Forcing his body to move, he lurched for the altar. “Give me the knife!”
Patience tossed it and he caught it on the fly. The second his fingers closed around the hilt, the dark magic that had been used to baptize the blade rose up within him, giving Werigo the upper hand.
Seeing the light of the gods inside Patience and recognizing the power her sacrifice would generate, the makol wrested control of their shared body away from Brandt and reached for her.
Panic slashed through Brandt. Using that fear, he managed to regain enough control to shout, “Kill me. Do it now !”
Her eyes flashed. “No way. I just found you.”
She closed the distance between them, dodged Werigo’s knife slash, and grabbed Brandt’s wrist in a numbing, twisting grip. The knife clattered to the floor as she kissed him, grabbed his bloodstained hand in hers, and connected them, blood to blood.
Brandt howled in his soul when he felt part of Werigo leave him and enter Patience through the kiss, felt the makol gather his magic and inwardly begin a spell that would kill the two Nightkeepers and use the sacrifice to reanimate the dead man as another makol . Brandt struggled to pull Werigo back but couldn’t, fought to push Patience away, but she held on to him, not letting him end the kiss.
Against his mouth, she whispered, “Please, gods.”
Without warning, power jolted into him, through him, in a screaming rainbow that flayed his soul raw in an instant, leaving him bare.
He sensed the gods within Patience, and knew they were saving her because she deserved it, and were saving him solely because he and Patience were connected. Collateral salvation instead of collateral damage.
His inner right forearm burned at the spot where the magi had worn their bloodline marks.
Then the makol howled as the gods tore it out of Patience and aimed its essence toward a rainbow funnel cloud that spun midair above the blood-spattered altar.
Werigo’s old, angry soul dug claws into Brandt’s consciousness, tearing deep furrows in his psyche.
The gods might be saving Brandt, but they sure as shit weren’t protecting him from the fallout.
Patience was trying to, though; she held him tighter, kissed him harder, sharing her blood, her strength, and the grace of her gods.
Brandt howled and fought to free himself from Werigo. Triumph flared when he felt the makol ’s grip give and sensed the bastard’s realization that he was going to be trapped once again behind the barrier. But he also felt Werigo’s determination not to let them escape with the knowledge that the barrier was friable within this sacred spot, which had access points for both light and dark magic, or that the Order of Xibalba was real, not just a bedtime story used to frighten Nightkeeper children.
Before Brandt could block the move, if he had even known how, Werigo reached through the connection of blood and sex magic that bound him and Patience together. The demon soul locked on to both of their consciousnesses as dark magic rattled harshly.
Brandt shouted curses as oily brown power clouded his mind, blocking off memory after memory, and doing the same to Patience.
He saw the images parade past in reverse: him and Patience creeping through the tunnel; them intertwined in the aftermath of lovemaking; his elation at finding her on the beach; the first moment he saw her. Then Werigo went back further still, to another time, another encounter with the gods.
Brandt howled, tried to fight it, but he didn’t know what to do with the magic, didn’t know how to defend himself as his past was torn away from him.
Then Werigo was gone. But so were the memories.
“No!” Brandt croaked the word aloud, surprised to realize that he could speak, that he was back in control of his own body again. Deep in his bones, he felt it the moment that the equinox faded and the barrier solidified.
The air above the altar went still. Silence filled the chamber. And the magic snapped out of existence, leaving him utterly empty.
He sagged against the altar, retching against the awful, sickening spin of his head. Patience lay unmoving on the floor, but a fumbling vitals check reassured him that she was breathing, her heartbeat steady. Gray fog clouded his vision, his thoughts; it was all he could do to light her torch using one of the wall sconces. He wanted to pass the hell out, but he didn’t dare. His gut told him that their exit wouldn’t be open much longer.
He had to get them out of there.
Dizzy but determined, he picked her up, staggered out of the chamber, and started back up the tunnel.
With each step he took, the gray fog got thicker, obscuring his memories of the—what was it again?
“Doesn’t matter,” he rasped through a thick-feeling throat. Channeling Woody, he said, “Focus on your priorities.” Knowing he was losing it, that he wasn’t far from shutting down entirely, he fixed a single priority in his mind: I’ve got to get us both back to the hotel.
He repeated that over and over again as he carried her through the tunnel. By the time he reached the lagoon cave and dropped the burned-out torch at the edge of the water, he didn’t know how he’d gotten there, didn’t know the name of the woman in his arms or why they were both wearing ripped, dirty clothing that stank of blood. Instinct had him washing away the worst of the gore in the lagoon before he carried her back up the stairs and out of the pyramid, which looked solid once again when he turned back, looking for . . . what?
He couldn’t remember. He just knew that they couldn’t stay in the park after dark, so he followed the path out the back way, and trudged up the beach, past a scattering of motionless partyers who had passed out after the fireworks.
When he hit the street and a couple of guys loped up to make sure they were okay, gut instinct had him playing “still drunk from last night.” He wobbled and slurred, “I’ve got to get us both back to the hotel.”
One of the guys—red-eyed and hovering on the borderline between last night’s drunk and tomorrow’s hangover himself—offered to help.
By the time Brandt and the blonde were up in his room, and he’d thanked the Samaritan with a twenty to buy himself a few rounds, he was barely conscious. It was all he could do to strip them both, crawl into bed beside her, and fall the hell asleep.
If he was lucky, everything would make sense when he woke up.
