CHAPTER TWENTY
June 18
Two years, six months, and three days until the zero date
Skywatch
Two years, six months, and three days until the zero date
Skywatch
Jade awoke groggy;
for a few moments, she stared at the ceiling of her suite, seeing a
gauzy white canopy that wasn’t there.
As she dragged her
ass out of bed and into the shower, she ached, not physically, but
mentally and spiritually. There had been too many highs and lows
lately; she just wanted a few hours of peace, maybe with a mindless
project that would occupy her brain just enough that she wouldn’t
have to think about the five dead strangers, or the fact that she
would’ve sworn on her soul that she and Lucius had been simpatico
when they’d made love in the cabin. That had been lovemaking, damn
it, not fuck-buddy sex. Only his magic hadn’t kicked in. Which
meant the emotions hadn’t been there for him—or at least, not the
way they were for her.
Worse, she was
becoming the thing she feared, falling prey to the pattern she
despised. As she made herself coffee, she was practically counting
the hours until the Jeep rolled in, even though she wasn’t sure
where things stood between them now; wasn’t sure where she wanted
them to stand.
“Gah!” She threw up
her hands, unable to stand herself. “Go . . . do
something.”
If it hadn’t been
three days until the solstice, with the whole of Skywatch locked in
a state of tense expectation, waiting for something to break with
regard to Kinich Ahau, she might have headed out to the greenhouse.
The gardens were mostly Jox and Sasha’s territory, with Michael’s
winikin, Tomas, doing the lion’s share
of the manual labor—because, he said, it kept him too tired to bust
Michael’s chops nearly as much as he used to. But even so, Jade
occasionally stopped in for an hour or so of dirt work, which she’d
always considered damn good therapy.
Under the
circumstances, though, hitting the greenhouse would’ve seemed
self-indulgent. Considering that just yesterday—gods, it seemed
like forever ago—she’d finally called the scribe’s magic on
command, she figured she was duty-bound to hit the Idiot’s Guide again and see what she could do with
some of the other spells.
To her surprise, she
found Patience in the temporary archive, frowning at one of the
computer workstations, which the winikin had moved into the room while the reno
crews worked on repairing the archive.
Pushing aside an
inner stab of frustration that she’d done more damage to Skywatch
than to the enemy so far, Jade dredged up a smile. “Can I help you
with something?”
The power button is the big one with the circle on
it, she thought with uncharacteristic bitchiness. But then
again, she and Patience weren’t exactly tight. Even though Jade had
given her a number of tips on beating depression in the weeks and
months after the twins had been sent away, the other woman had
ducked hard whenever Jade needed help with data entry or any of the
other grunt tasks the archive occasionally required. Jade had let
Patience get away with the mommy excuse while it was relevant, and
the depression excuse after that, but Jade didn’t think she was the
only one losing patience with the pretty blonde.
Patience looked up
from the computer—which was already powered up, so at least she’d
gotten that far—and smiled so warmly that Jade promptly felt like a
bitch. “Yes, thanks. I’m looking for the ongoing file. Strike asked
me to update it with a rundown of the Egypt trip, for good or
bad.”
“Sure. That’s no
problem.” Unusual, yes, but not a problem. Jade clicked her way
through a couple of levels of the computer desktop and pulled up
the metafile that was part of Strike’s efforts to ensure that the
current Nightkeepers’ experiences would be transmitted to
subsequent generations—assuming that, gods willing, there
were future generations—far more
smoothly than had been done previously.
Given that the
Nightkeepers had found themselves fighting a rearguard action
against things they quite often should have known about, but
didn’t, the king had made a point of asking each of the magi,
winikin, and humans in residence to
chronicle his or her experiences, thought processes, strategies,
and action plans as they went along. In theory that sounded great.
In practice, Jade often found herself transcribing the quick
vignettes that the warriors tossed off to her in passing, or
patching together fragmentary e- mail missives from off-site ops.
