Final Prophecy 05 - Blood Spells (43 page)

He perceived the ghostly foundations of the ancient palaces, temples, and markets. More importantly, he saw where the causeways ran across the lake bed, two from the northern end of the island, one from the west, one from the south. The causeways had long been buried beneath the rubble that the Spanish had carted in to expand Mexico City beyond the island. But their structures were still there . . . and they were the only things holding Cabrakan in check.

The demon strained against them, drawn to the place where generations of terrible blood sacrifices had weakened the barrier enough for him to punch through during the solstice-eclipse, but held back by the four causeways, which had been built by the slave labor of captured Maya, and held the power of their sky gods.

The big earthquake two decades earlier had weakened the causeways, and the recent miniquakes had further crumbled their stone bases and compressed paving. One or two more good tremors, and the demon would be free.

Not on my watch,
Brandt thought fiercely. He bore down, pulling power from his ancestors, his teammates, and Patience—his wife, mate, and partner. His forebears had once built vast cities from stone and the images in their minds. Now their knowledge, along with the combined magic of his teammates, gave him the power to rebuild the roads that anchored the center of Mexico City.

A spell whispered in his mind, coming in a man’s voice that sounded oddly like flutes and drumbeats, and brought the icy chill of river water to touch his skin.

Brandt said the words aloud. And the world turned bloodred.

Power detonated. Fiery magic streamed out of him and blasted along where the four causeways had been, going from crimson to translucent as it passed the limits of the ruin. The ground heaved and shuddered, nearly pitching Brandt to his knees as Cabrakan fought back far below them.

The magic poured out, draining Brandt and making his head spin, but he kept going, pulling strength from the depths of his soul and beyond. And the causeways responded, beginning to realign into the form they had taken a thousand years ago. The changes were infinitesimal at first—a stone returning to alignment in one spot, a fracture sealing in another—but then the alterations mushroomed, gaining speed.

Brandt sensed Cabrakan’s rage against the magi who had killed his brother and now barred him from the earth. The dark lord slammed against the earth beneath Moctezuma’s palace, which had been at the center of the bloodshed and was now the weakest spot of all.

The ground yawed and threatened to shake apart. Something crashed down from above, but was deflected by shield magic.

“Thanks,” Brandt grated, not sure who had set the shield, but understanding that the others were protecting him so he could concentrate everything he had on locking stone against rubble, rubble against sand.

Although the original causeways had ended at the island’s shores, he continued inward, reinforcing Cabrakan’s prison all the way inward to the Templo Mayor, which was the central point where all four causeways intersected, and where slave-built temples had been soaked in blood.

There, wielding the magic of love and family, of past and present, Brandt joined the causeways together, stabilizing the ground beneath Mexico City and sealing the demon into Xibalba.

And then, spent, he let himself fall, knowing that Patience would catch him and bring him home.

One year, three hundred and sixty-four days

to the zero date

 

Woody’s funeral rites were planned for noon the day after the solstice-eclipse. His pyre was built at the edge of where the Nightkeepers’ Great Hall had stood before the massacre. Red-Boar had been sent to the gods from that spot, as had Sasha’s father. There had been zero discussion of setting up a second funerary site for the
winikin
even though the separation had been traditional in their parents’ generations.
Winikin
, Nightkeeper, human . . . they were all teammates, all equally worthy of the gods’ attention on their way to the sky.

Brandt, Patience, and Hannah did the bulk of the work on the pyre, with Harry and Braden alternately helping and getting in the way. To Patience, their perpetual motion and piping voices brought a sense of lightness, completion, and joy that she had so badly missed . . . and one she would yearn for when they left again.

But now, more than ever, they needed to stay hidden.

Iago’s injuries would heal, and when they did, he was going to be
pissed
. She didn’t want the boys anywhere within his reach. If she could have sent them to another planet, another plane, she would have. As it was, she was doing the next best thing: She was entrusting them once again to Hannah, and this time she wouldn’t go looking for them, no matter what. She would love them best by letting them go. Even if it killed her to do so.

