Shadow Visions: Shadow Warriors, Book 2 (11 page)

Chapter Eight

Sweat coated her body as Ixa lashed out in her sleep.

Manuel put his hand on her bicep—it burned at the touch. The tattoo on her arm fluttered against his palm. Something was wrong.

“Ixa, wake up.” He nudged her gently, afraid to startle her. She awoke with a jolt, her breathing coming in fast pants while her body trembled against his. She looked at him with panic.

“He’s going to die.”

His protective instincts kicked in. “Who?”

“Abuelo.” She covered her face with her hands.

“Shhh,
nohuitzil
.” Manuel pulled her into his arms. He could feel her erratic heartbeat against his bare chest. “It was only a nightmare, my hummingbird.”

“No. It was a vision.”

Manuel froze. “A vision?” He lightly pushed away from her to better see her. “Ixa, can you see things that are going to happen?”

Her hands fell to her lap. “Yes,” she said quietly, her face full of shame. “My abuelo calls this, too, a gift from the gods. I call it another curse.”

“Did you see visions of the women being killed?”

Ixa dropped her hands, but she didn’t raise her head. She was usually tough, defiant, only now she wouldn’t look at him. When she spoke, the words seemed to be dragged from deep inside her. “I never wanted this. I never asked for this. Those women. I could do nothing to help them. I watched them die. I wanted it to stop.” The last came out almost as a cry of anguish.

“So why didn’t you stop it?”

“What are you talking about?” Her head jerked up, so that she finally looked him in the eye.

Her stricken features tugged at the softer side he had recently rediscovered thanks to her, but he hardened his heart. “Why didn’t you stop the women from being killed?”

“I can’t.” She sat up, the blanket pooled at her waist. Her hair streamed around her shoulders, offering tantalizing glimpses of her nude body, though she didn’t seem to notice. “Don’t you understand? My visions are of the future. I have no control over them. I don’t know where or when they are going to happen.”

“I understand you didn’t confide in me about your visions.”

She was quiet for a moment. “What do you want from me? We’ve only just met.” As if suddenly realizing the vulnerability of her position, she pulled the small blanket up over her breasts, shielding her body from his eyes.

His eagle spirit sensed the disturbance in his emotions and demanded release. Manuel quashed his beast down, though a part of him wished for the freedom of the outdoors. Dealing with emotions after so long was difficult. Only this was too important to ignore or shove aside. He and Ixa needed to sort this out.

He thrust his fingers into his hair, unable to calm the turmoil that seemed to be growing within him. “I expected your trust.”

She stared at him, disbelief clear on her face. “You want too much. I couldn’t stop Galante from killing my family. What makes you think I could have protected those other women? And why does knowing about this freakish ability matter to you? Could you have done something about it?”

“Yes. I am a shadow warrior.” Anger swelled in his breast. “Ixa, you are a cop. You swore to protect lives. If you had the opportunity to stop something that you knew was going to happen, you should have intervened. Those women were like you…special and irreplaceable. They could have saved another warrior’s life, allowing him to hold on to his humanity, but now we will never know. Your visions gave you a choice. You chose to sit on the sidelines and let Galante and his master take innocent lives, and now your abuelo stands to lose his. If they get away with it, then a darkness like no other will descend upon the Earth and all of humanity will be lost.”

He got up from the bed, his body no longer warm, his heart growing cold. “You are not a child anymore, Ixa. You are an officer of the law and a warrior chosen by the gods to protect humanity. Where is your sense of duty?”

Ixa’s eyes blazed fire. “Don’t even go there. I did my duty. I spent my life tracking that man down and put Galante away in prison. It’s your gods that set him free. Where’s the justice in that?”

“You’re right. There is no justice. Shit happens to good people every day. You know goddamn well it does. You see it all the time on the job. That doesn’t mean you give up.”

“I didn’t give up, damn you.”

