rundown on the latest. Then she picked a chain hotel and used her alternate ID to rent two rooms. When the clerk asked if she wanted to pay the extra for early check-in, she was startled to realize that it was just shy of eleven a.m.
She hadn’t even been around Dez a full day yet.
Returning to the car, she woke him up far enough to get him to his room. He leaned heavily on the wall as she swiped his key card and held it out to him, keeping a copy for herself in case she needed to get into his room. Like if he went catatonic. When the door opened, he grabbed the two big bags of Wendy’s that she held out to him, and lurched through, saying over his shoulder, “Give me six hours before you even think of knocking.” The door thunked solidly in her face.
Not letting herself be offended, and hoping to hell that she had made the right call, she left him and got to work.
Normally when she was off on a job, she liked to work in the hotel lobby or a cafe or something, surrounded by people and activity. But since she needed to be able to talk magic, she hit the vending machine for a Diet Coke and locked herself in her room to set up her computer and get down to business. She shot off a text to Lucius: Wheels down. Hit me up as bulletins warrant.
He bounced back a return almost immediately: Consider yourself hit. Meet me on Webcam. Got something for you.
“Finally, some good news.” She hoped.
When the Webcam went live, it showed the stone walls of the library and the first few rows of racked artifacts. Moments later, Lucius crutched his way into the picture, looking as tired and strung out as she felt. He sat for a second, then shook his head as if orienting. “Okay. Okay, I’m here.”
Uh-oh. She was afraid to ask, but she had to know. “Is the team back?”
He focused on her, his expression going rueful. “They’re okay. Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. In fact, it was over before they got there—they walked into an empty village. Rabbit’s friend, Cheech, had lived there with three of his brothers, but now . . . there’s no sign of any of them. Poof. Sixty, seventy people. Men, women, kids . . . just gone.” He paused. “The team found Cheech’s cell at the edge of the village, in a pile with a bunch of other personal shit. There was a little girl there, dead. Eight, maybe nine years old.”
“Oh.” Reese pushed aside her soda as her stomach knotted on the image. “Poor Rabbit.” She hadn’t gotten to know the youngest of the magi all that well—he had been in and out during her stay at Skywatch and had a territorial girlfriend—but she had the impression of a fiery but hardworking guy who was well endowed with both magic and opinions. She’d liked him instantly, and hurt for him now.
“He and Myrinne stayed down there.”
“How is Jade taking it?”
“She’s . . .” He exhaled. “Pretty broken up. But she’ll deal. She’s a fighter.”
Which was different from being a warrior, she knew. Jade wore a tough outer shell, but was highly empathetic and lacked the emotional shields that came with the warrior?s talent. But she had Lucius, who supported her in a thousand quiet ways, tried to send her off as strong as she could possibly be, and then waited behind, cursing his too-human healing rate and hoping—praying—she would come back safe. He didn’t put that on her, though, just as he didn’t try to coddle her, overprotect her, or guilt her into staying home. He was a good man. A good mate.
Reese had found herself studying the two of them together, not because theirs was one of the two human-mage pairings at Skywatch, but because it was so different from her own experiences with the opposite sex. “She’s lucky to have you,” she said softly.
“We’re lucky to have each other.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I’ve got something for you. Several somethings, in fact. I spent last night tracking down info on the injection and the powder Keban had used on Dez previously. Once I had an idea of what was going on there, it wasn’t too hard to figure out the gas he was using today.”
Reese closed her eyes on a surge of relief. “Tell me Dez is going to be okay.”
Lucius nodded. “He’ll sleep it off on his own, but I found an antidote that will speed up the process and immunize him against future attacks.”
“Okay.” She breathed through a too-strong punch of relief. “Okay. That’s good.”
“I’ll shoot you the recipe in a minute—Natalie is transcribing it now. While we’re waiting on that, I’d like to tell you what I’ve found so far on these potions, see if you pick up on something I’ve missed.”
She gave him a “go ahead” finger wiggle. “Bring it on.” It wasn’t the first time one of the Nightkeepers had asked her to run through a pattern with them—they appreciated her special skills, especially given how much of their ancestral knowledge had been lost over the centuries.
“Well, the library came up dry, so I figured we must be dealing with bloodline-specific knowledge that Keban should’ve passed down to Dez, but didn’t. I read up on the serpents, trying to figure out if they had a hidden guardianship, like the way the star bloodline was responsible for protecting the library.” He shook his head. “If they did, they buried it well. But I found a reference that talked about how, around the turn of the first millennium, the members of the serpent bloodline left the Mayan Empire to establish a Nightkeeper presence among the native tribes to the north.”
Reese narrowed her eyes. “How far north?”
“This far.” Lucius tapped the stone table to indicate Skywatch. “They built the ruins later ascribed to the mysterious Chacoans and integrated into life up here. When the Conquistadors forced the other Nightkeepers out of the southern territories, the serpent bloodline helped them get resettled among their tribal allies. Hopi, mostly, though there were others.”
“Thus, all the serpent myths in this area.” It fit, Reese thought. It played. So why was she getting a low- grade itch that said there was more to the story?
Lucius nodded. “The Nightkeepers shared their technology with their allies, which would have made enemy tribes seriously jealous. That could account for the inconsistency of snake myths among the tribes of the Southwest, where they’re either messengers for the gods or deceitful spirits that bring death and disease.”
Reese nodded. “Okay. So how does that tie in with what Keban’s been doing?”
“The native tribes didn’t practice magic in the same sense that the Nightkeepers did, but they discovered certain plants and other materials could impact the magic, especially that of the serpents, who relied so heavily on the senses of smell and taste. The first formula Keban used, the liquid he injected into Dez the night of the storm, somehow kick-started his powers. So far I’m drawing a blank there, which may mean it’s something the magi and winikin of the serpent bloodline kept to themselves.”
“If it was part of the serpents’ initiation into the magic, we don’t need it.” Dez already had more than his share.
He nodded. “For the other two potions, I looked for tribes that had ‘bad snake’ myths, and came up with a dozen or so candidates. I think the powder was a general antimagic charm, probably something that Keban kept on hand in case he ran up against a Nightkeeper, regardless of bloodline. Then, once he realized Dez was trying to stop him from getting the artifacts, he cooked up something specific to members of the serpent bloodline. Assuming I’ve called it right, the formula is similar to the powder but has a few additional ingredients . . . one of which is the New Mexico ridge-nosed rattlesnake.”
His eyes gained a glint that upped her pulse. “I take it that’s a regulated species?”
“It’s endangered at the state level, threatened at the federal level, and tough to find at any level. I’ve already got Carter looking into possible sources. He’ll e-mail you a list as soon as he’s pulled it together.” A low murmur off camera had Lucius looking up and away, then grinning. “Thanks, Nat.” To Reese, he said, “Okay, the recipe for the antidote is headed for your in-box. It’s part of the Hopi snake dance ritual, minus the two weeks of preparation and the actual snake-handling part.”
Reese wrinkled her nose. “Glad to hear it.”
There was motion at the corner of the screen, and Natalie—who was one of the two recent additions to the winikin and a former hotshot archaeologist in the outside world—came into view. She was bubbly, driven, and in many ways the opposite of her mate, JT. They made it work, though, with her softening his hard edges, him pushing her out of her comfort zone.
And Reese really needed to stop analyzing relationships.
“I had Sasha confirm the instructions,” Natalie said into the Webcam, “but call if you get stuck.”
