Jessica Andersen - Dawnkeepers

“Let me guess,” Alexis muttered. “She picked the location.”

“She doesn’t seem the sort to miss the opportunity for some drama,” Nate agreed as he paid the driver, adding a twenty so the guy would wait.

They got out of the cab and worked their way back, making like tourists by holding hands and gawking at the carved marble pillars and ornate iron grillwork of the fence surrounding the cemetery, even though it was late and the area wasn’t exactly a primo stop on the haunted walking tours.

As they neared the cemetery the sedan rolled past, heading back uptown.

“Think it’s headed out to get our Xibalban?” Nate said, more thinking aloud than really asking.

“He can ’port,” Alexis said with a bit of duh in her voice.

Nate would’ve argued that Strike didn’t ’port everywhere he wanted to go, but didn’t bother because he didn’t want to buy into the fight. And yeah, he knew damn well it wasn’t really a fight that was looking to spark between them, not this close to the eclipse. The electricity that pulsed on the night air was way more sex than anger, or maybe a mix of the two. Part of him was annoyed that his body had no problem buying into the destined-mates thing. The rest of him didn’t give a crap about that, just wanted her against him, underneath him. And she was feeling it too. He could see it in the pink blush that crept up her long throat and high-boned cheeks when he caught her looking, and when they brushed up against each other as they walked, still holding hands.

“It’s a one-way trip,” she said, and it took him a few seconds to realize she wasn’t talking about the two of them; she was talking about Mistress Truth and the limo, and she had a point. The sedan’s departure suggested that whoever hired it didn’t expect the wannabe witch to need a ride home.

“Come on.” He sped up, and they came into sight of the cemetery entrance just as the witch’s purple-jacketed figure disappeared through the arched gateway.

Nate and Alexis followed. The cemetery gate opened onto a main drag paved in pressed white gravel, with offshoots leading away at right angles, intersected by narrower pathways running parallel to the main drag, creating a regular gridwork of roads crisscrossing around straight rows of monuments and elevated crypts, all built well above normal flood height. There’d no doubt been some serious posthurricane rebuilding necessary, but in the moonlit darkness Nate saw no sign of the destruction or repairs. The cemetery looked secure in the silence. Peaceful. For now, anyway.

“There she goes,” he said as their quarry stopped at an angel-topped crypt, fiddled with the lock for a moment, and then stepped inside. “Wonder if that’s the family home?”

“I think—” Alexis broke off as the air suddenly rang with the rattle of foreign magic, and they heard the pop of displaced air from up ahead. “Come on!”

Nate wanted to grab her and shove her in a crypt until it was all over, but she wasn’t his to protect, and she was a good jump ahead of him. Adrenaline flared and he started after her, pulling the nine-

millimeter he’d checked with his luggage and hoped he wouldn’t need. “Wait up,” he hissed. “Wait for—” But they were already too late. A dark shadow passed through the crypt entrance well ahead of them. A second later the witch screamed, the sound high and terrified, followed by a masculine roar of anger, then another scream, cutting off to a gurgling rattle.

“Shit!” Nate put his head down and ran, pushing past Alexis and barreling into the crypt.

The big redhead had the witch up against the back wall of the crypt, holding her off her feet by her throat. He had a stone knife in his other hand, its tip against her temple.

It was a stone knife, yes, and it was Mayan. Maybe even Nightkeeper. But it wasn’t the stone knife.

The witch had switched blades, Nate realized, and the big guy was pissed. “Drop it!” he ordered, leveling the nine-millimeter. “These are jade tipped.” He didn’t fire, though, because ricochet would be a bitch in the stone chamber.

The witch’s eyes locked onto him, relief warring with terror as her mouth pulled back in a voiceless plea for help. The enemy mage ignored the threat and dug the knife in a little, until a drop of blood welled and tracked down Mistress Truth’s temple. “Where’s the real knife? Back at the shop?”

She shook her head wildly, then nodded, spraying tears, spittle, and terror.

“Drop her now!” Nate shouted, sidestepping so he had half a prayer of nailing the redhead without killing the witch too.

The mage looked at him, disgusted. “For fuck’s sake, you could’ve taken the damn thing earlier.

That’s always been the problem with you people. Too many fucking rules.”

Magic clapped, brown smoke detonated, and mage and witch disappeared. Nate stood for a second, stunned. There had been no rattle of gathering magic, no pop of displaced air, yet his gut told him that they hadn’t gone invisible or anything like that. The redhead had ’ported back to the shop.

Back to where Rabbit was waiting, jacked up on magic and angst.

“Come on!” Nate grabbed Alexis’s hand and practically dragged her out of the crypt to their cab.

They piled in and he told the cabbie to take them back to the tea shop ASAP, while she whipped out her cell and speed-dialed Rabbit’s phone, punching it to speaker.

After five rings it kicked to voice mail, and Rabbit’s recorded voice said, “I’m not here.”

Then the line went dead. There was no beep, no nothing. Only silence.

Rabbit thought he was handling the negotiations pretty well. After a flash of panicked certainty that he was going to fuck this up the way he’d always fucked up pretty much anything else important he’d ever tried to do, he forced himself to slow down and focus. Think.

He’d let the girl—she’d said her name was Myrinne—keep the knife. Okay, actually she’d refused to hand it over, but he hadn’t pressed. He had, however, insisted that they get their asses out of the tea shop. Myrinne hadn’t argued; she’d just put her hand in his and let him lead her through the streets of her own neighborhood, looking for someplace loud and crowded. As they walked, she told him a bit about the other guy who’d wanted the knife, namely that he called himself Iago, and had actually identified himself as Xibalban, and promised to share his magic with the witch in exchange for the knife.

“He’ll kill her,” Rabbit said.

Myrinne said nothing, just pointed to a pizza joint across the street. “Let’s go in there. It’s usually pretty quiet this time of night.”

Quiet was an understatement, Rabbit decided. The place was empty except for the guy behind the counter. Rabbit snagged a table in the corner and put his back to the wall, feeling nerves and power vibrating through him. When the guy headed toward them with menus, Rabbit ordered a couple of Cokes and told him they’d need a while.

Make that a long while.

Under the bright fluorescent lights, Myrinne’s shiner stood out loud and clear, angry and purple-

black, with spider tracks of broken veins edging the white of that eye.

Seeing that he was staring, she jerked her chin up and glared. “What’re you looking at?”

“Did the witch do it?” he asked, knowing they both knew exactly what he’d been looking at. “Is that why you want to come with me?”

At first he wasn’t sure she was going to answer, because she sort of locked up and hunched over, as though she weren’t sure how much to tell him. But then she said, “Yes, she clobbered me. But no, that’s not why I need you to take me with you. It’s because of the dreams.”