Dawnkeepers

by Jessica Andersen

“Dropped the bowl. Yeah, I get that. Thing is, you won’t be any good for damage control if you’re half-dead from a postmagic hangover. So drink the damned juice, and eat whatever Carlos brings you.”

  A little to her surprise, he complied.

  Shifting her attention to Jox, she said, “What’s her status?”

  The winikin had a hand on Patience’s wrist, tracking her pulse. He shook his head. “One of the guards Tasered her, and she’s always had a bit of an arrhythmia. Kicked her heart off rhythm pretty good, but it seems to be settling now.”

  “Does she need to get to a hospital?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Be sure,” Alexis pressed, her voice hard.

  Surprise flashed in Jox’s eyes, but he nodded. “I’m sure.”

  A small piece of Alexis wondered why he knew about Patience’s med history, and why he was hovering as if she were his charge, not Hannah’s. But Hannah and Wood were away in hiding with the twins, so perhaps he’d become in loco winikin to Patience and Brandt. Besides, the surprise in the royal winikin’s expression reminded Alexis that it wasn’t her place to be handing out orders; she wasn’t in charge. She asked, “Where’s Leah?”

  Strike’s mate had recently returned to Skywatch, unsuccessful in her efforts to find Kulkulkan’s altar stone. The artifact bearing the seventh demon prophecy had dropped from the historical record after World War II, reappeared briefly in a private collection in Denmark, and disappeared again in the sixties, leaving the ex-cop frustrated as hell.

  “I’m here, but don’t let me stop you when you’re on a roll.” Leah came into view, wearing combat gear and a worried expression. She glanced at Jox. “Any word?”

  “Nothing yet.” He looked down, relief smoothing some of the frown lines when Patience stirred and her eyelids fluttered. “She’s coming around. That’s something, at any rate. Why don’t we—”

  A slap of concussion cut him off, and Strike, Brandt, and Michael appeared in the center of the room, in a flash of royal red and a hum of strong, pissed-off Nightkeeper magic.

  “The bowl!” Sven lurched up, sloshing the dregs of his OJ. “Did you get the bowl?” But Brandt shook his head, his expression grim. Sven sank back down, whispering, “Gods damn it. The cops got it?”

  “Worse,” Strike said. “The place where it’d been stank of Iago’s magic. I’ll bet you anything the bastard was watching the whole time, and swept in and grabbed it when the plan went south.”

  Sven just kept shaking his head, looking shell-shocked, as if he couldn’t believe he’d screwed up so badly.

  Leah crossed the room to touch Strike’s arm. “What about Rabbit?”

  The king’s expression went hollow. “There wasn’t any sign of him. I couldn’t even lock on for a ’port.”

  Silence followed that pronouncement. It wasn’t dire news, necessarily, because Strike had already discovered that ’port magic often failed to lock onto a person if they were underground or within thick walls. That was why he generally kept the ’ports to open air. However, his inability to lock onto Rabbit could stem from a more sinister reason—like he was unconscious, or worse.

  “Take me there,” Leah said. “I’m good at finding people.”

  They shared a look, and Strike nodded. “Yeah. You are.” He closed his eyes to initiate the ’port, which he needed to do these days only when he was trying to summon magic without enough of a power boost.

  “Wait!” Alexis said, interrupting.

  Strike’s eyes popped open. “What?”

  “Take this. Eat.” She grabbed three of the protein bars Carlos had brought for Sven, who preferred them over chocolate or some of the other quick-energy foods the Nightkeepers gravitated toward. “We can’t afford to have you ’porting low on calories.”

  He took the bars and nodded, and Leah’s eyes gleamed a quiet thanks as the magic powered back up and they vanished, air rushing in with a pop to fill the space they’d vacated.

  When they were gone, Alexis realized what she’d just done, and felt a flush climb her cheeks. “Did I just interrupt teleport magic to nag the king to eat?” she asked the room at large. “I can’t believe I did that. I’m an idiot.” Strike was a grown-up, and about ten times the mage she’d ever be.

  “You’re not an idiot,” Jox said. “You’re a royal adviser, and you just advised.” He withdrew a palm-size eccentric from his pocket and held it out to her. “Strike asked me to pull it out of storage for you. I think he’d want you to have it now.”

