Nightkeepers

started in her fingertips and ran up the insides of her arms, tightening the skin across her breasts and pressing urgently at the center of her chest. But when she tried to use the magic, nothing happened.

The bastard chuckled, moving closer and leaning over her, so she could feel the inhuman chill of him, feel the tickle of his breath on her skin. ‘‘See?’’ he murmured. ‘‘You can’t do a damn thing to me. I am ajaw- makol. I’m untouchable.’’

She whimpered and stretched, trying to get away from him, but hit the ends of her shackles too quickly.

Clearly enjoying her fear, he chuckled and swiped his tongue along her cheek to the edge of her ear.

Anger flared. Revulsion. And somehow the two together were enough to put her over. She felt a click, felt a door open inside her soul. Golden power flared within her, exploding in a starburst as she touched Kulkulkan’s power. She sensed the god trapped within the skyroad, felt his power and anger, his blinding wish to be free.

Tapping that power, opening herself to it, she locked onto the spell Strike had used the first moment she met him, and shouted, ‘‘Torotobik!’’

Her shackles detonated, freeing her and driving Zipacna back with a shout. Adrenaline flaring hard and hot, she didn’t stop to think or plan. She lunged forward, grabbed the black knife from his hand, and plunged it to the hilt in his left eye, until she felt bone grate.

Roaring, Zipacna reeled to the side, pawing at the protruding haft as blood and clear fluid poured down his face. ‘‘Get her!’’

But shock slowed the mimic’s reactions. She charged him, slammed her foot into the side of his knee, and sent him flying. Then she turned back for Zipacna, intending to finish him, finish them both—only to see him puff out in a cloud of purple-black.

The mimic roared and charged her, and she turned and fled. Bolting through the door into the sand-floored tunnel leading to the sunken river, she ran in search of Zipacna. She had less than forty minutes to make sure neither of them lived past the equinox.

Strike peered through a leafy rain forest curtain, his body humming with the need to move, and move fast. ‘‘Come on, come on,’’ he chanted under his breath.

‘‘What are you waiting for?’’ Behind him, Red-Boar and Anna crouched in silence. The west-side team of Nate, Alexis, Michael, and Jade were waiting nearer the tunnel entrance, preparing to attack.

Then a single shot rang out from the bushes on the east side of the tunnel mouth. Another. The makol started to shuffle and move, shifting to the side of the cave overhang.

Strike tensed. ‘‘Get ready.’’

Suddenly, Sven leaped out of the vegetation, stood at the edge of the clearing, and unloaded most of a MAC clip into the tunnel mouth. The makol scattered, then spun and returned fire as Sven bolted for cover. Mindless with the killing rage, and only as smart as the degree to which their human hosts had accepted the evil, the makol followed.

‘‘Go!’’ Strike lunged to his feet and pounded the short distance to the tunnel mouth, with Anna and Red-Boar right behind him.

A makol at the back of the pack turned and shouted in alarm, only to be cut down in a hail of jade-tips as Nate burst from the undergrowth nearby, with Alexis and Michael right behind him, Jade bringing up the rear.

‘‘Go!’’ Nate shouted. ‘‘We’ve got this.’’

Strike didn’t argue; he bolted for the tunnel, gaining the mouth and disappearing down the stone throat, leaving the sounds of battle behind. But as he pounded down the tunnel with Anna and Red-Boar on his heels, he knew they were cutting it way too close.

The equinox hummed in his bones, stronger than the song of the summer solstice had been, stronger than he’d expected, but still he couldn’t pinpoint Leah. He kept trying to throw her a travel thread, kept getting bounced by whatever sort of shielding was at work within the tunnels.

They reached the underground river after what felt like an eternity, turned, and booked it toward the chamber. As they passed an intersecting tunnel, Strike caught a hint of motion, a flash of luminous green, and flung himself to the side with a shout of, ‘‘Makol!’’

Anna hit the deck as the creature lunged. Red-Boar roared a battle cry, grabbed the thing by the throat, and brought his pistol to its forehead. Then he froze.

It was Leah.

‘‘No!’’ Strike shouted, hiis voice cracking on the word. ‘‘Don’t!’’

Red-Boar looked at him. Hesitated.

And Leah drove a black-handled knife into Red-Boar’s gut, yanked it out, and slashed his throat on the backhand. Blood spurted, geysering in an obscene arc as the Nightkeeper’s knees buckled.

Anna screamed and reached for him, cradling him in her arms as he fell.

Leah—or the thing that had been Leah—turned on Strike. Her eyes glowed scary strange, and her mouth was distorted in a rictus of bloodlust. But when he looked at her he felt nothing but revulsion. There was no connection. No love.

‘‘Gods help us,’’ Strike said as he raised his MAC.

And fired point-blank.

Anna screamed in horror. Leah’s head exploded and she went down in a heap. Ribs heaving, heart hammering inside his chest, Strike followed her down, unsheathing his knife. Working fast, telling himself not to look at her face, he cut her heart out, hacked off her head, and recited the banishment spell, sending the makol back to hell where it belonged.

When it was gone, Leah’s body went limp.