Demonkeepers

PART III DUSK

The sun descends, light is lost, the world darkens, and secrets grow in the shadows

CHAPTER TWENTY

June 18 Two years, six months, and three days until the zero date Skywatch Jade awoke groggy; for a few moments, she stared at the ceiling of her suite, seeing a gauzy white canopy that wasn’t there.

As she dragged her ass out of bed and into the shower, she ached, not physically, but mentally and spiritually. There had been too many highs and lows lately; she just wanted a few hours of peace, maybe with a mindless project that would occupy her brain just enough that she wouldn’t have to think about the five dead strangers, or the fact that she would’ve sworn on her soul that she and Lucius had been simpatico when they’d made love in the cabin. That had been lovemaking, damn it, not fuck-

buddy sex. Only his magic hadn’t kicked in. Which meant the emotions hadn’t been there for him—or at least, not the way they were for her.

Worse, she was becoming the thing she feared, falling prey to the pattern she despised. As she made herself coffee, she was practically counting the hours until the Jeep rolled in, even though she wasn’t sure where things stood between them now; wasn’t sure where she wanted them to stand.

“Gah!” She threw up her hands, unable to stand herself. “Go . . . do something.”

If it hadn’t been three days until the solstice, with the whole of Skywatch locked in a state of tense expectation, waiting for something to break with regard to Kinich Ahau, she might have headed out to the greenhouse. The gardens were mostly Jox and Sasha’s territory, with Michael’s winikin, Tomas, doing the lion’s share of the manual labor—because, he said, it kept him too tired to bust Michael’s chops nearly as much as he used to. But even so, Jade occasionally stopped in for an hour or so of dirt work, which she’d always considered damn good therapy.

Under the circumstances, though, hitting the greenhouse would’ve seemed self-indulgent.

Considering that just yesterday—gods, it seemed like forever ago—she’d finally called the scribe’s magic on command, she figured she was duty-bound to hit the Idiot’s Guide again and see what she could do with some of the other spells.

To her surprise, she found Patience in the temporary archive, frowning at one of the computer workstations, which the winikin had moved into the room while the reno crews worked on repairing the archive.

Pushing aside an inner stab of frustration that she’d done more damage to Skywatch than to the enemy so far, Jade dredged up a smile. “Can I help you with something?”

The power button is the big one with the circle on it, she thought with uncharacteristic bitchiness.

But then again, she and Patience weren’t exactly tight. Even though Jade had given her a number of tips on beating depression in the weeks and months after the twins had been sent away, the other woman had ducked hard whenever Jade needed help with data entry or any of the other grunt tasks the archive occasionally required. Jade had let Patience get away with the mommy excuse while it was relevant, and the depression excuse after that, but Jade didn’t think she was the only one losing patience with the pretty blonde.

Patience looked up from the computer—which was already powered up, so at least she’d gotten that far— and smiled so warmly that Jade promptly felt like a bitch. “Yes, thanks. I’m looking for the ongoing file. Strike asked me to update it with a rundown of the Egypt trip, for good or bad.”

“Sure. That’s no problem.” Unusual, yes, but not a problem. Jade clicked her way through a couple of levels of the computer desktop and pulled up the metafile that was part of Strike’s efforts to ensure that the current Nightkeepers’ experiences would be transmitted to subsequent generations—assuming that, gods willing, there were future generations—far more smoothly than had been done previously.

Given that the Nightkeepers had found themselves fighting a rearguard action against things they quite often should have known about, but didn’t, the king had made a point of asking each of the magi, winikin, and humans in residence to chronicle his or her experiences, thought processes, strategies, and action plans as they went along. In theory that sounded great. In practice, Jade often found herself transcribing the quick vignettes that the warriors tossed off to her in passing, or patching together fragmentary e- mail missives from off-site ops. Less frequently, the others would write their own stories longhand for her to transcribe. The others almost never came to the archive to type into the raw file . . . as in, she could manually count the number of times that had happened without using her toes.

More, Jade realized as she ran through those few incidents in her head, each of those times had been less about the mage in question wanting some hands-on writing time, and more about their wanting to hide out in the archive, needing some productive- feeling peace. A glance over at Patience suggested that was the case here, as well. The other woman’s face was etched with stress and fatigue, and she toyed with the hilt of the ceremonial dagger she wore on her belt.

I can relate, Jade thought sourly. She pushed back from the computer. “You’re good to go.”

“Thanks.” Patience got to work; within moments, her fingers were flying across the keyboard with a clatter that sounded like machine-gun fire.

Breathing past the adrenaline kick brought by the comparison, Jade snagged the Idiot’s Guide and carried it over to the other workstation. She found herself sneaking looks over at Patience, though. It was strange seeing her at the computer, even stranger that she didn’t look out of place. The image jarred Jade’s perception of her teammates and the way they fit together . . . or didn’t, as the case might be.

“Go ahead, say it.” Patience stopped typing and glanced over at her, eyes lit with faint challenge.

Caught out, Jade fell back on counselor mode. “What is it you think I want to say?”

“That I should get over myself, stop whining about being separated from my boys, make up with my husband, and do whatever else I possibly can to strengthen the Nightkeepers and make sure Harry and Braden have a world to live in—and lives to lead—in 2013.” Patience lifted her chin, blue eyes defiant, yet wary.

Jade grinned, comforted to find that she wasn’t the only one having a pissy morning. “Honestly? I was thinking that you type way faster than I would’ve expected. What was that, seventy words a minute? Closer to eighty?”

Patience just stared at her for a second. Then she burst out laughing, though the laughter carried an edge. “Why? Because I come off more like a fluffy ex-cheerleader than anything? Are you wondering if I took touch typing as part of an admin course?”

“Is that how you think other people see you?” The question came from both parts of Jade; the therapist framed it, but the woman saw the pain and wanted the answer.

“Don’t you?”

Questions and more questions, classic defensive-ness. This isn’t therapy . Patience was a teammate, though perhaps not a close friend. The two women were acquaintances at best, not just because of Patience’s lack of interest in academics, but also because she had come to Skywatch with her life already fully formed. She and Brandt had both known all along that they were the Nightkeepers of legend, that they might one day be called upon to serve. Granted, they hadn’t told each other about their true natures, leading to a hell of a surprise when they’d arrived separately at Skywatch, but still, they seemed to have gotten past that, seemed to have made a family unit within the Nightkeepers. Or was that only the surface of things? Jade wondered suddenly. She’d known there was trouble in the relationship, but had thought it was strong enough to withstand the bumps. What if she’d been wrong?

“I can’t say the word ‘cheerleader’ has ever come to mind,” she answered. “I see you as a woman who