Blood Spells

by Jessica Andersen

  “But, but—” Hannah went speechless for a few seconds as a tear tracked down her face. Her voice dropped to a disbelieving whisper. “What about the war? What about the other winikin? Who’s going to run things around here?”

  Jox came down the rest of the pathway to join her in the semicircular drive, stopping a few feet away. “The war won’t be won or lost by a single winikin, but you and Woody already proved that one person can make a difference when it comes to protecting the next generation. As for the other winikin and keeping this place on an even keel, they’ll manage. If they can’t put together some sort of a workable democracy, with Strike as the buck-stopper, I’ve left instructions. One way or the other, they’ll be okay without me.”

  “But . . .”

  When she didn’t say anything else, just stood there looking scared and confused, he said softly, “I know I’ve put my duties ahead of you for way too long, that maybe it’s too late for us. But I’m asking you to let me come with you. This doesn’t have to mean we’re dating, or courting, or, hell, so fucking crazy about each other that we can’t keep our hands to ourselves.” A distinct gleam entered his eyes as he said the last part. “We can take our time. Whatever you want. Just say you’ll bring me with you. I can be a good winikin to the boys. I’ll teach them, protect them, love them like they’re my own. And I’ll put you equal to that, with nothing above you three, I swear it. I—”

  She launched herself at him and cut him off with a kiss. He rocked back under the impact, and his hands stayed out to his sides for a few seconds, as if it had been so long since he had kissed someone or been kissed that he couldn’t quite remember what to do with them.

  Then his arms folded around her, and they merged, for a moment, into a single unit.

  Carlos walked past them, back into the mansion, whistling tunelessly. Patience blew out a happy, relieved breath. “Well. That was a long time coming.”

  “Really?” Brandt asked, looking honestly shocked at the turn of events. “Where have I been?” When she glared at him, he held up both hands. “Don’t answer that.”

  “Men,” she muttered, but she was grinning faintly, and her smile broadened as Hannah and Jox separated, both looking more than a little awestruck.

  Then it was time for more good-byes; Patience climbed halfway into the Jeep to kiss and hug each of the boys again, and then hugged Jox, and then Hannah. As they parted, Hannah said, “Keep that card close to your heart, sweetling.”

  Patience nodded. “I will. I promise.”

  Brandt finished with the boys, kissed Hannah’s cheek, and did the manly handshake-backslap thing with Jox. “I owe you one,” Brandt said with a pointed look at the backseat.

  Jox nodded. “I’ll collect in a couple of years, gods willing. I’m toying with the idea of rebuilding the garden shop that Rabbit torched; I never got around to putting the property up for sale right after the fire, and then the market tanked. So I still own it.” One corner of his mouth kicked up. “If I decide to rebuild, I’ll be looking for a good architect.”

  “You’ve got one,” Brandt said firmly, then echoed, “Gods willing.” He waved them into the Jeep, and then joined Patience as she moved back toward the covered entryway.

  As they crossed the drive, she caught several flashes of movement from various windows as the inhabitants of Skywatch waved to Jox, Hannah, and the boys. It was the single unmoving figure in an upper window of the royal quarters that caught her attention, though.

  Strike stood staring down, his body etched with weary resignation. “He looks so sad,” she said softly.

  Brandt followed her eyes. “I bet you never thought you’d feel bad about the idea of him being cut off from his winikin.”

  “A lot has changed over the past week.”

  “You’re telling me.” He went silent as the Jeep fired up.

  They turned back, their hands twining together, as the vehicle rolled toward the gate in the perimeter fence surrounding Skywatch. Together, they lifted their free hands in a dual wave. Magic washed over her skin as someone inside the mansion dropped the blood-ward to let the Jeep through the perimeter. The vehicle cleared the main gate; brake lights flashed, and Jox tapped the horn in a cheery beep-beep . . . and then he drove away, following the dirt track that led away from the compound.

  “See you in two years,” Patience whispered.

