Skykeepers Read online

  The kitchen took a long, slow spin around Sasha. Denial rose up within her, choking her with thick, viscous fear. The story didn’t make any sense. Yet at the same time, it did.

  The magi had suffered population bottlenecks twice before in their history, once in Egypt around 1300 B.C., when the pharaoh Akhenaton declared Egypt a monotheistic empire and slaughtered the polytheistic priests, and again in the fifteen hundreds, when the conquistadors had converted Mesoamerica to Christianity, starting once again by killing the priests. The Nightkeepers. Each of those slaughters had wiped out all but a handful of the magi. From that angle, Michael’s implication of a recent massacre fit with the Nightkeepers’ view on the cyclical nature of time and events. It was also consistent with what she saw around her. The mansion was set up for an army, yet Michael had said there were only twenty or so people in residence. That said population bottleneck to her. Or rather, it does if I buy that the stories are more than an expensive and potentially deadly delusion, she thought, trying not to lose herself.

  Throughout her life, she’d fallen prey to her own imagination time and again, talking herself into realities that didn’t exist. Like Ambrose being a good father. Saul being on the verge of proposing. Hell, she’d even believed in the Nightkeepers long ago, had imagined herself fighting demons in the end-time battle, serving beneath the valiant King Scarred-Jaguar, who Ambrose had spoken of as if he were real, like they all were.

  Apparently he wasn’t the only one who thought along those lines. But that brought up another question: Why had Ambrose left what seemed like the perfect location for him to hang out and indulge his obsessions? Should she take that as a warning in its own right, or a hint that there was far more going on here than she’d even begun to grasp? Her mind spun as she had to ask herself: At what point did delusion become a reality?

  It doesn’t, she told herself. So get your ass out of here already. It was the best chance for escape she’d had in over a year. She couldn’t not take advantage of the opportunity, just because her mobile mind had cast Michael into the role of hero and lover, despite all evidence to the contrary.

  When she pressed her hands to the counter, she noticed her fingers were trembling. Knowing she was close to losing it, she focused on the scene outside the wide kitchen window, which overlooked a football field-size patch of windblown hardpan, where a darker sand shadow outlined where a building must have stood in years past. To the left of that was a scattering of small cottage-type houses, to the right a huge, spreading tree in front of a big, industrial-looking steel building. In front of the tree sat a high-wheeled vehicle—a Jeep-like chassis riding on fat tires mounted on external shocks. Sasha’s pulse picked up at the sight.

  “Well,” Michael said from right behind her. “You said you wanted a kitchen. What’s the next step?”

  She hadn’t realized he’d moved from the breakfast bar, or that he was so close to her. Sensual awareness skimmed through her, lighting her up. This time, though, it came with the wish that they could have met under different circumstances, as slightly different people. If he’d been a normal guy and she’d been a chef with a little less baggage, she thought they could’ve made it work. For a while, anyway. But as the people they were, in the situation they were in, there was zero hope. The only sane thing she could do would be to get the hell away from him—from all of it—and build a new life.

  “I guess this is the next step,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t give away her intentions. As nonchalantly as she could manage, she picked up one of the hot sauces, uncapped it . . . and splashed it straight into Michael’s face, aiming for his eyes.

  “Aah!” He howled and reeled back, grabbing for his eyes with one hand, for her with the other. Sasha went in low, got in an elbow to his solar plexus, hooked his back foot with hers, and yanked. He fell hard, his head banging off the marble counter on the way down. He went limp when he landed, but she couldn’t turn back now.

  “I’m sorry,” she cried, eyes blurring with foolish tears. Then she ran for her life.

  She raced across the main room, hit the sliding glass doors at a dead run, and burst out into the open, fleeing captivity and crazy people who believed in impossible things.

  The compound was quiet around her, with no shouts of discovery. Not yet anyway. Her breath burned in her lungs as she reached the dune buggy. She hadn’t been outside in more than a year; the sunlight blinded her, though it was dim and orange-cast, as though the sun were shining through a layer of smog that was invisible in the clear blue sky.

