fledged visionary would suck. Even now, sitting at her office desk, she was bombarded with flashes and fragments, images of things that might have happened or might yet happen, made worse by the very nature of her work because she was surrounded by artifacts that resonated with her power, showing her things she didn’t need or want to see.
How did it help anybody for her to know that the tiny chac-mool figurine she used as a paperweight had been carved by a wizened old man with two front teeth? Or that the painted bark strip that hung on her wall in a museum-quality frame was a clever fake? She already knew it was a fake; it wouldn’t have been on her wall otherwise, for chrissake.
Worse, those pointless little details existed as a background drone to larger flashes and full-fledged visions, emotionally charged moments that would—or already had—happened to the people she interacted with every day. It was exhausting to be lecturing on the celestial significance of the four staircases of the pyramid at Chichén Itzá, and suddenly learn—in excruciating detail—that the guy third from the left in the front row had started the day on the receiving end of a world-class blow job.
It drove her crazy to get the change from her take-out lunch purchase and know that her cashier was about a week away from getting his heart broken, though it was a relief not to see anything worse in his future. Because that was the really sucky thing about being an itza’at seer. No matter what the seer did or said, the future visions always came true. Always.
It was one of the numerous reasons she hadn’t wanted the sight, had tried to fight it for as long as she had. If she couldn’t use the damn talent as a tool to make things better, why put up with it? If she could’ve had someone get inside her skull and rip the magic out of her cortex—or wherever the hell it lurked—she would’ve. Since that wasn’t an option, she did the next best thing: She worked on rebuilding the mental blocks, piece by agonizing piece.
She was slumped down at her desk, staring at the yellow quartz effigy that had belonged to her mother, and generations of itza’ats before her, doing exactly that, when the phone rang. It wasn’t much in the way of an interruption, though. She was tired and heartsore, worried about Lucius, stressed about the upcoming equinox, and hating that so much of her normal life had become a series of lies designed to cover up her life as a Nightkeeper.
Glancing at the caller ID, she found a small smile at seeing it was Dick. The pleasure was bittersweet, though; they’d taken a few days away together, had even flown the brightly colored kites she’d bought as a surprise. It had been lovely and romantic, and vaguely awkward. The therapist had said that the more they acted as though the love were there, the more actual love would follow. And maybe there was something to that, because ever since their getaway it’d felt less and less like an act and more like the real thing.
She picked up on the third ring. “Hey, hon. I was just thinking about you.”
“Hey back. I was calling to see if we’re still on for tonight.”
“Definitely,” Anna said, though for a second she couldn’t remember their having any plans. Then she thought, Right. Dinner out. Eight o’clock reservations. The drain of setting the mental blocks was making her woozy and forgetful, she thought, and scribbled down a note reminding herself to eat something.
“And you’re leaving the day after tomorrow for that guest lecture, right?”
Guilt pinched at the lie, but there was no way she could tell Dick that she was headed down to New Mexico to hook up with the brother he didn’t know about, who would then teleport her and a dozen or so other psi-powered warriors down to southern Mexico, where they were going to fight like hell to hold the line between the earth and the underworld when a bunch of heavy hitters tried to come through and precipitate the end of days.
Yeah. So not going there.
“It’s just an overnight,” she said. “I’ll be back the day after.” Assuming, of course, that she survived the fight, Iago hadn’t succeeded in opening the hellroad, and there was still a university for her to return to. And the fact that those assumptions didn’t bother her as much as they used to was just another sign of how tired she was, how strung-out and stuck inside her own jumbled-up head.
“Meet me at the car around seven thirty?”
“Will do,” Anna said. That had been another one of the therapist’s ideas, for them to commute together, given that they were both going to the same place on a daily basis. And she had to admit that it was kind of nice riding in and out with him. It gave them a chance to chat—forced them to do so—
twice a day.
“See you then. Love you.” As usual, he hung up before she could respond in kind. It used to annoy her, because it seemed like he was winning by getting the last word. These days she wondered if he did it because he was afraid she wouldn’t say the words back. He was trying. They both were.
“Love you,” she said, even though he was no longer there.
Then she hung up the phone, ignored her scribbled note about a snack, and got back to work, knowing that her life would be a thousand times better once she killed the background drone. Problem was, blocks were the sort of thing she would’ve learned after her talent ceremony, when her mother and the other itza’ats would’ve instructed her on the proper use and control of her talent. Normally she would’ve had her talent ceremony during the cardinal day right after she hit puberty. Since that had coincided with her father’s attack on the intersection, the ceremony had been postponed . . . and then never happened. She’d finally gotten her itza’at’s mark, twenty-four years later, when Strike had dragged her back into the world she’d left behind. But the talent hadn’t come with training or enlightenment, had barely come with added power, thanks to the subconscious mental blocks her brain had thrown up to stop the nightmarish memories of the massacre, which she’d seen through the eyes of not just one, but hundreds of dying Nightkeepers.
“Focus,” she said aloud, and forced herself to concentrate on the quartz effigy that she’d set in the middle of her blotter. According to the sketchy records Jade and Lucius had been able to find, an itza’at should be able to use her crystal to form a reversible block, one that could be kept in place on a day-to-day basis and lowered for a vision quest. In theory.
In practice, she wasn’t getting very far.
Don’t be such a girl, a familiar voice whispered at the back of her mind. The sound had her shooting straight up in her chair and looking around for a ghost, though she knew that was beyond stupid. He wasn’t there, wasn’t ever there. He was nothing more than a memory, and not even a good one, at that.
“Damn it,” she muttered, hunkering down with her chin on the edge of her desk and glaring at the effigy.
Amazingly, the quartz seemed to shimmer for a second, then started to glow from within.
Excitement tightened her skin as carefully, very carefully, she sent a tendril of mental magic toward the crystal, and—
The phone rang, snapping her concentration. “Gods damn it!” she snapped, annoyed with the caller for calling, beyond annoyed with herself for forgetting yet again to forward the phone to voice mail.
Grabbing the handset, she snapped, “What?”
There was a pause; then Lucius said, “I think you should come back to Skywatch.” His voice grated, as though he were forcing each of the words.
Anna’s fingers tightened on the phone. “I’ll be there the day after tomorrow for the equinox ceremony. Is that soon enough?”