For all that the two of them had had their problems, most of them stemming from Sven’s relationship—friendship—with Carlos’s half-human daughter, Cara Liu, Sven had always thought he knew where they stood. Back when he’d lived a treasure hunter′s vagabond life, he had known that Carlos was pissed at him but would be there immediately if there was trouble. Even once they had come to Skywatch and Sven had made the decision to send Cara away, he and Carlos had managed to maintain a functional, if stiff, working relationship. Or so he’d thought. Now, though, he wondered if the two of them had drifted farther than he’d realized.
“I’m on your side,” he said softly to the only father he had ever known.
“Maybe. But that doesn’t make this any of your business.”
“It is if it’s starting to spill over onto the magi.”
“Which it’s not.”
Sven could’ve listed off a half dozen recent incidents, but he wasn’t sure if they were legit complaints or part of the natural equilibration that had been going on at Skywatch ever since Strike first brought his human mate, Leah, into the compound and she started in with “the winikin aren’t your servants—do your own damn dishes.” Which somehow sounded far less insulting when she said it, compared to JT. Besides, listing grievances would just embarrass Carlos and piss off JT. So instead, he said, “What about Jox’s letter?”
In it, the royal winikin had named the person who should succeed him if the common-consensus experiment didn’t work. It could only be opened if the winikin voted on it . . . or if Strike decided their lack of leadership was screwing up the war efforts.
JT bared his teeth. “Fuck that. The new system isn’t perfect, but it’s a damn sight better than using blood or magic as a reason to put one person in charge of another.”
Sven shook his head. “The old ways have been evolving for the past twenty-six fucking millennia, all aiming to put us in the best possible position to defend the barrier on the zero date. Maybe you could just, I don’t know, go with it for another year?”
“Spoken like a member of the ruling elite,” JT snapped, looking seriously pissed now. He waved Sven off. “Why don’t you go do . . . whatever you were going to do?” He paused, eyes narrowing. “And while you’re at it, you might want to make sure that what you’re doing is something your own ruling elite would like.”
Sven bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
It was Carlos who said quietly, “You’re not eating, you look like hell, and you’re sneaking out nearly every night.”
“I . . . huh?”
JT sneered. “Nice. Playing dumb.”
“Seriously. No clue what you’re talking about.”
Carlos just looked at him. “Sven—”
“Never mind.” Suddenly, he didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to be having this conversation. He needed to walk, run, burn off some steam. “Like I said, I was just passing through.” He headed down the path that was the long way around to the library. And when Carlos called his name, he didn’t look back.
Strike knocked on the door to Rabbit’s cottage and waited for the “ ‘S open” before he pushed through into the kitchen. The two of them were way beyond knocking formalities, but with Myrinne living there, he’d rather knock than catch an eyeful.
“You alone?” he asked when he found Rabbit spread out at the kitchen table with his laptop and a shitload of maps.
“Yep. Myr’s out at the firing range with Jade. Michael’s giving them some pointers.”
“Good. That’s good.” Strike hadn’t been entirely convinced Rabbit’s human girlfriend—and quasi wiccan—belonged on the team, but she had worked her ass off for the chance, and had continued busting hump to make herself an asset rather than a liability. And there was no arguing that she had been good for Rabbit. Hell, he hadn’t burned down anything unauthorized in nearly two years. “You find anything new?”
Rabbit sighed and pushed away from the table, rubbing his eyes. “Nothing concrete. Cheech says there are rumors of a third village being hit, but I’m having trouble getting a fix on the actual location from up here. He and his brothers are trying to get me some details.”
Over the past few weeks, the populations of two villages in the Mayan highlands had vanished, seemingly overnight. The media hadn’t really picked up on it; the only reason Rabbit knew was because he had made some contacts down there as part of trying to learn as much as he could about his mother, who had lived in the highlands—maybe—and been Xibalban—definitely. Even though the Xibalbans were an offshoot of the original Nightkeepers and had given rise to Iago’s bloodthirsty sect, the secrecy surrounding the groups meant that the Nightkeepers’ archives were pretty useless in that department, forcing him to search farther afield. He hadn’t made much progress finding out about his mother, but his contacts were proving invaluable now, as the Nightkeepers tried to figure out what the hell was going on in the highlands.
He flicked at a couple of printouts. “The probes Myrinne and I planted aren’t picking up the sort of power flux that would indicate there’s a Banol Kax in the area. I keep wondering if there’s a human explanation for the disappearances, maybe a new guerrilla army or something.”
“Fighting who or what?”
“Dunno. There were rumors of one of the big hotel chains trying to force a couple of villages higher into the mountains so they could clear cut. Or it could be a survivalist thing. According to Cheech, most of the highlanders are either ignoring the doomsday hype or treating the end date as nothing more than the start of a new calendrical cycle. But I’d bet you there are plenty of people up there who are stockpiling supplies, maybe getting together some extra weapons, just in case.”
“Makes sense.” Strike snagged two Cokes from the fridge, dumped one in front of Rabbit and popped the top on his own as he dragged out a chair and sat. “See any evidence of a guerilla compound where there didn’t used to be one?”
“That’s the thing. Granted, the forests make aerial detection tricky, but I’d expect to see something.” Rabbit lifted a shoulder. “That was why I got to thinking about survivalist stuff.”
“Underground bunkers? Maybe. But I don’t think we can rule out Iago.” Their opposite. Their nemesis. A Xibalban mage who had bound his soul to that of the Aztec god-king, Moctezuma, to become a nearly indestructible force bent on completing Moctezuma’s planned conquest of the known world . . . which had gotten considerably bigger since the fifteen hundreds.
Rabbit grimaced. “Trust me. I’m not. But the thing is, even using Moctezuma’s powers, Iago shouldn’t be able to make makol out of innocents—as far as we know the demons can only possess the evil minded. And I just can’t see him warehousing that many people who aren’t makol. So where are the rest of the villagers?”
Neither of them said the obvious: blood sacrifice. But it hung between them, an almost tangible reminder of how serious things were getting, how much worse they were likely to get over the next year.
After a moment, Strike said, “I need a favor.”
Rabbit raised an eyebrow.
“I need you to mind-bend me.”
Both eyebrows slammed down. “Why?”
“There’s something—” An alarm shrilled, interrupting.
The noise came from both of their armbands plus the intercom panel on the walclass="underline" three beats and a pause, three and a pause, which was the signal for a perimeter breach.
Normally, that would’ve sent them both running. Given the number of false alarms lately, though, they both stayed put. Sure enough, the alarms cut out after a few seconds. A moment later, Tomas’s voice came over the system, sounding disgusted. “False alarm. Sorry, gang. It’s nothing.”