Nightkeepers notfp-1

by Jessica Andersen

  Strike cursed and twisted, grabbing for the phone. Rabbit, Patience, and Alexis appeared from the billiard room on the opposite side from the kitchen, drawn by the winikin’s shout. Strike punched the speakerphone and turned up the volume. ‘‘What’s wrong?’’

  There was a hiss of feedback, followed by a harsh breath and Red-Boar’s voice. ‘‘You’ve gotta lock on and get us out of here. She’s hurt bad.’’

  ‘‘On my way,’’ Strike said curtly, and the phone line went dead. His hand went to his hip and came up empty. ‘‘Fuck!’’

  ‘‘Use mine.’’ Rabbit pulled his knife and tossed it.

  Strike caught it on the fly, scored his palm until blood flowed free, closed his eyes . . .

  And disappeared.

  Strike blinked in a few feet up, moving fast, and smashed into the ground, churning up a good three-foot gouge in the soft loam before he stopped. Struggling to his feet, he fought to reorient. The rain forest was lush and green around him, and the air smelled of plants and warm earth and blood. He followed the latter scent and found Red-Boar crouched over something on the ground.

  Anna.

  Strike’s heart pounded up into his throat as he dropped down beside his sister. She was deathly pale, unmoving, and blood had soaked through a pair of makeshift bandages at her wrists.

  ‘‘Gods damn it!’’ Rage spiking through the fear, he spun on Red-Boar. ‘‘How could you let— Never mind.’’ He cut himself off. ‘‘We’ll deal with that later. Right now she needs a hospital.’’

  He closed his eyes and thought of white walls and the smell of disinfectant, and a bathroom, generic and empty, safe for them to zap into. Then he thought of Albuquerque, though he’d been there only once. He hoped like hell the two threads would combine into a single address.

  ‘‘You can’t make the jump blind,’’ Red-Boar said quickly. ‘‘Let’s take her to the compound. We can—’’

  ‘‘We can what?’’ Strike interrupted. ‘‘Call for an ambulance? Screw that. Even a helicopter would take too long.’’ He held out his hand, which still leaked blood. ‘‘Either grab on and boost me, or stay here. Your choice.’’

  Red-Boar cursed, but he grabbed on and sent power to Strike. The boost clarified the yellow travel thread, though it still wasn’t as strong as he would’ve liked. No choice, though. He wasn’t even sure she was still breathing.

  ‘‘Gods help us all,’’ he muttered, grabbed on, and yanked.

  Silence echoed deafeningly in the great room at Skywatch.

  Jox glared at Leah as if all this were somehow her fault. Patience held on to Rabbit’s hand. Alexis had slipped out soon after Strike disappeared, probably to warn the others what was going down, and Leah stood there, waiting for the puff of displaced air that would signal their return. As she waited, she prayed.

  God, she thought, or gods—whatever—please let them make it back. Please let Anna be okay. And though she knew it was small and self-serving, Please let them figure out how to save me.

  ‘‘Come on,’’ Jox muttered under his breath. ‘‘Come on!’’

  There was no zap of displaced air. But the phone rang.

  Jox hesitated, and then hit the speakerphone. ‘‘Hello?’’

  ‘‘We’re in Albuquerque. At a hospital. I’m not sure which one.’’

  At the sound of Strike’s voice, Leah exhaled a long, shuddering breath of relief. They’d made it back to the U.S., at any rate. She didn’t want to think about how they’d gotten to the hospital, though, or she knew she’d get the shakes. He’d flipping jumped blind.

  ‘‘How’s Anna?’’ Jox’s voice broke.

  ‘‘They’re working on her now.’’ Strike’s voice dropped. ‘‘She sliced her wrists, nearly bled out before Red-Boar found her. He says she saw a nahwal, followed it into a temple, and cut herself.’’

  Jox’s eyes flicked to Leah. ‘‘What about Ledbetter?’’ ‘‘Dead. And apparently a Nightkeeper. I’ll explain when I get back.’’

  In the shocked silence that followed, Leah cleared her throat. ‘‘Do you want me to drive out?’’

  ‘‘No, stay put. Red-Boar’s already going to have to do some serious mind-scrubbing on our way out, and I don’t want to add any more brains to his list. Besides, it’s probably not a good idea for you to be out in the open right now.’’

