Nightkeepers notfp-1 Page 20

  And seriously weird vibes, Strike thought, frowning as he counted the tapers—lucky thirteen—and assured himself that the stingray spines, knives, parchments, and bowls were all set out and ready to roll. ‘‘Why do I feel like we’re forgetting something?’’

  Jox glanced over, raising an eyebrow. ‘‘Like you’ve done this before?’’

  ‘‘That’s the point—I haven’t. So why the willies?’’ Strike rubbed his chest, where a strange pressure burned. ‘‘Maybe I just need some Pepto.’’ Or a beer.

  Jox crossed in front of the large chac-mool altar to grip his shoulder. ‘‘You’ll do fine.’’

  ‘‘Thanks.’’ Strike glanced up through the transparent glass roof of the sacred chamber. The reflected firelight from the tapers meant he couldn’t see the stars winking into existence high above, but he could feel them, just as he could feel the lines of power shift into place as the aphelion drew near. ‘‘I feel . . . jumpy.’’

  ‘‘Hormones,’’ the winikin said. ‘‘They’re going to ramp up during every conjunction for a while, until you’re really solid in the magic.’’

  ‘‘In any other lifetime, having your father figure tell you, ‘Don’t worry, you’re just horny,’ would seem weird,’’ Strike said. ‘‘But I find myself oddly reassured. Probably explains why I haven’t been able to get Leah out of my head all day.’’

  Jox made a face, but kept working his lint brush over the royal crimson robes Strike would wear for the ceremony. ‘‘That Alexis, you know . . . she’s a knockout. Blond, edgy . . .’’

  ‘‘Don’t start.’’ Strike’s jumpiness flickered toward temper.

  ‘‘Mating with another Nightkeeper will boost your power by double, if not more.’’

  ‘‘And who gives a crap if I spend the rest of my life miserable?’’

  Jox waved him off. ‘‘Tell it to Dr. Phil.’’

  Strike gritted his teeth so hard he thought he felt a molar give. ‘‘You don’t know the first thing about how I feel.’’

  ‘‘The hell I don’t,’’ Jox snapped, tossing the lint brush and whirling to face him. ‘‘Get your head out of your ass and look around.’’

  Strike fought the anger, fought the power as the planets aligned and the barrier thinned, and his gut told him he was missing something major. ‘‘Watch your step, winikin.’’

  Jox’s voice cracked around the edges when he said, ‘‘Do you honestly think this is the life I would’ve picked? I wouldn’t have traded raising you and Anna, but gods. Don’t tell me I don’t know what it means to want someone and not be able to go after her, and don’t you dare think you’re the only one making a sacrifice.’’ He jabbed a finger toward the door. ‘‘Never mind me. Including the winikin, there are fourteen people out there who dropped their lives to come here because they knew it was the right thing to do. Have you stopped to think for a second what they walked away from? Whether they want to be here? No, of course not, because it’s their duty to be here; it’s in their bloodlines. Well, guess what? Same goes for you, only double because you’re Scarred-Jaguar’s son. Get used to it.’’

  ‘‘Why, because you did?’’ Anger and worry rode Strike, had him lashing out. ‘‘Leah is mine. Just because you didn’t go after your woman doesn’t mean I can’t have mine.’’

  ‘‘She’s not yours!’’ the winikin shouted. ‘‘She’s human.’’

  ‘‘Did you ever wonder why you didn’t go after Hannah years ago?’’ Strike asked, aiming low when he used the story Jox had told him in confidence. ‘‘Did you ever stop to think that maybe you liked the idea of her more than the reality? That she was a pretty fantasy, but the reality would’ve been too messy? That—’’

  Jox punched him in the mouth, splitting the crap out of his lip.

  Strike reeled back, tasting blood as the winikin stalked out, slamming the door.

  ‘‘Damn it!’’ Strike took a couple of steps after him, then stopped when the door opened once again and he saw the others standing there, wearing blue trainees’ robes and looking pretty freaked.

  Way to go into the ceremony nice and focused, he thought. Shit. And he wasn’t even dressed.

  ‘‘I’ll be back in five minutes,’’ he said, grabbing the red robe and bundling it under his arm. ‘‘Get comfortable. Or something.’’

