Jessica Andersen - Spellfire

“Who’s going to be doing this ’porting?” Strike asked.

Anna said, “I’m already in. The message, the skull . . . I have no doubts.”

“This is strictly voluntary,” Dez reiterated. “But I hope you’ll all step up and keep the team intact. I believe with all my heart and soul that this is the right thing to do.”

There were more questions after that, especially from the winikin, who seemed to be looking for loopholes in the king’s offer to release them. They might have their magic now, but some still didn’t trust their freedom.

While those questions and answers were ping-ponging, Myr leaned in and whispered, “Dez has balls of steel.”

Rabbit nodded. “And a legacy he’s trying like hell not to live down to.”

“Rabbit?” Dez called. “A word?”

The meeting had started breaking up around them, so he rose, caught Myr’s hand and tugged her with him when he headed toward where the king was standing with Reese and his advisers. Rabbit didn’t miss the way Red-Boar’s eyes tracked him, seeming to say: Remember your loyalties, boy . . . I won’t even need to touch her.

Fury spurted through him, lighting his senses and bringing a surge of magic. Tensing, he fought it down. Deep inside him, though, his own voice whispered, You can take him. You’re better than him, stronger than him, and—

“What’s wrong?” Myr’s voice echoed strangely in his ears, and when he looked down at her, all he could see were her eyes, gone dark and worried. When he focused on her, though, the fog cleared and the magic receded. Within a few seconds, it was as if it hadn’t ever been there at all.

More, his inner vault was still secure, sealed shut by this morning’s meditation. So where the hell had that come from?

Or was he fooling himself with the whole vault thing? Was the dark magic playing him?

“I’m okay,” he said, even though he was anything but. “Come on.”

They joined Dez, who said without preamble, “Okay, Rabbit. Here’s the thing. You know how you’re usually the exception to every rule? Well, the same thing goes here. I’m sorry, but I can’t give you the same choice as the others.”

“You’re ordering me to renounce the sky gods?”

The king snorted. “I don’t care what kind of spell your father cast, I don’t believe for a second that I could force you into betraying something you truly believe in.” He paused. “I’m asking you to renounce the sky gods and fight with me . . . but if you choose not to, I’m going to lock you in the basement for the duration. I just can’t risk having you running loose.”

“What makes you think I’ll stay put if there’s no spell that’ll hold me?”

“Welded cuffs with a shield spell will.”

He couldn’t picture himself in the storeroom. But he couldn’t picture himself renouncing the gods, either. “How long do I have to decide?”

“Forty hours, just like the others.”

“Right.” Because there wouldn’t be any ’port escape for him. “What about Myr?”

The glint in Dez’s eyes might’ve been sympathy. “It’s her decision.”

And although Rabbit had been the one to say he didn’t want her fighting beside him when the time came, now he wanted the king to say that he and Myr were a pair, that they needed to stay that way, fight that way. Hell, he wanted to say it himself.

Instead, he nodded woodenly. “Yeah, good. That’s . . . good.” He caught Myr’s frown out of the corner of his eye, and squeezed her hand.

“Forty hours,” Dez repeated, then paused. His voice roughened. “I don’t know if this’ll mean much—you and I aren’t tight like you and Strike or some of the others. We just don’t have that kind of history. But as one former fuckup to another, I hope you’ll fight with me. I’d really, really like to know you’re on my side, and not just because you’re the crossover, but because you’re a hell of a warrior. A good Nightkeeper.”

Rabbit heard a muttered oath behind him, from where his old man was standing. Ignoring that, he stuck out a hand. “For what it’s worth, I think you did something good here today. Something very, very worth saving. And I’ll have an answer for you in a few hours.” More, he would catch the king in private and warn him about Red-Boar. He’d been putting it off, waiting to see what happened. He couldn’t put it off any longer, though.

Dez turned away to face the growing line of Nightkeepers and winikin who had massed behind him, wanting to ask questions. Or maybe they were there to get their payouts and get a place on the Teleport Express.

Gods, Rabbit hoped not.

“Want to take a walk?” Myr was looking at him sidelong, as if measuring his mood.

Well, that made two of them. “Yeah. One minute. I’ve got to take care of a little problem first.”

But when he turned around, expecting to see that problem breathing down his neck and raring for a fight, there was nobody there. His old man had disappeared.

A couple of hours after the meeting broke up, once Leah had gotten done easing the mob-mentality panic as best she could in her officially unofficial role as the keeper of morale at Skywatch—a role she blamed squarely on her old boss in the Miami PD, who had been a big believer in trust circles and desk yoga—she went looking for Strike, following the faint trickle of energy coming from their jun tan connection.

She found him in their private shrine.

When Dez took the kingship and she and Strike had moved out of the royal suite and into an apartment in the Nightkeepers’ wing, they had converted the hallway walk-in closet to a shrine almost identical to the one they’d had in the royal suite, with stone veneer, motion-sensitive fake torches, and a highly polished disc of black obsidian on the back wall that showed their reflections. Below the disc was a small chac-mool altar.

Ever since the day Anna had beheaded the statue in the main ceremonial chamber, the altar in the closet had looked different to Leah, sort of grim and accusatory. Strike had seen it, too, but they had put it down to guilt and the power of suggestion. They hoped.

Now, as she opened the door and let herself into the shrine, her view of the chac-mool’s face was blocked by Strike’s bulk. His gaze met hers in the reflection, and although the polished black stone robbed his gorgeous blue eyes of their color, there was no mistaking the grim resignation. “I can’t get through.”

He said it matter-of-factly, like he was doing a “can you hear me now?” on his cell phone, but she knew he meant that he couldn’t connect with the gods, couldn’t pray. And she could see the grief beneath the “it’s going to be okay” shell, felt its twin inside her. She’d been holding it together up to now, needing to put on a brave face for the others rather than spark a stampede, but now, with him, her bravery threatened to falter, her “it’s okay” face starting to crumble. Because by the gods, this was a terrible decision they were being asked to make.

She hadn’t grown up with the Nightkeepers’ gods, but she’d sure as hell become a convert—and fast—when she’d seen the sky gods and their demon foe up close and personal, and she and Strike had become the joint godkeepers of Kulkulkan, a huge feathered serpent that flew high above the earth and carried their spirits with it to fight the Banol Kax on the Cardinal Days.

If they did what Dez was asking, they would be giving that up. More, they would be betraying a creature—entity?—that had been one of their strongest allies. They shared a special bond with Kulkulkan, and through the winged serpent to each other. The godkeeper spell had brought them together, made them into the warriors and mates they were today. Had that been part of the true gods’ plan, or part of the distraction? Had they truly been destined mates, or was that whole concept some game of the false gods? What were they supposed to believe when faith itself turned out to be a lie?