“There.” Brandt stepped back, dusted off his hands, and stuck them in the front pockets of his jeans as he surveyed the work. Braden did the same, mimicking his father so they stood side by side, both with their hands in their jeans pockets and their shoulders slightly hunched beneath black T-shirts, staring at Woody’s pyre with matching frowns.

Patience’s heart turned over when Brandt glanced down, caught Braden’s fierce scowl, and laughed out loud. It was a rusty-sounding chuckle, one forced through his grief for Woody, and his sorrow at knowing the boys would be there for only a few more hours. But instead of shutting all that away, he caught her eyes and shared it: the laugh, the grief, and the sorrow.

“You guys are going to be okay,” Hannah said softly from behind her.

Patience turned to find the
winikin
sitting atop one of the nearby picnic tables, with Harry cross-legged on the picnic bench near her feet, watching his father and brother debate the placement of the three ceremonial sticks of ceiba, cacao, and rubber-tree wood.

Moving to sit on Harry’s other side, Patience propped her elbows on the table and nodded. “You know what? I think so.”

In another lifetime, when she’d been young and so caught up in being in love that she hadn’t remembered to be herself, she would have been adamant about it, would’ve made sweeping statements about love at first sight and forever. Now she was far more cautious. But at the same time, now she knew what it took to make love at first sight last forever . . . and she had a partner who knew he had to meet her halfway.

As if he’d caught a hint of her thoughts through their vibrant
jun tan
connection, he looked for her again, sent her a “hey, babe” smile . . . and went back to consulting with his junior contractor.

Seeing the exchange, Hannah nodded firmly. “I know so.”

Patience smiled, because she knew so too, and also because Harry gave them a disgusted look, muttered something about girl talk, and headed over to join the engineering debate.

“How about you?” Patience asked the
winikin
once Harry was out of earshot. “Are you going to be okay?”

They both knew she was really asking,
How upset are you over Woody? Did you lose a friend, a lover, or the one and only?

Hannah’s lips curved softly. Wearing a deep purple bandanna over her missing eye, along with a black, puffy-sleeved blouse, she looked particularly piratical, though Patience suspected she’d been trying to tone down her usual peacock hues to human-style mourning colors.

After a moment, the other woman said, “Woody and I worked together better as
winikin
than we did as lovers. We synced amazingly well when it came to raising the boys and making family decisions. In that regard, it was a perfect match. In the other”—she lifted a shoulder—“we kept each other warm sometimes, but he wasn’t my one and only and I wasn’t his, and that was okay with both of us.” Her eye drifted in the direction of the mansion. “I’m sad about Woody, and I’ll miss the heck out of him. He was a part of my life, and I’ll remember him until the gods call me up to the sky . . . but my heart isn’t broken.”

“Are you going to be okay working with Carlos?” It had been decided that the ex-wrangler would go with Hannah and the twins, in order to share the workload that came with raising a couple of bright, active boys, and—unstated but understood—to provide redundancy in case something happened to her. He had raised Sven and his own daughter, Cara, and had helped Nate through his rough transition into the Nightkeepers. He was a good choice.

But perhaps, Patience thought, not the absolute best choice.

“Carlos is a good man,” Hannah said. “A good
winikin
.” Which wasn’t really an answer. But before Patience could press her on it, the funeral procession emerged from the rear of the mansion and started heading in their direction.

Leah led the way, followed by most of the
winikin
. They carried the litter that bore Woody’s body, which had been intricately wrapped with cloth and tied into a mortuary bundle.

Hannah frowned. “Strike and Rabbit aren’t there.”

“Jox either,” Patience put in, though she suspected Hannah had noticed that first, then looked for Strike. She stood and started toward the procession. “Something’s up.”
Please, gods, not something bad.

But Leah sent her an “It’s okay. Stay where you are” wave, and when she got out to the pyre, she said, “Strike and Jox will be out in a minute. They said for us to set up without them, that they’d be here for noon.”

