Without warning, the entire chamber shuddered and dropped downward like some sort of ancient elevator gone wrong, falling a few feet and then stopping with a jolt and a loud bang. Moments later, a rushing noise gathered, then grew louder. Then water blasted inward, geysering from the screaming skull mouths and crashing down to the chamber floor.
Leah moaned, beyond herself from terror and the splitting pressure inside her brain. Zipacna leaned over her, running the flat of the knife softly across her belly before he lifted the blade and slashed it across his tongue. Blood welled up and spilled over as he shouted the same words as before. ‘‘Och Banol Kax!’’
The torches flared higher around the edge of the chamber, above the rising water. A tentacle of black smoke reached for Leah, caressing her cheek, then dropping down to stroke her ribs and belly, blatantly sexual.
Please let this all be a bad dream, she prayed, and felt a mocking chuckle rise up from deep inside her.
Zipacna grinned a gory, horrible smile. Blood dripped from his mouth and spattered on her stomach. Around them, the water pooled and collected, climbing to his ankles, then his knees. He pressed the knife just beneath her breastbone and spoke a string of words in that strange language, only now it somehow translated itself inside her head in a mix of purple and bright gold. As the masters have commanded, I have opened the intersection. With blood I offer myself, offer the gods’ keeper, to become makol, to become a tool for your—
Leah could barely hear him anymore over the howling scream that filled her head, where darkness and light spun together, fighting for dominance.
She heard words in that strange language, though she didn’t know what they meant, knew only that they were there, and the warm golden light urged her to use them. Filling her lungs, she arched her head back and screamed as loud as she could, ‘‘Och jun tan!’’
At the words, a tornado blasted through the room.
One second Strike was hanging motionless, suspended in the barrier—a murky gray-green mist that had no beginning or end, no point of reference, no way out except a magic that he didn’t know how to manage. Then words echoed—a spell he didn’t recognize, spoken in a woman’s voice that sent shivers down the back of his neck.
And the bottom dropped out of his world. A hole appeared in the fog and he plummeted through, straight back to earth. He knew it was earth the same way he knew it was hours later, nearly the solstice, because the magic of it, the power of it hummed in his bones. Then the world came clear around him, and he realized three things at once.
One, he was in the sacred chamber beneath Chichén Itzá, where his parents and the others had died.
Two, the blonde—the one he’d dreamed of—was there.
And three, she was in deep shit.
A guy appeared in midair at the edge of the circular chamber and hovered for a split second. He was a big man, wearing a tight black T-shirt over whipcord muscles, with ragged cutoffs below. His high cheekbones and piercing eyes were those of a warrior, and Leah knew them instantly from her dreams, just as she recognized his dark ponytail and jawline beard, and the ink on his inner forearm, two marks next to each other with a third above. In that instant of hovering, he looked at her, recognized her, and seemed more surprised to see her than he did to have materialized inside a Mayan temple.
Then gravity took over and he fell with a shout, slamming into Zipacna. The men went down together in the deepening water, which churned with their struggles. Leah screamed as they shot to their feet, streaming water and grappling for the knife.
She strained toward the newcomer, screaming, ‘‘Help me!’’
Zipacna twisted away and slashed a wide arc with the stone knife, forcing his opponent to dodge. The stranger moved like a fighter, but had no weapons. Zipacna slashed again, then spun and crossed to the altar.
Blood poured from his mouth, painting his front a gory red, and purple-black smoke twined around him like an unholy halo. Water licked over the top of the altar as he lifted the knife and said, ‘‘The heart of the gods’ keeper gives me life beyond the barrier, the power to become power itself.’’
The stranger lunged across the chamber, shouting, ‘‘Torotobik!’’
The cuffs at Leah’s wrists and ankles exploded, the shrapnel driving Zipacna back a pace without touching her skin.
She wasted half a second gaping before she flung herself off the altar, straight at Zipacna. She lacked leverage, but had the advantage of surprise as she got a fistful of his hair in one hand and drove her opposite elbow into his gut. The knife went flying and the stranger dove for it.
Zipacna bellowed and went down, nearly submerging them both in the cold water, which had started glowing a strange greenish white.
A rising howl echoed in the chamber, nearly drowning out the stranger’s voice when he shouted, ‘‘Get away from her, you bastard!’’
Zipacna thrashed and twisted, reversing their positions so she was the one neck-deep in the water. His eyes took on a strange greenish glow as he wrapped his fingers around her throat and squeezed.
His voice was gravelly and barely human when he said, ‘‘You’re too late, Nightkeeper. I am ajaw-makol, and she belongs to me.’’ He bore down, choking her. Leah’s vision went dim, then dark, and a rushing noise filled her head.
Over it all, she heard the stranger say, ‘‘Wrong. She’s mine.’’ He hurled himself forward and plunged the stone knife into Zipacna’s back.
Zipacna jerked and arched, screaming in pain. He staggered away from her, convulsing as he grabbed for a deep stab wound beneath his shoulder blade. Slamming against the wall near the doorway, he listed to one side, drawing a red smear on the wall.
But incredibly, horribly, he grinned, his mismatched eyes glowing pure emerald green. ‘‘Too late, Nightkeeper. ’’
He slapped his palm against the wall, spoke a low word, and lurched through the doorway. The stranger roared and lunged for the door, but a stone panel slid across the opening, sealing them in.
‘‘Oh, God!’’ Heart pounding, Leah splashed toward the door. She was halfway there when the chamber dropped a few more feet and the incoming water doubled, blasting from the screaming skulls with pounding force. Moments later, the torches snuffed out, leaving the room lit by the unearthly radiance of the water, which quickly climbed to her throat, then buoyed her off the floor until she was treading to keep her head above the surface.
Heart racing, she turned to the stranger. Remembering the grenade thing he’d done with her cuffs, she said, ‘‘Can you open the door?’’
He shook his head. ‘‘No, but I can try something else. Come here.’’ Swimming now, he gathered her close and fitted her body against his as the cool, white-green water edged up past her ears and touched her cheeks. ‘‘Hang on.’’
Leah grabbed onto him as her head bumped the ceiling. ‘‘Hurry!’’
His arms tightened around her and she felt that click of connection, the twist in her belly that said, There you are. He held her close, said a few words in that strange language. . . .
And nothing happened.
Come on. Heart hammering, Strike tried again, bearing down and thinking of the garden center. For fuck’s sake, teleport!
He was wearing a new mark on his forearm, the talent glyph of a teleporter. But no matter how hard he concentrated on the garden center, giving himself a destination this time, the yellow travel thread refused to appear in his mind.
Focus, he thought as the water closed over them. Clear your head.