kept talking to her. “Sorry. You don’t like ‘babe,’ do you? I’ll have to come up with something else.”
He was babbling but he didn’t want to stop, because if he did, JT would tell him what he already knew: that the equinox and the closeness of the end date had strengthened the venom of the camazotz from a soporific to a poison.
“Let’s get her inside the shield,” JT said, his voice equally ragged. “Natalie fought it off in a quarter the time it should have taken her to wake up, I think because she was connected to the magic. You can boost her, help her.”
Sven nodded and gathered Cara up, hating how light she was in his arms, as if the life had already drained out of her.
“Hurry!” Brandt called from the center of the chamber, where the defenders had knocked back nearly all of the camazotz, buying a brief window of safety while they all regenerated. Some of the winikin were out hacking away and puffing the bat demons to dust, but the creatures were regenerating faster than they were being banished. “Run!”
Sven ran, with JT leading the way and the coyotes on his heels. They made it inside the shield-stone perimeter just as the first demon lunged to its feet once more, screeching and pissed off, only to get a faceful of explosive-tipped jade bullets and go down again.
“Everyone back inside the line!” Patience commanded as six other camazotz regained their feet, then four more. “Retreat, now!”
Most of the winikin responded instantly. Breece, though, kept hacking away, calling, “Just one more—” She broke off with a strangled cry when the demon yanked itself from her grip, grabbed her by the neck, and bit down.
The crunch was horrific; the sight of her body going limp and then getting tossed aside was even worse.
Closing his eyes on a moment of silent prayer—for her, for all of them—Sven carried Cara to the little spit of sand where they had stood in their first shared vision, the one that had started them down the path to this place, this horror.
He cast a look around at the chaos of a battle going badly wrong. The Nightkeepers had managed to raise a glimmer of red-gold magic around the screaming skull and were bearing down, repeating the chant over and over again, trying to pierce the barrier between this life and the next and not getting far. The winikin were battered and exhausted; their blood-links were faltering even with Brandt and Patience acting as buffers, and the shield was flickering in and out.
Most of the camazotz had fallen back, but not because they had lost their leader. No, they were keeping up just enough of an attack to wear out their enemy. Then, once the shield was down all the way, they would move in. And feast.
Sven’s blood chilled, but he found a prayer. Or maybe more a question. A challenge. Is this what you wanted, gods? Is it? Or did I fuck everything up by turning my back on the woman I love?
His brain hiccuped a little at the “l” word, but his heart didn’t miss a beat.
Cradling her to his chest, he breathed her in and found himself thinking simply, Please, gods. It was what she always said when she wasn’t sure whether she had the right to ask for their help. And for the first time, he knew how that felt.
He didn’t deserve her, hadn’t fought hard enough for her when the time was right, and now he might be too late. But he loved her, damn it. He fucking loved her.
“Give me one more chance,” he said softly—to her, to the gods. “I promise I won’t let you down ever again.”
And, wonder of wonders, he felt a quiver of magic run through him at the vow.
Heart jumping from zero to sixty in no time flat, he opened himself to the power, sought it, latched onto it, and threw his soul into its warmth. He tore open the winikin connection he had blocked so self-righteously that morning, and welcomed the pain. Then he channeled all of his energy and that tiny quiver of magic straight into the winikin bond, whispering in his soul: Please, gods.
For a second nothing happened. And then, just barely, he felt the thinnest thread of a connection, a faint trickle of warmth.
Come on, come on! He held nothing back, but still it was more a stream than a torrent. Why was he so weak? He had come back to make amends. He knew what the visions were now. Yet still his magic didn’t return. Had he damaged things with Cara so irreparably that even his power had turned away?
“Give her your magic,” JT urged. He was crouched down on the other side of Cara now, though Sven hadn’t sensed his presence. The winikin’s expression was urgent. “It’s the only way to burn off the poison.” And although he didn’t say it, they both knew the winikin were down to the dregs of their energy, and probably the Nightkeepers as well. They needed a boost and they needed it now.
A few days ago—hell, even a few hours ago—he and Cara together could have put some serious power into the mix. Add in Mac and the sable coyote, who was crouched near Cara’s head, watching her with worried eyes, and they might even have been able to turn things around.
Now, though, he shook his head. “I’m trying. It’s not enough.”
Worse, she was fading, getting weaker, letting go. He could feel it, but couldn’t stop it. And for the first time in his life he felt truly helpless, truly at the mercy of the universe.
A ragged sob tore at his throat. “Don’t you dare give up on me. Not now. Not—” He broke off at a tap on his shoulder, jerked his head up with a growl. And saw Sebastian standing there, offering his bleeding palm.
Twenty more winikin stood behind him, a mix of the factions. Beyond them, a skeleton crew was doing their best to hold the shield around the magi, who were bleeding from their hands and tongues as they called on the First Father to return. Worse, the camazotz were massing once more, their blazing eyes fixed on the shield with hungry intensity.
“Take it,” Sebastian said, turning up his bloody palm to the light. “She’s ours too.” There was a quiver of magic in that, as well, as if the winikin had already made a new promise to their leader.
Nodding, Sven clasped Sebastian’s hand in his.
The punch of power that rocketed through him nearly blew his damn head off his shoulders.
“Holy shit,” he managed to gasp as the united might of the winikin roared inside him, immense and powerful and seeming to be searching for something. Searching, searching…“Holy, holy shit.”
“Can you do it?” Sebastian grated, his voice seeming to come from very far away.
Sven nodded. “We’ll get her back. I promise.” The vow made a bigger ripple, augmented this time by the power of the winikin and everything that was inside his heart as the blood-link wove together, gaining strength and becoming something real and whole. And, riding the wave, Sven opened himself to the winikin, to the magic… and to Cara.
The response wasn’t anything he expected.
A sudden wind whipped up inside the cavern and lightning lashed down and hit the domed shield, scattering along it like a science museum exhibit gone badly wrong. The camazotz screeched and charged, hammering into the shield and making it groan beneath the force of their attack. But suddenly it didn’t look like they were trying to break the shield so much as get inside it. Their eyes were wild, their wing beats frantic.
“Shit!” Sven tried to pull the power back in, rein it tight, but it was out of control, whiplashing through him and up into the storm.
Overhead, near where the fallen-through spot let in the light, a huge cloud gathered, overlapping the rocky ceiling of the cavern, somehow existing both on this plane and another. Lightning struck the dome again, frying a bat demon with a huge and meaty bug-zapper noise. It shrieked, fell to the ground, and lay smoking.
Thunder rolled in the air, making the ground tremble.
“Sven, no!” Dez shouted, lunging up and breaking the blood-link to wave him down. “Stop! You’re calling the hellhound!”
“I can’t stop it!” Whatever chain reaction was happening had reached critical mass. Magic flowed from the winikin into him, from him to Cara, and then back up again in a feedback loop that filled him up, made him invincible, and terrified him all at once.
Searching, searching… He didn’t know what the magic was looking for, only that it was very near. It had two legs, four, wings, fins, a crocodilian tail.… Searching… The sable coyote’s head whipped up and she gave a joyous
