Sven’s eyes fired. “Hell, yeah. Let’s—”
A roaring boom cut him off as a violent explosion detonated beneath them. The ground shuddered and bucked, sending Patience reeling. She grabbed on to Brandt, screaming as a huge gout of debris erupted from the pyramid’s doorway in a giant shotgun blast of dust and shrapnel.
There was no time for a shield spell. Brandt turned them so he took the brunt; she felt the impacts shuddering through him, and cried out when pain slashed across her upper arm on one side, her calf on the other. A series of crashes followed the first detonation, sounding like the earth was tearing itself apart.
As the noise faded, the others started shouting questions and raging at their enemy, but Patience couldn’t make out words over the low-throated rumble of stone and earth resettling itself, and the ringing in her ears.
Heart hammering, she pushed away from Brandt, took two steps in the direction of the pyramid, and stopped dead.
“No!” The word ripped from her throat in a scream. She pressed the back of one hand to her mouth, tears flowing at the sight of a huge pile of rubble where the pyramid had been.
It had collapsed in and down, toppling into the deep, circular depression that had appeared behind and under it. Their cave.
“He planted a second bomb,” she said numbly. Her own voice sounded strange in her ears, though the ringing had subsided.
Brandt gripped her hand, squeezing hard, his eyes dark with anger. But then he tugged her away from the wreckage to where the others were gathering. “Come on. We need to get our asses out of here and regroup.”
He was right. The chameleon shield had held through the blast, but the humans would be incoming, rushing to see the damage that they would undoubtedly blame on one of the miniquakes that were part of Cabrakan’s warm-up act. And the magi were banged up: She had deep cuts on her arm and leg. Brandt was favoring one side of his torso, his face drawn in pain; Sven was cradling his arm; the rest of their teammates were variously bloody and battered. Not to mention that they were all starting to sag with postmagic fatigue.
Patience stared at the rubble for a long, yearning moment, not wanting to believe that the beautiful blue-green lagoon, with the flowered vines and the pretty white beach where she and Brandt had first made love together, where they made sense together, was gone. But it was.
After a long moment, she turned away and headed to join the others. And she didn’t let herself look back.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Skywatch
When Patience had finally resigned herself to the twins being gone, one of the few things that had helped was knowing that Hannah and Woody were taking care of them, raising them. But when the banged-up team materialized back at Skywatch and the other winikin descended on their charges, she would’ve given almost anything for Hannah to be there too.
Then Patience would have had someone to fuss over her, someone who would be focused on helping her bounce back as quickly as possible, with no other agenda beyond that. And although part of her beating the depression had involved being responsible for her own well-being, just then she would’ve given a body part to duck that load for an hour or two.
Sighing, she dropped onto the nearest couch and let the chaos of fragmented explanations and winikin -led triage flow around her. She would get up in a minute, she thought. Already, her accelerated healing powers were dulling the pain of the cuts on her shoulder and leg, expelling the debris, and knitting the flesh. But right now, she didn’t want to have to take care of herself.
“What do you say we head for the suite, so we can get cleaned up and survey the damage in peace?”
It took a moment for Brandt’s words to penetrate the cottony numbness that surrounded her, another moment for her to focus on him.
He was leaning over her, holding out a hand that was crusted with blood, dust, and ash, as was the rest of him. His hair stuck up in gluey clumps, and blood seeped from a cut above one eyebrow, but she was struck by the way those red-rimmed eyes were entirely focused on her. She saw grief and anger in him, and frustration that Iago had beaten them and destroyed the cave.
But she didn’t see the hated distance, the detachment. He was still there, totally with her in the moment. They were back at Skywatch . . . but he still had gold in his eyes.
Hope fluttered in her chest, cautiously unfurling. Had El Rey changed things between them after all?
She didn’t know. What she did know was that, just then, she needed someone to fuss over her, and he was offering.
Putting her hand in his, she said, “Lead the way.”
