Spellfire (18 page)

“No.” Anna shook her head, denying the awful possibility of it all. But even as her heart tried to reject what the goddess was saying, she saw how it dovetailed with the Nightkeepers’ flight from Egypt and the way their magic had changed in the Mayan territories, becoming chaotic and unpredictable, and eventually splitting into its light and dark halves, wielded by the Nightkeepers and the Xibalbans. “It’s not true,” she insisted, too horrified to worry about arguing with a goddess.

“Or is it that you do not want to know the truth?”
The goddess’s image grew until it filled Anna’s vision, her senses. She didn’t know if Bastet had leaned closer, or if the goddess had simply locked on to her magic, but in that moment she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything
but
see, hear and feel the horrors of the past.

Terrible visions raced through her, reminding her finally of the things she’d seen during those last few minutes of chaos during the massacre, while Jox had dragged her and Strike down into the shielded, hidden bolt-hole beneath Skywatch. She hadn’t been there, though—her mind had been in the southlands, dying with her kinswomen in the narrow tunnel system beneath Chichén Itzá.

Anna let go of the amulet and covered her eyes, trying to shut it out. But the images flowed through her, awakened her.
A woman screamed as a
boluntiku
rose above her, dripping with the fiery energy of lava and going solid in the last moment before it killed her. Another wept as she unleashed terrible fireballs into the smoking spot where her mate had been only seconds before. A man cried; another screamed and held his own entrails. It was all dim and dark, cloaked in carved stone and blood, closing in on her, suffocating her.

“Enough,” she whimpered. “I get it.”

“It’s not nearly enough,”
said Bastet, uncompromising.
“Know the rest, and believe in it. Believe in me.”

More memories, more terror, this time coming from her mother’s mind. Her blessed, beloved mother.
“No!” the queen screamed as the shimmering bubble of the barrier tore down its center and a terrible blackness poured through, exuding evil and horror as it became a winged serpent—a perverted, wronged form of the great creator god, Kulkulkan. “For gods’ sake, Jag, stop the spell!”

He didn’t, though. He couldn’t. And they had died.

Anna cried out when her mother’s perceptions ended in a flash of brilliant, lava-born orange, then moaned when she was battered by echoes of other horrors, other deaths.

And, as the inner barriers came crashing down and she remembered everything, she had a feeling that they hadn’t been barriers so much as her subconscious mind protecting her from what it knew, deep down inside, was another kind of enemy: the
kohan
she had prayed to. The ones that had tried to get to her, tried to send her visions that would only confuse the Nightkeepers further.

Or was she buying into the logic too quickly, too fully? How was this any different from what Rabbit had gone through with the demoness?

“Use your senses and know the truth
.
”
Bastet’s command was inviolate, inarguable and aimed at all of them.
“Use the talents given to you by the true gods
.
”
Sudden images flashed in the air around Anna, coming from her magic, but projecting for everyone else to see.

The smoky picture was distorted at the edges, as if seen through a fish-eye lens, but the scene of utter destruction was all too clear. There was rubble, fire . . . and the skeleton of a massive tree that had fallen into the steel-fab building below it.

Anna sucked in a breath on a low moan. Skywatch!

Bastet said,
“This is what will be if you do not act now, all of you.”

“It can be stopped?” Dez demanded. “I thought an
itza’at
’s visions were immutable.”

“That was what the
kax
and
kohan
wanted you to think, for they wanted to play with you, knowing that the
itza’at
were meant to be the voices of the True Gods here in the middle plane. And they wanted to prove their superiority by making our guardians—all of you—do as they wished, wanted to improve their chances now by weakening you, over and over again. So they sent corrupted visions to the seers . . . and even to the old king.”

“Father.” The word came out of Strike on a low groan, once again lining up with what they knew, what they believed . . . yet requiring a leap of faith like none they’d ever been asked to make before.

“They believe you are no longer a threat to them. We believe you can be
.
”
Bastet’s blue eyes narrowed at Anna.
“Are you willing to try, warrior?”

“I’m not . . .” she faltered and turned to Dez. “Help.”

The king’s face had gone to granite, gray-pallored and hard as stone. It was Reese who said, “What do you want us to do?”

Some of the others muttered darkly, and even Dez shot her a sidelong look. But Reese wasn’t just their ultra-practical, tough-girl queen; she was also human, like Lucius and Leah. They had already given up their religion in the face of evidence. They weren’t being asked to do it now on faith.

Which didn’t mean the Nightkeepers were going to.
No way
, Anna swore to herself, trying to ignore the twisting disquiet deep inside that kept whispering,
What if it’s real? What then?

