When he was gone, she bent over Michael and Rabbit once again. She tried to summon a prayer, tried to find some hope, but in the end all she could come up with was an inner snarclass="underline" For gods’ sake, get your asses back here.
But despite her refusal to give up on them, and her internal bravado, her eyes filmed as they locked on Michael, lying so still, his muscles lax beneath her touch. She hadn’t been able to live with every aspect of his too-multifaceted personality, but there were parts of him she loved deeply—like his strong sense of honor, his honest efforts to be a better man and a worthy Nightkeeper. She couldn’t even fault the need for justice that had drawn him into the FBI, and from there into the Bryson’s employ. He’d never said as much, but she suspected that she’d been destined for a less battered version, one that had been raised within the traditions and canons of the Nightkeepers. And she suspected that was the man she’d glimpsed within him, the one who combined warrior, killer, lover, and friend into one honorable core that some might find frightening and violent, but she found exactly right. That man was the one she wanted.
Leaning over him, aware that two more latches had come undone on the sarcophagus and she was running out of time, she leaned over him, touched her lips to his cool, unmoving cheek, and whispered in his ear, “Come back to me, Michael. Come back and bring me the man I could love.”
The in-between The man I could love . . . Michael awoke with the quiet, powerful words whispering around him, inside him. Humming agreement, he reached for Sasha, and touched only sand.
“What the . . . ?” Cracking his eyes he saw a flow of brown water moving sluggishly past, along a riverbank a couple of feet from where he lay facedown, feeling wrecked. I’m still in between, he thought, recognizing the Scorpion River. Shit. He’d assumed that once he’d done the near-drowning thing, he’d be zapped back to his body. Apparently not. But as he dragged himself up to a fighter’s crouch, he realized something else.
The death’s-head talent mark that had been on his wrist was gone. He was back down to the stone and the warrior. The Mictlan urge, as far as he could tell, was gone. The muk connection had disappeared, as well. The Other was still within him, though. It was contained, but it was there, waiting to emerge when his defenses were low. And perhaps it was only fitting for him to have to keep those urges and memories as punishment for the choices he’d made. But if the Other had lost its access to the muk, it should be his own private torture, no longer endangering his sin balance, and through that, the other Nightkeepers.
“Thank you, gods,” he said softly. Yes, there would be consequences to his refusing the Mictlan’s target—potentially devastating consequences—but he’d deal with whatever happened. He’d refused to sacrifice a teammate, so the Nightkeepers would deal with it as a team. And Sasha . . . He thought of the whisper, thought of her. And thought that she’d been right about some things. He’d fought for Rabbit just now, and committed the Nightkeepers to future strife on the younger mage’s behalf. Yet he hadn’t fought nearly so hard to work things out with her, assuming it was a lost battle before it had even begun.
But not again, he decided. He was going back to her. And he was going to fight his ass off and see where it got him.
Buoyed by the thought, by the image of her that he held in his head, in his heart, he summoned his magic, not needing blood sacrifice during the solstice. The power came easily, gloriously red-gold, with no sign of muk. He was about to say the word that would take him back to the real world, back to his life, when he heard a low, pained moan behind him. He jerked around, then cursed viciously at the sight of another body washed up on the riverbank just beyond him.
At first he thought it was Lucius. But Lucius hadn’t been wearing a hoodie. And he sure as shit didn’t have a small army of marks on his inner forearm, one of which glowed bloodred among the black glyphs.
“Rabbit.” Michael surged to his feet. “Godsdamn it, you were supposed to fucking wait for me to come back!” He took a couple of steps toward the kid, then stopped dead when he felt the temptation of hellmagic and saw the dark, oily shadows clinging to the young man’s skin and clothes, making him look like he was lying beneath a blanket of darkness. “Aw, hell,” Michael said, softer now. “What happened to you? What did you do?”
“Iago.” The word was cracked, barely audible, forced through stiff lips. “He was trying to piggyback on the scorpion spell. When I blocked him, he slapped a second hellmagic connection on me. . . .” Rabbit’s voice petered out, his eyes rolling back in his head.
“Damn it.” Michael crouched down beside him, saw that his clothing was dry. The kid hadn’t made it into the river. Iago had wrapped him in layer upon layer of hellmagic and dropped him in the in-
between to die. The realization brought a glimmer of hope, and Michael reached out to shake the teen.
But then he hesitated, something deep inside warning that he shouldn’t touch the darkness. He’d severed his connection to the muk power, but the penchants of his bloodline remained. Instinct warned that if he touched the hellmagic, it would render him vulnerable to the darkness once again. And did he dare return to the river? The spell hadn’t said anything about touching the powerful waters twice.
One swim breaks the bond; a second forms it anew. The whisper came in the multitonal voice of his ancestral nahwal. Michael didn’t for a second think he’d imagined it. He wanted to rail at the nahwal, wanted to shout at the deaf gods, at the fates. But he knew that wouldn’t do a damn bit of good, so he gritted his teeth and crouched down beside his teammate.
“Come on, Rabbit,” he said, hoping he wasn’t too far gone to hear. “You’ve got to get up. It’s just a few steps to the river.”
But the younger mage didn’t respond. And as Michael watched, the dark haze around Rabbit thickened, and his breathing stuttered.
“Godsdamn it.” Michael hesitated. He couldn’t just leave Rabbit. He wouldn’t. He’d made his choice already. Steeling himself against the slick, oily feel of the mucilaginous film coating the teen, he got one arm under the kid’s shoulders, the other beneath his knees, and stood, lifting Rabbit with a groan of effort and heading toward the river. Everywhere he touched the teen, the darkness stuck and clung to his own skin. Every step he took toward the river put him another step back toward connecting with the muk power. He could feel the temptation, see the glitter of silver at the edges of his vision.
It was the curse of his bloodline.
Then he reached the edge and stepped into the Scorpion River, carrying Rabbit with him. He threw back his head and howled as the water washed part of the darkness out of Rabbit and into him, returning the Mictlan bond and his connection to the muk, though not the target mark. Gravity increased a thousandfold, the weight of his other self dragging him down, making his bones ache, making his soul cry out in pain.
Rabbit spasmed and jerked awake, thrashing. Michael lost his grip, regained it, and dragged the younger man to the surface. Then, realizing he still had to complete the spell, he shoved Rabbit’s head under, reciting the second half of the spell as he did so.
Rabbit thrashed. Convulsed. Went still.
As life drained from the young man, Michael knew what it felt like to be a murderer. But then he pulled the young man up and out, and dragged him onto the beach. He got Rabbit on his side, got the water out. Started with artificial resps.