Skykeepers

that perspective was.

“Trap or not, we’re not leaving her in there to be sacrificed,” Strike growled. “Even if her father wasn’t a Nightkeeper, she’s our best connection to the library. Sure, if anyone gets a shot at Iago or a chance to snag Lucius, take it, but remember that the rescue mission is our top priority. Get the hostage and get out. Everything else follows from there. We can come back for the Xibalbans after we get the library and the added firepower it contains.”

The tight knot of battle readiness eased slightly inside Michael, making him aware that he hadn’t been entirely sure of his king. As their leader, Strike sometimes had to make shitty decisions, like whether to risk almost all of the remaining Nightkeepers in order to rescue one woman who might or might not be a mage’s daughter. Michael, on the other hand, was on a personal crusade sparked by a handful of photos and a childhood story he could relate to. He was getting Sasha out, period. And gods help anyone who got in his way.

At the thought, he felt a stir of sharp-edged magic. Blocked it.

Without further discussion, Nate and Alexis melted away from the group and disappeared into the darkness. Moments later there was a surge of sex-charged magic as the mated pair leaned on each other to power Nate’s ability to shape-shift to a man-size hawk. A low, alien cry announced the successful shift, followed by the beat of powerful wings. A blur moved past, that of a blond Valkyrie astride a giant hawk. Then the pair took to the air and swept up over the compound, angling precariously through the encroaching mangroves.

“It’s pretty tight going,” Alexis’s voice said quietly in Michael’s ear, coming through the earpiece with only a slight burr of distortion. “Not sure how much help we’re going to be in terms of recon.”

“Just give us a sweep of the area, keeping an eye out for ambush,” Strike said into his mike. He turned to Leah. “You got any last-minute words of wisdom?”

The Nightkeepers’ ex-cop queen was blond and classically beautiful, cool-eyed and all business as she answered, “The main building at the top of the hill is just the tip of the swampberg; most of the place is underground, tunnels done in a mix of stonework and prefab steel, sort of the bastard love child of a pyramid and a bunker. The access points are hidden inside temple ruins built into the landscaping; they lead to vertical tunnels running straight down into the labyrinth.” She went on to hit the highlights of the location, describing the underground rooms where it seemed most likely Iago would keep a prisoner, as well as the three concealed ritual chambers she and Strike had found during their search. She finished with, “We don’t know how long Iago’s been here, or how thoroughly he knows the site. Let’s assume the worst, hope for the best.”

“Story of our lives,” Sven muttered from behind Michael. The former underwater treasure hunter had become Michael’s closest almost-friend at Skywatch, the two having bonded over video games and nine-ball, and the fact that they were effectively the last two bachelors among the magi.

“Nah,” Michael replied, keeping his voice low. “The story of our lives is not knowing enough about any- fucking-thing, thanks to humanity’s habit of demonizing and destroying all the shit they don’t understand.”

“You’re clear to move in,” Alexis’s voice said through the com system. “At least, as far as we can tell. This place isn’t ideal for aerial surveillance.”

“Understood,” Strike responded. “Meet us near the temple of the Diving God.” At his signal, the Nightkeepers joined hands, forming the contact that allowed Strike to ’port them inside the compound.

The group zapped in right near a low-slung stone edifice carved with Mayan hieroglyphs and the image of the Diving God, an exaggerated figure positioned head-down, as though he were plummeting toward the underworld. Which seemed only fitting.

Michael landed in a crouch, braced for an ambush, but the only sound was that of huge feathers slapping the air as Nate cruised in for a landing and returned to man form. Alexis helped him dress from the knapsack she’d taken to wearing pretty much twenty-four/ seven, because of Nate’s clothes, only his amulet and armband—both integral to his talent—shifted when he did.

