Jessica Andersen - Nightkeepers

‘‘You took yourself. I didn’t have that option.’’ He hadn’t meant to say that, hadn’t even known he was feeling it, but once the words were out there, they gained weight and truth. He’d wanted to run like she had, wanted to break away from Jox and Red-Boar and the calendar that ruled their lives, the waiting.

‘‘Immaterial now, isn’t it?’’ she said. ‘‘We’re right back where we started.’’

He let out a long breath. ‘‘Yeah. Sometimes that whole history-repeating-itself thing really blows, doesn’t it?’’

That startled a laugh out of her, and for some reason, maybe because of the familiar push-pull that hadn’t changed since they’d butted heads over the masking-tape line as children, or maybe because the situation with Leah was teaching him that sometimes the circumstances were what complicated the emotions, it was suddenly easy for him to drape an arm over his sister’s shoulders and hug her against his side.

She leaned into him, looping an arm around his waist. ‘‘I missed you.’’

‘‘Back atcha.’’

And for a moment, a few precious heartbeats, it was enough to stand there with his sister and watch a high cloud scud across the blue sky above the canyon wall and feel, if not complete, at least like some small piece of his life had come to rest where it belonged. For now, anyway.

Too soon, though, he had to break the short peace. ‘‘I hate to push, but we don’t have much time. There’s an ajaw-makol out there. I need to find him, need to kill him before the equinox.’’ It wouldn’t solve the Godkeeper problem, but it would be a major step in the right direction.

But Anna was already shaking her head. ‘‘I can’t control the visions,’’ she said. ‘‘Hell, I can barely see anything. A few times, like when I saw Lucius in trouble, it’s blasted me out of nowhere. But when I try to see . . . I get nothing.’’ She shrugged, the motion transmitting where they leaned against each other, comfortable together despite so long apart. ‘‘I think I’m blocking subconsciously. ’’

Strike was disappointed but not surprised. Gods knew her powers had brought her nothing but pain so far. Why wouldn’t she want to stop them?

He shifted to face her, dipping into the pocket of his jeans and withdrawing the yellow quartz effigy carved in the shape of a skull. He held it out to her. ‘‘This will probably help.’’

Something moved in her expression—a complicated mix of pain, regret, and reserve, along with reluctant eagerness. She took the pendant, let the chain trickle through her fingers while the skull rested on her palm. Then she closed her fingers around the effigy and nodded, accepting the responsibility that went with it. ‘‘Thank you.’’

Taking a deep breath, he said, ‘‘There’s something else. I need your help going up against Jox and Red-Boar, and it’s probably going to get ugly.’’

She nodded. ‘‘Of course.’’ There was no question, no discussion, just ‘‘of course.’’

Something loosened a little inside him. ‘‘Okay, here’s the deal.’’ He gave her the five-minute rundown, starting with the dreams he and Leah had both experienced prior to the summer solstice, and going up through the nahwal ’s answers to the three-question ritual. When he got to the part about needing to either free Kulkulkan or bring him through the barrier, he saw something kindle in Anna’s expression. He broke off. ‘‘What is it?’’

‘‘I think I know someone who might be able to help.’’

Strike called a council of war that afternoon, beneath the ceiba tree that symbolized life and community. By the time Leah got out there, the others were already seated on either side of the long picnic table, with Strike at its head. He pointed to the empty space on his right and said simply, ‘‘Yours.’’

She was no expert in the hierarchy department, but the dark looks that one word earned her from Red-Boar and Jox suggested it was a position of power, probably the queen’s spot. She might’ve argued, might’ve sat at the far end of the table in a vain effort to make a point she wasn’t even sure of anymore, but the look Strike shot her said, Don’t even think it, Blondie .

So she sat.

On either side of her ranged the other Nightkeepers, with the winikin beyond them. Nate and Alexis were sitting as far away from each other as possible, suggesting that their relationship hadn’t survived the talent ceremony and subsequent drop in the mating urge. Sven was staring off into space, Rabbit was hiding beneath a pulled-down hoodie and a sneer, and the other four— Patience, Brandt, Jade, and Michael—looked like they’d shown up ready for anything.

Leah, on the other hand, wasn’t sure what she was ready for. The midmorning sex—and subsequent fight— had left her feeling shaky and out of sorts. She didn’t really know where things stood with Strike, and when she caught his eye all she got was a hard, no-nonsense look she wasn’t at all used to from him.

‘‘Okay,’’ he said when everyone was settled. ‘‘Here’s the deal.’’ To her surprise, he brought them all up to speed on the ‘‘situation,’’ even though he’d indicated earlier that he was limiting the confab to Jox and Red-Boar.

Even more surprising, from the looks on their faces, this was the first the two senior members of the group were hearing about the Kulkulkan connection. While the trainees and other winikin were wincing and glancing at Leah with expressions of Dude, major bad luck, Jox and Red-Boar just looked pissed.

The elder Nightkeeper’s face flushed and his eyes went steely, but when he would’ve interrupted, Strike held up a hand. ‘‘Let’s wait on the questions—and the insults—until I’m done. What we’re looking for now is a way to either bring Kulkulkan through the barrier in one piece or cut him loose so he can return to the sky— without endangering Leah, the god, or the skyroad.’’

‘‘Our entire system is based on sacrifice,’’ Red-Boar snapped. ‘‘Yet you want to work perhaps the biggest spell there is without anybody getting hurt?’’

Strike glared at him. ‘‘What I want is for us to think outside the box. Anna knows a guy who might be able to help.’’ He waved for his sister to take over.

‘‘His name is Ambrose Ledbetter.’’ Anna passed around a Web site printout that showed an unremarkable-looking guy with remarkably bad posture and a scowl not unlike the one Red-Boar was wearing. ‘‘He’s prickly as hell and regularly disappears into the rain forest for months at a time, but he’s one of the best Mayanists on the planet.’’

‘‘I read a few of his articles when I was researching Survivor2012,’’ Leah said. She glanced at Anna, whom she’d met briefly in the kitchen earlier in the day. ‘‘Read a few of yours, too. You guys didn’t seem to agree on much of anything.’’

‘‘True,’’ Anna agreed. ‘‘But my theories were based in part on knowing the barrier was sealed, and believing it was going to stay that way. His were . . . well, I’m not sure where he got some of his information, but now it looks like he was right.’’

‘‘What makes you think he knows anything relevant about the human’s problem?’’ Red-Boar asked, still refusing to call Leah by name.

‘‘Every now and then,’’ Anna replied, ‘‘he publishes something on the Web or in one of the smaller journals that makes me think he knows more about Nightkeeper magic than he ought to.’’

Now Red-Boar looked at her. ‘‘Meaning?’’

‘‘I think he knows the location of at least one of the lost temples.’’ Seeing a few frowns of confusion from the trainees, she said, ‘‘During Mayan times, the Nightkeepers maintained a separate temple for each of the major gods. When the conquistadors burned our libraries and scholars, the temple locations went up in flames with them.’’