That surprised a bubble of laughter out of her, one that threatened to turn into a sob. The golden light powered up and the hum changed its note as Strike found the way home. The transport magic built, crowding them closer together. She found herself standing too near Nate, their bodies touching in too many places, reminding her of what they’d had, what they’d lost. That memory, and the relief of being safe, was enough to unlock the words she wouldn’t have said otherwise: “Thanks. I owe you one.”
He looked away, jaw locked, and as the teleport swept them up, the last thing she heard was his clipped response: “Don’t kid yourself. I came for the statuette.”
CHAPTER TWO
Located in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico, the Nightkeepers’ training compound was hidden within a box canyon offshoot of Chaco Canyon, deep in Pueblo country. A scattering of outbuildings served various functions, ranging from the steel-span training hall where the Nightkeepers practiced their magic, to the handful of small cottages that had once been used by Nightkeeper families and now stood empty, save for one. A single huge tree grew near the training hall, in the rectangular ash-
shadow where the Great Hall had burned twenty years earlier. The main mansion itself was a big, multiwinged monster of sandstone and shaped concrete. Since being reopened seven months earlier it’d been largely renovated; some rooms had been fully done over, while others remained little more than white-painted drywall and carpet or hardwood flooring.
Strike, Nate, and Alexis materialized in the sunken main room of the mansion, which was a wide expanse of wood, chrome, and glass furnished with fat clubfooted couches and chairs. In the center of the space the royal winikin, Jox, had cleared a landing pad after the third coffee table had bitten the dust following Strike’s ’port magic, which typically returned him home a foot or two up in the air.
The three of them landed with a jolt, and Alexis sagged against Nate. He propped her up by looping an arm around her waist, and tried to throttle the anger that rode him hard, the sharp pissed-offedness that she’d been in the line of fire. He might not want to be mated to her, but he didn’t want anything bad to happen to her, either.
“I’ll take her.” Izzy stepped in and practically dragged Alexis away from him, glaring daggers, like he’d been the one to put her in danger.
He held up both hands in mock surrender. “By all means.”
Carlos was there too, he saw, and Jox: three winikin to look after the three returning Nightkeepers.
Each of them wore the aj-winikin glyph, which roughly translated to I am your servant, along with small bloodline glyphs, one for each living member of the Nightkeeper bloodline they served. Jox was the only surviving winikin with two bloodline members to protect: Strike and his sister, Anna. Carlos wore two different glyphs: the coyote for Sven, who had been his original charge, and the hawk for Nate, who had become Carlos’s problem by default.
Poor bastard.
Nate waved off his winikin when Carlos showed signs of hovering. “I’m fine.”
“You need to eat something,” Carlos countered, “or you’ll fall over.” Magic was a huge energy sink; in the aftermath of major spell casting, the magi needed to pack in some serious calories and rest, not necessarily in that order.
“Fine. Whatever.” Nate focused on Strike. “We need to bring the others up to speed on what just happened.”
“No shit, Sherlock.” The king strode off, firing orders as he went. “You round them up while I get Leah. Meet me back here in five, so we can discuss what just went down.”
We’ve got company, Nate thought. That was what’d gone down.
The Nightkeepers were no longer the only magi on the block. The new guy had mad skills and looked like he’d been practicing way longer than the seven months or so the Nightkeepers had been reunited. And what was with him wearing a red forearm mark and trying to get at the lost artifacts?
All high on the not-good scale.
But on the upside, the score was even. The bad guy had Mrs. Hopkins’s artifact, but the Nightkeepers had the Ixchel statuette, thanks to Alexis.
He glanced over and saw her sitting at the end of one of the big sofas in the main room while her winikin fussed. Alexis was pale and looked shaky around the edges. Her blue eyes were huge in her face, and her full lower lip was caught between her teeth as though she were trying not to let it tremble. Her fancy suit might’ve been all curves and attitude when she’d put it on that morning, but it was a writeoff now, torn and soiled, one sleeve hanging by a thread to reveal the bloodstained white shirt beneath.
Close to six feet even without her heels, Alexis was rawboned and muscular, and far smarter than she gave herself credit for most days. Except for days like today, when she’d put herself in danger with no backup, and then cut off communication. Irritation rose at the thought. He was pissed that she’d ignored her messages, pissed that she’d gone all snotty on him when he’d mentioned it.
As though she sensed the impending lecture, she pushed herself to her feet, waved Izzy off, and headed for the residential wing, where most of the Nightkeepers lived in a series of three-room suites running off a main hallway. “I’ll be back in five minutes,” she said in his direction. Tugging her torn blazer sleeve down, she glanced at the injury she’d gotten in the firefight. “I’ll clean up and grab some calories. Izzy can collect the winikin. You want to get the others?”
“Sure. That’ll be fine,” Nate gritted, doing his damnedest to keep his tone even when all he wanted to do was grab her and shake her. Nightkeepers healed fast in general, even quicker when they were jacked into the barrier or doing magic, but he hated the sight of the bullet crease and her bare, torn feet.
He should’ve gotten to her faster, he thought as he watched her walk away, hating the way her normally long, aggressive strides had been cut down by the slash of a glass cut across one of her heels.
He almost hadn’t gotten there in time. Thing was, they’d tried to get there sooner, but Strike damn well hadn’t been able to lock onto her. For the king to ’port, he needed to picture a destination in his mind, either a place or a person. They didn’t fully understand the limits of his talent—like so much of the Nightkeepers’ magic and prophecies, crucial information had been lost over time—but the general rule seemed to be that Strike could latch onto anyone as long as they weren’t underground . . . or dead.
After responding to Nate’s emergency call, the king had wrestled with the teleport magic for nearly twenty agonizing minutes. Meanwhile, Nate had called Alexis’s cell, called Skywatch, called the auction house, trying to get through to her or, failing that, trying to get a damned picture of the estate that Strike could use to ’port. In the end Alexis had somehow made the connection herself, calling out for help at the last possible moment. Nate had heard her whisper in his mind, both a shock and a relief.
She wasn’t a ’path, but the sheer volume of magic going down around her must’ve powered the mental shout that’d echoed through the barrier strongly enough that he’d caught it and been able to tell Strike where to look.
Lucky, Nate thought, scowling. Goddamned lucky. He knew he should let it go, that it was over, she was back safely, and it wouldn’t happen again. They knew what they were up against now—or if not what, precisely, they at least knew that there was an enemy mage out there, tracking them.