Demonkeepers n-4

by Jessica Andersen

  pouring than landscaping, and suffered from a definite lack of green. But regardless, it was a place to park ass while he dug out his cell phone. Then, not letting himself think it through any further, because thinking hadn’t gotten him real far yet in this particular case, he punched in the number for Patience’s private cell.

  When it started ringing, he had a fleeting thought that she might’ve changed the number by now, or ditched the phone entirely. He was so expecting to hear a recorded voice tell him the line was no longer in service that when she answered with a breathless, anticipatory whisper of, “Yes, yes, I’m here,” he went mute for a second.

  It was a second too long.

  “Hello?” she said, her tone going from hushed excitement to dread in an instant. “Hannah?

  Woody?” Her words tumbled over one another, the way they did when her brain started bounding ahead, cascading from one thought to the next. “Oh, gods. There’s something wrong. What is it?

  What’s wrong? Where are you? What—”

  “Stop! ” Rabbit interrupted. “Just stop.” Shit. She’d kept the phone as a secret line of communication to the winikin guarding her sons, and must’ve forgotten he had the number. Now she was heading toward full-on panic mode.

  Before he could get into an explanation, she snapped in a horror- laced voice, “Who are you? How did you get this number? If you’ve done anything to my babies, I’ll—”

  “Patience!” He did the interrupting thing again, this time rushing on to say, “It’s Rabbit. It’s Rabbit.

  Do you hear me? It’s not Hannah or Wood, or one of the rats.” He’d called the twins his rug rats, back when they’d been his miniature tagalongs. When she didn’t say anything, just gave a strangled sob, he moderated his tone. “It’s me. I’m sorry I scared you. I just . . . I need someone to talk to.” Now it was his turn to babble a little when there was silence on the other end of the line. “I wanted to . . . Shit. I wanted to talk to you about Myrinne and me, about how she says stuff that makes sense at first, but . . .

  I don’t know. It doesn’t always mesh with what Jox and those guys taught me. And how am I supposed to know who to trust, who to believe?” When she still hadn’t said anything, to interrupt or otherwise, he started thinking she’d already hung up. “Shit,” he said again, in case she was still on the other end of the line. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called you like this. And I’m sorry about back then, at the museum. I was a total dickwad, and you got hurt because of it, and then I screwed up by taking off.

  Now I’ve made it worse. But I’ll hang up now, and I’ll lose this number. You don’t have to worry about me calling again.”

  He wasn’t really breathing as he lowered the phone, trying not to think of how crappy he’d just made her feel, how terrified she must’ve been. All because he’d dialed before he thought it through.

  Another fuckup. Seriously, how could one guy screw things up as consistently as he did? It was a godsdamned talent—that was what it was.

  Halfway wondering what the forearm mark for “incurable fuckup” would look like, he moved to end the call and delete the number. Before he got there, though, he heard the thin thread of a tear- laced voice say, “Don’t hang up.”

  The phone shook slightly as he lifted it to his ear again. “I’m—” His throat closed on the words. He had to swallow hard before he could continue. “I’m still here.”

  “So am I.”

  The three simple words unlocked a hard, hot torrent of grief. It slapped through him, flailed at him, accused him of all his past sins and more. Then it faded, leaving him clutching the phone, hunching his body around it in full sight of numerous classmates who’d only recently decided he was supercool.

  He wasn’t feeling cool now, though. He was sweating greasily down his spine. “I’m sorry,” he said again, and this time he wasn’t just talking about scaring her with the call. “I’m so godsdamned sorry.”

  “Me too.”

  Only two words this time, but they spun through him like sunlight—real, warm yellow sunlight, not the orange shit currently beating down on him. The crushing pressure on his lungs eased, and he could breathe again. His heart could beat again, when he hadn’t been aware of it bumping off rhythm. “How

  . . . how are you?” He wasn’t sure he had the right to ask, but couldn’t not ask.

  “I’m . . .” She blew out a breath. “I’m doing my duty.”

  “Yeah. I’m starting to figure that one out myself.”

