Blood Spells n-5

by Jessica Andersen

  “I’m not talking about the chamber. I’m talking about the shrine in your suite. The one with the torches, the chac-mool, and the obsidian mirror on the back wall.”

  A mirror that, as she’d stood there, heart pounding with the fear of being discovered, had created the illusion of her being in a torchlit hall of mirrors instead of a tiny closet hidden within the royal suite.

  Jox and Leah looked startled. The rest of the magi and winikin looked confused with the exception of Strike, whose expression darkened. “That’s a private room. Why would you—” He broke off, looking disgusted and rapidly heading for pissed-off territory. “My laptop. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

  Patience glanced over at the muted TV, which was back to cycling through the destructo-montage of images from the big quake. Ten thousand dead, she reminded herself. Brandt can stop it from happening if he becomes the Triad mage. And to do that, they needed access to the king’s hall of mirrors.

  Taking a deep breath, she said, “Earlier this year, I snuck into your suite and searched it, looking for information on where Woody and Hannah were hiding with the twins. I figured you’d have it on a nonnetworked computer, so I kept looking until I found it.”

  “In the shrine.” The words came from Jox, who was glaring at Strike. “Thanks for the fucking vote of confidence.”

  Although the royal suite was off-limits to the others without invitation, the royal winikin had free access to Strike and Leah’s living space. He wouldn’t have gone into the mages-only shrine, though . .

  . which was why Strike had hidden the laptop there, removing the temptation. At least, that was what Patience had guessed when she had found the machine, and now it seemed that Jox had made the same leap.

  Strike’s lips thinned. “I thought it would be easier that way. You took it so hard when Hannah left.”

  The winikin drew himself up to his full height, which suddenly seemed much more than his actual five-nine or so. “Right. So you figured that I might jeopardize, not just her safety, but also that of Woody, who I respect the hell out of, along with Harry and Braden, who are the last Nightkeeper twins on the earth plane—by tracking her down and . . . what? Popping out for a visit?” Jox’s face had gone a dull, furious red. “And this was based on what? The way I turned my back on her during the massacre, and got you and Anna to safety, even though Hannah was screaming my name? Or how I didn’t go looking for her over the next two decades so I could focus on raising you kids and keeping Red-Boar as sane as possible?

  “Or maybe it was because of the way I kept my distance from her once we were all back here, or how I lectured her, like a pious little twerp, on how us winikin—especially me—needed to put duty and responsibility ahead of personal feelings? Was that it?” The winikin was shaking, but his voice was razor sharp, his eyes cold. “Well, fuck you. I deserve better than that after everything I’ve done for your kingship and this fucking place.” He waved a hand around Skywatch, and maybe even the earth plane itself.

  “Wait. Jox.” Strike held up a hand. “Please.”

  “Screw that.” Jox looked around, expression edging toward wild, as if he’d just realized that he’d gone off on his king in front of his subjects, and contrary to everything the winikin stood for, he wasn’t sure if he gave a shit. “And screw this.” Wheeling, he stalked off.

  “Jox!” Strike called, his voice caught somewhere between a royal command and a plea. The winikin didn’t look back as he headed down the hallway that led to the huge garage.

  In the stunned silence that followed his exit, Patience realized she’d stopped breathing. She was afraid to keep looking at Strike, but couldn’t look away from the grief and guilt written on his face, knowing she had helped put it there.

  Oh, shit. Now what?

  Leah started after Jox. “I’ll go talk to him.”

  “No,” Rabbit said. “Let me.” At her startled look, he lifted a shoulder. “I owe him. He put up with my old man for all those years so he could make sure things didn’t get too bad for me. He did that even after—” He broke off. “I just owe him. Okay?”

  Leah held up her hands in surrender. “Okay. You go. But tell him . . . tell him we were trying to make things better, not worse.”

  Rabbit’s lips twitched, but with zero humor. “Yeah. Been there.” He sketched a wave at Myrinne and disappeared in the winikin’s wake.

