Dawnkeepers
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
GLOSSARY
PART I - PENUMBRAL LUNAR ECLIPSE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
PART II - SATURN AT OPPOSITION
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
PART III - VERNAL EQUINOX
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Teaser chapter
Praise for Nightkeepers
“Raw passion, dark romance, and seat-of-your-pants suspense all set in an astounding paranormal world—I swear ancient Mayan gods and demons walk the modern earth!”
—New York Times bestselling author J. R. Ward
“A fun mix of humor, suspense, mythology, and fantasy, Nightkeepers kicks off a series that’s sure to be an instant reader favorite, and will put Andersen’s books on keeper shelves around the world. She’s made it onto mine.”
—New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Brockmann on WritersareReaders.com
“I deeply enjoyed the story. It really hooked me!” —New York Times bestselling author Angela Knight
“Part romance, mystery, and fairy tale . . . a captivating book with wide appeal.”—Booklist
“A compelling read . . . scorching chemistry, vivid descriptions . . . a keeper.”—Romantic Times
SIGNET ECLIPSE
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First published by Signet Eclipse, an imprint of New American Library,
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First Printing, January 2009
Copyright © Jessica Andersen, 2009 All rights reserved
eISBN : 978-1-440-66086-3
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This book is dedicated to the readers
who have made these books their own.
Thank you so much for joining me on the
roller-coaster ride to 2012!
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The Nightkeepers’ world is well hidden within our own; bringing it to light isn’t always an easy process. My heartfelt thanks go to Deidre Knight, Kara Cesare, Claire Zion, Kara Welsh, and Kerry Donovan for helping me take these books from a dream to a reality; to J. R. Ward for critiques and help each step of the way; to Suz Brockmann for being a mentor and an inspiration; to Angela Knight for her friendship and encouragement; to Marley Gibson, Charlene Glatkowski, and my many friends in the New England Chapter of Romance Writers of America for being there for me every day without fail; to Sally Hinkle Russell for keeping me sane; and to Brian Hogan for too many things to name in this small space.
Just as the few surviving Nightkeepers live among us today, their ancestors lived with the ancient Egyptians, Olmec, Maya, and Hopi during the course of their twenty-six-thousand-year history; they left their imprint on each of these cultures, and were influenced in turn. Thus, while their culture is best reflected in the myths and beliefs of the Maya, the parallel is not absolute. For a full list of references and recommended reading on the ancient Maya and the 2012 doomsday prophecy, and to explore the Nightkeepers’ online community, please visit www.JessicaAndersen.com.
GLOSSARY
Like much of the Nightkeepers’ culture, their spell words come from the people they have lived with throughout their history. Or if we want to chicken-and-egg things, it’s more likely that the other cultures took the words from the Nightkeepers and incorporated them into their developing languages. As such, some of the words have slightly different meanings and/or spellings in the old tongue of the Nightkeepers compared to their acknowledged meanings in the languages of ancient Egypt, the Mayan Empire, the modern Quiche Maya, and elsewhere.
Entities (people, gods, demons, and other creatures)
Banol Kax —The lords of the underworld, Xibalba. Driven from the earth and locked behind the barrier after the last Great Conjunction in 24,000 B.C. by the many-times great-ancestors of the modern Nightkeepers, the Banol Kax seek to pierce the barrier and wrest control of the earth from mankind.
boluntiku —The underworld minions of the Banol Kax, the boluntiku are lava creatures that draw their energy from the molten mantle of the earth. They can come to earth only when the barrier is very thin (during a solstice or eclipse), and then only at the expense of great magic. The creatures are killing machines that can sense magic and royalty; they travel in an insubstantial vapor form, turning solid in the moment they attack, using six-clawed hands and wicked teeth.
Camazotz—A member of the Banol Kax also known as Sudden Bloodletter, Camazotz is the ruler of night, death, and sacrifice. His sons are the seven death bats responsible for ensuring the completion of the demon prophecies.
Daykeeper—A Mayan shaman-priest responsible for keeping track of the calendar and using divin
ing rituals to make horoscope-like predictions.
First Father—The only adult survivor of the Nightkeepers’ exodus from Egypt, this mage bound the slaves into winikin, and codified the Nightkeepers’ beliefs into the writs and the thirteen prophecies, in order to guide his descendants over the next five millennia until the end-time.
