Nightkeepers

‘‘Congratulations, kid.’’

‘‘Mine’s bigger.’’

That got a snort. ‘‘Don’t forget who used to change your Pampers, boyo.’’

‘‘True, but I’ve heard stuff shrinks once you’re on the downhill side of middle age.’’

‘‘Bite me.’’

They grinned at each other, and Sven felt a loosening of something inside him he hadn’t even known was tight. He exhaled. ‘‘I missed you, Pops.’’ He paused, realizing that although they’d been in the same house for a couple of weeks now, they hadn’t really talked. Partly because he’d been sorta freaked by the whole winikin-Nightkeeper revelation—okay, really freaked, but fascinated in a by the way, you’re a superhero sort of way—and partly because the timing hadn’t been right. Now, in the wake of a ceremony that’d left him feeling a step closer to the parents he’d never known, he was ready to deal with the parent he had known, and hadn’t always done right by. ‘‘I’m sorry I didn’t come home for the funeral.’’

Carlos shook his head. ‘‘Australia was too far to fly to for just a few days. I understood. Sometimes the needs of the living outweigh those of the dead.’’

The last part sounded like a quote, underscoring that the winikin had a whole other life and culture aside from managing a ranch and raising two kids who couldn’t have been more different if they’d tried.

Sven shoved his hands in the pockets of his hip-hanger shorts. ‘‘Still, I should’ve been there.’’ He didn’t say that he’d had the offer of a spare seat on an investor’s charter plane but hadn’t taken it because things had been too damn complicated back then. Still were.

His eyes must’ve wandered to the door to Cara’s room, because Carlos shook his head. ‘‘She’s asleep.’’

The lights were up in the suite and the TV was on, though, and Cara was a light sleeper of epic proportions.

Sven nodded, accepting the lie. ‘‘Okay. No problem. I just . . .’’ wanted to see her, wanted us to maybe go for a walk like we used to. He’d wanted to inject a bit of normalcy into the craziness, to get her take on things that were moving too far, too fast for his hang-loose brain to keep up with.

‘‘I know.’’ Carlos nodded as though Sven had said all that aloud. ‘‘But things are different now.’’ He paused. ‘‘She’s not your sister anymore, kid. She’s your servant. If you want me to wake her, I will.’’

She’s not my servant any more than she’s my sister, Sven wanted to argue, but didn’t, because there were some things better left alone. So he shook his head. ‘‘No, let her sleep. Besides, this should probably come from you anyway. I think . . .’’ He paused, weighing his loyalties. ‘‘I think you should tell her to leave.’’

The older man’s eyes widened fractionally. ‘‘Why?’’

Sven shifted, faking a shrug. ‘‘She’s a semester away from her degree. Seems silly to keep her here when I barely even see her as it is.’’

‘‘And?’’ Carlos said with no shift in his expression.

She doesn’t want to be here, Sven wanted to say. Can’t you see that? But he didn’t say it, because he could also see how much it meant to Carlos to have sired the only second-generation winikin in the group, how much he was enjoying having Cara around. So instead he said, ‘‘What we’re going to be doing here is dangerous.’’ He looked at the coyote mark again, because the binding ceremony had made the whole end-of-the-world-as-we-know -it thing seem a whole lot more real than it had when they’d just been sitting around talking about it. ‘‘I don’t want her to get hurt.’’

‘‘Neither do I, but I don’t think that’s what this is really about.’’ Carlos waited, but Sven didn’t say anything else, couldn’t explain it to the man who’d raised him when he could barely understand it himself. After a long moment, the winikin sighed. ‘‘Do you command this?’’

Sven nodded, feeling like a total poser. ‘‘I do. She’s my winikin.’’

‘‘And for that I’m sorry.’’ Carlos shook his head. ‘‘I should be the one serving you.’’

‘‘Nobody’s serving anybody here. We’re all in this together—I’m just trying to figure out how to minimize the danger.’’

‘‘It’s not a Nightkeeper’s job to protect his winikin.’’ Carlos paused. ‘‘But I’ll do as you ask. She’ll be gone before the end of the week; I’ll take care of it. You just concentrate on learning how to control your powers . . . and yourself.’’

Which answered one question, Sven acknowledged with a dull thud of pain. Carlos definitely knew about what’d happened between him and Cara, knew why he’d taken off and why he hadn’t been back since. He’d always figured Carlos didn’t know, for the simple reason that their relationship had stayed close despite the physical distance. Now, he realized it’d been more a case of the winikin’s imperative to keep tabs on his charge outweighing the other stuff.

The thought was humbling. And damned awkward.

That wasn’t how it was, he wanted to say. I can control myself. But that begged the question of why he’d come knocking on her door too late at night, with his blood humming and his senses on high alert.

So instead, he said, ‘‘Thanks. I owe you one.’’

Carlos nodded, but he didn’t speak, and he hadn’t moved from the doorway, hadn’t invited Sven inside.

That rejection, that split in their onetime family unit, had Sven backing away and searching for a grin as he waved, making sure his mark showed. ‘‘Mine’s still bigger.’’

The older man’s smile didn’t touch his eyes. ‘‘Size doesn’t matter until you know how to use it, kid.’’

After chowing down enough leftover mac ’n’ cheese to feed a boatload of Vikings, and washing it down with a bottle of lemon Perrier, Nate tried to go to back to bed and sleep off the rest of the postmagic hangover. And failed miserably.