  When he was gone, Strike fixed a glare on Patience. “I thought the cards said you were supposed to reveal yourself to your leader, not fuck him over.”

  She opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out. What could she say? “I’m sorry” was far too weak, but it was all she could come up with.

  “Maybe what the cards mean is that we need to reveal the shadows to each other.” To her surprise, the suggestion came from Brandt. To her further surprise, he stood and moved to her side, so they faced Strike together. “Whatever made the gods turn away from me, it can’t be good. That’s my shadow. Patience betrayed you, and in doing so, she violated the writs. That’s her shadow, and it’s partly mine too, because I alibied her.”

  Strike’s expression sharpened over the ragged dismay. “That day in the hallway. You said you were looking for us, but Patience was coming the other way, from the suite. You were covering for her.”

  Brandt nodded. “I haven’t always been there for her, but that time I managed it.”

  “Strange time to come through,” Strike said flatly, “given that she’d just committed treason.”

  Treason. The word slapped at Patience, carrying, as it did, a death sentence under the old laws.

  But Brandt snorted. “You’ve played fast and loose with the rules from day one, and we’re living with the consequences. Don’t even try to pretend that Patience going through your sock drawer is on the same plane as you breaking the thirteenth prophecy.”

  And there it was. She sucked in a breath at Brandt’s having the balls to throw down something that had previously gone unsaid, lurking among them as an undercurrent.

  In taking Leah as his mate, Strike had broken the final prophecy leading to the end-time countdown.

  And ever since then, the Nightkeepers’ luck had flat-out sucked. They had lost the skyroad and the three-question nahwal, and for every step they fought forward, it seemed that they lost the same amount somewhere else.

  In a world ruled by destiny and the cycle of fate, the magi would’ve had to have been idiots not to think their bad luck was connected to Strike’s defying the last of the First Father’s prophecies. They weren’t idiots . . . but none of them had openly voiced the theory. Until now.

  Strike bared his teeth. “Do you really want to go there?”

  Brandt shook his head. “No. I want to use your fucking shrine so I can get my memory back and figure out how to fix whatever’s broken between me and the gods. We’ve got less than two days until the solstice, so we’re going to have to table some of the other stuff until after that.”

  Patience had a feeling that was at least partly aimed at her, but she couldn’t argue the point.

  Especially not when Brandt had stood up for her and redirected the brunt of Strike’s wrath onto himself.

  And the king was furious. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him this angry before, not even after Rabbit accidentally torched a good chunk of the French Quarter. He was so furious that when Leah touched his arm, he actually snarled down at her, his eyes firing. “Not now, damn it.”

  She glared back. “Yes, now, damn it. I know you’re pissed. You’re also worried about Jox, and feeling guilty about playing that one wrong. But like it or not, Brandt is right. We’re running out of time.” She nodded to Patience. “The shrine is yours. Do whatever you need to do.”

  “Damn it, Leah!” Strike surged against her gentle hold, then subsided. “That room belongs to the jaguars,” he grated. “It’s ours.”

  “It still will be when they’re done with it,” Leah said, but she didn’t sound like she totally believed what
she was saying.

  Patience swallowed a surge of misgivings. “The cards led me to the etznab spell,” she said softly.

  “Let them give us the Triad mage we need.” Her heart cracked and bled a little, though, at the knowledge that this would be it—the last of the visions, and potentially the last thing Brandt would need from her in order to fulfill his destiny.

  And after that? She didn’t know, damn it.

  Strike nodded shortly, a muscle pulsing at the edge of his jawline beard. “Fine. Use the room. And you’d better hope this works.”

  “Trust me, I do.” Because if it didn’t, they were screwed.

  Without another word, she headed for the archway that led to the royal suite. Brandt stayed a half step behind her, as though covering her retreat. As they passed through the archway into the royal hall, with its plaster-and-beam mission-style decor, heavily carved sideboard, and ornate wooden doors, she tried not to think of how she’d crept along that hallway six months earlier. Stealing information from her king had been the lowest point for her; after that, she had fought her way out of depression. But that didn’t change the fact that she had betrayed two people she respected, teammates she needed to trust and have trust her in return.

