On the other side of the hall, the winikin had separate rooms, which messed with her mental picture of the four of them as a tightly knit nuclear family.
Standing just inside a neat room done in masculine neutrals but with Wood’s distinctive flare in the velvet Elvis on the wall, she murmured, “Did something go wrong between you two, or does Woody snore like a chain saw?”
She hoped it was the latter. She wanted to believe they were happy.
“Maybe he couldn’t sleep with all the purple,” Brandt suggested from the next doorway down.
Patience joined him and glanced in. Oh, Hannah, she thought, her throat closing at the sight of purple and more purple—it was in the curtains, the bedclothes, and a small herd of stuffed dragons and dinosaurs on the bed, a profusion that went beyond garish to playful, and made her smile through a mist of tears.
“We should go.” But although his voice was clipped, his eyes were dark with strain and grief, and he lingered for a last look in the boys’ room, his shoulders bowed.
The team regrouped downstairs in the main room, where the TV was on, glasses of juice sat half-finished on a coffee table, and a remote-controlled robot marched listlessly in a corner, going nowhere, its batteries wearing down. There, as elsewhere in the house, there was no sign of a struggle, no hint of the makol having been there.
Brandt crouched down to turn off the robot, his big hands lingering on the remote, touching something his sons had been playing with—what, two hours earlier? Less?
Leah shook her head, frustrated. “Nothing. It’s like they were ghosts.”
Ghosts. Patience glanced at Brandt as the word sent a cool shiver through her, a reminder that Iago wasn’t their only enemy and the first-fire ceremony wasn’t the only threat. Time was running out on the Akbal oath.
He looked up at her, jaw set. “They’ll be okay,” he grated.
But the gold was gone from his eyes.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
December 21
Winter solstice-eclipse
Skywatch
For Brandt, the night passed in a gut-gnawing blur of fruitless research and burning frustration. He wanted to fucking do something.
But Lucius and Jade hadn’t been able to find a way for him to renegotiate the Akbal oath, and the list of possible Xibalban bunkers was still too long, so the plans had shifted to staking out the dark-magic entrance and grabbing Iago and his prisoners on the way in. And in order to do that, they had to find the dark-magic entrance.
It had been Patience’s idea for Rabbit to mind-link with Jade and attempt to blend her de-cloaking talent with his dark magic, in order to search for the second doorway. Brandt had been proud of her for the potential breakthrough . . . but he hadn’t told her so.
In fact, he’d been avoiding her, because he didn’t want to fight about the Akbal oath anymore.
He got her logic—of course he did. The Triad magic could hold the key to defeating not just Cabrakan but Iago as well. But the sticking point remained: He owed the gods a life. Her life.
She had argued that it was like the village elder had said: The gods made their choices as they saw fit. They didn’t need his permission to take her. Which was true. But the Akbal oath was his burden . . . and his decision.
He wished Woody were there. He wanted to talk to the winikin, wanted his fucking family back together, wanted things the way they used to be. But the gods didn’t give a shit what he wanted, did they? That much was patently clear.
Have faith. The whisper came in Wood’s voice, shaming him.
Which was why, as the clock ran down into the last couple of hours before they would begin their stakeout of El Rey, he wound up in the mansion’s circular ceremonial chamber, on his knees in front of the chac-mool.
The sun shone down through the glass roof, casting diminishing shadows on the stone-tiled floor and warming the fabric of his black tee and cargo pants as he scored both palms and let a few drops of blood fall into the shallow bowl atop the altar. Then, settling back on his heels, he folded his bloodstained hands together and tried to remember how to pray.
Gods help me, he thought, but instead of leaving him and heading for the sky, the words stayed trapped inside him, banging around in his skull. Frustration flared, but he tamped it down and tried again. “Gods help me.” He said it aloud that time, so it couldn’t stay stuck inside, but he didn’t feel the bond he’d once felt, the click that told him the gods were listening. Because they weren’t. Not to him, anyway.
Heart heavy, he cleaned off his knife and hands, rose to his feet, and turned for the door.
Patience stood just inside it.
Like him, she was dressed in combat gear. But where before he’d occasionally thought she made the outfit look like coed-goes-goth, the woman who faced him now looked capable, deadly, and determined. Which drove home something he had realized while arguing with her over the Akbal oath: She hadn’t just gotten stronger as a person; she’d grown as a warrior. And that scared the shit out of him.
He wanted to ask her to stay behind, but couldn’t. So he said simply, “Time to go?”
“Almost.” She looked beyond him to the altar. “Any luck?”
He shook his head.
“I’ve been doing some more thinking about the Mexico City earthquake back in the eighties,” she said, which was no surprise. She had spent a good chunk of the previous evening obsessing over the killer quake and the toll Cabrakan could take on mankind.
He knew it was her way of coping, just like the oracle cards had started out as a way for her to beat her depression. But he didn’t want to talk about the earthquake anymore. If Cabrakan got through the barrier, people were going to die. But he couldn’t—wouldn’t—sacrifice her.
“Can we please not do this again?” he asked.
Her expression darkened. “Hear me out.”
