Spellfire n-8

by Jessica Andersen

  Rabbit summoned more magic, a killing blow of light and dark energy, and drew back his arm to—

  The kohan speared its fingers at him and shouted, “Freeze!”

  And he fucking froze. The spell surrounded him, locking him into place and boxing the magic in with him. The red-brown fireball spun and churned, caught in stasis.

  “Rabbit!” Myr’s cry was anguished.

  “Fire!” Dez ordered, and the Nightkeepers and their allies hammered the unshielded kohan with everything they had—fireballs, ice, lightning, and exploding jade-tipped rounds.

  The maize god swatted aside the attack and cast another shield around itself. Then, glaring at Rabbit, it sneered, “Stay.” Like he was a fucking house pet. “You will come with me to the sacred well, to take control of the xombis. Then the kohan will control both of the armies of the undead.” It turned toward the others. “As for the rest of you . . .”

  The leaves of its cloak rustled as if coming alive, and the silken strands atop its headdress lifted like cobras preparing to strike as the kohan forked its fingers and rattled off a spell. The magic flung toward the Nightkeepers’ gleaming shield. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the ground shook suddenly, and green tendrils erupted inside the shield.

  The Nightkeepers shouted and fought, defending themselves with magic, guns and knives as the vines whipped up and wrapped around the teammates—arms, legs, weapons, everything—and then thickened, sprouting leaves and then small, wispy ears of maize. But for every vine they destroyed, three more sprouted and attacked.

  At the edge of the group, green fire flared as Myrinne burned one off her left thigh, only to have another latch on to her right ankle and yank. She stumbled and nearly went down.

  “Godsdamn it!” Rabbit’s throat tore with the shout. “Myr!” He struggled against the grip of the kohan’s magic as rage grabbed him by the throat, cutting off his air. He couldn’t move, couldn’t fight, couldn’t do a damn thing right.

  He was a boy again, eleven years old and caught stealing booze from the gas station around the corner from his and Red-Boar’s apartment; fifteen and crashing his old man’s Jeep in a flooded river during a joyride gone bad. He was eighteen and watching Jox’s warehouse burn; nineteen and watching a seedy corner of the French Quarter burn; twenty-two and watching Oc Ajal burn, proving over and over again that his old man was right. He was a fuckup, a loose cannon, the Master of Disaster. Everything he’d been called over the years. Everything he’d called himself.

  “Not anymore,” he grated, fighting off all the anger and hatred that came from the boy he’d been, and pouring all the power of his better self—his more mature, more controlled self—into the seething fireball instead, trying to break through the kohan’s spell.

  Please gods, he whispered inwardly. A little help here.

  Then, suddenly, he wasn’t alone in his own skull anymore. There was a presence inside him, filling his head, and an almost familiar voice boomed, The things you are rejecting are all part of you, son of chaos. They are not flaws when they are balanced by the other half of you.

  “Jag?” It sounded like the voice from his visions, only not.

  You’re hot-tempered, impulsive and stubborn . . . but your temper makes you a fierce warrior, your impulsiveness gives you moments of brilliance, and your stubbornness means you refuse to give up. There was a pause. You punish yourself for your past sins, but do not credit your successes. You need to accept yourself—every part of you—if you mean to be the crossover.

  There was a jolt and the presence disappeared as quickly and thoroughly as it had come. It didn’t leave Rabbit empty, though. Instead, his senses vibrated in its wake, his mind spun.

  Yeah, it was a big foam finger moment. But did he dare trust it? More, did he dare trust himself?

  And he had to decide fast, because inside the Nightkeepers’ shield, the vines were winning.

  Wrapping his mind around the fireball that still spun and pulsed beside him, frozen by the kohan’s spell, Rabbit steeled himself and said, “Ten cha’ik ee’hochen!” Bring my darkness!

  The tsunami came again, but this time it swept him up and carried him along with it. Fury, frustration, impotence, guilt, regret, revenge—familiar from every stage of his life except for the past few weeks—flooded through him, and he accepted all of it, embraced it.

