But that was the sort of thing the old Patience would have thought and done—something self-pitying and pointless. So instead of sitting there and stewing, she broke into the debate and said bluntly, “No offense, but we have four days to make Brandt into a Triad mage. I think we should focus on that rather than quibbling over abstracts.”
“Figuring out how I pissed off my own dead ancestors is pretty damned abstract,” Brandt pointed out, but he nodded. “But you’re right. We need to figure out what this debt is all about.” His thigh pressed more firmly against hers as he shifted to face her. “I think should try the etznab spell again.”
Her breath went thin, her blood heating with sensory memory and the mingled anticipation and unease that came with the thought of connecting with him again on that level. We won’t have to use the jun tan the next time, she reminded herself. “We could also try visiting the actual places where the visions took place, and jacking in,” she suggested.
“Good idea,” Strike said. “Get me a satellite picture or something, and I’ll ’port you two whenever you’re ready.”
Brandt turned away from her to say, “I’d rather go solo. It’s not safe out there if Iago’s awake and fully joined with Moctezuma’s demon.”
The flash of anger caught Patience by surprise. She was halfway off her stool before she was aware of moving, getting right in his face to snap, “It’s not my job to stay safe. And whether you like it or not, we’re still stronger together than apart—magically, at least.” Suddenly becoming aware that she was on the verge of causing major a scene, where before she had been careful to keep things so private between them, she lowered her voice a notch. “I’m your partner. You can give me that much, damn it.”
Their eyes locked. She sensed his anger, not through the jun tan, but in the set of his jaw and the tense lines of his body. She didn’t back down, though. Not this time.
After a few heartbeats of standoff, he exhaled. “I’m not trying to be a dick here.”
“I know.” In a way, that made it all worse, because both of them kept trying to do what they thought was right, and it kept not meshing. “But you’re not going to win on this one.”
“Yeah.” He smiled humorlessly. “I got that.” But when he met her eyes, instead of the dark frustration she expected, she glimpsed a hint of gold. More, she saw him—the man, not the warrior—for just a second before the shields slammed back down.
Unexpectedly, energy sparked in the air between them.
Help him remember. The nahwal’s order echoed through her soul, and her pulse jumped as a new thought occurred. It was far too tempting to think that he was supposed to remember how to be her husband, her lover. She wasn’t sure what that theory had to do with debts and ancestors, but it certainly jibed with how the magic worked. The closer their emotional ties, the stronger their magic.
What if he’d had it backward all along? What if they weren’t supposed to table their marriage for the duration of the war? What if they were supposed to fix it instead?
Don’t go there, she warned herself. They had tried too many times before to patch up their relationship. She was sick of trying, sick of failing. And there was no reason to think anything had changed, really.
Unless it had.
“Given what the nahwal said and the way the etznab spell seems to work, I want the two of you teaming up on every aspect of this. Find a way to make it work,” Strike said in his “end of discussion, the jaguar king has spoken” voice.
Brandt faced front. “Like I said. I got it.”
Patience sent him an edged look, but said to the king, “We’ll do what needs to be done.”
Strike didn’t look totally satisfied by that answer, but he let it go and turned to Lucius. “Moving on. What have you got on the two gods the nahwal mentioned?”
Lucius had been frowning over something on his laptop. At the king’s question, he looked up, blinking around at the group as though he’d forgotten they were there. “Kali and Cabrakan.” He cleared his throat. “Right. The nahwal said that if—when—Brandt becomes the Triad mage, he’ll be able to prevent Cabrakan from avenging his brother and finishing what Kali began. Which gives us two gods to work with. Starting with Kali, there’s some debate on whether he—and this god is most definitely a ‘he,’ enormous schlong and all—is allied with the sky or Xibalba. Either way, he’s the god of leadership. Nightkeeper leadership, in particular.”
“That’s why it sounded familiar,” Strike said. “The Manikin scepter is carved in Kali’s image, enormous schlong and all.” The scepter, which resided in the barrier with the jaguar nahwal, was the symbol of his rulership. “Which I suppose makes us Kali’s children, and means that Cabrakan is going to come after us.” He paused. “So who or what is Cabrakan?”
