Serpent bloodline—The masters of trickery. Snake (Dez) Mendez is a bad actor who joined the Nightkeepers late and is only just beginning to win their trust. His winikin, Louis Keban, is dangerously unbalanced and knows far more than he should. Dez is a loner; his only real vulnerability is in his feelings for ex–bounty hunter, Reese Montana.
Smoke bloodline—They are often seers and prophets, but the surviving member of this bloodline, Alexis Gray, wielded the power of the goddess Ixchel, patron of weaving, fertility, and rainbows. With the destruction of the skyroad, she has lost her Godkeeper connection but remains a fierce warrior, strong in the power of her mated bond with Nate Blackhawk.
Stone bloodline—The keepers of secrets. Michael is a master of the protective shield spell as well as the killing silver magic called muk. His winikin, Tomas, and his mate, Sasha, combine to keep him balanced when the deadly magic threatens to tip him toward darkness.
Earthly allies
Leah Ann Daniels—The former detective is Strike’s mate and the Nightkeepers’ queen.
Lucius Hunt—Once a makol, now Lucius is the Nightkeepers’ Prophet and head geek. Mated to Jade and a warrior in his own right, he is currently sidelined while healing from a near-fatal injury.
Reese Montana—Tough and self-reliant, with an outer shell hardened by past betrayal, this ex–bounty hunter has toned things down and gone private. But when she’s offered a chance to get back in the action and help save the whole damn world, she jumps at the offer . . . even if it means working with the man who broke her heart a decade earlier.
Myrinne—Raised by a witch who told fortunes in the French Quarter and was sacrificed by Iago at the hellmouth, this young, ambitious beauty is Rabbit’s lover.
Earthly enemies
Iago—The leader of the Order of Xibalba is a mage of extraordinary power, capable of “borrowing” the talents of other magi. Iago has gained additional power by allying himself with the bloodthirsty Aztec god-king, Moctezuma, and now seeks to take out the Nightkeepers by trickery.
Read on for a preview
of the next book in
Jessica Andersen’s Nightkeeper series.
MAGIC UNLEASED
Coming from Signet Eclipse in March 2012.
The Jeep skidded in the turn, hit a bump that would’ve done a ski mogul proud, caught some air, and landed shuddering. There wasn’t much dust—New Mex was in its rainy season just like the rain forests Sven, Mac, and JT had come from—but rocks clunked against the undercarriage and something mechanical thumped ominously. In the back, a bulky hammock swung wildly from side to side, its canine occupant emitting a low, annoyed growl.
Sven hung on to the holy-shit handle and jammed a knee against the door. “Jesus, JT, what’s the fucking rush?”
Not that the irascible winikin didn’t usually drive like a death bat out of hell, but this was something else. Or maybe it wasn’t, and Sven just wanted it to be, because he was in zero hurry to get where they were going.
“One of us is getting laid tonight, and it ain’t you.” JT bared his teeth in a smile that held more than a bit of nyah-nyah, along with a solid dose of anticipation that had nothing to do with Sven and everything to do with Natalie, the pretty archaeologist who was waiting at the other end of the access road.
“Nice. Real nice.” Sven scowled out the window. The tint reflected the bristle of his hair, which had bleached nearly white during the nine months the three of them had spent hunting makol in the Mayan highlands. “Watch it or I’ll suddenly realize I ‘forgot’ something that we have to go back for.”
And given that “back” was a solid three-day drive plus some magical shenanigans at the U.S.–Mexico border, that would put a serious crimp in the plans of Mr. I’m-getting-some-and-you’re-not.
“Try it,” JT suggested with a “you and what army?” sneer, but they both knew Sven wouldn’t pull rank—first because there wasn’t any rank to pull as far as he was concerned, and second because this was no random trip home.
Dez had called them back to Skywatch, which meant there was something going down. More, that “something” was big enough that the king hadn’t been swayed by Sven’s argument that he was this close to figuring out why hundreds of villagers who had been released from makol possession last winter had reverted and gone vampiric, attacking their friends and families and turning them into more of the green-eyed monsters. Instead, Dez had told him to get the hell home. And he’d had a definite “don’t make me repeat myself” tone when he’d said it. So they were headed back to Skywatch, whether or not Sven liked the idea.
Shit.
At the sound of a soft whine coming from behind him, Sven scowled even harder at JT. “You might want to slow down before Mac makes you.” His familiar had toughened up over the past year, getting over his adolescent spookiness, but the burly coyote still wasn’t big on transportation, whether by wheels or teleport. He liked having his paws on the ground.
“Whoops. Sorry about that, big dog.” JT eased up on the gas. He might be a stubborn ass and way too ready to pick a fight over the Nightkeepers versus winikin stuff, but he was a loyal son of a bitch, and Mac had saved both their lives down in the makol-infested Mexican highlands.
Even though the ride smoothed out, Mac kept whining low in his throat, sending off distress vibes that bumped up against the mental barrier Sven kept between the two of them. There was a canvas rustle-thump as the coyote lurched out of the hammock, and then his big head appeared between the men, his shoulders jamming the gap between the two front seats. The coyote’s eyes—pale green, with an eerily human directness—locked on the road ahead, where Sky-watch was invisible behind a couple of sandy humps.
JT chucked him under the chin. “What’s the matter, boy? Timmy fall in the well again?”
“You’re a godsdamned riot,” said Sven, who’d heard about a million variations on the theme since he and Mac had bonded. And, yeah, it had been funny the first hundred or so times, but the laughs were thinning out across the board as the countdown moved into the last month before the end-date.
The gods were holding the barrier so far, but with the makol spreading viruslike, the dark-magic threat was increasing daily. And with tension stringing everyone tight as shit, Sven and Mac had been getting on each other’s nerves more and more, making the mental block between them a necessity and weakening the magic that came from their partnership. That wasn’t good, but Sven didn’t know how to fix it. Or, rather, he did, and it so wasn’t happening. Thus, the mental barrier.
Now, though, something was getting through: Danger . The thought-glyph that came from the animal was faint, but recognizable. And when he raised an eyebrow in Mac’s direction, the coyote chuffed a low bark. It wasn’t his “emergency!” howl or even his “get your ass over here and deal with this” bark; it was more a signal of “I think there might be something wrong but I’m not sure.” Mac’s instincts had proven damn good, though, and Carlos had drilled it into Sven’s head: Never disrespect your familiar.
He could bend the bond if he did it carefully . . . but if it snapped, he was screwed.
So, cursing under his breath, Sven lowered the mental block. As it fell, he muttered under his breath, “This better be for real and not just you jonesing to get out of the car.”