“Your godkeepers must break their bonds, and all of you must renounce your allegiance to your so-called sky gods on the morning of the Cardinal Day. Only then will you be free to fight for the middle plane.”

There was a moment of profoundly unhappy silence.

After a moment, a shaken Reese said, “How can the godkeeper bonds be broken?” It had taken near-death by drowning, along with devastating magic to link Strike, Leah, Alexis and Sasha with their gods.

Prophecy had said those bonds were crucial to the war . . . but those prophecies had come from the
kohan
.

Or had they?

“Cut your marks from your flesh and cast the blood in the fire, and the earth will reclaim its children.”
Suddenly, Bastet’s magic dimmed, and the low
throoming
sound rose up once more, vibrating the stones beneath them. Eyes dimming, she said,
“I must go.”

“When can we summon you again?” Anna said quickly, taking a step toward the apparition.

“You cannot. This is your war to fight, not ours.”

“Wait!” Anna cried as the light flickered, then faded. “Why—”

“The three planes must remain in balance. That is how we created them. If one falls, they all fall.”
Then . . .
flicker-flicker-FLASH!
And the goddess disappeared.

Anna stood swaying, blinking into the amber eyes of the crystal skull.

Someone in the back muttered, “Fucking hell.”

“Well,” Lucius drawled, voice rough with emotion. “That was . . . unexpected.” He was still hanging on to Anna’s arm, but now he drew her toward the altar. “You should sit.”

“Not there.” She couldn’t handle seeing the ragged neck stump or the bloodred skull that had been inside the
chac-mool
’s head all along. She could only guess that one of her ancestors had put it there, that the women of the
itza’at
’s line had somehow known it was important to keep it a secret, but not why.

Or was this the trick, and the other the truth?

Her head spun and she leaned into Lucius for a moment, drawing strength from their long history together. They had been friends in the outside world and were friends now. And he was going to be a valuable voice of reason now, in a time when she could pretty much guarantee that the rest of them—Nightkeepers and
winikin
alike—were going to have a hard time being reasonable.

It had been bad enough when Rabbit had tried to convince them that the Nightkeepers had it wrong and the
Banol Kax—
or the
kax
, apparently—were somehow the good guys. That, at least, they had been able to ascribe to Rabbit’s flair for the dramatic, his mix of dark and light powers, and his constant quest to find a place where he felt like he fit in.

This, though . . .
gods
, she thought, and felt a twinge at the prayer, a quick spurt of fear that she’d been praying to the wrong entities all along.

“Then let’s get you out of here.” Lucius steered her toward the door, through a parting sea of shell-shocked teammates who stared at her, wide-eyed, as if seeking a reassurance that she couldn’t give. “Let’s everybody get out of here and take a breath, okay?”

“No!” Red-Boar put himself between her and the door, his earlier glower gone to a near-manic snarl. “This is bullshit! The demons are trying to trap you just like they trapped Rabbit, godsdamn it. And you’re fucking walking right into it!”

Anna snapped back, “Nobody’s walking into anything.”

“You bought it, though. Didn’t you?” Red-Boar grabbed her. “Didn’t you!”

Lucius stiff-armed him in the chest, sending him back a couple of steps. “Back off. Right fucking now.”

Red-Boar sneered. “Easy for a
human
to say.” The air cracked with sudden magic; it wreathed the senior mage, crisping the air with the threat of a fireball. “Especially one who’s been on the other side. Tell me, do you still dream of the things you did when you were a
makol
? Have you ever—”

“Enough!” Dez’s roar drowned out the rest of the question. The king got big and loomed over Red-Boar. “That’s enough. We’re not deciding a damn thing right now. We’ve got work to do before that. Research.”

The older mage sneered. “Research. Right. That’ll win the war.”

“A full-on frontal assault didn’t do your generation much good.”

Red-Boar flushed a dull, furious red. “You son of a bitch. You have no idea . . .” His eyes flicked to Reese. “Well, I guess you’re in line to find out, aren’t you?” He spat at the king’s feet. “Fuck this. What do I care? I’m already dead.” He spun and stalked out, leaving a crack of angry magic in his wake.

Nate started after him, but Dez waved him back. “Don’t. Let him be. This is . . . Shit. Just let him go.” He sent a look around the room. “In fact, I think Lucius is right. We all need to get out of here, clear our heads a little.”

Anna couldn’t help it. She looked back at the ruined altar, and the skull that sat atop it. “What do you want to do about that?”

The king’s eyes didn’t show a hint of his thoughts. “It’s your skull. You tell me.”