  Alexis just stared at the small effigy for a beat, while tears lumped in her throat and scratched at the backs of her eyes. The eccentric was carved in the shape of an ear of maize, the lifeblood of their ancestors.

  It was a twin to the one her mother had carried.

  “If you’d rather wait until they’re back—” Jox began.

  “No,” she said quickly, then again, “No. This is perfect.” And it was, she realized. Although Strike might have given her the position because he knew how much she wanted it, how hard she’d work, Jox wouldn’t have agreed if he didn’t think she was worthy of being an adviser. The royal winikin was steeped in the old traditions, bound by them. If he was offering the eccentric, then the offer was real. The need was real.

  She reached out and took the smoothly carved piece, which was warm from Jox’s body heat. Dipping her head, she said, “Thank you.”

  A patter of applause from behind her was a surprise. She spun around and saw that Nate was clapping, and not looking the slightest bit sarcastic. The applause swelled as the others joined in. Jade and the winikin looked pleased; Lucius was clapping with the others, even though he shrugged when their eyes met, as if to say, No clue what just happened, but congrats; Patience was sitting up, her eyes clear and focused as she rested within the curve of her husband’s arm, the two of them forming a unit despite their continued problems; and Izzy was front and center, her eyes shining, with maybe even the hint of a tear on her cheek. And in that moment it didn’t matter how hard the winikin had pushed, or why. It mattered only that things had happened the way they were meant to happen . . . exactly as they had happened before.

  And if that interpretation of the writs rang false in Alexis’s head, she didn’t stop to analyze, not then. She smiled at her teammates. “Thanks, guys. Just . . . thanks.”

  “Don’t thank us too quickly,” Jox said. “As both Godkeeper and royal adviser, you rank, which means you’re in charge while Strike and Leah are off property. So what do you want us to do?” The look in his eye said it wasn’t a casual question.

  A glance around the room showed why. The Nightkeepers were warriors without a battle to fight, the winikin a support staff without real direction. They were worried for their king and queen, scared for Rabbit, and disturbed that they were so close to the vernal equinox and the deadline for the first demon prophecy, yet didn’t have a clear plan or arsenal.

  Join the club, Alexis thought, but knew that wasn’t good enough. As part of the royal council, it was up to her to do something, say something. Granted, if she did nothing, they would go on as they had been, and nothing would truly be lost.

  Except, perhaps, some hope. And she owed them that.

  Thinking fast, she looked over at Lucius. “You can translate carvings, right?”

  He looked startled at first; then his eyes took on a gleam of interest. He nodded. “Definitely.” Glancing outside to where the dusk was still a few hours off, he said, “It’ll have to wait a little if you’re talking starscript, though.”

  “No, regular glyphs. I want you to sit down with the Ixchel statuette—Jade can get it for you out of archive lockup. See what you can make of the plain carved text. The auction house had translated the writing on the piece I bought and said it was a love poem, nothing spectacular. But maybe it’ll take on a new meaning once it’s read in its entirety, with the other piece. Maybe it’ll give us a clue how to fight Camazotz or find the Volatile.”

  Or not, but it was something t
o try, anyway, something she’d only just now thought of, and wondered why they hadn’t tried it before. But that wasn’t fair, either. They were playing catchup to Iago, trying to map out the next few years without nearly enough information. It was a start, though. In the absence of any other semibrilliant ideas, Alexis didn’t bother trying to order any of the others around, because she figured they were all grown-ups, and she wasn’t much in the way of a leader. But as they dispersed, Patience, Sven, and Brandt to sleep off their exertions, the others to various tasks, she got a nod here, a “way to go” there.

  Nate was the last to leave, and as he passed her he stepped in close. “Congratulations.”

  He touched his lips to hers before she’d guessed his intent, before she’d had a chance to brace herself. But there was no need to brace, no need for defense. Where before their kisses had been all about heat and need, this was about tenderness, about affirmation.

  Weakened by surprise, she shuddered against him, let herself lean for a second. Then he eased away and looked down at her, his amber eyes intent on hers. For the first time she felt like his entire focus, as if he was seeing not just the outer shell of her, but actually seeing her.

