Nightkeepers

by Jessica Andersen

  ‘‘It might.’’

  Her face softened. ‘‘Poor Jox. Still trying to save the jaguar kings from themselves.’’

  Before he could respond to that—if he could even figure out how—there was a clatter of footsteps and Brandt’s winikin, Woodrow, swung around the corner. He was wearing jeans and a button-down Hawaiian shirt, and his long, graying hair was caught back in a ponytail that made him look like he’d gone native. He was barefoot, whistling, and carrying a bottle of wine in one hand, a couple of glasses in the other.

  He hesitated midstride when he saw Jox and Hannah standing close together in her doorway. ‘‘Wow. I know I’m late, but you didn’t need to call the boss on me.’’ It was said with all of Wood’s typical laid-back good humor, but there was a glint of challenge beneath the words.

  Oh, Jox thought. So that was how it was.

  Disappointed, but also relieved because the decision had already been made for him, he stepped away from Hannah. ‘‘You’re lucky you got here when you did,’’ he said, forcing humor. ‘‘We were talking about organizing a search.’’

  ‘‘Doubt you’d have much luck,’’ Wood said, moving to Hannah’s side so they formed a unit, blocking the doorway and putting Jox on the outside. ‘‘Most everyone in this place is otherwise occupied, one way or the other.’’

  He handed the wineglasses to Hannah, pulled a corkscrew from his pocket, and looked at Jox. Lifted a shoulder. ‘‘Sorry, dude. Only two glasses.’’

  ‘‘No problem,’’ Jox said, and almost meant it. ‘‘Actually, I wanted to talk to both of you real quick; then I’ll get out of your way.’’ He thought he saw a flicker of surprised hurt in Hannah’s eye, but couldn’t be sure. And even if he had, what of it? She had the right to make time with whomever she wanted. They’d never promised each other anything.

  Wood gestured with the corkscrew. ‘‘Go on.’’

  ‘‘Can you be in charge of both Patience and Brandt for a couple of days, so Hannah can spend some time with Leah?’’

  When Wood nodded, Hannah said, ‘‘How much do you want her to know?’’

  ‘‘Everything.’’ He gritted his teeth, totally disagreeing with Strike’s plan. ‘‘She’s going to be sitting in on Magic 101 starting tomorrow. He’s convinced himself that even though Red-Boar couldn’t detect any connection to the barrier or the gods, she gained power of some sort during the ajaw-makol ritual.’’

  She tipped her head and hummed a flat note. ‘‘But you don’t think so.’’

  ‘‘He’s not thinking with his head.’’ Not the right one, anyway.

  ‘‘Because he believes this human may have power.’’

  ‘‘Because he saw her even before he met her.’’ He paused. ‘‘In a dream.’’

  Wood lost his grin. ‘‘He’s been having visions?’’

  ‘‘Hannah can fill you in.’’ Jox took a step back. ‘‘I’ll leave you two to your . . . whatever.’’ He strode off, not wanting to watch the door close behind him.

  ‘‘Jox,’’ Hannah called softly.

  He stopped, cursed himself, and turned. ‘‘Yeah?’’

  She stood alone, having apparently sent Wood inside. Soft light spilled from behind her, picking out the silvery waves of her hair, softening the lines of her face, and buffing away the lower edge of the scars, making her look very young, younger even than she’d been the night of the massacre.

  She was silent so long he thought she wasn’t going to say anything, that she’d meant only to call his name. Then she said, very quietly, ‘‘It’s not your fault. You didn’t do anything to cause this—not now, and not back then.’’

  He almost resented that she saw it so easily. ‘‘I keep hoping it’ll be different this time.’’

  ‘‘Maybe it will be.’’ But there was little hope in her voice, which told him she feared it, too.

  It was like the writs said: What had happened before would happen again.

  Hearing footsteps coming up the hall toward him, Sven ducked through the nearest doorway and closed the door to a crack. Not because he was doing anything wrong, but because he didn’t want to have to talk to one of the other winikin—not about the ceremony, not about the coyote’s-head mark on his forearm, which tingled faintly as though the ink—or whatever the hell it was—had rerouted the blood vessels beneath his skin, and certainly not about what he was doing outside the winikin’s wing at oh-dark-thirty in the a.m.

