Dawnkeepers

When Alexis reached the sunken great room at the center of the mansion, she found that the others were there ahead of her. The air hummed with magic and nerves. Strike stood with Leah on the raised platform that ran around the sitting area. The rest of them, both winikin and the Nightkeepers, stood on the lower level, shoulder-to-shoulder, looking up at their leaders.

As Alexis took her place with the others, working herself as far from Nate as she could get, Strike nodded and said, “Good. We’re all here.”

A soft golden glow surrounded the king and his mate, growing stronger when Strike reached out and took Leah’s hand. The Nightkeeper’s human queen might not have magic on a day-to-day basis, but when the peak days came around, look out. She and Strike together channeled the powers of the creator god Kulkulkan, who had serious skills.

Alexis suffered another tug of envy. Not just at the magic, but at the connection between the two of them, and the soft, intimate look they shared for half a second before turning to the business at hand.

Which, in a way, was as much about love as it was about war, because the next god to come through the barrier would most likely offer its powers to a Nightkeeper female who had a strong mate at her side.

Alexis glanced over at Brandt and Patience. They stood close together, holding hands and pressed together at hip and shoulder, looking like they’d worked out whatever had been worrying Strike the other day. This time envy tugged stronger at Alexis’s heart. Was love so much to ask for?

“Okay, gang, here’s how it’s going to work,” Strike said. “We’ll link up and I’ll use the boost to teleport all of us to the new site. We’ll drop in the house, not the forest, because the house ought to be secure.”

The Nightkeepers—or rather Jox—had purchased a run-down rental property in the Yucatan over the winter and retrofitted it with a kick-ass security system and emergency supplies, so they could use it as a staging area for trips down into the sacred tunnels. The move had become necessary when the Nightkeepers’ previous passageway to the tunnels leading to the sacred intersection had been destroyed during the equinox battle. Luckily for them— though gods knew it’d been more fate than luck—Leah had known of a second access point near a small house her parents had rented on vacation when she was a child.

Though finding the entrance during the summer solstice of ’84, amidst the massacre itself, had marked Leah and her younger brother and had eventually cost her brother’s life, it’d also meant that the loss of the first passageway hadn’t been the disaster it would’ve been otherwise. Gods forbid they couldn’t get to the intersection and undergo the transition ritual, because the legends said the Godkeepers would be the first and best defense standing between mankind and the Banol Kax when the end-time came.

At the moment they didn’t even have one full Godkeeper, though. Which meant they had some serious catching up to do.

Strike continued, “Once we’ve secured the perimeter, the warriors will go down while the winikin and nonwarriors stay topside and cover the entrance.” The king made it sound matter-of-fact, even though it was a serious breach of SOP.

Traditionally, the winikin stayed back at the training compound and watched the Nightkeeper children. But with only the twin boys to watch over and too few warriors, Strike was pressing everyone into service. The female winikin would protect the twins back at Skywatch. The four male winikin, along with Jade, who hadn’t received the warrior’s mark or the attendant fighting prowess, would be heavily armed and tasked with keeping watch for Iago and his ilk, or any other sign of danger.

Alexis had argued along the lines of tradition, but Strike and Leah had overruled her. Still, the debate had helped them clarify a few fail-safes, so she felt like she’d at least added to the convo and justified her place on what was coming to be known as the royal council.

Leah took over, saying, “When we’ve reached the temple chamber, we’ll link up. Strike and I will take whatever boost we need to man the defenses. The rest of the power should go to Patience and Brandt for the Godkeeper ritual.”

Strike’s expression, which had been serious all along, went deadly intense. “We need this, people.

We need a true Godkeeper, and we need her now.” He looked straight at Patience as he said, “With a Godkeeper’s power, especially if we get another of the war gods, we might be able to get ahead of Iago, maybe even attack him on his own turf. Without it, we’re vulnerable.”

A chill skimmed down Alexis’s spine. Without meaning to she glanced over at Nate. He was staring at the king, his jaw locked, and something told her his thoughts were elsewhere.

But where? And why?

“Any questions?” Strike asked, then quirked a humorless smile. “I suppose I should rephrase that: Any questions I’d have a prayer of answering? Didn’t think so. Okay, let’s link up.”

Without further discussion the Nightkeepers pulled their ceremonial knives from their weapons belts and drew the blades across their palms. Alexis stared at the thin line she’d just carved in her skin, watched it go from shocked white to red, then well up and spill over. She felt the kick of pain and power, the shimmer of magic just out of reach, a wellspring of it that she could touch but couldn’t really tap into, as though something were blocking her, keeping her from reaching her true potential.

Or else that was wishful thinking and she was already as strong as she was ever going to get.

“Ready?” Sven asked from her left side, holding out his bloodied palm in invitation.

Alexis nodded and grabbed on. The power boost hummed through her bones as she reached out to clasp Patience’s hand on her other side, continuing the circle of Nightkeepers. The winikin formed an outer circle, touching the magi so they’d be included in the ’port magic, even though they didn’t add to the boost. When the circle was complete except for Strike and Leah, the royal couple stepped in and finished the connection.

When they did, the power whiplashed through Alexis, untold magic using her as a conduit, though not a wielder. She threw her head back and let her body arch into it as the world tilted sideways, then accelerated when Strike triggered the ’port magic.

Everything went gray-green, and mist whipped past. Then the universe decelerated around her, spun sideways, and slammed into the soles of her feet.

The air changed, going humid and earthy, and a room materialized around her, whitewashed and sparsely furnished in Early Particleboard, with a couple of serapes thrown around and a red velvet mariachi hat hung on one wall in a weak effort at local color.

Welcome to the Yucatan, low-rent style, Alexis thought. She’d been to the safe house once before, during the winter solstice, but hadn’t noticed the lame decor so much. Maybe it bugged her now because she’d been making a real effort to brighten up Skywatch. Or maybe, she acknowledged, she was looking for something to focus on other than the ceremony.

Strike’s low whistle caught her attention, and she looked to her king. He sent Jox and Michael to a locked back room that was filled with surveillance monitors, and gestured for the rest of them to wait.

When Jox signaled the all-clear, Strike waved the Nightkeeper warriors out of the house, leaving Jade and the winikin males behind. Jade looked simultaneously relieved and miserable as the others filed out. She was the only one of them lacking any fighting magic. The only other Nightkeeper lacking the warrior’s mark was Anna, but although the king’s sister wasn’t able to call upon her itza’at seer’s powers, she’d proven able to boost any of the others with her power, so she was going with the warriors as backup.

Alexis sketched a wave at Jade on the way out, thinking that it might suck being on the low end of the warriors’ talent range, but at least she was a warrior and not a librarian.

It was cloudy outside, providing an unexpected continuity with the weather where they’d come from, but the similarities pretty much stopped there. Where the land surrounding Skywatch was arid and red-cast, with little wildlife beyond the occasional hawk, snake, or coyote, the Yucatan was lush and verdant, and before Alexis had gone three steps she’d been bitten by a buzzing insect. Parrots called to one another through the trees despite the gloom and the darkness, and monkeys chattered from farther away.

Giving a second low whistle, Strike sent them into the forest along the narrow path they’d scouted, cleared, and then hidden again a few months earlier. It led through the trees to a squat stone temple made of simple blocks fitted together. The structure was uncarved and unadorned from the outside, almost forgettable until they stepped through the low doorway. The inside of the unprepossessing structure was a rectangular room that during