Magic Unchained (30 page)

He didn’t need to look behind himself to know that the other dunes were more buildings set in an achingly familiar pattern. And even though he’d never fit in quite right at Skywatch, never been able to fall into lockstep with the others, his heart shuddered.

Gone. All of it… gone.

He could barely breathe as he flashed back to how it used to be, before things got serious and the fun stuff fell by the wayside. He saw bodies crowding and elbows bumping at the tables, the
winikin
-manned Weber grills set up off to one side, a bruising ball game working its way up and down the open area where the old Great Hall had been, and dappled shadows of sunlight coming down through the lush green leaves of the ceiba tree that marked the center of Skywatch, the heart of their tiny village.

He saw Patience and Brandt, who had taken him in after his old man died, making him feel as welcome as he ever had; he saw their twin sons, Harry and Braden, who had worshiped their Unc’ Rabbit and whom he still missed, even knowing they were safer in hiding. He saw Myrinne in the middle of the game, laughing as she fought Strike for possession of the tough rubber ball. He saw Leah, Anna, Sasha, Cara…

Gone.

“We lost the war,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “Or we’re going to lose it. Is that what you’re telling me?”

No. This is one possible future. It is what will be unless you wish it otherwise.
Her eyes kindled to a silver gleam
that had his heart thudding once more in his chest.
You are mankind’s best hope, Rabbie. The old shaman was right: You must become the crossover and persuade the Nightkeepers to turn away from the sky gods and support the
Banol Kax
in their fight.… Or else mankind’s champions will lose the war, and the world will become what you see around you
.

The crossover.
Gods.
He sucked in a breath, pulse bumping as the part of him that had been sliding to despair did an about-face and beelined for wary hope. But that hope had a problem of its own. “They won’t listen to me,” he said, hating the shame of the truth. If he’d been a different person, lived a different life, maybe the Nightkeepers would’ve paid more attention. As it was, he’d blown up so much shit over the years they wouldn’t—couldn’t—take him seriously when it came to something that went against everything they’d been raised to believe.

You must make them
.

“How?” He had tried. Gods knew he’d tried.

You’ll find a way
. She smiled, eyes softening through the silver gleam.
You’re my Rabbie. You found me… which means you can do anything
.

His chest went so tight he couldn’t breathe as his heart whispered that same silly lullaby he’d heard earlier, the one he almost remembered.
Rabbie and Tristan, sitting in a tree
… The song lightened the gloom within and without, making it seem as if the sun might break through the thick, choking clouds.

Swallowing hard, he said, “I want to see Tristan.” He hadn’t acknowledged the need even to himself, hadn’t realized how important it was to him until his question
was met with a telling silence and a dimming of her eyes, and his heart fucking fell to his toes. “Why not?”

It’s complicated, my sweet Rabbie.

“I need…”

You must be brave, baby. More important, you must work alone. Tristan can’t help you, and my powers are limited. And be warned: When you go up against the system, everyone you know will turn against you.

He shook his head. “Not Myrinne.” If anything, this would bring them closer together, because he would finally be doing what she’d been on him to try for months now. Longer.

Even her. Especially her
. The answer was immediate. Absolute.

No. Impossible. Rabbit’s brain seized and then radiated pain, like he’d just chewed his way through a half gallon of Rocky Road that’d been hanging out in liquid nitrogen. “Bullshit. That’s just bullshit.”

She is an agent of the enemy, and she’s using you.

His stomach hollowed out instantly. “You’re lying.”

She reached out to him, but was unable to touch.
I’m sorry, Rabbie. I’m so sorry to take this away from you
.

“You’re not. You can’t.” Hands balling into fists, he started to take a step toward her, then spun and stalked away a few paces and stood, staring out over the wreckage that had been the main mansion of Skywatch.

His mind flashed on the plaque that hung—had hung?—beside the front door, the one that showed the ceiba tree as the ancients had seen it, with its roots sunk deep in the underworld, its branches touching the sky, and its trunk supporting the earth plane and forming the heart of the village. Beneath it was—had been?—
engraved the motto of the modern Nightkeepers:
To protect, fight, and forgive
.

