toward the cave mouth, which was a huge, rounded opening the size of a highway underpass. Pulling her .38, Reese followed. And as she did, she told herself not to make the moment into something more than it really was. Which was nothing, really. Or at least nothing that could truly matter.
The air changed, the temperature decreasing with each step as they passed into the cave and descended the final short flight of stairs to where a wide observation platform overlooked the frozen lake. The night vision robbed her view of color, but it was still impressive. The frozen surface was roughly circular, edged with jumbles of rock and curving cavern walls that dripped with more ice, some of it in icicles, some as cascading waterfall formations.
That was all the same as it had been last night and the night before. Now, though, there was also a line of starscript glowing blue-white on the far wall, where the ice ended and the stone began.
Adrenaline kicked through her at the confirmation that they were in the right place at the right time. “Nice,” she whispered under her breath, feeling a beat of optimism.
Dez swung over the railing. “Come on, let’s take a closer look. Keep an eye on the door for me, though.”
“Hell of a door.” The cave mouth was a huge, gaping opening with multiple time-worn rock trails leading down. It would be far too easy for Keban to find a sheltered position up there and shoot down into the cave. Which is why I’m sticking close to the guy with the magic, Reese thought. She traded her .38 for the heavier firepower of the autopistol as they walk-slid across the frozen pool to the other side, then climbed over jumbled rocks to the starscript. Two outcroppings protruded slightly out into the pond; one was marked in blue-white starscript with half a man’s face, the other with half a screaming skull. Behind them on the wall, running roughly between them, was a squiggling, serpentine line.
Dez kicked at the ice between the two marked stones. “Doesn’t look any different than the rest of it.”
“The cave adds ice every year. Depending on when the artifact was hidden, it could be pretty far down.”
“Lucky for us, we’ve got—”
Without a buzz or hum of warning, the air cracked nearby and twenty men materialized in the center of the cave. Or not men, Reese saw even as she pivoted and brought up her autopistol, blood icing at the sight of glowing green eyes. “Makol!”
They wore long loincloths, quilted armor and feather-trimmed demon-faced masks, and they carried buzzswords—wooden staves edged with spinning black blades that could detach like throwing stars. Her heart seized on a crazed thought of Ohmigod they’re real, but then Dez shouted something and amped his shield to a blue-white latticework of energy, snapping her out of her shock.
She fired a panicked burst through the shield and a makol sprayed black blood and went down writhing. And for a second she froze, flashing back on another cavernous space, another gunned-down body lying twitching on the floor in a pool of blood.
“Reese!” Dez jerked her behind him and let rip with a blast of purple-white as their attackers spread out and rushed the shield, swords buzzing a high-pitched bee swarm of sound. The magic tore into the oncoming line, knocking back three of the makol, who went down twitching. “Reese! There’s too many of them. Make the call.”
She jerked from her paralysis and slapped her armband, but nothing happened. There was no little red light, no acknowledging beep. No reception, damn it. “We’re too deep underground! We need to get closer to the door!”
“Wait. Close your eyes.” Dez grabbed her, stripped off her goggles and got an arm around her, so her face was pressed into his chest and covered with the edge of his coat. Then electricity raced over her, through her, and the world went bright white as he unleashed a massive bolt of magic into the ice near their feet.
The blast was deafening. The ice heaved beneath them, cracking and tilting, and she clung to him without meaning to.
Then he let go of her, shoved the goggles into her hand, and snapped, “Get the mask and we’ll make a run for it.”
For a terrifying second, she was lost in a surreal world of pitch blackness lit only by luminous green eyes and his shield magic. Then she jammed the goggles into place and everything snapped back into focus: The makol had concentrated their efforts at one point on Dez’s shield and were trying to hack through with their swords. He stood opposite them, channeling lightning with one hand and firing an autopistol with the other, keeping them off balance and floundering. Bleeding.
“Move!” he bellowed.
Reese moved.
Spinning to where he had blasted away the ice and part of the rock near the starscript, she dove into the ragged chasm he had created. Her night vision was blurry at close range, but her fingers found a lumpy object wrapped in frozen cloth. She tried to pull it out, but the cloth tore and her fingers brushed a smooth, sleek, and intricately carved artifact. The mask! She fumbled, trying to get hold of it.
“Reese!” His voice cracked with the strain of holding the shield.
“Almost there.” Her fingers found an edge and the disk popped free. “Got it!” She lunged to his side, held it out. “Here.”
“Keep it.” He jammed the autopistol into his belt and grabbed her free arm. A tingle ran through her at his touch, a sign that his magic was running hot. He grated, “Close your eyes on three. One. Two. Now!”
She slammed her eyes shut as he let rip with a huge bolt of magic that cracked and crashed, and made her hair spark with static.
“Come on!” He dragged her to a stumbling run over the torn-up ice, tightening the shield spell around them.
She caught disjointed glimpses of makol bodies, ripped limbs, black blood.
“Don’t look,” he ordered roughly, pulling her to his side and trying to block the sight with his body. But she could still see the carnage, smell the blood.
When they reached the legs of the observation deck, he expanded his shield to include the wide platform, then offered her his cupped palms as a boost. “Come on.” He gestured. “Up. I’ll be right behind you.”
Numbly, clutching the mask under one elbow, she scrambled up, away from the ruined ice pond. Her thoughts raced, but she kept wondering what the tourists would think in the morning. There was no way the magi could set the ancient cave to rights. Pull it together, she told herself, and called in the Mayday as Dez hiked himself up onto the other end of the platform.
“We’re on our way,” a crackling voice—she wasn’t sure whose—acknowledged from the tiny transmitter.
She turned to Dez. “Did you—”
Without warning, a huge crack split the air inside his blue-white shield spell, and a man materialized on the platform between her and Dez.
Reese reeled back, heart lunging into her throat as her brain snapshotted the monstrous makol. He was as huge as any Nightkeeper and wore the same sort of black combat pants and boots, a weapons belt and long, carved knife. That was where the comparison stopped, though. He was bare-chested, wearing a ceremonial half robe of feather-worked crimson that was clasped at his throat and open everywhere else, revealing that his skin was ravaged, waxy, and runneled from shoulders to scalp. His features were lopsided and his eyes were the luminous green of the lesser makol, but with darker green pupils that burned with hatred.
Iago. Her mind supplied the name in the split second before Dez shouted, “Jump!”
She bit off a scream and flung herself backward off the platform as lightning magic cracked. But then unfamiliar shield magic whipped around her, burning her with greasy heat, catching her midair, and hoisting her back up. She kept hold of the mask but lost her autopistol, which went spinning over the edge. She heard it land with a crack as Iago’s dark magic dumped her back on the platform. Dez roared her name and lightning flared, turning the world blue-white. But it didn’t penetrate the dark shield that Iago had cast around him and Reese.
Mouth twisting, the Xibalban advanced on her, pulling a sickle-shaped stone knife as he came.
“No!” Rage and anguish roughened Dez’s voice, which was muffled by the greasy brown of the dark-magic shield.
She was trapped! Panic lashed but she went into survival mode, ducking beneath Iago’s knife swipe, and