“We’re not going to agree on this one, sweetheart, so I don’t see the point in continuing to argue.”
“Because you’ve made your decision,” she said flatly.
“I don’t want us ’porting to El Rey pissed at each other.” He reached for her.
She took a big step back. “You seem to be forgetting that it’s not your call.”
His frustration upped a notch. “It’s my oath, my decision. And we both know that Strike won’t order me to retake it. Not after he broke the thirteenth prophecy to save Leah.”
“I was talking about me. Or are you so used to calling the shots for me that you can’t wrap your head around the fact that I’ve got my own opinions now?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” He jammed his hands in his pockets so he wouldn’t be tempted to do something else with them. “Look, I know you need to think about something other than the boys or you’ll lose it. I get that. But let’s not do this right now. We need to focus.”
She flinched almost imperceptibly, but held her ground. “If you can’t see that the lack of balance in our relationship is affecting your judgment—and potentially our ability to go after the boys and winikin—then you’re the one who’s not focusing.” Her eyes softened. “Don’t you get it? You don’t get to decide what’s best for everyone else, least of all me.”
“For fuck’s sake, I’m not trying to run your life. I’m trying to figure out how to save it.”
“You don’t get to make decisions for me. I’m not the kid you married anymore.” She paused. “The way I see it, things started going wrong when I got my warrior’s mark and entered full-on battle training. The more I started having opinions, and the more we were expected to work together as a mated warrior team, the more you checked out on me.”
He clenched his teeth. “That was backlash from Werigo’s spell, damn it.”
“I wanted to believe that, I really did, but let’s face the facts: You pursued me in Cancún even knowing that you shouldn’t, and you’re refusing to retake the oath now because all the signs indicate that I’ll be the gods’ choice. If you can ignore those imperatives,
then you damn well could have done the same with feeling that you needed to push me away. It doesn’t make any sense that you would go along with your subconscious unless it was telling you something you wanted to hear. Which means you wanted that distance.”
“That’s—” bullshit, he started to say, but broke off. “Can we please focus on getting our asses to El Rey and grabbing the boys and winikin before Iago gets them underground?”
She met his eyes. “The stronger we are, the better chance we have to rescue them. And, outside of you retaking the Akbal oath, the only way we can make ourselves stronger is to fully reopen the jun tan.”
Finally, something concrete. He thrust out his hand, palm up. “Fine. Let’s uplink and get it open.”
But she shook her head. “You know it doesn’t work that way.”
Acid burned in his gut. “Then tell me how you think it does work. Give me something specific, damn it! I’ll do whatever you want—just tell me what you need from me.”
She met his eyes. “Accept me for who I am today, not who I used to be. Make me your partner instead of your backup. Trust me to take care of myself during a fight. And do everything you can to save Harry, Braden, and the winikin. Period.”
His blood chilled. “In other words, retake the Akbal oath. You want me to prove that I love you by sacrificing you.”
“If the gods want me, they’ll take me.”
“I can’t—” He broke off, swallowing hard. This was why he hadn’t wanted to get back into this argument. Because she wasn’t wrong. But he didn’t think she was right either. “Not yet,” he said. “If it comes down to it, I’ll say the words. But not now. Not until we’re sure there isn’t another way.”
She wanted to keep arguing; he saw it in her eyes. Instead, she nodded. “Okay. I don’t like it, but okay. We’ll do it your way.”
“It’s not about doing things my way, damn it.”
Her look said, Isn’t it? He would’ve liked to think the words came through the jun tan link, but his forearm mark was cool, and for all the times she had accused him of being distant, now she was the one who seemed very far away as she crossed the circular chamber, knelt before the chac-mool, and bowed her head.
After a moment, he joined her there. But instead of a prayer, all he could come up with was, Come on, Rabbit. Hurry up and find that fucking doorway.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
El Rey
Rabbit was sweating as he and Jade quartered the ruins of the El Rey palace, which was little more than a stone-outlined footprint of where the big structure once stood. They were blood-linked, which allowed him to enter her mind despite wearing the jade circlet, and they were doing their damnedest to blend his dark magic with her sensitivity to concealment spells. Michael and Sasha trailed them, weapons drawn, and the shimmer of his chameleon shield concealed them from the makol sentries Iago had undoubtedly posted in the nearby forest.
The flop sweat sliding down Rabbit’s back wasn’t from the warm sunlight, or even his churning worry that this particular cardinal day was poised to go really fucking wrong. It came from the fact that using his mind-bend to slant Jade’s talent toward dark magic was way too close to Iago’s ability to borrow other people’s magic. Rabbit didn’t like the squick factor brought by the comparison . . . or the skirl of temptation that licked at the edges of his mind.
Saamal had called him the crossover, but what the hell did that mean? Was he supposed to reunite the light and dark into its ancestral form? Michael used only the destructive, death-dealing aspects of muk. If Rabbit could harness the full power of the magic, it could be a huge plus for the Nightkeepers. And—
And nothing, he told himself, aware that he was spinning into grand-plan territory, which tended to get his ass in trouble. Keep your mind on the godsdamned job.
“See anything?” Jade asked as they picked their way across a central courtyard that was outlined by crumbling pillars.
