Nightkeepers (15 page)

She glared at him, furious that he’d done something like this without asking her. ‘‘Fine. I’ll slap some makeup on it, or get a coverup tattoo. Maybe scrub it with some bleach first.’’

‘‘That won’t change anything.’’ He didn’t even have the grace to look ashamed. He seemed calm now, calmer than he’d been since the funeral, or maybe even before that. It was like he knew where he was going for the first time in a long, long while.

The realization terrified her.

This shit was for real.

‘‘Daddy,’’ she whispered, her heart breaking a little when she realized that nothing would be the same ever again. ‘‘I don’t want this. I can’t . . . work for him, whatever you want to call it. I can’t be around him.’’

He looked sad. ‘‘You don’t have a choice.’’

She didn’t argue with that, because there was a hum in the back of her brain that hadn’t been there before, an impulse that made her want to walk, to pace, to jump on the sorrel and ride hard, covering ground, headed southeast to the Carolina coast, where—the last they’d heard, anyway—Sven was wreck diving for conquistador gold.

‘‘I won’t go to him,’’ she whispered. ‘‘You can’t make me.’’

Her father stood and strode toward his horse, and for a half second she thought he was going to ride away and leave her there. Instead, he leaned down and retrieved her hat from where it had snagged on a thick stand of heavy grass. He dusted off the straw brim and crossed to her, holding out the Stetson like a peace offering. ‘‘Please. He needs you. We all need you. There are so few of us and so little time.’’ He paused. ‘‘Remember the stories I told you about the end-time?’’

She stiffened, thinking back to the darkest of his dark stories. ‘‘The apocalypse?’’

He nodded, glancing once again up into the sky. ‘‘It’s coming, baby. You and me and the others . . . we’ve got a little over four years to save the world.’’

Patience White-Eagle lowered the phone and pressed her palms to the kitchen countertop.

Gods, why now?
After all those years she’d wished the magic worked, wished she really were the person Hannah claimed, why did everything have to change
now
?

She lifted the phone again. ‘‘Are you sure?’’

‘‘I wouldn’t have made this call otherwise,’’ her godmother replied simply, and with quiet dignity. Hannah was more mother to Patience than godmother, having raised her from infancy. She’d insisted on the distinction of being called ‘‘godmother,’’ though, just as she’d insisted on so many things relating to Patience’s biological parents. Some days it had seemed stifling and unnecessary. Other times, like when the
winikin
had started teaching Patience about the responsibilities of her bloodline, the rules had made sense.

Now, though, nothing made sense. Or, rather, it did, but Patience didn’t like the sense it made. Not one bit, which left her standing in her utterly normal-looking kitchen outside Philadelphia, talking on a disposable cell phone about things that were far from normal.

She’d believed Hannah’s stories . . . or at least she’d thought she did. Now, though, she wondered whether on some level she’d seen them as a lovely fantasy, fairy tales that made her feel special without really changing anything. Because if she’d believed in the Nightkeepers and their purpose, really believed it deep down inside, she wouldn’t have made some of the choices she’d made, would she?

Maybe,
she acknowledged.
Maybe not
.

She glanced at the gleaming toaster she’d bought just the week before, catching her reflection in the chrome and wondering how she could still look like a normal, if overly tall, blonde-and-blue twenty-four year-old, when she was, apparently, also something more.

‘‘Where and when?’’ she asked finally, because there had never been a question of whether she’d come when her king called—she had a king; how messed up was that?—it was purely a question of how to juggle the other responsibilities Hannah knew nothing about.

‘‘I’m flying out tonight. If you like, we can meet at the airport and drive over together.’’ Hannah always made everything seem so matter-of-fact, regardless of whether she was talking about a quick swing through Jiffy Lube, or the end of the world.

Patience mentally ran through her options, which were pretty limited. ‘‘I’ll have to check into flights and stuff, and get someone to cover my classes for the foreseeable future.’’ Fortunately, as the owner of White-Eagle Martial Arts, she didn’t have to ask for the time off. She could just make it happen. Other things, however, weren’t so easy. ‘‘How about you e-mail me the directions and I’ll meet you there?’’

‘‘Sounds like a plan,’’ Hannah said. Patience expected her to hang up without saying good-bye, which was her way. Instead, the older woman’s voice softened. ‘‘Are you okay with this?’’

