Jessica Andersen - Dawnkeepers

That was the theory, anyway.

Nate reached into the pocket of his robe and withdrew a pair of stingray spines. He handed one to Alexis and kept one for himself. “I’m so not looking forward to this part.”

“It’s not a sacrifice if it’s easy,” she answered, paraphrasing one of the writs. Then she shot him a look and a sly grin, knowing how he felt about scripture.

Instead of answering, he stuck out his tongue, jammed the stingray spine into it, and ripped the barb free. Pain slapped and spiraled, so much sharper than the familiar bite of blade against palm. Blood flowed down his chin as Alexis did the same, hissing as she yanked out the spine, tearing flesh.

The magic might heal them quickly, but it didn’t stop the pain.

Both a little shaky now, they joined hands, leaning on each other, and chanted the second spell, calling the three-question nahwal .

Alone in the barrier with blood running down his chin, Rabbit finished the chant that should have called the three-question nahwal , but nothing happened. So he said it again. And again. Each time he started the words in the old tongue he threw more magic into it, more of his own blood.

Maybe it wasn’t working because he was alone, because it was the wrong day. Or maybe because he was nothing but a fuckup half-blood, like his old man had always said. But he refused to give up, because frigging Juarez still couldn’t find Myrinne, and Rabbit’s urge to get to her was growing by the hour, along with his conviction that she needed him, that she was important.

His body buzzed with the power and the pain as he said the spell again, taking the magic into him and sending it outward, summoning his ancestors’ wisdom. He wasn’t sure where he ended and the mist began. He was the mist and the mist was him, and he was all alone.

Then, suddenly, he wasn’t alone anymore. The nearby fog thickened, coalescing into a vaguely human shape that stepped forward into the shadowless gray-green light.

The three-question nahwal looked like the bloodline-bound nahwals that had come to the trainees during the talent ceremony. Both types of nahwal looked pretty much like desiccated corpses that happened to be up and moving around; they had no nipples or genitals, and their eyes were pure black, with no whites or emotion. But where the bloodline nahwals were each forearm-marked with their bloodline glyphs, this one was unmarked. And although they were supposed to be emotionless, this one looked seriously pissed off, with V-grooved frown lines between its dead black eyes, and its fangs bared.

Shit, fangs? Rabbit thought on a jolt of fear and surprise. Why hadn’t anybody mentioned the fangs?

Holding his hands away from his sides in a gesture of I’m unarmed; please don’t fuck me up, he said, “Ah, um. Are you here to answer my three questions?”

The thing hissed and charged, reaching for him with hands that’d grown claws.

Rabbit let out a yell and dove to one side. He felt the breeze of the nahwal ’s swipe, but no pain. He bounced up from the springy surface underfoot and spun to face his attacker. “What the hell?”

The thing apparently wasn’t in the mood for convo, questions or otherwise. It spun and lunged for him again, scratching and snapping, and howling with rage when Rabbit danced aside. Palming his father’s knife, which he still wore on his belt, Rabbit dropped and rolled, coming up inside the nahwal ’s guard and leading point-first when he stood. The blade cut through the thing’s skin with little resistance, but deflected off bone and skidded aside. Which just pissed the creature off worse.

Roaring, its face contorted with rage and hatred, though neither was supposed to be in its repertoire, the nahwal spun and dove on Rabbit, grabbing his legs and driving him to the ground. They rolled together for a few frenzied seconds before Rabbit’s control broke under the onslaught of battle rage.

Tipping his head back, he called the fire on a long scream of pain and magic: “Kaak!”

The gray-green sky split, and flames poured down to spear straight through the nahwal . The burning energy lifted the thing up and off Rabbit and tossed it aside. The creature shrieked and writhed, wreathed in flames as its skin and ropy flesh burned away.

“No!” Rabbit shouted. “Stop!”

He tried to call the magic back, tried to cut it off, to do something, anything to stop the fire from consuming the nahwal . But nothing worked. He could only watch as the thing’s struggles slowed, then stopped, and the only visible motion became that of the greedy flames and the mists that swirled at the periphery of the blaze. Eventually—it’d probably been only a few minutes, but it felt like forever—

even the flames guttered out. The gray-green mist moved back in to cover where the nahwal had been, and it was as though nothing had happened. Only it had, Rabbit knew, horror and guilt vising his chest and making it hard to breathe.

He’d fucking killed the three-question nahwal .

“It’s not working,” Alexis said, looking around the gray-green fog and not seeing a nahwal , not seeing anything except mist and more mist. “The opposition magic must not be strong enough to power the spell.” Or else we aren’t.

“Let’s try it again and give it everything we’ve got.” Nate’s eyes were steady on hers, his grip firm.

Alexis nodded, not wanting to admit defeat. Please, goddess, she thought, help us. Help your warriors on earth figure out what the hell they’re supposed to do. It wasn’t the most eloquent of prayers, perhaps, but it was heartfelt, and she thought she sensed a little power bump at the back of her brain, a shimmer of color that might’ve been a response. “Okay,” she said, reaching down deep and drawing on the magic. “Once more, with feeling.”

They started reciting the spell again, and before they’d gotten past the second grouping of words in the old language, she knew something was different this time. She could feel the power gathering and expanding outward, could hear the hum of magic.

Then, without warning, the hum escalated to a scream and wind slapped at them, driving the mists to a frenzied funnel cloud in an instant and yanking them off their feet.

“Nate!” she screamed, grabbing for him as the gale knocked her back, ripping her hands from his.

“Alexis!” He dove for her, hooking her around the waist and flinging them both to the yielding surface beneath the wind-whipped mist. “Down,” he ordered. “Stay down!”

He flattened her body beneath his and hung on tight while he cast around, trying to find a handhold to anchor them. She did the same, but there was nothing to hold on to but the moist squishiness of the barrier surface, formless and alien.

“I’m slipping,” she cried, feeling the slick surface moving beneath her, feeling the wind grab hold and not let go. “What’s happening?”

“The spell misfired.” He shouted the words over the rising howl of the wind. “I can’t find the way home!”

Cursing herself for not thinking, Alexis closed her eyes and pictured the sacred chamber back at Skywatch, imagining her and Nate on either side of the altar, the others forming a ring in the center of the circular room. Tapping the power of the barrier, she thought, Na otot . The words, which meant

“house” or “home,” should’ve dropped her out of the barrier and back into her body.

They didn’t.

“It’s not working for me, either!” she cried.

They were moving in a circle now, being dragged along by the force of the funnel cloud as it reached down lower and lower still, coming for them. Worse, the funnel cloud didn’t stretch up to the sky, but rather folded double so the spitting mouth, which bellowed mist and wind, was pointed downward, toward the underworld. Where it touched the barrier surface, the gray-green had gone black, suggesting that they were about thirty seconds from a one-way trip to Xibalba.