Skykeepers

went, it wasn’t going to be pretty.

Tucking her near the wall, he covered her as best he could with his body armor. Then he pulled the shield spell away from the door and put it over her instead. When he’d done the best he could do for her, he stood and turned, cross-drawing his autopistols in a smooth move that had been ingrained long before he joined the Nightkeepers. “Let’s do this.”

The door slid open as if on cue, and a tall, thin red-robe with hollow cheeks and pale skin stepped through. His eyes went past Michael to the shield behind him, and a look of satisfaction crossed his sallow cheeks. He lifted his wrist and spoke into a comm device. “You were right; she’s in here.” Then he smirked at Michael. “You might’ve gotten away with it if you’d kept it in your pants, playboy.”

Rage hazed Michael’s vision. He answered the taunt by opening fire, putting the autopistols to work with a spurt of dark excitement that echoed his orgasm of only minutes earlier.

The red-robe cast a shield spell, deflecting the bullets as he spoke into his comm, talking fast.

Moments later, the pilli’s shield rippled. Then, shockingly, the magic flew at Michael, wrapping around him and clinging for a second, freezing him in place. It faded quickly, but the delay gave the Xibalban time to pull a stubby black object and lever it at Michael. A Taser. Shit.

Michael tried to dodge, but the shield residue left him slow to react as the red-robe fired. The clinging barbs tagged the bare skin of Michael’s forearm, just above his marks. He cursed and grabbed for the thing, but he was too damn slow. Electricity arced across the tether, locking him in place.

Pain! It raced through him, freezing him, pissing him off. Mad fury rose within him, bringing with it the hard, vicious power that characterized his other self. Cold logic locked into place, and although his natural healing magic quickly fought the rigor-lock of the electric shock, dulling the pain to a throb and bringing a measure of feeling back to his paralyzed limbs, he didn’t let that on to the red-

robe. Instead he lay limp and still, hoping the bastard would come over to him to yank the barbs, or to get at Sasha. I dare you, he thought coldly, keeping his eyes slitted, his face slack. I fucking dare you.

A moment later, dark ’port magic rattled out in the hallway, and there was a thunderclap of displaced air. Michael’s earpiece was dead, no doubt shorted to shit by the Taser zap, but he didn’t need Strike to guess who had just arrived. The Xibalbans’ leader might not have the stones—or the power—to ’port straight into the uprooted Nightkeeper temple, but he obviously had no trouble getting through his own wards to the rock-shielded tunnels below. Which was just more proof the Xibalbans were light-years ahead of the Nightkeepers in terms of magic.

Gods help me protect her, prayed the piece of Michael that still could pray. The Nightkeepers were doomed without the library.

Iago stepped through the doorway a heartbeat later, wearing black leathers, heavy boots, and a slash- metal concert tee. He exchanged a look with the red-robe, then crouched down beside Michael.

“Fug—” Michael began, then broke off with a gargle when the Xibalban grabbed him by the throat and squeezed hard.

Iago leaned in, his pupils going to pinpricks. “Did you just fuck her, or was there more?”

A terrible force pressed behind Michael’s eyes, driving a knife into his brain and paralyzing him once again. He would’ve screamed, but he had no breath, would’ve writhed, but his muscles were still lax. Then Iago let go of his throat and the pressure snapped out of existence, as though it had never been, leaving Michael to groan with the absence of pain and the sudden flood of feeling returning to the rest of his body.

“His magic’s for shit,” Iago said dismissively. Lifting an arm, he spoke into a wristwatch comm device. “Set the timer for five minutes, collect the Nightkeepers, and wait for me at the rendezvous.

I’ll zap the prisoners to the mountain and come back for you before this place turns crater.”

He wanted one of the Nightkeepers. But for what? Was he looking to borrow a specific talent?

Michael’s thoughts churned. Then the redheaded mage moved past him and crouched down beside Sasha, and Michael wasn’t thinking about anything but keeping the bastard from touching her.