  Because it was in the best interests of the ajaw-makol and the Banol Kax to keep her alive through the equinox, thus destroying both Kulkulkan and the skyroad.

  ‘‘Of course.’’ She paused, wanting to say something, but not sure what. So in the end, she went with a lame, ‘‘Take care.’’

  ‘‘You, too.’’ He paused. ‘‘Jox?’’

  ‘‘Still here.’’

  ‘‘Put Carter on Ambrose Ledbetter. I want to know who he was, where he came from, who he hung with. Everything.’’

  Jox stilled. ‘‘You think there are more survivors out there?’’

  ‘‘If we’re damn lucky.’’

  In the hospital, Anna survived and stabilized. But she didn’t wake up.

  Twelve hours passed, twenty-four. Seventy-two. The equinox approached and Strike didn’t leave her side. He sat in the private room he’d put on the Nightkeeper Fund’s credit card, registering her as Alexis Gray because Alexis didn’t have any family to notify and Anna did.

  Maybe—probably . . . okay, definitely—it was wrong to keep Anna’s husband out of the loop, but he’d be a complication they absolutely couldn’t afford. So it was just Strike watching over her, along with Red-Boar, who stayed nearby in case they needed his talent for damage control.

  The doctors came and went and shook their heads when all the tox screens came back negative, indicating that she hadn’t OD’d in addition to cutting her wrists, but not able to explain why she was still in a coma. They sent Strike sidelong glances and assured him that sometimes suicides fooled even their closest family members, that he shouldn’t blame himself. But they didn’t know the half of it.

  He’d sent her to find Ledbetter, knowing she wasn’t fully trained or in control of her own powers. He’d been so damned sure he was making the right call sending Red-Boar as backup, but the bastard had left her unprotected and she’d nearly died. Might still die, if they couldn’t figure out how to reach her. Each hour, he could feel her slipping farther into the mist. And each hour, he could feel the stars and planets aligning, moving closer to the equinox.

  In less than a day they would meet the ajaw-makol at the intersection. Jox assured him that the team would be ready. The question was, would their leader?

  Strike knew he had too many priorities, all of them vying for the top spot. Who was he, king or man? Lover or brother? Leader, savior, or just a guy with a business degree and some landscaping experience?

  Fuck, he didn’t know anymore. And he wasn’t figuring it out sitting here.

  He stood and crossed the room. Stuck his head out and snapped, ‘‘Get in here.’’

  Red-Boar obeyed without a word. His eyes were down, his expression set, and he wore a brown button-down shirt and matching ball cap he’d gotten from somewhere, making a nod at the penitent’s robes he’d hidden behind for so long.

  Strike was having none of it. Rage spiked through him at the realization that so much of what had gone wrong since the barrier reactivated—from the burning of Jox’s garden center to Anna’s condition now—were thanks to Red-Boar and his fucking indifference. Anger burned, hot and hard, and for a second, he wanted to grab the bastard, yank him into the barrier, and leave him there. Let the nahwal have him.

  Deep breath, he counseled himself, fighting the god’s anger alongside his own. Unfortunately, barriering Red-Boar wasn’t an option. Despite his questionable loyalties, the older Nightkeeper still had the best boosting skills among them.

  That didn’t mean Strike had to put up with the other shit, though.

  So when the door closed behind the older man, he said, low and controlled, ‘‘Enough. I’ve had enough of the m
artyr shit, enough of the Yoda routine, and especially enough of the ‘watch out for Red-Boar, he’s got PTSD and doesn’t always react normally’ crap.’’

  The other man’s head came up. His dark eyes locked onto Strike’s, and in their depths he saw something he never expected to see. He saw anger. Hatred. Rage. ‘‘Watch your step, boy.’’

  Strike almost retreated, but knew he couldn’t afford to, knew this had been coming for a long time. He kept his voice level. ‘‘I am my father’s son.’’

  Red-Boar bared his teeth. ‘‘That doesn’t make you king.’’

