Jessica Andersen - Magic Unchained

“I’m here,” he called over the growl of thunder. “What’s wrong?”

There was no answer from the coyote. When Sven reached him, the foxfire spread out to shed bright white light on the scene. The rain had plastered Mac’s fur to his body, making the coyote look lean and lethal. His eyes were slitted against the sideways-whipping wind, and a growl grated at the back of his throat.

The big animal was staring down at a churned-up section of ground that was going rapidly smooth under the pelting hammer of rain. But as Sven hunkered down, he shifted slightly and the foxfire glinted off something metallic being shielded by the big coyote’s bulk.

“What have you got there?” Sven leaned in, reached for it… and froze for a second at the sight of a torn, muddy piece of desert-camo cloth snagged on a winikin’s wristband. It had the initials CL etched inside.

Ice sluiced through his veins. Cara!

Mac’s eyes met his and a wash of guilt poured through their bond, along with two piteous thought-glyphs: Gone! Hurt!

Sven’s body kicked into action while his mind screamed inside. He went for his armband, slapping the alarm and the all-transmit in the same move. “Mayday, mayday!” he said, raising his voice above the thunder and rain. “There’s been—” He broke off because there was no signal light, no whooping alarm. The storm was screwing with the transmission.

No. Not now. Fuck! He hit the buttons again, then the reset, saw the readout lights flicker but didn’t get a damn thing.

He was cut off.

Mac whined urgently, his thought-glyphs becoming a jumble of distress and, Come on, this way! as he circled the scene of the attack, his paws turning dark with mud.

Sven hesitated. Protocol and the good of the many said he should go back for his teammates, that it was too big a risk. But Mac’s thought-stream filled with the need to hurry, follow, run—along with the smell of fear and blood.

Cara. Her name lashed through him on the next bolt of lightning, driving him to his feet as Mac spun and bolted into the night.

“Godsdamn it, wait!” Sven took two steps after him, then saw in the next flash that the coyote had paused at the edge of the pyramid, eyes wide and wild, lips drawn back in a snarl. There were no glyphs to his thoughts now; there was only instinct and the pounding need to chase, find, protect.

Then Mac whirled and galloped off, disappearing into the night and the storm.

Cursing, Sven plunged after him. And as he ran into the teeth of the wind and rain, he hoped to hell they weren’t already too late.

Cara awoke to a bone-numbing chill that was so intense that she didn’t remember ever not being cold, as if the sensation had lived in her marrow forever.

On some level she knew that was crap, that she’d been warm before, that she’d been many, many other things. But as she swam up through the layers of unconsciousness that flowed like water and clung like mud, she knew only the cold. It bit into her, locked onto her, and made her want to sink back down to where she didn’t care that she was freezing, didn’t care about anything.

Screw that, said some stubborn core within her. Stop whining and get your ass moving. Something bad had happened; she knew that much. But what? How? Wake up and figure it out!

Huge shivers clamped her muscles tight, and her chattering teeth nipped the tip of her tongue and drew blood. The sharp, bright pain brought her closer to consciousness, letting sounds penetrate from the outside world: She heard the roar of thunder above her, the splash of water all around her.

For a second she was back on the Discovery, riding out a squall on the whale-watching boat that had been as much a home for her as she’d ever known. She imagined Captain Jack up in the wheelhouse and the passengers huddled inside over cocoa and barf bags, leaving her alone on the forward deck, leaning into the wind and rain as the deck surged beneath her feet. But then the image fragmented, because the air wasn’t salty or ocean clean; instead, her mouth was foul with sandy grit and a chemical aftertaste that brought back newer, far less pleasant memories.

The desert. Skywatch. War games.

Heartache.

As reality returned with sledgehammer blows, she sucked in a breath that was a harsh sound over the other noises. Suddenly, she was sickeningly aware of all sorts of tactile sensations, none of them good: There was a solid surface beneath her, ties binding her in place at her chest, hips, wrists, and ankles. Terror lashed as it came back to her: the pyramid, the storm, a splash of rain.… And Zane coming for her with cold, determined eyes.

Zane. Gods. That wasn’t him, couldn’t have been. It was a trick, a demon, magic. Only how was that possible? Her stomach lurched with the alternative: that he’d betrayed the winikin, the Nightkeepers. And her. Impossible, she thought, but she knew what she had seen. And now—

“Shit, she’s waking up.” It was a woman’s voice, distorted by distance, echoes, and the noise of rippling water. A woman? Who? Why?

“Good.” A man’s voice, familiar. Zane.

Panic and fury slashed through Cara, breaking the last hold of whatever drug or spell they’d used. She wrenched open her eyes and blinked into a bright, harsh camp light that was hung on a folding pole very near her. It was a cave; that much she could tell from the echoes, though she couldn’t see beyond the lantern. Its glow showed only that she lay atop a flat stone altar that was on a sandy island in the center of a muddy subterranean pool. The rest of her surroundings was lost to the shadows. As her eyes adjusted, she saw down her body, where straps held her clamped to the altar. She couldn’t see the details, but she could guess what it looked like: waist-high and carved on the sides, a ritual piece of the Nightkeepers… or, worse, the Xibalbans.

A moan bled from her lips, stirring movement from behind her, a low masculine chuckle. Moments later, she heard splashes, and then Zane and Lora came around into her view. They were both wearing black on black, armed to the teeth and wearing ceremonial daggers, like they were magi themselves.

“Lora.” Cara whispered the word, though there was little surprise in it. The signs had been there, she supposed. Or maybe her instincts had known all along that something wasn’t right. Dismissing the sharp-eyed ex-cop as the follower she’d always been, Cara focused on Zane and felt a sharp, painful twist beneath her heart, not from betrayal, but from self-disgust. She hadn’t seen it. How had she not seen it? There was derision in his face now, a mad gleam of triumph in dark blue eyes that she had thought carried the calm of a professional soldier, but instead had been hiding his true thoughts behind a terrifying level of control. “Why?” she asked, the word pulled from deep inside her. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because the gods chose me,” he said simply, and there was a fanatic’s belief behind the statement. “I knew they had chosen you too, but I was wrong about your purpose.” He glanced beyond the circle of lantern light, to the walls of the domed cave, where she could just barely make out huge four-legged shapes, giant cave paintings that ran around the perimeter, where the rock walls met the rippling water. His lips curved, though she didn’t know why. Then she saw that the water was higher than it had been only moments before, her island smaller.

The lake was rising!

A whimper caught in Cara’s throat as her mind flooded with horrified understanding. Sacrificial near-drowning was part of the magic—it was how the Nightkeepers connected with their gods during the cardinal days, a way for them to access their greatest powers. But there wouldn’t be any “near” about it for her—she was no mage, and this wasn’t one of the cardinal days. And, as in the paintball game, dead for a winikin was just dead.