  Yes, he thought as the reckless intensity built, making him want to do something stupid, dangerous and fun. Yes. This was what he had been missing without realizing it.

  No longer contained by any vault or vain attempts to be what he thought he should be, the chaos flowed free, filling him with crazy thoughts, then soldering them into place. And once that happened, the impulses didn’t seem so insane anymore. They felt sharp and edgy, yet contained. Balanced. And he felt more like himself than he had since he first heard Phee’s voice in his mind. He was the wild half blood, the pyro, the Master of Disaster . . . but he was also the guy who had turned back the first xombi outbreak, and who had stayed with the villagers in the aftermath. He had tracked down his mother, faced down his grandfather and made sure his old man didn’t hurt the Nightkeepers. He wasn’t all good, but he wasn’t all bad, either.

  He was the crossover, damn it.

  Chest tightening with fear and hope as magic crackled along his skin, he said, “Pasaj och.”

  The barrier connection formed instantly, but the magic that raced into him wasn’t like anything he’d ever felt before. Power flared, huge and incomprehensible, and the fireball gleamed suddenly from within. The red and brown powers bled together, becoming one . . . and then they turned to pure gold.

  Suddenly, the kohan’s spell dissolved. He could move again!

  The maize god stood near the temple, still fully shielded. It hadn’t noticed that Rabbit was loose, but that could change at any second. He had only one chance.

  Hit him hard, he told himself. No fuss, no bullshit, just bust through that shield. But beneath his warrior’s determination, a wilder, crazier part of him had a better idea. He started to push it away, but then hesitated. And went with it.

  Be brilliant.

  With molten gold searing through his veins, Rabbit shouted and unleashed a bolt of terrible fury . . . straight into the Nightkeepers’ sacred temple. The two-thousand-year-old structure shuddered then exploded in a conflagration of stone shrapnel and golden magic. The kohan spun with a shocked roar, its shield disintegrating under the onslaught.

  “Eat this!” Rabbit didn’t even gather the power this time; he just pointed. But that was more than enough—the golden magic flew from his hand in a lethal bolt. It hit the maize god, wreathing it with golden flames.

  The kohan screeched, spun and fell.

  Rabbit poured more power into the fire, which roared like thunder. “Die!” he shouted, closing on the fire and watching the maize god’s headdress blaze. Fury boiled in his blood and spurred him on. This was the enemy as much as Phee, Anntah, or the kax. Worse, even. “Fucking go to hell.”

  Golden flames detonated, sounding like a dozen buses crashing together, and the god disappeared. The vines vaporized. Even the tear in the barrier blinked out of existence.

  In the aftermath, there was silence. Normalcy, even. Except for the temple’s destruction, it seemed as though nothing had changed.

  Rabbit, though, had been through the change of his life. He stood, shaken, staring at the ruined temple while his mind spun.

  He was the fucking crossover.

  Anntah was right. The magic had been inside him all along.

  His throat was scorched, his ribs hurt, and his eyes burned as if they were being eaten from the inside by acid. But for the first time in a really long fucking time, maybe ever, he felt whole. And not because Red-Boar was gone, either. He might’ve cleared up some of the questions surrounding Rabbit’s birth, but he’d still been an asshole. And besides, it hadn’t ever been about Rabbit missing a twin, a parent, or a part of the magic. It had been about him missing a part of himse
lf—not because it had been taken from him, but because he’d been rejecting it, trying to be what everybody else wanted him to be, what he thought the Nightkeepers and the gods needed him to be.

  What a fucking relief to discover that they needed him to be exactly who and what he always had been—a former juvenile delinquent who had learned some manners over the years.

  But as he turned away from the temple, that relief vanished in an instant. Because Myr stood there, staring at him with fear in her eyes, with the others ranged behind her. And his heart fucking sank, because while most of them—maybe all—would be grateful they finally had their crossover, she already looked devastated.

  She didn’t want the crossover. She wanted the self-contained, well-behaved guy she’d had for the past couple of weeks . . . and he didn’t exist anymore.

