By day two of Rabbit’s imprisonment, he’d become very familiar with the wooden rafters above his cot, and with the walls and floor of his one-room prison, which was locked and warded, not just with a spell to keep him in, but with one that blocked his magic. Which totally sucked.
He hadn’t seen another human being since Iago left. He got fed twice a day, morning and night.
He’d know it was chow time when he heard footsteps outside . . . and then the lights would go out, not in the cabin, but in his head. He’d freeze wherever he was, locked in place for a few minutes or so.
Then he’d blink back in and there’d be food and whatever in the middle of the room, and he’d hear the footsteps moving away. Other than that . . . nothing. Which meant there wasn’t much else to do but count splinters and get tangled up inside his own head.
He knew he should be trying to contact Strike and the others, knew he should be trying to find a way home, but some piece of him kept wondering whether Skywatch was really home anymore. What was to say they even wanted him back? From what he could tell by looking out the windows, the cabin was part of a ramshackle, closed-down resort. He wasn’t underground, wasn’t in a warded temple, which meant Strike should be able to lock onto him for a ’port if he wanted.
He hadn’t bothered.
That left Rabbit with a hollow ache in his gut, a burn of resentment in his heart. He’d depended on the Nightkeepers for magic and family and they’d shut him out. But someone else was offering to fill the gap. So the next time Rabbit heard the crunch of approaching footsteps, he shouted, “Don’t freeze me, okay? I want to talk to Iago.”
The world blinked out. When it blinked back in, he found himself standing just inside the door of another, larger cabin. His brain sent him three snapshots immediately: the first was of Iago, standing opposite him in gray ceremonial robes; the second was of nine stone skulls arranged in a circle, facing a pale green ceremonial bowl; and the third was the sight of Myrinne, tied to a chair in the corner. Her ankles were bound to the chair legs, her wrists trussed behind her back, and she was limp.
Unconscious, or worse.
Rage hammered through Rabbit, slapping aside any thought of family, magic, or working with Iago.
He lunged for her, shouting, “Myrinne!”
And found himself hanging in midair.
“Don’t be an idiot,” Iago said. He raised his voice and called, “Desiree? I think we’re ready for you now.”
Cursing, Rabbit twisted, finding that he could move some within the force that held him aloft. His muscles strained as he fought to get free, fought to get to Myrinne. “Let her go, you bastard!”
The door opened behind Iago and a tall, exotic-looking woman stepped inside, wearing a long, sleek leather coat and high boots. Her red-toned hair was pulled back from her face, and her perfectly made-
up eyes were pale hazel, nearly inhuman.
“No!” he shouted when she started toward him, screaming again when she went straight past and reached for Myrinne.
“Shut it, twerp,” Desiree said. Reaching inside her coat, she produced the ceremonial knife Iago had taken from Rabbit back in New Orleans. “Head and heart, or just bleed her out?” she asked Iago with zero emotion, like she was talking about squashing a bug.
“Head and heart.” Iago nudged one of the carved skulls more precisely into alignment along the ceremonial circle. “We’ll need all the juice we can get.” He fixed Rabbit with a look. “Unless you’re interested in doing some magic?” He gestured at the green bowl in the center of the circle, which had taken on a faint glow. “This is the bowl of Cabrakan, the earthquake god, and I have need of his services.”
“Fuck you!” Rabbit lashed out at him, threw fire, then screamed when the flames bounced off the field surrounding him, burning his clothes and skin. Twisting against the invisible bonds, he howled as Desiree licked the edge of the knife, blooding herself.
Then Iago snapped his fingers and Myrinne awakened.
She blinked a few times, then tugged halfheartedly against the bonds like she already knew they were there. Then she saw Desiree and her eyes went wide and scared. Pulling harder, yanking at the ropes, she strained away from Desiree and the knife. She managed to skid her chair a few inches across the floor, then bumped into a wall. “Don’t,” she whispered, voice cracking. “Please don’t.”
But the cool-eyed woman advanced, taking it slow, drawing out the suspense—and the pleasure.
“For gods’ sake, listen to her,” Rabbit shouted. “Don’t do this!”
Myrinne’s head whipped around and she focused on him, her mouth dropping open in surprise, her eyes lighting with hope, then fear when she saw him hanging in midair. “Help me!” she screamed, straining toward him, her eyes glazed with terror. “Rabbit, help me!”
She’d remembered his name. That wasn’t the most important thing just then, not by a long shot, but it mattered.
“No!” he shouted when Desiree lifted the blade and cut Myrinne’s shirt away, then sliced her bra and parted the clothing to bare her torso for the first cut, the most important one. The magic worked best if the cut was a single slice just below the ribs, tracing their line and cutting through the diaphragm so the victim couldn’t breathe, so she’d already be dying even as she watched her beating heart be torn from her chest.
Rabbit felt something rip inside him, as though it were
“Hold,” Iago rapped out.
Desiree didn’t respond right away, taking a moment to carve a shallow slice in Myrinne’s flesh, tracing a line where the real cut would’ve gone.
Iago snapped, “Damn it, woman, I said
Myrinne was sobbing—broken, hollow sounds that reached inside Rabbit and twisted his soul.
Blood tracked down her belly, flirted with her tattooed navel, and soaked into the waistband of her jeans, flowing more with each sob.
Iago flicked his fingers, and the field surrounding Rabbit disappeared. Gravity took over and he fell with a shout, splatting inelegantly on the floorboards, face-first. He lay there for a second, gasping for breath, then struggled to his feet and stood, swaying. “Son of a bitch.”
He wanted to rage, wanted to puke, wanted to wake up and be back at Skywatch and have it all be a bad dream. But it was far too real as Iago waved him into the center of the room.
The moment he crossed the skull-drawn circle, fire roared to life in the carved skulls, shooting several feet into the air and heating Rabbit’s already scorched skin, making him want to scream with the pain, with the power. The magic was inside him, called by anger, beating at him, begging to be set free. But alongside the familiar Nightkeeper fire was another power, a quiver at the edge of his senses that tempted him, telling him that all he had to do was let it inside and he would rule, he would command.
Myrinne shouted his name on a broken sob, but he hardly heard her, could hardly hear anything but Iago’s voice as the mage began to chant, starting down low and bringing it up, calling the strange magic in words Rabbit didn’t understand but somehow did, as though they were cousin to the old language he knew.
“Here.” Desiree held out the carved obsidian knife Iago had stolen from him in New Orleans. “You know what to do.”
And he did, though he couldn’t have said how, only that the compulsion ran through his veins like liquid fire as he bared both forearms and began the ritual.
Rabbit had started the day a Nightkeeper. He would end it something else entirely.
The ATM cave site looked the same as it had weeks earlier. The vegetation was still vibrantly green, the parrots and howler monkeys were still doing their thing high above, and the pool outside the cave still flowed slowly, collecting in a swirl and then moving on, deeper into the ceremonial cave system.
Nothing was different. Yet to Alexis,
She felt strange inside her own skin, as though her bones had shifted and realigned while she’d slept. Nate was different too. He seemed bigger and tougher, staying close behind as they worked their way down to the pool,
