He wasn’t alone anymore, though.
Lurching to his feet, he started to turn toward the others, choking out, “How in the hell did—”
“Save your questions,” said a deep, grating voice behind him, nearly drowned out by sudden bursts of gunfire, which went ripping into the oncoming camazotz. Rough hands spun him back around, shoved a heavy machine gun in his hands, and jammed a sheathed knife in his ragged waistband. “Fight!”
Then a hard spine slammed into Rabbit’s and he was back-to-back with something he never thought he’d have again: a teammate.
Holy shit. Holy, holy shit. The Nightkeepers were all around him—huge, strong, beautiful and so damn glossy it almost hurt to look at them. There were dozens of winikin, too—smaller, lighter and more agile than the magi, they fired machine guns filled with jade-tipped ammo from behind shield spells as if, while he’d been gone, they had somehow turned into an actual magic-wielding army. At their core, Sven and Cara fought shoulder to shoulder—a Nightkeeper and a winikin teaming up, aided not just by Sven’s huge coyote familiar, but also by a smaller, darker coyote that stayed close to Cara’s heels.
Rabbit’s head spun. Jesus fucking Christ. How long had he been gone?
A second round of fireballs detonated, biting into the enemy line and filling the air with fury and pain, but he barely flinched. He was too busy staring.
He saw Anna and Strike, huge and regal, and the closest thing he’d had to siblings; Patience and Brandt, who had taught him what a real family could feel like; Lucius, the human researcher who was more of an outsider than Rabbit had ever been, yet had somehow become one of them. And so many more . . . all familiar, yet suddenly seeming like strangers.
But there was no sign of the one person he was looking for, the one person he needed to see. Where the hell was Myrinne?
A bony elbow jabbed his ribs. “Fight, damn you!”
He didn’t know who he was backed up against—JT, maybe, given the attitude and sneer-laden voice—but the order cut through the shock and triggered what was left of his warrior’s instincts. Sudden adrenaline seared through Rabbit, pushing the other stuff aside. He raised the machine gun—how the hell had they known he would need it?—and sighted on an ugly brute that was swooping through the dissipating fireballs and beelining straight for him. Leaning into the solid weight behind him, he shouted through split lips and hit the trigger.
The jade-tipped bullets ripped into the approaching demon and then detonated, sending fragments of the Nightkeepers’ sacred stone deep into its flesh. The thing screamed, spasmed and crashed into another, sending them both slamming to the ground. More gunfire spat from behind Rabbit as he lurched forward, yanking the knife from his belt. It was a plain military-issue blade, not the ceremonial stone knife he’d left behind at Skywatch, but it would do the job.
He went down on his knees, feeling the impact thud all the way to his jaw as he yanked at the ’zotz’s dick, hacked it off and grated, “Go to hell.”
The thing puffed to oily smoke and a funk at the back of his throat. After that, his vision narrowed and he went into overdrive, bringing down demon after demon and dispatching them with a hack and a curse, over and over again. And then . . .
Silence. Suddenly there weren’t any more demons to fight, only gritty ash mixing with the churned-up white sand and the gentle lap of waves. But his blood still raced with battle madness.
Furious and unsteady, caught between his prisoner self and the warrior he’d been, Rabbit whirled on Dez. “Where is she? Where’s Myr?”
That rasping voice snapped from behind him, “How about you start with a fucking ‘thank you for saving my ass’?”
Without the muffling gunfire, the tone was suddenly all too familiar, yet impossible.
Rabbit’s blood chilled as he spun around, then froze solid when he saw who he’d been fighting with.
His godsdamned father.
Red-Boar.
It was another fucking ghost. Only it wasn’t, because sure as shit it was his old man standing there in flesh and blood, looking exactly like he had right before he died—dark-eyed, sharp-faced and condemning, with a thin line of a mouth and a salt-and-peppered skull trim. He was wearing his usual drab brown, though in combat camo rather than the ceremonial robe he’d favored, saying that brown was the color of penitence. Not that Rabbit had ever heard him apologize for shit. If anything, it was the people around him who were constantly sorry.