  Yeah. Like that was happening after this.

  “Hold up,” Strike said from behind them.

  Patience’s heart thudded sickly against her ribs as she stopped and turned. It helped that Brandt was right there, and that he was on her side in this matter, at least. But for all that Strike was a good guy, he was their king. And he had a temper.

  He stood alone, framed in the archway with his arms crossed and a serious, intense look on his face.

  She lifted her chin. “Yes?”

  “I did what I thought was best. I still think it was—and is—best to have your sons away from all this, so they’re safe and you two can focus on your own magic.” He paused. “But at the same time . . .

  I’m sorry I broke up your family.” His tone suggested that he wasn’t just talking about the boys and the winikin . He was talking about her and Brandt too.

  Her throat closed, locking on a choked-back sob. Having the king talk about their family like it was over and done with made the possibility far too real.

  Worse, Brandt didn’t say anything. He just stood there beside her, there for her, but not there for her, just as he had been for so long.

  Swallowing hard, she said, “I’m sorry I broke into your suite. If it helps any, that was what made me turn things around, realizing that I had become a sneak, a liar, and a thief. I’ve been working on it since then. And you were right. . . . The boys are safer where they are. I’m sorry it took me so long to believe that.”

  He didn’t say anything else. He just nodded and turned away.

  Taking a deep breath, telling herself to stay focused, she turned back and reached for the doorknob of the normal-sized door inset into the larger, carved panels that opened into the royal suite. She glanced at Brandt. “You ready?”

  He met her eyes. “Does it matter?”

  “No,” she said softly. “I guess it doesn’t.” Ready or not, they needed to connect him to the Triad magic.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Brandt followed Patience inside the royal shrine, which was the size of a large closet, and had gas-

  powered incense-burning torches at the corners and a large chac-mool altar taking up the wall opposite the door. Above the altar hung a highly polished obsidian disk that reflected their images from the minute they entered the room and shut the door. A woven footprint mat took up the small floor space, and a laptop was tucked in the corner.

  She followed his eyes to the computer, and grimaced. “Yeah. Looks like the same one.” She waited for a three count, as if to say “I’ll tell you if you ask.” He didn’t, though, and on the count of four she exhaled and nodded. Palming her knife, she faced the altar. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

  He stared at the laptop a moment longer, wanting to know whether she had found out anything about where Woody and the boys were hiding, yet unable to ask, just as he couldn’t reach out to her the way he wanted to, or be the man he’d been before, the one he’d rediscovered in El Rey.

  He knew he was hurting her. And he couldn’t fucking stop doing it.

  Sometimes being an eagle warrior sucks, Woody had said to him a few months after they all moved to Skywatch, when he’d stopped being able to pretend things between him and Patience were okay.

  The winikin had gone on to say, But for the next few years, we need warriors more than we need good husbands.

  And right now, they needed a Triad mage.

  He took his place beside Patience and nodded. “Ready.”

  The torches filled the small space with the scent of ritual incense, and the flickering light outlined their reflected images in a haze of orange yellow that made them look like negatives projected onto the sacred black stone.

  She glanced at him, and he had the sense that she was waiting for him to say something, only he didn’t know what.

  Then the moment passed and she said, almost to herself, “I think we’re supposed to try the etznab spell here partly because it’s a power sink, and partly because it’s a place I associate with the twins.

  And it’s tied to me too, I guess, because breaking in here was me hitting rock bottom. After that, I knew I had to change what I was doing, who I was becoming.”

  Brandt’s throat was tight. “I’m sorry I didn’t help you more. I should have . . . I don’t know. Done something.” Even now, with guilt gut-punching him, he couldn’t reach out to her the way she needed him to. What the hell was wrong with him?