  Booking it to the pool house, he stripped out of his jeans, shirt, and briefs, and pulled on the ceremonial regalia Jox had dug out of storage. The floor-length robe had long, pointed sleeves and a draping hood, with the edges encrusted with small, intricately carved shells. The fabric was bloodred. Royal red, for the last of the royal line.

  With it went a feathered headdress that fit close to Strike’s scalp and hung down in the back, gaudy with feathers and jade. Last but not least, he pulled three jade celts out of the pocket of the robe. Working by feel, he hooked the flat, carved ovals so they hung down in front of his nose and cheeks, distorting his profile and making it—according to legend—look more like that of a god.

  Always before when he’d donned the ceremonial regalia, he’d felt thoroughly silly, as if he were getting ready for Halloween. But now, barefoot and commando beneath the heavy red robe, wearing something that looked like a bad roadside souvenir on his head when he glanced in the full-length mirror inside the pool house bathroom, he didn’t see an idiot.

  He wasn’t sure what he saw, exactly. The guy looking back at him seemed like a stranger, like someone out of another time. Then he got it, and a shiver took hold in his gut, making him think the reflection in the mirror might be the source of his unease.

  Because, gods help him, all of a sudden he looked like his father.

  He felt a twinge when he said, ‘‘Let’s just hope I got more of the good parts of him than the bad.’’

  He’d loved his father, worshiped him the way only a nine-year-old boy could. But at the same time, the king had singlehandedly wiped out an entire civilization. Not exactly a proud legacy. Then again, Strike wasn’t exactly proud of himself at the moment, either. Jox was right: He had a duty. Everything else had to take a backseat for the next four years, even Leah.

  Especially Leah. Seeing her the other day—having her recognize him, and then realizing that she’d somehow come back into the ajaw-makol’s orbit—had gotten him thinking about fate and the gods again, about destiny and how many times their paths needed to cross before he’d admit they were meant to be together.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t about whether they were destined for each other. It was about the prophecy, the future. And in the immediate future, he needed to get his head off the woman and into the ceremony.

  Scrubbing a hand across the back of his neck, where the creepy-crawly feeling of not-quite-rightness had settled in, Strike took a deep breath and headed back to the mansion, reminding himself that tonight wasn’t about him. It was about the trainees, and their bloodline marks. It was about the continuation, however tenuous, of the Nightkeepers.

  In the ritual chamber, the trainees were ranged shoulder-to-shoulder in a loose semicircle facing the altar. Rabbit, smaller and darker than the others, stood on one end, slightly apart from the group. Patience and Brandt were at the other end. Although they already had their bloodline marks, Strike wanted them to have an escort for their first official jack-in. Besides, he might need their power for an uplink if things went wrong. It didn’t happen often, but newbies sometimes went missing in the barrier. When that happened, it was up to their escort to go find them. Which begged a question— where the hell was their second escort?

  ‘‘Where’s Red-Boar?’’ Strike asked as he stepped to his place beside the altar. If the bastard was boycotting because Rabbit was included in the ceremony, he’d—

  ‘‘I’m here,’’ the older man said, appearing in the doorway wearing his ceremonial robes, which were black and worked with intricate patterns of stingray spines and boar’s teeth. ‘‘I . . .’’ He paused, staring at the chac-mool . ‘‘Never mind.’’

  Strike winc
ed, realizing that while he’d never been part of the chamber rituals as a child, the older Nightkeeper no doubt had plenty of memories in the room. His own talent ceremony. His wedding. The barrier ceremony for his twin sons. Ouch. Serious ghosts.

  Without another word, Red-Boar took position on the other side of the altar. ‘‘Proceed.’’

  Strike nodded, feeling the power hum. ‘‘Let’s do it.’’ He rolled up the right sleeve of his crimson robe, baring his marks. Red-Boar followed suit, baring his. Then the trainees did the same, showing that they had no marks.

  Strike passed the bowls, parchment scraps, and spines and gestured for the trainees to sit. Once they’d all assumed cross-legged positions, he said, ‘‘Okay, gang. Follow my lead, and no matter what happens, try not to panic. If we get separated, stay where you are. Red-Boar or I will come find you.’’

