He’s a godsdamned walking dysfunction!”
“I’m not talking about him and me,” she countered quickly, though it wasn’t entirely accurate. “But you have to admit that this explains a whole lot of how he treated me. He was trying to keep me from getting caught up in whatever he’s going through.” Which sent her thoughts down a road they were probably better off not traveling, because whether or not he’d been doing what he thought was right in that regard, the fact was, he’d lied to her. He’d lied to all of them. Was her defense of him now just another brand of clinging?
“And you want to solve that by binding yourself to him?” Strike said. “He’d be pissed. And so would I.”
“I—” Sasha broke off, caught in her own logic. “Shit.”
“We need to make a decision,” Nate urged. The other magi were ranged around the argument, facing out, ready to defend if—or rather when—Iago sent reinforcements. “We need to get Sasha back behind the ward. He wants her by the solstice, and time is running out.”
“He wants Michael too,” she argued desperately. “You can’t leave him here. You can’t.”
“I wasn’t going to,” Strike said, his voice flat with grief.
Sasha’s soul shuddered at the implication. “Don’t. I’m begging you.”
“I’ve got to do what’s best for all of us,” he said, back in king mode. “I’ve got to follow the writs.”
“Except when it suits you,” she threw back at him, anger kicking against what she was coming to recognize as the innate stubbornness of a jaguar. “Then you rewrite. Well, then—”
“I can help him,” Rabbit broke in. He’d crouched down, was touching Michael’s wrist, his eyes gleaming with magic. When they both looked at him, he said, “He’s got some sort of blockade in his head. It’s busted, but I think . . . no, I know I can fix it.”
Strike considered the offer for the longest five seconds of Sasha’s life. “Can you guarantee that it’ll stay in place?”
She saw the lie form in the young mage’s eyes, saw it drain away as he shook his head. “No. No guarantees. But I promise I’ll do my best.”
Steeling herself, Sasha crouched down beside Rabbit and took Michael’s hand. She didn’t feel the ugly rage or the tempting silver magic now; she felt the man beneath. The one who’d rescued her, who’d made love to her. “Please, brother. Please give us a chance to figure out what this is, who he is.” And whether there’s any hope for the two of us.
As Strike wavered, a faint rattle touched the air.
“Time’s up,” Nate warned. He waved the others to link up, leaving a gap in the uplink, where Sasha hadn’t left Michael’s side, hadn’t let go of him.
Logic and heartache told her to let Strike decide, that she didn’t owe Michael anything. Her magic and heart, though, told her to hold on to him and never let go.
“Shit,” Strike said. He reached down, grabbed her free hand, and brought up the ‘port magic.
As they slid sideways into the teleport, she heard Iago’s roar of rage, his shout of, “Mictlan!” Then he was gone, the temple was gone, and they were back home.
And now, she knew, things were going to get complicated.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
December 15 Three years, six days to the zero date Skywatch
Michael swam back up through the fog of unconsciousness, and was vaguely surprised to find himself back at Skywatch. And alive. Given those two things, though, and what he remembered of the Xibalban ambush and his use of the muk, he wasn’t at all surprised to find himself locked in one of the storerooms.
The hand holding his, though, was unexpected. As was his sense that Sasha was nearby. He wouldn’t have expected her to want to get within a mile of him after what had happened.
He squeezed experimentally. “Hey.” His voice was rough and drowsy. “I didn’t think—” Realizing that it wasn’t Sasha’s hand he was holding, he broke off, eyes flying open to glare at the young man sitting beside his cot. “What the fuck?”
Rabbit scowled and broke the grip. “You’re welcome, asshole. If I hadn’t put your brain back together, you’d be a guest at Chez Xibalba right now. Or maybe Mictlan.” He paused, eyes going speculative. “Did my old man put those blocks in? That’s some seriously high-tech shit you’ve got going on in your head.”
It took Michael a few seconds to figure out what he was talking about, another few to check his own brain and realize he was alone. The Other was gone. More, it was gone gone. There was no hint of its presence, no dark pressure anywhere. He felt like he had before he’d undergone his talent ceremony, with the critical difference that he remembered everything about his alter ego, and what it had done.
Rabbit had bent his mind, resurrecting, not the dam and sluiceways Michael had constructed on his own, but rather the conditioning Dr. Horn had used to erase his other self from his conscious mind.
“Holy crap, Rabbit. You’ve got mad skills if you did that without the drugs and other garbage.”
The younger man raised an eyebrow. “Not the old man, then?”
Michael thought of Horn’s pasty, pinched face, comparing it to the hawkish ferocity of Rabbit’s sire. “Not even close. Long story. It was—” Michael broke off, not because he couldn’t talk about what had gone on inside him . . . but because he could. Rabbit’s blocks hadn’t just shut the Other away; they’d shut off whatever the hell had kept him from talking about it.
“Save the story,” Rabbit advised, oblivious to Michael’s inner oh, holy shit moment. He stood and headed for the door. “I’ll go tell the others you’re awake, get set up for an all-hands-on-deck. In the meantime, I think you’ve got some ’splaining to do.”
Even without that warning, Michael had known Sasha was outside, waiting to talk to him. He’d felt her there, a stir of warmth and sensual awareness that was so very different from the angry lust he’d been battling for weeks now, though no less urgent for the differences.
Pulse kicking, he swung himself upright on the narrow cot. He was wearing his combat pants and muscle shirt from what he guessed was the day before, and could’ve used a shower. A sore spot twinged in one shoulder, and a glance showed a healed bullet wound. He thought he remembered one of the Nightkeepers—Nate, maybe?—taking a shot at him when he’d turned on Sasha. Didn’t blame him. If her and Rabbit’s combined magics hadn’t been enough to bring him down . . .
He shuddered at the thought, and when Sasha came through the door on the backswing of Rabbit’s exit, he snapped, “That was a dumb-assed move you pulled, touching me. I could’ve killed you.”
She was wearing jeans and a button-down that followed the curves of her body, along with lace-up boots and a neutral expression. “You’re welcome,” she said. Which, come to think of it, had been Rabbit’s first words, too.
“Don’t think I’m not grateful to you both, but you damn well should’ve left me there,” he said bluntly. “There was no guarantee Rabbit’s mind-bend would work.” There still wasn’t, he knew; the control felt stronger than ever before, but who knew what would happen when he went for his magic?
“Iago wants you,” she said, equally bluntly. “He can’t have you.”
“Then you should’ve finished me.”
He expected an immediate denial. Instead, he got a long, cool look. “Is that what you would’ve preferred?” She held up a hand to stop him. “And no more lies, damn it. Not of commission, not of omission. I want the truth from you, even if it pisses one or both of us off.”