On the Hunt

  Her lips parted, but no sound emerged. He couldn't tell what she was thinking—hell, he barely knew what he was thinking, except that he'd gotten only halfway through smashing her illusions.

  He made himself keep going. "But the thing is, the stories tell only part of what it used to be like, the part that makes them seem like heroes." He paused. "I don't know if the world is better off without them. Maybe not, given that the barrier is getting thinner by the year. But the thing is, I know for damn sure that I'm better off without them. Because I wasn't lying when I said I wasn't a Nightkeeper. . . . I was one of their slaves."

  Chapter Five

  "A slave," Natalie whispered, reeling not just from that revelation, but from all of it. Her gut told her that this was the key to understanding JT, that this was the truth. And oh, holy crap, what a truth. It was unbelievable, impossible, yet instinct also said this was what she had been looking for. This was the reality.

  The doomsday war was real, and it was coming. Oh, God.

  She leaned on the breakfast bar, mind spinning as she tried to take it all in. But even as she grappled with the realization that this was far, far larger than just the two of them, she was acutely aware of the rigid set of his shoulders, the wariness in his face as he waited to see how she would react.

  He had called himself a slave. Cooter had never said anything about slaves. But he had mentioned another race that had lived with the Nightkeepers. "You're talking about the winikin."

  He flinched. "I don't like the word. Aj winikin means, 'I live to serve my master,' and I fucking don't. Nobody should have to." But something changed in his expression and he said cautiously,

  "We didn't usually make it into the stories."

  The we sent a shiver through her. This was really real. It was really happening. She was talking to a winikin. One of the hereditary protectors of mankind's salvation. One of the people they were going to need if the war was really coming.

  Holy. Shit.

  Trying to keep her voice from shaking, to stay cool when on some level it felt like JT had suddenly changed in front of her, becoming even more than he'd been before, she said, "The way Cooter told it, the winikin were a vital part of the society. They raised the Nightkeepers, taught them, protected them. It was their job to make sure that if anything happened to the warriors, the children would survive to start over."

  "Nobody ever asked if we wanted the job," he said flatly. "Not back when the first winikin were magically bound to the Nightkeeper bloodlines, and not later. It wasn't voluntary. None of it was. If the magic tagged a kid for winikin training, he got trained, period. Once he grew up, if the magic chose him to be blood-bound to a mage, he went through the ritual, no discussion. A bound winikin couldn't have a family of his own, couldn't have a life of his own. His mage had to be his first and only priority. If—" He broke off, a muscle pulsing at his jaw. "It doesn't matter anymore.

  They're all dead. It's over."

  "They . . ." She trailed off, her stomach tightening. Cooter's stories had all been about duty, destiny, and heroes fighting to save the world. Not this. Nothing like this. He hadn't talked about the magic being used to press children into service—he had made it sound like the two races had worked together, relied on each other. But even as she scrambled to catch up with that change in paradigm and the dull horror of doing the math and realizing they were less than two years to the end date, she couldn't get past the excitement of finally getting down to the truth . . . and starting to grasp what it might mean for her.

  A winikin. JT was a winikin. Holy crap.

  Even now, as he leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest so his biceps bulged beneath his tee, she felt the punch of his presence, the animal magnetism that put a thrum of warmth in her veins. She could just see the edge of his tattoo, which had gained new meaning. Freedom. But although he might think the Nightkeepers' world was gone, it remained ingrained within him. He had lied to her, yes. But he'd done it to protect her, the same way he had tried to break things off between them before she got in too deep.

  It was too late for that, though—she was right in the middle of things. And the more she heard, the more she suspected she'd been involved for a long time. Like her whole life.

  "They're not all dead," she said softly. "You're here."

  "There was a resistance, a faction of magi and winikin who thought the king was challenging the gods by planning to attack the barrier. There were fifty, maybe sixty rebels, including my parents and me. We were all planning to disappear the night of the battle. But the royal council found out and came after us." He paused, his eyes gone dark. "When they started pounding on the door, my father gave me the keys to the Jeep he had hidden in the hills beyond the canyon, and sent me out the window. He told me to leave and never look back. I was ten."

