Jessica Andersen - Skykeepers

“His magic’s for shit,” Iago said dismissively. Lifting an arm, he spoke into a wristwatch comm device. “Set the timer for five minutes, collect the Nightkeepers, and wait for me at the rendezvous.

I’ll zap the prisoners to the mountain and come back for you before this place turns crater.”

He wanted one of the Nightkeepers. But for what? Was he looking to borrow a specific talent?

Michael’s thoughts churned. Then the redheaded mage moved past him and crouched down beside Sasha, and Michael wasn’t thinking about anything but keeping the bastard from touching her.

The shield spell had quit when the red-robe shocked Michael; the sleep spell would wear off more gradually. In sleep, curled on her side, she looked soft and vulnerable as the Xibalban reached out and stroked her pale cheek. Icy rage slammed through Michael. Get away from her! he howled inwardly, not giving voice to the words because he didn’t want them to hear their clarity and know he was almost back in control of his body, if not his power. And for the first time since the talent ceremony, when his ancestral nahwal had helped him recapture the Other and warned him not to touch its power or risk his soul, he didn’t give a shit whether he was in control.

Sasha! he raged. Gods, help me protect her!

With the skyroad gone, the gods had no access to earth, yet he was suddenly flooded with a heavy, silver, strange magic that wasn’t Nightkeeper or Xibalban, but somewhere between the two.

“Shock him again,” Iago said to the red-robe. “I’m not taking any chances with this guy.”

Letting the strange magic have him, Michael roared and exploded upward, attacking Iago in one continuous, deadly movement. The red-robe hit the Taser trigger and fifty thousand volts lit Michael from within, but this time it didn’t shut him down. Instead, the energy smashed through the last of his carefully constructed inner barriers—he felt them give, felt the Other come through fully for the first time since his talent ceremony.

Aided by the element of surprise, he caught Iago in a flying tackle, slamming them both to the stone floor. The red-robe howled and went for his guns, but Michael cast a thick shield spell fueled by blood rage and hatred, sealing him inside with his enemy. Iago shouted and tried to fight back, but he was far better at magic than hand-to-hand. Michael got in under the Xibalban’s weak guard and pinned him to the floor, straddling him and getting his hands around the bastard’s throat. Iago’s eyes bugged and he tried to pull shield magic of his own, but Michael countered it and bore down, leaning in so he could see his victim’s fear, the knowledge of his own death.

Only it wasn’t fear he saw in Iago’s eyes. It was fear . . . and satisfaction.

Michael’s grip loosened slightly, just enough for Iago to rasp, “It is you . . . or it will be.” The Xibalban’s eyes narrowed in speculation. “I can wait until you finish your transformation and understand what you really are, why you belong to me.”

“Fuck you.” Michael leaned in, silver magic spinning up within him. “What am I?”

“She’ll show you. And you’ll both be mine by the height of the solstice. If you don’t come to me, I’ll come for you. That’s a promise.” Then, without warning, dark magic cycled up, ’port lock engaged, and the Xibalban vanished from beneath Michael.

“No!” Slamming palm-first into the stone floor, briefly off balance with his quarry’s disappearance, Michael roared with fury and disappointment. Unable to stanch the flow of violence within him, the need to kill, he dropped the shield magic and lunged to his feet—just in time to see the red-robe headed out the door with Sasha’s limp body over his shoulder. At the sight, the rage within him redirected itself to killing hatred.

The man’s carotid under his thumbs. His pulse stilling in death.

Snarling, Michael moved to cut off the red-robe’s escape. The man’s face went slack with terror, almost making Michael wonder what the other man saw in him. What he feared. There was no pity within him, though; there was only the hatred, the need for revenge, and the all-consuming call for him to protect what was his.

The red-robe called shield magic, casting it thick and strong in a bubble around him and Sasha, but the thing within Michael wasn’t deterred. He felt a jolt of pain, as though a final synapse had soldered itself into place, and a conduit opened up within him, letting the silver magic flow through him. Into him. Shaking with the power of it, the rage of it, Michael leveled his arm toward the red-robe and sent the magic winging toward his enemy, funneling it into the other man while keeping Sasha safe. There was a noiseless detonation, a shock wave of power flinging from man to man.

The Xibalban’s face contorted, then went slack and gray. Sasha slid from his shoulder and fell to the floor as he sagged, losing cohesion. His flesh slid on his bones, draping over a skeleton that still fought to stand. Then his inner structure lost its solidity and he collapsed, the bloodred robe tenting around him. When it settled, there was a pile of greasy gray dust with cinderlike chunks beneath. The only recognizable piece that remained was the pilli ’s hand, looking charcoaled, reaching from the pile as if in supplication. Nearby, Sasha lay curled on her side, still mercifully asleep.

Silence rang in the chamber as Michael stared down at the remains. The killer in him was utterly satisfied. The better man he’d been trying to become wanted to puke.

“Oh, fuck. What did I just do?” More, what am I? What did Iago know about the silver magic, about him ?

Michael bent double, dry heaving, feeling totally out of control, shaky and sick with it, and afraid of what came next. Focus , he told himself. Get rid of the Other; get rid of the magic. You’ve done it before. You can do this .

To his surprise, it wasn’t difficult to push the Other back; it seemed sated from the kill, and the magic. Gods, the magic. He could still feel the echo of mad silver power, the thundering might. It fascinated and repelled him, called to one side of him and scared the shit out of the other. When it was gone, he was left empty and all but powerless, with only the faint hum of red-gold Nightkeeper magic to lean on. And that was a problem. Where before he’d been able to manage the postmagic crash that followed big spell casting, now he felt it hammering down on him, threatening to black him out even though he and Sasha were far from safe.

“Keep it together,” he gritted through clenched teeth, summoning the last of his reserves. With the rattle of foreign magic gone, he could hear the sounds of battle from out in the hallway, forcibly reminding him of what Iago had said about the place cratering, suggesting that he’d set a self-destruct mechanism.

Save Sasha , he reminded himself, going back to basics when nothing else made sense. She’s the priority .

Summoning the last of his reserves, he bent and got his arms around Sasha. She was warm and lax in his arms, solid and real. The feel of her centered him as nothing else had, which was ironic, considering that it was his rampaging desire for her that had breached his defenses in the first place.

Iago had implied she was the key to his transformation, whatever that was, and Michael was afraid the change had already begun. He felt dark and angry, like he could kill the world even with the Other locked away.

Holding her close, he breathed in her scent, felt it seep into him, lighting the darkness and pushing the impulse away. For now.

Then, knowing the fight wasn’t over—not by a long shot—he shifted her to his shoulder. Then, cradling her with one arm and wielding a single autopistol with a half-full clip in his other hand, he stepped through the doorway, took in the situation at a glance, and opened fire.