Do I have a choice?
Patience thought, but she didn’t ask the question aloud, because she’d been raised knowing that she wasn’t like the other kids—she needed to be better, faster, smarter, a little more of everything. ‘‘I’m fine,’’ she said, willing herself to believe it. ‘‘I’ve waited my whole life for this call.’’

‘‘Good girl,’’ Hannah said. And hung up.

Patience just stood there for a long moment, staring at the toaster.

She was a magic user. A Nightkeeper. Her king was calling her home.

Thing was, she already
was
home.

Keep yourself apart,
Hannah had taught her.
Be ready to disappear at a moment’s notice. Once the end-time has passed you can live the life you want. Until then you belong to the Nightkeepers. There is no other attachment more important than that.

She hadn’t listened, though. Or, rather, she’d listened, but an impulsive spring-break trip to Cancún and way too much tequila had dictated a change in plans.

As though called by the thought, her husband’s footsteps sounded in the hallway. Moments later, he filled the kitchen doorway, all broad shoulders and rippling muscles, graced with thick sable brown hair and a sharply angled, handsome face that should’ve been in magazines but instead was hers. All hers.

Lips curving, she crossed the kitchen, slipping the cell into the pocket of her jeans as she went and hoping he wouldn’t notice it wasn’t her usual phone. Heat rose when she bumped her hip against his, then moved in for a kiss.

They’d been together a little more than four years and it was still the same heat, the same addiction. She craved him like a drug, with an aching intensity that seemed, if anything, to grow stronger as time passed.

Just as she was thinking of backing him down the short hallway to the master bedroom of their split-level, he broke the kiss and touched his forehead to hers, leaning down so she saw his gold-flecked brown eyes up close, and saw the shadows deep within them.

She leaned back in his arms and frowned. ‘‘What’s wrong?’’

‘‘I just got off the phone with Taylor. There’s been a major cluster fuck with the zoning on the Chicago project. It was supposed to have been handled, but . . .’’ He lifted one shoulder. ‘‘I’ll probably be gone through next week, and I hate like hell to dump everything on you.’’

‘‘I can get Joanie to help me out,’’ Patience said, trying to camouflage the immediate spurt of relief. As a rising star in the world of corporate architecture, he often had to take off on a moment’s notice. The emergency call couldn’t have come at a better time, as it gave her the weekend to figure things out. She tightened her arms around his waist, loving the good, solid feel of him. ‘‘Promise to miss me?’’

‘‘I already do.’’ He kissed her quickly, then disengaged. ‘‘I’ve got to pack. My plane leaves in a couple hours.’’

The next twenty minutes were a whirlwind of getting him out the door. Before he left, though, he took her hand and turned it palm up so he could kiss the tattoos at her wrist, a stylized lizard’s head beside a cluster of circles that looked like a Pacman gone wrong. His own tattoos, consisting of a matching Pac-Man beside a tribal-looking eagle’s head, were covered by the sleeve of his starched shirt and suit coat, but she knew they were there, knew the symbols bound them together just as surely as their white-gold wedding bands.

The tattoos, like their relationship, had come from a half-remembered night of carousing in the Yucatán. They’d awakened in her hotel room, two strangers who’d obviously made love, with dirty feet and fresh tats that, oddly enough, hadn’t hurt. Patience could only assume that she’d chosen the tattoos, placing them where Hannah said the Nightkeepers wore their bloodline glyphs. The lizard was her bloodline signature. The eagle, she guessed, had come from his last name, which was now hers. She didn’t know about the Pac-Man.

He smiled as he linked his fingers with hers and leaned in for a last, lingering kiss. ‘‘Miss me.’’

It was a command, not a question, but she didn’t argue. Instead, she pressed her cheek to his and hung on a moment longer than usual. ‘‘Back atcha.’’

Then he left, striding down their flagstone walkway with his garment bag and computer case slung over his shoulder. Uncharacteristically, Patience stood at the front door, watching as he backed his Explorer out of the garage and drove off with a beep-beep and a wave.

She couldn’t help feeling that she wasn’t going to see him again.

When the alarm went off before dawn, Sven grabbed for the clock, intending to chuck it at the nearest wall. He came up with his cell phone instead, and realized that was what’d been ringing.