  Brandt pressed a kiss to her temple, leaning into her hard enough to let her know that the kiss was as much for him as for her. “We’ll see them in two years.”

  Neither of them said “gods willing.” It seemed too much like a lack of faith.

  Instead, as they stood together, watching the Jeep dwindle to a dust cloud, he said, “What card was Hannah talking about?”

  Patience’s heart lightened, just a touch. “I did a one-card reading, asking about the day after the zero date. I pulled the Kan card, which represents the iguana. It’s the one card in the entire star deck that I’ve never pulled before, ever, even though it should be my bloodline totem. It represents two things.” She paused, smiling softly. “The first one is hope.”

  “I like that one.” He gave her a one-armed squeeze. “What’s the second?”

  “Fertility.” Aware of the shiver that ran through his big frame, she grinned. “I was thinking . . . Woodrow is a good name.”

  “Yeah.” His voice went rough. “Yeah. It is.”

  They stood like that a moment longer, even though the dust cloud was gone. Then, in unspoken consent, they turned and headed back into the mansion. Arm in arm. Together.

  GLOSSARY

  Below are some Nightkeeper terms and their meanings. Pronunciation-wise, most of these words sound the way they’re spelled, with two tricks: First, the letter “x” takes the “sh” sound. Second, the letter “i” should be read as the “ee” sound. Thus, for example, “Xibalba” becomes “Shee-bal-buh.” For more information on the Nightkeepers’ world, excerpts, deleted scenes, and more, please visit www.JessicaAndersen.com.

  Entities

  Banol Kax—The lords of the underworld, Xibalba. Driven from the earth by the many-times-great-ancestors of the modern Nightkeepers, the Banol Kax seek to return and subjugate mankind on the foretold day: December 21, 2012.

  Kinich Ahau—The sun god of the ancient Maya. Each night at sunset, Kinich Ahau enters Xibalba. With the aid of two huge black dogs called companions, the god must fight through the underworld to reach the dawn horizon each morning, beginning a new day.

  makol (ajaw-makol)—These demon souls are capable of reaching through the barrier to possess evil-natured human hosts. Recognized by their luminous green eyes, a makol-bound human retains his own thoughts and actions in direct proportion to the amount of evil in his soul. An ajaw-makol, which is a ruling makol created through direct spell casting, can create lesser makol through blood sacrifice.

  nahwal—Humanoid spirit entities that exist in the barrier and hold within them all of the accumulated wisdom of each Nightkeeper bloodline. They can be asked for information, but cannot always be trusted.

  Nightkeeper—A member of an ancient race sworn to protect mankind from annihilation in the years leading up to December 21, 2012, when the barrier separating the earth and underworld will fall and the Banol Kax will seek to precipitate the apocalypse.

  Order of Xibalba—Formed by renegade Nightkeepers around 600 A.D., the order was believed to have been destroyed. However, the order survives, and is now led by a powerful mage named Iago.

  winikin—Descended from the conquered Sumerian warriors who served the Nightkeepers back in ancient Egypt, the winikin are blood-bound to act as the servants, protectors, and counselors of the magi.

  Places

  El Rey—A small Mayan ruin located in the middle of the Cancún hotel district. Although not considered a “major” ruin by most Mayanists, it has deeply buried secrets.

  Skywatch—The Nightkeepers’ training compound is located in a box canyon in the Chaco Canyon region of New Mexico, and is pr
otected by magical wards.

  Xibalba—The nine-layer underworld, home to the Banol Kax and makol.

  Things (spells, glyphs, prophecies, etc.)

  barrier—A force field of psi energy that separates the earth, sky, and underworld, and powers the Nightkeepers’ magic. The strength of the barrier fluctuates with the positions of the stars and planets; the power of the magi becomes stronger as the barrier weakens in the years leading up to 2012 . . . in theory, anyway.

  jun tan—The “beloved” glyph that signifies a Nightkeeper ’s mated status.

  library—Created by farseeing Nightkeeper leaders, this repository supposedly contains all the ancient artifacts and information the magi need to arm themselves for the end-time war.

