Blood Spells

by Jessica Andersen

  His head was splitting, partly because of the power he’d pulled to cloak their initial attack, and partly because he hadn’t been able to get out of Iago’s mind fast enough when he caught on. The bastard had tried to slam the door shut, and Rabbit had only gotten out because Myrinne had jammed the circlet back on him, cutting the connection before it was too late. The pain of severing the link had been excruciating, though. The agony lingered, sapping his strength.

  “Get that one,” she said, pointing at a downed makol that was barely moving. “I’ll hold the others off.” She fired off two short bursts, one on each autopistol. Standing hipshot in her combat gear, with her hair in a long, dark ponytail pulled through the back of a black ball cap, she looked kick-ass sexy. And she fit with the team, after all this time.

  He snapped off a sluggish-feeling salute. “Yes, ma’am!”

  Reversing his gore-spattered knife, he went for the incapacitated makol, steeling himself for the messy chore of finishing it off before it managed to regenerate. He crouched down by the bullet-riddled body, set his knife to its neck, and—

  “Rabbit,” Strike bellowed, “move!”

  Obeying without stopping to look or think, Rabbit flung himself to the side, rolled, and came up with an autopistol in one hand, his knife in the other. He spun back at the sound of Myrinne firing and screaming, not in pain, but in anger.

  She was unloading her clips at Iago, who was bearing down on him with gruesome fury. The Xibalban had regenerated to the point of having eyes, nose, and mouth, but his flesh was waxy and fire-ravaged, and his luminous green eyes were bright with rage.

  Myrinne’s bullets stopped short of him and pinged to the ground, the jade tips deadened by the ajaw-makol ’s powerful shield magic. Strike launched a fireball and Michael followed with a thin stream of muk, but both bounced. The others were trying to get through to help, but the makol fought fiercely and with purpose: They were gradually bunching the Nightkeepers up against the altar, away from the doorways, trapping them together

  In the split second it took Rabbit to see and react, Iago slammed a layer of dark shield magic around the two of them, shutting them off from the others.

  Howling with rage and desperation, Rabbit buried his old man’s knife in Iago’s armpit, where the body armor provided thin entry. The knife came out slick with blood and Iago hunched, snarling. But he didn’t back down, didn’t slow down. He grabbed Rabbit’s knife hand by the wrist and bore it back, twisting hard.

  Wrenching agony flared, first in his arm and then in his head, as the touch link allowed Iago to override the protection of the jade circlet.

  Little fucker, the Xibalban hissed inside Rabbit’s skull. Hope you enjoyed sneaking in here, because that’s the last trick you’ll ever play on me.

  Agony flared from the place where Iago gripped his wrist, his blood-wet palm centered over the hellmark. Rabbit shrieked and bowed as something tore inside him, not muscle, flesh, or skin, but on the level of his consciousness, his magic, his very soul.

  The Xibalban’s waxy, burn-ravaged lips pulled back from heat-cracked teeth and his eyes changed, going from featureless luminosity to a hint of irises and pupils, all in glowing green.

  In them, Rabbit saw Iago. He saw the god-king Moctezuma. And he saw his own death.

  Then, past Iago’s shoulder, through the greasy swirl of dark shield magic, he saw Myrinne. She had her hands pressed to the shield, though he knew it must be burning her with acid and electricity. Her face was etched with pain, and her lips shaped his name.

  The sight brought a spurt of power from the deepest depths of him, one that flared hard and hot and whispered: Kaak. Fire.

  It was his first talent, his best talent, the one that had come to him even before he’d earned his bloodline mark.

  Wrenching his mind free, he shouted, “Kaak!”

  Flames erupted from his wrist, searing Iago’s hand and climbing his arm. The Xibalban jerked in astonishment. He recovered almost immediately, but it was just enough for Rabbit to push himself upstream along the agony into the other man’s mind. Iago roared and grabbed onto his consciousness in the same hurtful grip he was using in the physical world. Gotcha, you little shit!

