was pretty sure he’d banged it on the side window when Dewey hit the slick patch and the car spun out. Or maybe he’d been whacked by one of the hockey sticks that were now floating around him, along with other bits of their gear. He shoved one of the sticks aside. Then he stared at it as inspiration worked its way through his spinning brain.
Hey, moron. Ever heard of leverage?
Almost sobbing now, he grabbed one of the sticks, jammed it against the opposite door handle, and pushed. The lock gave! His pulse pounded as he shoved against the inward press of the water. The door opened a few inches, letting in more water but offering a way out. He was so damned excited to see the exit that he forgot about the other problems.
He lunged across, got hung up on the belt, and screamed when his injured leg shifted and flesh tore.
“Fuck!”
Gods, it hurt. He grayed out for a few seconds, groaning.
As he started coming back, the world sharpening back into place around him, he heard Woody’s voice in his head. Don’t just react, the winikin had lectured time and again during Brandt’s fight training. For gods’ sake, think.
As if remembering the winikin ’s advice had thrown a switch inside him, the night got brighter, his vision clearer. He saw the bridge in the distance . . . and the splashing movement of someone swimming. Two someones. The others were okay!
“Joe!” he shouted. “Dewey!” But they didn’t react; he was too far away, the rushing water too loud.
Thinking now, he swung the hockey stick around, aiming it past the driver’s seat. His motions were slowed by the water and the beginnings of hypothermia, but the same lack of air bags that’d made the crash so gods-awful helped him now. He managed to jam the end of the stick on the column, and the horn blared.
The distant heads jerked around; faraway voices cried his name. He hit the horn a couple more times before a fat spark arced and the noise quit.
The Beemer’s back end was dropping faster than the front, thanks to the cinder blocks Dewey’s dad had loaded into the trunk for traction. The water lapped at Brandt’s throat, his chin. Touched his mouth.
“Brandt?” The shout was faint with distance.
“Here! I’m here!” Spurred by hope, he twisted, contorting yet again in an effort to reach the knife sheath that was strapped low on his good ankle. He had tried to get at it before and couldn’t reach.
This time, though, he got it. His hands shook as he slashed through the seat belt. He immediately floated up, then jolted against the tether of his lower legs.
He freed his good leg with a yank, but even that move brought a slash of agony from the other side.
And when he tried to pull on his torn-up leg, he spasmed and nearly passed out.
“Help! I’m stuck!” He shouted the words, but they came out garbled as the water closed in on him, filling his ears. He couldn’t hear Joe and Dewey anymore. He was pretty sure the car was all the way under, hoped to hell they’d be able to find him.
His consciousness flickered as he crowded up near the roof of the sinking car, tilting his head into the remaining air, which was leaking out in a string of silvery bubbles. On his next breath, he sucked water along with the air.
Don’t panic. But all he could think about was Woody’s stories of the barrier, the Nightkeepers, and the end-time war. The winikin had broken tradition by raising Brandt with full knowledge of his heritage even though they were in hiding, living as humans. But in all other ways, despite his easygoing nature, Wood was strictly traditional. He’d taught Brandt the old ways, and made him promise that he would keep himself fit and ready through the zero date, that he wouldn’t marry or have children before that time, and that he would keep the faith.
As the final string of silvery bubbles escaped, and panic chilled to grim desperation, Brandt’s mind locked on the last of Woody’s expectations. Faith, he thought. When all else failed, that was what it came down to, wasn’t it?
Tasting his own blood in the water he’d inhaled along with the last little bit of air, he searched for a prayer in the old language. When nothing seemed right, with grayness telescoping inward from the edges of his consciousness, he went with his heart, and said, “Gods. If you can hear this, please help me. I’ll give anything. I swear it.”
Then the grayness closed in. The cold took over. And—
The cold vanished, the car and the river disappeared, and Brandt found himself hanging weightless and immobile, completely deprived of all sensory input save for that created by his body: the pulsing whine of blood through his veins, the sensation of swallowing, the repetitive act of breathing.
His brain spun as he fought to shift gears.
As he did so, he was aware that this wasn’t the first time he’d made the transition, or the second.
More like the hundredth. Sick dread latched itself on to his soul as he realized all over again that the Triad spell had trapped him in his own private Groundhog Day. He was reliving that night over and over again, an endless loop in which he sank into a vision, became his teenage self and experienced the terror of that night, then switched back to his adult self, only then becoming cognizant of what was going on.
He didn’t know how long he’d been cycling, but he knew for damned sure that he had to get out of this fucking loop, and fast, because it wouldn’t be long before it started all over again.
This wasn’t part of the Triad spell. By now, he should be fighting to assimilate—or be assimilated by—his ancestors. Instead he was reliving the night he’d almost died in that river. At the thought, though, adrenaline kicked. A near-death experience formed a link to the gods. The Godkeeper ceremony involved near death by drowning. Maybe the Triad spell did too.
But he was already having an almost-dead-by-drowning experience within the vision. What more did he need to do in order to complete the spell?
He didn’t know.
And then it was too late, because the temperature dropped, chilling him to his bones.
For the last few seconds he was himself, he let his mind fill with a warm memory, that of Patience’s face aglow with happiness as they swapped marriage vows in front of a JP and half a dozen friends, needing nothing more than each other, really. Even though they had both lied about why their godparents—aka winikin—couldn’t be there, beginning the chain of small lies that had shaped the early, happy years of their marriage, the memory brought only a poignant ache.
No matter what had come after, that had been a good day. One of his best.
As the small peace dissolved, he closed his eyes and whispered into the blackness, “Sorry, sweetheart. I’m lost and I can’t figure out how to get back.”
Then the bottom fell out of his world, his soul lurched, and his consciousness regressed to that of a terrified, dying teen.
Skywatch Just past dawn, Patience jolted awake with her heart pounding and Brandt’s voice echoing in her mind.
“Hey,” she said, a smile blooming as she rolled toward him, having finally crashed in the bed, albeit clothed and atop the comforter. “You’re—” She broke off at the sight of his still form, the lack of animation in his angular features. “Not awake,” she finished, disappointment thudding through her as she saw that he looked the same as he had when she’d fallen asleep—his breathing too slow, his skin gray despite the IV taped at the crook of his elbow.
After recharging, she and the others had tried everything they could think of the night before, from a joint blood sacrifice to a one-sided attempt for her to call sex magic and awaken their jun tan
