Jessica Andersen - Spellfire

I’ve got your magic, you disloyal fuck, the hated voice said inside his head. I’m going to make you— “Aaah!” Red-Boar flew backward as if he’d been yanked by an invisible giant, sailing thirty feet and hitting hard. A shield spell slammed down around him, sparking with Dez’s lightning powers and threaded through with Michael’s silver death magic. “No!” he shouted, scrambling to his feet and slapping his hands against the impenetrable shield. “You can’t do this! You swore on your blood!”

Rabbit came to his feet and faced his old man as wrath and righteousness pounded through him. “You screwed up, old man. I swore not to follow the false gods. And as far as I’m concerned, your gods are full of shit, and so are you.”

Red-Boar flushed an angry, ugly purple. “No! You can’t do it. You can’t—” The rant cut off abruptly, though his mouth still moved, screaming spittle-flecked imprecations.

“Volume control,” Michael said with grim satisfaction. “Shield magic is my friend.”

“Thanks.” Rabbit looked past him to Dez, knowing that the two of them together were strong enough to hold his old man, no matter what. “Seriously. Thanks.” And he didn’t just mean for the shield spell or the silence. If they hadn’t trusted him, hadn’t backed him up, there was no telling what would’ve happened. Red-Boar brought out the darkness in him.

Even now it stirred inside him, seething and whispering, You’re stronger, better than he is. You can show him, show them all.

Yeah, he could. By fucking holding his shit together.

The king nodded. “Hey. You can’t pick your family.”

“Amen.” But to Rabbit’s surprise there was no satisfaction in seeing Red-Boar trapped and silenced, either. There was only the blink of his chrono: 2:50:36. And still nothing from the enemy.

“Here. You’re going to need this.” Myr levitated his combat knife and sent it winging toward him.

He caught it on the fly. “Sorry I didn’t tell you the whole plan.”

“Like you said earlier, he’s a mind-bender. He could’ve read me.” But she didn’t quite meet his eyes as she restarted the fire.

Damn. Rabbit’s heart thudded with dismay. He didn’t want to shut her out like this. He wanted to kiss her, hold her, make everything okay. Later, he promised himself, just like he’d promised her pancakes. Later, when the solstice magic wasn’t gnawing at him. Later, when he’d proven himself once and for all.

Later, when they’d won the war.

Facing the fire, he used his knife to freshen the half-healed cuts, leaned in so his blood fell into the fire, and said, “Ma’ tu kahool tikeni.”

The shock wave didn’t flare out this time; it flared in, turning his vision suddenly to gold. He hissed out a breath and fought to keep his balance, heard shouts but couldn’t understand the words. Then he fell and hit hard, launching himself into a vision, into the same dream he’d been having for weeks now. Except it wasn’t the same anymore.

Rabbit stood in front of the chac-mool, watching the barrier writhe in the air above the altar. Only this time he was alone . . . and he wasn’t underground. Instead, he stood at the edge of a huge sinkhole, which was sixty feet across and plunged a hundred feet down to a huge, circular pool of blackish water.

Oh, gods. He knew this place.

And, as he felt himself lift his bleeding palms, heard himself chant Scarred-Jaguar’s spell and sensed it burning its way into his mind, he knew what he was supposed to do, what the dreams—or, rather, the true gods—had been trying to tell him all along.

The Nightkeepers were going to shit a fucking brick when they found out.

Ninety minutes to the Great Conjunction

Coatepec Mountain

“Rabbit?” Myr’s face was the first thing he saw in the too-bright sunlight when he awakened, her hand the first thing he reached for. Relief flooded her features and she gripped his fingers for a moment, then pulled away to call over her shoulder, “Hey! He’s back!”

There was a shuffle of movement around him, and then Dez appeared in Rabbit’s field of vision. After a quick once-over, the king grabbed his arm and hauled him up. “What happened?”

Irritation rattled. “Jeez, give me a . . .” He trailed off at the sight of an armed encampment surrounding him. The equipment had been broken out and dug in, surveillance was up and running, and there were warriors positioned along the perimeter, watching the temple, the tree line, the sky, and Red-Boar, who sat near the temple with his hands tied behind his back, tethered to one of the jaguar pillars. More, the air sang with power . . . and Rabbit’s chrono said 1:28:08. “Fuck me.”

He’d been out for more than an hour.

Myr said, “Talk to us. Did you have another vision?”

“Yeah. This time it was different, though. This time, I got what the true gods have been trying to tell me.” To Dez—to all of them—he said, “We’re in the wrong place. We need to go to Chichén Itzá. . . . and when we get there, we need to use Scarred-Jaguar’s spell to seal the barrier.”

Myr gasped and took a step back, and a ripple of “Oh, hell, no” flung away from them and raced through the encampment, like he’d just dropped a boulder in a kiddie pool. Which he pretty much had.

Dez froze for a split second, but then his face went thunderous. Moving in, he grabbed Rabbit’s shirt and got in his face to hiss, “Godsdamn it, don’t you dare. Not fucking now.”

Rabbit snapped, “You think I want this? You think—” He broke off, seeing that the other man’s anger was more defensive than anything. Dez didn’t want to believe he was going to be the second king to lead the Nightkeepers into battle at Chichén Itzá on the strength of some dreams, didn’t want to think about enacting the same spell that had wiped out their parents. Let the brick shitting begin. “Think about it,” Rabbit said, taking it down a notch, but all too aware of the seconds flickering on his wristband. “That’s why the kohan haven’t attacked us here. They don’t give a damn what we’re doing as long as we’re not at the intersection.”

“This is the intersection.”

“It’s a decoy. They wanted us to think Iago destroyed the real intersection at Chichén Itzá, but he didn’t. The sacred chamber is still there, sunk deep in the cenote.” Rabbit paused. “I think that’s why I’m so important. I’m the only telekinetic left. It’s my weakest talent, but if I give it everything I’ve got, I should be able to bring the altar back up to the surface.” He looked at Myr. “I think the dreams—”

“Bullshit!” JT shouted from the edge of the crowd. “This is bullshit! This is the intersection. This is where we’re supposed to be.” There were a few angry nods and a holler of “We didn’t sign on for this!”

Dez’s hackles rose. “Renouncing the kohan was optional, not the rest of it. This isn’t a fucking democracy, and when you agreed to come here, you put yourself under my orders. There’s only one leader in this army, and it’s me.”

“They’re not your orders. They’re his.” JT glared at Rabbit. “And none of us signed on to follow him.” The two of them had fought together, hung together, had some good times together, but the rebel winikin was looking at him now like he was the enemy.

Rabbit tried not to blame him, but anger kicked in his gut, dark and ugly. “I’m not ordering anybody to do anything. I’m just telling you what I know.”

“You don’t know dick. You dreamed it, just like Scarred-Jaguar.”

“It was a vision; there’s a difference. And I wasn’t in the king’s head this time. I pictured myself standing at the edge of the cenote, and it was like I could see down to the very bottom. I saw the altar down there, felt its magic. More, when I heard the spell, I understood it.” He paused, voice going urgent. “The magic doesn’t just seal the barrier, it connects the other two realms to each other, so the kohan and the kax can duke it out themselves, leaving the earth out of the mix completely.”