He pulled her to her feet and they set off toward the residential wing, leaning on each other.
“You two want some help?” Jox called across the great room.
Patience smiled at the royal winikin, but shook her head. “No, thanks. We can take care of each other.” And for the first time in a long, long time it didn’t feel like that was wishful thinking.
Two hours later, the residents of Skywatch gathered in the great room. Michael was there, having left Mendez, still zonked out in one of the basement storerooms and guarded by Carlos and a double-barreled shotgun loaded with jadeshot. Sasha was there too; Strike had ’ported her back to the compound so she could quick-heal Sven’s busted arm, Brandt’s cracked ribs, and a few other blast injuries, and also to give her a break from watching over Anna, whose condition was stubbornly unchanging. Nate and Alexis, posing as members of the extended family, had taken over at the hospital.
Patience felt loose-limbed and relatively well rested, thanks to a long shower and a huge shared bowl of pasta that Brandt had made while she was washing up. And if it had seemed once or twice that he’d been trying too hard, at least he was making an effort.
As Strike called the meeting to order and did a quick “this is where we’re at” to bring the winikin, Michael, and Sasha up to speed, Patience pressed her sneakered foot against the side of Brandt’s boot and received a return nudge that meant more to her than it probably ought to. But she let herself have the moment.
Strike finished his rundown with, “Obviously these new developments raise a shitload of additional questions and issues, but our priority needs to be finding a way to get our asses into the intersection for the solstice-eclipse. We can’t use the light-magic tunnel. Even if we could come up with a spell to move that much rubble, the area’s going to be under some serious human scrutiny. Which means we need to find another way in.” He looked at Rabbit. “Do you think you could find the dark-magic entrance?”
“Maybe. Could I open it once I found it? Probably. But that’d lay me wide-open to Iago, and I don’t—” He broke off, flushing. His voice was tight with guilt and frustration when he said, “At this point, I don’t know what the fuck to do except stay here inside the wards for the rest of the war. It doesn’t make any godsdamned sense for me to go outside where Iago can read me whenever the hell he wants. It’s like I’m an enemy spy, only I’m not. I’m just . . . fuck. I’m not strong enough to block him anymore.” He fell silent, scowling miserably. Myrinne, who sat beside him on the far love seat, touched his arm in support; he nodded acknowledgment, but his expression didn’t lighten.
“I keep wondering why Iago didn’t know about the intersection already,” Patience said. She’d been going over it in her head, partly in an effort to not think about the cave, or the fact that they were running out of time.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” Lucius said. “The Order of Xibalba split off from the Nightkeepers, right? But then it developed its own characteristics, which we’re pretty sure parallel the Aztec culture. Well, in the Aztec world, the boys who were destined to be soldiers were raised under really rough conditions. When they hit fifteen, they entered military training camps, where knowledge was power and an elder son always had a much higher status than his younger brothers. Based on that, I could see Ix keeping the intersection’s location a secret from Iago, especially if they were the only two surviving members of the ruli
ng bloodline. It was all about competition, even between brothers.”
Rabbit didn’t look entirely convinced. “If that was the deal, why was Iago so pissed when he found out how Ix died?”
“Because they were blood,” Strike said flatly.
“And because we’re Nightkeepers,” Brandt put in. “Not to mention that we prevented his father’s reincarnation as a makol. It doesn’t matter how he felt about Ix—he’s going to be bullshit.”
A shiver crawled down the back of Patience’s neck. “ ‘What has happened before will happen again,’ ” she murmured, quoting from the writs. When Strike gestured for her to continue, she said, “Everything cycles. Cabrakan and Iago both blame Nightkeepers for killing their brothers. And they both want revenge.” But she frowned when that jarred. “Except if Iago wanted to kill me and Brandt, why didn’t he blow the cave while we were inside? He had to have seen us through the eyes of the makol.”
“He might have decided he couldn’t risk killing the two of you right at the light-magic entrance,” Lucius pointed out. “There’s a good chance the sacrifice would have opened the skyroad for good.”
