Final Prophecy 05 - Blood Spells (3 page)

 

You’re a dick.
The growl came in Woody’s voice, filtering out of the blur of transition magic. Even though Brandt hadn’t seen his
winikin
in two years, Wood remained the voice of his conscience. And it had a point.

He shouldn’t have kissed Patience in the middle of the Triad spell, shouldn’t have touched her beyond the necessity of the uplink. But for a second there, he’d felt a flash of their old connection, a spark not just of chemistry but of the simpatico they used to share, back when they made each other stronger rather than nuts.

And damn, it’d felt good, like old times. Problem was, she wanted old times all the time, and he couldn’t promise that anymore.

Which meant he shouldn’t have touched her at all, despite the lure of sex magic and the way their link had seemed suddenly stronger than it had in a long time, more alive than it ever was back at Skywatch. It wouldn’t last, he knew. Never did. But still, he held on to the feeling of connection as he materialized in the barrier: a gray-green, featureless expanse of leaden skies above and ground-level fog below.

The magi zapped in a foot above the ground and dropped, landing on their feet and then fighting for balance when the ground gave a watery heave and rippled outward in concentric circles that were mirrored in the calf-deep fog. The water-bed effect was new . . . probably another sign of the barrier destabilizing as the countdown neared T minus two years.

Brain working on the multiple levels of a warrior, Brandt filed the detail and scanned the scene—fog and more fog, no surprises there—while another part of him double-checked that the others had made it through okay. Especially Patience.

She was right beside him. And she was pissed.

Pulling her hand from his, she broke their uplink. “If you didn’t think we had enough power to trigger the spell, you should’ve said something instead of just leaning on me for sex magic.”

“I didn’t—”
Shit.
It might not have been a conscious decision, but that was exactly what he—or rather his warrior’s instincts—had done. “Maybe I did. Sorry.”

He knew it wouldn’t matter to her that it had worked; she would care only that it hadn’t been about
them
. She didn’t want to believe that for the next two years and five days, they belonged entirely to the Nightkeepers and their blood-bound duties.

“Yeah. Well.” She shrugged and avoided his eyes.

Wearing no makeup, and with her long blond hair tied back in a ponytail, she didn’t look much older than the nineteen she’d been when they met. Which just made him achingly aware of how far they had drifted, how much momentum they had lost. He wished he knew how to
talk
to her. Everything used to be easy between them. So why the hell was it so hard now? “Patience—”

“We’ve got company,” Rabbit interrupted. His eyes were locked on a section of the fog.

Brandt turned, annoyed, but also a bit relieved. It wasn’t like there was anything new he could say to her. And even if he had something new to bring, this wasn’t the time or place.

Following Rabbit’s line of sight, he didn’t see anything at first. But then the seemingly random curls of vapor took form, darkening to shadows and then coalescing into human-shaped figures that weren’t quite human. He tensed and automatically took a half step in front of Patience.

She moved away from him, snapping in an undertone, “It’s the
nahwal
. And I can fight my own battles.”

“Keep your guard up.” He wanted to tell her to stay safe, to duck the Triad spell, to . . . hell, he didn’t know. The words kept getting screwed up inside him, which was why he stayed silent. That, and the knowledge that destiny and the gods didn’t give a shit what the Nightkeepers wanted when it came to the end-time war.

The fog swirled as the
nahwal
approached. Brandt’s pulse picked up a notch. The Triad codex had mentioned that the creatures, which held the collected wisdom of each of the Nightkeepers’ bloodlines, would be needed for the second layer of spell casting, but the part of the accordion-folded text that had explained exactly how that was supposed to work had been damaged beyond recovery. For the next part of the spell, the magi were flying, if not blind, then with some seriously low visibility.

The nine naked, sexless, hairless humanoid figures formed an outer ring concentric to that of the Nightkeepers. As before, the creatures had black, expressionless eyes and were adorned only by the bloodline glyphs they wore in stark black on their inner forearms. But where the
nahwal
had been stick thin and wrinkled before, now they had layers of flesh beneath smooth skin.