  Throwing herself into the cockpit of the unfamiliar vehicle, she fumbled for the start button, and hissed, “Yes!” when the engine came to life. Yanking the safety harness into place, she hit the gas and sent the buggy churning in a tight one-eighty. Punching it, she powered around the side of the pool, away from the big steel building.

  Still no alarm.

  Her heart pounded in her ears and her blood ran hot with nerves and building elation as the vehicle slewed out from behind the huge stone-faced mansion and hit a dirt track that led to another, wider track, almost a road. It ran out the front, through a set of open gates.

  Sasha hit the gas and flew through the gates. And she was free!

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Tomas’s voice came from somewhere far above Michael. “You were supposed to let her get the drop on you, not let her split your damn head open. Way to go on the defense.”

  “Do you mind?” Michael grated. “I’m blinded and dying. The least you could do is pretend to sympathize.” But there was some truth in the winikin’s dig. Michael had let his guard down too far, as he’d divided his focus between watching her and thinking about the photograph she’d described, and what it might mean. And she’d gotten the drop on him way harder than he’d intended. Strike’s order had been for him to let her escape, not let her kick his ass.

  “Jack in,” Tomas suggested with zero pity. “You’ll heal.”

  “Son of a bitch.” Annoyed with his winikin for the lack of concern and with himself for the lapse of vigilance—and more than a little impressed with the one-two Sasha had used to drop him—Michael palmed his father’s knife from his ankle sheath, sliced his palm, and muttered the two-word spell that connected him to the barrier: “Pasaj och.”

  To his relief, the jack-in went without a hitch, and he sensed nothing beyond the pure red-gold of Nightkeeper power. Earlier, when he and Sasha had been face-to-face in the storeroom doorway, he’d thought he caught a thread of silver magic, there and gone so quickly that he might have convinced himself he’d imagined it if it hadn’t been for the answering kick of rage that had dimmed his vision for a second, washing her lovely face to grayscale. That part definitely hadn’t been his imagination. More, he could swear it’d been triggered by Sasha’s nearness, and his primal response to her. Which was consistent with what Iago had said, and so wasn’t a good sign. He had to find a way to keep her from lowering his defenses, given that, whether she was ready to accept it or not, she’d come to Skywatch for good.

  First, though, he had to make sure she survived her “escape” attempt. Calling the red-gold magic, he leaned on the magic, opened himself up to it, and felt some of the pain ease. A Nightkeeper couldn’t heal as fast as a makol, but they healed quicker and with far fewer long-term effects than a human. Within a few minutes, his head had stopped spinning and he could see dark and light patches through his watering eyes. “Good enough,” he said, aware that Tomas had stayed nearby, though he wasn’t sure whether that was because of a sense of duty or a desire to get another couple of digs in. “Did the others go after her?”

  “We’re on plan,” the winikin confirmed. “If we’re lucky, nothing will go wrong.” But they both knew there was no guarantee of that. Sasha was outside the warded protection of Skywatch, and Iago had vowed to get her back before the solstice.

  Michael had agreed with Strike and the others that in order to gain Sasha’s cooperation they were going to have
to prove that their power was real. It had been Nate’s idea to let her escape and then chase her down using magic that was very clearly not special effects. The royal council had voted that the potential reward was worth the risk. He just hoped to hell they weren’t proven wrong.

  Chaco Canyon

  Sasha braced herself against the wrenching jolt as the dune buggy hit another of the huge, hummocky bumps that pockmarked the dirt track that seemed to lead from nowhere to nowhere. She didn’t let up on the gas, though.

  Heat flickered across her skin—the heat of the desert, the heat of panic. The road she was on had started at the mansion and training compound she’d glimpsed on the way out, and it had to lead somewhere. But she had no clue how long it would be before she hit pavement, or saw a sign or another human being. Worse, she had less than a quarter tank of gas, and knew she was burning through her fuel big-time by keeping the engine pegged as high as it would rev. But it wasn’t like she’d had an option on the getaway-vehicle front.

