Jessica Andersen - Spellfire

Unable to sit still anymore, Rabbit got up, grabbed a couple more drinks—beers this time, because who gave a fuck that it wasn’t even noon?—set one in front of his old man and plonked back down in his seat, feeling like gravity was working on him harder than it ever had before.

“Drink,” he ordered. “Then tell me. For fuck’s sake, it’s time to rip off the godsdamned Band-Aid already.” Anger fisted hard and heavy in his chest, but there was no point in being pissed that his old man had taken this long to tell him. What was done was done.

Yeah, another beer or five, and I might even believe that. So he hammered his first while his old man was still popping the top.

Red-Boar took a couple of swigs, and said, “Yeah. Fuck it all. Yeah. You’re right.” Which didn’t feel like the victory it once would have, especially when the Nightkeepers had been busting their asses trying to figure out the crossover’s secrets . . . and Red-Boar had known them all along. Bastard.

But, bastard or not, he was talking now. “The way Anntah and the others saw it, the crossover was going to be their Messiah. He was going to win the war for them, lead them to the promised land, what the fuck ever. So the first thing they had to do was make sure he was born the way their prophecies said—from the union of a lone survivor with a princess of the blood. Or some such shit.” Red-Boar’s tone wasn’t nearly so dismissive as his words, though, probably because the prophecy had come true. “When I heard that, I knew I couldn’t leave you there.”

“You . . . oh.” The beer hit Rabbit hard, making his head spin.

“I waited until you were a few months old. Then, when the guards started to look at me with enough pity that I knew it was only a matter of time before they killed me, tying up loose ends, I decided to make my move. I saw my chance one night, and I took it. I got out, grabbed you, set a couple of the huts on fire as a distraction, and bolted.” He said it matter-of-factly, like he wasn’t in the process of confetti-ing Rabbit’s whole damn existence. “I should’ve killed them all. Would have if it hadn’t been for you slowing me down.”

It was yet another in a long line of the “if it wasn’t for you” comments Rabbit had heard all his life, but where it might’ve stung before, now the dig was indistinguishable from the rest of the shitstorm going on inside him. How could his old man’s version and Phee’s be so fucking different, yet both fit the evidence? Fact: Red-Boar had flipped his lid, disappeared into the rain forest, and had come out a few years later with a kid in tow. Fact: He’d never been what you’d call an affectionate father. Hell, there had been more than a few times Rabbit had been pretty sure that his own father had hated him, wished he’d never been born. Now he knew why. He hadn’t been a baby; he’d been a fucking hybrid. To the Xibalbans, he’d been a weapon, to his old man, a threat.

Swallowing past the aftertaste of a beer he already regretted, he said, “Why didn’t you tell anybody where I came from, what I might be capable of? Why didn’t you tell me?”

The stubborn set of the old man’s jaw got harder. “That wouldn’t have changed anything.”

“You don’t know that.” Rabbit told himself not to bother, that it was enough that he knew the truth now, but the churn in his gut wouldn’t let him leave it alone. Who the hell was he supposed to be? What was he supposed to do now that he knew where he’d really come from? Ignore it? Forget it? Use it? Voice close to cracking, he got out, “Why didn’t you just kill me? Fuck knows it wasn’t like you wanted me.”

If there was ever a time for Red-Boar to say something kind—or even uncruel—this was it. But all he managed was: “Anntah would’ve known you were gone. He would’ve tried to recapture me—or find someone else he thought might work—and breed another crossover. This way, as long as I could keep us off his radar screen, I could control things and keep you from getting your hands on the magic . . . or at least I thought I could.”

Another piece of Rabbit’s childhood puzzle thudded into place—it explained why his old man had barred him from the little shrine he’d set up wherever they’d lived, and why he’d refused to tell him any of the old stories, though Jox and the others had. It explained why he’d refused to accept Rabbit as a magic user even when the evidence had been right there in front of him, and why he’d refused to let him go through an official bloodline ceremony. It even explained why his old man hadn’t ever warmed to him, even a little.

Didn’t make it right, though.

Anger settled, cold and bitter in Rabbit’s stomach, and maybe the vault cracked open a little. It was hard to tell when two decades worth of resentment felt so much like the burn of dark magic. “Sorry to disappoint you. I never was very good at controlling myself . . . or being controlled.”

Red-Boar looked past him, out the window to where the sun was beating down like it was just another day, not potentially one of the last nine. “You’re pissed, and maybe you’ve got a right to be.”

“Maybe?”

He looked back with a glint of anger. “Haven’t you learned a godsdamned thing? How about you get your head out of your ass and focus on your damned priorities? The gods sent me to bring you back here for a reason. It’s not just the Xibalbans you can help—you can help the Nightkeepers, too. And that means blocking off the dark magic. Whatever you need to do, you can do it with light magic.”

Rabbit might’ve been telling himself the same damn thing, but that didn’t stop him from baring his teeth. “Is that what the gods told you when they sent you back? Or are you just making this up as you go along?”

Red-Boar pushed abruptly to his feet. “If I knew what you were supposed to be doing—or how you were supposed to be doing it—I would’ve told you right off the fucking bat.”

“Like you told me about my mother?”

“Does any of that help with what we’re up against right now? Dez didn’t think so, and neither do I. But he told me to give you the whole story, so there it is.”

“Jesus Christ,” Rabbit muttered, not just to blaspheme and piss off his old man, but because there didn’t seem to be much else he could say. As his father turned for the door, though, he said, “Wait. Why did you name me ‘Rabbit’?”

Red-Boar turned back, brows drawing together. “Seriously? That’s your biggest question?”

“No, it’s not, but I’ll save the rest for Lucius or someone else who gives a shit about figuring this out. Because, guess what? I’m doing everything I can to get this right. I took your oath, I’m training my ass off, and I’m blocking the hell out of the dark magic. What’s more, I’m damn well going to figure out what the crossover is supposed to do, and I’m going to fucking do it, no matter what it takes.” The words came out with the force of a vow. “Right now, though, I’m asking you this one question, and you damn well owe me an answer. Why ‘Rabbit’?”

“I didn’t name you. They did . . . and you answered to it, so I didn’t bother changing it.”

Rabbit didn’t mistake that for compassion. “Fine. Why did they pick the name?”

There was a long pause—long enough that he thought his old man was going to blow him off. But then, grudgingly, Red-Boar said, “They named you after the Rabbit shadow in the moon. It’s an old legend. Xibalban. Aztec. Whatever. Supposedly, the god Quetzlcoatl was on a long journey, but he couldn’t find any food. He was damn near close to starving when he came on a rabbit eating grass, and rather than running away, the rabbit sacrificed itself so the god could survive. Quetzlcoatl was so grateful that he put the rabbit’s image up on the full moon, etched out in its shadow half. He said that way mankind would always know about the rabbit’s sacrifice.”