Dawnkeepers n-2

by Jessica Andersen

  ass suite in the mansion.

  There was only the darkness. And finally, dreamless sleep.

  The day after the eclipse, Rabbit was up early and feeling surprisingly okay, given the amount of magic he’d pulled during the ceremony.

  He dragged on clothes at random—it wasn’t like anyone cared what he dressed like—and hooked up his iPod. The tunes were more habit than anything at this point; he was getting sick of the music, not needing the constant thump in his head when there was so much else going on up there.

  Lately he’d been leaving the music off, and had discovered an added bonus: Most everyone thought he couldn’t hear them when he had the earbuds in. Okay, so maybe he’d reinforced that by playing deaf once or twice, but why not? It never hurt to have added intel, especially when Strike and the others—and his old man before them—had made it crystal-clear that he was on a need-to-know basis, and, more often than not, he didn’t need to know.

  So he’d played deaf. And he’d listened. That was how he knew that things were still wonky with Patience and Brandt—like he couldn’t have guessed that from being around them, and from the fact that the goddess had chosen Alexis— Alexis, for fuck’s sake—as being preferable to Patience for a Godkeeper. Which was just wrong on so many levels he couldn’t even count them.

  Patience was kind and steady, a warrior with a conscience. Alexis was . . . well, she wasn’t steady, that was for sure. He wasn’t an aura reader, but ever since that cluster-fuck in New Orleans, whenever he got within spitting distance of her his arm hairs reached for the sky and his stomach jittered. He didn’t know what it meant, but he knew he didn’t much want to be around her these days.

  When he beelined from his cottage to the mansion for breakfast, though, he soon learned that wouldn’t be a problem. Alexis and Michael—Michael? WTF?—were headed out as soon as Jade locked down the location of some temple or another. Not only that, but Anna’s grad student, Lucius, the one who’d nearly gone makol before the last equinox, had shown up past midnight, looking for some chick Rabbit had never heard of. The guy had been given the hospitality of one of the downstairs storerooms for the time being, poor bastard.

  Jox passed along all of that info over breakfast—the royal winikin wasn’t big on gossip, but he didn’t mind talking some, and he made a hell of an omelet, especially when the others were still sleeping off the magic.

  Once Jox ran out of things to say about the Michael-for-Nate mate switcheroo, Rabbit said, playing it real casual, “What’s Strike doing about Iago. Do you know?”

  The casual part must not’ve come off like he’d hoped, because Jox sent him a sharp look. “Why?”

  Rabbit shrugged. “Just curious.”

  “Then ask him yourself.” The winikin nodded past Rabbit’s shoulder. “Hey, boss. Breakfast?”

  “And lots of it.” Strike took the bar stool next to Rabbit at the big kitchen island and leaned both elbows on the marble countertop. “What’s up?”

  The king was wearing a schlubby gray sweatshirt and jeans. The sleeves of the shirt had fallen back to reveal his big forearms, and the marks he wore on his inner right wrist: the jaguar, the royal ju, the teleport’s glyph, Kulkulkan’s flying serpent, and the jun tan beloved mark signifying his mated status.

  It was an impressive array on an impressive forearm, and left Rabbit feeling small and inconsequential, which he hated like poison, because it was pretty much his fallback status.

  Taking a deep breath, trying to play it like it was just an idea, like it didn’t matter really to him one way or the other, Rabbit said, “I think we should have the PI tag Mistress Truth’s credit cards, phone, and bank accounts.” His heart drummed in his chest, from nerves and need.

  Strike’s gaze sharpened. “Why?”

  “Myrinne got away from the fire; I know that for sure. But you said yourself you couldn’t get a

  ’port lock off my description. There’s no answer at the tea shop, and the bartender down the road said the place has been closed since the fire. Nobody back in New Orleans is looking for Mistress Truth too hard, because she scared the shit out of the neighbors, and the cops are way busy already.” And Rabbit hadn’t pushed because he hadn’t wanted to make too much noise, in case Myrinne needed to keep it on the down-low. “I think Myrinne might’ve made it back to the shop and lifted Mistress’s plastic.” It was what he would’ve done, and even from their short meeting he knew the girl had survival instincts.