  “I’ve heard you’re doing a good job of it.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “I shit you not. The word on the street—or at least in the great room and out by the picnic tables—is that our boy has grown up, and he’s looking more like a mage and a man than a punk-ass juvie these days.”

  “Then why am I still here? Why hasn’t he—” Hearing the potential for a whine, Rabbit broke off.

  “Never mind.”

  But Patience answered, “Because he’s got a shit-ton on his plate, and he’s had to out-of-sight-out-

  of-mind a few people and problems that he just can’t deal with right now.” There was no need to clarify who he was. In a way, Strike held both of them hostage.

  “Which am I—a person or a problem?”

  “A person. Definitely a person. He loves you; don’t think any different. But you scare him too. He isn’t sure how powerful you really are, and what you’re going to be able to do when your magic matures fully.”

  I don’t blame him, Rabbit thought, but didn’t say. Hell, he scared himself some days, when he could feel the magic rising up inside him, banging against the filters and demanding to be let out. When that happened, his body temp spiked, his muscles and joints hurt like hell, and he felt somehow old.

  Sometimes it lasted a few minutes, sometimes a few hours. Once, it’d been two days before he’d felt like himself again; he’d stayed in bed, claimed to have the flu, and kind of liked how Myr had fussed over him, saying his aura was all jacked up. When he’d gotten back on his feet, he hadn’t much liked what he’d looked like in the mirror—all hollow eyed and drawn—but that’d gone away eventually.

  Since then, the magic had been quiet. Oddly, that hadn’t made him feel any better—which was part of why he was jonesing to get back to Skywatch, where he could get behind the wards, drop his mental shields, and see what was doing with his magic. Not that he’d told Strike any of that; he hadn’t told anyone.

  As though he’d responded—or maybe she was following her own inner dialogue?—Patience said thoughtfully, “No, you’re a person to him, as are the twins. The problem I was talking about is Snake Mendez. . . . He’s one of us, but he’s not, you know? And Strike’s dealing with him by not dealing.”

  “I guess.” Mendez was a full-blood Nightkeeper, but the winikin who’d saved and raised him hadn’t been the most mentally stable of guardians, and Mendez had gone way off the reservation. More, he’d found the magic on his own, just like Strike and Patience had. Except that Mendez was a hard-ass, and it sounded like he hung way too close to the dark side of the Force. He’d gotten hauled in by some bounty hunter, tossed in the slammer, and had stayed there nearly two years so far: eighteen months on the original sentence, then six more for attacking another inmate. Rabbit was pretty sure that Strike —or, more likely, Jox—had made sure Mendez had stayed put. Out of sight, out of mind, indeed. “He must be thinking that jail’s one of the safest places to keep a guy like that, at least until we get into the library and figure out some of what’s coming next.”

  “Don’t count on the library. It looks like that’s not going to be the answer we’d hoped.” She gave him a quick rundown of Lucius’s latest attempt to breach the barrier, surprising Rabbit, who hadn’t realized Jade had left the university, or that there was any sort of experiment planned. And oh, holy shit on the sun god being trapped in Xibalba, with a rescue needed within T minus seven days and counting. Was that what Anna had been hiding? Maybe, maybe
not, he thought, trying to keep up as Patience bounced from one thought to the next, more talking at him than with him, chattering fast, as though she feared he’d cut her off if she slowed down. “But back to Mendez. I’ve been thinking—what if Strike’s wrong about him? What if we’re blindly accepting what the king’s telling us because, well, he’s the king?”

  Rabbit zeroed back in on the convo, as what Patience was saying suddenly started to parallel some of what Myrinne had been telling him for the past few weeks. “The jaguars have a rep for being stubborn,” he said carefully.

  “Yes!” she said, excited now. “And who’s to say there’s really only one way to accomplish a goal, right? I’m not saying he’s wrong, and I’m not talking treason. I’m just wondering if sometimes maybe we’re too quick to follow the writs. This is the third millennium. Maybe it’s time to . . . update, I guess.”