“Nothing. You?” They weren’t sure which one of them would see the dark-magic shimmer, or even if their combined efforts would work.
“Ditto.”
Glancing at the sky, Rabbit winced when he saw that the sun was a quarter of the way down to the dusk horizon. “It’s getting late. I still think we should try—”
“You’re not connecting with Iago. King’s orders, nonnegotiable,” Michael interrupted from behind them.
“But this isn’t—” working, Rabbit started to say, but broke off when he caught a quiver in his peripheral vision, like a heat shimmer, though it wasn’t that hot. He focused on the spot, which was near the palace’s back wall. There, three large stone slabs were inset into the ground, each of them approximately the size and shape of a coffin.
The one in the middle was swirling with the greasy brown smears of dark magic.
“I see it,” Jade whispered. “That’s got to be the second doorway.”
“Nice job.” Michael pulled his phone and summoned the others, who were there in five minutes, materializing in a hum of red-gold Nightkeeper power.
Almost before they were boots down, Patience broke the ’port uplink and hurried toward the doorway team. Brandt followed a couple of steps behind her, grim-faced. Rabbit cut a sharp look between the two of them, not liking what he saw. Over the past few days, their unique jun tan link had begun resonating in his perceptions. Maybe the magic hadn’t been as strong as it used to be, but he’d thought they were on the mend.
Now, they could’ve been strangers.
When Patience came up beside him, he whispered, “Did something else happen?”
“Just more of the same,” she said, avoiding his eyes. “Don’t worry about us. We’re solid.”
He knew damn well that was an overstatement, but she had been there for him after his old man’s death, so he didn’t poke at her now. Instead, he took her hand and squeezed it. “We’re going to get them back.”
She nodded, swallowing. “Thanks.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Rabbit saw Myrinne’s expression sharpen. She was at the back of the group, wearing black on black and carrying a jade-tip-loaded autopistol, having finally, after eighteen months, won her way fully onto the team. He sent her a finger-wiggle, but wasn’t sure if she saw.
There wasn’t time for more, because Strike and Brandt moved up on his other side, and the king said, “Okay, you two. Let’s get this thing open.”
Rabbit and Jade clasped hands once again, blending their magic so her uncloaking ability was skewed from light magic to dark, and got some extra oomph. As she cast the spell, the air over the coffin-shaped stone shivered and the dark-magic smear started swirling faster and faster, expanding with each revolution.
Then the magic solidified with a low-level boom, and a small stone temple appeared right in front of them. It was plain, square, and unadorned, and the end facing them was almost entirely taken up by an arched doorway that led to a set of stairs heading down.
Two Aztec makol stood just inside the doorway, looking startled as hell.
“Rabbit, down!” Michael barked from behind him.
Rabbit dropped to his knees. A split second later, death magic flared straight over his head in a killing stream of silver light that forked to hit the makol chest high. They died instantly in a flare of muk, becoming greasy piles of gray char that crumpled inward and collapsed with a hiss.
Rabbit glanced back over his shoulder and saw that Michael had turned ash gray himself. Sasha took his hand and summoned her chu’ul magic, working to level off the aftereffects. Although the assassin’s power was lightning fast and worked against all but the strongest of their enemies, it took its toll. Michael wouldn’t be good for too many more flat-out kills.
Which could be a problem, because the guards weren’t a good sign.
Thinking to test for more of them, Rabbit stepped through the doorway and opened up his senses. And was instantly awash in power.
As if coming from very far away, down a long, echoing tunnel, he heard Strike say: “Fuck.
Iago’s already down there.” There was a pause; then he said, “Rabbit, can you sense anything?”
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t.
Dark magic flowed all around him, through him, weighing his soul and making him want to gag at the same time that it skimmed over his skin, lighting his neurons and getting him hard. He loved it, hated it, wanted it, despised it. For a moment he was balanced. Then there was a surge, the scales tipped, and he leaned into the glorious flow of coppery brown magic, opened himself up to it, and—
“Rabbit!” Myrinne was suddenly in his face, shaking him. “Shut it down, now!”
It took him a second to focus on her, another to figure out what she was talking about. Then the gag response flared higher as the Nightkeeper half of him reasserted itself, beating back the lure of the dark power.
He shut down the connection, slamming the barriers down. His head echoed with sudden emptiness and he sagged against the wall, would’ve gone down without it. Scrubbing his hands over his face, he rasped, “Holy shit.”
He’d never sensed the dark magic like that before, never felt like he could ride the wave to someplace incredible.
“Somebody get a shield over the doorway,” Strike ordered. Then he gripped Rabbit’s shoulder. “Talk to me.”
“Let him breathe first,” Myrinne snapped.
But Rabbit shook his head. “I’m okay.” Sort of. “The hellroad is wide-open.”
Strike cursed. “That shouldn’t be possible this far ahead of the solstice.” He paused. “Maybe it’s something to do with the eclipse, or Moctezuma’s magic.”
“Or else Iago jump-started it with blood,” Patience said, her voice barely above a whisper. Brandt reached out and took her hand, but although she leaned into him, the air around them remained still.
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