  He picked up his bowl and set it in the hollow formed by his crossed legs. It was the king’s bowl, made of sand-smoothed jade and carved with glyphs spelling out the king’s writ. Touching the bowl, he sent a quick thought toward the heavens. Gods, please help me not fuck this up. Not the most eloquent of prayers, maybe, but he’d never pretended to be a poet. He was just a regular guy with a few upgrades.

  Laying a square of parchment in the bottom of the bowl—okay, technically it was high-grade card stock from Staples, but it wasn’t the paper so much as the symbol—Strike picked up his stingray spine, braced himself, and drove it into his tongue. Pain slapped at him, then again when he ripped the spine free and blood flowed into his mouth. Shit, that hurt.

  He opened his mouth, letting the blood fall into the bowl, where it soaked into the paper. Once the others had followed suit, he lit his taper, then touched it to the one held by the trainee beside him, Patience. The flame was passed from one to another, coming full circle until Red-Boar touched his lit candle to Strike’s, completing the circle.

  Then, moving as one, they set the blood-soaked pages aflame and snuffed their candles as acrid smoke rose. They leaned in. Inhaled the smoke. And said in unison, ‘‘Pasaj och.’’ The world lurched and went gray-green, then solidified. And they were in. Or, rather, he was in.

  Strike found himself standing in the middle of nowhere and everywhere at once, on a soft, yielding surface, with nothing but mist around him, eddying in random swirls created by an unseen wind. Either the others hadn’t made it into the barrier, or they’d landed somewhere else.

  ‘‘Hello?’’ He looked around wildly. ‘‘Red-Boar? Patience? Anyone?’’ His shout fell dead on the mist. There was no echo, no response.

  He was alone.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Leah awoke in her own attic, lying spread-eagled on the futon mattress beneath the skylight. For a second, looking up at the stars and somehow feeling them hum in her bones, she thought everything was okay, that her stomach was in knots because of a strange dream.

  Then she tried to move. And couldn’t.

  Fear jolted as a hazy memory returned: that of seeing Connie on her doorstep but opening her door to someone else, someone she hadn’t seen clearly. Then a flash of green, then nothing.

  Heart pounding, Leah tugged at her arms and legs and found them held fast in doubled-up zip ties threaded through eyebolts sunk into the sturdy attic floorboards. She had no leverage; the plastic cut into her skin but didn’t give. She was alone, but heard the heavy tread of footsteps downstairs. She had to think. Think!

  She looked around for a weapon, a plan.

  The knife, she thought. She’d brought a carving knife up from the kitchen; she didn’t know why. And, wonder of wonders, it was still sitting in the bowl where she’d left it, half buried beneath a parchment diary.

  But it was a good four feet away from the outstretched fingertips of her left hand. ‘‘Damn it,’’ she whispered, frustrated tears pressing in her throat. ‘‘Come on; you can do it. Get the knife.’’

  She squirmed and strained, tugging against the zip ties until blood slicked her wrists and ankles. The pain hazed her vision yellow-gold, and her head pounded with what felt like a sinus headache times a million. The room spun and the golden light brightened, though it was night out and the room was lit with the single beeswax candle.

  The footsteps sounded again from below, and this time they were headed her way.

  Come on, come on. She reached toward the knife, fingers straining, her entire attention focused on the black resin handle.

  And the knife moved.

  The rational part of Leah gaped, but the rest of her, the part that belonged to the yellow-gold pressure inside her mind, kept straining, kept concentrating, panicking as the ladder leading up to the attic creaked.

  Come on! she thought, only the words that formed in her head didn’t sound right, didn’t sound like English at all.

  Half a second later, the knife slid out from underneath the diary and floated across the floorboards as if it were swinging on an invisible string, coming to rest against her bloodstained palm.

  Impossible, she thought, even as she grabbed the knife and twisted her hand, jamming the blade beneath the zip ties and sawing frantically. That didn’t just happen. Yet somehow she had the knife.

  Working fast, she cut her left hand free, then her right, and was working on her feet when the trapdoor lifted and swung all the way open, and a slightly built man appeared, wearing jeans and a cartoon-covered T-shirt, walking backward up the ladder because he was carrying something bulky in his arms. A carved wooden chest, to be exact.