Strike reached to slap the pressure pad that would open the hidden tunnel. Before he could do the honors, though, there was a grating noise, and a stone panel slid sideways into the elaborate carvings of the bastardized temple. A man stood in the opening, broad shouldered, his features obscured beneath the hood of a light-hued robe rendered colorless by the night. Michael tensed, going for his pistols as the figure reached up to push back his hood. Even though he instantly recognized Lucius’s pleasantly regular features, Michael didn’t stand down until he confirmed that the other man’s eyes were normal, not the luminous green of a makol.

Lucius looked far more haggard than he had the last time Michael had seen him, his body language gone fighter-tough. On his inner right wrist, in addition to the black slave mark that had failed to blood-bind him under the Nightkeepers’ control, he now wore the red quatrefoil hellmark that denoted a connection to the Xibalbans’ hellmagic. That shouldn’t have been a surprise—how else would Iago have gotten through to the makol? Still, though, the sight made Michael wince inwardly. Of the magi, he alone knew that Lucius had been, very briefly, Jade’s lover, and that she still mourned him in secret.

Lucius scanned the assembled magi, his eyes locking on Strike. Not bothering with preliminaries, he said, “Follow me.” Then he turned and disappeared into the darkness. Moments later came the sound of booted feet on a ladder leading down.

After the briefest hesitation, Strike followed, with Leah at his back. Then, one by one, the others vanished into the earth. Michael took his customary position at the rear of the group, where he could protect them with his shield magic. As a team, the Nightkeepers descended into Iago’s realm, braced for almost anything.

Lucius kept iron control of the alien consciousness he’d trapped at the back of his brain as he led the Nightkeepers into the underground labyrinth. The dank air smelled of stale incense and blood, making his stomach churn even more than it already was from the stress of holding the makol at bay.

He wanted to stop, drop, and puke, wanted to claw at his own eyeballs in an effort to release the pressure inside his overstuffed skull. Instead, he forced his distant-feeling body to keep moving, putting one foot in front of the other as he led the small group in past the stone-lined rooms Iago used for interrogations. Thanks to the trapped makol’s thoughts, Lucius knew that this side of the complex would be deserted, because the Xibalbans were all up in the mansion itself, preparing for the Leonid ceremony and the planned human sacrifice. Which could not be allowed to take place.

Save Sasha, he wanted to tell Strike and the others. Get her out of here. He didn’t dare speak more than the two words he’d already uttered, though; it was taking all his energy to keep the makol in check. But he had to lead them in safely, just as he’d fought to get those calls out to Anna—not to save himself, but to save Ambrose Ledbetter’s daughter. Sasha.

She was the key to the next stage of the end-time war; he was sure of it, though he couldn’t say how he knew. Nor did he understand how, exactly, he’d regained control from the demon within him. The meteor shower had made him stronger, yes, but in theory it would’ve done the same for the makol, which he called Cizin. Despite the mockery of the name, which meant “flatulent one,” the creature was strong and fierce. It had been months since Cizin had allowed himself to be shut away at the back of Lucius’s brain, months since Lucius had escaped from the dusty, barren road inside his own head to retake control of his own body. Which meant . . .

Took you long enough , the demon’s voice said inside their shared skull, sounding very like all of Lucius’s uber jock male relatives combining to mock him in dissonant harmony. You really are an idiot. With just that split second of warning, Lucius’s vision went green around the edges and his hearing sharpened unnaturally.

Shit! he thought with a vicious whip of self-directed anger.

He spun and yelled for the magi to run. At least, that was what he told his body to do, but it didn’t listen to him, just kept walking at the head of the line.

And, deep down inside, he heard Cizin’s dry, raspy chuckle. Pitiful, the creature said in its normal sand-papery mental tone. Pathetic. You really thought you fought through from the in-between?

Please. You’re on this plane only because I allowed you to be, so you could bait the trap. For a second, Lucius saw within the makol and gained a flash of its true purpose within the Xibalbans, how its Banol Kax masters had used him to gain access to Iago as a toehold on earth. In his mind, Lucius heard a dog’s tortured howl, saw a terrible horned