The shield spell had quit when the red-robe shocked Michael; the sleep spell would wear off more gradually. In sleep, curled on her side, she looked soft and vulnerable as the Xibalban reached out and stroked her pale cheek. Icy rage slammed through Michael. Get away from her! he howled inwardly, not giving voice to the words because he didn’t want them to hear their clarity and know he was almost back in control of his body, if not his power. And for the first time since the talent ceremony, when his ancestral nahwal had helped him recapture the Other and warned him not to touch its power or risk his soul, he didn’t give a shit whether he was in control.

Sasha! he raged. Gods, help me protect her!

With the skyroad gone, the gods had no access to earth, yet he was suddenly flooded with a heavy, silver, strange magic that wasn’t Nightkeeper or Xibalban, but somewhere between the two.

“Shock him again,” Iago said to the red-robe. “I’m not taking any chances with this guy.”

Letting the strange magic have him, Michael roared and exploded upward, attacking Iago in one continuous, deadly movement. The red-robe hit the Taser trigger and fifty thousand volts lit Michael from within, but this time it didn’t shut him down. Instead, the energy smashed through the last of his carefully constructed inner barriers— he felt them give, felt the Other come through fully for the first time since his talent ceremony.

Aided by the element of surprise, he caught Iago in a flying tackle, slamming them both to the stone floor. The red-robe howled and went for his guns, but Michael cast a thick shield spell fueled by blood rage and hatred, sealing him inside with his enemy. Iago shouted and tried to fight back, but he was far better at magic than hand- to-hand. Michael got in under the Xibalban’s weak guard and pinned him to the floor, straddling him and getting his hands around the bastard’s throat. Iago’s eyes bugged and he tried to pull shield magic of his own, but Michael countered it and bore down, leaning in so he could see his victim’s fear, the knowledge of his own death.

Only it wasn’t fear he saw in Iago’s eyes. It was fear . . . and satisfaction.

Michael’s grip loosened slightly, just enough for Iago to rasp, “It is you . . . or it will be.” The Xibalban’s eyes narrowed in speculation. “I can wait until you finish your transformation and understand what you really are, why you belong to me.”

“Fuck you.” Michael leaned in, silver magic spinning up within him. “What am I?”

“She’ll show you. And you’ll both be mine by the height of the solstice. If you don’t come to me, I’ll come for you. That’s a promise.” Then, without warning, dark magic cycled up, ’port lock engaged, and the Xibalban vanished from beneath Michael.

“No!” Slamming palm-first into the stone floor, briefly off balance with his quarry’s disappearance, Michael roared with fury and disappointment. Unable to stanch the flow of violence within him, the need to kill, he dropped the shield magic and lunged to his feet—just in time to see the red-robe headed out the door with Sasha’s limp body over his shoulder. At the sight, the rage within him redirected itself to killing hatred.

The man’s carotid under his thumbs. His pulse stilling in death.

Snarling, Michael moved to cut off the red-robe’s escape. The man’s face went slack with terror, almost making Michael wonder what the other man saw in him. What he feared. There was no pity within him, though; there was only the hatred, the need for revenge, and the all-consuming call for him to protect what was his.

The red-robe called shield magic, casting it thick and strong in a bubble around him and Sasha, but the thing within Michael wasn’t deterred. He felt a jolt of pain, as though a final synapse had soldered itself into place, and a conduit opened up within him, letting the silver magic flow through him. Into him. Shaking with the power of it, the rage of it, Michael leveled his arm toward the red-robe and sent the magic winging toward his enemy, funneling it into the other man while keeping Sasha safe. There was a noiseless detonation, a shock wave of power flinging from man to man.

The Xibalban’s face contorted, then went slack and gray. Sasha slid from his shoulder and fell to the floor as he sagged, losing cohesion. His flesh slid on his bones, draping over a skeleton that still fought to stand. Then his inner structure lost its solidity and he collapsed, the bloodred robe tenting around him. When it settled, there was a pile of greasy gray dust with cinderlike chunks beneath. The only recognizable piece that remained was the pilli’s hand, looking charcoaled, reaching from the pile as if in supplication. Nearby, Sasha lay curled on her side, still mercifully asleep.

Silence rang in the chamber as Michael stared down at the remains. The killer in him was utterly satisfied.