  “Maybe,” Strike agreed, nodding his thanks as Jox hooked him up with a mug of coffee. “But we need to find Iago, not Myrinne.”

  Speak for yourself, Rabbit thought, but knew that wasn’t going to get him very far with Strike, especially not with Jox listening in. “She’s important.”

  “To who, you?” Strike shook his head. “Forget about her, kid. Or if you can’t forget about her, then do your best to help us get through the next few years and then go after her with my blessing. Hell, I’ll even help you look.”

  “She said she’d been dreaming.”

  Strike went very, very still. “Of you?”

  Rabbit shook his head. “Skywatch. She nailed it too, right down to the tree.”

  “Well, shit.” Strike sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose the way he did when he was trying not to admit he had a headache. “That complicates things.”

  “We have to find her,” Rabbit insisted, not sure why or how he knew, but positive that it was nonnegotiable. Call it fate, destiny, or hormones, he had to see her again.

  “I’ll call Carter.” Strike fixed him with a look. “But let us deal with it, okay? I don’t want you involved.”

  A chill creepy-crawled down Rabbit’s neck. “Why not?”

  Strike’s expression said, Because you’re a fuckup half-blood and I don’t trust your magic for a second. But aloud he said, “Because we don’t know what we’re dealing with. Given her association with the witch, there might be something in there that we don’t want inside Skywatch. Hell, for all we know this whole thing is a setup. I’ll find the girl, but until we know her story, I don’t want you anywhere near her. Got it?”

  The too-ready anger that Rabbit battled on a daily basis flared before he was even aware of it building. Heat coursed through him, flooding his veins and begging to be set free. Forcing himself to remember where he was—and who with—he fought the temptation, tried to cap the anger. Knowing it was rude, he tapped the iPod on and popped one of his earbuds in, hoping the thumping backbeat would drown out the rage. It helped some, but not enough, and the fury had him snapping, “That’s fair.

  You and Anna can have your human pets, but I can’t?” He knew he’d gone too far the moment the words left his mouth.

  Strike set his jaw. “Watch yourself, kid.”

  “Or what?” He jumped off his stool and gave it a boot, sending it skidding across the floor to fall on its side in the kitchen pass-through. He fisted his hands and dug his fingernails into the ridged scar on his palm, keeping the fire in check, though just barely. “You going to ground me? I’m already stuck here. Going to take away my privileges? Don’t got any. Take away my magic? Just fucking try it.”

  In the beat of silence that followed his shout, the scene froze in Rabbit’s head as though he’d taken a snapshot or something.

  He saw Strike sitting there, coffee halfway to his lips, surprise slapped atop the anger in his expression. Jox stood in the kitchen, his face a mix of disappointment and resignation. Those hurt some, because the winikin had mostly raised Rabbit while Red-Boar had lived in the past with his

  “real” family. But even at that, Jox’d always made it clear that Strike and Anna were his first and top priority. The frozen tableau was completed by Leah, who was framed in the doorway leading to the residential wing, looking pissed, which suggested that she’d heard him call her Strike’s human pet.

  That pinched, because she’d always been pretty fair with him, but still. Why did Strike get to bring his girlfriend into Skywatch, but Rabb
it couldn’t bring his?

  And okay, so Myrinne wasn’t his girlfriend. But there was something there; he was sure of it. He just didn’t know what yet, and wasn’t going to be able to figure it out if he went along with Strike’s plan.

  Then Leah stepped down from the entryway and the scene snapped from freeze-frame to play, and Strike was getting up off his stool and advancing on Rabbit, his dark blue eyes hard and angry.

  Rabbit braced himself to get his shit knocked loose. Instead the king stopped just short of him, his expression leveling out some when he said, “News flash, kid: I’m not your old man. I’m not going to ground you or call you names. What I am going to do is tell you to man the fuck up, stop thinking with your dick, and factor your teammates into this equation. You bring Myrinne here and things go south, what do you think happens?”

