Dawnkeepers

and comfort of waking up beside him and knowing she wasn’t going to face the day alone. And as she thought those things, remembered those moments, the magic came.

Rainbow light flared around them, cocooning them in a protective barrier.

Nate screeched and flew faster, searching for a way around the Hydralike creature, which was a thick stalk of darkness with tentacles that whipped around it in a dark cloud, leaving no room for error. Alexis poured all that she had, all that she was, and all that they were together into the shield magic as they arrowed through a narrow gap between two flailing whips of evil.

One tentacle grabbed for them while another swiped deadly claws across her shield magic. Alexis cried out, feeling the deep furrows in the magic as though they’d been drawn across her own skin.

Nate bellowed a challenge and dived, twisting, pinwheeling them away from the demon, and then they were free and arrowing up toward the gap.

The demon gave a great roar, leaped up, and snatched them from the sky.

Alexis screamed as the thing’s grip collapsed her shield inward. Yanking her MAC from her weapons belt, she unloaded the clip into the demon and barely made a dent. The thing laughed, a booming, echoing sound, and a gaping mouth opened in its thick, stalklike trunk. The tentacle that held Nate and Alexis started moving toward the fanged maw.

Suddenly golden light bloomed all around them, and trumpets sounded, seeming to come from everywhere at once. The Hydralike demon roared denial as a sinuous crimson-and-gold serpent shape arrowed through the gap in the barrier and dived, all full of anger and righteous wrath and justice, the creator god Kulkulkan come to save his children, the king and queen of the Nightkeepers coming to free their advisers.

Gold light sparked and hissed as the feathered serpent beat its red-plumed wings and scraped a huge, furrowed gash in the demon’s flesh. The creature howled in pain, losing its grip on Nate and Alexis, who fell free.

Go! they heard Strike call, his mental touch borne on the skyroad. Close the gap! We’ll buy you some time. Kulkulkan dived, hissing and scratching as the demon reached to grab the god and other Banol Kax moved in, flanking the feathered serpent, surrounding him.

“Get to the gap!” Alexis shouted, not sure if Nate had heard Strike’s instructions. “We’ve got to fix it!”

Even now she could feel the planets moving past the equinox, could feel the barrier starting to thicken and set in place. In a few more minutes there would be no hope of closing the tear. She had to work fast.

When they reached the gigantic rip, she was shaking with fatigue and nerves, and the sinking fear that she wasn’t going to be strong enough, that she had already lost before she’d begun. Nate grabbed on to an edge of the barrier with his hooked talons, perching precariously in the gap itself. Do your thing, babe.

“I don’t know if I can.” Failure pressed at her, alongside the knowledge that she wasn’t just disappointing the Nightkeepers; she could very well be dooming the world, and all because she’d used up her magic, because she wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t good enough. She was a pale shadow of what she should’ve been, what she would’ve been if she’d been raised as had been meant, if she’d known all that she was supposed to know.

She knew Nate sensed all those things from her, thought that he would try to reassure her. Instead, though, he said, very softly, I love you, Lexie. And then he opened to her, sending her all the love that was inside him, all his respect for her, his fascination with her, his awe at the person she was—

imperfectly human, and perfect for the man he’d become while knowing her.

The emotions were colors, but to call them rainbows was too little, too weak a term. They were sparkles and illumination, loving blues and purples and greens so much deeper and more vibrant than anything that had ever come from cool white light, and sensual reds, oranges, and yellows that kindled fires in her nerve endings, reminding her of the slide of skin on skin, the explosion of orgasm. The strength of those feelings lit her up from within, leveling her, strengthening her, and bringing magic from love rather than sacrifice.

She raised her hands, and colors flowed from her fingertips, the strands of light taking flight and heading unerringly for the jagged edges of the barrier. She started at the top, high into the sky, and began to weave, folding the colors together and fighting the darkness onto one side of the barrier, light onto the other. When the anchors were set, she held her breath and tugged on the rainbows.

And watched the gap draw together at the top.

Way to go, babe! The hawk’s screech was so full of manly pride it almost sounded human. Or maybe it was human; she hadn’t fully dealt with that yet. All she knew was that she couldn’t do this without him, that she needed his love, his strength. He was her anchor, her support, just as she had been his during the fight. They’d deal with the rest later, as people rather than warriors. She hoped.

She kept working, weaving the strands of light into the barrier and tying them off, forming a magical patch over the blockade built by her ancestors. It was easy at the top, but grew increasingly more difficult lower down, partly because tension was pulling the edges apart, partly because the equinox was fading, and partly because she was fading. Her head pounded in synchrony with her heart, and sweat beaded her brow and trickled down her spine. Her hands shook as she heard trumpeting behind and below, and knew the king and queen were fighting a rear-guard action, buying time.

Move it, she told herself. She had to hurry! The adviser in her couldn’t believe she was letting Strike and Leah fight for her when it should’ve been the other way around. But the Godkeeper in her knew this was her battle, her destiny, and—

Focus, love. It was Nate’s voice, cool and blue with calm, tinted red with love. He poured more energy into her, poured love into her, supporting her and steadying her. She let herself lean, let herself believe in him, in them, for the moment at least. She got past the midpoint of the patch job and the tension lessened, though the barrier was thickening as she worked, making it more difficult to draw the edges together, more difficult even to thread the tear with rainbow light. But the gap drew together; the opening narrowed.

When it was as small as she dared, she said, “Let’s switch sides.” Nate obligingly ducked through, so they were on the earth side of the barrier, where they belonged. She kept working, threading and pulling madly, bringing the torn edges together as she sent, Nochem? Time for you guys to haul ass, or we’re going to have to come in there after you.

Coming! came Strike’s reply. There was a trumpet fanfare that ended on what sounded suspiciously like a raspberry, and then a golden blur arrowed through the last narrow gap. When the flying serpent god was through, back in the thin air of the Andes mountains, high above the cloud forest, Alexis worked as fast as she could, as fast as she dared, threading and pulling like a madwoman.

She tied off the final suture just as the Hydralike demon hit the gap, slamming into the seam and straining the rainbow weft. The patch job parted and groaned, stretching slightly. But it didn’t give.

“It’s holding!” Alexis called, and was answered by Nate’s screech of joy and Kulkulkan’s clarion bugle. And as they watched, the hold grew stronger still, the barrier knitting together along the sewn line, healing along a seam of magic. Her heart kicked at the sight. “We did it!”

Congratulations! Strike sent. Come back down, okay? He and Leah were on the ground near the hellmouth, she knew; Kulkulkan was a separate entity, one they could call to earth and link with mentally on the cardinal days. When the equinox was past and his job was done, he would return back up the skyroad.

As if knowing that time was near, the flying serpent bugled a trumpet blast of joy and approval, and turned north, powering up for the race back to Chichen Itza. Though the demons could come through Iago’s hellmouth, the gods had to use the intersection. Alexis raised a hand in farewell as she flew through the sky astride a giant hawk.

And that was pretty messed-up, she realized as the fight drained and reality began to intrude. She was riding Nate, and Nate was a hawk. A shape-shifter. The Volatile.

Like her thoughts, the sky went dark, returning to the blackness of night with the passing of the magic.

When we get home I’m going to eat about a gallon of mac and cheese and crash for a week, he sent along their mental link. How about you? She knew he felt her unease, and was trying for something light, something that would avoid the strangeness that suddenly loomed between them.