The Nightkeepers could save the world. She was saving herself.
* * *
Somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico
Rabbit was just short of making it out of the tunnel when a dozen camazotz suddenly dogpiled him, jamming the tunnel and coming at him like a fucking swarm.
Cornered, he fought hard, swiping at his enemies with the broken-off whip handle, which had cracked on an angle that gave him a weak-assed excuse for a blade. But it was something. By the gods, it was something.
“Go to hell!” The snarl tore at his throat and drew stabs from his tortured ribs, but the grab-yank-dick-hack move that accompanied it melted another ’zotz to a stinking pile. It was his fourth kill with only eight, maybe ten left to go, but that didn’t matter fuck-all when another rat-eyed bastard took its place almost immediately.
He was wedged in a narrow spot of the tunnel, where the ’zotz were forced to come at him one by one, like something out of a freaking Spartans-versus-everyone-else movie. Beyond the next curve, sunlight shone in, gleaming white off the limestone. When was the last time he saw the sun?
“Come on, motherfuckers. Bring it!” He stepped out of his niche and the two nearest creatures screamed and closed on him. He stabbed one in the eye, got a splatter of ichor in his mouth, spat it out and turned on the second just as it wound up to bitch slap him with razor-sharp claws. He cursed and ducked, but he was too damn slow. Fiery pain slashed across his cheek and throat, but he straightened, jammed his makeshift knife straight into the thing’s screeching mouth, and shoved until stone grated on bone.
As the ’zotz headed for the floor, he spun back to the other one and did a Lorena Bobbitt, in some dim corner of his brain wondering whether he should be worried that it wasn’t even freaking him out anymore to grab on to a demon’s dick, hack it off, and have it puff to dust in his hand. Don’t think. Just do it. Ah, a Nike commercial by way of ancient demondim, he thought, and knew he was brain-babbling. He was losing it—losing steam, losing coherence, losing everything except the driving force that told him he didn’t have time to lose anything. So he turned to the sixth ’zotz he’d taken down—seven if he counted the one back in the tunnel—and did his thing. Grab, yank, hack, gone.
Eight . . . eleven . . . he was kneeling on number thirteen when it vaporized, dropping him to his knees on the stone with a vicious crack that made him see stars. Bleeding heavily, he dragged himself to his feet and came around to face . . . nothing.
The tunnel was empty.
Sunlight beckoned up ahead.
New energy burst through him, and he hurled himself around the corner. But then he skidded to a stop and yanked up a hand to shade his eyes.
The arching cave mouth opened to a brilliant white sand beach that gleamed so bright that it hurt. A breeze stirred nearby palm trees, and beyond that, turquoise water stretched like glass to a distant blue-sky horizon. It was beautiful. Incomprehensible. More, it was a fucking “wish you were here” postcard come to life, a few hundred feet from where he’d been tortured. There were even folding chairs, a cooler, and a couple of towels laid out on the beach, as if a swimsuit model had just stepped out of the picture.
Spurred on by the thought of Phee hanging out there in between his torture sessions, catching a tan while he bled, he tightened his grip on his blade, and headed outside. “Okay, you bitch. How did you—Fuck.”
The stone monoliths were all too familiar, though on a different scale than the carved eccentrics he’d once carried in his pocket. The wickedly curved half-moons—one black, the other a deep, red-streaked amber—were three times his height, with their bases set together, deep in the sand. Their inner faces matched perfectly and could magically interlock to create a transport spell. They were separated right now, so the stone slabs formed a huge, jagged V, but they would have been joined all too recently. That was how Phee traveled the earth, damn her, just as she had used the smaller stones to send her image into Skywatch to contact him. To corrupt him.
And right now, there was no fucking way he could use the stones without his own link to the dark magic.
But he had to follow her. Had to find a way.
Tightening his grip on his makeshift weapon, he advanced on the stones as a cloud covered the sun, throwing him back into the shadows. The temp dropped and the palm fronds rattled in a sudden downdraft, sounding like giant wings and making the back of his neck crawl, just like—
“Shit!” Rabbit flung himself to the ground and rolled.
