Skykeepers

Still, though, it wasn’t enough. The connection fluctuated. Faded. “Rabbit. I need you to go into his mind and see if you can find him.”

The teen started in surprise, but then nodded, lips firming. “I’ll need to cut—”

“No. No blood. Love him. Or if you can’t do that, at least respect him for what he’s fought against.

Anchor him here, so the makol goes but he doesn’t.”

“That I can do.” Pulling away from the hands on either side of him, trusting that the circle would re-

form at his back, Rabbit leaned forward and pressed his palms to Lucius’s chest, above the place where his heart had been ripped out and put back in, the place where a makol ’s power began and ended.

Then, bearing down, the Nightkeepers began to pray to the gods that couldn’t hear them, and to the ancestors who could.

Lucius was lost inside his own head. He couldn’t find the sight centers, couldn’t find his hiding spot as the librarian’s spell echoed around him and the makol’s furious power sought to drive him from his own skull, sought to fling him into the magic.

On one level, he gloried in the ancient syllables, in the power he felt gathering in him, changing him. But at the same time he feared the spell, and the power, because he knew something the others didn’t: that this had been the plan all along. The Banol Kax didn’t want the Xibalbans to have the library any more than they wanted the Nightkeepers to gain the power. They wanted it for themselves, wanted it removed from the earth permanently.

He tried to scream the knowledge, tried to warn the magi who gathered around him, labored over him, trying to feed him power that he couldn’t find.

But he had to find it. He couldn’t let the makol win, couldn’t let the creature reawaken wielding even more power than it had before. The Nightkeepers thought the spell would automatically take both souls, and sought to keep Lucius with them. They didn’t realize the makol had exactly the same thought in reverse, and it had far more magic at its disposal.

Quitting? a voice said within him—not the makol or one of the magi, but that of his father, his brothers, everyone who had ever called him a pussy, a wimp, a loser. A geek. Go ahead, they said in unison, be a loser.

“No, godsdamn it!” Lucius shouted, raging at the darkness around him, at the makol’s black soul.

“No!”

“Lucius!” called a voice, one he recognized, one that came from his present, not his past.

“Rabbit?”

“This way. Follow my voice.”

And suddenly, Lucius’s own mind took shape around him once more. The makol roared denial as his soul slipped from its unknowing confinement. Power wrapped around Lucius, buoyed him up, and he felt the touches of more minds all calling him back, calling him home, one stronger than all the others, not because of sexual love, but because of friendship, and a blood-debt owed.

He opened his eyes and locked his gaze on the woman who was reading the spell, the one who wore a mark that complemented his own. He reached out to her and they clasped hands. And, as if seeming to know what he needed from her, Anna said, “I call upon you to discharge your debt to me by kicking that makol’s ass straight to hell.”

And though Lucius was nothing more than human, the slave bond he’d formed with Anna was magic; the marks were magic. In response to her invocation, they flared to life, binding him to her, and through her to the other magi. That connection, that bond of unity, roared through him in a screaming tidal wave of red and gold, heat and trust.

Cizin roared and dug claws into his brain. “Get out!” Lucius shouted, not caring about the niceties or the spell words, only that this demon, got out of his head for good. He tore at the claws, pushed at the writhing thing within his own soul. The magic of the Prophet’s spell peaked. A whirling vortex opened up, spearing through Lucius’s skull. Or not his skull, he realized moments later when the wind slapped at him. The funnel was real, a tornado that reached through the jagged tear in the mountain-

side. It tugged at him, threatened to suck them all up. Arching against the wind, against the pull, he leaned on the joined magics of the magi and shouted aloud, “Gods take it!”

There was a ripping, tearing sound, and a ghostly image of his own body tore free, this one with fangs and claws and glowing green eyes. It pinwheeled its arms and legs as it was lifted away from him, hung suspended above him long enough for Lucius to look into its luminous green eyes and see the evil inside himself, the evil that had called the creature to him in the first place.

The makol screamed one last time, the sound growing thin as its image wavered and dissolved. Then it was gone. The tornado was gone. Lucius fell blessedly unconscious. Overloaded. But finally alone inside his own skull.

Skywatch When strike zapped them all home, Michael sagged when his feet hit the floor, might’ve gone down if it hadn’t been for the bodies on either side of him, Rabbit on his right, Sasha his left. The three of them propped one another up for a moment, leaning on one another. Teammates.

Rabbit was the first to peel himself away, his eyes fixed past the others to the archway leading to the pool deck, where Myrinne stood, eyes faintly uncertain. “You’re here!” he said, crossing to her and stopping a couple of paces away. “How did you . . . When . . .”

The uncertainty faded a little, turning to warmth. “I hopped a plane and called Jox from the airport.

I . . .” She faltered, realizing that she and Rabbit had an audience, but then seemed to realize he needed the public apology. Or maybe she needed to give it. Either way, she continued, “I didn’t mean any of what I said. I was scared, I think. And maybe you were getting some backlash I should’ve unloaded on Mistress Truth, but couldn’t because she was already dead.” Her voice went soft. “I came to tell you I’m sorry. I don’t want to be with anyone but you.”

“I couldn’t get rid of the hellmark,” he said, voice cracking.

She closed the distance between them, stopping only so he’d have to cover the last six inches or so.

“Okay. We’ll deal with it. Together.”

At that, the fight seemed to go out of him. He let his head drop forward, let his forehead rest on hers. “You’re killing me, babe.”

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was barely audible to the others now, and the magi and winikin turned away, giving the younger generation their privacy as they slipped out through the poolside doors and headed for their cottage.

For a change, not even Strike glared after them. Not that Michael was really paying much attention to his king, or to any of the others. His entire focus was on the woman whose hand remained in his, the one looking up at him with the glittering brown eyes he knew he would see in his mind’s eye from now on, every time he thought of love. Of happiness.

Sasha loved him. He took the knowledge and tucked it beside his heart, where it warmed him from the inside out, chasing away the last dregs of the darkness. She had saved him. She was life; he was death. They matched, they balanced, whether the gods had intended it or not, whether they were destined mates or not. Fuck destiny; she was his, he thought, tightening his grip on her.

“Michael?” she said, turning his name into a question.

“It’s okay,” he said, though he wasn’t really sure that it was. He’d failed to cleanse his soul, failed to discharge his duty. Which meant no jun tan, no mate. Was it fair to ask her to buy into that?

Too late , logic and reason said. She already has. And so had he. But at the same time, it was up to him to make it as right as he possibly could.

“Food,” a new voice intruded. “Rest. Now.” It was Tomas, dividing his glare equally between Michael and Sasha, probably because Jox had his hands full with Strike, Leah, and Rabbit.

Before, Michael would’ve given him shit. Now, he simply grinned and said, “Pancakes and Canadian bacon? Lots of coffee?”