Jessica Andersen - Dawnkeepers

“The goddess,” Nate shouted. “Call on the goddess!”

Fear rode Alexis, but the connection at the base of her brain had gone dim. Throwing power at the spot didn’t change the background glow; prayer didn’t make a dent. Knowing no other way to reach the goddess, Alexis turned beneath him and wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, offering herself to the heat and the magic. Lust rose quickly, slapping a vicious whip through her body, a feverish demand that seemed sharper than before, greedier.

For a second she thought he might refuse her. Then he groaned, a harsh rattle at the back of his throat, and met her halfway in a kiss that was hard and hot and openmouthed. Something inside her said, Thank the gods , because this wasn’t the reserved man he’d been in recent weeks, or the one who’d given her that single, sweet kiss to celebrate her advisership and avoided her since. This was the man she’d mated with, the one who was never far from her thoughts or dreams.

Lust revved her senses, making her achingly aware of the solid strength of him, the hard bulge of muscles beneath her gripping hands, and the good weight of him atop her. They kissed again and again, touching and tugging, finding their way through the ceremonial robes to combat clothes and the bare skin beneath. She arched into his touch as he found her breast and drove her up, his hands and mouth working together, bringing heat.

Leaning into the magic that came with desire, Alexis called on the goddess, called on the powers of a Godkeeper.

Luminous green lightning split the sky, burning her retinas, interrupting the build of magic. The funnel cloud roared and twisted as if gaining strength from the lightning, which flared again and again as an ever-increasing growl of thunder pummeled them. The firmament shifted, jolting them. Wind pulled at their bodies, and Alexis howled Nate’s name as he was torn away from her and up into the funnel.

“Nate!” She reached for him, but missed as he was whipped away from her. “Nate!” She screamed for him, screamed for herself as the funnel plucked her up and tossed her in a wide arc. Her stomach lurched and fear grabbed her by the throat when there was no answer.

Then she saw him up ahead, at the place where the world went from gray-green to limitless black.

Not thinking, not caring, she pointed her body in that direction and pressed her arms flat against her sides, like a skydiver aiming for a target midair. She arrowed toward him, crossing the intervening distance quicker than thought.

Halfway there she slammed into an invisible wall, one that shimmered with rainbows when she touched it. The moment she hit, the air went still on her side of the wall, leaving her hanging motionless in gray-green nothingness amidst deafeningly sudden silence. On the other side of the invisible barrier the funnel spun unabated, drawing Nate farther and farther away.

“No!” Alexis banged against the wall, drew her knife, and tried to hack through it. She grabbed for her holster but wasn’t wearing it; she had come to the ceremony unarmed, knowing their incorporeal selves would be brought into the barrier wearing all that they wore on earth, and thinking there was no reason to bring jade-tips into the barrier. At least, there normally wasn’t. Now, though, she was under attack, and defenseless. They had called the three-question nahwal and gotten chaos instead.

Nate! her heart cried as the funnel spun him closer to her for a second and she could see his face. He mouthed something, and she knew in her gut that he was telling her to get away, to save herself. But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t.

Flipping the knife so she held it by the blade, she sliced both her palms, cutting deep, letting the blood flow freely. Then she held her hands away from her in supplication, touched them to the invisible wall she instinctively knew had been put there by the goddess in order to keep her from being sucked into the funnel. But that meant the goddess was nearby, that she could act within the barrier. If that were the case, why wasn’t she coming into Alexis?

The answer danced just out of her reach. Cursing the goddess, praying to her, Alexis tipped her head back and, compelled by instinct, or maybe a whisper from beyond, she cried, “ Takaj, Ixchel!” Come, goddess!

As though Ixchel had been waiting only for the call, the conduit came to life and a starburst exploded rainbows at the back of Alexis’s brain. Power flowed through her, passing out of her to the funnel cloud beyond. She was the goddess and the goddess was her. A contemptuous flick of her bloodstained fingers swept aside the rainbow-wrought shield that had both saved her and separated her from Nate. A word extinguished the funnel cloud. A gesture had an invisible hand plucking Nate’s limp form out of the edge of nothingness, and bringing him to where Alexis hung in midair.

The rainbow surrounded them, bound them together as she touched him, felt the solidness of him, the reality of him. Closing her eyes, she imagined the sacred chamber and whispered the words that would send them home.

There was no lurch or movement, no sense of transitioning from one plane to the next. There was only a flash of gold and colors, and they were there, facing each other over the altar, hanging on to each other for dear life.

Impressions bombarded her. Snapshots. She was aware of Izzy and Carlos sitting cross-legged where the other magi had been, saw their expressions of delighted relief, heard them shouting for the others. She was aware of the stars and the moon overhead, aware that hours had passed when it had seemed like only minutes. And she was aware of Nate’s fingers holding tightly to hers, and his eyes flickering open, showing confusion first, and then darkening with memory.

Moments later, the door flung open and Strike hustled into the chamber, followed closely by Leah and the others, who were all talking at once. But it was Nate’s voice Alexis heard. He said, “You did it, Lexie. You called the goddess.”

“Yeah.” She smiled, tentatively at first, then wider as she realized the connection was there now, and fully formed where it had been nothing but a wish before. Joy lit her up from within, radiating outward until the air sparkled with the hint of rainbows, like light blurred through a subtle prism. “I did, didn’t I?”

The other magi gathered around them while the winikin tried to push them back, saying something about food and rest first, questions later. But Alexis kept looking at Nate, and the rainbow joy dimmed slightly when she saw the knowledge in his eyes, and felt it in her own heart. The goddess had taught her to call the magic by herself, which meant she didn’t need Nate anymore.

The realization should’ve been a relief.

It wasn’t.

March 13 When Rabbit awoke the morning after the opposition, he found himself lying on a camping cot in a square, empty room that was paneled in wide, rough-cut pine boards. There were barred windows on each wall, through which he could see a cloudy gray sky and a smattering of pine branches. As he watched, a bright red cardinal bounced onto one of the branches and away, placing him somewhere north of the snow line, far from either Skywatch or New Orleans. The air was so cold that his breath fogged on each exhale, though he was covered in a couple of blankets, and warm enough.

Which was so not the point. What the hell was he doing in a camping cabin?