  "Oh, God. I'm sorry."

  "It was a long time ago."

  Drawing a deep breath to settle the sudden churn in her stomach, she said, "Was it the summer solstice of'eighty-four?"

  His face blanked and his skin went chalky. He took a step toward her, but then jerked to a halt.

  "How did you know that?" His voice was a pained rasp; his eyes searched hers.

  "Because that was the day I was abandoned in the bathroom of a maternity ward in Albuquerque. I was about nine months old. There was no note, no identifying information. Only this." She removed her locket, thumbed the clasp, and held it out to him by the chain. The pendant spun, letting the light glint off the two ovals of polished obsidian contained within it. The one on the left was carved with the parrot's-head glyph. The other one was so scratched as to be indecipherable.

  He reached out and took the locket with a hand that shook ever so slightly. "Dear gods."

  Her heart stuttered; her whole world contracted to this moment. "I've been searching for the parrot's-head glyph ever since my thirteenth birthday, when my parents told me I was adopted and gave me the locket." When he didn't say anything, just stood staring at the locket, she pressed,

  "What does it mean?"

  He touched the carving, his blunt fingertip making it seem small and delicate. "This is the symbol of the parrot bloodline. The magi of each bloodline wore the symbols on their inner forearms, along with glyphs for their magical talents and such. The bound winikin wore smaller bloodline glyphs, one for each member of the bloodline, and a larger one for their charge, along with the servants' mark." His fingertip moved to the other, scratched side of the locket. He rubbed where the original lines were barely visible. "This was the servants' glyph. The aj winikin."

  "The—" She broke off as her blood hummed in her veins. "I'm like you? I'm a winikin?" Sudden warmth flared through her, lighting her up and making her feel powerful. Invincible. Magical.

  He snapped his head up to glare at her. "Your parents were winikin. You're free." His voice was rough, his eyes dark. "You've lived your whole life in the human world. You should consider yourself lucky, and get the hell out of here while you still can."

  "No way." She lifted her chin. "I've been looking for answers more than half my life, staying on the move because I never felt like I knew who I was or where I belonged. Until now."

  "Natalie . . ." He held out her locket, grim faced. When she stepped closer to take it, he brushed his knuckles along her cheek. "Don't. Please. This doesn't change anything."

  He was wrong. It changed everything, at least when it came to her plans. As for the two of them . . . she didn't know. He wanted her, but he also wanted his freedom. And she didn't know if she could work with that.

  "I'm not leaving," she said after a moment. "Not if I can do something to defend the barrier."

  Beneath the thrill of the discovery was a thick underlayer of fear that bubbled up at the thought of what they were really talking about here. The end of days. The end of everything. This wasn't just about the two of them. It couldn't be. Swallowing to wet a throat gone suddenly dry, she said, "Let me help you."

  "Help." He
said the word like a prayer, but shook his head. "You don't get it. There's nothing you can do to help, and I can't risk being distracted."

  "I can take care of myself," she said, stung. "And what do you mean, there's nothing I can do?

  What about the magic?"

  His mouth thinned to a line. "There's no magic without the Nightkeepers."

  She lifted the locket, only then realizing that she had clenched her hand around it in a tight fist.

  "But I'm a parrot. This proves it."

  "That suggests," he emphasized the distinction, "that you're descended from the winikin of the parrot bloodline. The winikin weren't magic users. They were just support staff."

  Her pulse hummed in her ears. "What if I'm not a winikin?"

  Cold anger flared in his expression. "You're sure as hell not one of them."

  Careful, her gut warned. As far as he was concerned, the Nightkeepers had been another sort of enemy. But she had to know. "Are you sure?"