A huge camazotz hit right where he’d been, with its wings and claws outstretched and its tail scything the air. The creature wore a stone yoke tied around its hips, which didn’t just make the demon damn tough to banish; it signified that it was a ’zotz leader. Bigger and meaner than the soldiers, they were tough as shit to kill . . . and they rarely traveled alone.
Sure enough, as Rabbit ducked a tail-swipe and missed a grab for the barbed end, the sky went dark, clouding over with more huge camazotz, dozens of the fuckers, all zeroing in on their leader.
Grim reality broke over him. He was screwed, finished. He couldn’t get to the stones, couldn’t get back to the cave, couldn’t do a godsdamned thing except bare his teeth at the hoard, brandish his puny-assed knife and shout, “Come on, motherfuckers. You want a piece of me? Come and fucking take it!”
“Rabbit, get down!”
The sound of Dez’s voice froze his brain, but his body obeyed the king’s order, pancaking him face-first in the sand. Then the ice cracked and his mind raced. That hadn’t just happened, couldn’t have happened, he hadn’t heard—
A salvo of fireballs blasted right over him, crackling red-gold and burning like fury and proving that the impossible was real. The Nightkeepers had found him, they had come for him.
The fireballs hit the ’zotz line and detonated. Flames roared, and the demons shrieked as Rabbit lifted his head and squinted through watering, disbelieving eyes at the carnage. And carnage it was—a dozen of the enemy were down and smoking, including the leader. But the sky was still dark, the air still full of the leather-boom of wings and the screams of incoming demons.
He wasn’t alone anymore, though.
Lurching to his feet, he started to turn toward the others, choking out, “How in the hell did—”
“Save your questions,” said a deep, grating voice behind him, nearly drowned out by sudden bursts of gunfire, which went ripping into the oncoming camazotz. Rough hands spun him back around, shoved a heavy machine gun in his hands, and jammed a sheathed knife in his ragged waistband. “Fight!”
Then a hard spine slammed into Rabbit’s and he was back-to-back with something he never thought he’d have again: a teammate.
Holy shit. Holy, holy shit. The Nightkeepers were all around him—huge, strong, beautiful and so damn glossy it almost hurt to look at them. There were dozens of winikin, too—smaller, lighter and more agile than the magi, they fired machine guns filled with jade-tipped ammo from behind shield spells as if, while he’d been gone, they had somehow turned into an actual magic-wielding army. At their core, Sven and Cara fought shoulder to shoulder—a Nightkeeper and a winikin teaming up, aided not just by Sven’s huge coyote familiar, but also by a smaller, darker coyote that stayed close to Cara’s heels.
Rabbit’s head spun. Jesus fucking Christ. How long had he been gone?
A second round of fireballs detonated, biting into the enemy line and filling the air with fury and pain, but he barely flinched. He was too busy staring.
He saw Anna and Strike, huge and regal, and the closest thing he’d had to siblings; Patience and Brandt, who had taught him what a real family could feel like; Lucius, the human researcher who was more of an outsider than Rabbit had ever been, yet had somehow become one of them. And so many more . . . all familiar, yet suddenly seeming like strangers.
But there was no sign of the one person he was looking for, the one person he needed to see. Where the hell was Myrinne?
A bony elbow jabbed his ribs. “Fig
ht, damn you!”
He didn’t know who he was backed up against—JT, maybe, given the attitude and sneer-laden voice—but the order cut through the shock and triggered what was left of his warrior’s instincts. Sudden adrenaline seared through Rabbit, pushing the other stuff aside. He raised the machine gun—how the hell had they known he would need it?—and sighted on an ugly brute that was swooping through the dissipating fireballs and beelining straight for him. Leaning into the solid weight behind him, he shouted through split lips and hit the trigger.
The jade-tipped bullets ripped into the approaching demon and then detonated, sending fragments of the Nightkeepers’ sacred stone deep into its flesh. The thing screamed, spasmed and crashed into another, sending them both slamming to the ground. More gunfire spat from behind Rabbit as he lurched forward, yanking the knife from his belt. It was a plain military-issue blade, not the ceremonial stone knife he’d left behind at Skywatch, but it would do the job.