She winced, but then nodded reluctantly. “Yeah. I should work with it. Even if it can’t get through to . . . well, whatever that was, maybe I’ll finally get control of my visions.” Her attempt at a smile fell flat, though, as she pulled away from Lucius and forced her legs to carry her all the way to the altar.

Her heart tugged at the sight of the sledgehammer lying on the floor near a chunk of limestone that showed the curve of a cheek and one kind eye. She didn’t apologize to the
chac-mool
again, though, because she didn’t dare pray, not even to it. Not when she didn’t know who she was talking to anymore.

Where before the air had hummed with magic, now it was as flat and dead as the skull’s dull yellow eyes. Still, though, their facets seemed to watch her.

Do you dare?
those eyes seemed to ask her.

“I already did,” she said softly. Then, steeling herself, she stuck a thumb in one ear hole and a finger in the nasal cavity, and lifted the skull from the last of the enclosing limestone, holding it like some sort of demented bowling ball.

Trying not to let the others see how much its cool, slick surface made her skin crawl, she tucked it under her arm and made for the door. And, as she headed down the hall toward the royal quarters and the childhood suite she’d redone as her own, she did her damnedest not to picture how the thing was going to be staring at her while she slept.

Then again, given what they’d just learned, nightmares were going to be the least of her problems.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“I won’t let you do it.”

Rabbit stopped at the sound of his old man’s voice, surprised to feel a bump of compulsion coming from the Boar Oath. He’d been so damn well behaved that he’d almost forgotten about the fucking thing.

He turned back on the pathway leading out to the cottages. He wasn’t even sure why he’d gone that way—it wasn’t like he wanted to be back home right now. Not when every last square inch of the place would remind him of Myr and leave him wondering what the hell came next for the two of them. Should he go after her? Leave her alone? He didn’t have a clue. She hadn’t just been his first lover; she’d been his first everything. He didn’t have any practice with breakups, post-breakup hookups, or whatever the hell that had been last night. And it wasn’t like he could ask one of the others. They all had bigger, badder things to think about right now—like whether or not they’d been praying to the wrong gods all along.

Which left him and his old man squaring off opposite each other on the beaten-smooth footpath, with the sun coming down on them and no breeze to stir the dust. If they’d had revolvers, he would’ve been tempted to count down the draw.

Rabbit shoved his thumbs in his pockets but didn’t slouch, mostly because he knew it would annoy Red-Boar that he was a couple inches taller and wider. “You won’t let me do what?”

His old man closed the distance between them, got in his face and glared. “You will not revoke your allegiance to the sky gods. Do you hear me? You. Will. Not. Do. It.”

“Be interesting to see how that goes up against my oath to follow Dez’s orders, if he decides to follow Bastet’s lead.” But although Rabbit kept his voice level, he wasn’t nearly as in control as he wanted his old man to believe. Because suddenly the inner darkness was straining against his hold—twenty years of insults, anger and hatred jonesing to go after the man who’d raised him but hadn’t ever been any sort of father.

Red-Boar’s eyes flicked to the side, as if he was looking for witnesses. Then, in a low growl, he said, “That can be dealt with.”

The third order,
Rabbit thought. Was the old bastard really so convinced of his own infallibility that he would use it to go up against the king? “Bullshit.”

“Don’t forget, I fucking
own
you, boy.”

Bile soured the back of his throat. “You own my bloodline connection. I’ll break it if I have to.” Pain sliced through him, racing from his forearm to his heart, as if the oath was warning him just how bad it could get.

Red-Boar’s eyes blazed. “You wouldn’t
dare
.”

“Fucking try me.”

The old man flushed an ugly, murderous red. “Back atcha, asshole. You do it and you’ll find out what it means to watch your woman die.”

Fury hammered through Rabbit in an instant, not coming from the dark magic, but welling up from inside the man he wanted to be, the one who’d fallen asleep last night with Myrinne in his arms. Because that was no idle threat. As far as Red-Boar was concerned, humans were little better than clever pets. Expendable.

He had his hands on his father’s throat before he knew it, lifting the old bastard onto his tiptoes and snarling, “You so much as go near her and I’ll fucking end you. Oath or no oath, you’re dead.”

Put. Me. Down
.

The words shouted inside his mind and headed instantly for his central nervous system, short-circuiting the whole damn thing. His arms came down, his hands opened.

Red-Boar sucked in a ragged breath as he stepped back. And if Rabbit had thought before that he’d seen his old man in a rage, now he knew different. This was true rage, he thought. It was hatred.

Dark eyes narrowing to evil slits, his father sent into his brain:
Choke. Yourself
.

