Dawnkeepers (29 page)

In the vision there had been love. In reality there was a job to do.

She waved Nate toward the altar. “Stand over there, facing me.”

He moved as she directed, but said, “Why?”

“Because that was where your father was standing.” The words were out before she thought how he might take them, given that he was just beginning to even admit that he’d had parents who’d lived and breathed back at Skywatch, and had been a part of the life he was living now.

But Nate said nothing. He simply took his place, stone-faced.

“Gray-Smoke was standing here.” Alexis moved to her mother’s place, but felt nothing. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to feel—some sort of resonance, maybe, or an echo of bloodline power. Instead she was aware only of the press of stone against the bottoms of her feet and the damnable pull that kindled whenever she was near Nate, a combination of chemistry and the goddess’s power. “I wish I’d heard the spell they were using,” she said, then frowned. “Which brings up the question of why they were here in the first place.” She’d been trying to figure that one out since her latest dream, and hadn’t gotten anywhere. “I asked Izzy, but she couldn’t even be sure when they went off together.” She looked around. “Why here?”

It was more of a rhetorical question than anything, given that Nate was the antihistory buff. But he surprised her by saying, “They were trying to work a spell that would tell them whether or not Scarred-Jaguar’s visions were real, and whether the gods truly meant for them to attack the intersection during the summer solstice of ’eighty-four.”

For a second Alexis just stared at him. “How do you know that?”

“Carlos told me back when I first arrived, before he gave up trying to spoon-feed me the history.”

Alexis tipped her head, considering. “What did he say exactly?”

“I was trying to ignore him, remember?” When she just waited him out, he lifted a shoulder. “He said the two of them went away for a few days right before the summer solstice. Said they were going to get proof, one way or the other. When they came back they were barely speaking to each other, acting really weird. They said the augury spell they tried didn’t work.”

“Or maybe it did, but it didn’t answer the question they thought they were asking.”

“None of which is really relevant at the moment,” he pointed out. “We’re here to get the statuette. In your vision, where was it?”

She stared at him for a long moment, trying to decide whether it’d be worth having the fight, and in the end deciding probably not, because she’d never get him to admit that studying the past informed the present. Letting out a long breath, she said, “Here.” She turned and touched one of the limestone columns, a rainbow carved between two snakes. “It is—or was—behind here.” But there was no seam in the carved stone, no pressure pad to open a hidden compartment.

“Blood,” Nate said succinctly, and handed over his own knife.

The haft was warm from his body heat, the feel of it far more intimate than it should’ve been. She nicked her palm, pressed it to the carved column, and whispered,
“Pasaj och.” Open sesame.

She jerked her hand back, shocked when, just that easily, the stone puffed to vapor beneath her hand, revealing the alcove she’d seen in her vision . . . and the carving that would complete the statuette of Ixchel. Holding her breath, halfway afraid it too would puff to mist when she touched it, she reached into the hidden niche and grasped the stone fragment, which looked to be another chunk of the basket the carved goddess sat atop.

She exhaled a sigh of relief when it stayed solid, heavy and warm in her hand.

“Got it?” Nate asked, his voice suddenly sounding too loud in the echoing chamber.

“Got it, thank the gods.” She withdrew the carving. The moment it was clear of the alcove, the stone pillar puffed back into existence and went solid. “Whoa.” She touched the spot and felt stone where an empty space had been only seconds earlier. “That was pretty cool.”

“Agreed.” Nate dug into his knapsack and held out a T-shirt and a padded, collapsible cooler about the size of a six-pack. When she raised an eyebrow, he lifted a shoulder. “Figured we’d need something to protect it for the trip back.”

The small gesture shouldn’t have touched her. Because it did, she avoided meeting his eyes as she wrapped the carving in his shirt and tucked it inside the cooler, which she zipped up and held out to him. “You want to carry it?”

“Sure.” Their fingers brushed as he took the cooler, sending a frisson of heat up her arm. From the sudden lock of his eyes on hers, she knew he’d felt it too. The sensual buzz between them kicked up a notch, and they both stood there, each, she suspected, waiting for the other to make the first move either toward or away.