Red-Boar’s death had been a shock, but in reality it hadn’t left much of a hole—at least Rabbit hadn’t thought so. Now, though, an old, ugly fury kindled in his gut. “You’re dead.”
“I was. And I would’ve stayed that way if it hadn’t been for you.” Red-Boar spat on the ground, in a gesture that either meant respect for the gods or disgust for his son. Probably both. “The gods sent me back to find your ungrateful ass.”
Suddenly, the flash of magic Rabbit had felt when he killed the first ’zotz made far more sense. That didn’t stop the thudding pulse of what-the-fuck in his veins, though, didn’t make it any easier to say: “You used a blood- link.” Which was ironic, given that his old man hadn’t ever wanted to admit they were related.
Red-Boar nodded curtly. “I don’t know how the gods knew you were going to get your shit in trouble like this—history repeating, I guess—but rather than send me to the afterlife, they warehoused me in the fucking in- between for a while, and then gave me my marching orders and sent me back here. The reanimation spell will keep me going until after the war, and then poof.” He pointed to the sky. “Up I go.”
“They sent you back to find me.” It didn’t make any sense. He and the gods had forsaken each other long ago.
“Yeah. That was my first job—that, and letting the others know what happened to you, so maybe they could find a way to trust you again.” Red-Boar’s eyes were like his voice, hard and harsh. “After that, I’m supposed to bind your ass to your bloodline and fucking babysit you until the war, making sure that you’ve got your priorities straight this time, and knock off this shit about the demons being the good guys.” He made a disgusted noise. “For fuck’s sake. I—” He clamped his lips together rather than saying, “I taught you better.” Which would’ve been a joke, because they both knew he hadn’t taught his son a damn thing about the magic, or about being a man.
Before, Rabbit would’ve gotten in his old man’s face, not caring where they were or what else was going on as long as he got to defend himself and take a few hacks. Now, though, he shoved his anger deep down inside, and turned his back on Red-Boar.
He had more important things to worry about.
The others were ranged shoulder to shoulder in a defensive formation, like he was as much an enemy as the camazotz. Even Strike—who had practically raised him, for fuck’s sake—was looking at him cold and hard, as if he’d finally given up. That hurt like hell, but Rabbit couldn’t deal with that now, either.
Instead, he did something he’d never done before, never thought he would do. He knelt in front of the king and bowed his head. He heard a murmur of surprise, hoped it would be enough.
“Look,” he said, “I’m a piece of shit, and I fucking know it. I was wrong about the underworld, about all of it, and I’m sorrier than I can say. You probably don’t believe me—shit, I wouldn’t if I were you. But you’ve got to believe me on this one: Myrinne’s in danger.” He looked up, praying that Dez saw that he meant every word when he said, “I’ll take whatever vows you want me to, the second I’m sure she’s safe and Phee is dead. Once that’s done, I’ll be your fucking slave.”
The king scowled down at him, every inch the hard-assed serpent mage. “Myrinne is fine. She stayed back at Skywatch.”
But there was a stir in the crowd and JT stepped forward with a satellite phone in his hand. “No, she didn’t. She left the compound right after we ’ported out. Took the oldest Jeep and bolted.”
Dez’s breath exploded. “What rocket scientist let her through the gate without double-checking?”
“She let herself out.” JT’s eyes narrowed. “And nobody said she was supposed to stay put.”
Rabbit surged to his feet. “Screw the blame. We need to find her!” Then, wincing, he tacked on, “Sire.”
Dez shot him a black look, but said to Strike and Anna, “Can either of you get a fix?”
Anna shook her head. “She’s off our radar, remember, unless—”
“I’ve got her,” Strike said, eyes going grim. “Which means she’s in trouble.”
Rabbit didn’t know why that followed, but there wasn’t time for an explanation. His fingers tightened on his machine gun, and he grated, “Take me there.”