Rabbit’s mind fought, but his body obeyed the commands like a fucking puppet. His own hands closed around his throat and bore down hard, thumbs digging into the vital veins.

His vision went blurry almost instantly, though he didn’t know if that was real or the power of suggestion. He went for his mental blocks, tried to figure out where the old man was getting through, but couldn’t. Tried to cast a counterspell, but couldn’t do that, either. He couldn’t move his legs. Couldn’t move anything. He tried to . . . shit. What was he trying to do again? Panic had his heart thudding even as rage coiled inside him, useless against the magic.

He tried to break his father’s hold on his mind, tried to stay on his feet when he swayed and gray closed in from the edges of his vision.

Tried . . . to . . .

“Enough.” Red-Boar snapped his fingers and the compulsion was gone.

“You son of a bitch!” Rabbit lunged, but ran face-first into a shield spell. His nose crunched, making his eyes water. He reeled back, yelling, “Godsdamn it. I hate you!” like he was fifteen again.

His old man stood, implacable behind his shield. “I won’t have to go near her. You’ll do the job yourself.”

Fury roared through Rabbit, but he held it together, barely, because going off on the old bastard wasn’t going to change a damn thing. Glaring, he rasped, “I’d kill myself before I’d hurt her again. But first I’d kill you.”

“Or you could just fucking do as you’re told and we won’t have to find out which one of us has a bigger dick. And by the way, it’s me.”

A few months ago, Rabbit would’ve gone for a tape measure. Now, though, he wrestled the ugliness down, shoving it deep behind the enemy lines he’d drawn inside his head. Because what was he proving by being pissed? Nothing, except that he could be just as nasty as his old man.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “I thought you were bad before. What the fuck happened to you on the other side? I thought death was supposed to give a guy some godsdamned perspective.”

To his surprise, his old man took a step back and exhaled a long, slow breath. “This
is
my perspective, shithead. I didn’t come back here to watch the Nightkeepers go off the godsdamned rails.”

That had just enough logic to pinch. Jamming his hands in his pockets, Rabbit shrugged impatiently. “Fine. Whatever. But I’m not in charge here, remember? You want to swing the decision, then talk to Dez. Whether you like it or not, he’s the king.”

“True. But you’re the crossover.”

“Which doesn’t mean a fucking thing unless I can figure out what I’m supposed to do.” And if he believed Bastet, there was a good chance that the whole crossover thing was just another distraction, one that both the
kohan
and the
kax
had used to confuse the Xibalbans and Nightkeepers.

“How about having some fucking faith?” Red-Boar growled. “When the gods want us to know something, they always find a way to get through.”

“Seems to me they just did.”

“That Egyptian horseshit was a lie, just like Phee’s ghost was a lie.”

“I didn’t feel any dark magic when Bastet projected herself. Did you?”

“The
Banol Kax
lie about every-fucking-thing. Why not about the magic, too? The barrier is barely hanging on. What’s to say they couldn’t hide their magic, make it look like something else?”

And the damn thing was, as much as Rabbit wanted to argue with anything that came out of his old man’s mouth, he couldn’t. Not this time. “I don’t. . . . Shit.”

Red-Boar’s eyes took on a satisfied gleam. “That’s better.” He didn’t move a muscle, but seemed suddenly closer, bigger in Rabbit’s field of vision. “Think about it. What’s the distraction here? Why did Bastet appear now, this late in the game?”

“Because it took this long for Anna to be ready to receive the message.”

“Bullshit. If I could get through to her off and on over the past few years, then sure as shit a god could do it.”

It shouldn’t have kicked up a spurt of resentment to know that Red-Boar had contacted Anna from the other side. Clenching his jaw, Rabbit ground out, “Fine. Let’s say you’re right. I’m not saying I think you are, but if you are, then Dez is the one you need to be working on.”

“I am. I will. But you’re the crossover, damn it. You’re the key.”

“So you keep telling me. So how about telling me what the hell you want me to do right now. Why even come after me?” His lips twisted. “Or are you just blowing off steam at someone you figure has to stand there and take it?” Now that was an old, familiar pattern.

“Poor you,” Red-Boar sneered. “You always had the basics and then some. Cry me a fucking river.”

“Don’t,” Rabbit said flatly. “You really don’t want to go there.”

His old man must’ve seen something in his eyes, because he cursed and turned away. “Screw this. I’ve got a meeting with the king. Think about it, though, boy. Think long and hard before you do something really fucking stupid.”

“That’s one of the few lessons I think I
have
learned.”

Red-Boar just growled back over his shoulder. “Use your head, for fuck’s sake.”