Sudden urgency beat within her. She wanted him, wanted to take him inside her, wanted to couple with him in the water, braced against the limestone pillars while the slap of wetness and flesh drove them both higher, drove them beyond reason. But the man in her vision wasn’t the one who stood opposite her now. The man in the vision had wanted her for herself. In reality, Nate didn’t know what he wanted, except his freedom from everything and everyone . . . which was incompatible with her concept of family, never mind their responsibilities to the Nightkeepers.

Very deliberately, she let go of the cooler and stepped back. “Thanks. For taking the carving.”

Eyes still locked on hers, he nodded slightly. “No problem.”

And in that short exchange, far more was said than the actual words.

“Let’s go.” Working side by side, they repacked their flashlights and knapsacks and checked their pony bottles, which were still mostly full. Then they dropped into the water, clutching their packs, and headed out the way they’d come in. As Alexis submerged and kicked for the tunnel, once again following in Nate’s wake, she had to brace herself against a sting of disappointment and a sense of failure.

They’d gotten what they’d come for, it was true. But she had the strangest feeling that she’d left something behind.

He’d watched as much bad satellite TV as he could stand, and had fiddled with the gaming console and cartridges Jox had brought him. But he’d never been huge on TV, and he’d sort of burned out on gaming a couple of years earlier, so neither of those distractions held much in the way of appeal. Or, more accurately, what was outside the suite held so much more.

His window overlooked a freaking Mayan ball court. How could he not want to be out there? Ball courts were his all-time favorite type of ruin. Only this was no ruin; it looked like fairly new construction, like the Nightkeepers still played the traditional game after all these years.

Two twenty-foot-tall stone walls ran parallel to each other, and were open at both ends. The walls were intricately carved, and although he couldn’t see the murals from his vantage point, he could guess what they looked like: scenes of ballplayers wearing the traditional yokes and padding, each vying to send a heavy rubberized ball—sometimes containing a skull at the center—through rings set high on the walls while members of the opposite team tried to stop them using any methods possible, fair or foul. The carvings might also show the losers—or sometimes the winners—being sacrificed in tribute to the gods, blood spurting from the stumps of their beheaded necks, the gouts turning to sacred serpents as they landed.

He would’ve given just about anything to be able to get down there and check it out. He also wanted to get a look at the kapok tree nearby, which must’ve had a serious irrigation system keeping it alive, because they weren’t supposed to grow in the desert. There was the big steel building behind the tree, a firing range beyond that, and what looked like a set of Pueblo ruins at the back of the canyon. . . .

Frankly, he didn’t care what he got to explore first; he just wanted to get his ass out there. He’d tried the door and window already, along with the vents and anyplace else he thought he might be able to break through, but had stopped short of busting up the furniture and using the shards to hack through the drywall into the next room over. Another couple of days, though, and he might give it a try.

He was trying not to blame Anna for deserting him; he’d blamed her for too much already, all but destroying a friendship that had once been very important to him. Besides, it wasn’t just about the two of them, was it? His being there was undoubtedly a security breach of epic proportions for her people, never mind the way her brother had implied that he’d been involved with them once before and was already living on borrowed time.

Lucius really wanted to know what that was all about. But the strange thing was, he was curious but not mad, bored but not blaming anyone for it, which felt more like the him of a year ago rather than the guy he’d become over the past six months. Something had changed inside him since he’d come to the compound. He’d arrived all pissed off and ready to lash out, feeling like the victim, like the world was out to get him and he’d be better off striking first rather than sitting back and waiting it out. He’d been mad at Anna, mad at Desiree for sending him on his quest, mad at Sasha Ledbetter for not being where he’d hoped she would be.

Since then he’d had a serious reality check. Maybe it was seeing Anna and realizing what she’d been hiding from him, and partly understanding why. Or maybe it was just the time he’d had to do some navel-gazing and figure out what the hell was important. Anna was important, he’d decided. What she and the others were trying to do was important, because the end date was less than four years away. And, more than anything, he wanted to help. He wanted to be a part, however small, of the war that was to come.