  "Positive. For one, you're too small. They were . . ." He trailed off, eyes darkening. "Bigger and stronger than normal humans. They were the ultimate warriors—they fought harder and longer, healed faster. You couldn't take your eyes off them." He shrugged. "They were gods on earth."

  Something must have shown on her face, because his expression sharpened suddenly. "Why?"

  Heart pounding, she pushed up her right sleeve to show the thin white scar. When his eyes went wide and white rimmed, she nodded. "Yeah. It healed. And you said I came out of the drug sooner than you expected."

  "That's—" He broke off. "There's another explanation. There has to be."

  "That's not all. You said I shouldn't be able to do magic? well, I'm pretty sure I already have."

  She described how the parrot glyph had disappeared at the temple. She tried not to let it hurt when he stalked away from her to brace his hands on the back of the couch, head hanging as if he didn't want to look at her. She finished, "There was a little space behind where the glyph had been. In it was a yellow crystal skull."

  His head jerked up and his face went gray, practically matching his eyes. "What?"

  She had to fight not to back up as he crossed to her and gripped her arms, hard. Instead, she clutched him in return, refusing to back down. "And that's not all. I think it was magic that pulled me to this region, magic that helped me find the temple. And when we were making love—"

  "Where's the skull?" he interrupted.

  "What? It's safe; don't worry. It's in the Jeep lockbox. But why—"

  "You left it outside? Gods help us!" He tore away from her and bolted for the mudroom, snapping over his shoulder, "Stay here!"

  He slapped off the security panel on the run, grabbed a gun and a long, sheathed knife, and slammed through the door. Seconds later, the motion-activated lights blazed to life as he pelted barefoot across the courtyard.

  Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. The curse hammered with the pounding of JT's pulse and the thud of his footsteps on the packed dirt as he hurtled through the gate, shotgun first.

  He skidded to a halt the second he got a good look at Natalie's Jeep. "Fuck!"

  The vehicle was off-kilter on a shredded tire, the driver's door hung open on a single hinge, and the interior was ripped to shit, dripped with ichor, and smelled like week-dead cow. The lockbox hung askew, open and empty.

  Too late. He was too fucking late. "Son of a bitch!" At the sound of a noise behind him, he spun, but kept his finger off the trigger, knowing damn well who it was. "I told you to stay inside!"

  Natalie stood there, staring at the Jeep, stricken.

  He was already on the move, taking her arm and hustling her back through the gate. "Come on. We can't stay out here."

  He was headed for the house, but just inside the walled enclosure, she dug in her heels and yanked away. "Wait. Just wait a damned minute!"

  Rounding on her, he snapped, "Why? So you can cast a spell on me? What's it going to be—temporary amnesia? A sleep spell? Why not teleport us straight to wherever they took the damned skull?" He knew he wasn't being fair, but he'd just started to comprehend the idea of her being a winikin—there was no faking the locket—when things had hung a quick left straight to hell.

  She couldn't be a magic user—she had all the physical hallmarks of winikin ancestry in her dark coloring and eyes, and the Nightkeepers always bred true. No way they would mix their precious blood.

  But the evidence was there. He couldn't deny the scar. And the skull. . . What the hell were they going to do about the skull? More, what was he going to do about her? Whatever her bloodlines, whatever her powers, she didn't have the right training to stay here and fight. Not to mention that she was reckless, too willing to throw herself headlong into danger.

  But he couldn't just chase her off, not now that she knew that she, too, had a connection to this chunk of godsforsaken forest. And not now that he knew there were more zotz on the loose. The tatter-winged fuckers had somehow trashed the Jeep without tripping the alarms. What else could they do now?

  He was all too aware that it was almost dawn. The day of the equinox.

  Gods help them.

  "Tell me about the skull," she said, pressing. "What can it do?"

  Nothing without a Nightkeeper, he thought. But he didn't say it, because suddenly that didn't seem as clear-cut as it had minutes earlier.