“You didn’t learn from your mistakes either. You refuse to use all the tools at your disposal. You have power that goes beyond the badge and gun that you carry. The gods gifted you with the ability to call the wind and they gave you the gift of foresight. I’m sure your abuelo offered to teach you how to control them, but you stubbornly reject anyone’s help.”

She scrambled off the bed, pulling the blanket with her, knuckles white, holding the material tightly closed. “You son of a bitch. My family died because of me and my so-called gift. Do you have any idea what it’s like to hear the screams of your family every night when you close your eyes?”

“Do you think you are the only one to lose loved ones? Mine were wiped out because I arrogantly believed I was smarter, faster and more capable than any other Aztec chieftain. They were slaughtered on my watch. I became a shadow warrior to find justice for them. Soon, my eagle spirit will devour my soul and even seeking justice will be beyond me. But until that day comes, I will fight because that is who I am.”

“I can’t be like you.” Her voice shook.

“You could be if you wanted to. That is why you carry the mark of the huitzil.” Weariness settled deep into his bones. The gap between Ixa and himself might as well have been a gulf. He thought finding his spirit mate would be his salvation, his hope to have what he had waited centuries for…his humanity and a family. He’d thought wrong.

“Tell me what you saw in your vision.” He hated how harsh he sounded, but time was of the essence. Again he had underestimated his adversary, but this time the stakes were higher. All of humanity stood to lose. He had already lost. Being this close to his spirit mate and knowing that she would never feel the same way he felt drove a dagger through his heart.

He would rescue her abuelo and deliver the demon to the netherworld, and when his mission was complete, he would give himself over completely to the eagle spirit, for if Ixa would not have him, he wished to feel nothing at all.

Tall and strong, he dominated the room and simply waited for her to speak. She felt at a disadvantage. Definitely underdressed. Manuel, on the other hand, appeared unfazed by his nudity. Handsome and tough, he took her breath away. Her body still remembered the feel of his touch, and the sweet kisses he had run along her body. The musky scent of their sex still clung to her skin and laced the air. He stood out of her reach, his body rigid and demeanor cold, and she lamented that she had put that scowl on his face. She wanted to fix it but knew firsthand that there was no changing the past.

On unsteady legs she returned to the small bed and sat down on the edge. One of her hands crept up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Can you please clothe yourself?”

“If it will help you to concentrate.” He did as she asked. Manuel passed his hand over his body, mouthing words she could not hear, and changed into his warrior garb.

Ixa felt like a pebble caught up in a windstorm, battered and buffeted from all sides. Manuel and her abuelo wanted too much from her, asking her to step into a world with rules she didn’t understand, where her badge and a gun meant nothing. They wanted her to embrace her talents and to forget about the fact that one small error on her part could wipe out all of San Diego.

She drew in a deep breath and forced herself to recall the vision that might mean the difference between life and death for her abuelo. The vision blew through her mind with gale force.

“I see Galante and my abuelo.”

“Where are they?” A breeze filtered through her senses, containing the damp, wet smell of charred wood. A picture of a cheerful yellow daisy popped into her mind’s eye—a happy image that burned up in flames and turned into rotted wallpaper hanging down over a broken wall. “They’re in a burnt-down building.” Her throat clogged as she choked on black smoke. It filled her lungs, but it wasn’t from her vision—it was a memory.

She blinked her eyes and came back to the present. “Galante’s returned to my old home. That house has been boarded up and shuttered for over two decades—my abuelo was reluctant to sell and I was too scared to revisit the scene of so much death and pain. God, it’s like a damn cliché. Murderers always return to the scene of the crime.”

“What is the address?”

Ixa told him, wondering if he realized it was now in one of the worst sections of the city, plagued by gang violence, drugs and prostitution. It hadn’t been so bad when she’d been a child. Maybe not the best of neighborhoods, but certainly not the eyesore and pit of despair it was today.

“Is there anyone else with them?”

