Jessica Andersen - Dawnkeepers

’we glyph, which meant “eat.”

He snorted. Somebody had a sense of humor.

“Focus, kid,” Brandt muttered out of the corner of his mouth. “Don’t screw this up for us.”

“Bite me.” A few months ago he never would’ve talked to Brandt that way, not after he and Patience had practically adopted Rabbit after Red-Boar’s death, letting him stay in their big suite and trusting him with the twins and stuff. But things had been strained ever since a few weeks earlier, when Rabbit had walked in on a big-time fight and overheard Brandt pressuring Patience to leave Skywatch and take the rug rats with her. The last thing Rabbit had heard as he sneaked back out of the suite was Brandt saying something about all the time Patience had been spending with Rabbit. But when he’d said “Rabbit,” what he’d really meant was “half-blood fuckup.” That was what Rabbit’s old man called him, what all the others thought of him.

Well, screw them.

Brandt pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled a long, suffering breath designed to let his wife know how hard he was working to control his temper with Rabbit, who was more her friend than his.

“Knock it off, you two,” she said without missing a beat, in the same voice she used on the twins when they were fighting. “This way.” She kept a firm grip on Sven’s arm, steering him through the first room of the Mayan exhibit, hanging on to him as though she thought he might bolt.

Good guess too, Rabbit thought, getting a look at Sven’s pasty face. The mage was wide-eyed with nerves. Gods only knew why he was so freaked. It wasn’t like they were getting ready to kill someone —they were stealing a bowl, for fuck’s sake, and if saving the world wasn’t a good enough reason for some five-fingering, Rabbit didn’t know what was. Besides, if Sven’s brand-new talent backfired and they set off the alarms or something, Patience could blink them invisible while they sneaked out and called Strike for a pickup. Worst-case scenario, like if the museum went into lockdown, they could hide and have Strike risk an interior ’port and pick them from inside the building.

Seriously, what was Sven’s deal?

“Okay, this is the place,” Brandt said, moving ahead of the others, bumping Rabbit on the way by in what might’ve been an apology, might’ve been a challenge. Or, hell, even an accident. He continued, “We’re going to work our way around the room and pretend to look at the stuff. Sven? You ready?”

Way not, Rabbit thought, but to his surprise Sven nodded, and his voice was steady when he said, “Ready.” His color had even come back. Looked like the dude had manned up, after all.

“Rabbit, you’re on the door,” Brandt continued, like they hadn’t gone over the stupid-simple plan a thousand times back at Skywatch. “Keep an eye out for guards, and warn us if it looks like one’s headed this way while Sven’s making the switch.”

They weren’t even totally stealing the bowl; they were switching it with a comparable ceremonial bowl from Skywatch. They’d stashed the spare in an alley Dumpster nearby, because they hadn’t figured it’d be a good idea to stroll into the museum carrying the replacement bowl. Hello, obvious.

The idea was that Sven would translocate the bowl from the alley and switch it with the one they wanted. Which sounded great, but got complicated because it meant he had to split his brain and do a simultaneous double translocation, timing it perfectly so the motion detectors guarding the museum’s bowl didn’t register the change in the bowl’s weight on the pressure pad of the display, Indiana Jones-

like. In theory, anyway.

“You realize,” Rabbit said to Brandt, “that if they’ve got audio-recognition software, you probably just triggered it by talking about the guards.”

“I doubt they’ve got the technology.” But the big man looked around a little, and waved for them to split up. Rabbit took his position in the far corner, where he could pretend to be studying one of the displays while keeping an eye on both of the doors serving the exhibit room. Patience, Brandt, and Sven wandered over to the display case containing the ornately carved bowl, where they lingered, waiting for the room to empty of most of the other museumgoers.

Come on, come on, Rabbit thought, the wait wearing on him quickly. Trying to figure out how long it’d take for whoever was manning the surveillance cameras to wonder why he was so interested in the display he was parked in front of—which was a blah fragment from a not-very-interesting mural at Tulum—he palmed his cell phone, checking the time for no particular reason.

Okay, he was checking for messages, so sue him. Brandt’s voice whispered through his mind, saying, Don’t screw this up, but Rabbit hit the “incoming” icon just in case.

There was a message from Juarez.

Excitement fired in his blood, bringing a hum of magic as he clicked over to the text. Target was in N.O. two days ago, the text read, followed by an address Rabbit didn’t recognize. Feeling a kick of optimism, he started keying in a reply.

He was halfway through when an unfamiliar voice said, “Sorry, kid, no cell phones in—” The guard broke off two steps inside the room, locking on Sven, who must’ve fucked up the translocation, because he had the demon prophecy bowl in his hands, rather than it being safe in the alley where he was supposed to send it. “Hey!” the guard shouted, going for a button on his belt first, and then rushing the thieves.

He was across the room before Rabbit broke from the shocked paralysis that’d gripped him the second he realized just how badly he’d fucked up. Before he could move or yell a warning, the guy had stun-gunned Patience, who dropped without a sound. Brandt roared a battle cry and decked the guard, who went down for the count, but the damage was already done.

Alarms shrilled and panels started grinding into place. And the Nightkeepers’ fallback invisibility plan was a no-go.

Heart hammering, Rabbit jammed his phone in his pocket and started across to help, but Brandt shoved him aside. “Fuck off. You’ve done enough.” He got his wife over his shoulder and grabbed Sven by the shirt, dragging him through the nearest door just before it clanged shut, leaving Rabbit behind.

Rabbit stood for a second, paralyzed, then bolted, barely making it out the other door. He was shaking and breathing hard, panic mixing with awful guilt. With Patience unconscious, the others were visible, vulnerable. He should double back around and find them, help them. But Brandt’s anger cut through him, warning him that he’d finally done it, finally fucked up one too many times. Rabbit’s hands were trembling when he pulled out his cell and speed-dialed home. When Jox picked up, he said, “Have Strike lock on Brandt and get them out, now .” His voice broke, and tears were gumming up his vision, but he didn’t care.

He hung up, chucked his phone in the nearest trash, and took off.

The day the Boston mission left, Alexis spent most of the day in her suite studying—she refused to think of it as hiding. She was reading up on the Godkeeper legends, which were woefully lacking in detail, and trying out a few selected spells to see if she could pull them off.

So far, that would be a no.

Her tactile senses were heightened, especially when it came to textiles and other woven things. She could touch a piece of fabric and know instantly where its weak spots lay; give her a piece of clothing and she immediately knew where its seams were imperfect, its design flawed. She saw new colors in the world around her, and was preternaturally aware of how the light bent slightly as it came through a window, how it refracted in a droplet of water dripping from her bathroom sink. And she knew at a glance where the women around her were in their biological cycles—hello, TMI. All of those were consistent with Ixchel’s triad role as the goddess of weaving, rainbows, and fertility. But how the hell was any of that supposed to help her repel the first of Camazotz’s sons during the vernal equinox in two weeks?