But Michael didn’t stop. Couldn’t. The killing magic spread outward away from him, into the forest where their ambushers hid. Men screamed, then stopped abruptly.
Within a minute, all Michael could hear was the howling inside his own skull. It’s done , he told himself, not sure anymore which parts of him were Michael and which were the Other. Pull back! But the silver magic was within him, taking him over, more so than ever before. Mad, murderous rage rampaged through him, lighting him up and making him shudder with terrible glee.
Sasha put herself in front of him, grabbed him by his wrists. Her mouth worked, but he couldn’t hear her words over the roaring in his ears, one that sounded like drumbeats and screams, and the terrible song of war, of death. The death magic rose higher within him, focusing on her even as his soul howled denial. Her eyes went wide, her skin gray.
He was killing her. Dear gods, he was killing her.
“No!” Michael roared. Taking control with a desperate effort of will, he broke his grip and flung her aside, trying to get her as far away from him as he could, trying to get some distance, some room to . .
. what? What could he do to stop the upward spiral, cut the feed before he unleashed death on the Nightkeepers themselves?
Sasha stumbled and fell, weakened by his magic. The Other regained the upper hand, and advanced on her. Michael was dimly aware that the others crowded around him, that he was forging through their shields. A bullet plowed into his shoulder but didn’t slow him for an instant.
He was death. He was—
Death, he thought. Yes. He saw Tomas’s face in his mind’s eye, felt the winikin’s guilt, grief, and failure as his own, hated that he’d be breaking the promise he’d made. But what other choice did he have? Suicide was far better than this.
Lost in the thrill of slaughter, he tapped the death magic, let it spin up, spin through him. He fixed his eyes on Sasha, forced the words, his voice breaking with the effort of saying, “I’m sorry I couldn’t be the man who was meant to be yours.”
Then he jerked back away from her and turned the killing magic inward. At the last moment he was aware of Rabbit darting forward and grabbing onto him, getting in his face and yelling something. He caught the words “Mictlan” and “makol” but wasn’t tracking anymore, wasn’t processing. The darkness rose up to claim him. As it did, he was aware of another gripping his other arm, knew it was Sasha from the cool wash of her presence, the heat of lust.
Pure Xibalban magic came at him from one side, pure Nightkeeper from the other. They met in the middle of him, canceled each other out, and detonated to grayness. Then there was nothing. He was nothing. And that really sucked.
When Michael finally dropped, nobody caught him. He went down hard, unconscious, sprawled in the dirt.
A sob lodged in Sasha’s throat, but she didn’t go to him, didn’t touch him, because she didn’t want to ever again feel what she’d felt in him just now. The ugly, monstrous fury terrified her, made her want to puke. She hadn’t caught any of the images she suspected Rabbit had seen, but she’d felt the silver magic and heard the screams amidst the inner music he’d hidden from her, and that had been more than enough.
Over Michael’s body, she caught Rabbit’s eyes and saw her own horror reflected. The young mage flexed the hand he’d touched Michael with, as if surprised it was still attached to his body.
“What. The. Fuck?” The harsh, explosive question came from Strike. He glared from Rabbit to Sasha and back. “What did you two know about this? How’d you know how to shut him down like that?”
Rabbit, looking drawn around the edges, said, “Whatever that shit was that he was channeling, it kicked on my hellmagic. I was just using the mind-bend to try to turn him off.”
When Strike turned on her, Sasha shook her head and spread her hands to indicate bafflement. “I knew he was hiding something, but I didn’t have any idea it was . . . whatever that was.”
“You grabbed him.”
“That was instinct. I had some idea of diverting enough of his ch’ul to knock him out, but the second I touched him, he started pulling the energy from me.” Shaking inside now, she looked around at the others. “I felt like he was sucking the life out of me, and from all of you through me.” And when she’d tried to cut the flow, she’d managed to stop drawing from her teammates but hadn’t been able to sever the connection with Michael. He’d kept pulling her ch’ul, draining her, sapping her. Almost killing her. She shuddered, trying not to look at the dust piles inside the collapsed red robes. Trying not to think she could’ve been a dust pile of her own. “Lucky for me, Rabbit’s hellmagic repelled the ch’ul and bounced me out of Michael’s head.” Which probably explained why she couldn’t find Rabbit’s or Michael’s ch’ul song. They were blocked by hellmagic . . . or whatever it was that Michael had inside him. Gods.
“We should get out of here,” Nate said urgently. “If Iago figures out that Michael’s down, he might try again.”
“I think we can take that as a given,” Strike said, expression grim. “He’ll want to get his hands on . .
. whatever that was. We can’t let that happen.” But he didn’t jump to the uplink. Just stood there, staring down at Michael as if trying to figure out what to do with him.
At that moment, Sasha was afraid of Michael. But she was also afraid for him. The silver magic and the thing inside him weren’t the man she knew. Was there any way to separate them once again?
“We’re taking him with us,” she said firmly.
Strike’s expression went to that of the king, the man who sometimes had to make terrible decisions for the greater good. “He killed the red-robe during your rescue from the Survivor2012 compound. It wasn’t Iago, after all. It was Michael.”
“I didn’t know.” Yet she met her brother’s eyes, jaguar stubbornness rising up inside her as she tipped up her chin. “Killing in battle isn’t wrong.”
“But he lied about it, and gods know what else. And according to his own story—if we pick through the lies—he did it through the guy’s shield. If he can do that, he can get through the wards we’ve got on the storeroom.” He paused, dropping his voice. “I can’t have him inside Skywatch without some sort of guarantee. I can’t.”
“I’ll stay with him,” she said immediately. “He won’t kill me. Not even at his worst.”
Strike shook his head, but more in indecision than negation. “We don’t know that we’ve seen him at his worst.”
“We don’t know what we’re seeing,” she countered, desperation increasing as the seconds slipped beneath her skin, and her warrior’s mark warned that they were running out of time. “And you can’t tell me you’re willing to sacrifice one of your own without knowing for sure.”
“Is he one of mine?” Strike asked. “That wasn’t Nightkeeper magic.”
“It wasn’t Xibalban, either,” Rabbit put in. “It was more like . . . I don’t know, a mix of the two.”
He paused. “Strong as anything too. If we can figure out how to use it . . .” He trailed off in the face of the king’s glare
“I can’t risk it.” Strike shook his head. “He could take us out from the inside.”
“I’ll vouch for him,” Sasha said, feeling the moment slipping away. “I’ll blood-bind myself to him.
Whatever you want.” Give him to me.
“I won’t let you endanger yourself for a guy who’s treated you like he has,” Strike snapped, sounding more like a big brother than a king. “He’s done nothing to earn your loyalty or affection.