Nightkeepers

How in the hell was he supposed to lead the Nightkeepers when he couldn’t even manage what was inside his own head?

As dinner and dessert wound down, Leah got more and more keyed up.

She’d gone into alligator-infested waters after bodies the gators considered theirs. She’d faced down gang- bangers. She’d been shot in the leg and kept up the foot chase. Hell, she’d escaped being a human sacrifice in an ancient Mayan temple. There was no reason for her to be nervous about what she had planned next.

Or so she kept telling herself. But she was getting a seriously weird vibe off Strike, one that had her thinking she should’ve waited on the second part of her scheme, the one Jox didn’t even know about. Problem was, they didn’t have the time to wait. A barbecue would get them only so far. They needed an identity, something to rally behind. Something that was theirs alone to protect.

So she stood up and cleared her throat, and waited until she had everyone’s attention. Feeling like a total freak-show fraud to be telling a bunch of magicians how they should run their own universe, she said only, ‘‘I’d appreciate it if you’d all come out to the front of the house. I have something for you.’’

For a few seconds nobody moved. Then Strike nodded and rose. ‘‘Lead on.’’

His words were neutral, even encouraging, but his expression was closed and cool, like he thought she’d already done enough damage for one night. And maybe she had . . . but she’d never known how to quit while she was ahead. Why start now?

So she led the way around the side of the mansion, conscious of Strike’s lethal warrior’s grace right behind her, the others following behind him, including the winikin , and even the sleepy-eyed twins, who tagged on either side of Rabbit, babbling in incomprehensible twinspeak.

She stopped by the front door of the mansion, where she’d hung the polished brass plaque earlier in the day, still covered in brown paper wrapping.

Sucking in a deep breath to settle her nerves—like that was going to happen—Leah said, ‘‘Some of you don’t think I belong here, that having me here breaks tradition.’’ She looked at Jox and Red-Boar, standing off to one side of the main crowd, and could all but hear them thinking, Yeah, so? ‘‘And maybe you’re right. I don’t have the same magic that you do, I wasn’t raised in your culture, and I’m not related by blood. But I am a trained cop, and a good one. I can shoot. I can fight. And I know, for better or worse, how to manipulate people.’’ That got her a few shuffles, and even some frowns. She held up a hand. ‘‘I’m giving you honesty here. And honestly, what I see is a bunch of strangers with similar goals. You’re not a unit yet. You’re not the team you’re going to need to be in order to fight whatever’s coming through at the equinox.’’

She deliberately used ‘‘you’’ rather than ‘‘us’’ because she wanted them pulling together, and if uniting against her was what brought them into alignment, then so be it.

‘‘What do you suggest?’’ Strike asked, but she got the idea he was playing along so the others would think she had his support, not because she actually did.

‘‘Team Building 201,’’ Leah answered. ‘‘You need a name. Not you as a people, or your bloodlines,’’ she said quickly when the dirty looks started. ‘‘For this place.’’ Her gesture encompassed the mansion, the training compound, and the wide box canyon lost in the darkness. ‘‘For your home.’’

‘‘This isn’t—’’ Jox began, then broke off.

‘‘It wasn’t your home before,’’ she agreed. ‘‘It was a place where you gathered for feasts and training.’’ Personally, she thought it should’ve had a name back then, regardless. ‘‘But wake up. It’s a new day, and things are going to need to change. Starting now. So I’m giving this place a name.’’

Without further ceremony, she ripped the paper free, baring the intricately engraved plaque.

There was a collective indrawn breath, and in the moment of silence that followed, one of the twins laughed, the sound rising into the night high and sweet and pure.

Finally, unable to stand it one second longer, Leah turned to Strike, who’d frozen and gone pale. ‘‘What do you think?’’

I think you humble me, Strike thought, but he couldn’t get the words out. So he took her hand and held it while he stood and stared at the name she’d given the Night-keepers’ home.

SKYWATCH.

It was engraved in big letters above a line drawing of a ceiba tree, with three Mayan words inscribed below, the letters formed from the tree’s spreading root system.

Skywatch. It clicked. It was right. The sky was the realm of the gods they served, the gods who’d charged them with watching over the barrier. More, waatch was the Mayan word for ‘‘soldier,’’ though she might not have known that. Or maybe she did, he thought, looking at the words carved below the tree of life.

She’d not only given them a name; she’d given them a motto. A coat of arms. A battle cry in modern Quiche Mayan. Waquqik—to fight. Cajij—to protect. And—

He frowned. ‘‘What’s kuyubal-mak?’’

‘‘It means ‘to forgive,’ ’’ Jox said, his voice rough. ‘‘But there’s nothing to forgive.’’

‘‘I think there is,’’ Leah countered. ‘‘If there weren’t, you would’ve pressured him to take charge long before this. You would’ve dragged him out of the pool house and locked him in the royal suite, and you sure as hell wouldn’t have let him hide out in the library for the past two months. You would’ve forced him to take the crown— or whatever it is that your king wears. But neither you nor Red-Boar did any of those things. Thus, I have to assume there’s a reason.’’ Taking a deep breath, she said, ‘‘I’m thinking it’s because, deep down inside, you’re not sure you want him to be king.’’

Strike didn’t know which was worse—that she’d said it, or that there was dead silence in the aftermath.

Finally, Jox said, ‘‘You presume too much, Detective. You don’t know us, and you sure as hell don’t know Strike.’’

‘‘I think I do.’’ Her eyes met Strike’s. ‘‘And I don’t think he wants to be king. If he did, he’d be arguing with me right now.’’ She closed the distance between them, said softly. ‘‘I think you’re afraid you’ll make the same mistakes