  ‘‘What, you think you should be in charge because you’ve got seniority?’’ Following Red-Boar’s glance, he said, ‘‘Or Anna?’’ He locked eyes with his onetime mentor, still fighting the urge to flatten the bastard, to cow him, to make him admit—

  ‘‘Admit what?’’ Red-Boar said, picking up on the thought because they were so close. ‘‘That you’re the king? Not until you fucking act like it. Not until you accept the Manikin scepter and say the words. Until then, you’re just Scarred-Jaguar’s son, as far as I’m concerned. A weak, whiny little boy who hid underground with his sister and their babysitter while the rest of us fought.’’

  ‘‘I was a child,’’ Strike gritted, chest tightening on a hard, hot ball of grief, of denial.

  ‘‘You were a prince,’’ Red-Boar countered, as though that made all the difference in the world. ‘‘If you want to be king—and I’m thinking that’s a big ‘if’—then stop screwing around, stop letting other people tell you what to do, and make some godsdamned decisions!’’

  They were very close together, arguing low-voiced so it wouldn’t carry out into the hall. Strike was hyperaware of Anna lying there, motionless save for the regular rise and fall of her chest. The doctors said they couldn’t do anything more. Red-Boar said he couldn’t do anything, period. Now, Strike wondered if that was the truth.

  ‘‘Wake her up,’’ he said. ‘‘Now.’’

  Something flashed in the other man’s eyes—surprise, maybe, or fear. But he shook his head. ‘‘I can’t.’’

  ‘‘Can’t or won’t?’’

  ‘‘Can’t,’’ he insisted. ‘‘Not here, anyway. Not even I can fog that many memories.’’

  ‘‘Then start fogging the ones you need to, because we’re leaving in five minutes.’’

  ‘‘But—’’

  ‘‘You want me to start making some fucking decisions? ’’ Strike leaned in, lowering his voice to a hiss. ‘‘Consider this one made. You’ve got five minutes to work your magic, mind-bender. Either the doctors and nurses think she’s being discharged and there aren’t any problems, or I’m leaving you in the barrier. Got it?’’

  Red-Boar didn’t say a word. But damned if he didn’t do exactly as Strike had ordered. He made a circuit of the hospital floor, shaking hands and touching shoulders, spending the most time on Anna’s doctors and the nurses running the computers.

  When he returned, he nodded. ‘‘It’s done. Everyone here thinks she was discharged to a rehab facility. Anyone coming on later will get the same info from the computers.’’

  ‘‘Good. We’re out of here. I called Jox to give him the heads-up.’’ Strike lifted Anna, cradling her against his chest. Then he touched Red-Boar, completing the circuit. He was pissed enough, the route to Skywatch familiar enough, and Leah’s pull strong enough that he didn’t need a blood sacrifice to power the three-person transport—he was already there. All he had to do was close his eyes, find the thread, and yank.

  The great room materialized around them, the floor slapping against the soles of his boots. He staggered and nearly went down, and then Jox was there, shoving a shoulder into his armpit to get him stabilized.

  They were all there, Strike saw as his vision cleared. The winikin. The Nightkeepers. And Leah. His people. His responsibility.

  ‘‘I’ve got her,’’ the winikin murmured, taking Anna’s limp form with surprising ease, given that she was a full head taller than he and probably close to the same weight. He bent close and murmured, ‘‘Poor child.’’ The endearment should’ve seemed ridiculous given that she was closing in on forty, but somehow it was exactly right.

  Strike reached out for Leah, took her hand. At the touch of her skin on his, he felt the zing of connection, the flow of energy that was theirs alone. And as the golden spark of the two of them together crackled in the air, Anna woke up, sucking in a deep breath and opening her eyes.

  Only they weren’t her eyes, Strike saw with dawning horror. They were flat obsidian black.

  ‘‘I have a message for you,’’ she said, but it wasn’t her speaking. It was the nahwal, staring up at nothing and speaking with its emotionless, multitonal voice.

  Everything inside Strike went cold and hard in an instant. ‘‘Tell me,’’ he grated.

  ‘‘The creator god dies because you have not acted.’’

  Leah dug her nails into his palm. Strike tightened his grip on her and said, ‘‘Tell me how to save them both, the god and the woman.’’ Please, gods, let there be a way.

  ‘‘For the god to live the woman must die. There is no other way.’’

  ‘‘There must be,’’ he rasped. He refused to believe the gods had set him up only to fail her, only to force him to make a choice between the life he wanted and the duty he’d been born into. There had to be another way.

