Nightkeepers

terrible, spewing past the barriers she’d set in her mind long ago, which were breached in an instant by the power of the stars and the horror of being back in a place she’d thought had been destroyed long ago.

When the heaves passed, leaving her dizzy and wrung-out, she stayed hunched over the bowl and pressed her face to the cool porcelain of the outer rim, not caring how gross that was. ‘‘I’m dreaming,’’ she said weakly. ‘‘I’m going to wake up in Austin, and Dick’ll either be there or he won’t, but even if he’s not that’s okay, because I’m not really here. I’m there, and this is all a dream.’’

The blonde crouched down so they were at eye level. ‘‘I tried talking myself out of it, too. Didn’t work.’’ She held out a hand. ‘‘You want to get cleaned up?’’

Anna stared at the other woman’s marked forearm. ‘‘Who are you?’’

‘‘Alexis Gray. You’re Anna, right?’’

‘‘That’s me,’’ Anna said faintly.

‘‘You’ve got his eyes,’’ Alexis said. ‘‘Or I suppose you’ve both got your father’s eyes.’’

Anna went cold. ‘‘I’m nothing like him.’’

‘‘Oo-kay.’’ Alexis held up both hands. ‘‘Touched a nerve. Sorry.’’ She stood. ‘‘You want some time alone to decompress?’’

‘‘No, I’m the one who’s sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped.’’

‘‘No harm done.’’ Alexis popped open the mirrored cabinet above the sink, pulled out a couple of hand towels and a travel-size bottle of Listerine, and offered them. ‘‘If you’re done hurling, we should probably get back out there.’’

‘‘Yeah. I need to tell Strike to have Red-Boar blank the codex from my intern, Neenie, too.’’ And how weird was it to say those names after all this time? Anna thought. She took the tiny mouthwash, saying, ‘‘This has Jox written all over it. No way Strike or Red-Boar thought to lay in guest toiletries.’’

‘‘Good call. Jox and the other winikin have the details nailed.’’

Inhaling sharply, Anna swallowed a mouthful of Listerine and gagged. ‘‘What do you mean, ‘other winikin’? Jox was the last.’’

‘‘Long story. How about you get cleaned up and we’ll go find Strike? I’m sure he’ll do a better job explaining than I could.’’

But Anna thought back to her arrival, and the others crowding the sacred chamber. They’d been bigger than average, gorgeous and young. As was Alexis. Her heart started hammering in her ears as she reached an impossible conclusion. ‘‘You’re Nightkeepers.’’

‘‘Yes.’’

Her legs went weak, and she whispered, ‘‘How?’’ Alexis pushed open the bathroom door. ‘‘Come on. I really don’t think I’m the person who should be telling you this.’’

‘‘Wait.’’ Anna grabbed her arm. ‘‘How many are there?’’

Sympathy crept into the other woman’s eyes. ‘‘Counting the toddlers and the convict? You make it lucky thirteen.’’

And the equinox was nine days away.

PART IV

AUTUMNAL EQUINOX

A day of equally balanced night and day, containing the moment when the center of the Sun is directly over the Earth’s equator. The first day of fall.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

September 13

Lucius woke up with a hangover so big, there wasn’t a word sufficient to describe it. He rolled over in his bed and groaned, then tried to sit partway up. When that sent a lightning bolt through his skull, he flopped back down. ‘‘Ohhhh, crap. What the— Oh, crap.’’

There was a reason—beyond the whole alcoholic-father -codependent-mother thing—that he rarely drank. He was pretty sure he was allergic. Which begged the question: What the hell had he been thinking? Had he been celebrating something good? Drowning something bad?

Fuck, even thinking hurt. Okay, no more thinking.

Food, he realized when his stomach grumbled. He needed food. Which didn’t make much sense if he was hungover, but figuring that out would’ve required thinking, so he just rolled with it.

‘‘Okay,’’ he mumbled between dry, cracked lips. ‘‘Step one. Get vertical.’’ When that more or less worked, he followed up with steps two—cross bedroom—and three—open door. He didn’t need to bother with step four—get dressed—because he was still wearing yesterday’s clothes. They were streaked with rusty brown, like he’d gone mud wrestling or something, and there was a funky smell coming from somewhere, but his roomies were both off on field assignments, so he figured he could eat first, then clean himself up.

Then he shuffled into the kitchen and stopped dead. There were more of the rust stains splashed everywhere, like something out of CSI.

‘‘Ohhh.’’ He looked down at his clothes as the stains started making way more sense. Then a fragment of memory broke through and he looked at his right hand, where a gaping cut was scabbed over with a big, nasty clot. ‘‘Fuck me.’’

It didn’t start hurting until he looked at it. Then it hurt like the dickens.

What the hell had gone down last night? He didn’t know, couldn’t remember, just stood there staring from his hand to the kitchen and back, before the downstairs buzzer sounded, jolting him.