  The road curved and she followed it automatically, gripping the steering wheel two-handed to counteract the bumps. On either side of the track, the land fell away to bare dirt dotted with gnarled rocks, windswept into fluidly beautiful shapes. In the near distance, larger rock formations rose seemingly from nowhere, reaching for the sky. Once or twice, she caught glimpses of more regular shapes, doors and windows of ancient Puebloan structures. There was no other traffic, no sign of anyone else in the area. She was free, but far from safe.

  Elation battled fear and confusion, and the three emotions called it a draw. Behind them came a twinge of guilt. Or more than a twinge. More like an avalanche, because Michael might be one of them, but she’d not only been intimate with him, she had liked him, liked the way he’d made her feel she was something special, like she was exactly where she was supposed to be.

  “It was just good sex,” she said, making herself concentrate on the road. “Don’t make it into anything more than that.” Squinting against the whip of wind and sunlight, she scanned the horizon, looking for signs of pursuit, of rescue. She saw nothing but sand, rock, and scrub brush, stretching to a clear blue sky. Off to one side of her, paralleling her track, a hawk flew above her, its shadow flattening out on the sand nearby.

  It flattened further. Got bigger. Then huge.

  Unease gathered in Sasha’s gut, spiraling quickly to nerves and then beyond to outright fear. Impossible, her rational self argued when the hawk shape continued to grow as it drifted toward the shadow cast by the speeding dune buggy. That’s not real.

  She checked her mirrors, tried to see overhead, but was foiled by the vehicle’s hardtop. Then the shadow disappeared.

  Terrified, Sasha pressed harder on the gas, only to have the engine cough and choke. “No,” she shouted. “No, damn it!”

  A hawk’s cry came from directly above her—a screech of triumph far too loud to come from a normal bird. A whoosh sounded overhead, and something slammed into the buggy, sending it shuddering sideways. Terrible thumps and scratches surrounded Sasha as she fought the ignition, nearly sobbing in fear as she tried to get the engine to turn over. She got it going again just as smooth, sharp claws, each at least two inches in diameter at their widest, curved down to take a grip on either side of the hardtop and latched on. Sasha stared at them, breath going dead in her lungs. Moments later, the buggy lurched and went airborne.

  Screaming, she twisted the wheel and stomped on the gas and brake in rapid succession, but the vehicle was out of her control. It went airborne, skimming along the surface of the road, then off it, over the softer sand on the verge. Sasha yanked at her safety straps, popping them free as the vehicle dipped and lifted, dipped and lifted, in synchrony with the boom of huge, feathered wings. Then the creature that had captured her slowed, back-winging to hover over a patch of soft sand.

  Then the claws let go. The buggy fell a few feet and whumped into the sand.

  Not stopping to think or plan, knowing only that she had to get the hell out of there now, Sasha flung herself out of the vehicle. She landed in soft sand, stumbled, and went down on her hands and knees, then scrambled up and ran for her life. She didn’t look behind her, didn’t dare, didn’t want to see—

  Air rushed and motion hissed overhead, a dark brown blur of feathers and scaly talons with wickedly curved claws. And then the thing landed facing her, beak agape, metal glinting off a gold chain around its neck. It was taller than a man, with a twenty-foot wingspan that it showed her now, flaring its wings wide as it screamed.

  Sasha screamed too, and spun to bolt the other way.

  A woman stood behind her, MAC-10 aimed with deadly intent.

  Sasha froze.

  The woman nodded. “Good call.” Blond and blue-eyed, tall and stacked, she was wearing jeans, a teal shirt, and slip-on sneakers, and had a small knapsack slung over one shoulder. Black glyphs marked her inner right forearm, but even without them, Sasha recognized her as one of the strangers who’d looked in on her as she’d feigned sleep. Now, the woman lowered the autopistol, shrugged out of the knapsack, and tossed the bag past Sasha, humor glinting in her eyes. “Put your clothes on, Nate. She looks freaked out enough without adding a naked man to the mix.”

  A hawk’s cry answered, somehow sounding like a chuckle. Then heat rippled across the back of Sasha’s neck and arms, and there was a strange noise, almost like a sigh. Then the sound of someone getting dressed.

