their mouths gaped open as they reached for the earth plane. Then the fog surged back through the opening, obscuring them.
When it cleared, the nahwal were gone. And so was Red-Boar.
A cry rose up from the Nightkeepers, and something tore inside Rabbit, sharp and vicious. He didn’t want to give a shit about his old man, but he did. Worse, there were other, far more worthy souls trapped in there with him.
Rage soured the back of his throat and he stepped away from Myrinne. “Get back and shield yourself.”
“Rabbit—”
“Just do it!” he snapped. Then, dropping his shield spell and blocking her from his thoughts—blocking out everything except the kohan and the gray-green tear in the sky—he braced himself and shouted, “Cha’ik ten ee’hochen!” Bring the darkness to me!
Wham! The tsunami hit him in the shallows this time, pummeling him not just with its own force, but with all the garbage that came with it. Frustration, resentment, impotence, fury—the dark magic rose up and hammered him with the flotsam of his life. But he knew what to expect this time. Maybe he wasn’t armored against it, or for the way some of it still resonated, but he could tamp it down enough to function.
Concentrating on the spells rather than the dangerous impulses that had gotten him into trouble so many times before, he called two fireballs, one in each hand—the left was dark, oily and rancid; the right was brilliant red and threaded through with sparks of gold. Then he brought his hands together, and the light and dark magic slammed into each other and glommed into a seething ball of red and brown.
With mad power singing up his arms, Rabbit shouted, “Cross this over, motherfucker!” And he launched the bolt at the kohan, which was still gloating in the rift, mocking Red-Boar and the nahwal.
The fireball shattered the shield spell, leaving the maize god suddenly unprotected. It whipped around with a hiss of shock and rage, its tasseled headdress flaring out in a spray of silken strands.
Rabbit summoned more magic, a killing blow of light and dark energy, and drew back his arm to—
The kohan speared its fingers at him and shouted, “Freeze!”
And he fucking froze. The spell surrounded him, locking him into place and boxing the magic in with him. The red-brown fireball spun and churned, caught in stasis.
“Rabbit!” Myr’s cry was anguished.
“Fire!” Dez ordered, and the Nightkeepers and their allies hammered the unshielded kohan with everything they had—fireballs, ice, lightning, and exploding jade-tipped rounds.
The maize god swatted aside the attack and cast another shield around itself. Then, glaring at Rabbit, it sneered, “Stay.” Like he was a fucking house pet. “You will come with me to the sacred well, to take control of the xombis. Then the kohan will control both of the armies of the undead.” It turned toward the others. “As for the rest of you . . .”
The leaves of its cloak rustled as if coming alive, and the silken strands atop its headdress lifted like cobras preparing to strike as the kohan forked its fingers and rattled off a spell. The magic flung toward the Nightkeepers’ gleaming shield. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the ground shook suddenly, and green tendrils erupted inside the shield.
The Nightkeepers shouted and fought, defending themselves with magic, guns and knives as the vines whipped up and wrapped around the teammates—arms, legs, weapons, everything—and then thickened, sprouting leaves and then small, wispy ears of maize. But for every vine they destroyed, three more sprouted and attacked.
At the edge of the group, green fire flared as Myrinne burned one off her left thigh, only to have another latch on to her right ankle and yank. She stumbled and nearly went down.
“Godsdamn it!” Rabbit’s throat tore with the shout. “Myr!” He struggled against the grip of the kohan’s magic as rage grabbed him by the throat, cutting off his air. He couldn’t move, couldn’t fight, couldn’t do a damn thing right.
He was a boy again, eleven years old and caught stealing booze from the gas station around the corner from his and Red-Boar’s apartment; fifteen and crashing his old man’s Jeep in a flooded river during a joyride gone bad. He was eighteen and watching Jox’s warehouse burn; nineteen and watching a seedy corner of the French Quarter burn; twenty-two and watching Oc Ajal burn, proving over and over again that his old man was right. He was a fuckup, a loose cannon, the Master of Disaster. Everything he’d been called over the years. Everything he’d called himself.
“Not anymore,” he grated, fighting off all the anger and hatred that came from the boy he’d been, and pouring all the power of his better self—his more mature, more controlled self—into the seething fireball instead, trying to break through the kohan’s spell.
Please gods, he whispered inwardly. A little help here.
Then, suddenly, he wasn’t alone in his own skull anymore. There was a presence inside him, filling his head, and an almost familiar voice boomed, The things you are rejecting are all part of you, son of chaos. They are not flaws when they are balanced by the other half of you.
“Jag?” It sounded like the voice from his visions, only not.
You’re hot-tempered, impulsive and stubborn . . . but your temper makes you a fierce warrior, your impulsiveness gives you moments of brilliance, and your stubbornness means you refuse to give up. There was a pause. You punish yourself for your past sins, but do not credit your successes. You need to accept yourself—every part of you—if you mean to be the crossover.
There was a jolt and the presence disappeared as quickly and thoroughly as it had come. It didn’t leave Rabbit empty, though. Instead, his senses vibrated in its wake, his mind spun.
Yeah, it was a big foam finger moment. But did he dare trust it? More, did he dare trust himself?
And he had to decide fast, because inside the Nightkeepers’ shield, the vines were winning.
Wrapping his mind around the fireball that still spun and pulsed beside him, frozen by the kohan’s spell, Rabbit steeled himself and said, “Ten cha’ik ee’hochen!” Bring my darkness!
The tsunami came again, but this time it swept him up and carried him along with it. Fury, frustration, impotence, guilt, regret, revenge—familiar from every stage of his life except for the past few weeks—flooded through him, and he accepted all of it, embraced it.
Yes, he thought as the reckless intensity built, making him want to do something stupid, dangerous and fun. Yes. This was what he had been missing without realizing it.
No longer contained by any vault or vain attempts to be what he thought he should be, the chaos flowed free, filling him with crazy thoughts, then soldering them into place. And once that happened, the impulses didn’t seem so insane anymore. They felt sharp and edgy, yet contained. Balanced. And he felt more like himself than he had since he first heard Phee’s voice in his mind. He was the wild half blood, the pyro, the Master of Disaster . . . but he was also the guy who had turned back the first xombi outbreak, and who had stayed with the villagers in the aftermath. He had tracked down his mother, faced down his grandfather and made sure his old man didn’t hurt the Nightkeepers. He wasn’t all good, but he wasn’t all bad, either.
He was the crossover, damn it.
Chest tightening with fear and hope as magic crackled along his skin, he said, “Pasaj och.”
The barrier connection formed instantly, but the magic that raced into him wasn’t like anything he’d ever felt before. Power flared, huge and incomprehensible, and the fireball gleamed suddenly from within. The red and brown powers bled together, becoming one . . . and then they turned to pure gold.
Suddenly, the kohan’s spell dissolved. He could move again!
The maize god stood near the temple, still fully shielded. It hadn’t noticed that Rabbit was loose, but that could change at any second. He had only one chance.
Hit him hard, he told himself. No fuss, no bullshit, just bust through that shield. But beneath his warrior’s determination, a wilder, crazier part of him had a better idea. He started to push it away, but then hesitated. And went with it.
Be brilliant.
With molten gold searing through his veins, Rabbit shouted and unleashed a bolt of terrible fury . . . straight into the Nightkeepers’ sacred temple. The two-thousand-year-old structure shuddered then exploded in a conflagration of stone shrapnel and golden magic. The kohan spun with a shocked roar, its shield disintegrating under the onslaught.
