Jessica Andersen - Nightkeepers

He waved to the mansion at large. ‘‘Take your pick. We stripped the rooms and redid the walls and floors, so you’ve got your choice between drywall and carpet or drywall and hardwood, but you can tap the fund for paint and whatever. Just grab a room and have at it.’’

‘‘Are you in your father’s quarters?’’

‘‘Yeah, I . . . yeah.’’ It’d been beyond difficult to move into the three-room apartment, but it made the most sense, given its proximity to the royal suite. Of course, that was before Strike moved into the pool house, unable to stay in his parents’ quarters—or anywhere else in the mansion, for that matter. Which had made Jox’s room choice sort of pointless.

Hannah gave an of course you did nod. ‘‘Then I’ll take one of the singles in the winikin ’s wing.’’

‘‘You don’t have to,’’ he protested. ‘‘There’s room for all of us in the main building.’’

‘‘It wouldn’t feel right. You, of all people, should know that.’’

‘‘What’s that supposed to mean?’’

‘‘Nothing bad.’’ She closed the distance between them and lifted a hand to cup his cheek. She smiled at him, and the expression was a touch sad, but it stripped away the years and the scars, and he could see the girl he’d known. ‘‘Only that your sense of propriety was too bone-deep to have changed, even after all this time.’’ Without waiting for an answer, she brushed past him and headed for the hall leading to the winikin ’s wing.

Jox cursed under his breath. That had so not gone the way he’d planned. He should follow her. He should ask for a do-over, ask if he could give her a hug, a kiss— hell, a kidney. He was halfway across the sunken great room, headed to do just that, when the phone rang.

He hesitated. Told himself to ignore it, to do what he wanted for a change rather than what he was supposed to do. He made it two more steps. . . .

Then he cursed, detoured to the kitchen, and grabbed the ringing phone. ‘‘Jox here.’’

‘‘It’s Carver,’’ the PI said. ‘‘I found the last two.’’

Jox closed his eyes. He’d found the twins. Thank the gods. ‘‘Where are they?’’

‘‘Dead.’’

CHAPTER SEVEN

Strike navigated the minivan through a twisty series of increasingly narrow streets made narrower by strategic piles of trash. The slow summer dusk had caught up with him, and he flicked on the rental’s headlights. The yellow beams picked out the last landmark he’d been given— the freshly burned-out shell of an apartment building, with the busted-out windows and debris that went with such an event.

According to Carter, the fire had broken out the night of the solstice. Strike hoped to hell that was a coincidence.

The buildings on either side didn’t look much better than the torched wreck. Their windows were blank, broken, or boarded up—sometimes a mix of all three— indicating that they were empty . . . or at least not occupied by tenants of the paying variety.

Strike parked nose-out in case he had to make a quick exit, and made sure the night dwellers got a look at the autopistol when he climbed out of the mom-mobile. He set the alarm, and the minivan gave an ineffective-sounding beep-beep and blinked its lights twice, like an obedient poodle sit-staying in the middle of a minefield. The lights did that delayed-off thing, lighting Strike’s way to what used to be the front door of the burned-out wreck.

When he heard the slide of footsteps and the clink of metal-on-metal behind him, he said, ‘‘You don’t want to mess with me. It’s been a long damn day and I just want to do my business and get out of here.’’

He didn’t expect a response, so it was a surprise when a shadow detached itself from a doorway and sauntered toward him. It was even more of a surprise to see that it was a woman, and a hell of a sexy one at that.

She was long and lean, her face sharp enough to be interesting instead of pretty. Her hair was blue-black and slicked away from her face, and she wore a white halter top along with tight black leather pants and tall boots, an outfit that would’ve gotten her in trouble in this sort of neighborhood if she hadn’t accessorized it with a Beretta nine-millimeter on one side and a cute little .22 chick gun on the other.

By the time she reached him the minivan headlights had clicked off. In the reflected moonlight, he saw her tilt her head and give him an up-and-down. ‘‘What sort of business?’’

‘‘My own.’’

‘‘Try again.’’

‘‘Don’t have to.’’

He thought she’d insist. Instead, she curved her lips in a sweet smile and melted back into the darkness, until all that was left of her was a faint, mocking chuckle. ‘‘Well, then, Strike. Have at it.’’

Which meant either she worked for Snake Mendez, or she was prescient. With the general dearth of actual magic among humankind, Strike was betting on the former as he headed into the damaged building, kicking in the door when the knob jammed.

It wasn’t like he was going for stealth. He just wanted the meeting over with.

Cinders crunched underfoot when he strode into the building, damning himself for a fool for not having brought the basics, like night-vision goggles or—duh— a flashlight.

‘‘Sloppy,’’ he said to himself, and halfway thought of trying a quick light spell. But although teleporting came naturally, he’d been struggling with some of the other basics and didn’t want to risk a misfire. So he worked by moonlight, moving farther into the building, trying to make out the shapes of what had once been walls and doorways.

‘‘You Strike?’’ a deep voice said without warning, seeming to come from all around him.

Strike raised the MAC, though there was nothing to shoot at but dark and more dark. ‘‘You’re a hard guy to track down, Mendez.’’

‘‘A smart man would’ve taken the hint.’’

A roadside flare hissed to cherry red life, sputtering as it was tossed in a spinning arc. It landed on a pile of fire debris off to Strike’s right, bathing the scene in an eerie red glow. In the blood-colored illumination, a tall figure materialized out of the shadows, staying close to what looked like a door, or maybe a busted-out window. An escape route. Which made sense, given that Mendez had a warrant outstanding on him.

‘‘I need you to come back to New Mexico with me,’’ Strike said. He lowered the pistol. ‘‘I can tell you about your family.’’

‘‘I know everything I need to know.’’ But Mendez moved forward into the light. The flare showed a big, towering man with a shaved-bald head, sharp features, and pale, intelligent eyes. None of that was a surprise— all of the Nightkeepers were larger than average and practically oozed charisma. The other man’s loose gray long-sleeved T-shirt, jeans, and skids weren’t surprising, either, though they were tamer than Strike would’ve expected, given the setting. What was surprising were the tattoos, both because the narrow cuffs of arcane symbols at his wrists were vaguely familiar, and because it was one of the rules the winikin had been charged with upholding: The young Nightkeepers weren’t supposed to mark their skin. The skin was sacred to the gods, as was blood.

The big man followed Strike’s gaze. His eyes flashed as he lifted his hands, crossing his wrists so the tattooed cuffs formed a world cross, the ancestor’s icon for the ceiba tree. ‘‘You don’t approve, Nochem ?’’

The word for ‘‘leader’’ or ‘‘king’’ in the old tongue rocked Strike back. ‘‘You know?’’

‘‘What do you think?’’ Mendez uncrossed his wrists, shoved up a sleeve, and offered his forearm, holding it near the light so Strike could see the serpent bloodline glyph, along with the warrior and another, unfamiliar mark. ‘‘Kinda cool how it’s working now, after all these years.’’