Without warning, a man’s voice rose over the humming buzz of magic, chanting in the old tongue. It sounded human, but how could they be sure? This wasn’t exactly a “know thy enemy” situation—they were making it up as they went.
When they reached the corner, Brandt’s pulse thudded in his ears as he took in the scene: Beyond the curve, a straight section of hallway ended in a sheer wall with an arched, open doorway that was set at a right angle, giving them some hope of approaching without being seen right away. Both the chanting and the light—flickering yellow-orange firelight—were coming from within.
Holding up a hand to warn Patience back, Brandt eased down the last straight stretch and popped his head around the corner, staying low.
His brain snapshotted the scene: Beyond the door was a circular chamber that looked natural, as if there had been another lagoon, now gone dry. There were two other entrances. The one opposite their position opened to another tunnel, while the middle doorway was shut with a carved stone panel.
Torches set into holes in the wall provided light and incense, and a plain altar sat against the wall, little more than a square block of stone with a shallowly curved top.
A lone man stood before the altar.
A . . . Nightkeeper?
Brandt risked another look, confirming his first impression. The guy was tall, wide-shouldered, and fair-haired. Wearing black, insignialess paramilitary gear, with a carved stone knife stuck in his leather belt, he could’ve stepped right out of one of Wood’s stories. From the looks of him, he was a good decade older than Brandt . . . and he knew his shit. He was holding his bleeding palms out over the altar, letting the blood fall in the shallow depression. His chant rose and fell with ancient intonations, the syllables seamless.
Yet the power pumping out of the room jarred dissonantly against the red-gold hum within Brandt.
His mind raced as he returned to Patience and briefly described the room and the stranger. Were they wrong about the rattling power being dark magic? The Nightkeepers were the only earth-borns capable of using the barrier’s power, and this guy sure as shit looked earth-born, not Banol Kax or boluntiku . Which left only two options.
So what was he, mage or makol ? Please, gods, let him be a mage, Brandt thought, mind plunging ahead to the hope of there being more survivors, older warriors who could teach him and Patience what they lacked . . . and who might know how he could fix his cosmic fuckup.
Behind him, the chant switched to English, startling him. Brandt turned as the stranger said, “By nine times nine chants and our shared blood, I call on Werigo, son of Okom, father of Ix and Iago.”
Magic rattled in the air, hard and abrasive, but that wasn’t the worst of it. He saw Patience’s eyes widen, saw the understanding dawn.
Because oh, holy shit, nine wasn’t a sacred number of the Nightkeepers. It belonged to the underworld.
“Lords,” the stranger continued, “release my father’s soul, so he can continue working on your behalf.”
Brandt’s gut twisted as his fantasy of more Nightkeeper survivors imploded beneath the realization that this was no mage. It had to be a makol , a possessed human whose demon rider was trying to bring another like it through the barrier.
Kill it! his gut screamed. Acting on instinct, not fully aware of what he was doing, he summoned the red-gold power from the thin barrier connection he and Patience had formed.
“Wait!” she said urgently.
But it was too late. Like a striking rattlesnake, the dark magic lashed out into the tunnel and struck sparks off the red-gold. The makol howled a curse as it sensed the intruders.
Brandt didn’t hesitate. He lunged through the doorway and swung his torch like a Louisville Slugger, aiming for the thing’s head.
He had a bare second to register that its eyes were a murky hazel, not luminous green. It was a man, not a makol . Was he a Nightkeeper after all?
Shit! He pulled the blow and deflected the swing. The other man ducked; the bone torch glanced off his shoulder, smashed into the limestone wall, and splintered at its end.
“Who the hell are you?” Brandt demanded.
Without any change in expression, the stranger yanked a nine-mill from his belt and fired at Patience.
She dove out of the way, but her torch and knife went flying as the other man tracked her with his weapon.
No! Rage poured through Brandt, possessed him. He teed off and swung again, and this time he didn’t pull a godsdamned thing.
The splintered end of the torch hit the guy in the temple. The impact sang up Brandt’s arms and left his hands vibrating.
The blond man staggered, gun hand sagging. He cursed when Patience kicked his wrist, sending the weapon flying. Brandt wasn’t thinking or planning, didn’t have any thought in his mind aside from stopping the bastard. He roundhoused the torch and slammed it into their enemy’s skull with a sickening crunch.
Blood and brain spattered into the shallow sacrificial bowl as the other man slid to a heap on the floor.
Brandt froze. His pulse throbbed sickly in his ears as he stared at the gore. At the body.
He had just killed a man without really knowing why, or who he was.
“He was going to kill us.” Patience was breathing hard, her eyes wide and white. “We had to—” A terrible rattling roar split the air, drowning her out as the wall behind the altar shimmered and went strange and flexible, turning a sickly muddy brown-green color. Brandt shouted and yanked her behind him when the surface bulged obscenely, as though something was fighting to be born through the membranelike surface of the dark magic.
Oh, holy fuck. The dark mage’s death had punched a hole in the barrier.
“Go!” He shoved her toward the doorway. “Get all the way out, call your winikin , and tell her to crack the drop box.”
She spun back. “I’m not leaving you!”
He knew she wouldn’t leave unless he made it good, so he gripped her wrists and met her eyes.
“Think about it. One of us needs to make sure nothing comes through this gap. I’m bigger. I’ve got more blood to sacrifice. I’ll meet you as soon as the equinox is over. Now go !”
It was only partway a lie; he would try to hold the barrier with bloodletting. If it came down to it, though, he could only hope that since a dark mage’s sacrifice had opened the connection, the sacrifice of a Nightkeeper, even one like him, would close it back up again.
Woody would understand, even approve.