Ixa pushed aside the past to concentrate on the present, knowing it was her only hope if she wished to see the future and possibly change it. “A demon of immense power. He’s chanting. All around him black storm clouds are gathering. He’s holding an obsidian blade.”

“Focus on the man with the ceremonial knife.”

Ixa concentrated. “He’s covered in bones, his figure deformed, but he’s not solid—it’s like he’s made of shadows.”

“Metztli.” Manuel ground out the name. “The god of the moon. He resents his low status in the pecking order. He left the pantheon when humans stopped making sacrifices to him. The continuous sacrifices fed the gods their power. Without sacrifices, without belief, they are shadows of their former selves, though still capable of tremendous feats—both good and bad—that would seem impossible by human standards.”

She looked up at him. “God of the moon. I should have made the connection when Galante mentioned him back at the warehouse. I’ve shoved Abuelo’s stories so far down that they’ve become a jumble of names and far-fetched events. Except for the shadow warriors. Their tales always loomed larger than life, no matter how much I tried to ignore them. Do you think the recent sacrifices brought Metztli back to life?”

“Yes, I don’t doubt it. Their power on the earthly plane is somewhat limited, but each sacrifice directed towards them gives a god strength. Even so, it would take numerous sacrifices to achieve the power the gods wielded centuries ago. The question is, why? What has the moon god to gain from killing guardians?” He scowled as he pondered the possibilities. He turned around and focused on her abuelo’s walking stick. He turned back around and looked at her. His eyes glowed golden. “How could I have been so stupid not to see it?

“It took Metztli a while, but he knew how to find you all along. He knew that if he killed the others, you would come and expose yourself to him.” His piercing eyes pinned her. “You are the guardian to the wind.” Without saying more he turned on his heel and headed for the door.

Ixa jumped up from the bed, uncaring that she left the blanket behind. She chased after him. “What do you mean? I don’t understand. Where are you going?”

He swiveled around, his eyes no longer human but those of the eagle. “Don’t you see? Metztli was never after you. He wanted your abuelo all along. Galante was a distraction meant to throw you off course.” He put his hands on her bare shoulders. She felt his power tingle along her skin, lighting up her tattoo. “Every god needs a vessel when they leave the pantheon to stay on this plane, something that will contain them, hide them from the other gods and allow them to live on. There is a reason you don’t have any pictures of Ehecatl. Your abuelo must be the wind god.”

Memories of her abuelo, moments they’d experienced and stories he’d told her as a child whirled around inside her head in a tornado. Fear fisted in her gut. A mental picture of the women with their hearts torn out wafted in her mind. Her abuelo would face the same fate all because she had not embraced her heritage.

She grabbed Manuel’s arm. “I need to come with you. I have to make things right.”

He pulled away from her grip. “There is no time. Sunrise is only a few hours away. If the moon god extracts the god of wind from your abuelo, then Metztli will steal the air and all will die.”

Manuel hit the door and took off running. His wings burst from his back and in midair he shifted into the eagle, letting out a screech as he headed towards the city, the setting moon a beacon guiding him forward.

Ixa hurried to dress, her mind awhirl with Manuel’s revelations. Years ago, she had pushed the gods aside, angry at them for taking away her family, yet her abuelo had stood by her, loved her and cared for her. Manuel’s suggestion seemed crazy, impossible. If her abuelo truly was a god, then why hadn’t he revealed himself to her?

Maybe because he feared she would push him away too, blame him for not saving his own daughter and her flesh and blood. She silently admitted it wasn’t an unreasonable fear given her rejection of her heritage and abilities.

The only way to really find out was to find him and ask him. She prayed she wasn’t too late.

Aztec deity or not, Abuelo was Abuelo, an old man who’d taken her in when she’d been lost and devastated. A gentle man who’d held her when her nightmares and visions threatened to destroy her. A wise man who’d offered advice, but still allowed her to choose her own path.