So yeah, she liked the barrier. And she liked visiting the squishy gray-green place . . . during the cardinal days. But this was only the new moon, and she didn’t command the sort of magic it would’ve taken to punch through the barrier on such a low- power day. None of the surviving Nightkeepers did. Even if she assumed her magic could’ve piggybacked onto Lucius’s library transport somehow, she hadn’t invoked the pasaj och spell required for a mage to enter the barrier. Which suggested that someone—or something—had summoned her.
“Hello?” she called into the mist, squinting in search of a wrinkled, desiccated humanoid figure. “Are you there?”
There was no answer. Just mist and more mist.
“Hello?” Frustration kicked through her. “What, you’re going to drag me in here, then ignore me? How is that fair?”
“Life’s not fair, child.” The words came from behind her, in a nahwal’s fluting, multitonal voice.
She whirled as the mist coalesced, thickening to reveal a tall, thin figure. As it stepped toward her, she saw the ch’am glyph of the harvester bloodline, that of an open, outstretched hand. But while that was as she had expected, the nahwal itself looked different than it had before. Instead of shiny, brownish skin stretched over ligament and bone, there seemed to be a thin layer of flesh between, making the nahwal look subtly rounded, bordering on feminine. More, its eyes, which before had been flat, featureless black, now bore gradations: There was a suggestion of charcoal-colored whites, with irises and pupils in darker gradations.
Unease tightened Jade’s throat. “What’s going on here?”
“You—” The nahwal started to answer, but broke off as it was gripped by a weird shudder. When it stilled, its face wore the neutral, expressionless mask she’d been expecting. More, its skin seemed to crinkle more tightly over its bones and the brief spark of personality she’d seen disappeared. In a multitonal voice it said, “Hear this, harvester child: You have a duty to your bloodline and your king. Do not seek to be more than you were meant to be. Going against the gods can only end badly.”
A hot flush climbed Jade’s throat as the nahwal’s words echoed the things Shandi had been saying for months now—years. Your role was defined long ago, the winikin kept insisting. Don’t break with tradition when it’s all we have to go on. And the last, at least, was true; the magi were being forced to rely on legend, routine, and the few scattered artifacts to tell them what they were supposed to do—and how to do it—in the triad years, the last three before the end-time.
But, damn it, she didn’t want to be a shield bearer.
Choosing her words carefully, all too aware that Rabbit had been attacked and nearly killed by a nahwal, she said, “With all due respect to my honored ancestors . . .” Saying it aloud, she realized that, deep down inside, she hadn’t really thought before about what, or rather who, the nahwal embodied. For a second, she was tempted to ask about her mother and father, to check if they were inside the nahwal somewhere, if they could talk to her. She didn’t, though, because she knew that the only nahwal to retain any personal characteristics was that of the jaguars, the royal bloodline. In that regard, the harvesters didn’t even come close to ranking. Taking a deep breath, she continued: “With all due respect, there are too few of us left to stand on bloodline tradition; each of us must do what we can for the fight.”
The nahwal started to say something, then stalled as a second whole-body shiver overtook it. The shellacked skin writhed like there were bugs under it, or worse. Caught between horrified fascination and revulsion, Jade took a step back even as the shivers stopped. When they were gone, the nahwal once again had pupils and emotion in its eyes, and a hint of feminine curves. “Yes, you must do all that you can and more,” it urged. “Be the most and best you can be, and don’t yield your own power to another, particularly a man. Don’t let emotion turn you aside from your true ambition, your true purpose. Find your magic, your way to make a difference.”
Shock and confusion rattled through Jade at this abrupt one-eighty from the “duty and destiny” rhetoric the nahwal had started with. “But I thought the harvesters—”
“Don’t just be a harvester,” the nahwal interrupted. “Be yourself.” Abruptly it surged forward and grabbed her wrist, its bony fingers digging into her flesh. “Find your magic,” it insisted. The place the nahwal was touching began to burn, and the gray-green mists around them roiled.
Through the billowing mist, Jade saw the nahwal twitch and shudder, felt it start to yank away, only to grip harder. “What’s happening?”
