Jessica Andersen - Spellfire

“No,” she said, and he didn’t see a shadow of a doubt in her eyes. “I think we’re breaking new ground. We’re all here voluntarily; we’re undoing five millennia of corruption by the kohan and the kax; and we’re putting things back the way they were supposed to be, back the way your long, long ago ancestors meant for them to be.”

“Then why am I afraid?” He hadn’t meant to say that, not even to her.

She didn’t bat an eyelash. “Because you’re not a fucking moron.”

He snorted. “Thanks, I think.”

“No problem. Oh, and for the record? If you try to say good-bye, now or at any point today, I will kick you in your royal jewels. We’re going to make it through today, we’re going to get back here in one piece, and when we do, we’re going to lock ourselves in the bedroom and fuck like minks on crack.”

He laughed in spite of himself. “It’s a date.” He leaned in and kissed her one last time, then turned away. He was still chuckling—and on the borderline of squeezing out a tear—as he moved away from her to hop up on top of a stack of equipment crates, putting himself above the crowd, and pitched his voice to project. “Okay, gang, listen up!”

The crowd quieted instantly, leaving behind an eerie hear-a-bullet-drop silence.

He continued. “I know that right now I’d usually go over the op, battle plans, contingencies and that sort of thing. I’m not going to, though, because we all know the plan.” He paused. “This is it, folks. It’s the day we’ve been training for, the one we were bred for, down through generations going back way farther than I can really comprehend. All leading up to this.”

He took a long look around, trying not to think that he was memorizing faces. “What I am going to say is this: Thank you. Thank you all for being here, for choosing to do this. Some of you may be here because I’m your king, some because you believe Bastet’s message, some because you couldn’t turn away from your teammates. But you’re here, and that’s what matters.” He paused. “I don’t know what’s going to happen out there today. I wish I did. But I do know that if you look to your left and right, if you look in front of you and behind, those people are going to be there for you, no matter what. Human, winikin, mage, the distinctions don’t matter worth a godsdamn. We’re all going to have each other’s backs, and we’re going to fight until we can’t fight anymore. And then we’re going to keep fighting, because there isn’t anybody else to do it. We’re it, gang. We’re going out there to save the fucking world.”

He tried not to see how pitifully small the group really was, tried not to think of how many more of them there should’ve been. Tried not to think that there might be far fewer of them in four or so hours . . . if hours even existed by then.

Lifting a hand, he pointed at the mansion in the distance. “And after we’re done fighting . . . after we’ve defeated the kohan and the kax and sealed the barrier for good, we’re going to meet back here, up at the mansion. And we’re going to have the biggest fucking party this place has ever seen!”

There was a moment of silence, like an indrawn breath. But then somebody gave a whoop; someone else started clapping. Then things got rolling with a cheer that started out ragged, but then gained and grew, until it was loud and raucous, with lots of waving hands and promises of mayhem. Maybe there was an edge of desperation to the war cry, but he would take it. He would fucking take it.

“Okay,” he said, “everybody ready to synch up?” Lifting his wrist, he programmed the countdown that would be sent to their comm devices. It read 3:45:30. Three hours and forty-some minutes until the hard threshold, when they would really feel the magic of the Great Conjunction and the barrier would start coming apart. Ten minutes after that, according to legend, the barrier would fall, beginning at the intersection.

Which meant that in four hours, one way or the other, the world would be a very different place.

He waited until it read 3:45:00, then hit “send.” Seventy-some units beeped and seventy-some readouts lit, then flickered as the seconds counted down.

Shit. This was really happening.

Gesturing for Strike and Anna to take their positions on opposite sides of the group, Dez said, “Everybody link up. It’s time to go.”

Coatepec Mountain

The temple atop Coatepec Mountain was open to the air, with jaguar pillars at the corners symbolizing that Strike, Anna and Sasha were its guardians. But where before the site had thrummed with the deep, sustained magic of a hotspot, now there was only the background hum of solstice power. The Nightkeepers had looked long and hard to find another intersection after Iago destroyed the tunnel system beneath Chichén Itzá, knowing that when the Great Conjunction hit its zenith, the barrier would fall at the intersection and the Nightkeepers would go to war. But this sure as shit didn’t feel like a battlefield.

“Something’s not right,” Rabbit muttered. “There should be way more juice than this. It doesn’t even feel like an intersection.” Which put a nasty churn in his gut, matching the one that came from knowing he hadn’t had nearly enough time to work on his mental vault. His head buzzed with a faint rattle of dark magic and his emotions were way too close to the surface, leaving him feeling snarly and reactive, and way too ready to blow something up.

And now this . . . they had been expecting to ’port into the middle of a magical hotspot like he’d never felt before, maybe even into an ambush. But the mountaintop temple was throwing off less power than the average Denny’s, and there was no sign of the kax or kohan. Not even a xombi guard or a couple of ’zotz to use for target practice.

He glanced at his wristband. The conjunction was just over three hours away. Maybe they were massing behind the barrier, waiting to attack all at once.

It didn’t feel right, though.

“Do you think they’re going to come through the barrier somewhere else?” Myr asked. Wearing combat black and bristling with weapons, she looked every inch the sexy, kickass warrior he’d fought beside so many times before. Now, though, there was an added sheen of magic surrounding her, a subtle sparkle of power that stroked along his own. But there was also a hint of shadows in her expression, an unusual reserve.

He didn’t know if she was still upset about what happened earlier, or if this was her war face, didn’t know if he dared ask when he was feeling so twitchy. So he said, “It’s the only intersection that’s left. Where else would things go boom?”

“Maybe this is just the calm before the storm,” Brandt said, speaking up as the others muttered the same questions, the same concerns.

“Or maybe the kohan are already here, waiting to see if we’re going to renounce them or not,” Dez added grimly. An uncomfortable silence followed that statement, but no lightning bolts came down to blast the temple, no tornadoes dropped down to do a Wizard of Oz on them. And after a moment, the king said, “Okay. It’s time.”

“Let’s go.” Rabbit caught Myr’s hand, and together they moved into the shadows of the temple, where he would summon the sacrificial fire.

The others formed a big, loose circle—Nightkeepers, winikin, and humans all mixed together, all of them ready to renounce their gods.

All except one.

“Where’s Red-Boar?” Myr asked, like she had read his mind.

“Gone,” Rabbit said flatly. “He slipped away right after we ’ported in.” He paused. “Dez saw. He’s got our backs.”

She stared toward the scrubby tree line. “Maybe he’s running.”