“The lord of earthquakes.”
“Shit,” Brandt muttered. “Not good.”
“Uh-oh,” Patience whispered. Up until now, the Banol Kax had been able to send only relatively minor demons to test the barrier during the cardinal equinoxes and solstices. The earthquake lord, though, didn’t sound like any minor demon.
Strike held up a hand to quell the rising buzz in the room. To Lucius, he said, “Go on.”
“The ancients knew how to track the movement of the stars and predict basic weather patterns, which allowed them to make the proper sacrifices and feel like they were in relatively decent control of their environment. In contrast, earthquakes struck without warning, and could be absolutely devastating. Because of that, Cabrakan was one of the most feared of the Banol Kax. When an earthquake struck, the priests would hustle to throw together massive rituals of appeasement, in the hopes of mitigating the aftershocks.”
“In other words,” Brandt said, “this particular Banol Kax isn’t something we want to fuck with.”
Lucius nodded. “Problem is, we already have . . . and in doing so, we messed with the legends.” He paused. “Cabrakan’s brother is—or was—Zipacna.”
Strike growled, “Son of a bitch.”
Patience drew in a breath as the dots connected. Two years earlier, Strike and Leah had joined together with the creator god, Kulkulkan, to defeat the winged crocodile demon, Zipacna, in a fierce aerial battle. In the process, Zipacna’s essence had been destroyed rather than being returned to Xibalba as part of the Great Cycle.
“According to the legends,” Lucius continued, “Zipacna was destined to make it through to the end-time war, when he and Cabrakan would fight the Hero Twins. The outcome of that particular battle was to be pivotal in determining whether the barrier falls completely, giving the Banol Kax total access to the earth plane. But now . . .” Lucius spread his hands. “We’re off the map here, people.”
Patience’s heart clutched. “If Cabrakan is supposed to fight the Hero Twins . . .” She trailed off, unable to finish the thought.
The half-human deities starred in many of the old legends. In the stories, the young boys—one brave, the other studious—got themselves into and out of numerous adventures, eventually winning their ways through Xibalba itself in order to rescue their father, who had been captured by the Banol Kax.
Harry and Braden had never been bound to the barrier, and therefore couldn’t be tracked by magical means, but the parallels had always unnerved Patience. Now they terrified her, especially given that the twins weren’t babies anymore, not really. At five years old, if they had been growing up inside the old system, they would have their bloodline marks and be practicing their first small spells. Gods.
“Hannah and Woody won’t let anything happen to them,” Jox said. “They know how to stay out of sight. And how to raise good kids.”
Patience smiled faintly at that. “Yeah. They do.” She sobered. “But . . . I don’t know. Every time the Hero Twins come up in conversation, my fight-or-flight response goes into overdrive.”
“Mine too,” Brandt said, surprising her. His expression was set and uncompromising, but for a change she found the steeliness comforting. “We won�
��t let anything happen to them. Whatever it takes is what we’ll do. Whatever they need from us is what they’ll get.” He met her eyes. “Even if it isn’t what we really want.”
It was the closest he’d come to talking about the boys being gone in a long time. It was also, she thought, an offer of a truce in Brandt-speak.
She slipped off her stool and held out a hand. “Come on. Let’s see if the etznab spell can get us any further into either of the visions.”
The most frustrating thing about the magic was its unpredictability. At first, the magi had ascribed the problem to lack of info and proper training, but the more they learned from the library, the more it seemed that the magic was a closer to an art form than a defined set of actions and reactions. Given the increasing volatility of the barrier, which was ramping up both light and dark powers in spurts, with lull periods between, the magic was rapidly becoming a crapshoot.
Rabbit’s mind-bending talent, which had faded to almost nonexistent for a while, had rebounded in the past few months, while Lucius had lost his onetime ability to form barrier conduits. Which meant there were no guarantees when it came to the mirror spell.
Still, when Brandt took her hand, the contact brought a kick of anticipation.