“Go,” the creature hissed at her, its eyes neither alive nor dead now, but somewhere in between. It let go of her and staggered back, moving jerkily. “Go!”
The gray-green fog began spiraling around Jade, making her think of the funnel clouds several of the others had experienced within the barrier—terrible tornadoes that could suck up a mage and spit him or her into limbo. The others had escaped from their plights, but they were warriors with strong magic. She wasn’t. Yet even as panic began to build inside her, something else joined it: a spiky, electric heat that lit her up and blunted the fear. It felt like magic, but it wasn’t any sort of power she’d ever touched before. Had the nahwal given her a new talent? A glance at her wrist showed the same two marks as before—one hand outstretched as though begging, another clutching a quill. Those were the same bloodline and talent marks she’d worn since her first barrier ceremony. But the hot energy inside her was magic; she was sure of it.
Biting her tongue sharply, she drew a blood sacrifice. Pain flared, the salty tang filled her mouth, and a humming noise kindled at the base of her brain. For a split second, she thought she saw another layer of organization to the mist-laden barrier and the rapidly forming tornado—a layer of angles and structure, the metaphorical computer code beneath the cosmic chat room. Then the perception was gone and there was only the terrible funnel cloud that spun around her, threatening to suck her up. The mists whipped past her, headed for the gaping maw; wind dragged at her, yanking at her clothes and hair as she braced against the pull. Around her, within her, that strange, mad energy continued to whirl and grow. She wasn’t sure whether it was a memory or real, but she heard the nahwal cry, in what sounded like a lone woman’s voice, “Go!”
It was the same voice she’d heard before, telling her to beware.
She wanted to stay and demand answers, but didn’t dare. She had to get out of there. Spitting a mouthful of blood into the whipping wind, she threw back her head and shouted, “Way!”
This time, the response was instantaneous. Red-gold magic slashed through her, out of her, twisting the barrier plane in on itself and folding her in with it. Gray-green mist flew past and she had the disorienting sensation of moving at an incredible rate of speed, while also being conscious that she wasn’t physically moving at all. The sense of motion stopped with a sickening jolt, and she was lying sprawled on her back, still and chill, bathed in the rusty light from the flat-screen TV that took up most of one wall.
She was back in Lucius’s cottage, back in her own body.
And thank the gods for that, she thought, blinking muzzily. She didn’t know how long she’d been out-of-body, or what time it was, though it was still full dark outside. The sense of emptiness in the room told her that Lucius wasn’t nearby. No doubt he’d made it back from the library and had gone to get Strike and the others, so they could wake her. Except that she’d awakened herself. She’d made it home.
She lay blinking for a moment, then let out a long, exultant breath and sat partway up. “I did it.” She’d cast the “way” spell by herself, had rescued herself from the barrier. “I did it!”
More, the magic was still inside her. It hadn’t stayed behind in the barrier. And it was showing her things. Where before the glyphs on the TV screen had only hinted at another layer of meaning, she now saw that the text string wasn’t illiterate gibberish at all, but a fragment of a spell . . . or rather a blessing, she realized, though sh
e didn’t know what would have been blessed, or why.
I’m a spell caster, she thought, using the alternate meaning of the scribe’s talent mark, the one that had never before felt accurate. Her throat tightened with the raw, ragged joy of it. Or if I’m not now, at least I’m heading in that direction. The nahwal had triggered her talent. It seemed that Lucius wasn’t the only one to get a jump start tonight.
Still staring at the screen, as happy laughter bubbled up in her chest and stalled in her throat, she put down her hands, intending to push herself to her feet. Instead of finding the floor, though, she touched cold flesh.
Letting out a shriek, she yanked her hand back and spun, her heart going leaden in her chest. “Lucius!”
He lay where he’d been before. Even in the reddish brown light his skin was an unhealthy gray, his lips blue. For a long second, she didn’t think he was breathing at all. Then his chest lifted in a slow, sluggishly indrawn breath. After another agonizing wait, it dropped as he breathed out.