  He was busy not sleeping, that was what he was doing. Busy not thinking about sex. He and the rest of the newbies—except for Patience and Brandt, no doubt, because they had sanctioned shagging privileges and had gotten their marks years ago. And potentially Michael and Jade, who he was pretty sure had hooked up a couple of days ago. The rest of them . . . well, it was either make friends real quick, or hello, self-service.

  The footsteps passed and he got a good rear view of Jox, who was moving fast, like he had places to go. Well, good for him. So did Sven. Sort of.

  Once the winikin had turned the corner and his footsteps faded, Sven slipped from concealment and headed for the third door on the right, where he knocked and waited. Knocked again.

  Finally, when it was getting borderline ridiculous, Carlos opened the door. He was wearing Wranglers belted below his slight paunch, with a snap-studded shirt of faded blue, and save for a little gray around the edges he looked exactly the same as he had for . . . well, forever, Sven realized on a sudden slap of nostalgia. He had to swallow hard before he said, ‘‘Hey, Pops. Look.’’ He flipped his arm, showed off the coyote. ‘‘Remember how I used to bug you about getting a tattoo just like yours?’’

  ‘‘You did it,’’ the older man said softly, turning his own right hand palm up for a forearm comparison. ‘‘Congratulations, kid.’’

  ‘‘Mine’s bigger.’’

  That got a snort. ‘‘Don’t forget who used to change your Pampers, boyo.’’

  ‘‘True, but I’ve heard stuff shrinks once you’re on the downhill side of middle age.’’

  ‘‘Bite me.’’

  They grinned at each other, and Sven felt a loosening of something inside him he hadn’t even known was tight. He exhaled. ‘‘I missed you, Pops.’’ He paused, realizing that although they’d been in the same house for a couple of weeks now, they hadn’t really talked. Partly because he’d been sorta freaked by the whole winikin-Nightkeeper revelation—okay, really freaked, but fascinated in a by the way, you’re a superhero sort of way—and partly because the timing hadn’t been right. Now, in the wake of a ceremony that’d left him feeling a step closer to the parents he’d never known, he was ready to deal with the parent he had known, and hadn’t always done right by. ‘‘I’m sorry I didn’t come home for the funeral.’’

  Carlos shook his head. ‘‘Australia was too far to fly to for just a few days. I understood. Sometimes the needs of the living outweigh those of the dead.’’

  The last part sounded like a quote, underscoring that the winikin had a whole other life and culture aside from managing a ranch and raising two kids who couldn’t have been more different if they’d tried.

  Sven shoved his hands in the pockets of his hip-hanger shorts. ‘‘Still, I should’ve been there.’’ He didn’t say that he’d had the offer of a spare seat on an investor’s charter plane but hadn’t taken it because things had been too damn complicated back then. Still were.

  His eyes must’ve wandered to the door to Cara’s room, because Carlos shook his head. ‘‘She’s asleep.’’

  The lights were up in the suite and the TV was on, though, and Cara was a light sleeper of epic proportions.

  Sven nodded, accepting the lie. ‘‘Okay. No problem. I just . . .’’ wanted to see her, wanted us to maybe go for a walk like we used to. He’d wanted to inject a bit of normalcy into the craziness, to get her take on things that were moving too far, too fast for his hang-loose brain to keep up with.

  ‘‘I know.’’ Carlos nodded as though Sven had said all that aloud. ‘�
�But things are different now.’’ He paused. ‘‘She’s not your sister anymore, kid. She’s your servant. If you want me to wake her, I will.’’

  She’s not my servant any more than she’s my sister, Sven wanted to argue, but didn’t, because there were some things better left alone. So he shook his head. ‘‘No, let her sleep. Besides, this should probably come from you anyway. I think . . .’’ He paused, weighing his loyalties. ‘‘I think you should tell her to leave.’’

  The older man’s eyes widened fractionally. ‘‘Why?’’

  Sven shifted, faking a shrug. ‘‘She’s a semester away from her degree. Seems silly to keep her here when I barely even see her as it is.’’

  ‘‘And?’’ Carlos said with no shift in his expression.

