Nightkeepers

‘‘I need to talk to your father. Could you give us fifteen minutes alone?’’

Rabbit shrugged. ‘‘Whatever.’’

He slouched out and Strike stepped through, straight into the kitchen of the four-room bungalow. Red-Boar was sitting at the kitchen table, wearing the brown robes of a penitent.

Strike hadn’t seen him in the robes—which signified a magi atoning for great sin—in a long time. Initially, Jox had asked him to quit wearing the robes around the garden center because they made the customers nervous. After a while, Red-Boar had gotten out of the habit, and it’d been a nice change to see him in normal clothes day in and day out.

Which left Strike wondering what else in the older Nightkeeper’s psyche had backslid.

‘‘We need to talk,’’ Strike said, crossing the kitchen to rummage in the fridge. He pulled out a Coke for himself, tossed Red-Boar a bottle of water without asking, and took the chair opposite him, cracking the soda open as he did so. He drained half of it, welcoming the kick of sugar and caffeine, before he said, ‘‘We need Rabbit to make thirteen.’’

‘‘Bad idea,’’ Red-Boar said, his voice nearly inflectionless.

‘‘The way I see it, we’re better off having him on the team than not, especially after the stunt he pulled at the garden center,’’ Strike countered. ‘‘And it’s not fair to keep him out of the classes.’’

Red-Boar stared into the bottled water. ‘‘I won’t accept him into the bloodline. I can’t.’’

It was an old argument Strike and Jox had never won. But they had their theories why.

‘‘Does it have something to do with his mother?’’ Strike asked. Red-Boar had never spoken of her, had never acknowledged her existence, though the proof stood in the form of their son.

‘‘It has everything to do with his mother,’’ the older man said suddenly, his voice descending to a hiss.

‘‘Who was she?’’

‘‘Better to ask where I met her. And the answer to that would be in the highlands.’’

Strike’s breath whistled between his teeth. ‘‘Mexico?’’

‘‘Guatemala.’’

‘‘Shit.’’

‘‘Precisely.’’

Before the conquistadors drove the Nightkeepers north to Hopi territory, the magic users had coexisted with the Maya for centuries. The two cultures had lived in parallel, and maybe because of that, or because of their own fascination with the stars, the Maya had developed a magic system of their own. Some said rogue Nightkeepers had shared their magic, others that the Maya had been in contact with the nahwal, ghosts of the Nightkeepers’ ancestors, or even with the Banol Kax themselves. Whatever the source of their power, the Order of Xibalba, an offshoot cult of Mayan shaman-priests, had developed spells unlike anything the Nightkeepers had ever seen. Something they came to fear.

Members of the order had brought the Banol Kax to earth in A.D. 869. The demons had destroyed the city of Tikal before the Nightkeepers had managed to drive them back behind the barrier. In the aftermath, the cultural center of the Maya shifted to Chichen Itza, and the Order of Xibalba had been banned.

Rumors said it had lived on in secret, though.

Strike pinched the bridge of his nose, hoping to ward off the headache he knew was in his future. ‘‘Please don’t tell me she was a disciple of the order.’’

Red-Boar said nothing.

‘‘Shit.’’ Needing to move, Strike drained the rest of the Coke, crumpled the can, and got up to toss it in the recycling bin beneath the sink. ‘‘I guess that explains a few things.’’

‘‘Exactly.’’ Red-Boar grimaced. ‘‘Order magic and Nightkeeper magic aren’t the same; we can’t know how they mixed in Rabbit. Which is why I can’t claim him into the bloodline, and why I absolutely don’t want him jacked in. If he goes through the binding ritual—’’

‘‘He’s already jacked in once with no help from us,’’ Strike pointed out. ‘‘He’s a tough kid. He’ll make it.’’

‘‘I’m not worried about whether or not he’ll survive,’’ Red-Boar said flatly. ‘‘I’m worried about what will come out on the other side. He’s already a punk. What do you think he’d be like with even more power?’’

Rabbit’s problems aren’t entirely his fault, Strike wanted to say, but he didn’t have time for an argument he knew he wouldn’t win, so instead he said, ‘‘I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to take that risk. I want him to go through the ceremony tomorrow.’’ He had to believe it would work. If not, they were stuck at twelve, and that was nowhere near a magic number.

Red-Boar’s head came up. ‘‘Is that an order?’’

He hated to do it, but he didn’t see another way. ‘‘Yes.’’

‘‘Then have at it. Your call, your responsibility. I wash my hands of the issue.’’

Having gotten what he’d come for, whether gracefully or not, Strike headed for the door. He paused at the threshold, though, and turned back. ‘‘Was that what you said to my father?’’ It was no secret that Red-Boar had argued against the attack on the intersection. He hadn’t been the only one.

The Nightkeeper’s grin held zero humor. ‘‘No. I told the king he was a damned fool following damn fool dreams.’’

‘‘Since you didn’t say anything like that just now, I’m guessing you think I’m right about binding Rabbit.’’

‘‘I think he’ll find his way to the magic regardless,’’ Red-Boar said. ‘‘I also think that even if we can bind— and control—him, there’s no guarantee the gods will count him as one of the thirteen, especially when there’s one more