Demonkeepers

Given her inability to tap her scribe’s talent for the spell crafter’s gift it was supposed to convey, she didn’t bring much in the way of a unique skill set to the Nightkeepers . . . except in the matter at hand.

She was the only female mage who remained yet unmated, and she and Lucius had—briefly, at least—

shared a sexual connection. More, in the wake of her and Michael’s failed affair, back when they’d all first come to Skywatch and gotten their bloodline marks, she’d proven that she could be sexually involved with a man and not lose her heart. While that was more innate practicality than skill, she knew the royal council saw it as a plus. Lucius wasn’t one of them, with or without the Prophet’s powers.

Realizing that Strike was waiting for her to make her move, she took a deep breath. “Okay. Wish me luck.”

She halfway expected him to come back with something about getting lucky. Instead, he said, “I want you to remember one thing: You can call it off at any point. This was your idea. I wouldn’t have summoned you today if you hadn’t volunteered. So promise me that you’ll stop if it doesn’t feel right.”

She frowned at the sudden one-eighty. “But the writs say—”

“Fuck the writs,” he interrupted succinctly. “Which probably isn’t what you expected—or wanted—

your king to say, but there you have it. Over the past two years we’ve proved that the writs aren’t perfect or immutable. So now I’m telling you—hell, I’m ordering you, if that makes it better—to make your own decision on this one. Take me out of it. Take the others out of it. This is between you and Lucius. Sleep with him or don’t, your call.”

Jade drew breath to whatever-you-say-sire him, but then stopped herself. After a moment’s pause, she said, “I get where you’re coming from, but with all due respect, it’s bullshit. I’m here because we’re out of other options. If we don’t get our hands on the library soon, the earth might not even make it to the zero date. Between whatever’s going on with the sun, and the threat that Moctezuma could come through into Iago any day now, we might be looking at going into full-on war with the Xibalbans long before the barrier falls in 2012. Sorry, but you don’t get to tell me to take all that out of the equation just so you can feel better about making the call. If it doesn’t bother me to offer myself to Lucius this way, under these circumstances, then it shouldn’t bother you. And if it does, that’s not my problem.”

There was a moment of startled silence. Then Strike said, “Huh.”

Jade didn’t know if that meant he was offended, taken aback, or what, but told herself she didn’t care, three “D”s or no three “D”s. “What? You didn’t know I have a spine?”

“I knew you had one. I just wasn’t sure you’d figured it out.” He made a move like he was going to touch her, but instead let his hand fall to the warrior’s knife he wore at his belt. “Good luck, then. And remember that we’ll be monitoring the radio in case . . . well, just in case.”

Without another word, he spun up the red-gold magic of a Nightkeeper warrior- mage and disappeared in a pop of collapsing air, leaving her standing there thinking that the ’port talent was a hell of a way to get the last word in an argument. Not that they had been arguing, really, because they were both right: She couldn’t separate the act from the situation, but at the same time, the act itself was her choice. Strike had called only to tell her that the other magi and the winikin were out of ideas, and they were up against the new moon, which was the last day of any real astrological significance—

and hence increased barrier activity—before the summer solstice that would mark the two-and-a-half-

year threshold. Her response to the information was her responsibility, just as the suggestion had been hers in the first place.

“So why are you still standing here?” she asked herself aloud.

“Maybe because you’re not sure this is such a good idea after all,” a stranger ’s voice rasped from the darkness.

Adrenaline shot through Jade, making her skin prickle with sudden awareness. “Who’s there?” But even as she asked the question, she realized that the voice hadn’t been entirely that of a stranger. The whispery tone wasn’t familiar, but she knew the cadence and faint Midwest accent. Knew them well, in fact. Swallowing to wet her suddenly dry mouth, she said, “Eavesdropping, Lucius? That’s not like you. And why are you whispering? Trying to creep me out? Well, congrats. You succeeded.”

The shadows near the training hall moved and she heard the faint hiss of denim, the pad of sandals on the steps leading down to the packed dust of the canyon floor. That same voice responded, “I’m not trying to do anything. But considering that you’ve been discussing my sex life, or lack thereof, with the royal council, do you really want to complain about my listening in on your conversation?”

He wasn’t whispering, she realized belatedly. Six months earlier, Iago had nearly hacked his head off— which, along with ritual disembowelment and performance of the banishment spell on a cardinal day, was what it took to kill an ajaw-makol, as Lucius had been back then. Although his possessing demon had kept him alive and Sasha’s magic had later knit his flesh, the grievous injury to his throat had made it difficult for him to speak in the immediate aftermath. Jade had assumed that would improve with time. Apparently not. Your poor voice , she wanted to say, but didn’t. Regret pierced her for the loss of his lovely storyteller ’s tenor, even as the change sent a fine shiver racing along the back of her neck and down her spine.

It’s just Lucius , she told herself, as she’d been doing ever since she’d first broached the sex-magic idea to the king. Now, though, she wondered whether she’d sold herself on a lie. Granted, she’d learned early and often that human beings didn’t fundamentally change, not at their core. But what if the human being in question might not be entirely human anymore? He had been an ajaw- makol. He’d survived the Prophet’s spell. Was she trapping herself in her own logic by applying human rules to him on the one hand while on the other arguing that he could be susceptible to sex magic?

She took a deep breath that didn’t do much to settle the sudden churn of nerves. “I guess your eavesdropping makes us even, then. And it saves me from explaining why I’m here . . . though I doubt you’re surprised. You had to figure something like this was coming.”

His gritty tone darkened. “Given the choice of sex versus ritual sacrifice, I vote for sex.”

She didn’t even try to pretend that execution wasn’t another of the options that had been discussed.

The Prophet’s spell called for the sacrifice of a magic user’s soul, assuming that the sacrificial victim would have just one soul in residence, and would therefore yield an empty golem through which the Prophet’s power would speak, answering the Nightkeepers’ questions from the information contained within the library of their ancient ancestors, which had long ago been hidden within the barrier to keep it safe from their enemies. In Lucius’s case, though, the makol’s soul had been sacrificed, leaving his human consciousness behind. It wasn’t clear whether his failure to access the library had come from the retention of his soul, the fact that he wasn’t a true magic user, the thick mental defenses he’d built up over more than a year of sharing head space with the makol, or what. But it wasn’t much of a stretch to think that the only way to get a fully functional Prophet might be by emptying Lucius’s body of its remaining soul through another sacrifice. To be fair, Strike was holding that out as the absolute last option—the Nightkeepers practiced largely self-sacrifice, helping separate them from the Xibalbans and their dark, bloodthirsty magic. But at the same time, the Nightkeepers’ king would do whatever was necessary to protect the magi and their ability to combat the Xibalbans and Banol Kax.

That was his responsibility, his duty. But what was hers in this case? She wasn’t sure, and nobody seemed to have an answer for her.

She had lobbied the royal council on Lucius’s behalf just as vehemently as she’d begged the warriors to search for him after he’d gone makol. Now, as then, the answer was a maddening, We’ll do our best, but he’s not our priority. She knew what it felt like not to be a priority, which had only made her fight harder on his behalf . . . earning the victory that had her standing there in the darkness, suddenly wondering if she was making a Big Freaking Mistake.

It’s Lucius, she reminded herself again. You’re not afraid of him.

“So . . . does this make you the sacrificial victim?”

A spurt of irritation had her snapping, “I’m not the loser’s forfeit in one of your brothers’ drinking games, Lucius. I’m not offering you a pity fuck, and I don’t need to sleep my way to a better grade in Intro to Mayan Studies. I’m—” She broke off, swearing to herself. Great seduction technique, genius.