  She doesn’t want to be here, Sven wanted to say. Can’t you see that? But he didn’t say it, because he could also see how much it meant to Carlos to have sired the only second-generation winikin in the group, how much he was enjoying having Cara around. So instead he said, ‘‘What we’re going to be doing here is dangerous.’’ He looked at the coyote mark again, because the binding ceremony had made the whole end-of-the-world-as-we-know -it thing seem a whole lot more real than it had when they’d just been sitting around talking about it. ‘‘I don’t want her to get hurt.’’

  ‘‘Neither do I, but I don’t think that’s what this is really about.’’ Carlos waited, but Sven didn’t say anything else, couldn’t explain it to the man who’d raised him when he could barely understand it himself. After a long moment, the winikin sighed. ‘‘Do you command this?’’

  Sven nodded, feeling like a total poser. ‘‘I do. She’s my winikin.’’

  ‘‘And for that I’m sorry.’’ Carlos shook his head. ‘‘I should be the one serving you.’’

  ‘‘Nobody’s serving anybody here. We’re all in this together—I’m just trying to figure out how to minimize the danger.’’

  ‘‘It’s not a Nightkeeper’s job to protect his winikin.’’ Carlos paused. ‘‘But I’ll do as you ask. She’ll be gone before the end of the week; I’ll take care of it. You just concentrate on learning how to control your powers . . . and yourself.’’

  Which answered one question, Sven acknowledged with a dull thud of pain. Carlos definitely knew about what’d happened between him and Cara, knew why he’d taken off and why he hadn’t been back since. He’d always figured Carlos didn’t know, for the simple reason that their relationship had stayed close despite the physical distance. Now, he realized it’d been more a case of the winikin’s imperative to keep tabs on his charge outweighing the other stuff.

  The thought was humbling. And damned awkward.

  That wasn’t how it was, he wanted to say. I can control myself. But that begged the question of why he’d come knocking on her door too late at night, with his blood humming and his senses on high alert.

  So instead, he said, ‘‘Thanks. I owe you one.’’

  Carlos nodded, but he didn’t speak, and he hadn’t moved from the doorway, hadn’t invited Sven inside.

  That rejection, that split in their onetime family unit, had Sven backing away and searching for a grin as he waved, making sure his mark showed. ‘‘Mine’s still bigger.’’

  The older man’s smile didn’t touch his eyes. ‘‘Size doesn’t matter until you know how to use it, kid.’’

  After chowing down enough leftover mac ’n’ cheese to feed a boatload of Vikings, and washing it down with a bottle of lemon Perrier, Nate tried to go to back to bed and sleep off the rest of the postmagic hangover. And failed miserably.

  Score: Boner 1, Blackhawk 0.

  After an hour he finally gave up and headed for the gym on the lower level of the main house, figuring that if he racked enough iron, he should be able to exhaust his dick into submission.

  The gym stretched along the short side of the mansion. It was below ground level, so there were no windows, but when he hit the light switch just inside the double door, the fluorescents were bright enough to sear his eyeballs. Like most of the compound, the room wore a fresh coat of stark white paint, new flooring, and had zero in the way of character. But that was okay with him; he was looking to sweat, not have a spa experience, and there were enough top-end machines to promise he’d get a good stink on, along with an equally high-end sound system to crank some tunes.

  Hoping the room was soundproofed—or far enough away from the sleeping quarters for it not to matter— he tuned the satellite radio to something heavy on the bass and dance rhythms, gave a couple of halfhearted stretches, and headed straight for the free weights, figuring he’d go old school for the evening’s antistiffy program.

  Ever since that hey, here you go, have an instatattoo ceremony, he’d been a walking hard-on. He felt like a teenager, or like he belonged in one of those Cialis commercials where the voice-over guy warns about the dangers of priapism. If your erection lasts for more than four hours, seek medical help. Or a woman. Whichever comes first.

  And that was the problem. There was a woman . . . and yet there wasn’t.

  Alexis wasn’t Hera—he knew that. Hera was straight out of his imagination, an amalgam of tits and ass that made her a gamer’s wet dream, along with the sharp, strategic intelligence required by any self-respecting warrior-goddess.

  However, Alexis was the spitting image of Hera, and that just freaked his shit right out, because between the lectures and the binding ceremony, he was having trouble believing it was just one of those things. The Nightkeepers didn’t seem to go in for coincidence.

  Which meant what? That she was his match? His mate?