Less frequently, the others would write their own stories longhand
for her to transcribe. The others almost never came to the archive
to type into the raw file . . . as in, she could manually count the
number of times that had happened without using her
toes.
More, Jade realized
as she ran through those few incidents in her head, each of those
times had been less about the mage in question wanting some
hands-on writing time, and more about their wanting to hide out in
the archive, needing some productive- feeling peace. A glance over
at Patience suggested that was the case here, as well. The other
woman’s face was etched with stress and fatigue, and she toyed with
the hilt of the ceremonial dagger she wore on her
belt.
I can relate, Jade thought sourly. She pushed back
from the computer. “You’re good to go.”
“Thanks.” Patience
got to work; within moments, her fingers were flying across the
keyboard with a clatter that sounded like machine-gun
fire.
Breathing past the
adrenaline kick brought by the comparison, Jade snagged the
Idiot’s Guide and carried it over to
the other workstation. She found herself sneaking looks over at
Patience, though. It was strange seeing her at the computer, even
stranger that she didn’t look out of place. The image jarred Jade’s
perception of her teammates and the way they fit together . . . or
didn’t, as the case might be.
“Go ahead, say it.”
Patience stopped typing and glanced over at her, eyes lit with
faint challenge.
Caught out, Jade fell
back on counselor mode. “What is it you think I want to
say?”
“That I should get
over myself, stop whining about being separated from my boys, make
up with my husband, and do whatever else I possibly can to
strengthen the Nightkeepers and make sure Harry and Braden have a
world to live in—and lives to lead—in 2013.” Patience lifted her
chin, blue eyes defiant, yet wary.
Jade grinned,
comforted to find that she wasn’t the only one having a pissy
morning. “Honestly? I was thinking that you type way faster than I
would’ve expected. What was that, seventy words a minute? Closer to
eighty?”
Patience just stared
at her for a second. Then she burst out laughing, though the
laughter carried an edge. “Why? Because I come off more like a
fluffy ex-cheerleader than anything? Are you wondering if I took
touch typing as part of an admin course?”
“Is that how you
think other people see you?” The question came from both parts of
Jade; the therapist framed it, but the woman saw the pain and
wanted the answer.
“Don’t
you?”
Questions and more
questions, classic defensive-ness. This isn’t
therapy. Patience was a teammate, though perhaps not a close
friend. The two women were acquaintances at best, not just because
of Patience’s lack of interest in academics, but also because she
had come to Skywatch with her life already fully formed. She and
Brandt had both known all along that they were the Nightkeepers of
legend, that they might one day be called upon to serve. Granted,
they hadn’t told each other about their true natures, leading to a
hell of a surprise when they’d arrived separately at Skywatch, but
still, they seemed to have gotten past that, seemed to have made a
family unit within the Nightkeepers. Or was that only the surface
of things? Jade wondered suddenly. She’d known there was trouble in
the relationship, but had thought it was strong enough to withstand
the bumps. What if she’d been wrong?
“I can’t say the word
‘cheerleader’ has ever come to mind,” she answered. “I see you as a
woman who was a warrior even before she came here. You started your
own dojo and made it a success, even as a young mother, which means
you’re focused and driven, and you’ve got good business sense.” She
turned her palms upward. “I don’t know why the typing was a
surprise, except that you’ve always been so much more focused on
the physical than I am. You spend most of your day in the gym, on
the range, in the training hall . . . so maybe I pegged you as a
girl jock, and not someone who would keep her touch typing up to
speed.”
A slow, almost shy
smile had crept onto Patience’s face as Jade was speaking. Now the
blonde stretched her long, elegant fingers and looked at them. Nine
nails were shaped and painted a pale, pearlescent pink. One, the
left pinkie, was snapped off near the quick, leaving a ragged edge.
