Nightkeepers

Blondie.’’

‘‘You’re not really here.’’ She squeezed her eyes shut, struggling for sanity. ‘‘It’s the drugs. You’re a flashback or something.’’

But he laughed. ‘‘I can live with being a flashback. You’ve called me worse.’’

He was still there when she cracked her eyes open, standing next to the altar looking down at her, his eyes clear and blue like she remembered.

‘‘Magic,’’ she said before she could stop herself.

He nodded, and held out his hand to show the slash across his palm. ‘‘They brought me back for you, Leah. To show you what you can have if you join us.’’

Horror sang through her, alongside awful temptation. ‘‘I won’t become a makol. It’s wrong.’’

He chuckled, sounding so much like himself that her heart shuddered. ‘‘That’s my sister,’’ he said with fond tolerance. ‘‘Black and white. Right and wrong. But what’s right in this case? Is it right that your boyfriend is going to have to kill you to let his precious god go free? What if I tell you there’s another way? A way for you to have it all?’’

‘‘Impossible,’’ she whispered, telling herself not to listen, that it was the same self-centered rhetoric she’d accused Strike of only that morning. ‘‘There’s a balance. You’ve got to give something to get something. You have to sacrifice.’’

‘‘Don’t you think you’ve already given enough?’’ Matty said, eyes and voice going sad. He leaned in close and whispered, ‘‘Give it a chance, Leah. Give us a chance. The Nightkeepers aren’t the good guys—they’re just going to screw things up and waste energy fighting the inevitable. Zipacna has the power to guide the coming changes and see mankind through 2012 and beyond.’’ He paused. ‘‘Please, Leah? For me? I’ve missed you so much.’’

Tears lumped in her throat and poured down her cheeks. She wanted to say yes, wanted her brother back, wanted absolution for not being there when he’d needed her to help him stay the narrow path of good decisions. But she shook her head, denying the impossible because magic could do a great many things, but it couldn’t bring back the dead. ‘‘You’re not my brother. You’re not Matty.’’

He tipped his head. ‘‘Of course I am. Here, I’ll prove it. Remember that time you, me, and Dad went—’’

She didn’t listen, couldn’t listen. She shut her eyes, found that trickle of golden power, gathered it up, and threw it at him with a mental heave.

His voice cut off with a hiss, followed by a mocking chuckle.

When she opened her eyes, she found a stranger standing there, looking down at her with the bright green eyes of a makol. ‘‘Think you’re a clever bitch, do you?’’

He had a crocodile tat on his upper pec, visible at the open throat of his preppy getup. She didn’t know him, but she knew what he was. ‘‘Get your ass out of my room, mimic.’’

He just smiled down at her. ‘‘We’re offering you a chance, cop. You come over, we’ll give you your brother back.’’

‘‘He won’t be my brother, not really. And we’ll all die in the end anyway.’’ She shook her head. ‘‘I’m not dealing.’’

The makol shrugged. ‘‘No skin off mine. You join us, we get a makol with the power of a god. You refuse us, we keep you alive and in a couple of hours you’ll be dead, Kulkulkan will be destroyed, and the skyroad will be kaput.’’ The creature grinned. ‘‘Win-win, baby.’’

She wanted to scream at him, to curse him, to howl at the moon, but that would’ve been buying into the taunts, so she said nothing, watching him impassively as he slid the door shut.

Then she let the tears come. Gods, she wanted to be back at Skywatch. She wanted Strike. She wanted a chance to apologize, to make up for going off on her own and fucking it up so badly they’d wound up in exactly the situation they’d been trying to avoid.

Wanted to tell him that she loved him enough to die for him, but she’d far rather live with him, for as long as the gods allowed.

Strike was carrying so much pissed-off power that the air slammed away from him and Red-Boar when they arrived back at Skywatch, sending Jox reeling back a few steps. Anna was there, too, her eyes full of worry and sorrow.

‘‘The ajaw-makol has Leah,’’ Strike said, his voice rasping on the words, his entire body vibrating with fear, with fury as he turned on Jox. ‘‘Do you hear me? The. Makol. Have. Her. Because you didn’t watch her, and because this one’’—he nudged Red-Boar roughly with his toe —‘‘decided to take care of her himself.’’ And, because Strike had let himself stray from what really mattered. Which ended now. ‘‘Where are the others?’’ he demanded.

‘‘In the training hall,’’ Jox said. ‘‘What are you—’’

‘‘Gather the winikin and meet me under the tree,’’ Strike interrupted, and stalked off, headed for the pool house. He got dressed, not in the ceremonial robes tradition called for, but in the combat clothes and weapons he was going to need.

Wearing a black shirt, black cargo pants, and heavy boots, along with a webbed weapons belt that held a pair of MACs, spare clips of jade-tips, and a couple of no-nonsense combat knives, he strode across the rear yard to the ceiba tree his ancestors had worshiped as symbolizing the heart of the community.

He halted opposite his people, who stood beneath the spreading branches.

Called away from their practice, the Nightkeepers were dressed in black-on-black combat clothes and wore their weapons on their belts, save for Red-Boar, who wore penitent’s brown, and Anna in street clothes. Beyond the magi, the winikin were ranged in a loose semicircle, with the twins playing at Hannah’s feet.

There were nineteen of them in total, ten Nightkeepers, seven winikin, and the