  ‘‘There is not.’’ The nahwal locked its flat black eyes on him. ‘‘Make your choice, Nightkeeper. Make it well.’’

  With that, the nahwal’s time was up. Anna didn’t know how she knew that, but she did, just as she knew that she’d be going with the creature when it returned to the mists. They were bound now. Inseparable. She hadn’t just come close to dying back at the temple; she had died. The nahwal had simply kept her alive until the god-bound power of Leah and Strike together had triggered the message.

  Now, it was time for her to leave.

  The gray-green mist swirled around her, forming a funnel, a vacuum that drew her away from the reality of Skywatch. She felt herself being sucked down, felt herself accelerating without moving.

  The outside world dimmed, and her heart cried out for the people she’d loved—for Dick and Lucius, for her brother and the others.

  She heard Strike call her name from far away, heard the crash of furniture being overturned, and men shouting. Arguing. Then pain flared in her palm, bright and white amidst the deepening dark gray, and a hand gripped hers.

  Power blasted through the connection, jolting through the mist, and suddenly that someone was there, inside her head, shouting at her.

  ‘‘Gods damn it, this way!’’ He tugged her away from the funnel, away from the nahwal’s might, and she heard the creature roar in denial. Then the vortex collapsed.

  And she woke up staring into Red-Boar’s eyes.

  That night, which was the night before the equinox, Leah eased away from Strike’s sleeping form and watched the faint light of the desert starscape play across his strong features.

  Something lodged tight in her throat: a wish, maybe, or a prayer.

  Don’t make him choose, she wanted to ask the gods, but didn’t know how. Besides, the nahwal had already said the choice was his to make.

  Or maybe, in the end, it was hers, too.

  She touched his face and the strong line of his shoulder, and saw his fierce expression lighten, as though he’d felt her caress even in sleep. Her emotions shuddered very near the surface, strong and frightening. Technically, they’d known each other for nearly three months, since the summer solstice. If she believed that what had happened before would happen again, then by her relationship clock their time was up. But she didn’t want it to be, damn it. She wanted . . .

  She wanted the impossible. She wanted him to choose her even though it meant going against logic, against his advisers, hell, against the gods.

  Restless, she rose from the mattress, pulled on a pair of loose yoga pants and one of his T-shirts, and pad
ded from the room, headed for the kitchen. The halls were dark, the mansion quiet around her, suggesting that everyone else was asleep, or close to it.

  It was a freeing thought. She’d grown used to living with the others and having to create the illusion of privacy. Now, it felt good to be alone in the night.

  Until she stepped into the kitchen and saw Jox.

  The winikin sat at the marble-topped breakfast bar, with his skinny ass perched on a stool and his pointy chin in his hands. His eyes were closed, and a small pipe sat in a saucer nearby, emitting a thin curl of copan-scented smoke.

  Leah slammed on the brakes and was in the process of doing a one-eighty when he said, ‘‘We could both pretend we didn’t see each other, but that’s not really the point, is it?’’

  She stopped and stiffened her spine before she turned. ‘‘And what is the point?’’

  A piece of her really wished the two of them could find a way to get along. She admired the hell out of the winikin’s fierce loyalty to Strike and Anna, and the traditions of their culture. Unfortunately, it was those very traditions that put them at odds. She didn’t fit into his worldview. Never would.

  He said simply, ‘‘Neither of us wants him to have to choose.’’

  She stilled as he echoed the sentiment she’d been thinking only moments earlier. She gave a cautious nod. ‘‘Agreed.’’

  ‘‘So what are you going to do about it?’’ The winikin’s expression remained impassive, but there was something new in his voice, something that wasn’t usually there on the rare occasion he spoke to her. It sounded an awful lot like sympathy, which Leah didn’t like one bit.

  ‘‘Don’t go there,’’ she said. Please don’t go there.

  ‘‘Do you have an alternative?’’

  She took a deep breath that did nothing to settle the sudden queasiness in her stomach, and looked away. ‘‘No.’’

  After a silent moment, he said, ‘‘Self-sacrifice isn’t a sin to the Nightkeepers. It’s the ultimate way for a magic user to honor the gods.’’