Jessica Andersen - Spellfire

“They sent you back to find me.” It didn’t make any sense. He and the gods had forsaken each other long ago.

“Yeah. That was my first job—that, and letting the others know what happened to you, so maybe they could find a way to trust you again.” Red-Boar’s eyes were like his voice, hard and harsh. “After that, I’m supposed to bind your ass to your bloodline and fucking babysit you until the war, making sure that you’ve got your priorities straight this time, and knock off this shit about the demons being the good guys.” He made a disgusted noise. “For fuck’s sake. I—” He clamped his lips together rather than saying, “I taught you better.” Which would’ve been a joke, because they both knew he hadn’t taught his son a damn thing about the magic, or about being a man.

Before, Rabbit would’ve gotten in his old man’s face, not caring where they were or what else was going on as long as he got to defend himself and take a few hacks. Now, though, he shoved his anger deep down inside, and turned his back on Red-Boar.

He had more important things to worry about.

The others were ranged shoulder to shoulder in a defensive formation, like he was as much an enemy as the camazotz. Even Strike—who had practically raised him, for fuck’s sake—was looking at him cold and hard, as if he’d finally given up. That hurt like hell, but Rabbit couldn’t deal with that now, either.

Instead, he did something he’d never done before, never thought he would do. He knelt in front of the king and bowed his head. He heard a murmur of surprise, hoped it would be enough.

“Look,” he said, “I’m a piece of shit, and I fucking know it. I was wrong about the underworld, about all of it, and I’m sorrier than I can say. You probably don’t believe me—shit, I wouldn’t if I were you. But you’ve got to believe me on this one: Myrinne’s in danger.” He looked up, praying that Dez saw that he meant every word when he said, “I’ll take whatever vows you want me to, the second I’m sure she’s safe and Phee is dead. Once that’s done, I’ll be your fucking slave.”

The king scowled down at him, every inch the hard-assed serpent mage. “Myrinne is fine. She stayed back at Skywatch.”

But there was a stir in the crowd and JT stepped forward with a satellite phone in his hand. “No, she didn’t. She left the compound right after we ’ported out. Took the oldest Jeep and bolted.”

Dez’s breath exploded. “What rocket scientist let her through the gate without double-checking?”

“She let herself out.” JT’s eyes narrowed. “And nobody said she was supposed to stay put.”

Rabbit surged to his feet. “Screw the blame. We need to find her!” Then, wincing, he tacked on, “Sire.”

Dez shot him a black look, but said to Strike and Anna, “Can either of you get a fix?”

Anna shook her head. “She’s off our radar, remember, unless—”

“I’ve got her,” Strike said, eyes going grim. “Which means she’s in trouble.”

Rabbit didn’t know why that followed, but there wasn’t time for an explanation. His fingers tightened on his machine gun, and he grated, “Take me there.”

“We’ll all go,” Dez said. “But first we need to destroy this place.” He gestured to the warriors, and within seconds, the air hummed with Nightkeeper power. When the vibration peaked, Dez gave a curt “Now!” and fireballs flew.

The fiery bolts slammed into the stones with a rending boom and sent them toppling into each other, sheared off at their bases. The noise was deafening, underscored by the sharp pings of shrapnel deflecting off a shield spell that sparked with Dez’s signature lightning sizzle.

“Again!” the king commanded, and the Nightkeepers sent a salvo into the tunnel. The ground beneath them rolled and shook, and a gout of limestone ash erupted. “Last one!” Dez called, and they hammered the tunnel mouth with a final round of detonations that blazed and blasted, collapsing the dark-magic portal in on itself and sealing off the threat.

Rabbit had to lock his legs to keep from stumbling—not just because the ground was moving, but because of the flat-out fucking power the Nightkeepers had just unleashed. Before, he had been the strongest of the magi, the only one with multiple talents and the wild magic of a half blood. Now, he had almost nothing, yet it seemed that the old legends had been right about the Nightkeepers’ powers increasing exponentially as the end date approached.

“Link up!” Strike called, and the teammates scrambled to form an intricate network of clasped palms and other handholds that would connect them to the teleporters’ magic.

Shaken, Rabbit moved into the uplink. He found himself flanked by Dez and Michael, two men he would’ve called friends before, but who now acted as an implied threat: Don’t try anything, or we’ll fry you.

Michael wielded death magic. If anyone could kill the crossover, it was him.

The crossover. Shit. The label had gotten slapped on Rabbit thanks to his dubious bloodlines and an enemy prophecy, but nobody had a clue what the name meant. Unless . . .

He looked over at Red-Boar, and found himself caught in the steel of his old man’s stare. Something twisted inside his chest, a logic-fuse that said no way, impossible, he can’t be alive. But he was there, flesh and blood, and maybe he would have some answers.

Then Strike and Anna triggered the ’port magic, and Rabbit was surrounded by the familiar-strange sensation of moving while staying still. And alongside the urgent need to get to Myrinne, it hit him like a ton of fucking bricks that he was leaving the island. He wasn’t going to die there, wasn’t going to be sacrificed to the Banol Kax—at least not yet. Instead, he was going to get another chance. More, he was going to get an opportunity for revenge . . . and maybe, if he was really fucking lucky, some sort of atonement.

Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

When the Nightkeepers materialized in the badlands northwest of Skywatch, rapid-fire impressions slapped at Rabbit like physical blows: He felt the cooler, drier air of New Mexico, saw the yellowed-out sun, the wind-tortured rocks, and the jagged outline of a stone-block Chacoan ruin. Its upper levels had fallen in, but the ground floor was relatively intact, with rows of tall, dark windows the width of arrow-slits and a single narrow door. An older Jeep leaned at a drunken angle in the sand some thirty feet from the road, near the turnoff to the ruin.

Stomach dropping, Rabbit stepped away from the others. “Is she—”

He broke off as a white-robed figure darted around a corner and swept through the narrow doorway into the ruin, followed by a dark, winged blur.

“No!” He bolted for the ruin, not waiting for orders or permission.

His boots skidded in loose grit and pounded over rock, and if Dez yelled for him to wait the hell up, he didn’t hear it over the hammering of his pulse. The machine gun was an awkward weight that banged as he ran, but he flipped the clip and slapped it home, and then did his damnedest to be quiet as he reached the ruin and slipped inside.

The single door led to a narrow hallway. He headed for the far end, where the fallen-through roof let in the fresh air. The room beyond stank of dark magic, making him want to howl and fling himself into the attack. Instead, he paused in the shadows, pulse thudding. He might get only one chance. He had to make it good.

The far doorway opened to a larger space, where several rooms had fallen in to form one. There, Phee and the ’zotz stood shoulder to shoulder with their backs to him. Faced opposite them, cornered, was Myrinne.

The first sight of her in so long punched a fist beneath his heart, and he felt a twisted mess of relief, guilt, love, shame and a thousand other things that he couldn’t deal with right now. But there was also surprise, because she didn’t look like he had expected, like he remembered. She had her dark hair swept back in a soft, loose braid, but there was nothing soft about the set of her jaw or the anger in her eyes. She was wearing low-slung jeans he recognized and a curve-hugging hoodie he didn’t, and she was brandishing a small wooden stick, a freaking magic wand, like it was going to do something against Phee and the ’zotz.