Jessica Andersen - Dawnkeepers

Maybe that was what this had been about all along. Maybe the goddess had been trying to teach her to let go.

He exhaled a long breath. “Good. Okay . . . good.” He didn’t look as though he thought it was good, but she understood that too. “So . . .”

“So . . .” Now she did smile at him, letting him know it was really okay. “See you tomorrow.” She shut the door between them, not slamming it, but shutting it slowly and letting the latch engage with a final-sounding click.

Then, and only then, she finally collapsed onto the couch and put her face in her hands. Her hair, unbound and still moist from her shower, fell forward in long, ribbonlike strands.

And when she wept, her tears were rainbows.

March 21 The Nightkeepers joined up well before dawn, and Strike ’ported them to the temple site—except for Rabbit, who remained at Skywatch along with Myrinne and Lucius. The three of them were locked in the warded storerooms with armed winikin standing guard, two at a time, in four-hour shifts. All but Hannah and Wood, who were still in hiding with the twins.

The Nightkeepers’ numbers were dwindling rather than building, Nate realized with a shimmer of unease.

They waited in the deep darkness that held on to the rain forest in the final hour before daybreak while Michael checked the surveillance system in the small house near the temple. When his all-clear signal came through Strike said, “Okay, gang, it’s more than twelve hours before the equinox and eleven or so before the tunnel inside the temple opens up. Let’s start with just a couple of people on watch outside the temple, and rotate through every two hours. Volunteers?”

Nate raised his hand, figuring that if he had to stay cooped up in the little house with the rest of them for very long, he was going to go batshit crazy. From the number of hands showing, he wasn’t the only one.

Strike snorted. “That’s about what I thought. Okay, it’s me and Nate on first shift. The rest of you duke it out for the next one. We’ll add one extra person per two-hour block, with everyone on station by midafternoon.”

“Keep your eyes open,” Leah said, pressing Strike’s hand. She patted her hip, where she wore a medium-range walkie-talkie. “Call us if you see anything.”

Each of them had one of the radios, tuned to lucky channel thirteen. The walkies wouldn’t do much good down in the tunnels, but should be a simple, effective method for staying in contact during the aboveground portion of the stakeout.

Strike dropped a kiss on his mate’s lips. “Count on it.” They stood together for a moment, leaning into each other, and a faint golden glow sparkled, haloing them as their strong love reached out and touched Kulkulkan’s power.

Unable to do otherwise, Nate glanced at Alexis, who stood beside him. She caught the look and her lips turned up, as though she were determined to keep it light between them after what’d happened the night before. “Special effects courtesy of the equinox,” she whispered.

He should’ve said something smooth and equally light, but what came out was a soft, “You look tired.”

“Gee, thanks. You too.”

“Didn’t sleep worth shit.” As he’d lain awake in the cottage, staring at the ceiling, Nate had told himself it was better to spend that final night alone, that he’d be sharper and more rested without Alexis in his bed. It’d turned out he wasn’t very good at lying, even to himself.

“Ditto,” she said, and lifted a shoulder. “I probably shouldn’t have said anything the other night about . . . you know. Sorry.”

“No.” He caught her hand, unable to leave it like that. “No, never. I’m . . .” He trailed off, unable to find the right word.

Her eyes narrowed. “If you say ‘flattered,’ I’ll fireball you in the nuts.”

Strike’s voice interrupted. “Come on, Blackhawk. First shift’s leaving.”

“Lucky save,” Alexis murmured. But then her anger drained and she said simply, “Take care of yourself, okay?”

“Yeah. You too.” There wasn’t anything more to say after that—at least nothing he could say truthfully, or that would come easily and feel real, so Nate followed his king out of the cottage and didn’t look back.

Strike led the way, carrying a small flashlight that reminded Nate of the miners’ lamps he and Alexis had used in the ATM caves. The beam was just as pitiful, their surroundings just as dark. As they entered the path to the temple, the rain forest closed in on either side of them, pitching the darkness even blacker. Nate tried to shrug off the feeling, which was pretty close to a certainty, that this was the last time he’d be traveling along the narrow path, the last time he’d be glancing back and seeing only the glimmer of light through the dense vegetation, though the safe house was only a few hundred yards away.

It’s nerves, he told himself. Nerves and the equinox. When they reached the temple, and the point where they would split up to stand watch, Strike lifted a hand. “Wait.”

Nate looked up, surprised. “Nochem?”

“I want you to take this.” The king held out his hand into the thin flashlight beam. On his palm rested something long, narrow, and flat, and glittering black. It was a knife, Nate saw, then realized that it wasn’t just a knife; it was the knife of the Volatile prophecy. His knife.

Everything inside him went tight on a single, greedy word: Mine! It was the same way he felt about Alexis, the same way he’d always felt about her; it was just as simple as that, and as complex. He took the knife and balanced the weapon on his palm, staring down at the polished black stone and trying not to feel how well it fit in his hand, how natural it felt, in a way that no other ceremonial knife had done before. He knew the blade with a deep, thrumming possessiveness that seemed to originate from just above his breastbone. He wanted to keep it, to wear it, to blood himself with its blade.

He glanced at his king. “I swear that I’ll die before I let the Volatile hurt her.”

“I know.”

They parted without another word. Taking up his position, Nate settled in to watch the small temple, and the surrounding rain forest. Periodic check-ins via walkie-talkie all brought the same message: All’s quiet. Eventually the sky went from black to blue, then deepened through purple to a vicious red that filtered through the leafy canopy and turned everything to blood. The light pinked out quickly to day, but that violent red hue stayed with him, seeming prophetic even to a man who refused to live by prophecy.

His worries weren’t superstition, though; they were logic. How were they supposed to hold the barrier with so few magi? Not good odds, his gamer’s brain reported. We need a new strategy. Only they’d already explored all the options, hadn’t they?

He withdrew the carved obsidian knife from his belt and flipped it through his fingers a few times, becoming familiar with the perfect balance of the blade and the feel of the worn carvings as he waited.

And waited.

There was no sign of Iago as the day warmed and the birds and monkeys started doing their thing overhead. The surveillance shifts changed, and changed again, and still nothing. In fact, exactly nothing happened all godsdamned day. By dusk, all of the Nightkeepers were hunched in the forest, watching a whole lot of nothing. Nate had positioned himself very near Alexis, as he had done all day whether she liked it or not, because the equinox magic was sparking in his veins, and his skin felt tight across his bones. Close to nightfall, when she glanced in his direction and their eyes met, he saw rainbows. Then she nodded to Strike and Leah, concealed in a cluster of ferns nearby, and he turned to find them deep in conversation, with the satellite phone forming a third party, no doubt bringing Jox in on the discussion.