  Then he took a big step back, away from her, and tipped his head in a nod that was almost a bow. “I’m happy for you. I know this is what you wanted.”

  And he turned and walked away.

  She stood there, torn between letting him go and calling him back. The kiss had been entirely different, almost like one she would’ve expected on a first date, an exploration rather than a possession. But what did that mean? Did it mean anything? She didn’t have a clue, and because she didn’t she let him go, watching where he’d been long after he’d pushed through the sliders, headed for the firing range.

  Sensing that she was being watched, she turned and glanced toward the kitchen area, and found Jox standing there. “Well,” she said on a sigh, “what now?”

  She wasn’t entirely sure if she was asking about the next step she should take as an adviser or the next step—if any—she should take with Nate, with the goddess, with the magic. She figured she’d let the winikin pick; she was open to suggestions at this point.

  “Now we wait,” he said, giving a vague answer to her vague question.

  “Yeah,” she said, dipping her head in a nod. “We wait. We watch. We do the best we can.”

  So the Nightkeepers and winikin waited, watched, and did the best they could. They waited until Leah and Strike came back, drooping with fatigue and defeat. They waited for Rabbit to contact them, growing more concerned as the days passed without any word from the teen, without Strike being able to connect to him with a teleport thread. And they waited as the hours and days passed, Saturn moved into opposition, and the barrier thinned. And as they waited, they did their best. Strike and Leah continued to search for the altar stone, only to be frustrated each time it seemed they were getting close. They had zero luck tracking down Iago, and there was still no sign of Sasha Ledbetter. Alexis practiced her magic, honing her shield and fireball spells, both of which glowed with rainbows. And she sat long into the nights with Strike, Leah, and Jox, arguing the options, until they finally settled on a calculated risk for the Saturn at Opposition ceremony.

  Alexis, with Nate as her power boost, would travel into the barrier and attempt to work the three-question spell. That seemed like their only option for gaining the information they needed about the Volatile and Ixchel’s defense against the first demon prophecy.

  If they were lucky, the spell would work even though the opposition wasn’t a cardinal day.

  Back in New Orleans, far away from Skywatch, both in miles and in his head, Rabbit hunkered in a narrow doorway that smelled of old smoke. He scanned the street using all his senses—physical and otherwise—to make sure the coast was clear, then slipped through a wrought-iron gate that led to a series of interconnected courtyards that would bring him to the rear entrance of Mistress Truth’s tea shop.

  He’d been living there the past couple of days, ever since he’d bolted from the MFA and dumped his phone. With five hundred dollars cash in his pocket and a valid ID, it hadn’t been difficult for him to upgrade his wardrobe and hop on an Amtrak headed south. With his telekine powers, it also hadn’t been hard to bust into the tea shop and make himself at home, hoping Myrinne would check back. He was more or less safe and comfortable, and off the grid. The thing that sucked, though, was how much he missed being a part of something.

  It wasn’t that he missed Skywatch so much—it was a pretty cool place, but it was just a place. As for the people . . . well, he’d never spent much time away from Strike or Jox before, but they were both busy with their own stuff now, and besides, the compound was so big, he’d been able to go days without seeing them if he wanted to. He’d been living in his old man’s cottage for the past few months, had gotten used to being alone. But after a couple of days of traveling, then shacking up in the tea shop, he’d realized that “alone” was a pretty relative thing back at Skywatch, where there was always somebody nearby, always something going on. In the tea shop he was totally solo. Granted, the streets of the French Quarter never actually quieted all the way down . . . but still, it wasn’t the same as being back in the training compound. He found he loved the isolation during the day, when he could ghost around the neighborhood looking for Myrinne, or just spend a few hours poking through the witch’s stuff. Most of it was crap, of course, but he’d gotten a power buzz off a few things, and had set them aside to fiddle with.

