Dawnkeepers

he’d never had, and shouted, “Hold!”

The knife froze. Then, furious at the interruption, the makol turned its attention inward, grabbing what was left of Lucius’s consciousness and clamping down, squeezing, pressing until everything went dark and life as he knew it ended.

In the final hour before the equinox, the air inside the Nightkeepers’ small aboveground temple shimmered with gold and rainbows as the barrier greeted the Godkeepers. Alexis, Strike, and Leah joined together in the magic that would open the tunnel leading down to the intersection.

“Pasaj och,” Alexis said in synchrony with the royal couple, and bowed her head in prayer as blood from her sliced hand dripped to the ground in sacrifice. She wore her mother’s combat shirt beneath her Kevlar, and for the first time felt at home, felt as though she belonged in the warrior’s garb, at the front of the pack. This was it, she knew; this was what her parents had wanted for her, what Izzy had trained her for. She had the power, the respect. But with it came a responsibility she wasn’t sure she could fulfill.

Rainbows against demons. It seemed impossible, even more so knowing that the Volatile was out there somewhere, waiting for her.

“Steady,” Leah murmured out of the corner of her mouth. “One step at a time.”

“Easier said than done,” Alexis replied.

“Amen to that, sister.”

Then the magic stabilized, and the tunnel was fully open. “In we go.” Strike led, with Leah and Alexis falling in behind him, Nate behind her, and then Anna, Patience, Brandt, Jade, and Sven. As usual, Michael shielded the rear.

They had debated closing the tunnel once they were inside, but that would’ve meant they could be trapped underground. Leaving it open, though, ran the risk of someone—or some thing—coming up behind them, which Alexis didn’t like one bit. She was coming to realize, though, that her job as an adviser wasn’t to steer the Nightkeepers’ away from risk—that was impossible. All she and Nate could do was to manage the risk as best as they could, and then pray.

Or rather, she would pray, and he would keep stubbornly pretending that the gods and destiny didn’t rule their lives, despite all evidence to the contrary.

As they passed into the tunnel, lighting their way with powerful hand lamps she’d bought to replace the lame-ass flashlights they’d been using in the tunnels up until now, she looked back and caught Nate staring at her. Granted, she was in front of him, so it wasn’t likely he’d be looking elsewhere. But the intensity in his gaze, and the way his amber eyes locked on hers, let her know that he was looking at her, thinking about her.

What is it? she wanted to say. Tell me. But she didn’t, because what would be the point? She’d said what she’d needed to say, and he’d done the same. They had, finally, reached the end of their personal debate. As he would say, “Game over.” And this so isn’t what I should be focused on right now, she thought as she faced forward and followed Strike and Leah into the tunnels that ran down to the subterranean river, and eventually to the altar room.

Yes, Nate was important to her—she was in love with him whether he liked it or not, godsdamn it—

but the moment she’d learned how to call the goddess on her own, their relationship had become separate from the needs of the Nightkeepers. And right now the Nightkeepers and their magic had to be her primary concern. So she faced forward and followed the tunnel into the earth, and tried to keep her mind on the connection at the back of her brain, where the rainbows lived.

As she walked, she prayed for the strength to do what needed to be done, and the smarts to recognize what that might be. There was no ripple in the barrier energy, no sense of the goddess beyond the low thrum of color. Alexis knew she was out there, waiting. But for what?

“Frigging obscure prophecies,” she heard Nate growl from behind her, his low words amplified and thrown forward by the tunnel walls. “Couldn’t just spell this shit out, could they?”

Alexis stifled a snort, and immediately felt better. Maybe it was blasphemy—okay, probably—but she couldn’t say he was wrong. What good did it do for them to know they needed to defeat the Volatile if they didn’t know how to find it?

No doubt Leah had been right when she’d speculated in council that the sheer length of the skyroad, running through the extra four layers of heaven that hell lacked, attenuated the ability of the gods to interact with the earthly plane and compromised their ability to connect with the Nightkeepers. Even Kulkulkan had “spoken” to Leah only a couple of times, during their initial binding. Alexis couldn’t say for sure that Ixchel had ever talked to her in words; the few times she’d thought she’d caught a snippet of thought that didn’t feel like her own could’ve just been wishful thinking. Besides, as Strike had pointed out, the gods created and the demons destroyed, and creation was a much harder energy to push through the barrier than was destruction. Entropy in action, and all that. All of which pretty much left the Nightkeepers floundering with visions and gut instincts, and prophecies left by their ancestors based on . . . well, visions and gut instinct.

Which just sucks beyond sucking, Alexis thought as she hiked in her queen’s wake. And there she went with the blasphemy again, which probably wasn’t a good thing to be coming from a Godkeeper on one of the cardinal days. But it had already been a long day of waiting, and the silence in the tunnel was getting to her, raising the hairs at her nape and puckering goose bumps on her arms. The empty quiet, broken only by the sound of their breathing and the scuff of boots on the stone, seemed to be waiting for something. Or someone.

Then Alexis saw Leah glance from one side of the tunnel to the other, and Strike scrub a hand down the back of his neck. Which meant Alexis wasn’t the only one feeling it.

“Something’s coming,” she whispered as unease shivered through her and took up residence in her gut. “Something bad.”

“I know,” Nate said. He’d moved up close, so close that she could feel his body heat and his energy.

She didn’t reach back to him, but knowing he was there steadied her. Whether or not he was her lover or mate, he was a warrior she could count on. She only hoped he could count on her in return, hoped they all could.

The air remained tense as they worked their way deeper into the tunnel system. Soon Alexis could hear the drip of water up ahead, signaling that they were near the subterranean river that would lead them to the altar room. They took the narrow pathway beside the waterway, then turned away from the river to the sacred chamber. There was no sign of pursuit or ambush. The only thing menacing them was the heavy feeling in the air, a sense of something watching them, waiting. The grating edginess of it served only to exaggerate the hum of magic in Alexis’s blood as the stars and planets aligned, inching into position in the final thirty-minute countdown to the equinox.

Then they turned the final corner and came to the arched doorway leading into the altar room. The tunnel widened, allowing Leah to move up and walk at Strike’s side. Nate joined Alexis, and the others paired up behind them, with Michael forming the rear guard alone.

They went in with their autopistols drawn and fireball magic at the ready, but the chamber was empty. There was no sign of Iago, no sign of anything out of place. Only there was something, Alexis realized as Strike lit the ceremonial torches around the perimeter of the room and the Nightkeepers extinguished their hand lamps, letting the room fall to firelight.

In that firelight, she could see a shimmer walk all the way across the back wall behind the chac-

mool altar.

Without thinking, she reached for Nate’s hand and tugged him up beside her. “Do you see that?”

He frowned. “See what?”

“I’ll take that as a no.” Alexis turned to the others. “Does anyone else—” Anna screamed suddenly, cutting her off midquestion. The king’s sister dropped to her knees and grabbed her right forearm in pain. “Lucius, no! Don’t do it! Don’t—” Her eyes rolled back in her head, and she went limp and toppled over onto her side, convulsing.

“Anna!” Strike bolted to her side and dropped to his knees beside her as she writhed.

Bowing her body in an arc, she shrieked, “Nooo! Not Jox! Not the winikin!