Dawnkeepers

“I was awake.” He didn’t think it necessary to mention that he didn’t dream, or if he did, never remembered anything but the nightmares.

“Damn,” the king muttered. “Anna, you get anything?”

The itza’at disengaged from Alexis, shaking her head. “Nothing. Sorry.”

Nate didn’t know whether that meant she had nothing to add from Alexis’s vision, or she hadn’t been able to pick it up at all. He cleared his throat. “Where does that leave us?”

Strike didn’t hesitate before answering. “After the first Ixchel vision, I had Jade start searching for references to a temple like the one Alexis saw: a narrow rectangular room deep underground, water access the only way in or out, with a carved crowd scene looking toward a naturally formed throne.”

Alexis straightened against the headboard. “And?”

“Last I checked she had it narrowed down to three possibilities. By now she may’ve gotten it figured all the way out.”

“I’m going,” Alexis said, her tone brooking no argument. “I’ll leave as soon as she’s sure of the location.”

Strike nodded. “Of course. I’ll transpo you and Nate once—”

“No,” she interrupted. “I want Michael.”

Nate hid the flinch as best he could. He’d known it was coming, of course, but that didn’t temper the instinctive kick of rage.

Surprised, Michael looked from him to Alexis and back. “Blackhawk?” he said, letting that one word ask several questions.

Michael was the only Nightkeeper to call Nate by his bloodline name; Nate had never been sure if it was intended as a sign of respect or a subtle dig. Whichever, it sparked his anger even higher now, but he throttled back the urge to rip, tear, and fight, knowing that this, at least, wasn’t anybody’s fault but his own. “It’s fine,” he said tightly. “Go ahead.”

“You don’t need his permission,” Alexis snapped.

“I’m not chattel.” Nate gritted his teeth. “Nobody said you were.” Knowing she was safe—for now, anyway—and that the convo was likely to go downhill fast if he stayed put, he headed for the door. He brushed past Michael harder than necessary, a body bump of warning, and growled under his breath, “Anything bad happens to her—and I mean anything—and you answer to me.”

Nate didn’t wait for a reply, just stalked into the hallway, and from there out the back of the mansion. He was nearly dead from postmagic exhaustion, and knew he needed to shut it down, but he couldn’t bear to go back to his room knowing that Alexis was nearby. Knowing she might already be making her move on Michael.

It would’ve been nice to head out to the Pueblo ruins and raid Rabbit’s stash up there for a sleeping bag and enough of the Nightkeeper’s fermented pulque to get seriously stoned, but Nate didn’t think he could make it that far. Instead he headed for a nearer goal: one of the family cottages behind the mansion, where he figured he could crash and sleep with a modicum of privacy, and without the sense that he was surrounded on all sides by expectations.

The small, four-room cottages stood in two neat rows of six each, plus one on the end to make lucky thirteen. Once, they had held the Nightkeeper families who had resided at the compound but preferred the privacy of a small house over the convenience of the mansion. Now all but one stood empty.

Rabbit was staying in the cottage his father had once lived in with his wife and twin sons, back before the massacre. Red-Boar had allowed only minimal restoration and Rabbit hadn’t changed anything, so the place was pretty much vintage. Jox had ordered the contractors to redo three more of the houses during the reno, on the theory that some of the resident Nightkeepers or winikin might want the privacy. Nobody had taken the offer, though, so the small structures stood vacant and unlocked, still smelling fresh and new inside.

The other nine cottages remained as they had been the night of the massacre, save for a new coat of exterior paint covering over where they’d been marred by smoke damage or the six-clawed scratches left by the boluntiku, lava creatures sent by the Banol Kax to slaughter the Nightkeepers and winikin.

Starting to feel seriously woozy, Nate headed for one of the redone cottages. He had his hand on the doorknob when something made him pause and turn away, then head for the cottage next door, which was the last one on its row. It was one of the ones that hadn’t been renovated, and the door was locked, but something in his spinning, overtired brain had him crouching down and feeling through the fist-

size pebbles in the rock bed beside the front step.

He found one stone that was unnaturally light and warm to the touch. When he flipped it over and felt the bottom, he found a sliding panel and, beneath that, a key.

Somewhere inside he knew it shouldn’t have been that easy, that there was no reason for him to have known to look for the hidden key. That knowledge, though, was dulled by the dragging exhaustion, and a sort of compulsion that drove him onward, compelling him to unlock the door and let himself inside.

He didn’t even turn on the light, just stumbled across the eat-in kitchen, headed for the living space that separated two small bedrooms. There was nothing strange about his knowing his way around; the floor plans were the same in all the cottages. There was, however, something seriously weird about the fact that when he was halfway across the living room, he pitched forward and let himself fall, knowing there would be a couch there to catch him.

He landed face-first on cushions he shouldn’t have anticipated, which should’ve been dusty but weren’t. Then there was no more strange familiarity, no more warning bells inside telling him he shouldn’t be there, that he should’ve stayed in one of the renovated cottages or, better yet, in his plain-

ass suite in the mansion.

There was only the darkness. And finally, dreamless sleep.

The day after the eclipse, Rabbit was up early and feeling surprisingly okay, given the amount of magic he’d pulled during the ceremony.

He dragged on clothes at random—it wasn’t like anyone cared what he dressed like—and hooked up his iPod. The tunes were more habit than anything at this point; he was getting sick of the music, not needing the constant thump in his head when there was so much else going on up there.

Lately he’d been leaving the music off, and had discovered an added bonus: Most everyone thought he couldn’t hear them when he had the earbuds in. Okay, so maybe he’d reinforced that by playing deaf once or twice, but why not? It never hurt to have added intel, especially when Strike and the others—and his old man before them—had made it crystal-clear that he was on a need-to-know basis, and, more often than not, he didn’t need to know.

So he’d played deaf. And he’d listened. That was how he knew that things were still wonky with Patience and Brandt—like he couldn’t have guessed that from being around them, and from the fact that the goddess had chosen Alexis— Alexis, for fuck’s sake—as being preferable to Patience for a Godkeeper. Which was just wrong on so many levels he couldn’t even count them.

Patience was kind and steady, a warrior with a conscience. Alexis was . . . well, she wasn’t steady, that was for sure. He wasn’t an aura reader, but ever since that cluster-fuck in New Orleans, whenever he got within spitting distance of her his arm hairs reached for the sky and his stomach jittered. He didn’t know what it meant, but he knew he didn’t much want to be around her these days.

When he beelined from his cottage to the mansion for breakfast, though, he soon learned that wouldn’t be a problem. Alexis and Michael—Michael? WTF?—were headed out as soon as Jade locked down the location of some temple or another. Not only that, but Anna’s grad student, Lucius, the one who’d nearly gone makol before the last equinox, had shown up past midnight, looking for some chick Rabbit had never heard of. The guy had been given the hospitality of one of the downstairs storerooms for the time being, poor bastard.

Jox passed along all of that info over breakfast—the royal winikin wasn’t big on gossip, but he didn’t mind talking some, and he made a hell of an omelet, especially when the others were still sleeping off the magic.

Once Jox ran out of things to say about the Michael-for-Nate mate switcheroo, Rabbit said, playing it real