Dawnkeepers

it’s academic, isn’t it? It doesn’t really matter where he gets the powers from, as long as he’s got access.”

“It does matter, though, if you think about who he was with when he showed mind-bending powers,” Alexis said. “The first time was when he got the knife from Rabbit, and we’re figuring that he probably used it again in the museum, to distract Rabbit and lure the security guard onto the scene at exactly the wrong moment, then later to make Sven drop the bowl and leave it behind.” She paused.

“Are we seeing the pattern here?”

Anna’s eyes sharpened. “The peccary bloodline carries mind-benders.” She paused. “You’re thinking that Iago was borrowing from Rabbit?”

Leah exhaled. “But Rabbit doesn’t—” She broke off. “You’re right. It could be in his bag of tricks, like the telekinesis. He might not even know he has it yet, or didn’t when he left.” She nodded pensively. “If that’s the case and we can find him, it’s possible he could help rescue Lucius from the makol.”

“That’s assuming Rabbit’s still alive,” Strike grated, his face setting in pain. “We have no reason to believe that’s the case. For gods’ sake, I can’t even get a ’port lock on him.”

Alexis leaned in. “You couldn’t get one on Desiree or Iago, either. What if they’ve got him and they’re blocking your ’port?”

Strike’s expression went thunderous. “Then we find them. And they’re dead.”

Rabbit and Myrinne had been locked up together in the warded cabin for nearly a week with no outside contact, and only a couple of jugs of water and a box of energy bars. Her bruises had faded, leaving her high- cheekboned face unmarked and lovely, though pale with nerves as they sat shoulder to shoulder up against the wall. “You’re sure he’ll come today?” she asked quietly.

“Tomorrow at the absolute latest. He’ll want me for the equinox, which is the day after.” Rabbit tugged at the grimy cuff of his sweatshirt, pulling it down farther, even though it already hid the new mark he wore on his forearm: the quatrefoil red hellmouth of the Xibalbans. He’d sold himself for Myrinne and didn’t regret the transaction for an instant. They’d clicked with each other there in captivity. She was tough and bossy, with an edge of street cool, and she got him like nobody else did.

She understood when he needed to be quiet. Heck, she’d shut him down once or twice when she’d needed her own space, and he hadn’t minded. She couldn’t do magic, but wasn’t afraid of it, either, wasn’t afraid of him. After being the odd man out for so long, it was a huge relief to Rabbit to have someone else out there with him.

They fit, they matched, just as he’d known they would when he’d first seen her and the restless, edgy part inside him had gone still.

They hadn’t done more than hold hands, or curl close together to share body heat as they slept, but that much had been exactly right, calling to something deep inside him, letting him know that now that he’d found her, it was up to him to protect her. Which meant getting both their asses out of there and back to Skywatch. He no longer cared whether Strike was pissed at him. He just wanted to go home. Once he got there, he’d kiss whoever’s ass he had to, promise whatever was necessary in order to claim sanctuary for him and Myrinne.

But first they had to get the hell out of the cabin and away from Iago, which was way easier said than done, given that the bastard had that whole fast-forward/pause thing going on.

Thing was, Rabbit thought he knew a way to neutralize Iago’s advantages—some of them, anyway.

He didn’t know how he knew; he just did.

It all went back to the second day of his captivity, when he’d traded his magic for Myrinne’s life.

After making the deal, he’d followed Iago’s orders, standing inside the skull circle and drinking his own blood from the ceremonial bowl that had been dedicated to the earthquake demon, Cabrakan.

He’d screamed when pain racked his entire body, and again when he’d seen the hellmouth mark appear on his arm and he’d jacked in, not to the barrier, but to the first layer of hell.

Vicious, glorious power had whipped through him, and suddenly Iago had been inside his head, using him, forcing him to pray to the Banol Kax, to give himself to them. Through him, Iago had exhorted Cabrakan to collapse a cave down south somewhere. But even as the Xibalban had been using him, Rabbit had found himself catching thought snippets from the other man: impressions and images, emotions and bits of conversation. From them, he’d learned that Iago needed him for his wild half-

blood magic, and was somehow using that magic against him through the quatrefoil mark, turning Rabbit’s mind-bending powers inward, on himself.