“If the mirror pot doesn’t work this time, don’t be afraid to try the cards again,” Lucius put in. When Strike shot him a “what the hell?” look, the human held up his hands. “Don’t hate the messenger. She said she needed a spell that involved a mirror, and ‘abracadabra’ or ‘et voilà’ or whatever, I put paws on the spell she needed. That’s not a coincidence.”
“It was—” just a hunch, Patience started to say, but broke off because it had been more than that.
“Look at it this way,” Jade put in. “The magi have always adapted themselves, and their powers, to their local environment. When they lived in Egypt, they worshipped cats and crocodiles. With the Maya, it was maize and chocolate. The core beliefs were the same: The astrology, the pyramids, the sun worship, and the hieroglyphic writing, those pieces of the religion were all there. But the trappings changed. Maybe something similar is happening here.”
Brandt frowned. “So you’re thinking—what?—that the Mayan Oracle is a divination ritual that leaked to the human world somehow?”
“Actually, I’m thinking the reverse: that it’s a fully human invention that resonates with Nightkeeper power, or at least with Patience’s power.” Jade paused. “There were itza’ats in her bloodline, you know.”
Strike’s head came up; his eyes narrowed on Patience. “Really?”
Patience’s pulse tapped a quick, syncopated rhythm at the thought of being able to see into the future, but not change anything she saw. “I wouldn’t know. I’m not big on genealogy.”
In fact, she hadn’t learned more than the basics about her parents and bloodline. As far as she was concerned, Hannah was her mother, and Brandt and the boys were her family. It wasn’t that she resented her parents for dying, or anything complicated like that. She just didn’t feel much of a connection to the prior generation of Nightkeepers.
Or rather, she hadn’t until the day before. Now she realized that, without her even really being aware of it, she had been subconsciously digesting her interaction with the nahwal, replaying the message and that moment when she had seen a spark of life within the creature . . . and thinking about where—or who—it had come from. Her mother might be in the nahwal’s collective consciousness; her father definitely was. Her uncles, grandfather, great-grandfather . . . an entire patriarchal iguana lineage were represented within the creature. And, apparently, an itza’at or two.
Strike nodded slowly. “All right. Use the cards. But do what you did with the mirror spell, and get some sort of independent confirmation before acting on what they tell you.”
“They won’t ‘tell’ me anything,” she said with some asperity. “They’re just a tool, a way to—” She broke off as magic rippled along her skin and the background power sink that surrounded Skywatch decreased sharply and then kicked back up over the span of a heartbeat. “What was that?”
Brandt put himself between her and the front door. “Something just came through the wards.” Moments later, a shrill alarm blatted three short blasts to warn that someone had keyed in the combo to get through the front gate of the compound. Which meant it was one of them.
Strike uncoiled from his stool, but nobody else moved. They all held their places as the front door swung open and Nate’s voice became audible, saying, “—fucking deadweight. Thought the pilot was going to shit himself when we showed up. Lucky for us he knows Jox, and will do just about anything for a bonus.”
Heavy footsteps sounded in the short hallway that ran past the dining room turned war chamber, and then the small group came into sight. Alexis led the way, schlepping a battered black duffel bag. Behind her, Nate and Sven carried a folding stretcher between them. On it lay an unconscious man who was immobilized beneath a cocoonlike layer of cargo straps that might have seemed overkill if it hadn’t been for the sheer size of the guy, who was huge even by Nightkeeper standards. His head wore the stubble of a week-old skull trim, and his features were wide and strong, with a prominent beak of a nose that made Patience think of ancient carvings, Mayan kings and gods.
Even in repose, he emanated an aura of power on both the physical and psi levels, one that seemed to announce, Here I am. What are you going to do about it?
Seeing that most of Skywatch was standing there, gaping, Nate stopped and raised a sardonic brow in the king’s direction. “Guest suite or basement?”
Strike didn’t hesitate. “Basement. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred.” What the lower-level storerooms lacked in amenities, they made up for with the absence of windows and the presence of heavy doors that could be securely locked with dead bolts and magic.