Godkeeper—A female Nightkeeper who has undergone a ritual near-death experience followed by a sexual encounter with a Nightkeeper male, leading to her being bonded with one of the sky gods. Channeling the gods’ powers with the help of their Nightkeeper mates, the Godkeepers are prophesied to form the core of the Nightkeepers’ fighting force during the 2012 doomsday. itza’at —A female Nightkeeper with visionary powers; a seer. The itza’at talent is often associated with depression, mental instability, and suicide, because the seer can envision the future but not change it. The visions will always come to pass.
Ixchel—The goddess of rainbows, loomcraft, and fertility. May also be associated with medicine and the moon. Often depicted as an aged grandmother with jaguar ears, but may also be seen as a beautiful young woman.
Kulkulkan—The winged serpent god, later known as Quetzalcoatl. An extremely powerful god, one of the creators, Kulkulkan has both light and dark halves. The light half is associated with learning, logic, medicine, and art, while the dark aspects are associated with war and rage.
makol ( ajaw-makol )—The earthly minions of the Banol Kax, these demon souls are capable of reaching through the barrier to possess an evil-natured human host. Recognized by their luminous green eyes, a makol-bound human retains his/her own thoughts and actions in direct proportion to the amount of evil in his/her soul. An ajaw-makol is a makol created through direct spell casting by the Banol Kax or the human host. The ajaw-makol can then create lesser makol through blood rituals on earth.
nahwal —Humanoid spirit entities that exist in the barrier and hold within them all of the accumulated wisdom of each Nightkeeper bloodline. They can be asked for information, but cannot be trusted. In the Mayan culture, they came to be known as nahual (or uay), and were feared as shape-shifting sorcerers and devious alter egos of the Mayan ruling elite.
Nightkeeper—A member of an ancient race sworn to protect mankind from annihilation in the years leading up to December 21, 2012, when the barrier separating the earth and the underworld will fall and the Banol Kax will seek to precipitate the apocalypse.
Order of Xibalba—Formed by renegade Nightkeepers long ago, the order courted the powers of the underworld. Its members, called Xibalbans, drew their power from the first layer of hell. The order was wiped out by the conquistadors . . . or so the Nightkeepers believe.
winikin —Descended from the conquered Sumerian warriors who served the Nightkeepers back in ancient Egypt, the winikin are blood-bound to the Nightkeepers. They function as the servants, protectors, and counselors of the magi, and have been instrumental in keeping the bloodlines alive through the centuries.
Places
Actun Tunichil Muknal (ATM)—A system of subterranean waterways and caves in Belize that contains numerous ceremonial relics of the Mayan shaman-priests, as well as a series of hidden submerged tunnels and caves sacred to the Nightkeepers.
Chichén Itzá—Arguably the most famous ruin of the Yucatán Peninsula, this city was a religious center built and inhabited by the Maya in the seventh through tenth centuries A.D., and later incorporated the more blood-thirsty practices of the Toltec through the thirteenth century. Today it is a huge tourist attraction aboveground. Belowground, the Nightkeepers practice their rituals and magic in a series of subterranean caverns that run beneath the ruins.
Skywatch—Built in the 1930s and renovated when the Nightkeepers were reunited, the training compound is located in a box canyon in the Chaco Canyon region of New Mexico.
Xibalba—The nine-layer underworld of the Mayan and Nightkeeper religious systems, home to the Banol Kax, boluntiku, and makol. The spiritual entrance to Xibalba is found in the darkest spot at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The religious (metaphorical) entrances are the passageways at the tops of Mayan pyramids, as well as natural caves, especially those leading to subterranean rivers.
Things (spells, glyphs, prophecies, etc.)
ajawlel —The slave-master’s glyph, worn by a Nightkeeper who has formed a reciprocal blood link with a human servant.
barrier—A force field of psi energy that separates the earth, sky, and underworld, and powers the Nightkeepers’ magic. The strength of the barrier fluctuates with the positions of the stars and planets; the power of the magi increases as the barrier weakens.
chac-mool —An iconographic idol dedicated to the rain god, Chaac, the chac-mool is formed in the shape of a seated human figure, and may be used as an altar, a throne, and/or a place of blood sacrifice.
copan —The sacred incense of the Nightkeepers. This is a variation of the Mayan incense, copal, and is associated with the great ruined city of Copán, located in modern-day Honduras.
