So much for the return of the prodigal whatever.

  Fuck it. Forcing himself to focus on the here and now, he leaned closer to Myrinne. “Why didn’t they hear us?” he said in an undertone, though what he really meant was, Why didn’t they sense me? He could’ve sent the thought straight into her mind through the touch link of their handclasp, but she didn’t like him inside her head. As she put it, there had to be some boundaries between them. So he whispered, and kept it general, trusting her to translate his real meaning.

  “Can you ‘hear’ them?”

  He shook his head. No. He hadn’t sensed any magic—light or dark—on the way up the path, and he didn’t sense any now. “Maybe Jox remembered wrong, or my old man lied to him about the name of the village.”

  But that didn’t totally play either, given the rumors about dark magic in the village, and the way Cheech and the other guy down in the market had connected the trading language with Oc Ajal, even before Rabbit asked about the village by name.

  What was more, he realized with a click of connection, the whole place was arranged around powerful numbers and symbols.

  There were two rows of thirteen huts each, arranged in a three-quarters circle around a central fire pit, with the archway centered in the gap. Seven flattened millstones surrounded the fire pit. And he’d bet a minor body part that the spiral designs incised, row after row, into the poles that made up each building would, if he counted them, add up to plays on 13, 20, 52, 260, and various other numbers that had been central to the ancient calendars.

  More, with the central fire pit surrounded by concentric circles of millstones, huts, and then trees, the village’s whole layout symbolized the entrance to Xibalba, which was located in the dark spot at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

  The symbols didn’t prove anything, though, he reminded himself. Plenty of modern Maya were spiritual without being magic users. And the villagers they had seen so far looked indigenous. Given that the Order of Xibalba had been a splinter sect of the original Nightkeepers, the descendants of the order should have retained the size, coloring, and charisma of the magi. Iago sure had.

  Which meant . . . hell, he didn’t know. And he didn’t know what he was hoping for, just that he was hoping for something.

  As if in response to that thought—or, more likely, the woman’s call—a man emerged from the building directly opposite the archway, and started toward the visitors. He was wizened and white-haired, though given the living conditions, Rabbit couldn’t guess his age any more accurately than “somewhere over fifty.”

  The elder wore battered jeans and a patterned serape; his eyes were bright, his mouth nearly toothless as he flashed a smile and said, “Oola.”

  It was a standard greeting that had been adapted from the Spanish hola because many Mayan languages lacked the typical “Hello, how are you?” pleasantries of other cultures.

  Rabbit sensed other people nearby, some in the pole buildings, others in the forest beyond. None seemed threatening; if anything, they seemed unusually mellow, without the spiky discord he usually felt from at least a few people in any given group.

  Cheech stepped up and returned the greeting, followed by a spate of words that seemed to be a patois combining the most common modern Mayan dialect, Yucatec, along with equal parts Spanish and the ancient trading language.

  Rabbit caught the semiderogatory Yucatec term for American tourists, which literally translated to “white odors,” followed by the ancient honorific for

  “mother” and the word for “rabbit,” which in Yucatec sounded like “tool.” He didn’t let on that he’d caught that much, though. He just stood there with his senses wide-open, waiting for a ripple in the barrier’s energy—something, anything, that would indicate they were in the right place.

  He got fucking nothing.

  “This is the leader of Oc Ajal,” Cheech said formally. “His name is Saamal.”

  Tomorrow, Rabbit thought, translating the name, which itself was a powerful spell word. Still, that didn’t prove anything. Symbols and words weren’t the same as magic.

  “Is he willing to talk to me about my—” Rabbit stumbled over the word “mother,” and wound up going with, “About what my father’s note said?”

  “I told him what you told me. He will answer your questions.”

  Rabbit wasn’t sure if it was Cheech’s English or Saamal’s answer that made that one feel off, but he kept going, speaking directly to the elder while Cheech translated. “The note my father left said he met my mother while staying here in Oc Ajal, twenty-two years ago. He would have been my age when he came here. He looked like me, but with darker eyes and a sad soul.” Which he figured was better than saying “off his fucking rocker over his dead wife and kids.”

  When the translation ran down and Saamal didn’t say anything, Myrinne nudged him. “He said he’d answer your questions. I’m guessing he meant that literally.”

  Oh, for fuck’s—“Fine. Do you remember my father?” Rabbit unbuttoned his right sleeve and flipped the cuff, baring his forearm. “He had marks like these, only all black. He wore the peccary, the warrior, and the jun tan.” He watched the elder, but the guy didn’t show any outer—or inner—sign of recognizing the marks.

  He did, however, nod and answer in a few words. Cheech translated: “Yes, I remember your father.” For a second, Rabbit thought he was going to have to pull the info twenty-questions-style, but then Saamal continued, and Cheech fell into rhythm, echoing a few words behind the elder. “He only stayed a few days, though, and he was alone. He was lost.” Cheech paused. “Not wandering lost, but lost in his head. You understand the difference?”

  “Yeah. Trust me, I get it.” Rabbit exhaled through his nose. “Do you know where he went when he left here?”

  Saamal shook his head. “Ma.” Cheech didn’t bother translating the obvious negative.

  “Not even what direction? Uphill? Downhill? Anything?” Rabbit did his best to keep the frustration out of his voice; Jox had dinged him often enough for whining, and Saamal reminded him of the royal winikin . Impatience flared inside Rabbit, though, bumping up against power, anger, and all the other things he’d learned to control. More or less.

  “He left in the night,” Cheech tra
nslated. “We didn’t see him go.”

  “Do you remember him asking about any ruins, any other villages? Anything that would give me an idea where to look next?”

  “Ma.”

  Fuck it. Deciding it was worth the risk, Rabbit hit the air-lock doors, sent the outer blockade folding back in his mind, and touched the barrier with an inner whisper of Pasaj och. Nightkeeper power flowed into him, blooming red-gold and firing his senses and talents, heating his skin and bringing a whiff of smoke.

  “Easy there, Sparky,” Myrinne said softly. She might not have Nightkeeper magic in the traditional sense, but she could perceive the ebb and flow of his power. According to Lucius, her experiences as Iago’s prisoner two years earlier had left her sensitized.

  “Sorry.” He throttled it back, then leaned on the mind-bend and opened himself to Saamal, keeping the power in careful check, and making sure the inner blocks guarding the hell-link remained intact. Addressing the elder once more, he asked, “Why did he come here?”

  “He was looking for his sons. He said his wife had been murdered, but he’d never seen the boys’ bodies. He suspected they were still alive.”

  “Oh.” Ouch.

  That explained why Red-Boar had nearly killed Jox before disappearing into the highlands. He’d been trying to erase the only living person who had seen the bodies of the children killed back at Skywatch, in the second wave of the Solstice Massacre.

  In years past, Rabbit would’ve been seriously pissed about learning that Red-Boar had fathered him while on a quest to find his full-blood sons. Now it just made him want to go home and get back to work, in the hopes that the Nightkeepers would eventually hit on the right alchemy, the right combination of sacrifice, magic, prophecy, teamwork, and sheer fucking luck that would allow them to seal the barrier tightly shut when the zero day came.

  If they didn’t, the Solstice Massacre was going to look like a warm-up act.