  And whoever he was now, his wristband read 1:01:34.

  * * *

  “Rabbit?” Myr didn’t care that her voice shook. Her arms and legs throbbed where she had wrestled with the vines, but that was nothing compared to the pain and fear that was suddenly lodged deep within her heart. “Are you okay?”

  It should’ve been a dumb question, because he certainly looked okay. Hell, he looked amazing, standing there with the ruined temple at his back, looking bigger and badder than he ever had before. His hair moved in the faint breeze, but other than that, he was utterly still.

  She stopped just a few feet away from him. Tell me you’re okay. Tell me what I just saw wasn’t as scary as it looked. Because even as she and the others had fought off the maize god’s attack, they had seen the golden magic and felt Rabbit’s new power.

  He had become the crossover . . . but she wasn’t sure what that meant.

  “I’m not hurt,” he said. His eyes, though, were bleak.

  “Talk to me,” she urged. “You’re scaring me.” More, he was shutting her out again.

  He looked beyond her to where the others had dispersed to gather up the equipment. After what just happened, it was a no-brainer that they needed to head for Chichén Itzá. “We should go.”

  He’s right, she told herself. Deal with it after. This isn’t the right time. Or maybe, like Anna said, it was exactly the right time to focus on the personal stuff and remember what they were fighting for. More, Myr was still the one who knew him best, the one who needed to warn the others if he was going off the rails.

  “What happened to you?” she pressed, stomach knotting at the sight of a strange new light in his eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  He hesitated, then held out his hand. “I’ll show you. It’s probably better this way.”

  Which sounded ominous and put a new quiver in her belly. But there was no time to hesitate, no time to shore up her inner defenses. She would have to be strong enough to deal with whatever came next.

  Taking a deep breath, she clasped his fingers in hers, and opened herself to the mind-bend.

  Emotions poured into her—determination, fear, grief, regret, relief, all the things she’d felt from him when he’d first returned to Skywatch. Now, though, there was also an edge of instability, of volatility. As she saw things unfold with rapid-fire in his mind—the stasis spell, the voice, the dark and twisted emotions he’d let back into his head—her heart leaped up to clog her throat. And then it broke.

  He had hidden the anger from her, hidden the danger from her. Hidden himself from her.

  She reeled back, breaking the connection. “Oh, Rabbit.” She didn’t know what to say, or even what she was feeling, except that it was huge and terrible, and it made her want to weep.

  “I was trying to protect you.”

  Anger flared, bright and righteous. “Bullshit! You were doing what you always do, which is exactly what you want to do, when you want to do it. You were afraid I would be mad because you’ve gone back to being your old self? You’re damn right. More, from where I’m standing, it looks like you never stopped being that guy. You just camouflaged it better for a while.” And if the words didn’t feel exactly right, the fury did. The panic did. He was back to being the man she feared, the one she couldn’t trust.

  His face blanked. “You used to love that guy.”

  “I outgrew him three months ago, when I regained consciousness and remembered what he had done to me.”

  “Two minutes to ’port,” Dez bellowed. He made it sound like he was announcing it to the entire team, but his eyes were on the two of them.

  Rabbit reached for her. “Give me another chance, later.”

  She backed off and shook her head as a tear tracked down her face. “I can’t. I won’t.” She took a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry, but I waited too damn long to run away from the Witch. I refuse to make the same mistake again.”

  “Myr—”

  “No. That’s it, we’re done. I can’t do this anymore.”

  “Myr, please, for the love of the gods, don’t. I love you.” His throat worked. “And that’s not leftover from before, and it’s not just because we’ve been great together these past few weeks. It’s all of it. I never stopped loving you, damn it.”

  She choked on a sob. “I don’t . . . I can’t. I’m sorry.” And she was. So sorry that it felt like green flames were burning her from the inside out.

  But just because it hurt didn’t make it the wrong decision.