There was a beat of silence as they absorbed the near miss.
In that moment, though, Patience had an idea. To Rabbit, she said, “I know you said you’re not strong enough to block Iago anymore, but do you think you could direct him to certain pieces of information? Or hide other pieces so he can’t get to them?”
A faint spark kindled in his eyes. “Maybe. Yeah. I think I could figure out a block that looks like my normal background mental pattern, sort of camouflaging some stuff.”
“No,” Brandt growled. “Don’t even think about it.”
Which meant he already had. Pulse bumping with a mix of nerves and adrenaline, she turned to Strike. “Iago didn’t come after us today because he’s too smart to waste the power he could gain from our sacrifice. We can use that to set a trap.”
“No,” Brandt repeated, jaw set. “Abso-fuckinglutely not.”
Strike flicked him a look. “That’s not your call.”
Brandt glared. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t try it. Set me up all you want. Douse me in ketchup and tie a fucking bow around my neck. I don’t care. But she doesn’t get used as bait.”
Patience’s inner warrior wasn’t buying that one, but the woman within liked the steel in his tone. To new beginnings, she thought. “We don’t have to decide the details now. The immediate question is whether Rabbit can figure out a way to show Iago only what we want him to see.”
Brandt turned back to her. “I’m serious; if we set a trap, I want you waiting with the others, not down in the hot zone with me.”
But instead of the gold-shot concern she expected to see in his face, she saw cool distance.
Her heart plummeted, and her pulse bumped off rhythm when she realized that he wasn’t present anymore. He was . . . gone. “That didn’t last long, did it?” she said softly.
Regret flashed briefly in his eyes. Instead of answering, though, he turned to Lucius. “Is there anything in the library about major dark-magic spells that are specific to a solstice-eclipse? It’d help if we knew what Iago could be planning for tomorrow night.”
“He might not be planning anything,” Rabbit pointed out. “I think he’s still pretty weak, at least physically. He might hold off until the spring equinox, when he’s at full power.”
“You willing to bet on that?”
“No. I’m just saying.”
Patience let the conversation move around her while she tried to make the inner shift from “this is our new beginning” to “I’m responsible for my own emotions.” She’d gotten pretty good at the latter, but it sucked to realize how quickly she had fallen back into old patterns based on a few good days.
Damn it, she knew better. But she was weak when it came to him, too ready to give things between them a second chance. Or a fifth. A twenty-fifth.
A noise from the far side of the great room jerked her from self-recrimination.
Jox stood white-faced in the arched doorway leading to the winikin’s wing.
Strike bolted to his feet. “What’s wrong? Is it Anna?”
“There’s been an earthquake in Mexico City. I’m not sure how bad—it just hit the CNN crawl.”
The room went dead silent. Oh shit, Patience thought as her heart nose-dived and her and Brandt’s problems suddenly felt a whole lot smaller.
“Fuck.” Strike grabbed the remote, powered up the big screen that dominated one wall, and clicked over to one of the Mexican news stations they monitored.
The audio came on first, in Spanish. Patience had to wait for the image to clarify and the closed-captioning to come online. The picture steadied first; it showed people thronging a street, milling and gesturing.
Moments later, words scrolled along the bottom of the screen: “. . . the quake, which reportedly registered 6.1 on the Richter scale, shook buildings and sent people out into the streets, but no injuries have been reported. Many of the people you see standing outside their homes and jobs remember twenty-five years ago, when an 8.1 earthquake leveled much of the city and killed upwards of ten thousand people.” The screen switched to a montage of twisted steel and crumbled cement against a background pall of gray dust.
They watched for a few more minutes, the tension in the room leveling off as it became obvious that the quake could have been far worse.
Finally, Strike killed the volume and tossed the remote. “Cabrakan’s letting us know that he’s coming for us.”
But Brandt frowned. “If that’s the case, why hit Mexico City? That was Aztec territory. Why not aim for a Nightkeeper site?”