  A big chunk of the anger died a quick death, but Rabbit couldn’t back down, couldn’t let it lie. “I have to find her. I can’t explain it; I just know I have to find her.”

  “Yeah, I got that.” Strike paused and traded a look with Leah before he said, “I’ll have Carter look into it. Leah can call in a few favors too. Once they find her, we’ll see what the situation looks like and figure out the next step from there.”

  “I want to go back to New Orleans,” Rabbit said, feeling all itchy and tightly wound. “I can help look.”

  “I can’t spare you for that. I need you in Boston.”

  Rabbit had braced for the argument, so it took him a second to reorient. “What’s in Boston?”

  “Jade’s tracked down two more of the artifacts. Leah and I are working on one of them. I want you, Sven, Patience, and Brandt to go retrieve the other.”

  “Oh.” Rabbit’s gut churned. Strike wasn’t just avoiding his demand to see Myrinne again; the king was also throwing him back together with Patience and Brandt. Bad sign. “In other words, you think their marriage is either fixed now, or so broken that having me around them won’t fuck it up any more than it already is.”

  “No! Never that.” The protest came from Leah, who crossed the landing, righted Rabbit’s toppled stool, and perched on it beside her mate. She took his mug and snagged a hit of his coffee before continuing, “We know how much they mean to you. We wanted to protect you, not punish you.” She paused, letting him see the truth in her cornflower blue eyes. “We were trying to make things easier.

  I’m sorry you thought otherwise.”

  Shame coiled around the anger inside Rabbit, dimming the whole mess a little. He looked down at the floor. “Sorry about calling you Strike’s pet just now. If it helps, you’d be something cool, like a rottweiler.”

  Amusement sparked in Leah’s expression, and she lifted a shoulder. “No worries. I don’t get mad. I get even.”

  Rabbit grinned some at that, and she grinned back, and the two of them, at the very least, were okay.

  In the moment of mental calm brought by forgiveness, his brain processed the rest of what the king had said. His head came up and he focused on Strike. “You said ‘retrieve’ the artifact. We’re not buying it?”

  “The thing’s in a museum.”

  Rabbit grinned. “So what you really mean is that we’re going to steal it.”

  Strike shifted, shooting a vaguely uncomfortable look at his ex-cop queen. “Yeah. That’s pretty much the plan.”

  Rabbit nodded. “Cool. I’m in.” As if there had been any question of it, really. He might be on the outskirts of the real action, and only a half-blood, but he was still a Nightkeeper. He did what his king said. That didn’t mean he couldn’t add on a few things, though. Like keeping in touch with Carter, and making sure he was the first one to get to Myrinne.

  As far as he was concerned, that was as nonnegotiable as a fricking royal decree.

  “Hello?” Lucius banged on the storeroom door again, hard enough to sting his hands, though the blows made little impact on the heavy paneled door. “Anyone? Hello? I need to talk to Anna. It’s important!”

  He didn’t know what time it was, though he’d slept until he wasn’t exhausted anymore, which suggested it was well into the day after his arrival. Maybe already too late.

  He rattled the door against its padlock. “Anna!”

  A sick feeling locked his gut. He remembered how he’d gotten there, remembered the shock of traveling in search of Sasha Ledbetter and finding Anna and the Nightkeepers instead, but his memories of the prior night were hazy and unreal, like they’d happened to somebody else. An angry, resentful version of himself. In the light of day—okay, in the light of a single fluorescent tube, but after a good night’s sleep—he felt more like himself. And in getting his brain back online, he’d realized he’d left out a crucial detail when he’d been talking to Anna.

  Drawing a breath, he thumped on the door again. “Hello! Can anyone hear me?”

  The lock rattled on the other side, and an irritated male voice said, “Hold on to your ass. I’m coming.”

  The man Lucius had been the night before would’ve looked for a weapon and taken a swing at whoever was on the other side of that door. The guy who’d woken up feeling more at home inside his own skin than he had in a long time backed away and dropped down to sit on the edge of the cot, trying to look as unthreatening as possible.