“Lucius?” She reached out trembling fingers to check the pulse at his throat, steeling herself against the chill of his flesh. She couldn’t detect his heartbeat, but stemmed the rising panic. If his heart weren’t beating, he wouldn’t still be breathing. Instead of settling her, though, the thought brought images of animated corpses with glowing green eyes.
No, she told herself harshly. The makol is gone. Lucius isn’t. I won’t let him be.
Heart pounding, she scrabbled around, found the earpiece, and keyed it to transmit. “Hey, guys. Need some help in here.” Her voice was two octaves too high.
“Are you okay?” Jox asked immediately, his voice full of a winikin’s concern.
She tried to keep it factual, tried not to let her voice tremble. “Lucius is out and fading. I think we’re going to need Sasha, and maybe Rabbit.” Sasha could heal him. Rabbit, with his mind-bender’s talent, could follow where Lucius’s mind had gone. Maybe. Hopefully. Please, gods.
There was a murmur of off- mike conversation, and then the winikin said, “Sit tight. Strike and the others are on their way.”
“I’m on mike,” Strike broke in, the background sounds suggesting he was running. “Where is he stuck?” But they both knew he was really asking, Did he make it to the library?
“I don’t know.” She sketched out a quick report of her and Lucius’s out- of-body jaunt to Xibalba. She’d tell the others about her solo trip to the barrier after she’d had a chance to think about it herself. By the writs, it was her right to keep her nahwal’s messages private, and she didn’t think her visit with the nahwal was relevant to the library. Beyond that, it had confused her. Some of what the nahwal had said made complete sense, and it seemed that the creature had given her the missing piece of her magic. But at the same time, some of what it had said jarred against Jade’s own instincts . . . although admittedly those instincts had been ingrained by Shandi, whose loyalty first and foremost was to the harvester bloodline, Jade had long ago decided, not necessarily to the needs and desires of her own charge. Which left her . . . where?
Before she could even begin to answer that, Strike booted the cottage door open and strode through the kitchen with the others in his wake. Instinctively—she couldn’t have said why, or where the urge came from—Jade punched the remote to kill the image on the big
TV, and clicked on the light beside the sofa instead. The others didn’t notice her actions or question them; they were intent on Lucius as, in a flash, the cottage went from being too empty to being too full, jammed with overlarge bodies, gleaming good looks, and expansive personalities.
Michael and Sasha were on the king’s heels: He was dark and green-eyed, with jaw-length black hair, wide features, and a big fighter’s body that all but oozed pheromones; she was lean and lithe, with flyaway brunette curls and eyes the color of rich milk chocolate. They balanced each other perfectly. More, they were Jade’s closest friends at Skywatch. Under other circumstances, in another life, that might have been odd, given that Michael had been her lover for a time. But Jade was a pragmatist. Michael, though a death wielder and their resident mage-assassin, was a good man; and Sasha was a friend. They made it work. More, Sasha was a ch’ulel, a master of living energy, and Lucius badly needed an energy infusion. Jade was glad Strike had brought them both.
Behind them came the two other mated mage- pairs in residence, bringing the exponential power boosts of their jun tan mated marks. Alexis led the way, a blond Amazon of a warrior whose ambition had gained her the position of king’s adviser, as her mother had been for Strike’s father. Nate was right behind her, not because he was secondary in their mated power structure, but because he didn’t feel any need to jockey for position, with her or with the others. He was the Volatile, a shape-shifter who could turn into a man-size hawk that featured prominently in some of the more obscure end-time prophecies. He was also a loner, brought into the Nightkeepers’ tightly knit group—and the royal council—by his and Alexis’s rock-solid love match.
The couple following them, in contrast, was far from rock-solid, in Jade’s opinion, both professional and personal. Brown-haired, intense Brandt and blond karate instructor Patience had found each other, and the magic of love, more than three years before the barrier reactivated and they all learned they were the last of the Nightkeepers. But for all that they’d been married human-style for nearly five years now, and had twin sons together, they walked apart, not touching. Barely even looking at each other. The problems in their relationship had been going on for some time, but Jade was struck anew by the distance that gaped between two people who, on paper, at least, seemed as though they should be the perfect couple.