“Mexico City is built over Moctezuma’s capital city, Tenochtitlán,” Lucius pointed out. “Maybe it’s a message for Iago, not us.” He paused. “It’s not like Iago and the Banol Kax are allies anymore. We’ve got a three-way fight shaping up: Iago wants to finish the conquest Moctezuma began in the fifteen hundreds, the Banol Kax want to conquer the earth plane and use it as a staging area to attack the sky, and we’re trying to hold the freaking status quo.”
Patience was only partway paying attention; she was focused on the closed-captioning and the images that flashed on the TV screen, partly because she was numb and heartsore over Brandt’s withdrawal, partly because of what was showing on the screen.
In the absence of any real damage from the current quake, the new ghouls were rehashing the earlier quake atop a montage of film and still shots showing rescue efforts, stadiums turned into morgues, and tent cities of dispossessed survivors. “Even though the epicenters of both the 1985 earthquake and today’s quake were located some 350 kilometers away, in the Pacific Ocean, Mexico City is particularly vulnerable to seismic activity because of its location atop a dry lake bed. The lake was filled during the expansion of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlán, but the fill isn’t stable, creating a drumhead effect that amplifies low-frequency waves . . . like those of seismic activity.”
“Ten thousand dead,” she said to herself, not really realizing she’d said it aloud until the others fell silent.
Jox, who had taken a seat near Strike, said, “Some of the upper estimates were over fifty thousand fatalities. The Mexican government ordered a news blackout after the quake, so there’s no real confirmed number. Internationally, the general sense was that ten thousand was a low-end estimate.”
She couldn’t conceive of those numbers. Or rather, she could, and the thought of it tightened a fist around her heart. “We can’t let the next earthquake come,” she whispered. “People are going to die. Lots of people.” Hundreds. Thousands. Tens of thousands. She looked at Brandt. “We have to stop it.”
He grimaced. “You said it yourself: The etznab spell needs more than the words.” He didn’t say that he wasn’t sure they had “more” just then. He didn’t need to.
Despair pricked, but she didn’t let herself give in to it. Instead, she reached into a pocket and pulled out the small, well-worn
star deck. “These led me to the etznab spell. Maybe they’ll help us figure out what comes next.”
Realizing that the room had gone silent and she had become the center of attention, she looked around, flushing slightly. “Sorry. I’ll go—”
“Stay.” Lucius shoved a coffee table across to bump against her knees, making Jox wince at the scraping noise the hardwood made. “Show us how it works.”
“No, really. I’ll just—” She stopped herself. “Scratch that. Sure, I’ll show you.”
Knowing that her focus was scattered, she began with a prayer that defined the reading. Please, gods, help me to help him earn the Triad magic. That had to be her priority. After that . . . she didn’t know.
She shuffled the cards until they slid freely, then cut the deck three times—once for the past, once for the present, once for the future.
Setting the deck on the coffee table, then said, “Given the nature of the etznab spell, I’m going to use a spread called the ‘hall of mirrors.’”
She took the top three cards off the deck, then arranged them facedown in a triangle, with the top card at the lower left, the middle at the lower right, and the last forming the pinnacle of the two-dimensional pyramid. Then she tapped the lower left card. “This one is called the smoky mirror. It represents the shadow darkening my present state of being, making things unclear or asking to be revealed. The one next to it”—she touched the lower right card—“is the clear mirror. It offers truth, guidance, and vision. Finally, the card at the top shows me how to step through the mirror into self-awareness and reach an answer.”
Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, centered herself, and tapped into her magic, which responded sluggishly. She kept working at it, though, seeking added power. Hearing the rustle of movement, she assumed the crowd was thinning. So she was startled when a hand touched her shoulder and her magic surged. She opened her eyes to find the magi gathered around the couch where she and Brandt were sitting. Sasha was touching her shoulder; she was connected to each of the others by a touch, forming a linked circle all the way around to Brandt.
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