CHAPTER TWO
Present November 18 Three years and thirty-three days until the end
date The Yucatán
Michael Stone stood atop a midsize Mayan ruin called the watchtower, his dark, shoulder-length hair blowing a little in the sea breeze. Behind him was an expanse of lush, stone-studded greenery; ahead was a white stone cliff that dropped steeply to a gleaming, tourist-dotted strip of coral beach. Beyond that was the vibrant blue-green of the Caribbean.
It was a hell of a view, that was for sure.
The ruined port city was called Tulum, which meant “wall” in Spanish and referred to the sturdy stone balustrade that enclosed the city on three sides, with the cliff and ocean forming the fourth. The fortification was impressive, even in ruins, but it hadn’t protected the city from the ravages of the conquistadors and their missionaries. And in the almost five hundred years since Cortés first landed, the place had become a tourist trap, due largely to its small, walkable size and prime beachfront location.
The deets spooled through Michael’s brain, courtesy of the report he’d downloaded from his e-mail a couple of hours earlier. It’d been sent by the Nightkeepers’ archivist, Jade, his former lover-turned-
friend. The thought of her brought a twinge of guilt and regret, but both had become too-familiar companions over the past year-plus, ever since the talent ceremony that had unlocked a shit-ton more than just his warrior’s talent. Since he couldn’t change the past—his and Jade’s or otherwise—he pushed aside the guilt and tried to focus on what he ought to be doing, namely reporting back to home base with a whole lot of negatives.
Still, though, he hesitated, standing alone atop a pyramid where one of his ancestors might have stood centuries earlier. Sunlight glinted on the dark sunglasses that shaded Michael’s piercing eyes, which were so dark green they were nearly black in some lights. A sea breeze tugged at his tee, molding the fabric to his big, fighting-lean body as he pictured that hypothetical ancestor, a Nightkeeper mage like himself. The image didn’t last long, though, largely because Michael wasn’t nearly as deep into the whole ancestor-worship thing as some of the others. Not like the winikin, who saw it as their duty—one among many—to remind the Nightkeepers of their history, usually when they least expected or wanted it. Sort of like a Discovery Channel sneak attack. Despite the knee-jerk avoidance the lectures had spawned in him, though, Michael found himself struck by the ruins and their view of the sea. He could almost picture the seagoing outriggers the ancient Maya had used to transport their goods along the coast, the pack trains coming from the inland city-states, and the open-
air market that had formed where the two commerce streams met at Tulum’s port.
And you’re so incredibly stalling, it’s not even funny , he thought wryly, forcing himself to palm his phone out of his pocket and speed-dial Strike’s cell.
The Nightkeepers’ king picked up on the third ring. “Tell me something good.”
“Sorry. I’ve got bad, bad, and more bad.”
Strike’s low curse suggested that the others had also come up empty in their ruin-ratting searches for a new intersection, which was a major problem. Ever since the Xibalbans had destroyed the sacred chamber beneath the ruins of Chichén Itzá, the Nightkeepers’ powers had been inconsistent at best, weakening at worst. Without a direct connection to the sky plane and the gods who lived there, the Nightkeepers’ magic was fading at a time when the few remaining prophecies said they were supposed to be growing stronger, gearing up to fight the demon Banol Kax and their earthly agents, the Xibalbans.
Worse, the Xibalbans had direct access to the underworld through a hellmouth located somewhere in the cloud forests of Ecuador, which meant their dark-magic powers were just as strong as ever. The Nightkeepers had tried to find and destroy the mouth, but they’d been unable to find it, suggesting the Xibalbans had tucked the entrance into a fold of the barrier, removing it from the earthly plane.
Given the existence of the hellmouth, logic and the doctrine of balance—which had become a central force in Michael’s life since his talent ceremony—said there had to be another access point to the sky, another intersection. The billion-dollar question was: where?
The Nightkeepers had split up to search each of the sites mentioned in their regrettably incomplete archives as being places where the barrier separating the earth, sky, and underworld came very near the plane of mankind, potentially allowing access. Because of the exponentially increased power of mated pairs, Strike and his human mate, Leah; married parents Brandt and Patience White-Eagle; and newly mated Nate Blackhawk and Alexis Gray had taken the likeliest-seeming sites. Bachelors Michael and Sven had each taken a group of lower-priority sites, while the two nonwarriors—Jade and Strike’s sister, Anna—provided backup with the help of the winikin. On Strike’s say-so, the final remaining Nightkeeper warrior, twenty-year-old Rabbit, had skipped the assignment to start his freshman year at UT Austin with his human girlfriend, Myrinne. The kid was on call if anyone needed him.
Six months ago, that would’ve been a big “no” as far as Michael was concerned—Rabbit was a half-
blood, py rokine, telekine, mind-bender, and juvenile delinquent all wrapped up in one pissed-off package. He might’ve matured since he’d escaped from his brief captivity with the Xibalbans, bringing Myrinne out with him, but Michael still figured the kid belonged where he was, learning how to be a better human being while the rest of them tried to figure out how to be better magi.
At each of the sites where they hoped to find a new intersection, the Nightkeepers had let blood from their palms and used the sacrifice to call magic, testing the strength of the connection. A new intersection should give them a power boost that was off the charts. Michael’s sites had barely registered on his own inner magic-o-meter.
“Are you sure?” Strike asked.
“Positive. There’s no sign of an intersection at Tulum, Xel-Ha, Ox Bel Ha, or any of the other sites I tried.” Michael might not be able to call the offensive weapons usually brought by the warrior’s mark, but there was no way he’d missed an intersection—assuming, of course, that it acted like the one beneath Chichén Itzá. Before he could say anything else, though, he caught sight of an M-16-toting militiaman strolling around the edges of the watchtower’s lower level, “I’ve got company,” he reported. “I’ll call you back when I get to my hotel, sooner if I need an emergency pickup.”
Sometimes it came in handy having a king who could teleport.
Michael flipped his phone shut and jogged down the steep, faintly slippery stone stairway that ran down the backside of the watchtower pyramid. When he hit level ground, he headed away from the ruin, angling in the opposite direction from the soldier in the hopes that the guy was just staying visible to the tourists thronging the popular site.
The other man changed vector to intercept, though, which had Michael muttering a curse under his breath. The ruins of Tulum weren’t normally under military control; technically they weren’t now, but there was a definite armed presence in the region, thanks to an ongoing tug-of-war between the government and a group of resorts that might or might not have been built on protected parkland right next to the ruins. Michael had bribed one of the soldiers to gain access to the watchtower ruin, which was supposed to be closed to the public. But the guy on his tail wasn’t the one he’d bribed; he was older and tougher looking, with a serious don’t screw with me; I’m having a shitty week look in his eyes.