Nightkeepers (25 page)

Red-Boar’s head came up. ‘‘Is that an order?’’

He hated to do it, but he didn’t see another way. ‘‘Yes.’’

‘‘Then have at it. Your call, your responsibility. I wash my hands of the issue.’’

Having gotten what he’d come for, whether gracefully or not, Strike headed for the door. He paused at the threshold, though, and turned back. ‘‘Was that what you said to my father?’’ It was no secret that Red-Boar had argued against the attack on the intersection. He hadn’t been the only one.

The Nightkeeper’s grin held zero humor. ‘‘No. I told the king he was a damned fool following damn fool dreams.’’

‘‘Since you didn’t say anything like that just now, I’m guessing you think I’m right about binding Rabbit.’’

‘‘I think he’ll find his way to the magic regardless,’’ Red-Boar said. ‘‘I also think that even if we can bind— and control—him, there’s no guarantee the gods will count him as one of the thirteen, especially when there’s one more true Nightkeeper out there.’’

‘‘Don’t go there,’’ Strike warned. ‘‘Either Anna comes back of her own free will or she doesn’t come at all.’’

Red-Boar nodded. ‘‘And that’s where I think you’re being a damned fool.’’

After Strike-out kicked him out of the cottage, Rabbit headed for the pool, planning to swim a few hundred laps to work off the jittery burn in his chest, the one that made him do and say things he sometimes later wished he hadn’t. When he got to the pool area, though, he couldn’t settle enough to dive in. The air jangled with a strange, pent-up energy that amped him up even more than usual. He felt itchy, like he wanted to peel his skin off, starting with his toes and working his way up.

Restless, he slipped into the mansion through one of the glass sliders leading to the hall just beyond the great room. He stopped on the far side of the arched doorway and leaned against the wall, so he could watch without being seen, and listen without being asked to participate in the whole lame-ass Magic 101 thing.

Who are you kidding?
he scoffed inwardly.
Not like they’d ask you anyway
. He wasn’t one of them—his father had made that crystal clear over the years. He’d never really said why, but he hadn’t needed to; it was all too obvious. Rabbit wasn’t the child of his precious wife, Cassie, wasn’t one of the sons he’d lost in the battle. He might be blood kin, but he wasn’t family. Wasn’t a Nightkeeper.

For whatever the hell that was worth.

Hearing the murmur of voices, Rabbit shuffle-stepped a little closer to peek around the arch. Jox was in the middle of saying something about fractal waves and computer programs—Rabbit had no clue what the hell that had to do with the barrier and magic—when he broke off and turned, his eyes looking on Rabbit. ‘‘You want in on this, kid? You could tell these guys what it’s like to jack in.’’

Anger flashing that the
winikin
was making fun of him, teasing him with stuff he wasn’t going to be taught to do properly, Rabbit sneered. ‘‘Yeah, right. Screw you.’’ He flipped the bird, spun on his heel, and headed back down the hall, moving fast.

And ran smack into Strike-out.

Strike gave him The Look, which was one of the few royal things he did really well. ‘‘Apologize.’’

A hundred or so smart-ass responses popped into Rabbit’s head, but for a change he managed to control his mouth. He turned, shuffled back to the arched doorway leading into the great room, and mumbled, ‘‘Sorry, Jox.’’

Strike’s heavy hand landed on his shoulder. ‘‘Now do what he asked you to do. Describe what it’s like to jack in.’’

Rabbit lifted a shoulder. ‘‘You can’t describe it; you’ve just got to do it.’’ Besides, he wasn’t sure he could put the terror—and the elation—into words. So instead he said, ‘‘After you get your second mark, if you’re lucky you’ll be able to do stuff like this.’’ He snapped, and an amber flame sprang from his fingertips.

He knew he was pushing it, doing things he wasn’t supposed to be able to do. Instead of barking at him, though, Strike said, ‘‘Not bad. But with a little teamwork, you can do this.’’ He held his larger hands on either side of the small flame and boosted the power.

