The Nightkeepers’ charge carried them to the cave mouth before the animal-heads rallied. A huge creature with a crocodile’s head rose above the others, snarling something in that strange, guttural tongue she had heard before, in Xibalba. At their leader’s orders, the animal-heads reoriented and charged, surrounding the magi and killing the momentum of their charge.
“I’ve got it!” Michael shouted. He called a thick, sturdy shield spell and slapped it across the point where the cave mouth narrowed into a tunnel leading into the mountainside. A hundred animal-heads, maybe more, were trapped outside the shield, cutting the immediate threat in half. “Go!”
“Good man,” Strike said shortly as he and the others faced forward, to where a seemingly endless stream of animal-heads poured up through the tunnel. Under the next fireball onslaught, the narrow space filled quickly with burning bodies, their stench turning the air thick with an oily, choking smoke that made Jade gag. She reached for Lucius, who caught her against him, holding on tightly.
Sasha moved to her mate’s side to boost his magic and keep him leveled off. She glanced at Jade and the friends—a former chef and an ex-therapist—shared a quick how the hell did we end up here? look, and then returned to their tasks.
Jade and Lucius followed Strike and the others as the small fighting force slaughtered its way deeper into the tunnel, winning forward one bloody foot at a time. Jade focused on the companions; they always seemed to know where to twist and turn in order to find their way through the surging melee. Lucius cracked his cudgel to his left and right, his jaw tight, his eyes reflecting the same sharp horror that rattled through her. In the underworld, the animal-headed warriors had regenerated quickly. Up on the earth plane, they just flat-out died. And although they resembled the ancient Egyptian gods, each of the head- types was also a species that had—or used to have—a corresponding Nightkeeper bloodline. Had Akhenaton harnessed the Nightkeepers’ ancestors as an army? Was that who the magi were killing?
“Don’t think about it,” Lucius rasped against her temple. He was still holding her close, using his body to shield her as they forced their way through. “Not now. Just go.”
So she went, following in the companions’ wake. They outdistanced the fireball-wielding magi, so she lashed out with bursts of ice magic that froze some of the animal-heads, slowed others by dumping drifts of snow. Time lost meaning, becoming a cycle of spell casting and advancing, with Lucius staying strong at her back. Then the tunnel opened up around them and they were standing in a ceremonial chamber with ritually carved walls and a wide altar. Jade didn’t process the details, though. Her attention was immediately commanded by the liquid shimmer of the far wall, which bent and flexed, seeming alive.
The companions bolted toward it.
“The barrier!” She surged after them, but Lucius yanked her back. “What—” She spun on him and broke off on a gasp. The tunnel was blocked with animal-heads and the Nightkeepers were nowhere in sight.
“They’re cut off,” Lucius reported grimly. “And this is a dead end.”
“No, it’s not. It’s the beginning of the hellroad. It’s open because of the solstice, or maybe because of the hellhounds and the ball game. Who knows? All I know is that we need to get through there.”
“We can’t—” He began, but then broke off when a jaguar-head started barking orders. “Fuck. Come on.”
They ran together to the back wall, which looked like stone but wasn’t. The companions had waited for them, and the four rescuers dove through together. As she passed through the barrier, Jade felt power ripple across her skin. Then she was caught up, sucked down, spun around. Her hand was torn from Lucius’s grip and she screamed. She heard him shout her name; then even that was lost to the roar of acceleration as the world whipped past her. She felt the same wrenching, sliding sensation as before, when she and Lucius had traveled to Xibalba. Only this time it was ten times worse, because she was experiencing it fully. Her physical self wasn’t safely at Skywatch anymore. She was traveling, body and soul, into hell.
Xibalba This time, when Lucius and Jade blinked into existence within the dry, angular canyon, he immediately recognized it as a giant, “I”-shaped ball court, with the out-of-bounds lines marked by the faint shadow of dark shield magic. Then again, the association was a hell of a lot more obvious: The pyramid and its surrounding columns were gone, small vertical stone hoops protruded from halfway down each of the long sides of the canyon . . . and there was a game in progress.
His mind snapshotted the scene. Akhenaton’s ghostly form was on one side with his guards and five animal-heads. The makol was a dark shadow. The other nine, decked out in full armor, held spiked cudgels and wore knives on their belts. Kinich Ahau stood alone on the other side in the guise of a horned, plumed man, not the firebird. The god wore a feathered robe with hints of glistening armor beneath but held no weapon. There were stone shackles on the god’s wrists and ankles; heavy sinew-
threaded ropes stretched from the cuffs to a stone ring set low on one wall. A man’s head lay on the ground between the two teams, wide-eyed and staring, with fluid leaking from the stump. Lucius thought it might have belonged to the musician, who was nowhere in sight.
Oh, he thought. Of course.
He must’ve said it aloud, because as he and Jade scrambled to their feet, she whispered, “What is it?”
The players, locked in a preplay stare-down, seemed oblivious to the newcomers, but Lucius figured he didn’t dare count on how long that would last. Keeping his voice low, he said, “One of the creation stories in the Popol Vuh describes how the Hero Twins journeyed to the underworld and played ball against the Banol Kax themselves. If the dark lords won, the twins would be stuck forever in Xibalba.
But if the twins won, their father would be reincarnated on Earth and they would be free to return with him. Akhenaton must not be able to rule the sky in his makol form. In order to take his place in the sky, he has to defeat Kinich Ahau and be reincarnated on Earth.”
A soul-curdling fanfare sounded from all around them, and the players scrambled to gain control of the game ball. The sun god lunged and hit the end of his tether, which stopped him several paces shy of the ball. The horned god shrieked with rage, the firebird’s cry coming from the man’s mouth as a snake- headed warrior snagged the ball.
Jade whispered, “Does that mean that if Kinich Ahau wins, he automatically returns to Earth?”
“That’d be consistent with the legend. Not much chance of that, though, unless—” Lucuis broke off as transport magic surged again, the air rippled nearby, and the sun god’s companions materialized midlunge. The big hellhounds hit the ground running, baying the attack. And all hell broke loose.
Akhenaton whirled toward the threat. His fury laced the air as he split his team, sending the guards after Kinich Ahau, the animal-heads toward Jade and Lucius, who had landed maybe thirty yards farther down the playing field, on the sun god’s side. The companions bolted toward Kinich Ahau; the sun god jerked its plumed head toward Jade and Lucius. Its eyes were anguished.
The animal-heads closed quickly; there were two snakes and three caimans, reptilian jaws gaping wide. Lucius stepped in front of Jade, suddenly feeling very human. But they’d damn well have to go through him to get to her.
“Down!” she yelled from behind him.
When a chill touched the back of his neck, he didn’t waste time asking questions or arguing; he pancaked it.