He went down on his knees, feeling the impact thud all the way to his jaw as he yanked at the ’zotz’s dick, hacked it off and grated, “Go to hell.”
The thing puffed to oily smoke and a funk at the back of his throat. After that, his vision narrowed and he went into overdrive, bringing down demon after demon and dispatching them with a hack and a curse, over and over again. And then . . .
Silence. Suddenly there weren’t any more demons to fight, only gritty ash mixing with the churned-up white sand and the gentle lap of waves. But his blood still raced with battle madness.
Furious and unsteady, caught between his prisoner self and the warrior he’d been, Rabbit whirled on Dez. “Where is she? Where’s Myr?”
That rasping voice snapped from behind him, “How about you start with a fucking ‘thank you for saving my ass’?”
Without the muffling gunfire, the tone was suddenly all too familiar, yet impossible.
Rabbit’s blood chilled as he spun around, then froze solid when he saw who he’d been fighting with.
His godsdamned father.
Red-Boar.
It was another fucking ghost. Only it wasn’t, because sure as shit it was his old man standing there in flesh and blood, looking exactly like he had right before he died—dark-eyed, sharp-faced and condemning, with a thin line of a mouth and a salt-and-peppered skull trim. He was wearing his usual drab brown, though in combat camo rather than the ceremonial robe he’d favored, saying that brown was the color of penitence. Not that Rabbit had ever heard him apologize for shit. If anything, it was the people around him who were constantly sorry.
Red-Boar’s death had been a shock, but in reality it hadn’t left much of a hole—at least Rabbit hadn’t thought so. Now, though, an old, ugly fury kindled in his gut. “You’re dead.”
“I was. And I would’ve stayed that way if it hadn’t been for you.” Red-Boar spat on the ground, in a gesture that either meant respect for the gods or disgust for his son. Probably both. “The gods sent me back to find your ungrateful ass.”
Suddenly, the flash of magic Rabbit had felt when he killed the first ’zotz made far more sense. That didn’t stop the thudding pulse of what-the-fuck in his veins, though, didn’t make it any easier to say: “You used a blood-link.” Which was ironic, given that his old man hadn’t ever wanted to admit they were related.
Red-Boar nodded curtly. “I don’t know how the gods knew you were going to get your shit in trouble like this—history repeating, I guess—but rather than send me to the afterlife, they warehoused me in the fucking in-between for a while, and then gave me my marching orders and sent me back here. The reanimation spell will keep me going until after the war, and then poof.” He pointed to the sky. “Up I go.”
“They sent you back to find me.” It didn’t make any sense. He and the gods had forsaken each other long ago.
“Yeah. That was my first job—that, and letting the others know what happened to you, so maybe they could find a way to trust you again.” Red-Boar’s eyes were like his voice, hard and harsh. “After that, I’m supposed to bind your ass to your bloodline and fucking babysit you until the war, making sure that you’ve got your priorities straight this time, and knock off this shit about the demons being the good guys.” He made a disgusted noise. “For fuck’s sake. I—” He clamped his lips together rather than saying, “I taught you better.” Which would’ve been a joke, because they both knew he hadn’t taught his son a damn thing about the magic, or about being a man.
Before, Rabbit would’ve gotten in his old man’s face, not caring where they were or what else was going on as long as he got to defend himself and take a few hacks. Now, though, he shoved his anger deep down inside, and turned his back on Red-Boar.
He had more important things to worry about.
The others were ranged shoulder to shoulder in a defensive formation, like he was as much an enemy as the camazotz. Even Strike—who had practically raised him, for fuck’s sake—was looking at him cold and hard, as if he’d finally given up. That hurt like hell, but Rabbit couldn’t deal with that now, either.
Instead, he did something he’d never done before, never thought he would do. He knelt in front of the king and bowed his head. He heard a murmur of surprise, hoped it would be enough.
“Look,” he said, “I’m a piece of shit, and I fucking know it. I was wrong about the underworld, about all of it, and I’m sorrier than I can say. You probably don’t believe me—shit, I wouldn’t if I were you. But you’ve got to believe me on this one: Myrinne’s in danger.” He looked up, praying that Dez saw that he meant every word when he said, “I’ll take whatever vows you want me to, the second I’m sure she’s safe and Phee is dead. Once that’s done, I’ll be your fucking slave.”