‘‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’’ He flipped the thing open, squinting into the too-bright light in an effort to make sense of the caller ID, but last night’s drunk hadn’t yet turned into today’s hangover, and he couldn’t see the letters.

Didn’t matter, though. His so-called partner was the only a-hole likely to be calling at this hour, and if Fontana was calling postparty, he’d be too blitzed to make a lick of sense. He could wait. Besides, it was already too late to answer—the damn call had gone to voice mail while Sven was staring at the display.

Head still drumming with the backbeat from last night’s dance music, he dropped the phone on the floor and rolled over, dragging the bedsheet with him. The motion earned a feminine, ‘‘Hey!’’

Surprised, Sven rolled back and did the squinting thing again, this time making out a pouty brunette.
Huh. Go figure.
He didn’t feel lucky, but apparently he’d gotten there sometime last night.
Sweet.

She crooked a finger and slid him a look as she shimmied her torso in a fake shiver. ‘‘Can I have the sheet back? I’m cold.’’

‘‘Take it.’’ He tossed it in her direction, too out-of-it to decide whether she was actually cold, or sending him a green light. ‘‘I gotta pee.’’

Okay, even woozy he knew that wasn’t a great line. But by the time he’d taken care of business and splashed some cold water in the direction of his face, he’d regrouped and was ready for a second—and hopefully more memorable—assault on Mount Brunette.

‘‘Hey, babe,’’ he said as he strolled into the bedroom. ‘‘I was thinking—’’ He broke off when he saw that the bed was empty.

Figuring on writing it off as her loss and catching another few hours of shut-eye, Sven was headed back to the bed when he heard female voices out in the main room.

Voices, as in more than one female.
Cool.
He was the man.

Suddenly really, really wishing he could remember the night before—and hoping he could talk them into round two—he pulled on a pair of swim trunks and strode through the door into the main room of his beachside apartment.

And stopped dead at the sight of the girl, or rather the woman, standing in the open doorway. Sunlight spilled in behind her, gleaming on her dark, white-streaked hair and outlining her boy-slim, athletic body.

She might have been wearing shorts, a tank, and sandals instead of jeans and a work shirt, but he knew her instantly even through the fog in his brain. The gut-punch was unmistakable.

‘‘Cara?’’

She didn’t say anything, just let her gaze roam around his apartment, where surfboards and dive gear were piled atop depth charts and the odd artifact, competing for space amid what he liked to call creative clutter but suspected she would see as garbage.

The brunette—who was still wearing his sheet, for chrissake—looked at Sven, brow furrowed. ‘‘This your girlfriend or something?’’

‘‘No,’’ he said quickly. ‘‘She’s—’’ Then he broke off, because he’d never been able to figure out what to call her. She wasn’t his sister, not really. She wasn’t his friend, either, not now, anyway. She was—

‘‘I’m his little sister,’’ she said, apparently not sharing an ounce of his dislike for the term. Focusing on him, she said, ‘‘Get dressed and pack your things. We’re leaving.’’

Sven’s gut iced over. ‘‘Is something wrong with Carlos?’’

‘‘Yes and no.’’ She paused, and for a second he thought he saw a crack in the disdain she was projecting like plate armor. ‘‘Look, please don’t ask me to explain. Just pack.’’

The brunette pouted and turned to him. ‘‘Are you going to let her talk to you like that?’’

The look in Cara’s eyes said,
You owe me
.

And the hell of it was, he did.

Sven nodded slowly. ‘‘Yeah. I am.’’ He glanced at the brunette. ‘‘Get dressed and get out. Apparently I have a plane to catch.’’

‘‘Nearly half of them have confirmed.’’ Strike went down the list. ‘‘We’ve got flight info for Alexis Gray, along with Coyote-Seven and Patience Lizbet, and their
winikin
, one of which is a substitute, so we can shift manpower over to Nathan Blackhawk when the time comes.’’

He and Jox were sitting on lounge chairs out on the pool deck of the mansion, while the cleanup continued around them. They’d been at the training compound in New Mex for a week now, and after few days of DIY had sucked it up and used the Nightkeeper Fund to hire a couple of local crews to strip the junk and update the facilities. Granted, it would’ve been better to keep the place out of the public eye, but that just hadn’t been feasible. Besides, with the traffic they were expecting starting in the next few days, it would’ve been pretty tough to keep the place a secret for long.