  Solstice Massacre—Following a series of prophetic dreams, the Nightkeepers’ king led them to battle against the Banol Kax in the mid-1980s. The magi were slaughtered; only a scant dozen children survived to be raised in hiding by their winikin.

  skyroad—This celestial avenue connected the earth and sky planes, allowing contact between the Nightkeepers and the gods. Since Iago’s destruction of the skyroad, the gods have been unable to directly influence events on earth, giving sway to the demons and tipping humanity’s balance dangerously toward the underworld.

  Triad—The last three years prior to December 21, 2012, are known as the triad years. During this time, the Nightkeepers are prophesied to need the help of the Triad, a trio of übermagi created through a powerful spell.

  writs—Set down by the First Father, these delineate the duties and codes of the Nightkeepers. Not all of them translate well into modern times.

  The Nightkeepers and their winikin

  coyote bloodline—The most mystical of the bloodlines. Coyote-Seven, known as Sven, can move objects with his mind and wears the warrior’s mark. His winikin , the senior statesman Carlos, also watches over Nate Blackhawk. Carlos’s daughter, Cara Liu, is supposed to be serving Sven. Instead, she has returned to the human world.

  eagle bloodline—A bird bloodline, and therefore connected with the air and flight. The current members of this bloodline include Brandt, his wife, Patience (who has the talent of invisibility), and their twin full-blood sons, Harry and Braden. On the king’s order, Brandt’s and Patience’s winikin, Woody and Hannah, have taken the twins into hiding.

  harvester bloodline—Although the harvesters most often worked behind the scenes, the bloodline’s last remaining member, Jade, is a spell caster with warrior-level talents. She and her human mate, Lucius, are the guardians of the Nightkeepers’ vital library.

  hawk bloodline—Also connected with air and flight, this bloodline can be aloof and unpredictable. Nate Blackhawk, the surviving member of this bloodline, was orphaned young and trusts few. He is a shape-shifter whose potentially destructive power is kept in check by his love for his mate, Alexis, and the steady guidance of his winikin, Carlos.

  jaguar bloodline—The royal house of the Nightkeepers. The members of this bloodline tend to be loyal and fair-minded, but can be stubborn and often struggle between duty and their own personal desires. The current members of the jaguar bloodline include the Nightkeepers’ king, Strike, and his sisters, Anna and Sasha. Strike is a teleporter, Anna a seer who denies her talents, and Sasha a wielder of the life-giving chu’ul magic. They are protected and guided by the royal winikin, Jox. Strike’s mate and queen, Leah Daniels, is full human, a former Miami-Dade detective who now leads Strike’s royal council.

  peccary bloodline—The boar bloodline is old and powerful; its members ruled the Nightkeepers before the jaguars came to power. The last surviving member of this bloodline, Rabbit, lives with the stigma of being a half blood, and commands wildly powerful magic. His human lover, Myrinne, is at times a questionable influence.

  serpent bloodline—The masters of trickery. Newly released from prison, Snake Mendez has not undergone any of the proper ceremonies, yet already wears his Nightkeeper marks and commands some of his powers. His winikin, Louis Keban, is seriously unstable.

  smoke bloodline—Often seers and prophets. However, the surviving member of this bloodline, Alexis Gray, has shown neither talent. Instead, she wielded the power of the goddess Ixchel, patron of weaving, fertility, and rainbows. With the destruction of the skyroad, she has lost her Godkeeper connection but remains a fierce warrior.

  stone bloodline—The keepers of secrets. The members of this bloodline are known as great warriors, although the last surviving bloodline member, Michael, is a master of the shield spell as well as the killing silver magic called muk. His winikin, Tomas, and his mate, Sasha, combine to keep him balanced when the deadly magic threatens to tip him toward darkness.