  Dull agony pounded behind his eyes. Fucking headache.

  “I had to figure things out on my own, I think.” She paused. “Before, someone else was always around to tell me who I was. Hannah taught me that I was a Nightkeeper, and the color of my belt told me how far I had gotten as a fighter. In school, depending on who you asked, I was a straight-A student, a princess, a tease, or all of those things. Then I met you, and I became a girlfriend, a fiancée, a wife, a mother . . . but at the same time, I was still a Nightkeeper, which made me unique, at least as far as I knew. Special.

  “Then, when we came here, I got a whole new set of labels. I wasn’t the only Nightkeeper anymore, but I was part of the only mated mage pair, and the mother of full-blood twins. My talent manifested before most of the others’, and it was my job to teach everyone hand-to-hand combat skills. . . .” She trailed off. “But then Hannah left with Harry and Braden, and you and I drifted apart. Over time, my talent didn’t prove all that useful, and the fight training petered out. Suddenly I wasn’t special anymore. I was just me.”

  He couldn’t argue the chronology, but she was mistaken about one thing. “If you don’t think you’re special, you’re dead wrong. Trust me. . . . You’re special. You’re—” But he couldn’t do any better than that. All the love words he’d once used freely with her stayed jammed in his throat.

  She didn’t seem to notice that he’d locked up. Or more likely, she was way too used to it. “I’m starting to figure it all out,” she said. “The good news is that I don’t need your sympathy or your help.

  I’m doing okay on my own.” She shook her head. “And I didn’t mean to get into any of this right now.

  Sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” He met her eyes in the mirror, and wished with all his heart that he could snap his fingers and make everything better between them. “I’m the one who’s sorry. For all of it.”

  She nodded, but didn’t say anything more. Instead, she pulled her knife and bloodied her palm, then held out her hand for the uplink. Being sorry isn’t enough, the action said. Not if you can’t be what I need.

  And it wasn’t like he could argue with that either. So he drew his knife, slashed his palm, and took her hand.

  “Focus on the accident,” she said. “But keep your eyes open. Keep looking into the mirror.”

  We
rigo’s magic made the memory slippery and hard to pin down, but he made himself remember the sinking Beemer, the blaring horn, and the sound of his own voice screaming for help. His skin crawled with a sudden chill and the imagined press of frigid water. Swallowing hard, he nodded.

  “Let’s do this.”

  They chanted the spell together, as they had in the mirrored hotel room. But this time as the world spun around him and his consciousness lurched sideways, he was acutely aware that she wasn’t with him, not even as a tingle feeding through the jun tan bond.

  He was entirely on his own, which wasn’t nearly the relief his warrior self thought it should be.

  Then even that sadness disappeared.

  The world went black and cold.

  And he was dying.

  He crowded up near the roof of the sinking car, tilting his head into the remaining air, which was leaking away by the second. He watched the bubbles rise up, silver in the darkness, and longed to follow them. On his next breath, he sucked water along with the air, and had to fight the gag reflex that threatened to double him over.

  Don’t panic. Think! But all he could think about was Woody’s stories about the Nightkeepers, and the end-time war, and how important it was for him to work hard, train hard, and have faith. As the final string of silvery bubbles escaped, his mind locked on the last of Woody’s expectations. Faith, he thought. When all else failed, that was what it came down to, didn’t it?

  Tasting his own blood in the water he’d inhaled along with the last half breath of air, he searched for a prayer in the old language. When nothing seemed right, and the grayness started to telescope inward from the edges of his consciousness, he went with his heart, and used the last of his oxygen to say: “Gods. If you can hear this, please help me.”

  He spat blood into the water, though that seemed redundant given how much he’d already lost from his leg. Then he thought, deep down inside, I’ll do anything. I’ll give anything. I swear it on my soul.

  Just get me out of here.

  A soundless detonation ripped through him in a shock wave and the world exploded around him, lighting the blackness with a rainbow flash that coalesced to fiery white light.