  Impossible, her rational self said, but it didn’t sound quite so certain anymore. “Special effects,” she whispered, more to herself than to the woman.

  The blonde heard her, though, and something like sympathy flashed briefly in her killer blue eyes. “Feel free to keep telling yourself that if it helps. Doesn’t make it true, though.”

  “The Nightkeepers are a myth,” Sasha said numbly, repeating the words she’d said over and over to Ambrose, trying to get him to see his delusion for what it was. “It’s a bunch of good stories, nothing more.”

  “Like Alexis said,” a man’s deep voice intoned, “just because you tell yourself something, that doesn’t make it true.” There was a thread of amusement in his tone, suggesting an inside joke.

  Sasha spun, her hands coming up in automatic defense. But she didn’t throw a punch; instead, she froze at the sight of a dark-haired man standing right where the hawk had been. He was tall, dark, and built, and in a way reminded her of Michael. Or maybe a cleaned-up version of Michael, more businessman than pirate. The man’s black hair was short and slicked, his jaw clean-shaven, his eyes amber rather than forest green. He was wearing dark cargo pants, sneakers, and a black tee, but on him they somehow came across as dress-down Friday rather than at-home casual. He wore a medallion around his neck, a black cuff of polished stone on his right wrist, and had the knapsack slung over his shoulder. The hawk had disappeared. Or had it merely changed into something else?

  Sasha shook her head, so freaking confused she wanted to scream with it. Or rather, she wanted to be confused, but was afraid she understood. And that was what had the screams locking in the back of her throat, trapping the fear inside her chest with the growing sense of doom, of guilt. Oh, Ambrose.

  “Special effects,” she said, whispering it to herself as though the words were a spell.

  The blonde looked at the man; Sasha had to believe they were a couple from the way her eyes warmed as they touched on his, caught, and held. But then the blonde’s expression cooled as she glanced at Sasha. “I guess she needs another demonstration,” she said, as though a giant bird that had morphed into a man wasn’t enough proof that either she’d been fully sucked into the collective delusion . . . or it wasn’t a delusion at all.

  “No,” Sasha said, panic sparking. “Wait—”

  But the blonde ignored her and dug in the back pocket of her jeans, coming up with a cell phone. She flipped it open, hit a couple of buttons, and said, “Taxi for three, please.”

  For a second, Sasha was relieved to think it would be something as
normal as an SUV coming for them. Then a strange rattle split the air, and a man appeared. Hovering. In midair, maybe a foot off the ground. He had shoulder-length hair that was pulled back into a stubby ponytail at the base of his neck, a close-clipped jawline beard, and piercing blue eyes. He was wearing ragged jeans, a concert tee, and leather sandals, and the whole effect made him look like he should’ve been hanging out over a backyard barbecue with a beer in one hand, grill tongs in the other. Instead, he was hanging in midair.

  A moment later, gravity took over and he dropped, landing easily, as though he’d done it a thousand times before. Sasha stared, transfixed by the trick, and the glyph he wore high on his right biceps—the hunab ku. The mark of a Nightkeeper king.

  “Impossible,” she whispered. Except that this time it was the disbelief that rang false, because she could get only so far denying the evidence in front of her.

  “Come on,” the king said. “Let’s go home.”

  “That place isn’t my home,” she whispered, pushing the words through a closed-tight throat. The training compound was either an elaborate insane asylum . . . or it was the embodiment of everything she’d spent her adult life trying to escape. The impossibility of it all, the incongruity of it, slapped at her, swamping her and holding her still as the blonde and the man-hawk took her hands and linked their fingers with the king’s, connecting the four of them in an alternating male-female circle.

  “It should have been,” the king said in a voice that brooked no argument. “And if you’ll let us, we’ll do our best to make it feel like your home now.”

  Before she could react to that—if she could’ve even come up with an intelligent response—the air thickened with a hush of anticipation, a skirr of electricity. Then something rattled, the noise feeling as though it came from right behind her ears, her stomach lurched, and the world disappeared, blurring gray-green.