  "When the Nightkeepers' long-ago ancestors used the barrier to trap the demons in the underworld, they created thirteen life-size crystal skulls that together balanced the energy flow across the planes. They hid four of them on earth, sent four to the underworld, and sacrificed four to the sky gods. They kept the last one, and used magic to divide it into thirteen smaller replicas.

  One was given to a female seer in each of the major bloodlines. They became the itza'at seers.

  The visionaries."

  She exhaled softly. "The skull can tell the future?"

  "When wielded by a fully trained itza'at mage. It's no use in a fight."

  "If that's true, then why did you haul ass out there? And why did the camazotz take it?"

  Knowing they had moved past the point of convenient lies, he said, "When a skull is separated from its wielder, it broadcasts powerful magic. Once you brought it up out of the temple, any creature with a link to the barrier would have been able to zero in on it." His gut tightened. "The zotz that attacked you was probably coming after the skull, but once it saw you, it decided to have a snack first, add some skin to its wings." He deliberately paused, letting the gory details sink in.

  "As for why they took it, power is power. Destroying it in an equinox ritual could fuel some serious magic."

  Her eyes flared. "Destroying it? No. No way. We can't let that happen. We have to get it back."

  "Natalie—"

  "Don't 'Natalie' me, JT. If I'm a winikin, then I'm a protector by nature, right? And if we're free, then that means we get to pick what we want to protect. You chose your village. I'm choosing the skull that belongs to my bloodline."

  "It doesn't belong to your bloodline," he gritted between clenched teeth.

  "It does if all of the magi are dead," she countered neatly. "Why else would I have been the one to pick up its signal?"

  "I—" He broke off. "Damn it." She was right. And it was a plausible explanation for why she looked like a winikin but seemed to have some connection with the magic. In the absence of a better option, the power was reaching out to the D-list.

  Only in this case, D stood for danger.

  "The camazotz would have brought it to their hell mouth for any sort of ritual," he said finally, wishing she didn't have a point. "That's the hole in the barrier where they're coming through, one that takes a hell of a sacrifice to get open. Theoretically, it should be inside a big-ass temple, but I'll be damned if I can find it. And if I haven't managed to track it down in seven years of searching, there's no way you're going to find it in less than a day."

  She just looked at him, unblinking. "I told you. I can
sense the skull. I can lead us to where it's gone." In that instant, her certainty reminded him all too strongly of how the old king had looked as he stood at the front of the meeting hall, talking about his plans to attack the barrier.

  JT's blood chilled. "Natalie, for gods' sake."

  "Tell me about the hell mouth. Can we use it to get into Xibalba?"

  "That's not funny."

  "It wasn't a joke."

  Frustration sparked through him. "Do you seriously think we can take out the underworld itself, just the two of us?" When the argument edged way too close to those old, blood-soaked memories, he veered off. Don't dwell. Move forward. "No way. We're not doing this. I'll tell you what we are doing: You're going to go inside and lock up where it's safe, and I'm going after the zotz that busted up your Jeep. I'll track them, find them, and killthem."

  She closed the distance between them and wrapped a hand around his arm, gripping right over his ink. "My instincts are good, always have been. And right now they're telling me that if we don't get the skull back, everything you've seen up to now is going to look like a warm-up act."

  Memories churned, souring the back of his throat. But he said only, "Go inside and stay there. Let me do my job."

  "It's— Behind you! "

  Whatever else she might have said was drowned out by a whip crack of leathery wings and the high screech of a zotz in attack mode.

  "Get inside!" JT bellowed, and was relieved to see her bolt for the house. He spun and ducked, then brought up the shotgun and fired at the incoming blur as it soared over the damned wall, its wings fully extended. And intact.

  Not for long. Blasting away, JT shredded the bat-faced bastard's wing membranes, rage flaring at the sight of the pale, smooth skin. Human skin. Shit, Rez. What the hell happened?

  The thing flapped hard and then slammed to the ground short of him, keening in pain and fury.

  Eyes gleaming coal red, it scrambled to its feet and lunged for him, mouth splitting in a tricornered screech.