“Typing’s physical . . . it’s really just hand-eye coordination,
after all. In fact, it’s almost a sport.” She paused. “But thanks
for seeing me as capable. Sometimes I forget that I used to be that
person. Here . . .” She looked around the plain auxiliary room,
though Jade suspected she was seeing all of Skywatch and the
responsibilities it symbolized. “Here, I feel like a misfit cog in
the calendar wheel. I’m a day that’s just slightly out of step. A
week with too many hours in it, or too few.”
“I think we’ve all
felt that way, some more than others.” Jade lifted a shoulder. “We
just lose track that we’re not the only ones feeling
it.”
Patience glanced at
the computer screen, though Jade wasn’t sure what she saw there.
“It just sucks, you know? There are enough of us here that it
shouldn’t feel like we’re all alone.”
“Welcome to my
world,” Jade said emphatically.
Patience frowned.
“But I thought you and Lucius—”
“Are having sex.
Great sex, mind you, but that’s it.”
“Don’t knock it,” the
blonde said dryly. “Sometimes the love part really
stinks.”
“There’s a song in
there somewhere.”
“Very
funny.”
After that surprising
exchange, the women fell companionably silent. As Patience once
again started her rapid-fire typing, Jade steeled herself, closed
her eyes, and thought back to the night before—not the attack, but
the lovemaking. She tried to remember only her own thoughts and
feelings, but instead found herself locked on the look in Lucius’s
eyes as he’d taken her, possessed her, branded her. Her skin heated
as the magic came; her body tightened and throbbed as she
remembered his hands on her, his mouth, his fingers—
Jerking herself out
of the memory, she opened her eyes. But instead of the spell book,
she found her attention drawn inexorably to the man who was
standing in the doorway as he had the night before, leaning on the
door frame, watching her.
“Lucius!” she
exclaimed, hoping he didn’t see from her face how open she was to
him at that moment, how much her senses lit at the sight of him,
and how much she wished they were alone.
Patience’s head
snapped up. “Oh!” She did something with the mouse, then very
deliberately looked back at the screen and started typing again.
“Just pretend I’m not here. Or tell me to get lost if you need
to.”
“You’re fine,” Jade
said, but her attention was locked on Lucius. “I’m not sure I can
say the same about you,” she told him. “What happened?” He looked
tired and run-down, and although his hair was slightly damp and he
was wearing clean clothes, he smelled inexplicably of wood
smoke.
“Rabbit sterilized
the scene,” he said when she wrinkled her nose. He held out his
hand to her. “Let’s take a walk. I need your help with
something.”
“Is that a
euphemism?” Patience asked without looking up.
Lucius grinned. “I
thought we were pretending you had turned yourself
invisible.”
Her head came up and
she glanced speculatively at him. “Given that she would be able to
see me but you wouldn’t, that thought has potential. Weird
potential, granted, but potential nonetheless.”
Jade snorted. “Glad
to see you’re feeling better.”
“I haven’t been
feeling good for way too long,” the blonde answered bluntly. “I’ve
decided it’s time for me to get over myself.”
“Fair enough.” Jade
set aside the Idiot’s Guide, let the
magic dissipate, and stood. To Patience, she said, “After the
solstice, you, Sasha, and I should have a chick date.”
A shadow crossed the
younger woman’s face. Jade was familiar with the look, having seen
it plenty in her practice. It was one part excitement at the
thought of making plans, one part, Oh, no, I
couldn’t; I need to spend time with my
child/boyfriend/husband, and one part dismay at realizing
that number two wasn’t true anymore, whether because of a divorce,
a breakup, or a death. Patience rallied quickly, though with a
smile nowhere near the wattage of the others. “I’d like
that.”
To Lucius, Jade said,
“A walk, huh? Anywhere in particular?”
“Humor me. I have an
idea.”
Jade and Lucius left
hand in hand. Patience watched them go and felt a twist of envy,
not just for the great sex they were apparently having, but for the
uncertainty and excitement of a new relationship. New love was
supposed to be simultaneously wonderful and awful; that was okay.
If it was tearing you up inside, you were doing it right. When that
sort of thing started happening for the first time at year six . .