  But on a far more basic level, Rabbit had him. Because while Iago was focused inward, Rabbit was busy disabling the Xibalban’s shield spell.

  For a split second, he saw through both his own eyes and Iago’s, bringing a double-vision view of Myrinne’s fierce relief as the shield went down, then her mad battle fury as she brought up her autopistol and unloaded the clip into Iago’s face.

  Rabbit screamed as pain slashed through him, coming from Iago’s new injuries and the severing of their mind-link as the makol was flung away from him, breaking the touch link. Then the circlet’s protection snapped back into place, cutting off the mental connection and slamming the air locks shut.

  But a piece of him tore loose from his mind and went with Iago.

  “No.” He crumpled to the ground. “No!” He didn’t know what Iago had taken, didn’t know how bad the damage was; he knew only that he was damaged.

  “Rabbit!” Myrinne dropped down beside him. She touched his face; her hands came away slick and red. He tasted blood, felt it prickling in his sinuses, suspected it was mixed with his tears. His head pounded; magic spasmed wildly through him, formless and hurting. Gods, what had Iago done to him?

  “I’m—” Okay, he started to say, but even that one word was too much for him, sending his system spinning. Panic licked at him; if he passed out, Myrinne would be unprotected. She would be—

  “I’ve got you,” she whispered, leaning over him. Her expression was bare of the sardonic reserve that usually left him guessing at her true feelings; instead he saw her fear for him, her growing determination.

  “I won’t let you down.”

  His senses fluctuated strangely, expanding and narrowed. He heard the Nightkeepers’ shouts, the sounds of battle, and knew that the fight wasn’t over yet. Far from it.

  “Help them,” he whispered. “We can’t let Iago win.”

  Or he thought he said it aloud; he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that as the gray closed in, his senses narrowed to a point, so all he saw was his own forearm, blood-smeared and blistered.

  Shock hammered through him, sending him the rest of the way into unconsciousness.

  His hellmark had gone from red to black. Iago had broken their bond.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “Brandt!” Woody bellowed over the chatter of jade-tipped ammo. “The tunnel!”

  “I see him,” Brandt grated, agony slashing through him as Iago’s shambling form disappeared through the far doorway. He roared and unloaded a volley of fireballs into the makol lines, but they barely made a dent, just as they had done every other time he’d tried to break through and follow Patience up the tunnel.

  The green-eyed bastards had the Nightkeepers pushed back to the altar and trapped against the wall. Rabbit and Myrinne were outside the makol line, but Rabbit was down, with Myrinne bent over him. Michael’s death magic was shot and the other magi were sagging, their united shield magic flickering in and out.

  They were fucking trapped. And Iago was headed for Patience and the boys. Brandt had sent her up there, and then he hadn’t protected her six like he’d promised. And he was getting only static through his earpiece. Please be okay.

  “I’ve got to get through!” he shouted to the others. “I have to—”

  Suddenly, unexpected gunfire erupted from behind the makol, and the two creatures closest to Woody and Brandt went down in a bloody spray. Behind them, Myrinne was firing two-handed, blasting a hole in the line. “Go,” she shouted. “Run!”

  “Come on!” Brandt dragged his winikin through the gap.

  The makol reacted quickly, spinning and firing point-blank. Strange, fiery orange shield magic flared to life and blocked the first attack, but then died off just as quickly as it had appeared. Out of the corner of her eye, Patience saw Rabbit slu
mp back and lose his brief grip on consciousness.

  But his shield had provided the distraction the other Nightkeepers had needed. They unleashed a deadly hail of magic and bullets, working to drive the makol away from Myrinne and Rabbit and bring the two into the Nightkeepers’ faltering sphere of protection.

  Strike bellowed, “Go. We’ll be right behind you!”

  Brandt bolted through the light-magic doorway and into the tunnel beyond, with Wood at his heels. Darkness swallowed them, but there was faint torchlight up ahead.

  Moving silently, they approached an irregular opening that had been disguised as a water-worn depression in the tunnel wall. Brandt motioned for Wood to go low while he went high, and together they swung through the doorway.