His mother had always said he’d been born into the wrong time, that he should’ve been one of Arthur’s knights, a hero in an age of heroes. He wasn’t sure about that, but he knew there were some battles a man had to step up and fight no matter what.

“I may not be a Nightkeeper,” he said aloud, “but with Ledbetter gone I’m the best-informed human they’re likely to find. I can help with the research, if nothing else.”

“I agree,” Anna’s voice said from behind him. “That’s why I’m busting you out of here.”

Lucius spun away from the window, shocked to hear another human voice after so many days of talking to himself. “Anna! How . . . Who . . . ?” Then her words penetrated, and he concluded with an oh-so-brilliant, “Huh?”

“Lucius, sit. Breathe.” She waved him to the generic sofa that took up most of the generically decorated sitting area. Once he was sitting, she took one of the chairs opposite him and leaned forward, folding her hands over her knees. “We need to talk.”

On the heels of shock came all the emotions he’d been sorting through over the past few days, crashing into one another until his brain was a total train wreck of half-completed thoughts. Taking a deep breath, he blew it out again and said, “I’d say that ranks pretty high on the understatement scale.”

Her eyes warmed a little. She looked good, he realized. Then again, he’d pretty much always thought she looked good. At least, he had until recently. Somewhere along the way he’d stopped noticing how her hair looked brown in one light, chestnut in another, and how her deep blue eyes seemed to look into a guy, seeing far more than was on the surface.

Had he changed or had she? Or had they both gone in different directions and wound up back in the same place once again?

She was wearing jeans and a soft blue shirt he didn’t recognize, with long sleeves pulled down over her forearm marks. The yellow quartz skull-shaped effigy she’d started wearing the previous fall hung from a chain around her neck. The thing that got and held his attention, though, was the knife tucked into her belt.

Carved from black stone—obsidian, probably—it didn’t look terribly old, but it sure looked sharp.

With his eyes locked on the knife, he said, “You mentioned something about busting me out of here? That wasn’t a euphemism for something I’m not going to like, is it? Like telling a little kid that his sick old dog went to live on a farm?”

He expected a grin. Didn’t get one.

“Here’s the deal,” Anna said, “and hold the questions until the end, at which point you’re only allowed three. I know you too well—if I let you quiz me, we’ll be here until the solstice.” She paused until he nodded, then continued, “As you’ve figured, Skywatch is the Nightkeepers’ training compound. What you probably haven’t figured, and the reason that I’ve argued against the 2012 doomsday for so long, is that up until last summer I believed that the apocalypse had been forestalled. Twenty-five years ago my father led the Nightkeepers against the interplanar intersection, based on a vision from the god Kauil saying he could prevent the end-time. Instead, the demon
Banol Kax
came through the intersection and slaughtered the warriors, then sent their creatures here to Skywatch to kill the children. All but a few of the youngest Nightkeepers died.”

Her voice shook a little and her eyes had gone a very deep blue, as though she were seeing something he couldn’t. Lucius wanted to help, to comfort her, but he didn’t dare interrupt, so he waited.

After a second she continued, “The power backlash sealed the barrier. We checked the intersection every cardinal day for years after, but it remained closed, and the magic stayed inactive. We truly thought the end-time had been averted.”

“We?” he blurted, unable to help himself.

She fixed him with a look. “That’s your first question.” But she answered, “Me, Strike, our
winikin
Jox, and the sole adult survivor of the Solstice Massacre, a mage named Red-Boar.” Her eyes went sad. “You met him last fall, sort of, but won’t be able to remember it. He is—he was—a mind-bender.”

Which brought up so many questions Lucius didn’t know where to start, so he gestured for her to continue. “Go on.”

“Well, the short of it is that there was one remaining prophecy dealing with the end-time, stating that certain things would happen in the final five years before 2012. Sure enough, last year a
makol
—a human disciple of the underworld—used some major blood sacrifices to reopen the barrier at the summer solstice. All of a sudden the magic was working again, and the end-time countdown was back on. Strike was forced to recall the surviving Nightkeepers, who had been raised in secret by their
winikin
. Since then, we’ve been going through crash courses in magic and fighting skills in an effort to whip together a fighting force capable of defending the intersection at each equinox and solstice, and capable of either somehow averting the end-time, or at the very least holding the
Banol Kax
in Xibalba when the calendar ends in December 2012, and the barrier falls.” She paused. “There are thirteen Nightkeepers left on earth, counting a pair of three-year-old toddlers and a powerful freak show of questionable allegiance named Snake Mendez, who still has another six months before he’s eligible for parole.”