Shock one had been learning that he was a mind-bender, and that the talent worked on other magi.

Shock two had been realizing that Iago was a borrower, capable of siphoning another magic user’s talents.

After he’d figured that out, Rabbit had gone digging a little deeper, taking his mind off what his body was used to doing. As he’d sat cross-legged opposite Iago with the bowl between them, working the dark magic, he’d learned that Iago’s borrowing talent worked at close proximity with any mage, but better when that mage wore the quatrefoil mark, which was why he’d needed Rabbit bound to the Xibalban magic. Since Iago couldn’t risk fouling the bonding process with a mind-bend, he’d needed Rabbit to take the mark more or less willingly. Having seen Rabbit and Myrinne together at the pizza joint and seeing that she was important, the Xibalban had located her, captured her, and then waited to grab Rabbit. He would’ve taken him from the museum, but Strike and Leah had shown up, looking for him and he hadn’t wanted to risk their detecting the magic.

Even knowing that much had helped Rabbit, because it meant that at least they’d searched for him a little. It also gave him hope that they’d take him back . . . except for the part where Strike had forbidden him to bring Myrinne into Skywatch, of course, but he’d blow up that bridge when he got there. The first order of business was getting the hell free.

Then he heard it: the crunch of a footfall on the packed snow outside, too close, not giving him enough time to prepare.

“Shit!” Rabbit scrambled for the magic, lunging to his feet while Myrinne gasped and dove for the corner. Rabbit tried to latch onto Iago’s mind, but he wasn’t jacked in right; he was in the barrier, not the hell layer. Breathing fast, heart hammering in his chest, he tried again and failed. Another footfall came outside, and the doorknob rattled, and Rabbit shouted, “No!”

The universe blinked out. Then it blinked back in, and he was in another of the cabins, this one entirely bare save for a woman lying on the floor, bound in a rope cocoon. She was dark-haired and smooth-skinned beneath the bruises that marred her face and bare forearms. She was in her mid-

twenties, maybe, wearing ragged, outdoorsy clothes, like she’d been grabbed in the middle of a camping trip. Her eyes were dim with drugs, but she was aware enough to be terrified.

“Please,” she whispered, her eyes locked on Rabbit. “Please don’t.”

Iago swung the door shut behind him, closing them in.

“Son of a bitch!” Rabbit spun on him, his gut clenched with fear, with rage. He lunged at the other mage. “If you did anything to Myrinne, I’ll—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Iago said, effortlessly grabbing hold of his mind and shutting him down through the quatrefoil mark.

The Xibalban pulled the demon prophecy knife and blooded his right palm without a change in expression, then tossed the knife to Rabbit, who caught it haft-first, and blooded his palm similarly, all without wanting to.

Rabbit felt powerless. Impotent. Like he was fourteen all over again, and being pounded on by the bullies at school, the ones who called him Bunny-boy and teased him about his zonked-out old man.

Only this was so much worse, because he wasn’t just worried about saving his own ass anymore.

“As you’ve no doubt figured, I’ll be needing your assistance the day after tomorrow,” Iago said.

“However, since there’s no guarantee you’ll live through the equinox ceremony, I thought I’d call on you beforehand to help me deal with a small problem.” He clasped Rabbit’s bleeding hand in his own, and the surge of uplinked power nearly lifted them both off their feet. The floor shifted beneath them, and the air crackled with fire magic, with transport magic, with all the borrowed talents the Xibalban held within him.

An invisible net tightened around Rabbit, binding his limbs, his brain. It grew tentacles that dug into him, writhed through him, searching for something. He arched against the invading pressure and screamed at the top of his lungs, but the tentacles kept coming, kept searching. Then, as if one of them had plugged into a socket within his brain, suddenly he could see through Iago’s eyes and Iago could see through his. They were two and