  As he started lifting, he tried to figure out why the thought made him want a one-way ticket to hell and gone. Maybe it was meeting her when everything he thought he knew about himself—and about reality—was taking a serious beating; maybe it was his inner rebel hating the whole your-life-is-ruled-by-destiny thing. Who knew?

  He thought about it as he lifted; thought about her. Sweat started beading on his body despite the central AC, and his muscles had a good burn going after a half hour or so, but a dick check revealed he was still sporting serious wood. If anything, it’d gotten worse rather than better, tenting the front of his gym shorts as he lay back on the weight bench.

  Current score: Boner 2, Blackhawk 0.

  Glaring at it, he warned, ‘‘All right, that’s it. Two more sets and I’m bringing out the duct tape.’’

  ‘‘Excuse me?’’

  For half a sweaty second, he thought the damn thing was talking back—and wouldn’t that be a trip?—and was doing so in Alexis’s voice. Then what was left of his brain fired up, and he shot a startled glance at the doorway and saw her standing there, watching him talk to his johnson.

  Losing his count and his concentration, he forgot to lock his elbows and his arms folded under the weights. The barbell whumped onto his upper chest, just below his throat.

  ‘‘Shit!’’ he said, only it came out as a gurgle as he fought to dead-lift the thing from zero leverage.

  ‘‘Oh!’’ Alexis sprinted across the room and helped him wrestle the bar off his Adam’s apple and onto the overhead stand. ‘‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. Are you okay?’’

  ‘‘Fine,’’ he said shortly, sitting up so fast his head swam. He snagged his shirt so he could pretend to scrub the sweat off his face and chest, and then casually dumped the T-shirt in his lap.

  Current score: Boner 3, Blackhawk 0.

  From the flush that rode high on her slashing cheekbones and the way she was careful to look him in the eye rather than lower down, he had a feeling she knew exactly what was going on. Either that, or she was dealing with some horns of her own. He should be so lucky.

  Then again, maybe he was that lucky, he thought when he saw that she’d changed into formfitting workout pants and a soft shirt that hung off one shoulder to play peekaboo with a bra strap, but wasn’t wearing sneakers or carrying a towel.

  Despite not really being on boa
rd with the predestiny thing, he figured he’d be an idiot not to engage in some scratch-the-itch for the next two months if she made the offer.

  ‘‘You looking for me?’’ he asked after a moment. Please say yes.

  ‘‘Yeah.’’ She cleared her throat. ‘‘Um, well, you see . . .’’ The flush rode higher on her cheeks, creating two spots of color. ‘‘I thought we could . . . Oh, screw it.’’ She held out her hand to him. ‘‘Come on.’’

  Nate might not’ve been raised by his winikin, but he was no dummy. He didn’t argue. He simply put his hand in hers and let her lead the way.

  Score.

  Rabbit observed the mansion from the perch he’d found high up in the ceiba tree, where he could watch without being watched in return. He saw most of the newbies pairing up and disappearing into darkened rooms, saw Woody hand Jox his hat. More interesting was the scene between Strike and the blonde out by the pool. He hadn’t been able to hear what they were saying, but the end result was obvious: Strike struck out, and the blonde headed back to her room alone.

  Rabbit watched her go.

  So that was the girlfriend, huh? She was pretty enough, he supposed. Okay, she was damn near a knockout, with long blond hair, slim hips, and legs that kept on giving inside a pair of loose jeans that hung practically off her ass.

  Rabbit had heard the old man and Strike arguing about her earlier, had heard the old man muttering long after—he’d caught a few words, like ‘‘blasphemy’’ and ‘‘rewriting history’’ . . . which had entertained Rabbit to no end, and took his mind off what’d happened at the ceremony.

  Or rather, what hadn’t happened.

  The old man had tried to tell him it was for the best that he hadn’t gotten his mark, but of course he’d say that. Really, the ceremony had just proved what Rabbit had known all along—if he wanted to learn the magic he was going to have to figure it out on his own. He’d never been, and would never be, a priority for his father and the others. So he’d hit the books, do some experimenting. He wanted to know what he could do besides torch stuff. Pyrokinesis was cool as far as it went, but had its limitations, because he didn’t just want to destroy stuff . . . he wanted to create stuff. He wanted to control, to rule.