Jessica Andersen - Skykeepers

A coyote howled near the back of the canyon, an almost human-timbred wail that drew her attention. She saw a smudge of smoke rising into the afternoon sky. “There!” she said, pointing.

“They’re in the pueblo.”

After a mad scramble for first-aid kits and combat gear, Strike ’ported them all out to the pueblo, landing them on a ledge near the smoldering tree. The smell of blood hung heavy on the air, sharp and stagnant. Following the smell, or her instincts, or maybe both, she lunged for a nearby doorway—a round-cornered rectangle leading into darkness. She plunged through and skidded to a halt as her eyes took a second to adjust, another to process what she was seeing.

The small rectangular room was a charnel. Blood had saturated the sandy floor, then pooled and coagulated, bright with oxygen in places, dark with death in others. The liquid formed a single commingled pool beneath the two men who slumped shoulder-to-shoulder against the far wall, their legs stretched out before them, their heads lolled back to rest on the wall . . . and their slashed wrists turned up to the sky.

A hiss of air escaped from Sasha as her heart twisted in her chest. She was dimly aware of the others crowding into the doorway behind her, but her entire attention was focused on Michael and Rabbit. She crossed the room and dropped to her knees between the men— the bodies , her gut told her, because there was no way they could survive something like this. Their mingled blood soaked through her jeans to touch her skin, but she ignored the disquieting sensation as she touched Michael’s face, his chest, his throat. And felt nothing. Grief backed up in her chest, making it impossible to breathe.

She leaned into him, opened her magic to him, trying to find music and hearing only emptiness. On the physical level, though, she thought she felt a faint flutter. A heartbeat . . . maybe? Yes, there it was. “He’s alive!”

“They both are,” Strike said. He was crouched down beside Rabbit. “I’ve got a pulse.” But his grim expression said, They’d need a miracle to pull through .

A miracle. “I’ll heal them,” she said as the others crowded into the circular room. “I made my plants grow earlier this morning; I’m getting better with ch’ul . If we link up, I can feed them our energy; I can do it.” But even as she made the promise to herself, to the others, doubts crowded in on her. She’d never found Rabbit’s ch’ul music, and Michael’s song didn’t always behave the way she expected it to. Yes, she could channel energy into them, but her gut said it would just pour right out again unless she could find their songs. Regardless, she fixed Strike with a look. “I have to try.”

“I know you do.” Strike hesitated. “I’ll ’port us to the temple, and we’ll carry them down to the tomb. You’ll need extra power, and that’s the strongest power sink we’ve found yet.” He paused, expression darkening. “Besides, we’ll need to be there in a couple of hours for the solstice ritual . . . and we’re going to need a sacrifice.”

“No!” Sasha said sharply. “Not them. One of the Xibalbans. With Michael and me both in the tomb, you can set the ambush, just like we planned. When Iago comes for us, you’ll get your sacrifice.”

“If Iago doesn’t come, we’ll still need someone,” Strike reminded her.

“Maybe this was meant,” Jox said quietly from behind the king, where he stood holding a first-aid kit that wouldn’t even begin to address the problems confronting them. The others were ranged behind him, Nightkeepers and winikin alike. Anna was weeping silently, her eyes fixed on Rabbit. Tomas stood grim and stone-faced, but when Sasha met his eyes she saw real grief beneath, and thought she could almost hear him whisper, “Please,” though his lips didn’t move.

She nodded, resolve hardening within her. “Fine. Zap us to the tomb. But I want your word that you won’t sacrifice them until I agree there’s nothing more I can do.” When he said nothing, she held out her bloodied hand. “Swear it.”

They traded stares for several heartbeats, and in his expression she saw the war she was just beginning to understand would be a part of her life from now on, the struggle to choose between destiny and desire, between duty and emotion, friendship . . . and love. Then, finally, he nodded.

“Their lives are yours.”

Which wasn’t what she’d asked for. But there was no way she was letting either of them die. Rabbit was too special to go out like this, and Michael . . . well, he might not have been ready to fight for her, but she was sure as hell going to fight for him, because if he died, she suspected a piece of her would die along with him, whether either of them liked it or not.

The creature that lived in the Scorpion River was easily three times the size of a normal boluntiku , and had a whiplike tail that broke from the water to curl up and over its back, scorpionlike. As he ran down the ferry dock toward the creature, Michael let rip with twin salvos from his autopistols.

The jade-tipped bullets passed right through the damn thing.

“Shit!” He’d forgotten that part, how jade-tips could kill the magic-sniffing, hellborn creatures, but only when they were in their solid form—which they usually took only right before making contact with their prey.

The muddy brown water churned, boiling up from below to erupt in foul-smelling belches within the va porish creature, which rose above him, screaming its soul-curdling battle cry as it took a swipe at him, turning solid in the last second before it made contact. Michael stood his ground, letting rip with his pistols, then dropping flat to the dock. The boluntiku ’s long, curving claws whipped over the top of him as the creature jerked back and screamed in outraged pain. He rose up and tried for another salvo, then heard Lucius’s shout of, “Down!”

Too late, he saw the wicked whip of the ’ tiku ’s tail slashing through the air toward him. Then a heavy weight hit him, knocking him down and to one side as Lucius, body-slammed him to safety.

The creature’s tail crashed into the place where the man had just been. The stone dock shuddered beneath the force of the blow.

“Thanks,” Michael said raggedly, his ribs aching from the tackle. He dragged himself up, slapped fresh cartridges in the pistols, and snapped, “Get your ass in the water and do your best to almost drown while you’re saying the spell.” He rattled off a two-line prayer in badly accented Maya. “It might do something about that makol problem of yours. I’ll hold off the ’ tiku until you’re out of sight.”

Michael knew that he’d been meant to find the other man, that their meeting had been far from a coincidence. He had to help the human, had to give him a chance to break the makol ’s hold on him, and maybe even make it back to the Nightkeepers, back to Jade. Which meant distracting the giant boluntiku long enough for Lucius to get out into the strong current at the center of the river. When Lucius hesitated, Michael shoved him. “Go!

The human clapped him on the shoulder. “See you on the outside.” Then he ran across the dock at an angle away from the ’ tiku and jumped as far out into the center as he could. There was a huge splash when he landed, then ripples going to nothing.

The lava creature reared back and turned toward the sound, hissing.

“No, you bastard!” Michael waved to get the thing’s attention. “I’m the one you want. Fight me!”

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Lucius’s head breaking the surface, only to sink below again. Then the river whipped him around a corner, and the human was lost to sight.