Jessica Andersen - Nightkeepers

Leah tensed on a jolt of hope. Had she found a way to track the ajaw-makol ?

‘‘Go ahead,’’ Strike said, his voice inflectionless, as if he were afraid to hope.

Jade started to open the top book on her stack, but then the others slid. ‘‘Hold these.’’ She shoved the books unceremoniously into Strike’s arms and took back the volume she wanted, cracking it to a marked page so she could show him what looked like a woodcutting of a male figure with Nightkeepers’ marks on his arm, facing off opposite a naked, human-shaped figure with no nipples or genitalia, and eyes that held no whites or irises, just flat blackness.

‘‘It’s a nahwal ,’’ Strike said as the others clustered around to get a look. ‘‘The in-barrier embodiment of each bloodline’s accumulated knowledge, without any of the individual personalities of the dead.’’

‘‘Not exactly,’’ Jade corrected. ‘‘It’s a special kind of nahwal , one that doesn’t connect to any specific bloodline, and isn’t fixed with past and present knowledge.’’

Strike fixed her with a look. ‘‘It’s a precog?’’

She lifted a shoulder. ‘‘I’m not totally clear on that. But there’s a spell called the three-question spell. Once per lifetime, a Nightkeeper can summon this nahwal and ask it three questions that it’s bound to answer truthfully. ’’ She glanced at Leah. ‘‘I don’t know if it’d work for a human, but it might be worth a try, given that you’ve shown Nightkeeper-level magic during prior cardinal days.’’

Leah’s breath backed up in her lungs at the thought, at the spear of hope it brought. If they could get some answers about what’d happened to her, and what was supposed to happen next, they’d be able to make a better plan. Hell, they might even be able to lock her into whatever powers she’d somehow acquired during the aphelion.

She wouldn’t be a Nightkeeper, but she wouldn’t be powerless either. She’d have something to use when she went up against Zipacna, something to bring to war with the others.

Almost afraid to ask for anything more, she glanced over at Strike. Their eyes locked and she felt the punch of heat, of connection. And though she was no mind reader, she sensed the same wish in him, the same seemingly impossible hope.

Maybe, just maybe, they could use the spell to figure out how to circumvent the thirteenth prophecy . . . or use it to their advantage.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Lucius didn’t mean to eavesdrop on Anna’s conversation . . . it just sort of happened.

The astrology babe on the campus talk-radio station was babbling something about Venus coming into conjunction that night, and he’d just finished up with his office hours for the week. He was packing up to hit the library and pick up an obscure translation of the Popol Vuh he’d requested through interlibrary loan, when he heard the raised voices coming from his boss’s office two doors down.

‘‘Jesus, Anna! I don’t know where you’re coming from sometimes. You’ve been nagging me to set aside time for you, and now that I have, you’re too busy to grab a bite? For Christ’s sake, I can’t seem to win for trying these days.’’ The Dick’s voice carried a harsh, dismissive impatience that set Lucius’s teeth on edge.

‘‘Based on what? One night out of the past four months? That’s fair.’’ Anna was trying to keep her tone reasonable, but he knew her well enough to hear the hurt.

‘‘This isn’t about what’s fair or not. I’m trying to—’’ The Dick broke off. ‘‘You know what? Forget about it. I’ll just eat at the club.’’

A door slammed and footsteps rang in the hall. Once they’d passed, Lucius stuck his head out his office door and flipped the retreating form of Anna’s husband a double-barreled bird.

‘‘God, what a jerk.’’

For a second, he thought he’d said that, because he was sure as hell thinking it. Then he turned to find the sentiment shared by Neenie Fisher, a second-year grad student who’d only recently joined Anna’s team full-time.

She was petite and borderline mousy, with pale eyes and thin lips that didn’t exactly command attention. Rumor had it she was dating some sort of local grunge rock star, which suggested she could catch attention when she wanted it.

Not so much in the glyph lab, though.

‘‘Hey, Neenie.’’ Lucius glanced back to the empty hallway where Anna’s husband had been moments ago. He wanted to agree with the jerk comment and add a few of his own, but he usually tried not to bad-mouth Dick Catori out loud.

Neenie, however, had no such compunction. ‘‘I don’t get it. Anna is frickin’ gorgeous—why does she put up with that guy? Did you hear him? It’s like he doesn’t give a crap that she’s putting in overtime trying to translate a codex fragment that is, as far as I can tell, completely new to the literature. Doesn’t he get how huge that is? I mean, honestly. I’ll bet if he had some sort of economics emergency—is there even such a thing?— she’d let him bail on dinner. Heck, she probably has more than once, and I bet I can tell you the name of the emergency. My friend Heather’s in his Intro to Econ class, and she said that Desiree—’’

‘‘Stop.’’ Lucius capped a hand across Neenie’s mouth, having learned that there wasn’t much else he could do to shut her up when she got on a roll. ‘‘Back up.’’ He took his hand away. ‘‘What codex fragment?’’

The fact that she didn’t immediately launch into an explanation spoke volumes. Instead, her eyes went wide and she slapped her own hand across her mouth. ‘‘Oh!’’

Aware that they were out in the hallway, two doors down from Anna’s office, and she was likely to be in a pretty prickly mood after the spat with her husband, Lucius dragged Neenie into his office and shut the door. ‘‘You weren’t supposed to mention it to me, were you?’’

Eyes still wide, she shook her head, keeping her hand firmly over her mouth. ‘‘I promised,’’ she said, words muffled behind her hand.

‘‘So unpromise,’’ he said, as if it were no big deal, which it probably wasn’t to someone like her, a conduit through whom gossip flowed at approximately the speed of sound. ‘‘Come on . . . you know you want to tell me.’’

Looking undecided—which as far as he was concerned was a big step up from ‘‘Oh, shit, I’m gonna get canned if I tell’’—she dropped her hand from her mouth and looked around his office. ‘‘Well . . .’’

He followed her gaze, saw it lock onto a small, graceful figurine of a jaguar, and winced. ‘‘That’s real jade. And it’s hand-carved.’’

He’d gotten the effigy at a small open market at the foot of the Guatemalan highlands during one of his early trips out into the field with Anna. The statuette wasn’t old, but it hadn’t been cheap either.

She looked back at him and raised an eyebrow. ‘‘Then I guess a promise is a promise.’’

He scowled, grabbed the effigy, and held it out to her. ‘‘You suck.’’

‘‘I had brothers. Deal with it.’’ She accepted the jaguar and tucked it into her pocket, then gestured for him to lean closer so she could whisper her secret.

‘‘The door’s closed, for chrissakes. Just say it.’’

‘‘Fine. Go ahead, ruin my dramatic intro.’’ She straightened and made a face at him, but now that she’d given herself permission to give with the goods, she couldn’t hold it in a second longer. ‘‘The fragment is gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. Some of the glyphs are degraded, but you can still see an incredible level of detail, and the colors . . .’’ Her eyes practically glazed over at the memory. ‘‘God, the colors are so awesome now, it’s hard to imagine what it must’ve looked like when it was new.’’