  Which was a good thing, he realized the second the door swung inward, because the guy who stood in the opening was below average in height and weight, in his late fifties, with peppered hair and a quick, economical way of moving . . . and he held a machine pistol with easy familiarity.

  Lucius raised both hands in an I’m unarmed; please don’t mess me up gesture, and said, “I come in peace.” Hope you do too.

  He was no gun expert, but the thing pointed at him looked like something out of a war movie, or maybe a cops-and-gangs flick, automatic and nasty-looking. The guy, on the other hand, didn’t look nasty. He looked wary and drawn, as if he had a ton on his plate. Then again, that’d make sense. If Lucius had truly found the Nightkeepers, they had to be gearing up for the end of the world, the battle they’d spent generations preparing for. And if that wasn’t a mind-fuck, he didn’t know what was.

  “You said you had a message for Anna?” the guy said.

  “Yeah. I, uh . . . I’d rather give it to her personally.” He had a feeling it wasn’t going to go down big regardless, but didn’t feel so comfortable telling it to Mr. Armed-and-dangerous.

  “I’m Jox, her winikin. I’ll give her the message.”

  Which might’ve been useful info if Lucius had any idea what the hell a winikin was. Whatever the guy’s job description, though, he didn’t seem inclined to go get Anna. Knowing that Anna and her brother—the king, and how screwed up was that?—needed to know what he’d done, and figuring their response was going to suck regardless of how the deets were delivered, Lucius said, “Fine. Tell her that Desiree bet me my degree that I couldn’t find proof the Nightkeepers existed, and gave me the money to do it. I called her last night from the road and told her where I was headed.”

  Jox looked disturbed but not panicked, suggesting that the location of the compound wasn’t entirely sacrosanct to the outside world. He said, “Who is Desiree to Anna?”

  “Her boss at UT. Beyond that, you’ll have to ask her yourself.” He was so not going there.

  Jox considered that for a long moment, then nodded. “I’ll give her the message.”

  When he started to pull the door shut, Lucius said, “Wait!”

  Jox paused. “Yeah?”

  “Tell her I’m sorry.”

  “Knowing Anna, that’d work better coming directly from you,” the guy said, not unkindly. Then he shut and locked the door.

  He was right, too, Lucius knew. Thing was, at this point he wasn’t sure he believed Anna would accept his apology . . . or the help he planned on offering.

  Alexis was just getting out of the shower when there was a knock on the door of her suite. As she toweled off and threw on last night’s nighshirt and a pair of yoga p
ants, she was strongly tempted to ignore it, needing a few more minutes to herself.

  It wasn’t like she’d had much in the way of downtime to recharge after the eclipse ceremony.

  Between her fight with Nate and the dream-vision, she hadn’t gotten to bed until close to three a.m., and she’d slept poorly, her dreams chasing her with sensory images of Nate and Michael, and heartache. They’d been real dreams, not visions—she was sure of that much—but they’d put her seriously low on REM sleep.

  She’d planned on chilling in her sitting room for another hour at least. The knock came again, though, suggesting that whoever it was knew she was in there, and wasn’t planning on being ignored.

  Sighing, Alexis crossed the sitting area and opened the door to find her winikin on the other side.

  Izzy’s expression lightened, though it stayed worried around the edges. “Why didn’t you wake me last night? I can’t believe I didn’t hear the commotion.” The winikin ’s voice became reproachful.

  “You should’ve had someone come get me. I would’ve stayed with you.”

  “I know.” Which was why Alexis hadn’t woken her. Trying to avoid having to say that, she took the winikin’s hands in hers and gave them a squeeze. “I’m fine, honest.”

  Izzy looked at her long and hard before nodding. “If you say so.” She stepped into the suite and pushed Alexis toward her bedroom. “Get dressed. Jade wants you in the archive as soon as you’ve had some coffee.”

  That had Alexis stopping and turning, her heart kicking on a burst of excitement mingled with dread. “She found the temple? We’re going?”

  Izzy nodded. “You leave for Belize in an hour.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “It’s called the Actun Tunichil Muknal cave system; ATM for short,” Jade said, indicating her laptop screen, which showed a series of photographs that were eerily familiar to Alexis.