Jessica Andersen - Nightkeepers

‘‘For all of us.’’ Strike couldn’t deny that he was edgy being back in the compound. There were ghosts in every room of every building, and around every corner. In the aftermath of the massacre he’d made it a point not to think about his life before, and over the years those memories had faded. Now, triggered by each sight and smell, they’d returned with a vengeance.

His father had loved baseball. How had he forgotten that? Scarred-Jaguar had taught Strike to switch-hit, and had pounded fungoes for fielding practice. They’d watched the Rangers on TV, and took weekend trips twice a year for back-to-back games at Arlington Stadium.

And his mother . . . his mother had been thin and elegant, with close-cropped dark hair and a core of steel, wearing a warrior’s mark in her own right. Yet she’d been the one to kiss his skinned knees and make them better. She’d nearly fainted at the sight of his scalp split open when he’d fallen from the pueblo ruins at the back of the compound, after trying to make it up to the walled-off kiva on a dare. How had he forgotten any of those things?

‘‘It hasn’t been fun for any of us,’’ Strike said. ‘‘Don’t think I haven’t seen you turn a funny color now and then, and Red-Boar . . . well, you know.’’

The older Nightkeeper had withdrawn even more, shutting himself away in the four-room house behind the mansion where he’d lived with his family before the massacre. Rabbit lived in the second bedroom of the small cottage, helping with the demo when he felt like it, and spending the rest of the time sitting high up in the pueblo ruins with his iPod.

The four of them were farther apart than they’d ever been before, which made Strike wonder how great a leader he was going to be if he couldn’t even manage the team spirit of one winikin along with a zonked-out Nightkeeper and his half-blood son.

‘‘Your father was a good king,’’ Jox said, as if he knew Strike needed the reassurance. ‘‘In some ways you’re very like him; you walk the same, and the way you fill the room just by being in it, that’s the same. That’s genetics, and the blood-magic. But in other ways you’re not alike at all; you question yourself and others around you far more than he ever did, and you’re more a man of today than he was of his time. That’s environment, I think. Nature versus nurture. He was raised knowing every single day of his life who he was and where he fit within his people. He was taught to lead, and his warriors were taught to be led.’’

Strike grimaced. ‘‘Not exactly the situation we’ve got now.’’

‘‘Blood tells,’’ Jox said. ‘‘You’re your father’s son. You’ll find a way.’’

‘‘I’d better, or none of this is going to matter in a few years. Or, hell, a few months.’’ There was no doubt in his mind that when the fall equinox came in just under eleven weeks, the ajaw-makol was going to try to bring a Banol Kax through the barrier, thus triggering the thirteenth prophecy by bringing a dark lord to earth in the final five years before the zero date.

That was assuming they didn’t find a way to neutralize the creature first. Since they didn’t have an itza’at seer to track the evil, they’d had to improvise. He’d asked the investigator, Carter, to get all the background info possible on the man Leah had known as Zipacna, and his Survivor2012 group. According to the PI, the 2012ers hadn’t seen their leader since the solstice, and when Strike had teleported Red-Boar to their group’s head-quarters, neither of them had detected makol magic from within, suggesting that the bastard was in the wind.

Carter was watching for Zipacna to reappear, and the PI was tracking bulk purchases of several rare ingredients necessary to the magic of the Banol Kax . Hopefully, one of those lines of investigation would lead them to the ajaw-makol .

In the meantime, Strike had a fighting force to assemble.

He said, ‘‘We don’t have arrival info for the eagle, stone, or harvester bloodlines, but I spoke with their winikin , who’ve promised to get their Nightkeepers here by the first of next month at the absolute latest . . . which is cutting it close.’’

Although the barrier was most active during each solstice and equinox, other conjunctions could be used for ceremonies if necessary. The next one on the calendar was the aphelion, which fell, ironically, on the Fourth of July. Strike and Red-Boar were planning to use that day to jack in the new trainees and get them their bloodline marks, and their first taste of power. That’d give them a little over two months to cram in an entire childhood of magic theory before the next ceremonial day, the Venus conjunction, when they’d perform the talent ceremony that would give the newbies their talent marks and increase the Nightkeepers’ ranks from two to lucky thirteen.

After the Venus conjunction, they would have a scant nine days until the fall equinox, when the ajaw-makol was most likely to make his move, and when the skyroad connecting the heavens and earth would once again open up, providing the Nightkeepers an opportunity to bring a god to earth and create a Godkeeper.

Again, in theory.

‘‘The trainees will be here in time,’’ Jox said. ‘‘Their winikin won’t let you down.’’ His tone indicated that they’d better damn well not. He held out a hand. ‘‘Give me the list. I’ll make a few more calls and see about tracking down the stragglers.’’

They hadn’t been able to contact the last two winikin . The star twins’ winikin wasn’t returning calls, and the serpent boy’s winikin was nowhere to be found.

‘‘Sounds like a plan.’’ Strike rose. ‘‘And do me a favor? See if you can get Rabbit interested in the construction projects. I don’t like how much time he’s spending by himself.’’

‘‘Like father, like son.’’ But Jox nodded. ‘‘I’ll see what I can do.’’

‘‘Thanks.’’ Strike paused. ‘‘I guess I’ve got a date in Denver, then.’’ Not like he was going to make an appointment. Nathan Blackhawk was in for a surprise.

‘‘Make sure that’s where you go.’’ Jox fixed him with a look. ‘‘No detours.’’

‘‘Shit.’’ Strike scowled at his winikin . ‘‘You sure you’re not an itza’at ?’’

‘‘Doesn’t take a seer to know you’ve got a woman on your mind, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out which one. Remember, ‘The king’s duty is to the gods above all others, then to his people; all else comes after,’ ’’ the winikin said, quoting from the writs. He paused, then said, ‘‘Red-Boar and I talked about this some. His theory is that the dreams came from the barrier as it was reactivating. In the last few months before a mage hits puberty, the hormones go totally wonky. Since you didn’t get your talent mark back when you were a teenager, there’s a good chance all those hormones got packed into a few weeks once Zipacna’s sacrifices thinned the barrier enough that the magic started to leak through.’’

‘‘I’ve heard Red-Boar’s wet-dream theory,’’ Strike muttered. ‘‘That’s not what it was.’’

‘‘You’ve always had a thing for blue-eyed blondes with a bit of an edge to them. Is there any wonder that’s what your subconscious fixed on?’’

‘‘I didn’t see just any blue-eyed blonde. I saw Leah.’’

‘‘The mind can play tricks.’’ The winikin laid a hand on his shoulder, a fatherly gesture that irked the shit right out of him. ‘‘Five of the survivors are female, including the twins.’’

Strike gritted his teeth. ‘‘Matchmaking, Jox?’’