Nightkeepers

He was doing his damnedest to keep the thing away from the sacred chamber, trying to give his old man and Strike a chance to save the world, but he was losing steam. His breath burned in his lungs, and his legs were on fire as he bore down and widened the gap, running with muscle and heart and a touch of magic, a litany of, Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit, sounding in his brain.

The boluntiku screamed, sounding like a thousand fingernails scratching down a mountain-size blackboard.

‘‘Fuck!’’ Rabbit accelerated away from the scream, careened around a corner, and nearly slammed into Alexis.

‘‘Go!’’ She shoved him toward a cross-tunnel. ‘‘Shield yourself!’’ When the boluntiku appeared around the corner, she waved her arms. ‘‘Hey, over here!’’

Realizing she was trying to tag-team the lava creature— and oh, holy hell, hoping it worked—Rabbit stumbled into the cross-tunnel and cast as much of a shield spell as he could muster in the magic-damping confines of the tunnel system.

Behind him, the boluntiku screamed, spurring him on, but Rabbit’s foot snagged on something and he went sprawling on top of one of the other Nightkeepers, who was lying in the middle of the tunnel. Shit! Flipping onto his back, he checked behind him, but the heat was dimming as the boluntiku moved off, following Alexis.

Rabbit hissed and turned to see whom he’d stumbled over. ‘‘For fuck’s sake, what are you—’’

He broke off and screamed. It was his old man.

Stone dead.

Throat sliced open.

Rabbit’s breath whistled out and he didn’t suck another in. Gods, he thought. Gods-gods-gods. Oh, gods. No, gods, please, no.

‘‘Rabbit!’’ Alexis’s shriek was scant warning as the air crackled with sudden heat and the boluntiku morphed up through the floor just beyond his father’s body.

It glowed red-orange, painting Red-Boar’s slack features in sharp relief and making the jagged cut across his throat gape dark and obscene. The lava-creature hissed and reared back, extending a scaled arm and flaring its six-clawed hand for a swipe.

Rabbit knew he should run, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t leave the old man. He stared down at the body, tears dripping off his chin. ‘‘Dad?’’ His voice cracked, and he didn’t care.

The boluntiku attacked, going solid at the last possible second.

Gunfire chattered, and a hail of bullets hit the thing in its scaled chest and gaping maw, driving it back. The creature screamed in pain and puffed to vapor, and the next volley went straight through, cutting off prematurely when Alexis’s MAC jammed.

‘‘Damn it!’’ She worked fast, jettisoning the mag and slapping another home, but it was too late. The boluntiku hissed and went for her, going solid before she could rack the first round. It swung for her. . . .

And bounced off a shield when Nate appeared out of nowhere and threw up a block at the last moment. He dropped it almost instantly and put himself between Alexis and the creature. ‘‘Rabbit,’’ he snapped, ‘‘get behind me!’’

But Rabbit still couldn’t move. He could only bow his head as the fiery creature rose above him and screamed fingernails-on-blackboard. It slashed at him, popping to solid as it did, and—

Thunder cracked inside the tunnel. Lightning. A terrible wind howled through the narrow confines, driving the boluntiku back, sucking it up in a funnel of golden light. The few remaining makol were sucked up as well, pulled from the tunnels where they’d hidden while the boluntiku did its work. A howling, rushing noise rose to a horrible crescendo, so loud that Rabbit plugged his ears with his fingers and hunched down, waiting for it to pass. Power sang through him, the gold of the gods, and he knew that it was somehow traveling through him, racing through stone to the world beyond the tunnels.

The noise died away a moment later, ending with the high, clear note of a trumpet and the smell of copan. A single crimson feather, nearly the length of Rabbit’s arm, drifted down to the tunnel floor.

Nate watched it land. ‘‘They did it.’’ He shook Alexis, whom he was holding in a loose embrace, though neither of them seemed to have noticed. ‘‘They fucking did it!’’ He turned and started tugging her up the tunnel. ‘‘Come on!’’

‘‘Wait.’’ She held him back and pointed. ‘‘Look.’’

Nate saw Red-Boar and cursed. He came close, crouched down, and laid a hand on Rabbit’s shoulder.

Rabbit ignored him and kept staring at the old man, thinking about all the times he’d said it wouldn’t matter if Red-Boar up and died, for all the attention he paid.

He’d been wrong. It did matter. It mattered a shitload.

‘‘We’ve got to go,’’ Nate said. ‘‘Strike and Leah might need us up on the surface.’’

‘‘I can’t—’’ Rabbit’s voice broke, so he coughed and tried again, not caring that there was a sob hitched among the words. ‘‘We can’t leave him here. Not like this.’’

‘‘We’ll take him with us,’’ Nate said. ‘‘But we have to go now. We have a job to do.’’

Was that how the old man had approached each day? Rabbit wondered. Yeah, that was about it. His existence had been a chore, his son an afterthought, his whole being concentrated on what might’ve been.

Hell. Rabbit sniffed and swiped at his face. Then he climbed to his feet, scooped up his MAC where it’d fallen when he tripped, and nodded. ‘‘Let’s go.’’