  Nearly blinded by tears, she turned and headed toward where the others were finishing up packing the essentials, and she didn’t let herself look back, even when he called her name. Because he’d been right all along when he’d said they needed to move forward. She just hadn’t realized until now that in order for her to move forward, she was going to have to leave him behind.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Chichén Itzá, Mexico

  The Nightkeepers ’ported into the shadow of the main pyramid, heavily shielded and weapons hot, but there was no attack, no sign of the enemy.

  The atmosphere crackled with magic, though, making Rabbit feel itchy and twitchy, and like he was going to jump out of his damn skin if he didn’t get to fight, and soon. But at the same time, there was a deep darkness inside him, a chill that was impervious to the magic.

  He looked over to where Myr stood beside Anna, the two of them talking with their heads together, carefully not looking at him.

  He didn’t blame her—or he was trying not to.

  Trying really fucking hard.

  “This is definitely the right place,” Dez said, but his eyes were on the empty sky, his brows furrowed.

  “The maize god needed Red-Boar’s sacrifice to materialize,” Lucius said. “That suggests that the big guns still can’t get through the barrier, at least not yet.”

  “Why not send makol, then, or the xombis?”

  “No clue.”

  Dez glanced at his wrist. “Fifty minutes to the hard threshold.” He directed the winikin to summon their totems—the ghost animals they commanded—and put them on outer surveillance. Then he waved toward the raised limestone road that led to the sacred cenote. “Eyes open, people. We can’t be alone.”

  Rabbit found himself walking alone as the others hung back or shifted away. He didn’t know if they were afraid of what he could do, or wondering what he would do, but that was nothing new. If anything, it felt too fucking familiar.

  The prophecies had said the crossover was supposed to be a lone warrior, he thought. Guess they got it right.

  As they moved out of the pyramid’s shadow, they saw scorched earth, splintered wood and other garbage, seeming very out of place on the grounds of the normally groomed tourist attraction.

  “Riots,” Anna said grimly. “The believers are making illegal sacrifices, the nonbelievers are trying to stop them and get them to shut the hell up, the cops are trying to keep people out of the hot zone, and everyone wants the outbreak to be over, one way or another.” Her eyes went to the tent city she could just see in the distance. Twin columns of smoke rose up from one end, but the camp itself looked intact.

 
; Beside her, Myr had her shields up and her magic at the ready, and was staring intently into the shadows of each ruin they passed, then the jumbled pile of rocks that marked where the roadway led out of the main city and continued on to the cenote. She caught Rabbit’s eye in passing, hesitated and then nodded, like one teammate to another. Like she was already living in Let’s Just Be Friends Land.

  “Well, fuck that,” he muttered under his breath, suddenly pissed at himself, at the situation. How had he let this happen? How had it come to this?

  You don’t give up, even when the battle seems lost, Jag’s voice whispered in his mind. But if that was true, why hadn’t he argued with her when she said it was over?

  Then again, that was one of the things he did, wasn’t it? He coasted, at least when it came to her. He hadn’t worked hard enough to fix things when they went off the rails the first time, and he hadn’t fought hard enough just now. Maybe because things had happened too easily with her in the beginning he’d never learned how . . . or maybe because he still wasn’t really sure what she was doing with a guy like him.

  Yeah, that resonated.

  She doesn’t want you, not like this. The whisper came from the parts of himself he’d just taken back—the frustrations and insecurities that had hamstrung him too many times before, making him do dumb-ass things. She dumped you. She walked away. She didn’t look back.

  But she’d been crying as she did it. More, she wasn’t just the warrior she’d become over the past few months. She was also the Goth chick he’d gone to college with, and the skinny girl who’d tried to barter a knife for her freedom from the Witch. And those people had loved him despite his temper and impulsiveness. Hell, in the beginning, she had loved him because of it—she had been as much a rebel as he was, if not more. That was what he’d first seen in her, what had brought them together. It was still there, he knew. Maybe right now it was buried beneath duty and fear, but it was there.

  And he’d be damned if he gave up on her. He loved her, and he wanted her at his side for the rest of their lives, whether that was five minutes or fifty-five years.