  The room was empty, save for a pile of greasy makol ash.

  Woody gave a low groan. “They were sitting right there when Iago came for me.” He indicated a scuffed spot. “There was one guard.”

  One guard. One ash pile. Which meant Iago was still out there, in search of the sacrifices he needed as the equinox approached.

  Brandt jerked his head at the door. “If they’re not in here, they’re further up the tunnel. Come on.”

  They returned to the tunnel and started up in the direction of the cave-in. He tried to gather fireball magic as he ran, but he was tired, his power drained, and he managed only a weak gleam that quickly winked out. He stumbled on his bad leg and nearly went down.

  Wood grabbed him, steadying him as they kept going. “Screw the fireball,” the winikin said, voice rough with pain and exhaustion. “We’ll use the guns.”

  “The jade-tips barely dented the regular makol down below,” Brandt argued. “They’re not going to do shit against Iago.” They needed something stronger. Far, far stronger.

  Like the Triad magic.

  Despair slashed through him. “Wood, I—” He cut himself off, refusing to let the oath be the answer.

  Gunfire split the air, coming from up ahead.

  “Fuck!” Adrenaline hammered and Brandt took off at a dead run, with Woody right behind him. At the sight of torchlight around a corner, they got up against the wall. Taking high and low again, they looked around the edge.

  “Give it up.” Iago’s voice rattled and slurred. He had his back to them; the torchlight shone on waxy, misshapen flesh that not even the makol’s regenerative magic had managed to heal. Blood-spattered and ragged, he gathered dark magic with jerky movements, holding on to a shield spell while he built a thick, greasy churn of fighting magic.

  Opposite him, Patience bared her teeth. “I. Don’t. Give. Up.” Her dirty face bore the evidence of tears, but her chin was up, her eyes fierce. Behind her, Hannah and the boys were huddled together against a section of rockfall, protected by a shield spell that flickered and spat red-gold as it cut in and out. Patience stood guard in front of them with an autopistol in one bloodstained hand, her knife in the other, and shield magic crackling in the air around her.

  Relief hammered through Brandt. They were alive. Whole. Thank fuck.

  Braden’s eyes locked on him and widened.

  No, Brandt thought as loud as he could, hoping against hope that something would get through the bloodline link. Pretend you don’t see—

  “Daddy!” The word rang out over the crackle of magic.

  Shit. Brandt threw himself around the corner with Woody half a breath behind him. He tore magic from somewhere deep in his soul and launched a fireball just as Iago let rip with his bolt of dark energy.

  The opposing powers collided and nullified each other. Magic detonated, the backlash slamming Brandt aside. He hit the wall hard and slid down.

  The world tried to gray out, but he didn’t let it. He dragged himself to his feet, surprised to realize that the magic had blasted him and Woody toward the rockfall, Iago away from it. The enemy mage lay farther back down the tunnel, protected behind a shield of dark magic that blocked off any hope of escaping while he was down.

  But Brandt had ended up where he belonged: with his family.

  “Daddy.” Braden lunged at him.

  He barely got his arms up in time to make the catch, almost went down under the impact, but he didn’t care. He hugged his son tight, aware that Patience had cast a sputtering shield spell around the six of them. A second body thudded against him as Harry followed, clinging to his thigh, face buried in his body armor. He was shaking.

  Brandt got an arm around him. “I’ve got you. I’m here. It’s okay.” The words poured out of him, promises he couldn’t guarantee, but meant with every fiber of his being. He reached out blindly and caught Patience’s hand, latching on. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

  And they were running out of time.

  “Go help Hannah,” Patience urged the boys. Once she had their attention, the winikin herded the boys to the farthest corner of the rockfall, where a tongue of debris created a bit of protection. There, they started piling rocks into a barrier. Woody was searching the area, scrounging the last of the autopistol clips.

  Iago was still down and out, but the strong shimmer of dark magic surrounding him warned that the bastard wasn’t dead.

