She saw and felt all that with part of her consciousness. But another part of her soul flew with Kulkulkan.
She felt the joy of flight and freedom, the burning need to drive the demon back to its hell. An exultant cry burst from the god, a clarion call of trumpets that echoed in the night sky above Chichén Itzá. A battle cry. A challenge.
For a moment, there was no response. The sky seemed empty.
Then the winged crocodile appeared from behind a cloud, screeching a banshee wail that spoke of death and the flames of Xibalba. The god Zipacna, son of the underworld’s ruler, was full of hate and anger and pride, his sole purpose to kill the feathered serpent and clear the way for the rest of his kind to come to earth.
Screeching again, the winged crocodile twisted in midair and dove, with his fearsome claws extended and his giant mouth open in attack.
Leah grabbed onto Strike as the god swerved and spun and slapped at the demon, scoring a deep line in the crocodilian scales and then dropping down and raking razor-sharp talons along Zipacna’s back, creating bloody furrows that had the demon arching with a scream of pain as the god beat feathered wings to flit away.
Kulkulkan dodged and slapped again. And again. Blood ran from the winged croc’s armored hide, raining down on the forest below and flaming as it hit. But through her connection to the entity Leah could tell that its time was running out. The barrier was thickening as the equinox ebbed, leaving only minutes more to push Zipacna back through the intersection, or risk giving the Banol Kax free rein on Earth.
‘‘He needs help,’’ Leah said. ‘‘We have to help him!’’
‘‘We will,’’ said a new voice. It was Alexis’s voice, Leah realized, and suddenly the others were there, all of them cutting their palms and linking up, and offering their joined power to their king. Strike took the link, then turned to Leah and touched his lips to hers.
Heat sparked and power blasted, a door opening in the barrier, channeling through the young magi and into Strike, from him to Leah, and through her to Kulkulkan.
The god screamed exultantly as the golden mists flared sun-bright with the power of the Nightkeepers. The flying serpent snapped its wings taut and thundered up into the sky, trumpeting the attack as it slammed into Zipacna, raking and clawing at the croc’s softer underbelly. God and demon beat their wings together, fighting the air to stay aloft, fighting each other to stay alive.
But Zipacna was no match for the combined might of the god and his Nightkeepers.
The demon faltered and keened a dying cry, and as he did so, golden mist expanded and wrapped around both of the creatures, enfolding them, then beginning to rotate, spinning faster and faster, creating a vortex of energy that sucked them inexorably down, toward the mouth of the sacred tunnels.
‘‘Leah,’’ Strike said, his voice going urgent. ‘‘Pull out.’’ But she was caught up in the vortex, caught up in the power and the golden light as the feathered serpent trumpeted victory and the winged crocodile Zipacna fought his fate, fought the barrier that sucked him in, seeking to bind him to hell.
Strike grabbed her and shook her. ‘‘Leah. Break the connection before he takes you with him. Remember what almost happened with Anna and the nahwal!’’
He was right, she realized as she tried to sever the Godkeeper bond and Kulkulkan resisted, taking her with him as he morphed to an insubstantial form and raced through dirt and rock, headed toward the Night-keepers’ sacred chamber, and the intersection beyond, which glowed golden on one side and shimmered with lightless black on the other. She could feel the god’s joy in dragging the struggling demon toward the dark side, and his thrill in being free of the skyroad. His longing to return to the sky, bringing her power with him.
‘‘No!’’ Leah cried, and with an effort of will she wrenched away from the god, breaking the connection and yanking her soul back, fighting for the life she’d just found, the love she’d never expected to have. ‘‘Let me go!’’
A detonation rocked the earth beneath her feet as she slammed back wholly into herself. She fell, but she didn’t hit the ground, as strong arms swept her up and held her hard. Recognizing the arms, the man, she returned his embrace, burrowing in and trembling hard as reaction set in.
But she wasn’t the only one trembling, she realized. The earth was heaving beneath her, surging and groaning as though Zipacna were fighting the barrier’s hold, struggling to break free. Moments later, the cave mouth leading to the hidden tunnels collapsed with a roar, belching dirt and debris in the moonlight.
Then everything went still. The earth quit moving and the buzz of power drained.
The Nightkeepers stood staring dumbly, some at the cave-in, some at the sky. But there were no winged crocodiles, no feathered serpents. Just the Yucatán night. The world had gone utterly normal.
‘‘Holy crap,’’ Strike said.
Leah levered away from him, beamed up at him, and started laughing, and her laughter became a whoop, a victory cry. ‘‘We did it!’’
She was elated to be alive, to be victorious. To be in love.
‘‘Thank you,’’ she said, kissing him until neither of them could breathe. ‘‘I love you.’’
‘‘Goes both ways,’’ he said between kisses, holding on to her and squeezing so hard she thought she might break, though she never wanted him to let go. ‘‘You save me; I save you. That’s the way it works from now on.’’
Then they were being mobbed by a sudden surge of cheering bodies, young and weary, but battle tested now, and victorious. Leah laughed with joy as she was variously hugged and backslapped, and returned the favor, aware of the sting in her palms and the aches everywhere else and the fact that none of that mattered just then. They’d won—for now. They could take a breath. Step back. Regroup. And figure out what came next. Most important, they’d do it together, as a team. As the Nightkeepers.
She bounced off Strike in the scrum, laughed, and latched onto him as an anchor. As she did so, she saw a flash of black where there hadn’t been any before. She froze.
Flipped her wrist. Stared.
‘‘Holy shit,’’ someone said. She didn’t think it was her.
There were three marks on her forearm where the scar had been. One she recognized from her research: jun tan. Beloved. The mark of a mated Nightkeeper. The other she recognized from Strike’s arm: the royal ju. The third was unfamiliar, but there was no mistaking the flying serpent.
Strike, when he flipped his arm, was wearing the beloved mark too.
He smiled, his eyes for her alone. He touched her marks one by one and whispered, ‘‘Godkeeper.’’ The flying serpent. ‘‘Queen.’’ The royal mark. And when he got to the third mark, the beloved, he said simply,
‘‘Mine.’’
EPILOGUE
Twenty-four hours later
Exhausted from a restless night plagued with half-remembered dreams of dragons or some such shit—like he hadn’t outgrown D&D years ago—Lucius mainlined about a gallon of instant coffee and dragged his ass onto campus and up the stairs of the art history building. Halfway down the hall to his office, he stopped dead when he saw that Anna’s door was open.
His heart picked up a beat, as hope that she’d come back warred with the fear that admin was clearing out her desk, making it final. Holding his breath, he stepped into the doorway . . . and exhaled on a slap of relief when he saw her sitting at her desk.
She looked up, and her lips curved in greeting. ‘‘Lucius.’’