The king scowled down at him, every inch the hard-assed serpent mage. “Myrinne is fine. She stayed back at Skywatch.”
But there was a stir in the crowd and JT stepped forward with a satellite phone in his hand. “No, she didn’t. She left the compound right after we ’ported out. Took the oldest Jeep and bolted.”
Dez’s breath exploded. “What rocket scientist let her through the gate without double-checking?”
“She let herself out.” JT’s eyes narrowed. “And nobody said she was supposed to stay put.”
Rabbit surged to his feet. “Screw the blame. We need to find her!” Then, wincing, he tacked on, “Sire.”
Dez shot him a black look, but said to Strike and Anna, “Can either of you get a fix?”
Anna shook her head. “She’s off our radar, remember, unless—”
“I’ve got her,” Strike said, eyes going grim. “Which means she’s in trouble.”
Rabbit didn’t know why that followed, but there wasn’t time for an explanation. His fingers tightened on his machine gun, and he grated, “Take me there.”
“We’ll all go,” Dez said. “But first we need to destroy this place.” He gestured to the warriors, and within seconds, the air hummed with Nightkeeper power. When the vibration peaked, Dez gave a curt “Now!” and fireballs flew.
The fiery bolts slammed into the stones with a rending boom and sent them toppling into each other, sheared off at their bases. The noise was deafening, underscored by the sharp pings of shrapnel deflecting off a shield spell that sparked with Dez’s signature lightning sizzle.
“Again!” the king commanded, and the Nightkeepers sent a salvo into the tunnel. The ground beneath them rolled and shook, and a gout of limestone ash erupted. “Last one!” Dez called, and they hammered the tunnel mouth with a final round of detonations that blazed and blasted, collapsing the dark-magic portal in on itself and sealing off the threat.
Rabbit had to lock his legs to keep from stumbling—not just because the ground was moving, but because of the flat-out fucking power the Nightkeepers had just unleashed. Before, he had been the strongest of the magi, the only one with multiple talents and the wild magic of a half blood. Now, he had almost nothing, yet it seemed that the old legends had been right about the Nightkeeper
s’ powers increasing exponentially as the end date approached.
“Link up!” Strike called, and the teammates scrambled to form an intricate network of clasped palms and other handholds that would connect them to the teleporters’ magic.
Shaken, Rabbit moved into the uplink. He found himself flanked by Dez and Michael, two men he would’ve called friends before, but who now acted as an implied threat: Don’t try anything, or we’ll fry you.
Michael wielded death magic. If anyone could kill the crossover, it was him.
The crossover. Shit. The label had gotten slapped on Rabbit thanks to his dubious bloodlines and an enemy prophecy, but nobody had a clue what the name meant. Unless . . .
He looked over at Red-Boar, and found himself caught in the steel of his old man’s stare. Something twisted inside his chest, a logic-fuse that said no way, impossible, he can’t be alive. But he was there, flesh and blood, and maybe he would have some answers.
Then Strike and Anna triggered the ’port magic, and Rabbit was surrounded by the familiar-strange sensation of moving while staying still. And alongside the urgent need to get to Myrinne, it hit him like a ton of fucking bricks that he was leaving the island. He wasn’t going to die there, wasn’t going to be sacrificed to the Banol Kax—at least not yet. Instead, he was going to get another chance. More, he was going to get an opportunity for revenge . . . and maybe, if he was really fucking lucky, some sort of atonement.
CHAPTER THREE
Chaco Canyon, New Mexico
When the Nightkeepers materialized in the badlands northwest of Skywatch, rapid-fire impressions slapped at Rabbit like physical blows: He felt the cooler, drier air of New Mexico, saw the yellowed-out sun, the wind-tortured rocks, and the jagged outline of a stone-block Chacoan ruin. Its upper levels had fallen in, but the ground floor was relatively intact, with rows of tall, dark windows the width of arrow-slits and a single narrow door. An older Jeep leaned at a drunken angle in the sand some thirty feet from the road, near the turnoff to the ruin.
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