Blood Spells

“The lord of earthquakes.”

“Shit,” Brandt muttered. “Not good.”

“Uh-oh,” Patience whispered. Up until now, the Banol Kax had been able to send only relatively minor demons to test the barrier during the cardinal equinoxes and solstices. The earthquake lord, though, didn’t sound like any minor demon.

Strike held up a hand to quell the rising buzz in the room. To Lucius, he said, “Go on.”

“The ancients knew how to track the movement of the stars and predict basic weather patterns, which allowed them to make the proper sacrifices and feel like they were in relatively decent control of their environment. In contrast, earthquakes struck without warning, and could be absolutely devastating. Because of that, Cabrakan was one of the most feared of the Banol Kax. When an earthquake struck, the priests would hustle to throw together massive rituals of appeasement, in the hopes of mitigating the aftershocks.”

“In other words,” Brandt said, “this particular Banol Kax isn’t something we want to fuck with.”

Lucius nodded. “Problem is, we already have . . . and in doing so, we messed with the legends.” He paused. “Cabrakan’s brother is—or was—Zipacna.”

Strike growled, “Son of a bitch.”

Patience drew in a breath as the dots connected. Two years earlier, Strike and Leah had joined together with the creator god, Kulkulkan, to defeat the winged crocodile demon, Zipacna, in a fierce aerial battle. In the process, Zipacna’s essence had been destroyed rather than being returned to Xibalba as part of the Great Cycle.

“According to the legends,” Lucius continued, “Zipacna was destined to make it through to the end-

time war, when he and Cabrakan would fight the Hero Twins. The outcome of that particular battle was to be pivotal in determining whether the barrier falls completely, giving the Banol Kax total access to the earth plane. But now . . .” Lucius spread his hands. “We’re off the map here, people.”

Patience’s heart clutched. “If Cabrakan is supposed to fight the Hero Twins . . .” She trailed off, unable to finish the thought.

The half-human deities starred in many of the old legends. In the stories, the young boys—one brave, the other studious—got themselves into and out of numerous adventures, eventually winning their ways through Xibalba itself in order to rescue their father, who had been captured by the Banol Kax.

Harry and Braden had never been bound to the barrier, and therefore couldn’t be tracked by magical means, but the parallels had always unnerved Patience. Now they terrified her, especially given that the twins weren’t babies anymore, not really. At five years old, if they had been growing up inside the old system, they would have their bloodline marks and be practicing their first small spells. Gods.

“Hannah and Woody won’t let anything happen to them,” Jox said. “They know how to stay out of sight. And how to raise good kids.”

Patience smiled faintly at that. “Yeah. They do.” She sobered. “But . . . I don’t know. Every time the Hero Twins come up in conversation, my fight-or-flight response goes into overdrive.”

“Mine too,” Brandt said, surprising her. His expression was set and uncompromising, but for a change she found the steeliness comforting. “We won’t let anything happen to them. Whatever it takes is what we’ll do. Whatever they need from us is what they’ll get.” He met her eyes. “Even if it isn’t what we really want.”

It was the closest he’d come to talking about the boys being gone in a long time. It was also, she thought, an offer of a truce in Brandt-speak.

She slipped off her stool and held out a hand. “Come on. Let’s see if the etznab spell can get us any further into either of the visions.”

The most frustrating thing about the magic was its unpredictability. At first, the magi had ascribed the problem to lack of info and proper training, but the more they learned from the library, the more it seemed that the magic was a closer to an art form than a defined set of actions and reactions. Given the increasing volatility of the barrier, which was ramping up both light and dark powers in spurts, with lull periods between, the magic was rapidly becoming a crapshoot.

Rabbit’s mind-bending talent, which had faded to almost nonexistent for a while, had rebounded in the past few months, while Lucius had lost his onetime ability to form barrier conduits. Which meant there were no guarantees when it came to the mirror spell.

Still, when Brandt took her hand, the contact brought a kick of anticipation.

“If the mirror pot doesn’t work this time, don’t be afraid to try the cards again,” Lucius put in.

When Strike shot him a “what the hell?” look, the human held up his hands. “Don’t hate the messenger. She said she needed a spell that involved a mirror, and ‘abracadabra’ or ‘et voila’ or whatever, I put paws on the spell she needed. That’s not a coincidence.”

“It was—” just a hunch, Patience started to say, but broke off because it had been more than that.

“Look at it this way,” Jade put in. “The magi have always adapted themselves, and their powers, to their local environment. When they lived in Egypt, they worshipped cats and crocodiles. With the Maya, it was maize and chocolate. The core beliefs were the same: The astrology, the pyramids, the sun worship, and the hieroglyphic writing, those pieces of the religion were all there. But the trappings changed. Maybe something similar is happening here.”

Brandt frowned. “So you’re thinking—what?—that the Mayan Oracle is a divination ritual that leaked to the human world somehow?”

“Actually, I’m thinking the reverse: that it’s a fully human invention that resonates with Nightkeeper power, or at least with Patience’s power.” Jade paused. “There were itza’at s in her bloodline, you know.”

Strike’s head came up; his eyes narrowed on Patience. “Really?”

Patience’s pulse tapped a quick, syncopated rhythm at the thought of being able to see into the future, but not change anything she saw. “I wouldn’t know. I’m not big on genealogy.”

In fact, she hadn’t learned more than the basics about her parents and bloodline. As far as she was concerned, Hannah was her mother, and Brandt and the boys were her family. It wasn’t that she resented her parents for dying, or anything complicated like that. She just didn’t feel much of a connection to the prior generation of Nightkeepers.

Or rather, she hadn’t until the day before. Now she realized that, without her even really being aware of it, she had been subconsciously digesting her interaction with the nahwal, replaying the message and that moment when she had seen a spark of life within the creature . . . and thinking about where— or who—it had come from. Her mother might be in the nahwal’s collective consciousness; her father definitely was. Her uncles, grandfather, great-grandfather . . . an entire patriarchal iguana lineage were represented within the creature. And, apparently, an itza’at or two.

Strike nodded slowly. “All right. Use the cards. But do what you did with the mirror spell, and get some sort of independent confirmation before acting on what they tell you.”

“They won’t ‘tell’ me anything,” she said with some asperity. “They’re just a tool, a way to—” She broke off as magic rippled along her skin and the background power sink that surrounded Skywatch decreased sharply and then kicked back up over the span of a heartbeat. “What was that?”

Brandt put himself between her and the front door. “Something just came through the wards.”

Moments later, a shrill alarm blatted three short blasts to warn that someone had keyed in the combo to get through the front gate of the compound. Which meant it was one of them.

Strike uncoiled from his stool, but nobody else moved. They all held their places as the front door swung open and Nate’s voice became audible, saying, “—fucking deadweight. Thought the pilot was going to shit himself when we showed up. Lucky for us he knows Jox, and will do just about anything for a bonus.”

Heavy footsteps sounded in the short hallway that ran past the dining room turned war chamber, and then the small group came into sight. Alexis led the way, schlepping a battered black duffel bag.

Behind her, Nate and Sven carried a folding stretcher between them. On it lay an unconscious man who was