Blood Spells

Obeying without stopping to look or think, Rabbit flung himself to the side, rolled, and came up with an autopistol in one hand, his knife in the other. He spun back at the sound of Myrinne firing and screaming, not in pain, but in anger.

She was unloading her clips at Iago, who was bearing down on him with gruesome fury. The Xibalban had regenerated to the point of having eyes, nose, and mouth, but his flesh was waxy and fire-ravaged, and his luminous green eyes were bright with rage.

Myrinne’s bullets stopped short of him and pinged to the ground, the jade tips deadened by the ajaw-makol ’s powerful shield magic. Strike launched a fireball and Michael followed with a thin stream of muk, but both bounced. The others were trying to get through to help, but the makol fought fiercely and with purpose: They were gradually bunching the Nightkeepers up against the altar, away from the doorways, trapping them together In the split second it took Rabbit to see and react, Iago slammed a layer of dark shield magic around the two of them, shutting them off from the others.

Howling with rage and desperation, Rabbit buried his old man’s knife in Iago’s armpit, where the body armor provided thin entry. The knife came out slick with blood and Iago hunched, snarling. But he didn’t back down, didn’t slow down. He grabbed Rabbit’s knife hand by the wrist and bore it back, twisting hard.

Wrenching agony flared, first in his arm and then in his head, as the touch link allowed Iago to override the protection of the jade circlet.

Little fucker, the Xibalban hissed inside Rabbit’s skull. Hope you enjoyed sneaking in here, because that’s the last trick you’ll ever play on me.

Agony flared from the place where Iago gripped his wrist, his blood-wet palm centered over the hellmark. Rabbit shrieked and bowed as something tore inside him, not muscle, flesh, or skin, but on the level of his consciousness, his magic, his very soul.

The Xibalban’s waxy, burn-ravaged lips pulled back from heat-cracked teeth and his eyes changed, going from featureless luminosity to a hint of irises and pupils, all in glowing green.

In them, Rabbit saw Iago. He saw the god-king Moctezuma. And he saw his own death.

Then, past Iago’s shoulder, through the greasy swirl of dark shield magic, he saw Myrinne. She had her hands pressed to the shield, though he knew it must be burning her with acid and electricity. Her face was etched with pain, and her lips shaped his name.

The sight brought a spurt of power from the deepest depths of him, one that flared hard and hot and whispered: Kaak. Fire.

It was his first talent, his best talent, the one that had come to him even before he’d earned his bloodline mark.

Wrenching his mind free, he shouted, “Kaak!”

Flames erupted from his wrist, searing Iago’s hand and climbing his arm. The Xibalban jerked in astonishment. He recovered almost immediately, but it was just enough for Rabbit to push himself upstream along the agony into the other man’s mind. Iago roared and grabbed onto his consciousness in the same hurtful grip he was using in the physical world. Gotcha, you little shit!

But on a far more basic level, Rabbit had him. Because while Iago was focused inward, Rabbit was busy disabling the Xibalban’s shield spell.

For a split second, he saw through both his own eyes and Iago’s, bringing a double-vision view of Myrinne’s fierce relief as the shield went down, then her mad battle fury as she brought up her autopistol and unloaded the clip into Iago’s face.

Rabbit screamed as pain slashed through him, coming from Iago’s new injuries and the severing of their mind-link as the makol was flung away from him, breaking the touch link. Then the circlet’s protection snapped back into place, cutting off the mental connection and slamming the air locks shut.

But a piece of him tore loose from his mind and went with Iago.

“No.” He crumpled to the ground. “No!” He didn’t know what Iago had taken, didn’t know how bad the damage was; he knew only that he was damaged.

“Rabbit!” Myrinne dropped down beside him. She touched his face; her hands came away slick and red. He tasted blood, felt it prickling in his sinuses, suspected it was mixed with his tears. His head pounded; magic spasmed wildly through him, formless and hurting. Gods, what had Iago done to him?

“I’m—” Okay, he started to say, but even that one word was too much for him, sending his system spinning. Panic licked at him; if he passed out, Myrinne would be unprotected. She would be —

“I’ve got you,” she whispered, leaning over him. Her expression was bare of the sardonic reserve that usually left him guessing at her true feelings; instead he saw her fear for him, her growing determination.

“I won’t let you down.”

His senses fluctuated strangely, expanding and narrowed. He heard the Nightkeepers’ shouts, the sounds of battle, and knew that the fight wasn’t over yet. Far from it.

“Help them,” he whispered. “We can’t let Iago win.”

Or he thought he said it aloud; he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that as the gray closed in, his senses narrowed to a point, so all he saw was his own forearm, blood-smeared and blistered.

Shock hammered through him, sending him the rest of the way into unconsciousness.

His hellmark had gone from red to black. Iago had broken their bond.

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Brandt!” Woody bellowed over the chatter of jade-tipped ammo. “The tunnel!”

“I see him,” Brandt grated, agony slashing through him as Iago’s shambling form disappeared through the far doorway. He roared and unloaded a volley of fireballs into the makol lines, but they barely made a dent, just as they had done every other time he’d tried to break through and follow Patience up the tunnel.

The green-eyed bastards had the Nightkeepers pushed back to the altar and trapped against the wall.

Rabbit and Myrinne were outside the makol line, but Rabbit was down, with Myrinne bent over him.

Michael’s death magic was shot and the other magi were sagging, their united shield magic flickering in and out.

They were fucking trapped. And Iago was headed for Patience and the boys. Brandt had sent her up there, and then he hadn’t protected her six like he’d promised. And he was getting only static through his earpiece. Please be okay.

“I’ve got to get through!” he shouted to the others. “I have to—” Suddenly, unexpected gunfire erupted from behind the makol, and the two creatures closest to Woody and Brandt went down in a bloody spray. Behind them, Myrinne was firing two-handed, blasting a hole in the line. “Go,” she shouted. “Run!”

“Come on!” Brandt dragged his winikin through the gap.

The makol reacted quickly, spinning and firing point-blank. Strange, fiery orange shield magic flared to life and blocked the first attack, but then died off just as quickly as it had appeared. Out of the corner of her eye, Patience saw Rabbit slump back and lose his brief grip on consciousness.

But his shield had provided the distraction the other Nightkeepers had needed. They unleashed a deadly hail of magic and bullets, working to drive the makol away from Myrinne and Rabbit and bring the two into the Nightkeepers’ faltering sphere of protection.

Strike bellowed, “Go. We’ll be right behind you!”

Brandt bolted through the light-magic doorway and into the tunnel beyond, with Wood at his heels.

Darkness swallowed them, but there was faint torchlight up ahead.