Nightkeepers

Strike saw the newcomer’s eyes flash at the term and couldn’t say he cared for it much himself, but he didn’t get a chance to respond, because Jox appeared in the foyer, caught sight of the kids, and went white. For a second Strike thought he was going to hit the deck like Blackhawk had done earlier.

A petite woman in a flowing print dress, with a pink scarf tied across one side of her face at an angle, stepped around Red-Boar to touch Jox’s arm. ‘‘I’m sorry,’’ she said. ‘‘I didn’t know.’’ She turned to Strike. ‘‘My name is Hannah, sire. I’d like to introduce Patience Lizbet, of the iguana bloodline, and her sons, Harry and Braden.’’

‘‘You can call me Strike,’’ he said, but what he really meant was, Don’t call me ‘‘sire.’’

‘‘Actually, our name isn’t Lizbet,’’ the young woman contradicted, color riding high as she looked past Strike and latched onto something behind him. ‘‘It’s White-Eagle. ’’

Strike turned in time to see Brandt rise from his place on the couch, his expression a complicated mix of joy and resignation as he bent and opened his arms to the boys. ‘‘Hey, guys. I missed you!’’

Matching faces lit with identical smiles, and matching mouths cried, ‘‘Daddy!’’

The kids broke from their mother, charged across the foyer, and flung themselves on their father, while the rest of the world, at least from Strike’s perspective, came to a grinding halt at a stunning, blinding revelation.

Those. Weren’t. Half-bloods.

Holy. Shit.

Suddenly, Brandt’s habit of wearing long sleeves, even outside in the scorching sun, made sense.

Patience and Brandt already had their marks, Strike realized. Somehow they’d punched through and gotten their bloodline marks. And for the first time since he’d left Leah alone in her starlit bed, he felt like things were starting to go a little bit right.

‘‘Gods be praised,’’ Jox whispered, voice shaking, and Strike could only nod agreement.

They had their twins. Gods be praised, indeed.

But as Brandt embraced his wife, and the boys clung to both their legs, and the winikin and the trainees clustered around them, all talking at once, Strike found himself edging away, feeling very much alone in the crowd. He wasn’t jealous, precisely; he was . . .

Okay, he was jealous. Not because he necessarily wanted the wife-and-kids thing right away, but because he wanted to make that choice for himself.

Which was why, when his cell phone vibrated with an incoming call, he was grateful for the distraction. He flipped the phone, saw the private investigator’s number, and answered, ‘‘Hey, Carter. Tell me you found Zipacna. ’’

There had been no sign of the ajaw-makol since the solstice—at least, not that Carter had been able to unearth—but somebody had started buying up a shitload of stingray spines and copan incense, along with jugs of an alcoholic beverage called pulque.

All of which were crucial to the spells of both Nightkeepers and makol.

The PI said, ‘‘Zipacna is back in the compound— there’s some sort of gala being held there tonight. And the detective you asked me to flag?’’

Strike’s fingers tightened on the handset. ‘‘What about her?’’

‘‘Her name’s on the guest list.’’

CHAPTER NINE

Leah’s new partner, Billy Cole, wasn’t a bad kid. Baby-faced and borderline pretty, Billy drove like a stock-car junkie, kept his mouth shut when it mattered, and seemed to do good policework. But he wasn’t Nick.

Tired after putting in a full shift, and feeling rubbed raw from the sharp edges of a new partnership and the busywork Connie had been giving them rather than putting her back on the street, Leah sighed as Billy drove them back to the PD to clock out for the night. ‘‘Long day.’’

It was the sort of thing Nick used to say when he was thinking of something else, and the memory punched a fist beneath her heart. She missed him, missed Matty. Without them she felt so damn alone, like nobody around her got her, or cared enough to try.

‘‘And it’s going to be a long night, too,’’ Billy said, making it sound like a good thing. At her sidelong look, he elaborated. ‘‘A bunch of us are going to hit the clubs.’’ He paused. ‘‘You want to tag?’’

Dear God, no, Leah thought, but managed to stick some regret in her voice. ‘‘Sorry, I can’t. I’ve got plans.’’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘‘A date?’’

‘‘You don’t have to sound so surprised. And no, it’s not really a date. More of a friend thing.’’ With an agenda, she thought, but didn’t say.

She was going to a party at the Survivor2012 compound with Vince Rincon, a computer programmer a good fifteen years older than she, who’d been a co-worker and friend of her brother’s. They’d met at Matty’s funeral and bonded over their mutual distrust for the weirdos her brother had started hanging with over the last six months of his life. It’d been Vince who’d urged her to follow up with the warrants and searches, Vince who’d shared her frustration when they’d come up empty, and Vince who, a month earlier, had gotten them both tickets to some fund-raiser-slash-recruitment thing being held at the Survivor2012 compound, on the theory that it couldn’t hurt to look around.

At the time it’d seemed like a good idea—or, if not a good one, at least an idea, an opportunity to do something that might jump-start the stalled investigation into Matty’s murder. Now she wasn’t sure she wanted to go. Nick’s death and the forced vacation she’d gotten just after had given her some much-needed perspective on the evidence that’d led her to suspect Zipacna was the Calendar Killer.

In all honesty, there hadn’t been any actual evidence, only her gut-level dislike for Matty’s involvement in Survivor 2012. Yeah, there were similarities between the Calendar Killer’s signature—removing the victims’ hearts and heads—and the ritual sacrifices of the ancient Maya. And yeah, Zipacna and his people were certified