  The zip ties gave, and she stumbled to her feet, lunging toward the guy as he hit the top of the ladder and turned. Her brain froze at the sight of filed-sharp teeth and a hollow earplug. It looked like her ex-snitch, Itchy Pasquale, except that his eyes were a bright, luminous green. An impossible, glowing green that should’ve existed only in the movies. But though her brain cramped with horror, her body kept moving. She hit him waist-high, and her unexpected attack drove them both across the attic floor.

  Cursing, Itchy dropped the carved chest and grabbed her blood-slicked wrist in a bruising grip. He twisted her arm up and back with one hand and raised his other hand to her head. The press of a gun muzzle had her stilling.

  ‘‘Don’t make me kill you,’’ he said, his voice rasping in her ear. ‘‘Don’t—’’

  She screamed and twisted away from the gun, then reversed and slammed her knife into the side of his neck. He howled and ripped the knife free, reeling back and losing his grip on the gun.

  She grabbed the weapon—a good-size Glock—and came up straight into Itchy’s fist. The punch drove her away from the trapdoor, away from freedom.

  Tasting blood, she fell against the wall, dazed. Pain was a dull roar, overtaken by the command of a strange voice inside her, one that shouted, Get the chest!

  Itchy swiped at the side of his neck, and his hand came away red with blood. His face contorted and he came at her with the knife. ‘‘Fucking bitch!’’

  Shaking, she struggled to her feet and unloaded the Glock into his face at point-blank range. Blood sprayed, bone shattered, and unidentifiable gristle chunks spattered her in the blowback. Someone was screaming, and it took a second to realize it was her, shouting curses and prayers and sobs, all mixed together as she ran through the clip.

  Itchy’s body—it had to be a body, because there was no way anything could survive with its head hamburgered up like that—hit the back wall and slid down, drawing a gory streak.

  Shaking, sobbing, she bolted for the ladder, her only thought to escape, to get free, to get somewhere, anywhere far away. Then her eyes locked on the carved chest, which sat near the trapdoor. Yes, the voice inside her said. Open it.

  ‘‘I don’t know how,’’ she whispered. There was no latch, padlock, or keyhole, no obvious way to get the thing open.

  Yes, you do.

  No, she didn’t. But somehow she did. She held her torn wrists over the lid and waited for a few drops of blood to fall. When they did, she whispered, ‘‘Pasaj.’�
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  She didn’t have a clue what it meant or where it’d come from, but it worked. The trunk opened, not by the boring old lock-and-lid method, but by freaking vaporizing, puffing out of existence as though it’d never been. Inside the box lay a square packet wrapped in oilcloth and tied with a shoelace. It glowed red and resonated a high, sweet note in her soul.

  Mine, Leah thought, and reached for it. Her fingers closed over the packet, and cool heat radiated up her arm as she tucked the thing into the back pocket of her jeans. Her headache snapped out of existence, and the pressure disappeared as though it’d never been, leaving a silence inside her head that crackled with electricity, with power. With urgency.

  She had to get out of there, had to get away. She hadn’t heard any other footsteps down below, but kept the empty Glock at the ready, figuring it’d be good for intimidation if nothing else.

  She was halfway down the ladder when a heavy weight slammed into her from behind.

  Screaming and fighting for balance, she pitched forward and landed hard, rolling onto her back as she scratched for freedom, trying to struggle out from underneath her attacker.

  Itchy’s ruined face loomed over her, which was just unbelievable. He shouldn’t still be alive. But as she watched, the flesh started knitting back, eyes and tendons re-forming, meat growing out to cover regenerating bone. Impossible! she screamed in her head, but knew it wasn’t a dream. It was real.

  Shrieking, she jerked a knee up between them and tried to break free, but he was too strong. She couldn’t get any leverage as his fingers closed over her throat and bore down. Her windpipe folded closed under the pressure, and her consciousness dimmed.

  Help, she cried in her skull. Help me!

  Damn it! Strike’s mind raced as he looked around the featureless mist of the barrier, searching for the others.