Nate nodded. “No argument coming from me.” As the two men hauled their deadweight cargo in the direction of the stairs leading down, Sven called back, “This guy gives off a major ‘don’t fuck with me’ vibe even when he’s barely breathing. You think that’s the Triad magic?”
“Nope.” Strike shook his head. “That’s one hundred percent Mendez. Be warned. And for fuck’s sake, don’t turn your back on him.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
December 18
Three days until the solstice-eclipse
Skywatch
For Patience, the thirty or so hours after Brandt reawakened passed in a blur of fruitless etznab magic, failed hypnosis, and an uncomfortable trip to New Hampshire, where visits with the dead boys’ families and a trip to the scene of the long-ago accident succeeded only in turning Brandt’s mood dark.
Mendez and Anna were both still deeply comatose, and there was still no sign of Mendez’s winikin. Fortunately, there hadn’t been any sign of Iago either. Lucius speculated that the Xibalban would be physically weak after his long period of stasis, so was probably recuperating. Even given the accelerated healing of a demon-human hybrid makol, he might be out of action through the solstice, gods willing. With the time ticking down, Rabbit and Myrinne were down in the Yucatán, trying to open the passageway beneath the El Rey pyramid, but so far that was a no-go.Which left the Nightkeepers with three days until the solstice and no idea how they were supposed to stop the earthquake demon.
Worse, earth tremors had hit Albuquerque and northern Honduras almost simultaneously the prior evening. They’d been below four on the Richter scale, but left little doubt that Cabrakan was stirring.
The threat permeated Skywatch, making the air tense and tight, and driving Patience outside in search of some fresh air . . . and some privacy.
Even though Strike had asked her to see if the cards could provide another clue like they had with the mirror spell, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to start laying spreads in the kitchen or great room, or even in the suite where Brandt was brooding. Or maybe—probably—it was because she was under orders that she couldn’t settle to the task. Th
ere was pressure now. Expectations.
She had been planning to hunker down in a corner of the training hall, where she’d put in hundreds of hours drilling the others on hand-to-hand and evasive maneuvers. But as she pushed through the glass doors at the back of the great room and started across the pool deck, her eyes lit on the pool house that stood off to one side.
The small building—just a single room with a tiny attached bathroom—had been Strike’s chosen quarters when they had all first gathered at Skywatch. Once he moved into the royal suite with Leah, the pool house had become one of the twins’ favorite hangouts, a grown-up-sized playhouse of their very own.
They hadn’t been allowed there unsupervised, of course, not with the pool right there. But Hannah had brought them there often, as had Patience. Best of all—at least as far as the twins had been concerned—was when they had been able to persuade Rabbit to bring them to the pool house, shut the door . . . and tell them the Hero Twin stories.
Back then, Patience hadn’t been able to figure out what made Rabbit’s stories so cool for Harry and Braden; they were more or less the same legends she and Hannah told. Now she wondered if Rabbit’s nascent mind-bending ability had been starting to break through even that early on, allowing him to paint word pictures in the boys’ minds.
Regardless, as she pushed through the door into the pool house, she was hit with a vivid memory of one particular night when she’d peeked in to check on her boys, and found them there with their “uncle Rabbit.”
They had dragged cushions off the daybed and sat on the woven rug-covered floor, with lit candles providing sufficiently creepy flickering light. Harry had been neatly cross-legged, his hands folded in his lap, his eyes locked on Rabbit, his only movement that of one thumb tapping atop the other in the perpetual motion of a three-year-old boy. Braden had been sprawled on his belly nearby, toes drumming, face rapt.
Rabbit had looked so much younger than he did now, lean and rangy with only his bloodline and fire-talent marks on his forearm; he hadn’t worn the hellmark back then and hadn’t yet grown into himself. But the same wild intensity had burned in his gray-blue eyes as he shaped the air with his hands and described how the twins, Xblanque and Hun Hunapu, had gotten trapped in Xibalba while searching for their father, and hid from the Banol Kax by making themselves very small and hiding inside Hunapu’s blowpipe.
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