Nightkeepers

‘‘Which leaves us where?’’ she asked, though she already knew the answer was something along the lines of, ‘‘Up Shit Creek.’’

‘‘I’d send you away if I thought you’d be safe.’’ His expression went hard. ‘‘Since I can’t do that, I think it’d be best if we don’t spend much time alone.’’

Leah lifted her chin. ‘‘You’re assuming that if we have sex, we’ll fall in love. News flash, Ace. My relationships have an automatic end-time of their own: three months from date one. I’ve never made it past that, and the hotter the attraction the shorter it lasts. Given the sizzle, I give us three weeks, tops. So why not just do it and get it out of our systems?’’

He pushed himself away from the door frame so smoothly he was inside her personal space before she realized he’d moved. He stood too close, making her feel crowded, making her feel wanted. ‘‘Because it was more than sex and you know it,’’ he said, his voice a low rasp. ‘‘Because I think we’d be good together, and not just in bed. And most of all, because I. Don’t. Fizzle.’’

She knew that shouldn’t have felt like the sexiest line any man had ever laid on her. But it did, and that was a problem. ‘‘Okay,’’ she whispered, staring up into his eyes. ‘‘No sex. Got it.’’ Which should’ve settled things. But he kept looking at her so intently that she started to wonder if he could read her thoughts . . . and if so, what he was picking up, because she was hell-and-all confused. ‘‘What?’’ she finally said.

‘‘There’s more.’’

She squeezed her eyes shut. ‘‘Of course there is.’’ ‘‘The powers you exhibited yesterday must mean you retained some sort of connection to the barrier, one that Red-Boar couldn’t trace. If you’re still linked to the god in any way, we’re going to need to put you into the barrier on the next ceremonial day and figure out how the connection works.’’

She swallowed, her stomach going hollow at the thought of the limitless gray-green she’d glimpsed during the teleport. ‘‘Okay,’’ she whispered. ‘‘I’m game.’’ Actually, she was scared spitless, but the idea that she might have power was seriously tempting. With it, maybe she could find Zipacna.

With it, maybe she could kill him.

‘‘There’s a risk,’’ Strike said, his eyes never leaving hers. ‘‘Rabbit nearly died during the binding ceremony, and he’s half Nightkeeper.’’

‘‘Oh.’’ Leah leaned back against the altar, needing the feel of something solid to hang on to as the world spun around her. ‘‘So it’s like this. If we become lovers, I could die. If I go into the barrier, I could die. If I go home, I’ll probably die. Is there an option that includes me not dying?’’

‘‘I don’t know,’’ he said. ‘‘But I promise you one thing: If we can figure out a way, then that’s what we’ll do.’’

But there wasn’t much of a ring of conviction to his words. And when Leah crossed the small chamber to press her face into his chest, needing something even more solid than the altar to lean on, he didn’t push her away, didn’t tell her that the no-being-alone-together thing had already started.

Instead, he closed his arms around her, dropped his cheek to the top of her head, and hung on tight, like he was already saying good-bye.

Or Godspeed.

When Anna’s husband, Dick, phoned her office just past lunchtime and then spent a good five minutes talking about the weather—hot and sunny wasn’t exactly news for Texas in July—she knew he was working up to something she wouldn’t like.

That knowledge drummed alongside the headache that’d been a constant low-grade throb since the day before, when she’d been released from Brackenridge Hospital around lunchtime. The docs had diagnosed her crash as ‘‘catatonia pursuant to a transiently high fever of unknown origin’’—i.e., ‘‘Nobody knows what the hell it was, but you seem fine now.’’

As far as she was concerned, an FUO sounded far saner than, ‘‘I read a spell off my grad student’s laptop and nearly put myself straight through the barrier.’’

She’d been so surprised to see familiar words twined into the line of text on Lucius’s laptop screen that the words had slipped out before she’d been aware of it, as though something else had reached across and spoken through her. The next thing she knew, poof. Instant loss of six hours. And ever since then, she’d had headaches she suspected were the result of her mind fending off the power—and the visions—-she didn’t want.

She’d known the barrier was reactivating, had felt it at the solstice. She’d just hoped to avoid dealing with it for as long as possible.

Like forever.

‘‘Anna, did you hear me?’’ On the phone, Dick’s voice gained a faint edge.

She shook her head to clear her vision when the walls of her office blurred around her, threatening to become a step-sided pyramid rising up from a sea of foliage. It took several furious blinks before she could focus on the cordless phone in her hand. ‘‘Sorry, hon, what was that again?’’

‘‘I said I’ll be home late tonight, and you shouldn’t wait dinner. I’ll grab a sandwich or something.’’ He paused, and his tone softened. ‘‘I know we were going to go over the bills tonight and figure out how we’re going to pay for another round of in vitro, but the dean asked me to meet him at the faculty club. I’ll owe you one, okay?’’

By Anna’s count he owed her several hundred already, and she knew damn well that if she stopped in at the club later, he wouldn’t be there.

‘‘No problem.’’ Her lips felt numb, as though they belonged to someone else, another woman entirely, and she wondered fleetingly if that other woman would challenge Dick’s glib excuse, or if she, too, would be too much of a wuss to force the answer she didn’t want. ‘‘I’ll wrap a plate for you, in case you’re hungry when you get home.’’

She was dimly aware of a quiet knock at the door. Moments later, the panel swung inward and Lucius stuck his head around the corner. The shaggy-haired grad student winced when he saw she was on the phone. He mouthed, Sorry, and motioned that he’d wait outside.

No, she mouthed back, come in. She waved him in,