He had done all that, damn it. He had protected his teammates and by extension all of mankind; he had fought enemies on this plane, the in-between, and even in Xibalba itself. And he’d done his damnedest to forgive his old man for being a prick and a lousy father, and himself for making some pukingly bad decisions over the years. He’d protected, fought, forgiven. He’d done his best to be a good soldier, a good mage.

Yet still he got fucked?

Hot frustration raced through him. Why wasn’t it enough? Where was his balance, his good to even out the bad?

There is more bad to get through before you reach the good, Rabbie. Please believe me. Please trust me in this, if you trust me in nothing else. Your good times will come.

“When?” His voice broke on the word. He looked around at the familiar canyon, torn to shreds and filled with ash, and the grayness that stretched in all directions to meet the lifeless sky, and his righteous fury curdled at the knowledge that it would be like this in three months if he made the wrong decisions now.

Which meant he had to abso-fucking-lutely get it right. But Myrinne…
Gods
. “If it weren’t for her, I’d probably be dead already.” Before she came into his life, he’d been on the fast train to self-destructing. She’d made him grow up and be a man.

She saved you because she needed you
. A parade of images raced suddenly through his mind in rapid succession: Myrinne as he’d first seen her, peering cannily through racks of pseudovoodoo garbage in her foster mother’s tea shop in the French Quarter; her talking—
seducing—him into trying a Wiccan scrying ritual that had gone horribly wrong; and then the two of them together more recently, with her sharp, him frustrated.

“Fine, yeah, she pushes me. But only because she not only loves me, she believes in me. She thinks the same thing you do—that the old shaman was right about my being the key to the war. That’s why she nags.”

She pushes you where she wants you to go. She wants the power for herself, as did her mother before her
.

Feeling like he was clawing to keep his head above the surface of the things he refused to believe, he grated, “That witch wasn’t her mother.” Mistress Truth hadn’t even really been a witch, either. Just a shyster who’d happened to luck into a ceremonial knife that’d carried some major power. She had gotten herself killed for it too, trying to cut a deal with Iago. She was no mother to Myrinne, and hadn’t had any power in her own right.

Are you so sure of that?
his own mother asked softly. Then, before Rabbit could answer—if he’d even had an answer—she filled his mind with the thing he feared and dreaded more almost than the end-time itself… the dream.

He stood in a pool of blood, blank faced and holding a dripping knife, like something out of an episode of
CSI.
He imagined someone ordering,
“Cut to a flashback of the murder in three… two… one… mark.”
Then the camera pulled back, widening the frame to show a woman’s sprawled body, a flare of dark hair, a clever, witchy face with eyes fixed and staring. Then even farther back, to show a mansion in flames.

Myrinne was dead, Skywatch burning. And Rabbit was
just fucking standing there holding his father’s ceremonial dagger like he was ready to do it all over again.

He batted at the images, though he knew they were entirely inside his mind, inside
him
. “No, godsdamn it, I wouldn’t do that to her! I couldn’t. I love her!”

He’d first seen the vision during the scrying spell, when he’d foolishly asked how he and Myrinne could earn their
jun tan
mated marks. First, he’d heard his old man’s voice telling him to get rid of the hellmark that had connected him to Iago. Then he’d seen the knife. The blood. Her eyes.

Oh, gods.
Her eyes. He pressed his fists against his own closed lids, trying to force away the image, which was a memory yet not, because it hadn’t happened yet even though he’d seen it over and over again in his nightmares.

“Please don’t make me,” he whispered, not sure whether he was talking to his mother or the dream, which was too vivid and unchanging to be anything but prescience. For so long he had thought it was a warning from an ancestor or the gods themselves, a chance to change his course and not make a terrible mistake. But what if the gods weren’t warning him off at all? What if they were telling him what he was supposed to do?
Fuck
. Agony rolled over him, centering in the place where his heart had been only moments before. “I need her. I can’t do this alone.”

The crossover is one alone, not half of a pair.