The flame turned royal red and erupted to a fireball the size of Rabbit’s head.

The teen reeled back, banging into the big man behind him. Power danced across his skin and burned in his blood, making him want to throw his head back and scream with the mad glory of it.

Then it was gone.

For a few seconds, there was utter silence in the great room. The newbies’ eyes were big and it didn’t look like they were breathing.

Strike lowered his hands, letting them drop to Rabbit’s shoulders. ‘‘You shouldn’t be able to call fire without training,’’ he said quietly.

‘‘So sue me,’’ Rabbit said, equally quiet, totally buzzing with the aftermath of the boosted power.

Strike pushed him forward. ‘‘Go on; get in there. You may think you know everything already, but trust me, you don’t.’’

Unprepared for the shove, Rabbit stumbled forward a few steps, then spun. ‘‘What are you saying?’’ He couldn’t quite keep the pitiful hope out of his voice.

Strike nodded yes to the question he hadn’t asked. ‘‘You’ll be part of the ceremony tomorrow.’’

Shock hammered through the teen. ‘‘No way the old man is going to let that happen.’’

‘‘I’ve taken care of that,’’ Strike said, then paused. ‘‘I think you should move into the main house. It’ll make the training easier if everyone’s in one place.’’

Rabbit’s mouth went dry. ‘‘He kicked me out of the cottage?’’

‘‘No.’’ Strike shook his head. ‘‘No, never think that. He’s just trying—has always tried—to do right by you. Believe that, even if it doesn’t always make sense. But things have changed, and they’re going to keep changing, and I want you to be a part of it.’’

A quick suspicion nagged at Rabbit, itching across his skin, but he ignored it because he was finally—finally!— being offered a chance at some real, honest-to-gods, sink-your-teeth-into-it training. Strike was offering to bind him, to—

He gulped as a thought occurred. ‘‘What . . . what will my mark be?’’

Red-Boar had never accepted him as his son. Would the barrier see him as a member of the peccary bloodline, or as something else?

Worse, what if the barrier didn’t recognize him at all?

‘‘I’ll see you through it,’’ Strike said, which wasn’t an answer, but was kind of reassuring, regardless.

Rabbit’s chest felt funny when he nodded. ‘‘Yeah . . . okay. Um. Thanks.’’

Strike’s eyes were very serious and a little bit sad. ‘‘I should’ve done something like this a long time ago.’’

That funny feeling spread up Rabbit’s throat and itched at the back of his eyeballs, and to his utter horror he realized he was about to cry. " ’S okay," he mumbled, and reversed course to push past Strike and head for the john.

Halfway there, he turned back and sniffed. ‘‘Tell him . . . please tell Jox that I’ll be right back. And not to start without me.’’

Then he locked himself in the bathroom, turned on the water, and bawled like a baby.

For several days after Vince’s death and Leah’s subsequent suspension for blatantly disobeying orders to ‘‘stay the hell away from the 2012ers,’’ she functioned on autopilot.

She grieved, but it was like there’d been so much grief lately that she’d worn out those neurons, making her numb and angry rather than sad. So she ate too little, slept too much, and spent the rest of the time sitting at her kitchen table, surfing the Internet, and trying to make some sense of it all.

On the morning of the Fourth of July, she dragged her ass out of bed midmorning, stumbled down from the attic, where she still slept beneath the stars. When she hit the button on her Mr. Coffee, a fat yellow spark jumped from her fingertip to the machine, and electricity arced with a sizzle and a yellow flash.

Leah shrieked and leaped back, her arm vibrating with the shock and her heart giving a funny bumpity-bump in her chest, as if whatever’d just happened had kicked it off rhythm.

Hello, static electricity,
she thought, though the air was humid and her floors weren’t carpeted. But what other explanation was there?