This was the first time Brandt had seen the change firsthand, and it was a damned unsettling reminder that nothing stayed the same.

Two of the
nahwal
—those of the jaguar and harvester bloodlines—looked almost human now. The one facing Strike and Sasha had a single ruby winking in its left ear and the former king’s personality, while Jade’s
nahwal
had a young woman’s curves and the attitude of her warrior mother. Lucius’s theory was that as the countdown continued, the leadership of each bloodline
nahwal
was being taken over by the ancestor who had the strongest connection to the surviving bloodline member. He’d predicted that the
nahwal
would all have evolved in preparation for the Triad spell.

Only the others hadn’t changed. They differed only in their forearm marks.

“Do you think Lucius was wrong about the connection between the
nahwal
and the Triad spell?” Patience said softly.

“That, or only those two needed to change.” Brandt’s gut tightened as he did the math. The jaguar and harvester
nahwal
were blood-linked to Strike, Sasha, and Jade. Was that it, then? Had the Triad magi already been chosen?

The hope that he and Patience might be in the clear came with an equal thud of guilt. If the chosen survived, they would spend the rest of their lives sharing skull space with their strongest ancestors. The power would be incalculable . . . but so would the chaos.

If he could have prayed, Brandt thought he would have done so right then. But praying had never come naturally to him, not even in the barrier, so instead he squared his shoulders and turned to face his
nahwal
.

He had seen his ancestral being only once before, during his talent ceremony. The other magi had all been formally greeted by their ancestral beings during the ceremony, and some had gotten messages from their
nahwal
in the years since. Brandt had gotten jack shit then, and now wasn’t any different. The eagle
nahwal
just stared at him.

Say something, damn it.
His parents and two older brothers had died in the massacre; they should be inside the
nahwal
. So why wouldn’t they freaking
talk
to him?

“What now?” Strike asked the creature opposite him. The jaguar
nahwal
held out its hand, palm up, showing the white line of a sacrificial scar. The message was clear. The Nightkeepers would have to uplink with their ancestral beings, forming a conduit for the Triad magic to make the transfer.

Wishing to hell there was another way, one that didn’t involve a two-in-ten chance of winding up dead or nuts, Brandt palmed his ceremonial knife from his webbed weapons belt and offered it hilt first as the others did the same.

Expression unchanging, the eagle
nahwal
took the knife and drew the sharp stone blade across its right hand. The unlined skin parted with an unnatural zipping noise, and dark red ichor oozed through the slash. A glob welled and dropped, and was quickly lost in the fog as the ancestral being returned the knife, then held out its leaking hand as though offering to shake on a deal.

Brandt braced himself against a power surge as they uplinked, but he got nothing beyond the squish of cold ichor and the cold clamminess of the
nahwal
’s flesh. He glanced over as Patience linked with her
nahwal
, but she ignored him.

Be safe,
he thought to her, but the message didn’t get through. The
jun tan
link was stone cold.

Strike and Jade resumed the spell casting, starting from the beginning of the spell in the second of three repetitions. After a moment, two other voices joined in: the jaguar
nahwal
’s baritone and the high, sweet voice of Jade’s mother, both chanting in single voices rather than the multitonal descant typical of the
nahwal
. A chill shivered through Brandt.
That’s it, then. It’s Strike, Sasha, and Jade.

But then Michael’s
nahwal
joined in with its multitonal voice, creating an instant chorus and suggesting that maybe the choice hadn’t been made, after all. Alexis’s and Nate’s
nahwal
took up the spell next, adding depth and texture and turning the chant into something more like a song, something haunting and gospel, though in an ancient tongue.

Then a new voice joined in unexpectedly, one that didn’t belong to any
nahwal
. Rabbit. Brandt glanced over and saw that the younger man’s gray-blue eyes were locked on his
nahwal
’s face, his expression lit with power and a restless, edgy energy.
He wants this,
Brandt realized.
Son of a bitch.
But it made sense. Rabbit was a mind-bender, and cocky enough to think he could handle the ghosts. And he was ambitious as hell.