demon prophecies—A cycle of seven prophecies that will be triggered in the final four years before the end date. If a prophecy is fulfilled, the barrier thins slightly. If it is thwarted, the barrier strengthens to the same degree. These prophecies, revolving around the seven death-bat sons of Camazotz, are inscribed on a series of Nightkeeper artifacts that were sold off to fund the Nightkeepers’ activities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Now those relics must be recovered if the Nightkeepers hope to thwart Camazotz and his sons.
hunab ku —A pseudoglyph associated with the 2012 end date, in modern times the hunab ku is not a glyph within the Mayan writing system, but rather is the mark that the Nightkeeper king wears on his biceps, denoting his proximity to the gods.
intersection—Located in the sacred tunnels beneath Chichén Itzá, this is the one point on earth where the earth, sky, and underworld come very near one another, and where the barrier is its weakest. This is where the gods can come through to create Godkeepers, and where the underworld denizens focus their attacks during each solstice and equinox.
jun tan —The “beloved” glyph that signifies a Nightkeeper’s mated status.
k’alaj —The slave mark worn by a human who is blood-bound to a Nightkeeper master or mistress.
pasaj och —Roughly translating to “open door open,” this, coupled with a blood sacrifice, is the basic command a Nightkeeper uses to form an uplink to the barrier’s power.
starscript—Ancient writings carved into temples or artifacts in such a way that the glyphs do not reflect normal sun- or moonlight. They are visible only by starlight when the moon is dark.
thirteen prophecies—A long-term prophetic cycle describing milestone events leading up to the apocalypse. The last of these mentions the Nightkeepers’ king making the ultimate sacrifice in the final four years before 2012.
tzomplanti —A ceremonial pile formed of stacked human skulls, used as a beacon or a warning sign.
writs—Written by the First Father, these delineate the duties and codes of the Nightkeepers. Not all of them translate well into modern times.
On December 21, 2012, the world will end.
At least, that is what some believe the ancient Maya intended to signal when they set their five-thousand-year backward-counting calendar to zero out on that day, at the exact moment the sun, moon, and earth will align at the center of the Milky Way in a cosmic dark spot the Maya believed was the mouth of the underworld, Xibalba.
Modern scientific support for the 2012 doomsday theory comes from astronomers and physicists, who predict that this Great Conjunction, which occurs only once every twenty-six thousand years, will trigger magnetic reversals, terrible sun-spots, and potentially cataclysmic planetary events. This has caused historians and spiritualists alike to credit the Maya with a level of astronomy not seen again through history until modern times.
However, the ancient Maya’s knowledge of the Great Conjunction—and the havoc it will bring—comes from a far older
people: the Nightkeepers.
Descended from the only survivors of a great civilization wiped out in 24,000 B.C. during the last Great Conjunction, the Nightkeepers are mortal magic users sworn to pass down their skills from generation to generation until the 2012 conjunction, when they will be the only ones capable of defeating the Banol Kax, a group of all-powerful demons who were bound in Xibalba by the Nightkeepers’ ancestors, and will be released on December 21, 2012. On the day of the Great Conjunction, the demons will break through the barrier separating the earth and underworld. They will destroy mankind and rule the earth . . . unless the Nightkeepers stop them.
Ancient prophecy says that there should be hundreds of Nightkeepers at the end of the age, and among them will be the Godkeepers, a group of incredibly powerful warrior-females, each of whom will be able to wield the powers of a god with the help of her blood-bound mate and the Nightkeepers’ magic, which is based on bloodletting and sex.
Together, the legends say, the Godkeepers and their mates will be instrumental in the Nightkeepers’ battle against the Banol Kax and the 2012 doomsday. But in the final four years before the zero date, when the demons begin their assault on the barrier, the Nightkeepers number less than a dozen scattered and untrained magi. The last king, Striking-Jaguar, reunites the surviving Nightkeepers in time to block the Banol Kax from attacking the earth. In the process, however, he claims a god-bound human woman as his mate rather than sacrificing her, defying an ancient prophecy and triggering the final countdown to the end-time.
Now the Nightkeepers must recover the Mayan antiquities that bear the seven lost demon prophecies, which will guide them in battle as the end-time approaches.
However, they’re not the only ones on the hunt for the missing artifacts. . . .