Ghosting in behind them came Sven, the lone remaining Nightkeeper bachelor within the training compound. Loose limbed and all-American handsome, with a stubby blond ponytail and a seemingly endless supply of ass-hanging shorts and surf-shop T-shirts, he wore his I-don’t-take-anything-seriously attitude like a shield. Jade, though, saw beneath to a man who was deeply bothered that he’d failed the Nightkeepers several times when they’d needed him.
Although simple math and the value added by matings between Nightkeepers would suggest she and Sven should try the couple thing, the suggestion had never been broached in her hearing. While she suspected that was largely because she lacked the warrior’s mark, she was grateful it had never come down to that for either of them. Duty would’ve demanded she at least try to make it work, and that would have been . . . uncomfortable. She liked Sven, but wasn’t attracted to him. She liked a man who made her laugh, one who made her think. One who challenged her, teased her, made her a little crazy.
At the thought, she looked down at Lucius’s motionless form and heard a multitonal whisper in her mind: Don’t let yourself get distracted by the human. That wasn’t exactly what the nahwal had said; she wasn’t sure if it was her own reservations talking now, or something else. Still, though, she was acutely aware that Strike’s human mate, Leah, wasn’t there. For all that they loved each other fiercely, and he’d gone against the gods to claim her as his own, ever since the destruction of the skyroad had severed her Godkeeper connection, Leah had offered little in terms of magic.
Leah wasn’t the only one missing, either, Jade realized with a kick of unease. Rabbit wasn’t there. Granted, Strike would’ve had to ’port out to UT for him, but still. Who better than a mind-bender to find a lost soul?
“Let’s get him up on the couch,” Strike said, not really acknowledging Jade. He glanced at Sasha. “Unless you think we should haul him to the sacred chamber, or even down south to the tomb?”
She shook her head. “Let’s see what we’re up against before we change too many things at once. Couch first, then triage, then we’ll make decisions about moving him.” Given that she was their resident healer it was logical for her to take command of the situation. But that didn’t stop resentment from kicking through Jade as the others crowded around Lucius’s motionless form, putting her on the outside of a
solid wall of wide shoulders and too-perfect bodies.
The men lifted Lucius onto the sofa, jostled him until he was wedged in place, then nearly mummified him with the quilt. Don’t trap him like that, Jade wanted to tell them. He’d hate it. But she stayed silent, feeling invisible and unimportant. This wasn’t about her; it was about the Nightkeepers doing what they could for Lucius. And even if the nahwal actually had unlocked some part of her talent, it wasn’t like she could rattle off a spell capable of bringing him back. For now, Lucius was better off with Strike and Sasha taking the lead, with the others lending power to them, and through them into Lucius.
Feeling extraneous, Jade eased back farther.
“Where are you going?” Strike asked. It took Jade a second to realize he was talking to her.
“Sorry. Did you want me to stay for the uplink?”
The king locked eyes with her, his expression unreadable. “Sex forges a connection within the magic. You’re his lover, which means you’re our best means of finding him.”
“I’m not his—” She broke off the instinctive denial, because this wasn’t about the “L” word. And she couldn’t claim there wasn’t a connection. It didn’t make sense for her to argue on one hand that sex magic was just about the sex, then on the other hand claim that a magic bond between sex partners required an emotional bond that wasn’t relevant to her and Lucius.
“You said you wanted to step up into the fight, even without the warrior’s mark. Well, here’s a chance for you to do exactly that.”
Strike’s challenge hung on the air for a moment, seeming to suck all the oxygen from Jade’s lungs. She was acutely aware of the others watching her, waiting for her response. Part of her wanted to melt into the woodwork. Another wanted to cut and run. Instead, she took a deep breath and nodded. “Of course. I’m in.” She only hoped she was strong enough to make a difference . . . and that the Nightkeepers together could bring Lucius home.
Final Prophecy 04: Demonkeepers Page 9