Nightkeepers

heaves. That was when she smelled blood. Lots of it.

Opening her eyes, she blinked to clear the spots that danced before her. Then she realized the spots were real—spatters of blood on the stone floor she’d been lying on, and on the carved walls nearby. Even some on a small pile of camping equipment tucked into a corner, behind a statue she thought she recognized as the goddess Ixchel. They were in a temple of some sort, she realized, though she didn’t remember finding a temple. Come to think of it, she didn’t remember anything after she’d ducked into a low-hanging cave mouth in pursuit of—

Everything froze within her.

‘‘I saw a nahwal,’’ she whispered. ‘‘I followed him.’’

‘‘Hold your arms over your head,’’ Red-Boar ordered, ignoring her. When she did as she was told, he moved away from her and started tearing strips from a man’s checkered shirt. It was Ledbetter’s, she realized. They were at his campsite. But what—

‘‘Here.’’ Red-Boar took the hands she’d crossed over her head, bringing them down to eye level. ‘‘This is going to hurt.’’

‘‘What?’’ She didn’t get it at first, but the moment she thought about it, really thought about it, she knew what she’d done. ‘‘Oh, no. I didn’t. Please tell me I didn’t.’’

She yanked her hands away from him and looked at her wrists. Bad idea. Gaping slashes crisscrossed the skin between her hands and her marks, leaking blood. ‘‘I didn’t,’’ she whispered. But she had.

Wrist cutting was the most extreme form of autosacrifice practiced by the ancient Nightkeepers, one intended to bring a warrior as close to death as possible, in the hopes that he—or she—would return with a message from the gods. That assumed, of course, that he or she didn’t die from loss of blood.

Red-Boar took her hands and began to bind her wounds with the makeshift bandages. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to.

‘‘How bad is it?’’ Anna asked through dry-feeling lips.

‘‘Ugly but surface on the left, deeper on the right. You got a vein on that side.’’ He finished tying off the second set of bandages, then crossed her arms over her chest with her hands just beneath her chin, and used a loop of cloth to form a makeshift sling that went behind her neck and connected one hand to the other, allowing her some freedom of motion while keeping her wrists higher than her heart.

His dark eyes locked on her with unfamiliar intensity. ‘‘Call your brother.’’

Strike could zap to their position and bring them home. They’d planned for him to do just that twelve hours from now.

Which would be too late.

Anna closed her eyes and concentrated, but got nothing. She shook her throbbing head as ravenous hunger surged alongside the nausea. ‘‘I’m tapped out.’’ She’d used up her magical energies, but doing what? She’d sacrificed herself for a message; that much was clear. But she didn’t remember getting a message, didn’t remember anything after she’d run into the cave after the nahwal.

‘‘The satellite phone’s no good—I’m not sure if it’s the signal, the battery, the system, or what.’’ His throat worked when he swallowed. He locked eyes with her. ‘‘Can you walk?’’

She shook her head. ‘‘You go. You’ll get to satellite range or another phone faster if I’m not with you.’’

‘‘No way,’’ he said flatly. ‘‘Not after what just happened. The . . . thing you saw, whatever it was, could come back.’’

She shivered at the thought, and at the strange sense of longing it brought. Would that be so bad? something whispered inside her. Gray-green lassitude stole over her, making her want to lie down and nap. Dream.

‘‘Anna!’’ Red-Boar shook her, snapping her back to painful reality. ‘‘Can. You. Walk?’’

She whimpered, wanting to sleep, but nodded jerkily. ‘‘I’ll try.’’

‘‘Good enough.’’ He combined the contents of both their packs, jettisoning all but the absolute necessities, then shouldered his bag along with Ledbetter’s duffel. At her look, he shook his head. ‘‘I didn’t shake out his underwear, but nothing jumped out at me.’’ He looked around at the temple they were in. ‘‘This isn’t the temple we’re looking for. The information Strike wants may have died with Ledbetter.’’

Or else it’s inside me. Anna frowned, trying to find a message amid the mush her brain had become. She got a faint sense of copan and grief, but nothing more. And she was tired. So very tired.

‘‘Anna.’’ Red-Boar shook her awake once again, his touch more gentle this time, his dark eyes worried. ‘‘Come on. We need to move.’’

She nodded numbly and followed him out, followed him along the machete-hacked trail until her entire world was concentrated in the center of his back, where she fixed her eyes and forced herself to put one foot in front of the other. She stumbled and fell, but righted herself and forged on. Stumbled and fell again, and this time couldn’t get up.

Sleep, the voices told her. Stay with us.

Then strong arms gathered her up, lifting her. And the world slipped away.

Leah was tucked in next to Strike on the sofa in the great room of the mansion, reading another of Ambrose Ledbetter’s journal articles on the Pyramid of Kulkulkan at Chichen Itza, when the landline phone rang.

‘‘Jox?’’ Strike called in the direction of the kitchen.

‘‘Got it.’’

Leah glanced over. ‘‘There’s a phone right beside you, you know. You could’ve answered.’’

‘‘Yeah, but that’s why I pay him the big bucks.’’ She snorted. ‘‘Please.’’ Jox might not be on her buddy list, but she wasn’t backing down on the winikin-are-people -too soapbox. Before she could say