Rabbit didn’t mean to watch him walk away, but his old man always could twist him around and tie him in fucking knots. Which left him standing there for a minute, debating. Logic said he should warn Dez how bad his old man was getting. Instinct, though, had him gravitating toward the path that led to his cottage . . . and beyond that to the firing range.

At the thought of the range, warmth kicked in his chest and an ache tugged low in his gut, letting him know that he hadn’t been heading for his cottage, after all. He’d been heading for Myrinne.

His body knew where she was. His magic knew.

What it didn’t know was what he was supposed to say to her.

“Fuck it.” Deciding to let Dez and Red-Boar go the first round without him, he headed for his cottage, but ducked in only briefly to grab a couple of things. Then he kept going along the path, all the way to the range.

When the Nightkeepers had first returned to Skywatch, the weapons training area had consisted of a boring-ass indoor range of the cubicle-and-paper-target variety, plus an outdoor sniper range that wasn’t much better. These days, thanks to Michael’s background as a government-trained assassin and his lust for gadgets, the training area included a faux Mayan ruin built in cement and rebar, along with a second indoor range inside a prefab steel building. There, trainees could work their way through an urban-jungle training course, blasting away at pop-up targets and holos, with a digital scoreboard in the corner tallying their speed, kills and collateral damage.

Rabbit made for the big steel building, knowing that was where she would be even before he saw a flicker of reflected light and heard the generator kick on. The setup was like a full-scale video game. He couldn’t think of a better place for someone like him—or Myrinne—to burn off some aggression.

As he approached, he heard a muffled
pop-pop-pop
from one of the holo-enabled training weapons, then the crackling roar of a fireball. The surge of magic lit his senses and tightened his skin as he stepped through the main door and into the small locker room that acted as an antechamber. The lights were off in the windowless room, creating a warm darkness that wrapped around him as he paused in the shadows and looked into the main room, seeing without being seen.

Myr had changed out of the jeans and soft sweater she’d been wearing earlier, into close-fitting black workout gear that moved as fluidly as she did when she spun and snapped off a “shot” of laser light into a glowing lava demon, flung herself to the ground to avoid a hologram claw-swipe, and came up firing. Wearing her weapons belt along with the gizmos that made up the badass laser-tag system, with knives strapped to her thigh and calf, she looked deadly as hell, and twice as sexy. Her face was set in concentration, her eyes gleamed with reflected holo-light, and her moves showed the hours she’d put into her training, and the athleticism—and sharp edge—that had made her a natural at this from the very beginning. She didn’t think she was brave, didn’t think she had fought enough against the Witch, but he knew different. And could’ve stood there watching her all damn day.

She crouched and spun, flattened three hologram
camazotz
in rapid succession, then nailed a fourth with a bolt of crackling green magic that surged and spit with a dangerous, feminine power that hardened his flesh. More, it brought his own fighting instincts to the fore, making him want to challenge her, tussle with her, make love to her, right here and now.

Question was, what did she want?

Steeling himself, he stepped out of the shadows and into her peripheral vision.

She checked her next attack and spun to face him, cheeks flushed with exertion, eyes going wary and brittle at the sight of him. She raised her weapon but didn’t holster it, and didn’t let the magic ramp down. “I’m a little busy here. And really not in the mood for company.”

“It’s a pretty night.” He lifted the six-pack that was the first of the bribes he’d grabbed from the cottage. “I was hoping we could sit out and watch the stars for a bit.”

Her eyes didn’t give a damn thing away. “Why?”

Because last night was amazing, but you still snuck out. Because you’re the one I want to be with, the only one I trust, even when I don’t trust myself. Especially then.

He kept those answers inside, though, and went with the one that’d come to him as he’d stood there at the pathway’s fork, knowing he should go up to the mansion but wanting to be with her instead. “Because the first time around, we just sort of happened. We met, we liked each other, made sense together—at least as we saw it—and we got together and had some damn good times.” He paused. “But the thing is, I was so caught up in being a Nightkeeper, so convinced that we were destined mates that I coasted. I didn’t work for it, didn’t work for
you
.”

Maybe she paled a little, but she didn’t back down, didn’t lower her defenses. “And now?”

“Now I want to make it up to you. Hell, I don’t know what that even means, just that I hated waking up alone this morning, and I hate not knowing if you’ll be with me tonight, or ever again. What’s more, I know damn well that there’s not anybody else I want to be with right now, nobody else I want to talk to about the things that’re going down.” He reached into a pocket, pulled out a Ziploc half full of Sasha’s death-by-cacao brownies and held it out to her. He wasn’t even entirely sure what he was asking for, but he asked it anyway. “What do you say? Are you willing to give me another chance?”