The piece of fig bark was the size of two hands held side by side, and was covered with the smallest, most intricate glyphwork he’d ever seen. He didn’t have a clue what it said, but he could feel the latent power humming through his fingertips, and it was the red of the royal Nightkeepers, not the purple-green of the makol.
‘‘Thank you, Father,’’ he whispered. Then, refolding the protective covering, he tucked the packet inside his T-shirt, next to his skin, and went in search of Red-Boar.
He found the older Nightkeeper in his cottage, sitting at the kitchen table in his brown penitent’s robes with a Coke in one hand and a hunk of cheddar in the other.
The moment Strike’s foot hit the kitchen tile, Red-Boar scowled and snapped, ‘‘Why did you do it? Why did you abandon your people and go after the woman? What the hell were you thinking?’’
Snagging a Coke for himself—like the OJ hadn’t spiked enough sugar into his system—Strike dragged out a chair and sat. ‘‘I told you. I saw my father.’’
‘‘Like you saw the woman in your dreams.’’ It wasn’t a question.
‘‘Yes. No.’’ Strike popped the top of the soda and took a drag. ‘‘I saw him in the barrier. Technically, I saw a nahwal wearing his earring. It told me to go to her, and I saw her thread. When I grabbed it, wham, I was there. She and a makol were fighting—she’d done a damn good job on him, but not enough.’’
Red-Boar’s eyes went sharp at the mention of a makol. ‘‘It survived the explosion?’’
Strike shook his head. ‘‘Different one.’’ Which meant the ajaw-makol had made more of itself. Question was, how many more? Had the two they killed been the sum total, or were there others out there? Knowing they were going to need all the power they could get to deal with the issue, he pulled out the packet and set it on the table in front of the older Nightkeeper. ‘‘Open it.’’
Red-Boar unfolded the oilskin. The moment he saw the codex fragment, his expression went dark. ‘‘Shit. We need a translator.’’
‘‘I know.’’ Strike grimaced. ‘‘I hate asking her for this.’’
‘‘Anna’s going to like it even less.’’
Strike let the silence linger for a moment before he said, ‘‘I want you to take it to her. She’ll listen to you.’’
That earned him a baleful look. ‘‘You just want me out of the way so you can—’’
‘‘Don’t,’’ Strike said sharply, interrupting. Then, more softly, ‘‘Don’t. I’m doing the best I can, and I need you to back me on it.’’
‘‘Or what?’’
‘‘Let’s not go there. I need you. The newbies need you.’’ Strike chugged the rest of his Coke, tossed it toward the recycle bin, and missed.
‘‘You need me when it’s convenient to have someone backing you up,’’ Red-Boar said evenly, ‘‘but not when I disagree with you, or remind you you’re not the only one of your bloodline to make bad decisions based on a dream.’’ When Strike would’ve said something, he held up a hand. ‘‘Let me finish. It was your choice to put Rabbit through the ritual, and I think we both know his magic is probably what pulled us away from the trainees and nearly got them lost for good. His power isn’t the same as ours, never will be. Trying to make him into a Nightkeeper is only going to end badly.’’
‘‘So we should ignore him?’’ Strike snapped. ‘‘Do you hate him that much?’’
The corners of Red-Boar’s mouth tipped up, though there was no amusement in his expression. ‘‘Trying to derail the argument by striking your opponent’s weak spot? That’s not like you. More like my style.’’
‘‘Is he your weak spot?’’ Strike countered. ‘‘I couldn’t tell from the way you’ve raised him. Gods, you didn’t even give the kid a real name!’’
Something flickered in the older Nightkeeper’s eyes. ‘‘I’ve done what I’ve done for a reason. Never doubt that.’’
‘‘Whatever.’’ Strike pushed away from the table and stood, annoyed that he was so close to losing his temper, irritated that they hadn’t really settled anything, frustrated that—
That was it, he realized. He was frustrated, and it had far less to do with Red-Boar than with the knowledge that Leah was nearby. He might’ve already had his talent ceremony, might’ve passed beyond the binding-hormone madness, but that didn’t mean he was oblivious to the vibes in the air. Shit. It was going to be a long couple of months.
‘‘Go see Anna,’’ he said to Red-Boar.
The older Nightkeeper sighed and touched the codex fragment, and for a moment he looked almost . . . sad. ‘‘As you wish.’’
‘‘Give her this.’’ Strike reached into his pocket and withdrew a long, thin chain. At the end dangled a yellow quartz effigy carved in the shape of a skull, its eyes and teeth worn smooth from the touch of generations of itza’at seers.
Anna had left the effigy behind the day she took off, making them promise not to come after her, to leave her alone so she could live a normal life.
Red-Boar’s eyes fixed on the pendant, but he shook his head. ‘‘Keep it. I can’t be the one to give it back to her.’’
Strike let the skull hang for a moment, then nodded and tucked it in his pocket. ‘‘I’ll see you when you get back. We’ll talk then.’’
‘‘Sure,’’ Red-Boar said, but his body language all but shouted, You’re an idiot.
Strike let the cottage door slam at his back, not because he was mad about any one thing, but because he was mad about everything. He was stirred up, juiced up. He wanted to run, wanted to howl at the moon like he hadn’t since he was a teenager.
And then he saw her, sitting on a plastic deck chair beside the pool.
Leah. Waiting for him.
She rose to her feet when she saw him. Her borrowed jeans were belted on and cuffed at the bottom, and she was wearing a crimson scoop-necked T-shirt that was baggy in front—Alexis’s clothes, probably. Her long white-blond hair was slicked back in a no-nonsense ponytail, and there was a dark shadow along her jaw where a bruise was starting to come through. Her expression was guarded and wary, her eyes cool. Cop’s eyes.
He had quite literally never seen anything so beautiful in his entire life—and he was pretty sure that was the man talking, not the magic or the gods.
He approached, stopping a few feet away from her. ‘‘Hey.’’
‘‘Hey, yourself,’’ she said back, and they stared at each other for a long time. They’d been lovers but they didn’t know each other. Didn’t know how to talk to each other.
‘‘Well,’’ he said finally. ‘‘This is weird.’’
Her voice held a bite of temper when she said, ‘‘Which part of it, the part where your people killed Vince, the part where we’ve had two separate sexual encounters and only one semicoherent conversation? Or . . .’’ Her voice went unsteady. ‘‘The part where I dreamed about you before I met you, made a carving knife fly, and freaking teleported from Miami to the middle of the desert?’’ Whispering now, eyes dark with confusion, she said, ‘‘That’s not possible. None of it is.’’ But it was more of a plea than a statement of fact.
Strike had gone still. ‘‘Tell me about the knife.’’
She gave him a long look, but said, ‘‘Last night Itchy had me strapped down pretty good when I came to. There was a knife a few feet away, and I . . . I thought at it, really hard, and it came to me. Floated. Right into my hand.’’
Which just added more weight to his growing conviction—concern? —that the gods had plans for her. What was he supposed to do with that? ‘‘Have you ever done anything like that before?’’