  Rabbit wasn’t so sure he was tracking her anymore, and the greasy sweat that had prickled his back only moments earlier had gone cold, sending a chill down his spine. “That’s kind of why I wanted to talk to you. Myrinne and I have been . . . I don’t know . . . discussing a few things . . . and I wanted a reality check from someone I trust, and who won’t—”

  “Shit,” Patience hissed as an aside. “Damn it!”

  He sat bolt upright. “What’s wrong?”

  “Brandt’s coming, and he doesn’t know I still have this phone. I’ve got to go, but I’ll call you back later, okay?”

  “But—”

  “Sorry, sorry. I know you called to talk about you, and I babbled about me. But don’t you see? You already know the answer; you’re just looking for someone else to say it first. So, okay, I will. If you love her, then you need to trust her, and you’ve got to put her above everyone else in your life.”

  “But the writs—”

  “Are more than three thousand years old. And Strike’s doing the best he possibly can, but he’s a man, not a god. With the skyroad closed, he’s feeling his way just like we are. Who’s to say he’s right about everything?”

  “I—”

  “Gotta go,” she said. “But do yourself a favor, and don’t let other people’s agendas screw up a good relationship.” Her voice descended to a whisper on the last word, and then the line went dead.

  Rabbit sat for a few minutes, while the world came back into focus around him. He was dimly surprised to see that he was still at the university, that nothing around him had changed. Students passed him, heading from point A to point B and vice versa with varying degrees of urgency, yet no clue that they were practically on borrowed time unless the Nightkeepers figured out how to get Kinich Ahau back where he belonged, without the promise of help from the library.

  Anger stirred again, though more sluggish this time. Why hadn’t Anna—and presumably Strike—

  wanted him to know about what was going on? Why were they distancing him from the fight just when he was starting to prove his commitment to the cause by keeping his nose clean?

  “Shit. I don’t know.” But he couldn’t get Patience’s parting words out of his head. Don’t let other people’s agendas screw up a good relationship . Was that what he was doing? Maybe. If he hadn’t yet, he was definitely in danger of it. Hell, he’d just gone behind Myr’s back with Patience, whom he knew she couldn’t stand.

  Damn it.

  “Hey,” a voice said from a few feet away. “Everything okay?”

  He looked up and for a second wasn’t sure if she was really there or if he’d imagined her. Surely he’d projected the perfect symmetry of her face, with those long lashes and big, dark brown eyes, narrow-bridged nose, and full, sassy mouth? Then she raised one dark eyebrow in question, and became a flesh-and-blood fantasy of long legs and toned arms and tanned skin bared beneath boy shorts and a tight tank, even though it wasn’t that warm out yet. He was suddenly warm, though, as a flush of mingled unease and lust rattled through him.

  “Myrinne.” Even after almost a year, he still loved saying her name, loved knowing he had that right. She’d been wearing his promise ring for the past five months. It wasn’t an engagement, and it wasn’t the jun tan, damn it, but it was important to him, a symbol that he loved her, and that she knew and accepted it.

  She raised her other eyebrow to join the first. “Was that a ‘yes, everything’s okay,’ or ‘no, everything’s unexpectedly gone to shit’?”

  He snorted. “I always expect things to go to shit. Nothing unexpected there.”

  “And now he’s evading the question,” she said, as though to the world at large, though she pitched her sexy contralto voice so it was just between the two of them, not the foot traffic. “Spill it, lover.”

  “There’s no problem,” he said, realizing it was true. “Nothing to spill.” He was the one seeing complications where they didn’t need to exist. Stretching out and hiding the wince when his sore muscles protested, he snagged her hand and pulled her to him.

  Laughing, she let herself overbalance and fall against him, so they wound up sprawled together, with her partway in his lap, partway on the cement lip where he’d been sitting. Shifting her with an easy strength that’d seemed to come more and more naturally as time passed, he arranged them more comfortably, so she was sitting in his lap, curled against his chest.