As the
winikin
carefully placed the mortuary bundle atop the pyre, though, Patience noticed that Leah kept glancing back toward the mansion. When Patience caught herself doing the same thing, she made herself stop it, and focus on the ceremony.

Brandt, who had moved up to stand beside her in the loose ring of Nightkeepers,
winikin
, and humans surrounding the pyre, whispered, “Woody wouldn’t mind. He’d be dying to—” He faltered, then swallowed and continued. “He’d want to know what’s going on too.”

“We’ll find out when the time’s right. This is for Woody.” More, it was a way for the rest of them to say good-bye.

As they waited, Patience kept close tabs on Harry and Braden. Although they were far more aware of death than the average human, they were still five-year-old boys who had lost the man who had stood in for their father over the past two years. So far they seemed okay; Harry was watching the funerary bundle intently, as if trying to convince himself that Woody was actually inside. Braden was off near the steps leading to the training hall, fencing against an invisible enemy with a leftover piece of wood, but he kept darting glances at Hannah, his parents, and the pyre, keeping his own tabs on the members of his family.

The adults hadn’t yet told the boys that they would be leaving after the funeral, but Patience suspected that on some level they knew. Hannah and Woody had always been very up front with them about why they couldn’t live at Skywatch with their parents, and although the boys seemed to have bounced back remarkably well from their brief captivity, the experience—and watching their parents fighting to save them—had made a major impression. Patience ached that she wouldn’t be there to talk them through the inevitable nightmares, and that they would all have to readjust to the separation. But the twins would have Hannah and Carlos. And each other.

Brandt took her hand, threaded their fingers together, and squeezed.
I’m here,
the gesture said.
I’m not going anywhere.

And she believed him.

Hearing footsteps, she turned to find Strike coming up the pathway alone. Aware that he was instantly the center of attention, he said without preamble, “Anna regained consciousness earlier this morning.” When an excited murmur started, he held up a hand. “Unfortunately, there seems to be . . . she’s . . .” He cleared his throat. “The doctors don’t know if the damage is permanent or if she’ll improve with time. She’s going to need time, rehab . . .” He trailed off, then said softly, “. . . prayers.”

Leah crossed to him and leaned her cheek against his arm, just above his
hunab ku
. “She’s a jaguar. She’s too stubborn to give up.”

He nodded. Voice strengthening with disgust, he said, “Her husband called to tell me he wanted to sign her over—those were the words he used, too, the fucktard—to me as her closest blood relative. He wants out.”

“Gods,” Brandt muttered. “He really is a dick.”

“Give him what he wants,” Lucius said flatly. His face was dull with anger and a disgust that mirrored Strike’s own. “He doesn’t want her. We do. It’s as simple as that.” Except they all knew that it wasn’t that simple, because she didn’t want them. Or she hadn’t before.

But Strike nodded. “That’s the plan. We’ll move her to a rehab facility in Albuquerque and go from there.”

“I want to see her,” Sasha said, voice thick with tears. “I might be able to help her now that she’s conscious.”

“I’ll take you after the funeral.” Strike paused, then looked over at Patience and Brandt, then beyond them to Hannah. “There’s something else.”

Patience’s stomach clenched. What else could there be?

“What?” It was Brandt who asked, his grip tightening on her hand.

“Mendez is also awake. From the looks of it, he came around at almost the exact same time as Anna.” He paused a moment to let the ripple of response die down. “Now, here’s the thing. . . . He seems to have come back with not only the Triad magic but with a whole new perspective on life. According to him, when his ancestors got a look inside his head and saw what his
winikin
taught him—most of which was lies and twisted versions of the truth—they kept him under long enough to straighten out some major misapprehensions. I’ve got Rabbit confirming his story right now, but if it’s true . . . well, let’s say it’d be a far better outcome than I was expecting.”

“What does that have to do with us?” Patience asked. Granted, it’d be huge to have Mendez work out, not just as a Nightkeeper, but as a second Triad mage. But that would impact the team in general, not her, Brandt, and Hannah.