Mr. Coffee didn’t so much as gurgle when she hit the ON button, suggesting that she’d fried something vital, so she went with tea for her morning caffeine hit as she powered up her laptop and glanced at her notes from the day before.

The Calendar Killer had taken twelve victims that they knew of, two at each equinox and solstice over the past eighteen months, with the exception of the previous month, when the summer solstice had passed without new victims.

Granted, Nick had died that day, but the signature was completely different; the only connection was the ritualistic nature of the Calendar murders, which might or might not point to the 2012ers, and the fact that she and Nick had been waiting for info on the leader of Survivor2012.

Chicken and egg or coincidence? Damned if she knew.

Then there was Vince’s death. Guilt twisted tight when she pushed herself to remember exactly what’d happened. She should’ve insisted that he leave the investigation to the task force. Hell,
she
should’ve left the investigation to the task force. If she had, Vince would still be alive.

Then again, if they’d left it alone, the task force wouldn’t be taking another look at Survivor2012.

The explosion seemed to have been aimed at the heart of the group, their ceremonies. The Calendar Killings could—although this might be stretching it a little—have been intended to throw suspicion on the group. Which might mean the killer wasn’t necessarily a member of Survivor2012. He could be its enemy.

The thought brought a flash of piercing blue eyes, the image of a big man who had moved like a fighter and bombed a charity gala, yet had somehow gotten her out of a locked chamber before it blew.

Logic said she’d gotten blown clear by the shock wave. But the door had been shut, and even if it’d been open, the shock wave would’ve splatted her on the opposite wall rather than taking a right-hand turn and dumping her in the main hallway.

Logic also said that the dreams were nothing more than a pastiche of her experiences over the past few months, a way for her subconscious to deal with the pain. But the skulls in the older dreams had screamed a blast of water rather than a trickle, and the blue-eyed warrior had worn cutoffs rather than combat fatigues. And rather than a murderer, he’d been her lover.

It didn’t make sense. None of it did.

But she sure as hell intended to figure it out. For Matty. For Nick. For Vince.

For her own sanity.

Ignoring the tea that cooled at her elbow, she got to work. She wasn’t looking for the names and faces of people who might want Survivor2012 gone for good— the task force was already on that, and with a ton more computer power than she had at her disposal. No, she was coming at it from another angle.

She was trying to figure out what made the doomsdayers tick. Maybe it was partly because, if she accepted the 2012ers as the victims rather than the perps, that meant Matty hadn’t been stupid for joining them, meant she hadn’t been irresponsible for letting her brother run with the crowd that’d killed him. Maybe it was because the snippets she’d caught from the 2012ers’ educational programs had been oddly compelling. And maybe it was an effort to understand her own response to the dark-haired stranger.

Whatever the source of the compulsion—obsession?— she worked through the day, bent over her computer until her eyes burned and her joints ached and her head buzzed with strange words that made more sense to her than they ought.

She didn’t get dressed until midafternoon, didn’t have lunch until four. And when darkness fell, she kept working.

As the stars prickled to life overhead, she discovered an author named Ambrose Ledbetter who seemed to know more than all the rest, or maybe he just put it in words that a nonexpert could understand. Either way, his articles seemed to synthesize all the information, ask all the right questions. Ledbetter had written in an article published just before the Calendar Killings began:

A knock at the door had Leah jolting. She’d been so into the research that she hadn’t heard the sound of a car, or footsteps coming up the drive. But the interruption was probably a good thing, she realized as she stood and the room took a long, lazy spin around her. She needed to move around, get her blood pressure above ‘‘hibernate.’’

When the knock came again, she called, ‘‘Be right there.’’

The floor seemed to move beneath her feet, swaying, and the air hummed faintly off-key. She had a hell of a headache—when had that started? She didn’t remember. The pressure began at the base of her skull and radiated upward, somehow seeming more like desire for something forbidden than actual pain. It also felt familiar, though she couldn’t have said why.