. that was a different story.
“Just get through
this and you’ll be fine,” she told herself for the hundredth time.
After checking to make sure nobody else was coming to hang in the
book room—since when was the archive party central?—she returned to
the computer and the two files she had open.
She saved and closed
the first one, a quick rundown of her and Brandt’s trip to Egypt
that she’d named “Camel butter, Cairo, and nothing new on the
pharaoh.” That left the one she’d really been after, a doc Strike
had entitled simply “Finding Mendez.”
Patience had been
afraid to read it openly with Jade in the room, because she knew
that pretending interest in recent history wasn’t going to fly with
the archivist. So she’d waited the other woman out—and had enjoyed
the process far more than she had expected to.
Now, though, she
focused on her objective, skimming through the story of how, as a
new-made king, Strike had gone personally to collect two of the
hold-outs who hadn’t answered the messages informing them of their
true Nightkeeper natures and calling them to Skywatch. The first
had been Nate, who had initially resisted, but had eventually come
around. The second had been Snake Mendez, and that was where things
had gotten complicated. Strike had walked into the middle of the
mage’s apprehension on an outstanding warrant for several
all-too-human crimes. Raised by a less than sane winikin, Mendez had found the magic on his own, and
potentially had access to one of the lost spell books. He also had
an impressive list of arrests. Amid the chaos of trying to
re-create the Nightkeepers out of a dozen human-raised magi, Strike
had decided to let Mendez stay in jail rather than orchestrating
anything.
But Patience wasn’t
interested in Mendez; she wanted the person who’d taken him down.
The address she’d stolen off Strike’s laptop had been six months
too old. A call to their landlord had revealed that Woody, Hannah,
and the boys had moved on. Patience couldn’t ask Carter to look
into it; he was the king’s PI. Nor was she interested in picking
someone out of a phone book. She wanted the best.
Halfway down the
screen, Patience’s eyes locked on the name Reese Montana.
“Bingo.”
Who better than a
bounty hunter to find a couple of winikin who were doing their blood-bound best to
stay lost?
Lucius elected to
walk himself and Jade out to the back of the box canyon on the
theory that, one, he was sick of the Jeep, two, they could return
for wheels later if necessary, and three, he didn’t want to make a
big deal out of the expedition, in case his hunch didn’t pan out.
So they walked hand in hand along the canyon floor, breathing the
strangely humid air and passing ragged clumps of the algaelike
plants that were growing throughout the canyon now. They didn’t
talk about the plants, though, or the way the dim sunlight made the
humidity feel ten times stickier than it might have otherwise. In
fact, they didn’t talk at all, which he thought was probably best,
because he couldn’t think about much of anything other than what he
hoped they were about to find . . . and how much he dreaded finding
it. But at the same time, he was aware of walking in sync with her,
breathing in sync with her. She was someone he could share silence
with.
When they reached the
back wall of the canyon, Jade started automatically for the shallow
staircase leading up to the pueblo ruins.
Lucius tugged her
back. “Wait. Not up there.”
She turned back. “No?
Where are we going, then, and what do you need my help with? I’m
assuming that wasn’t, as Patience suggested, a
euphemism.”
“I need your
magic.”
Her brows snapped
together. “Okay, that’s not what I expected you to say to me.” She
paused. “For that matter, it’s the first time anyone has said that to me.” But she was intrigued.
“Go on. What are you—or rather, what am I looking for? Are you thinking buried
treasure?”
“Not exactly.” He
turned her so she was looking off at an angle. “See that curvy rock
over there, the one that makes sort of an ‘S’ shape? And see how
next to it there’s a round hole that looks man-made?”
“I see them. What do
you want me to do?”
“I need you to look
for energy patterns, the way you did in Rabbit’s apartment. Do you
need a boost?”
“Nope, I’ve got it
covered.” That shouldn’t have irritated him, but it did. Beneath
the irritation, though, his worry persisted as she took a couple of
calming breaths and faced the rock formation he’d seen in his
mind’s eye as the burning inn had receded in the
distance.
