The air snapped freezing cold and a deep-throated roar of power sizzled through the space he’d just been occupying. An iceball the size of a MINI Cooper flashed at the animal-heads; it hit with a big whump, the ground heaved, and sand shot in the air. When the debris came back down, there was an ice- lined crater where the animal-heads had been.
Lucius flipped to his feet, mouth hanging open. “Holy shit.”
Jade was pale, her eyes huge in her face, but her expression was resolute. “We need to use the tools we’re given, right?” She sagged a little, and when he took her arm, she leaned into him. The iceball had drained her more than he liked, but she was up and moving, and ready to fight.
The gods got it wrong, he thought. She’s a warrior. Always has been.
Motion on the field of play caught his attention; two of the guards were heading for them, leveling those damned long pikes as dark magic rattled low at the threshold of hearing. The remaining guards were passing the decapitated head as they ran toward the sun god, aiming for the hoop high on the wall.
If they made the basket, it was all over.
“You’ve got to block that shot!” Jade shoved him toward the field. “Go. I’ll be right behind you!”
Lucius wanted to stay with her, to hold her close and shield her, but he couldn’t. Not right now.
She’s a fighter , he reminded himself. She’s got your back . It was strange to realize that he’d never thought that about her before. He’d seen her as his friend and his lover, his adversary and his ideal, but never before as a teammate. Locking eyes with her, he said, “You can do this.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m tougher than I look.”
“About time you figured that out.” He flashed her a smile. And took off running.
Head down, he barreled into the first of Akhenaton’s guards, taking the brunt of the blow on his armored shoulder. It was like running into a side of beef mounted on a house. His shoulder sang with pain, while the other guy barely blinked, just raised his spiked cudgel and swung for his head.
Jade screamed his name. Then, inexplicably, she whistled a short, sharp burst, as though calling a taxi.
Lucius ducked, cursing when dark magic dug bloody furrows across his bare shoulder. A second guard arrived as the first raised his weapon for the killing blow. But before the guard could let loose with the magic, a growling black blur slammed into him from the side. Moments later a second snarling creature joined the fray. The companions! Summoned by Jade’s whistle, the big black creatures drove the guards away, giving Lucius time to scramble to his feet.
He looked for her and his blood froze in his veins when he saw that she was headed straight into the scrum, where Kinich Ahau was down, wrestling with one of the guards. The remaining player and Jade were both zeroing in on the head-ball, which lay inert on the nearby sand.
One of Lucius’s attackers had dropped his pike when the dogs showed up; it had returned to its shorter form and no longer shimmered with dark magic. Instead it looked like a short, wickedly spiked club. Lucius grabbed the heavy weapon and bolted toward the field of play as Jade grabbed the head.
The guardsmen of the other team converged on her as Lucius shouted, “Jade! ”
Her head whipped around; she saw him and yelled, not his name or for help, but, “Here!” She threw him the head. A split second later, one of the guards tackled her, taking her down.
Lucius caught the head on the fly; the thing weighed more than he would’ve expected, and was slippery. He wound up grabbing it by the hair. Then he hesitated. The hoop on the opposite side of the court was unguarded. It was far above him, an almost impossible shot.
If he made it, he would return Kinich Ahau to Earth. But in doing so, he would lose Jade. Gods, Jade.
The writs told him to save the world. His heart told him to save his woman.
“Fuck it. Catch! ” He hurled the head to the sun god, aware that the game was fixed, that the god’s bonds wouldn’t allow it close enough to score the vital point, barely allowed it to guard its own hoop.
“Don’t let them have it. I’ll be right back.” He hoped the god understood English, or at least his intent.
Without looking to see if Kinich Ahau had gotten the head—or the message—Lucius spun and lunged toward Jade—
And stopped dead. The guards held her immobilized as Akhenaton’s dark shadow drifted toward her. The ghost soul lost its form as it approached, becoming amorphous, insidious. Lucius flashed hard on the memory of a dark shadow entering him, filling him up, making the world go green.
“No! ” he shouted, his voice cracking on a howl that was echoed in the companions’ voices. Behind him chaos erupted as the animal- heads finished regenerating from whatever molecules had been left after the ice explosion, and rejoined the fray.
Duty, ambition, and his need to make a difference in the world said he needed to play the game, needed to save the sun. Duty, he decided, could go fuck itself. Turning his back on the game, on the god, Lucius gripped the spiked cudgel, though he knew it wouldn’t do any good against a shadow. He could think of only one thing that could go up against a demon on its own turf.
Another demon.
The shadow touched Jade, moved up her body. Her eyes locked on Lucius’s, wide and scared. His heart pounded, not with dread, but with an all-important realization that came far too late. “I love you,” he said to her. Then, when the words were lost beneath the animal roars from the game and the god, he raised his voice and shouted, “I love you! ”
Her face went blank, then flooded with emotion, followed by quick understanding. Horror. “Don’t
—” she began.
But he did. He lifted the cudgel and used one of the spikes to lay his palm open in a quick slash.
Pain bit. Blood welled. Then, closing his eyes, he opened himself to her—not to her magic, but to the things he felt about her, the things he felt when he was with her. He threw himself wide, remembering their first night together, their last. He filled his senses with the image of her face, the soft brush of her hair, the taste of her when they made love. His love for her entered him, filled him, completed him. And as he invited the heat and wonder and awe inside him when he’d held it away before, power stirred and his vision flickered from normal to green hued and back again. He didn’t know whether it was Cizin or another makol, and didn’t think he cared. He needed a demon’s power, and this was the only way to get it.
Yes, he thought. That’s it, you bastard. Come into me.
Opening his eyes, he threw his arms wide and shouted, so it echoed across the canyon: “I love her! I love Jade.” In that moment, he put her above everything else inside him and gave over control to the magic, letting it have him in exchange for her safety. The air detonated around him, whipped past him.
Power surged and crackled; motion caught his eye, and he turned to see that a few feet away the canyon wall had suddenly gone liquid and strange. Inside him, the place that had been empty for the past half year flared with bright, brilliant agony and began to fill up.
“Lucius!” Jade screamed.
He couldn’t answer, couldn’t look at her, could only drop to his knees in agony as an alien presence entered him, invaded him, became him. Come on, come on, hurry up! He had to get the demon inside him, had to gain control somehow and pit it against Akhenaton before the bastard took Jade.
The shimmering nearby grew more distinct, then flared bright white with a boom of detonation.