Jessica Andersen - Dawnkeepers

“No, the ward’s working. Which means you’re back to being fully human.” Jox’s face relaxed; his whole body easing as he let the door swing a little wider. “A makol couldn’t have come through. A normal guy with a so-so academic record and a talent for getting his ass in trouble, though . . . he could get through just fine.”

Lucius grinned, feeling as if he could run a few hundred laps and bench-press a Jeep. “Guilty on all counts, though I’ll have to talk to Anna about maligning her servant.”

“Meh. Student, servant, big diff.” The winikin lifted a shoulder. “One of these days you and I can sit down and I’ll let you in on a few of the high points of the whole servant thing.” He flashed his forearm, which bore the aj-winikin “to serve” glyph, along with a pair of jaguars, one for Anna, one for Strike. “There are ways to work the bond magic, if you’re interested.”

“I’m interested. Seriously.”

“Come on.” Jox stepped back. “You’ve gotta be starving. You haven’t eaten in several days. I’ll catch you up on things while you eat.”

“That sounds . . . Hang on, how long?” Lucius shook his head, unable to believe he felt so good after being in one place for days. Never mind wondering what the hell had gone on inside his head while he’d been walking along on that big-ass Xibalban treadmill. “Whoa. Hello, mind-fuck.”

Jox snorted. “Come on, human.” He turned away and headed for the staircase.

Lucius followed, but the moment he was clear of the door, something foul shoved him viciously aside, into a small corner of his own consciousness. His bones shifted and popped, his skin stretched tight, and the world went into slow motion. And everything got real green, real fast.

He stretched out arms grown longer than normal, reaching for the winikin with fingers now tipped with pointed nails.

Jox, run! Lucius screamed, but his lips didn’t move; no sound came out; the scream stayed stuck inside his head as his body was taken over by the makol that had somehow hidden deep inside him, fooling even the Nightkeepers’ ward magic.

The winikin didn’t turn, didn’t know to defend himself. He was halfway up the stairs when the creature that wasn’t Lucius anymore grabbed him from behind, got an inhumanly strong grip on the back of his neck, and slammed him into the wall.

Jox went limp, and Lucius—or the thing that had been Lucius—let him fall. Going to one knee beside him, the creature searched him and came up with a flip-blade buck knife. Flicking the blade open, the makol grabbed the winikin ’s gray-shot hair and used it to pull his head back, baring his throat.

The connection suddenly clicked in the small part of Lucius that still belonged to him. It was the goddamned equinox. A day for blood sacrifice.

The knife descended. Lucius flung himself out of the corner of his mind, mustered all the mental control he’d never had, and shouted, “Hold!”

The knife froze. Then, furious at the interruption, the makol turned its attention inward, grabbing what was left of Lucius’s consciousness and clamping down, squeezing, pressing until everything went dark and life as he knew it ended.

In the final hour before the equinox, the air inside the Nightkeepers’ small aboveground temple shimmered with gold and rainbows as the barrier greeted the Godkeepers. Alexis, Strike, and Leah joined together in the magic that would open the tunnel leading down to the intersection.

“Pasaj och,” Alexis said in synchrony with the royal couple, and bowed her head in prayer as blood from her sliced hand dripped to the ground in sacrifice. She wore her mother’s combat shirt beneath her Kevlar, and for the first time felt at home, felt as though she belonged in the warrior’s garb, at the front of the pack. This was it, she knew; this was what her parents had wanted for her, what Izzy had trained her for. She had the power, the respect. But with it came a responsibility she wasn’t sure she could fulfill.

Rainbows against demons. It seemed impossible, even more so knowing that the Volatile was out there somewhere, waiting for her.

“Steady,” Leah murmured out of the corner of her mouth. “One step at a time.”

“Easier said than done,” Alexis replied.

“Amen to that, sister.”

Then the magic stabilized, and the tunnel was fully open. “In we go.” Strike led, with Leah and Alexis falling in behind him, Nate behind her, and then Anna, Patience, Brandt, Jade, and Sven. As usual, Michael shielded the rear.

They had debated closing the tunnel once they were inside, but that would’ve meant they could be trapped underground. Leaving it open, though, ran the risk of someone—or some thing —coming up behind them, which Alexis didn’t like one bit. She was coming to realize, though, that her job as an adviser wasn’t to steer the Nightkeepers’ away from risk—that was impossible. All she and Nate could do was to manage the risk as best as they could, and then pray.

Or rather, she would pray, and he would keep stubbornly pretending that the gods and destiny didn’t rule their lives, despite all evidence to the contrary.

As they passed into the tunnel, lighting their way with powerful hand lamps she’d bought to replace the lame-ass flashlights they’d been using in the tunnels up until now, she looked back and caught Nate staring at her. Granted, she was in front of him, so it wasn’t likely he’d be looking elsewhere. But the intensity in his gaze, and the way his amber eyes locked on hers, let her know that he was looking at her , thinking about her.

What is it? she wanted to say. Tell me. But she didn’t, because what would be the point? She’d said what she’d needed to say, and he’d done the same. They had, finally, reached the end of their personal debate. As he would say, “Game over.” And this so isn’t what I should be focused on right now, she thought as she faced forward and followed Strike and Leah into the tunnels that ran down to the subterranean river, and eventually to the altar room.

Yes, Nate was important to her—she was in love with him whether he liked it or not, godsdamn it—

but the moment she’d learned how to call the goddess on her own, their relationship had become separate from the needs of the Nightkeepers. And right now the Nightkeepers and their magic had to be her primary concern. So she faced forward and followed the tunnel into the earth, and tried to keep her mind on the connection at the back of her brain, where the rainbows lived.

As she walked, she prayed for the strength to do what needed to be done, and the smarts to recognize what that might be. There was no ripple in the barrier energy, no sense of the goddess beyond the low thrum of color. Alexis knew she was out there, waiting. But for what?

“Frigging obscure prophecies,” she heard Nate growl from behind her, his low words amplified and thrown forward by the tunnel walls. “Couldn’t just spell this shit out, could they?”

Alexis stifled a snort, and immediately felt better. Maybe it was blasphemy—okay, probably—but she couldn’t say he was wrong. What good did it do for them to know they needed to defeat the Volatile if they didn’t know how to find it?

No doubt Leah had been right when she’d speculated in council that the sheer length of the skyroad, running through the extra four layers of heaven that hell lacked, attenuated the ability of the gods to interact with the earthly plane and compromised their ability to connect with the Nightkeepers. Even Kulkulkan had “spoken” to Leah only a couple of times, during their initial binding. Alexis couldn’t say for sure that Ixchel had ever talked to her in words; the few times she’d thought she’d caught a snippet of thought that didn’t feel like her own could’ve just been wishful thinking. Besides, as Strike had pointed out, the gods created and the demons destroyed, and creation was a much harder energy to push through the barrier than was destruction. Entropy in action, and all that. All of which pretty much left the Nightkeepers floundering with visions and gut instincts, and prophecies left by their ancestors based on . . . well, visions and gut instinct.