She fell silent, but it was a long moment before Lucius said, “Okay. My brain’s officially in ‘tilt’ mode.”

She sent him a warm look that recalled better days. “Join the club. You want to ask your last two questions now?”

“Sure. What’s a
winikin
?”

“That’s the most important thing you can think to ask?” she said slowly.

He grinned. “No. But it’s been bugging me for almost a week.”

After a serious eye roll, she said, “They’re the blood-bound protectors of the Nightkeepers, descended from the loyal slaves who sneaked fifty or so Nightkeeper children out of Egypt when Akhenaton started killing poly-theists. The single surviving adult Nightkeeper, who came to be called the First Father, led the slaves and children to safety, eventually ending up in Olmec territory. Knowing that history repeats, he put a spell on the
winikin
, binding them to the bloodlines they helped save and entrusting them with making sure the culture and the magic survived until 2012. In that way they became our partners rather than our slaves; they’re bound to protect us and guide us, though they have no magic of their own.”

Which totally dovetailed with the Nightkeeper myths Lucius had scraped together for the side project that’d slopped over into his thesis and then bitten him in the ass. It didn’t explain why the
winikin
were never once mentioned in the mythology he’d uncovered, but that so wasn’t the last question he needed to ask.

He took a deep breath. “Why are you telling me all this?”

“Now, that’s the right question,” she said approvingly. “The simple answer is because you’re one of the best researchers I know, and our current archivist is actually a repurposed child psychologist. It’s another monumental understatement to say she’s floundering.”

“If that’s the simple answer, then there’s a more complicated one,” he said, careful not to make it be a question.

“That would be that I’m telling you a little about of our history and current situation so you’ll understand what’s at stake.”

He grimaced. “A dozen or so Nightkeepers against the fall of the barrier protecting the earth from the forces of Xibalba? I’d say the stakes are pretty high.” If, by pretty high, she meant insurmountable.

“Exactly,” she said, as if he’d uttered the last part aloud.

“Which doesn’t explain what you’re going to do with me. The term ‘busting out’ implies liberation, but I don’t see how freeing me helps, especially given what already happened with Desiree.” He paused, then said, “For what it’s worth, I’m really, really sorry about that. I don’t know what came over me. It was like . . . I don’t know. Like I was somebody else for a while. Somebody I don’t like very much.”

“We go on from here,” she said, which wasn’t the same as accepting his apology. “That includes my asking you a favor.” She paused. “I want you to stay here and help us.”

The offer took a moment to register. “Me? Help the Nightkeepers?” Excitement was a quick kick, tempered by the complications she’d mentioned. “Would I have to stay locked up?”

“Not in this room.” Again with the nonanswer. “You’d have free run of the compound and access to the Nightkeepers, the
winikin
, and the archive, which contains a number of codices, artifacts, and original sources, along with commentaries from generations of Nightkeeper scholars, Spanish missionaries . . . pretty much everything ever written about the Nightkeepers and the end-time, along with some primary Mayan sources you won’t find anywhere else.”

His researcher’s soul sang.
They have an archive!
Excitement zipped through him, lighting his senses. “What’s the catch?” he asked, though there was no question that he was going to agree to whatever it was. He was being offered every Mayanist’s dream—access to a previously unknown stockpile of information. More, he was being offered a part—however small—in the end-time war.

“I’m going to need an oath of fealty,” she said.

“No problem. Where do I sign?”

“That’s not exactly how it works.” She drew the obsidian knife from her belt and balanced it on her palm. “It’s more along the lines of a spell that binds us together, making you my responsibility. You would become my
k’alaj
.”

His brain kicked out the translation, and he said slowly, “I’d be bound to you? Like a slave?”