  At her prickliest last fall, she never would’ve allowed the public display. Since the winter solstice, though, when he’d nearly killed himself trying to lose the hellmark so they could form the jun tan bond, she’d been more openly affectionate. Now she curled against him and tucked her head beneath his chin so he could lean on her, and she on him. Her hair smelled of patchouli and vanilla, two scents she was particularly partial to. If he wanted to, he could probably remember what they symbolized in the pseudo-occult structure she’d been raised within. For the moment, though, he just let himself breathe her in, feeling his muscles uncoil one after another, until he was looser and warmer than before, though he hadn’t really been aware of being tight or cold.

  Maybe cuddling his girlfriend in the middle of campus shouldn’t have made him feel like da man, but he hadn’t gotten to practice that sort of thing in high school. He was making up for lost time.

  She snaked her arms around his waist and snuggled in closer, pressing her cheek to his chest with her face tipped up to his. Her eyes drifted shut, letting him know she was listening to his heartbeat, as she often did, as though she feared that one day it would simply stop. And it would, he supposed. But not for a very, very long time, after they’d both lived out their full lives together. He hoped.

  “I’ve made a decision,” he said, realizing that really, he’d made it a while ago. It was just taking some time for the rest of him to catch up.

  “Hm?” she said, her voice drowsy, as though she were on the verge of falling asleep, curled up against him in the cool orange sunlight that made the world’s palette strange and dim.

  “I’m going to try to find my mother.”

  Myrinne didn’t say anything when he dropped that, to him, bombshell. But a slow, sweet smile curved her lips, and her arms tightened around his waist. And as the warmth of her body, her existence, seeped into Rabbit’s aching self and made everything seem better, he knew he’d finally made a good decision. He just hoped to hell he could see it through.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Skywatch The morning after Shandi upended Jade’s childhood dreams of the parents she’d never known, Jade took the new information straight to the king, who called an all-hands-on-deck meeting to discuss the new info and what—if anything—it might mean in terms of accessing the library. Which meant that Jade was yet again going to be the focus of attention, when she would far rather have sat in the back and blended.

  Intellectually, she knew it shouldn’t matter that she was fifty percent star blood. She wore the mark of a harvester, had the talent of one, and there was no shame in either of those things. Similarly, it wasn’t critical that her parents hadn’t been the people she’d imagined them to be. That di
dn’t change who she was or what she could do. But as she headed for the great room, the churning in her stomach warned her that the prior night’s crying jag might have left her scratchy eyed and headachy, but it had been far from cathartic.

  She was still pissed that Shandi had let her believe a lie for so long, and borderline ashamed of what her mother had done. Who was to say that Vennie’s actions hadn’t played a part in what Lucius was dealing with now? Her death might have upset the balance or the mechanics of the Prophet’s spell somehow, or . . . Don’t, she told herself as she stepped through the arched doorway that opened from the mages’ wing to the great room. You’ll only make yourself crazy . So she pushed her emotions down deep and told herself not to dwell on the feelings. Just the facts, ma’am.

  She scanned the room in search of a seat—or at least that was what she told herself she was doing.

  But when her eyes immediately locked on Lucius and a flush heated her skin, the inner lie was obvious. She’d been looking for him, had needed to know he was there. Although things were far from settled between them, she knew he was on her side, in this at least.

  He looked well rested and less hollow- cheeked than the night before, and was wearing jeans, a navy rodeo-logo tee, and the heavy black boots he seemed to have started wearing in place of his former choice of rope sandals or skids. He was sitting down in the conversation pit with the magi; he’d saved her a seat beside him, like they used to do for each other, back before things got complicated between them. And although he’d been deep in conversation with Sasha, he turned to look at Jade as though he’d felt her eyes on him.

  When their gazes connected, the churning in her stomach went to flutters. Worse, she had to suppress an urge to tug at the too- large sweatshirt she was wearing over old, worn jeans and a loose tee. They were her comfort clothes, the ones she wore when she was tired, PMSing, or otherwise needed a proxied hug. It had been the only outfit she could stand to drag on that morning, but now she wished she’d dressed with more care . . . and then cursed herself for wishing. She wasn’t trying to impress him, damn it.