He scrubbed his face and then leaned back, squeezing his eyes shut, too broken to give a shit that the move let loose a tear. “Don’t say that. Please… no. Don’t.” There was no anger in him now, though, no denial.

I’m sorry
.

He realized he’d wrapped his arms around himself like a fucking girl, which just drove home how much he’d gotten used to having someone holding on to him, telling him he was going to be okay. Not someone. Myrinne. She was his first, his one and only. His—

Betrayer
.

“Never.” But he was losing steam. “There’s got to be something else going on. I’ll talk to her,” he decided. “I’ll see—”

You cannot let on that you know. Better to watch her closely and discover her plan, her allies.

“I can…” But he couldn’t mind-bend her. At her request he’d installed a mental block that prevented him from getting inside her. He couldn’t remove it without her knowing what he’d done.

Why do you think she insisted? She couldn’t let you see inside, couldn’t let you know her true agenda. She was the one who called the creatures; she was the one who sent whispers into the
winikin
soldier’s mind, telling him he could become a mage if he killed one of his own. She wants to disrupt the Nightkeepers while she convinces you to seek the dark magic on her terms—those of the sky gods who control her—because then the magic will destroy you and the dark barrier together. And humanity will be left with this
. Her gesture encompassed the remains of Skywatch, which was the earth’s only real hope of surviving the end of days, even though mankind didn’t have a freaking clue.

“Stop. Jesus, please stop.” Desperation closed around him, making it seem as if the dim, ash-darkened skyline were drawing inward and making him want to claw his way out, screaming.

I will stop. I must. My time is up
. Her mental tone was suddenly thready and fading, as if she had moved past him and he was getting the tail end of the Doppler shift.
But remember this, sweet Rabbie. Your brother and I are watching over you even when you can’t see or feel us. Which means you’re not really alone.
The last was a soft whisper, almost inaudible.

Then she was gone, leaving him in the desolation.

And despite what she had said, he sure as shit felt alone.

The solitude echoed through him, around him, as he realized he could be the only person for miles, maybe even the only living creature. Was this, then, the way it was all going to end?
One possible future,
she had called it, and him the crossover. Mankind’s best hope.

Ever since the shaman had suggested the destiny, Rabbit had been wrestling with the utter fucktarded insecurity of being named the savior of mankind. But he didn’t know if he could do it without Myrinne. She was his cornerstone, supporting him, lifting him up, and making him believe that he could do so many more things than he had thought.

How could that be wrong?

“Rabbit.” His name—nickname?—was a thread of sound in the gray-on-gray world, coming in her voice as if he’d conjured her with his thoughts. When it came again, though, it was accompanied by a lurch of the world around him, like it—or he—had just been shaken. “Come on, Pyro. Time to wake up.”

Pyro
. That was a nickname he dug, one that reminded him not only of his first and best talent, but also their too-short time together at college, when he’d actually been popular, not just because he had a hot girlfriend,
but because he’d actually found things he was good at, and people who thought he was cool. He’d played the part of a normal guy there, and it hadn’t fit all that badly. More, it had given the two of them a secret to share, a little wink-wink-nudge-nudge when she called him “Pyro” and warned him not to burn anything down.

The game had been fun. It had been very
them,
and had given him a secret warmth to carry with him when they were apart.

That same warmth pulled him out of the vision now, drawing him back into his body so he could feel the heavy lassitude of his limbs, the quiet, drugging fatigue of having pulled lots of magic without carb loading. There was a mattress beneath him, blankets piled on top of him. And, when he opened his eyes, a dark angel looking down at him.

“You’re awake! When we found you in the john, we thought…
Gods
. I’m glad you’re back.” Relief flooded her eyes, and a wave of emotion slammed into him so hard and fast that it took his damn breath away before he’d even had a chance to catch it in the first place. With her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail and her face bare of makeup save for a touch of something dark at the corners of her eyes, and wearing one of his sweatshirts—so big that it fell off her shoulder at one side—she looked like the hottest coed ever, like the girl who had winked at him across the dining hall and called him Pyro.