Was there a better
way to do this? He’d thought to have her look for a hidden door
first, then—
“I see it,” she
said.
He exhaled in a rush.
“Okay. I have to warn you, though—”
“It’s a spell I’m not
familiar with,” she interrupted. “I think it might be like the one
that the ancients used to hide the First Father’s tomb, not just a
visual illusion but a physical one as well. Michael said that one
was very old magic, but he figured out how to turn it off and on.
Let me see if I can remember the spell he used. It didn’t work for
me back then, but it might now.” She headed toward the
spot.
He snagged her arm,
shaking it. “Jade! Wait up and listen
for a second. This is important.”
She looked up at him;
her eyes were sleepy and blurred, and very, very sexy. She blinked
at him, her eyes clearing with a final whole-body shudder. “Whoa.”
She rubbed her face with both hands. “I went deep under the magic
there.” She shook her head, seeming more like herself once again.
“Okay. What’s up? Are you expecting there to be booby traps behind
that fake wall?”
“Gods, I hadn’t even
thought of that. Maybe doing this on the sly wasn’t the best
idea.”
Her eyes sharpened.
“Why are we out here by ourselves? If
you’ve figured out something, then you should—” She broke off, her
color draining as her eyes locked onto the rock formation he’d
walked and jogged past a hundred times before, never once
suspecting that it marked a concealed entrance until a nightmare
showed him the way. “Flames,” she said, her voice gone dull with
shock as she moved to touch the sinuous, flamelike rock and stare
at the empty socket behind it. “Staring eyes.”
“Yeah.” His voice
rasped more than usual on the word. “I don’t think she was talking
about just what she saw up at the mansion. I think she was talking
about where she performed the ritual. If we ever find some in-depth
info on the star bloodline—like the stuff they didn’t tell
outsiders—I think we’ll find that this was a sacred chamber that
was reserved for them alone, probably connected with the
library.”
“Assuming there’s
anything behind the illusion spell.”
“Why would it be
there at all if not to hide something important?” He knew she
wasn’t asking about the logic, though. Going on instinct, he
gripped her shoulder, more a gesture of support from a teammate
than an overture from a lover. But he suspected that was what she
needed him to be right then: an almost-warrior who had her
back.
“We should go get the
others.” She didn’t move, though. Just stood there touching what he
supposed wasn’t really a rock at all, but rather a solid-seeming
illusory rock.
“It’s your
call.”
She hesitated, hand
pressed to the stone. Finally, she said, “I’m going to try the
on/off spell. If it doesn’t work, we’ll go get the others. If it
does . . . I need to see. I want to be the first.”
He nodded. “Then go
for it.”
“I’m too scattered to
concentrate on finding the magic.” With that scant warning, she
turned toward him, grabbed him by the front of his T-shirt, and
kissed him, hard.
The kiss vibrated
with nerves and need, and hit him with a sledgehammer of lust that
slammed him right back to where he’d been the night before in that
gossamer white canopy bed, fresh from her body and wanting to
promise her impossible things. When she pulled away, he had to stop
himself from tugging her back and kissing her again, touching her.
It wasn’t just about sex either. He wanted to wrap himself around
her, shield her from whatever bad stuff was on the other side of
the illusory wall, giving her the good stuff and taking the rest
onto himself. The need was hard, hot, and sharp, and it made him
take a big step back, wrestling for control.
He cleared his
throat. “Glad to help.”
“Shh.” She pulled
what proved to be a butterfly knife out of her pocket, flipped it
open, and used it to score her palm. She didn’t explain about the
knife and he didn’t ask; she wasn’t the only one going armed after
what had happened the day before. With the blood sacrifice made,
she pressed her bleeding hand flat to the fake stone surface and
whispered a few words he didn’t catch.
For a moment, nothing
happened. Then the wall shimmered. And disappeared.