Jessica Andersen - Nightkeepers

Gods. His mouth drew back in a rictus, his eyes rolled wildly, and his heart stuttered in his chest. Darkness blurred the edges of his vision, and he was pretty sure he was dying. Panic closed in.

He was barely conscious of the mist swirling nearby, thickening and taking on the shape of a stick-thin Nightkeeper with obsidian eyes and a ruby stud in one ear. The nahwal .

‘‘Father!’’ he shouted, though he wasn’t sure if he said the word aloud or only thought it in the small corner of his mind that was still his to control.

‘‘It is time,’’ the nahwal said in its voice-of-many-voices. It leaned down and gripped Strike’s wrist, and its touch burned like flame and acid, the worst pain he’d ever known.

He threw back his head and screamed.

The gray-green mist disappeared.

And he was home, reappearing exactly where he’d left from, standing in front of the main door, staring at the sign that said, SKYWATCH: TO FIGHT, TO PROTECT, TO FORGIVE.

The others were gone. The anger was gone, too, leaving him hollow and drained. He only had the strength left to whisper, ‘‘Forgive me, Father.’’

Then he collapsed on the welcome mat and passed the hell out.

After Strike pulled his disappearing act, leaving Leah standing there looking like a complete idiot, she held it together until she reached her rooms. His rooms. Whatever.

The moment she was through the carved double doors, though, she let go of the control she’d been holding on to by the last thread. She halfway expected tears, though she’d never been a weeper, halfway expected destructive, lamp-throwing anger, which was more typical for her. But either the two canceled each other out or she’d used up all her emotional space and had nothing left.

She sank to the couch in the sitting area, exhausted. Empty. There were no skitters of warmth or electricity. She doubted she could kill a gnat, never mind a coffeemaker. Her supposed powers were long gone, leaving her as nothing more than what she was—a cop with a big mouth and zero subtlety who didn’t really belong in Skywatch.

Skywatch. She hoped the name—and the motto— stuck. Her timing and delivery might’ve sucked, but she was right, damn it. They needed something to rally around, and Red-Boar and the winikin needed to accept that the past was gone and it wasn’t going to repeat itself, no matter what their writs said about the cyclical nature of time. The trainees weren’t going to fight because their winikin told them to. They needed to believe in the cause, in themselves, and in one another. And more important, they needed to believe in their leader. She didn’t care if he called himself king or Papa Smurf; he needed to step up.

Instead, he’d brushed her off and then freaking zapped himself straight out of the argument, which was against the rules of fighting. And he’d been really pissed, too, like he hated the fact that she was standing up to him.

‘‘Which is way too bad,’’ she said aloud. ‘‘If he doesn’t like a woman who gets in his face and tells him where to get off occasionally, then he can—’’ She broke off, because he didn’t have to do a flipping thing. The decision was going to have to be hers.

She could stay—if they’d let her—and add whatever weight she might have to the coming battle. Or she could go home, fast-talk her way back onto the job—which would undoubtedly include some serious shrink action— and keep hammering at Survivor2012.

She didn’t want to go back . . . but she wasn’t sure she could stay, either. Strike was using her as an excuse to avoid the others—which wasn’t fair to any of them— and his disappearing act suggested he wasn’t looking to change that strategy. Besides, she knew how to kill Zipacna now; she just had to find him, and she could do that as effectively from the outside as she could in the compound. She could defend herself. She didn’t need to stay.

More important, she didn’t have any reason to. She wasn’t Strike’s Godkeeper, and she wasn’t his mate. Hell, after tonight, she probably didn’t even rank as a friend.

‘‘Shit,’’ she said, hearing the single word echo in the too-big suite. Then she started packing.

Twenty minutes later, figuring she’d ‘‘borrow’’ a car and call Jox later to let him know where to pick it up, she slung her duffel over her shoulder and headed out without saying good-bye to anyone, because she didn’t particularly want to see the looks of relief when she said she was leaving. Telling herself she wasn’t going to cry, she swung open the front door, slamming it into something lying on the welcome mat outside.

It took her a second. Then her heart stopped in her chest. ‘‘Strike!’’

She dropped down beside him, scrambling for a pulse. She found it—sort of—but it wasn’t the thready beat that held her attention as she raised her voice and shouted, ‘‘Jox! Need some help here!’’

No, what drew her attention was the new mark on his forearm, one that hadn’t been there an hour earlier . . . and which looked a hell of a lot like a flying snake.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Strike awoke profoundly pissed off, which was unusual for him. Even more unusual was the fact that he was holding a woman’s hand.

He cracked an eye and took stock. He was in his bed in the pool house, and it was well past dawn. He was naked save for a pair of cutoff shorts—Jox’s idea of sleepwear?—and Leah was sitting in a chair beside his bed, her head pillowed at the edge of his mattress on one folded arm. Her other hand was holding his. The sight of her face smoothed out in repose and their fingers intertwined atop the covers softened the edge of anger that rode him for no good reason.

‘‘Hey,’’ he said quietly, wincing at the crack in his voice, and again he remembered the events of the night before.

She opened her eyes and stared at him for a moment, unblinking. Then she straightened and slid her hand from his, trying to make it seem like no big deal. But the withdrawal was intentional, he knew. And it stung.

Worse, he deserved it.

‘‘You were right,’’ he said before his mood could take over and make him say something stupid. ‘‘About me hiding in the archive, about us needing something to rally behind. You were right about all of it. And the name is perfect. The motto’s perfect.’’ He levered himself up and swung his legs over the side so they were sitting facing each other, knees bumping. Leaning in, he caught the hand she’d just reclaimed. He raised it to his lips, then pressed it against his cheek even though he was about a day and a half past needing a shave. ‘‘Thank you.’’

Her eyes filled. ‘‘You took off. I felt like an idiot.’’

More than that, he realized, she’d felt rejected. And why wouldn’t she? It wasn’t as though he’d bothered explaining what had been going on inside him. What still was going on inside him, he knew, feeling the anger roil within. He glanced at his arm, at the mark of the flying serpent, and wished he knew what the hell it all meant. It was probably a reference to the creator god Kulkulkan, but beyond that he was clueless. Worse, he couldn’t settle his brain enough to think it through.

How was he supposed to lead the others when he could barely control himself?

‘‘I’m sorry.’’ When she tried to pull away, he pressed his hand over hers on his cheek, which was as much of a hug as he dared give her until he got said what needed to be said. ‘‘Over the last few days I’ve been having . . . moods, I guess you could call them. Anger attacks. Only it’s not my anger, not really me, like it’s coming from outside me.’’

Her eyes sharpened. ‘‘From the barrier?’’