  As the clock ticked down in his head, Brandt took his wife in his arms, surrounding her, holding on to her, filling himself with her. “Thank you.” Gratitude hammered through him. “Thank you for saving them. For not quitting on me.”

  “We’re not out of this yet.” But she turned her lips to his. “You’re welcome. And thank you for trusting me.”

  Beyond the torchlight, Iago twitched and then stretched. Moving. Regenerating.

  I can’t take him. Brandt held her tighter, hating the truth. He was shot, with barely enough magic left to feed the faltering shield spell. There was no way he could muster an attack, or defeat an opponent who wouldn’t stay down.

  But then he caught Woody’s eye, and the winikin’s voice whispered in his head. You’re not a fucking island. Suddenly, though, the words resonated far more than they ever had before.

  He’d been trying so hard to get everything right with Patience—for her—that he’d forgotten to be part of their team. “I do trust you,” he said, pulling away to look into her eyes. “What’s more, I need you.”

  Wariness flared, but she squared herself into a businesslike fighting stance. “For an uplink.”

  Something tore inside him, but the pain was followed by a strange sort of peace. “Not just for an uplink. For everything.”

  Faintly, below the level of hearing, deep inside his soul, he sensed the faintest hum of the magic that was special to them, to this place.

  He tightened his grip on her hand. “I lost my parents and brothers, my two best friends. I don’t want to lose you too. But if the gods take one of us, I don’t want it to happen without me having said that I need you, and my life isn’t right without you . . . because I love you.”

  Love. Her lips shaped the word, but her expression stayed wary.

  “I’m not just saying that because we’re cut off, because we’re in El Rey, or even because it feels like we’re a family again. This is real.” He lifted their joined hands to his lips, then let go of her hand to pull his knife and freshly blood his palm. Magic flared through him and the hum in the air intensified. He held out his hand. “Link with me. Fight with me. And whatever happens next, believe that I love you. I loved you before as my wife and the mother of our sons. Now I love you as my mate and partner too.” And to a mage, that was so much more.

  Eyes misting, she took his knife, and bloodied her palm. As she returned the knife, she lifted up on her tiptoes to touch her lips to his in a soft kiss that brought equal parts heat and magic. “I love you too.”

  Then she took his hand, matching blood to blood . . . and the jun tan link opened wide.

  Magic poured through Patience, coming from lust and love, from the feeling of being fully joined once more, after so long, with her husband. Her lover. Her mate. Her heart filled with the soaring power of it, the mad joy of it.


  The shield spell protecting them from Iago solidified, shimmering red-gold and opaque.

  The part of her that kept track of their failures tried to warn her that at worst he was using her feelings to strengthen his magic, or that at best it was just another fresh start. But deep down inside she knew this time was different. He was different. She could feel it in their magic, in the sync of their blood and power, in the echo of his thoughts within her.

  For the first time in their relationship, he didn’t just want and love her; he needed her as much as she needed him. And he was willing to risk loving and losing her. He was ready to take it on faith.

  Faith. It had never really been about the Akbal oath, she realized. Or at least not the way she had thought. She hadn’t needed him to retake the oath to prove that he trusted her to take care of herself. She had needed him to love her despite the curse, needed him to want her enough—need her enough—that he was willing to risk loving and losing her.

  After that, it was up to fate and the gods.

  “I think we’ve finally found our balance,” she whispered, staring up into eyes that had gone molten gold with love and magic.

  He leaned in to touch his forehead to hers. “Stay safe. I love you.”

  “You too.”

  Then they separated and turned to face Iago, who had dragged himself to his knees on the other side of the shield magic. But although they weren’t touching anymore, they were deeply linked, intimately aware of each other.

  She glanced over to where Woody and Hannah stood shoulder to shoulder at the farthest corner of the rockfall, each holding an autopistol and wearing an expression of fierce determination. Behind them, the twins were partly protected behind the hastily piled wall of debris.

  Hannah met her eyes square on. You can do this, the look said. This is who you are. She felt Brandt’s unspoken wash of agreement. And the thing was, she appreciated their support . . . but she didn’t need it. She knew who she was now.