Sasha joined into the spell, then Michael beside her, their voices firm, expressions grim. One by one, the others chimed in, until finally it was down to Patience, Brandt, and their
nahwal
. Hers took up the chant first, in a sweet, multitonal voice. His lip-synched.

An ache tightened Brandt’s chest, but they didn’t have a choice. The Triad spell was nonoptional; it was their duty as warriors, as Nightkeepers. So he steeled himself and added his voice to the echoless chorus.

After a moment, Patience did the same.

The magi and their
nahwal
sang together, voices swelling as they finished the second repetition, and red-gold power arced through the sky with a lightning-thunder crack that made the surface beneath them shudder and roll. Brandt steeled himself as the sky darkened to storm clouds that swirled sinuously, though there wasn’t any wind.

Then, deep within the swirling clouds, a figure took shape. The size of a small airplane, shaped like a bird of prey, and plumed like a parrot, it glowed crimson, orange, and yellow. Fire dripped from its wings, beak, and talons, brightening the stormy sky.

“Kinich Ahau,” Patience breathed.

The sun god had arrived.

Or rather, its emissary had arrived. The firebird’s image was thin and translucent, not the god itself, but rather a projection of some sort, a vaporware version that had been sent into the barrier to choose the Triad.

Brandt’s pulse kicked. This was it. They’d been prepping for the ceremony for weeks now. Whatever happened next would change history.

The ozone smell grew stronger and static electricity charged the air as Strike led them into the final repetition of the spell.

The god-ghost circled high above the chanting group, once, twice. . . . Then on the third circuit the image shimmered, flaring sun-bright in a nova that forced Brandt to blink away the afterimage. When his vision cleared, there were three smaller firebirds where there had been one before; they flew in formation, wings outstretched, gliding in a wide spiral opposite the movement of the churning storm clouds.

The hum of magic gained a new note, counterpointing the grumble of thunder that deepened as they reached the end of the spell’s third repetition. Then Sasha, who had a closer bond to Kinich Ahau than the others, raised her voice and called,
“Taasik oox!” Bring the three!

Lightning slashed as the god-ghosts screamed a clarion call of trumpets and fire. And then they dove, headed straight for the Nightkeepers.

Tension ran through the magi, a thought-whisper of last-minute hopes, fears, and prayers that turned to gasps as two of the ghosts shimmered . . . and disappeared.

“What the—” Brandt broke off as the remaining firebird locked its glowing gold eyes on his.
Oh, shit
.

He held his ground as the thing plummeted straight toward him, but he bared his teeth at the sky.
No, damn you. I don’t want—

The ghost veered at the last millisecond. And slammed into Rabbit.

The firebird felt like a godsdamned fifty-caliber round going in.

“Fuck.”
Rabbit staggered back against his
nahwal
’s grip as pain howled through his body, starting at the point of impact and searing outward, then reversing course and arrowing to his head and heart, the two seats of a mage’s power.

The white-hot energy poured into his heart unchecked, where it became Nightkeeper magic, red-gold and awesome in its intensity. But in his head . . .
gods
. Pain lanced through his skull, incredible pressure building to flash point in an instant when the flow of magic crashed into an immovable mental barrier.

It can’t get through the blocks.
Fuck. He’d installed the barriers on Strike’s orders, to ensure that he wouldn’t burn shit down or climb inside someone else’s mind unless he frigging meant to. The blocks slowed him down, forced him to think stuff through before lashing out. Which was a good thing, usually. Now, though, the barricades went from benefit to liability in a flash.

The magic roiled within his conscious mind, knocking loose a spate of recent memories: flickering candles, a huge house in flames, a knife that dripped onto Myrinne’s fixed, staring eyes. . . . He cursed viciously, rejecting the vision images that had haunted him ever since he’d let her talk him into the scrying spell and gotten nightmares instead of answers.

He wouldn’t hurt her, couldn’t. He loved her, even if the gods hadn’t yet tagged them with their mated marks. She was on his side; she believed in him more than anyone else did, some days more than even
he
did. Hell, she was the one who’d guessed he would be chosen, the one who believed he could handle the magic.