Nightkeepers

Strike stood, horror taking root when the corpse remained exactly as it was. ‘‘Please, gods,’’ he whispered. ‘‘Not like this. Please, not like this.’’ He’d been so sure it wasn’t her, so sure he was making the right call.

Then, finally, the body shimmered. Shifted. And changed into that of a skinny man wearing a fungus-colored robe and a tattoo of a winged crocodile. Then purple-green light flashed, and the thing was gone.

Strike’s bones went to water and he sagged in relief. ‘‘Thank you, Jesus. Gods. Whatever.’’ He exhaled, tried to get his breathing under control. ‘‘Shit. Oh, boy. Oh, shit. A mimic. It was a mimic.’’

‘‘How did you know?’’ Anna asked, her voice shaky.

‘‘I just knew. I had faith. I knew it wasn’t her.’’ Except for a few seconds when he’d thought he had it wrong, thought he’d bought into the thirteenth prophecy without even knowing it.

But the attack had not been without a sacrifice, he knew. He turned to see Anna crouched on the ground with Red-Boar sprawled across her lap, both of them covered in the blood that still pumped from the older man’s torn throat in slowing spurts driven by a faltering heart.

Sorrow cut through Strike, and he dropped to his knees beside the dying man. ‘‘Gods, no.’’

Red-Boar’s eyes flickered open and locked on even as the life faded. ‘‘Happy now, boy?’’

‘‘Step off, old man.’’ But Strike choked on the words. He touched Red-Boar’s forehead, leaking him power, buffering the pain. ‘‘Safe journey,’’ he whispered. ‘‘Say hello to the king for me.’’

But Red-Boar shook his head ever so slightly. ‘‘You’re . . . king now.’’

‘‘Yeah,’’ Strike said. ‘‘I am.’’

As his life drained, Red-Boar murmured, ‘‘Forgive.’’ Then his breath faded and stopped, and his body went limp in Anna’s arms as she bent over him and wept, the soft sound lost beneath the burble of the underground river that flowed nearby.

Shit, Strike thought. Just shit.

The loss hurt keenly on too many levels to count, but they couldn’t stop to mourn. They’d already wasted too much time. The equinox was close now, very close.

‘‘Anna.’’ He touched her arm. ‘‘We’ve got to go.’’ She nodded miserably, shifted Red-Boar’s body to the side, and climbed to her feet, wiping her bloodstained hands on her blood-soaked pants. ‘‘We’ll come back for him. After.’’

‘‘Of course. He’s one of us.’’ Whatever he’d done, or hadn’t done, Red-Boar had been his own version of loyal. All else was washed clean by the sacrifice.

They tugged the corpse into an offshoot tunnel and made a stab at obscuring the tracks and bloodstains. And then they ran for their lives.

Crouching in the underbrush, fighting green fire with red, Rabbit felt as if he were burning up from the inside.

His mouth was parchment dry, and his eyelids rasped across his corneas without the benefit of moisture. His skin crinkled as he labored by rote: lifting his arms, holding his hands a few inches apart, concentrating until flame flared to life between them, and then pivoting and throwing to block the incoming green flame, so the two streams met in a brilliant blast of white.

His right shoulder hurt like hell. He was thirsty, hungry, and exhausted beyond all rationality, and his head felt like it was about to split open and spill his brains onto the rain forest floor. And he couldn’t have been happier.

With Patience and Brandt fighting together on his right and Sven on his left as they worked with the other team, squeezing the makol forces and picking off the bastards one by one, he was part of something. He belonged. Even better, he was good at something.

‘‘Hold on,’’ Brandt said. ‘‘What the hell are they doing?’’

It took Rabbit a few seconds to reorient, another to pop out from behind the crumbling wall he’d been hiding behind, to check out the scene.

Makol parts were strewn across the clearing, most of them still moving, which was just beyond weird. But until the Nightkeepers got in there and did the head-and -heart thing, the creatures weren’t actually dead, just dismembered. Which was kind of cool.

What wasn’t cool was the way the dark-haired makol with the flying-croc tattoo and pointy teeth, who seemed to be in charge, had gathered the remaining dozen makol into a knot.

Then, without warning, a huge green fireball the size of a VW Bug erupted and screamed toward where Rabbit and the others were hiding.

‘‘Take cover!’’ Brandt shoved Rabbit off to one side, grabbed Patience, and dove in the other direction. Groggy from doing too much magic, Rabbit lay dazed.

The fireball hit right where he’d been and detonated, blasting heat and energy in all directions. The world went white and noise roared over him, flattening the rain forest and sending trees flying in a spray of wooden shrapnel.

When the echoes died away, Rabbit lay gasping, trying to figure out why he wasn’t mulch.

Then he felt the humming power of a shield spell a few inches away from his face and realized he was lying on someone’s foot. Craning his neck, he saw Sven lying nearby, looking dazed, but holding on to the shield spell he’d thrown over both of them.

‘‘Hey,’’ Rabbit said, breathing hard. ‘‘Thanks.’’

Sven nodded. ‘‘Yep.’’

And that was all that needed to be said. They were a team, after all.

They scrambled up, Rabbit and Sven from one side of the fireball crater, Brandt and Patience from the other,