Skykeepers

creature and the flash of teeth filed to a “T” shape. In that moment, he would’ve given anything to regain control of his body, to be able to warn the Nightkeepers of what the Banol Kax were planning to do, not now, but in the coming year.

But it was already too late. Cizin shoved Lucius back toward the prison of his own mind, a barren expanse of dirt and muddy brown sky, and a road that led nowhere. The in-between.

No! Lucius shouted in a voiceless wail as his makol- ruled body turned and beckoned to Strike and the others and whispered, “Her cell is on the next hallway, third down on the right.” Which was a lie.

Screaming inside, Lucius fought to break through, to warn the magi, but Cizin quashed him easily as he led the Nightkeepers around the corner. And all hell broke loose.

Sasha’s heartbeat thundered in her ears as she turned a corner and found herself at a three-way intersection. She took a quick look around, trying to get her bearings. It was no use, though, because the hallway looked much like all of the others she’d been down so far—bare, with zero in the way of character or distinguishing features. She might be in a repurposed guerrilla compound south of the temple, over the border into Honduras or Guatemala. Or she might be on the thirtieth floor of a high-

rise somewhere in the States. There was no way to tell.

As long as she kept moving, she could keep the fear at bay. The moment she paused, though, suffocating doubts closed in. How was she supposed to find her way out? Even if she got free, what next? How would she get home? For that matter, where was home? Hysteria pressed, making her wonder whether, if she closed her eyes and wished hard enough, she’d wake up back in Boston and find that the last year or so had been a terrible dream.

But she knew deep down inside that this wasn’t a nightmare—at least, not a sleeping one. This was a twisted version of reality created by a group of wack jobs obsessed with acting out ancient prophecies that meant nothing in modern times.

“Their reality is your reality, at least until you get your ass out of here,” she muttered, trying to calm her racing thoughts. But which way was out? She hadn’t seen any sign of the brown-haired guy she thought might be an ally, didn’t have any clue where she was going, knew only that she had to keep moving. Taking a deep breath, she tried to once again become the tough fighter Ambrose had taught her to be, the one she’d rejected in favor of a normal life. Normalcy wouldn’t help her now.

Moving quietly on her bare, chilled feet, she passed a row of metal doors and turned another corner, only to be brought up short by the sight of an ancient-looking stone slab blocking the prefab hall.

She’d avoided the two other stone doors she’d passed, pretty sure they led to Iago’s torture chambers.

This door was larger, though, and carved with the image of a winged crocodile, or maybe a dragon.

Her instincts said it was the way out. Then again, her instincts had been known to make some really bad calls.

Whispering a prayer to nobody in particular, she pressed the flat of her palm against a protruding stone that looked like it ought to be a pressure pad. For several agonizing seconds, nothing happened.

Then the stone panel grated and slid sideways into the wall. Heart hammering, Sasha stepped through into the corridor beyond.

Excitement kicked when she saw that she’d finally found someplace that looked different from where she’d been. The hallway was more like a tunnel, or a passageway in some ancient ruin. The walls, floor, and ceiling were made of interlocking stone blocks, some carved with worn motifs she didn’t recognize, others rubbed smooth, the whole of them pieced together in a pastiche of carved and uncarved sections, as though assembled from several older sources. Light came from bare bulbs hanging off an electric line that was bolted to the low ceiling. There was another doorway at the far end, steel again. What the hell was this place?

Doesn’t matter, she told herself. What matters is getting the hell out of here. When she did, she was going to find some cops—or mercenaries, depending on where she was—and she was going to come back to kick . . . Ia go’s . . . ass. Gritting her teeth as cleansing anger surged, Sasha reached for the door. It swung open before she touched it.

Four gray-robes stood in the opening, heavily armed and wearing body armor, as though they were expecting an attack. Or they already were under attack. They gaped at her.

Shock hammered through Sasha, who screamed for the first time since she’d awakened. But then she bit off the cry and turned to run.

“Get her!” the front man bellowed.

She dodged his grab and jammed an elbow into his throat, driving him back into the others. Then she swung the door into him and fled down the stone-lined corridor.

Behind her the door banged back open, and there were shouts of, “Shit, get her!” and “No, for fuck’s sake, don’t shoot. Iago needs her alive.”

Breath rattling in her lungs, she fled up the hallway, heading for the sliding doorway and the prefab tunnels beyond. Booted footfalls rang behind her as she flung herself through the stone doorway and swung back around to scrabble at the pressure pad, trying to get the panel to shut. It started moving, but way too slowly, grating snail-like on its hidden mechanism as the footfalls pounded nearer.

“Faster, damn you!” She hit the button again. Fear sizzled through her, along with the sudden certainty that she wasn’t ever going to get out of here, that Iago was going to—

“Leave it, for fuck’s sake!” A pair of strong hands yanked her away from the door. “Come on!”

A stranger dragged her down the corridor, hauling her into a stumbling run, but she was barely aware of moving. Her entire attention was focused on the man who had come to her rescue. He was wearing black paramilitary gear over a black muscle shirt, and bristling with weapons. But that wasn’t what had her brain vapor locking. What had her in a state of paralyzed shock was the fact that he was freaking huge. He was freaking gorgeous. And he had dark, wavy hair and eyes the same green as the pine forests of Maine.

CHAPTER FOUR

Sasha’s brain stuttered in disbelief. No. Impossible. It was just a coincidence that his eyes and hair matched those of the man in her dreams.

Fantasy or not, though, the stranger hustling her down one hallway and across another was seriously impressive. His dark green eyes gleamed from beneath elegant brows, and his lean-bridged nose had a pronounced ridge in the middle. That, along with a square, stubbled jaw and the thick, wavy black hair, made his looks fiercely masculine, while a wide, mobile mouth and the rich gold of his skin saved him from looking too hard. The whole effect was one of raw, potent sexuality.

He was wearing black cargo pants and combat boots, along with a black muscle shirt beneath torso-

encasing body armor that revealed the bare skin of his powerful shoulders and arms. He moved with the economical grace of a trained hand-to-hand fighter, and had a small, high-tech-looking earpiece dangling at his collar, and wore a complicated utility belt loaded with a pair of autopistols, spare clips, and a gleaming black glyph-etched knife.

He hooked the earpiece into place, not looking at her as he said, “I’ve got her. Where are we meeting up?” His voice was a deep, sexy rasp that had heat chasing across her skin despite the situation.

Stirred by his touch and voice, confused by both his appearance and her response to it, she scrambled to catch up with his long-legged strides as he hustled them along. He was dressed as a soldier and carried himself like a highly trained fighter, and his words suggested that he’d come to rescue her. Yet he didn’t wear a logo of any sort—not FBI or SWAT, or whatever the hell other group would be involved in a kidnapping or cult raid. Was he a mercenary?

“Who are you?” she blurted. “What’s happening? Where are we?”

“Explanations later,” he said as he dodged them down a side corridor, keeping his attention on their surroundings. “We’ve got to haul ass.”

She started to nod, but froze midmotion when she caught sight of his right inner forearm, where he wore