  Earthly enemies

  Iago—The leader of the Order of Xibalba, Iago is a mage of extraordinary power, capable of “borrowing” the talents of other magi. Iago hopes to gain additional power by allying himself with the might of the bloodthirsty Aztecs through the soul of their mighty god-king Moctezuma.

  Do you like bad boys, big magic, and high stakes? Then don’t miss the next sizzling installment in Jessica Andersen’s Nightkeepers series,

  STORM KISSED

  Dez and Reese’s story is coming to you from Signet Eclipse in June 2011.

  Cancún, Mexico

  Reese Montana had always thought wedding venues were tacky as a rule, but this one took the freaking multitiered, pink-frosted cake.

  As if the velvet sombreros and striped serapes plastered on every available surface of the hotel lobby weren’t bad enough, when she followed a series of cringe-inducing signs to the wedding chapel, she found the entryway decorated with what she suspected was meant to look like an ancient Mayan temple, but came across as papier-mâché gone horribly wrong. Inside the chapel, a faux-stone archway took the place of the usual flower-and-lattice bower, the aisle was lined with fake palm fronds, the rank-and-file chairs were wearing parrot-hued slipcovers, and the rollaway screen behind the main stage was painted with an art student’s version of Chichén Itzá in its heyday, with the city intact, the temple ruins unruined, and people thronging in the foreground, staring at the stone archway with creepy, goggle-eyed intensity.

  Thank Christ the room was empty. It was bad enough Reese was semicrashing. Be worse if she laughed her ass off during the “I dos.”

  “Not exactly what I was expecting,” she murmured. Then again, it was her own fault that the moment she had opened the FedEx to find a plane ticket to Mexico and a request for her to come talk about a job, her brain had gone to a tropical fantasyland far from Denver’s drab gray winter. Hell, it was probably just a run-of-the-mill deal for an aging paterfamilias who had lost track of a kid and was feeling depressed about it amid the sib’s wedding prep. Typical locator gig.

  But it still paid better—and was way safer—than her old job.

  Following the low drone that said “The party’s over here,” she crunched across the fake leaves, tucked herself into the shadows, and took a look through the back door, to where a couple of dozen bodies thronged in an open-air dining area.

  She stilled as the sight in front of her refused to look run-of-the-mill.

  Twenty or so people, a fairly even mix of men and women, were knotted together on one side of the room, the men in decent suits, the women in an eclectic mix of high-end, with no rent-a-tux’d groom or Barbie-doll bride in evidence. Six of them were small and compact, their gestures quick, their eyes always on the move. Overall, they weren’t too far off from ordinary.

  The rest, though . . . whoa. Not ordinary.

  All in their late twenties, early thirties, they were uniformly huge—in height and muscle, with zero flab—gorgeous and somehow glossy, like the overhead lights bounced off them differently from the others. They drew her eye, made her want to stare . . . and brought a pang.

  So did the realization that they all moved like fighters.

  Suddenly, accepting the anonymous invite south of the border started seeming less like an adventure and mo
re like a dumb idea. But even as her new self said she should do a vanishing act, the woman she used to be planted her feet, because what if they were trying to locate someone worth saving? She’d seen it before. Hell, she’d been it before.

  You can’t help everyone, she reminded herself. But she stayed put and checked out the setup as her pulse kicked up a notch.

  The stone patio was surrounded by a high vine-covered fence, and the overhead latticework was decorated with a gazillion fairy lights that failed to disguise the fact that the hotel was smack in the middle of a bunch of other hotels. There was only the one door, which didn’t make sense. Crowds like this always had an exit strategy. Unless she’d misread them? She didn’t think so.

  She should walk away. Call Fallon. Let the pros handle things.

  Instead, glad that she’d gone with her first instinct and stopped at a local pawnshop to buy a piece on her way to the hotel, she stepped out of the shadows and into the light.

  Within seconds, every one of them had marked her—their eyes flicked to her, then to one another, and there was a subtle shift in the room as some jackets got twitched aside and other bodies got out of the line of fire. But they didn’t draw down. Disciplined or cocky? She didn’t know.