  At night, though, things went quiet and his mind got very loud as it replayed what’d happened back at the museum. Brandt’s anger had stuck with him, along with the knowledge that Patience had gotten hurt because he’d been fiddling with his text messages. Rabbit had bought a new phone and called the investigator, Juarez, to do some checking on the museum break-in, so he knew the others had gotten away from the museum. But the fact that Strike hadn’t locked onto him for a ’port pretty much summed up where the Nightkeepers stood: You’ve fucked up enough times, kid. Good riddance.

  Which meant he was on his own, at least until he found Myrinne. She’d checked out of the shelter Juarez had tracked her to, and vanished. The PI had told him to stay put, that he was on the case, but as the days passed, the stars aligned, and the barrier thinned, and Juarez kept telling him he’d have better news the next day, Rabbit knew what he had to do.

  Screw the PI. He could find Myrinne himself . . . with a little help from the three-question nahwal.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Nightkeepers were a somber group as they prepared for the Saturn at Opposition ceremony.

  And why not? Nate thought, frustrated. The score was Iago three, Nightkeepers one. Hell, for all they knew, the Xibalban had Kulkulkan’s altar stone, along with the last two artifacts, a knife and bowl that Jade hadn’t yet managed to track down, even with Lucius’s help. The grad student was proving useful in other areas, though. His translation of the Ixchel poem hadn’t added much to what they already knew—it was a love poem, and although it mentioned rainbows, there didn’t seem to be any clues hidden within the text. That was assuming Lucius had the translation right, but Anna swore by him, so who was Nate to argue?

  Lucius had been locked in the storeroom for the duration of the opposition ceremony, lest his connection to the makol reactivate when the barrier thinned. Nate felt bad for the guy; lockup was no fun, regardless of the situation. And although the slave bond had been a matter of necessity, Nate didn’t feel good about the royal council’s decision on that one, either. Then again, as far as Nate was concerned, the council could use an outside opinion. Leah might’ve started out as an antiestablishment type, but since being mated to Strike she’d been assimilated, Borg-like, into the Nightkeeper mind-set. Jox was an establishment guy all the way, Alexis was good at improving ideas that were already out there but wasn’t an outside-the-box thinker, and Strike . . . well, as Carlos said, their king was his father’s son—a stubb
orn dreamer with huge sense of duty and a heart that could send him in the wrong direction with the best of intentions.

  Not that Nate was planning on volunteering to sit in on the debates and act as the voice of reason. Or rebellion, he thought, knowing he would be the maverick in the group, the one to counter all the history-steeped decisions.

  Which so wasn’t what he should’ve been thinking about as he followed the others into the sacred room at Skywatch. Focus, dipshit, he told himself. He and Alexis were about to try pulling some serious magic on a non-cardinal day. He needed to get his head in the game.

  The sacred chamber at Skywatch was a circular room located at the end of one of the mansion wings, decorated with intricately carved walls and a chac-mool altar like the one in the sacred tunnels beneath Chichén Itzá. Unlike the sacred chamber beneath Chichén Itzá, though, it was open to the stars and moon, which glowed through a glass-paneled ceiling. Where the cardinal-day ceremonies of the equinoxes and solstices were conducted down in the Yucatán, along with those celebrating high-magic events like an eclipse, the lesser ceremonies like Saturn at Opposition were held in-house at Skywatch. Personally, Nate thought they should’ve gone south anyway, given that he and Alexis were supposed to enact the three-question spell. Strike was banking on her Godkeeper powers to fuel the spell, but Nate couldn’t see how it would’ve hurt for them to stack the deck even further by invoking the spell at the intersection. Not that anyone had asked his opinion, least of all Alexis, whom he’d seen less and less frequently as her duties increased.

  He hadn’t even realized how much time they’d spent together—or actively avoiding each other—until it wasn’t happening anymore. He missed the contact, missed the arguments. And yeah, he knew it made him a prick, but it wasn’t until she wasn’t around all the time that he realized how much he’d enjoyed having her around. Which made zero sense, given that he’d spent the past six months trying to drive her away, but there it was. He would’ve liked to talk to her about the things he was learning from Carlos about his bloodline, about his family. He wanted to hash over the inconsistencies he was seeing in some of the prophecies, and get Alexis’s take on the Iago situation. But instead he held himself away, figuring he’d muddied those waters for far too long, and she deserved some space.