“It was—” just a hunch, Patience started to say, but broke off because it had been more than that.
“Look at it this way,” Jade put in. “The magi have always adapted themselves, and their powers, to their local environment. When they lived in Egypt, they worshipped cats and crocodiles. With the Maya, it was maize and chocolate. The core beliefs were the same: The astrology, the pyramids, the sun worship, and the hieroglyphic writing, those pieces of the religion were all there. But the trappings changed. Maybe something similar is happening here.”
Brandt frowned. “So you’re thinking—what?—that the Mayan Oracle is a divination ritual that leaked to the human world somehow?”
“Actually, I’m thinking the reverse: that it’s a fully human invention that resonates with Nightkeeper power, or at least with Patience’s power.” Jade paused. “There were itza’at s in her bloodline, you know.”
Strike’s head came up; his eyes narrowed on Patience. “Really?”
Patience’s pulse tapped a quick, syncopated rhythm at the thought of being able to see into the future, but not change anything she saw. “I wouldn’t know. I’m not big on genealogy.”
In fact, she hadn’t learned more than the basics about her parents and bloodline. As far as she was concerned, Hannah was her mother, and Brandt and the boys were her family. It wasn’t that she resented her parents for dying, or anything complicated like that. She just didn’t feel much of a connection to the prior generation of Nightkeepers.
Or rather, she hadn’t until the day before. Now she realized that, without her even really being aware of it, she had been subconsciously digesting her interaction with the nahwal, replaying the message and that moment when she had seen a spark of life within the creature . . . and thinking about where—or who—it had come from. Her mother might be in the nahwal’s collective consciousness; her father definitely was. Her uncles, grandfather, great-grandfather . . . an entire patriarchal iguana lineage were represented within the creature. And, apparently, an itza’at or two.
Strike nodded slowly. “All right. Use the cards. But do what you did with the mirror spell, and get some sort of independent confirmation before acting on what they tell you.”
“They won’t ‘tell’ me anything,” she said with some asperity. “They’re just a tool, a way to—” She broke off as magic rippled along her skin and the background power sink that surrounded Skywatch decreased sharply and then kicked back up over the span of a heartbeat. “What was that?”
Brandt put himself between her and the front door. “Something just came through the wards.”
Moments later, a shrill alarm blatted three short blasts to warn that someone had keyed in the combo to get through the front gate of the compound. Which meant it was one of them.
Strike uncoiled from his stool, but nobody else moved. They all held their places as the front door swung open and Nate’s voice became audible, saying, “—fucking deadweight. Thought the pilot was going to shit himself when we showed up. Lucky for us he knows Jox, and will do just about anything for a bonus.”
Heavy footsteps sounded in the short hallway that ran past the dining room turned war chamber, and then the small group came into sight. Alexis led the way, schlepping a battered black duffel bag.
Behind her, Nate and Sven carried a folding stretcher between them. On it lay an unconscious man who was immobilized beneath a cocoonlike layer of cargo straps that might have seemed overkill if it hadn’t been for the sheer size of the guy, who was huge even by Nightkeeper standards. His head wore the stubble of a week-old skull trim, and his features were wide and strong, with a prominent beak of a nose that made Patience think of ancient carvings, Mayan kings and gods.
Even in repose, he emanated an aura of power on both the physical and psi levels, one that seemed to announce, Here I am. What are you going to do about it?
Seeing that most of Skywatch was standing there, gaping, Nate stopped and raised a sardonic brow in the king’s direction. “Guest suite or basement?”
Strike didn’t hesitate. “Basement. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred.” What the lower-
level storerooms lacked in amenities, they made up for with the absence of windows and the presence of heavy doors that could be securely locked with dead bolts and magic.
Nate nodded. “No argument coming from me.” As the two men hauled their deadweight cargo in the direction of the stairs leading down, Sven called back, “This guy gives off a major ‘don’t fuck with me’ vibe even when he’s barely breathing. You think that’s the Triad magic?”
“Nope.” Strike shook his head. “That’s one hundred percent Mendez. Be warned. And for fuck’s sake, don’t turn your back on him.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
December 18 Three days until the solstice-eclipse Skywatch For Patience, the thirty or so hours after Brandt reawakened passed in a blur of fruitless etznab magic, failed hypnosis, and an uncomfortable trip to New Hampshire, where visits with the dead boys’ families and a trip to the scene of the long-ago accident succeeded only in turning Brandt’s mood dark.
Mendez and Anna were both still deeply comatose, and there was still no sign of Mendez’s winikin.
Fortunately, there hadn’t been any sign of Iago either. Lucius speculated that the Xibalban would be physically weak after his long period of stasis, so was probably recuperating. Even given the accelerated healing of a demon-human hybrid makol, he might be out of action through the solstice, gods willing. With the time ticking down, Rabbit and Myrinne were down in the Yucatán, trying to open the passageway beneath the El Rey pyramid, but so far that was a no-go.Which left the Nightkeepers with three days until the solstice and no idea how they were supposed to stop the earthquake demon.
Worse, earth tremors had hit Albuquerque and northern Honduras almost simultaneously the prior evening. They’d been below four on the Richter scale, but left little doubt that Cabrakan was stirring.
The threat permeated Skywatch, making the air tense and tight, and driving Patience outside in search of some fresh air . . . and some privacy.
Even though Strike had asked her to see if the cards could provide another clue like they had with the mirror spell, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to start laying spreads in the kitchen or great room, or even in the suite where Brandt was brooding. Or maybe—probably—it was because she was under orders that she couldn’t settle to the task. There was pressure now. Expectations.
She had been planning to hunker down in a corner of the training hall, where she’d put in hundreds of hours drilling the others on hand-to-hand and evasive maneuvers. But as she pushed through the glass doors at the back of the great room and started across the pool deck, her eyes lit on the pool house that stood off to one side.
The small building—just a single room with a tiny attached bathroom—had been Strike’s chosen quarters when they had all first gathered at Skywatch. Once he moved into the royal suite with Leah, the pool house had become one of the twins’ favorite hangouts, a grown-up-sized playhouse of their very own.
They hadn’t been allowed there unsupervised, of course, not with the pool right there. But Hannah had brought them there often, as had Patience. Best of all—at least as far as the twins had been concerned—was when they had been able to persuade Rabbit to bring them to the pool house, shut the door . . . and tell them the Hero Twin stories.