He palmed his knife and held it out. "I'll swear it in blood if you want."

"You'd just tweak the wording." She pushed the stone blade aside and strode past him, headed for the main gate.

Dez started after her, then stopped and looked back, torn. His relationship with the Nightkeepers was crucial . . . but so was what was happening between him and Reese.

"Go on," said Strike. "We need to discuss this anyway." And by "we" he meant "everybody in the compound except you."

Every fiber of Dez's body told him to go after her. But he stood his ground and held his king's eyes. "For the record, the biggest reason I didn't come clean about the serpent staff and the prophecy is because you guys are doing something important here. And I wanted a chance to be part of something good for a change."

Strike's expression didn't change. "Well, I guess you f.u.c.ked that up."

"Yeah. Guess I did." And, as he turned on his heel and headed after Reese, he hoped to h.e.l.l he hadn't just destroyed that part of his life, too.

Reese's heart hammered thickly, jamming her throat. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think, didn't want to think, because if she did she would have to admit that she had bought into him again. Which hadn't been stupid-brave, it had just been stupid. She knew him, knew what he was capable of. And she'd fallen under his spell anyway.

"Reese, d.a.m.n it!" He caught up with her on the covered pathway leading back into the mansion, grabbed her uninjured arm.

She spun on him, teeth bared, free hand going for her pistol. But then she stopped, refusing to give him the fight he wanted. In a low, measured voice, she said, "Let me go."

"I can't." The two words were stark. His eyes bore into hers. "I'm sorry, Reese. I'm so f.u.c.king sorry it happened like this. I was going to tell you this morning, I swear. h.e.l.l, I should have told you everything that morning in the hotel, but I knew what you would think, and I wanted us to get to know each other again first."

Her throat closed at the raw regret in his tone, which made her want to think that this, finally, was the truth. He was going to tell you everything this morning, her inner nineteen-year-old said, but he didn't get a chance. But her older, wiser self knew he'd had plenty of chances. "Let. Me. Go."

He tightened his grip. "No. Not until you've listened for a d.a.m.n minute."

"That would've worked better last night. Or this morning. Or any other time before you got your a.s.s caught out."

"Ever since I woke up from that coma and saw what was going on here at Skywatch, I've been hoping-praying-that it wasn't a real prophecy." He was talking fast now, as if trying to get it all in before she walked away. "The serpent bloodline is full of arrogance and ambition, but not seers. I thought the serpent prophecy might just have been wishful thinking that had morphed into something more than that over time. But once I got Keban's letter and saw the tape from the museum, I realized it might be for real. That's why I took off from Skywatch, and why I kept trying to chase you off."

"So I wouldn't catch on."

"No, d.a.m.n it, so I would have the room to maneuver without worrying about flattening you in the process." He shook her slightly. "For G.o.ds' sake I don't want the d.a.m.n throne. I've done everything I can think of to keep it from coming down to this. Don't you get it? This isn't what I want."

She twisted free of his grip. "You've made your choices. Now I get to make mine."

His expression tightened. "Before you do, consider this: Anna's prophecy, or vision, or whatever mentioned 'the prophecies,' plural. What do you want to bet that the serpent prophecy is one of the ones she mentioned?"

"So?"

"The team is going to need your help figuring that out, finding Iago's mountain, and a thousand other things between now and the end date."

Until that moment, she hadn't consciously thought about what she was going to do next . . . but she had been headed for the garage. Claustrophobia gnawed at her beneath the too-open desert sky. She wanted to move, keep moving, not let herself get tied down to something that was only going to get worse. She needed some distance, some perspective. Let Strike and the others deal with this. I'm in way over my head. She looked past him, unable to meet his eyes, and her gaze was caught by the bra.s.s plaque beside the main door. It had been Leah's way of christening Skywatch, which had simply been known as "the training compound" before her arrival. The sign was etched with the image of a world tree, with three words below it: Fight. Protect. Forgive. She could do the first two. She wasn't sure about the third.

After a long pause, she said, "What do you want from me, Dez?"

"I'm asking you not to run away again."

Fury flooded her. "You son of a b.i.t.c.h. I've never run away from a fight that was worth fighting." Which was true. By the time she ran away from home, away from him, she had already lost.

"So don't run away from this one. And don't run away from me." He moved in and, when she refused to flinch, touched her cheek. "I've learned my lesson, Reese. I'm not holding off anymore. The situation isn't perfect-in fact, it f.u.c.king sucks. But I haven't done anything wrong this time . . . and I'm not backing off."

Son of a b.i.t.c.h. Surprise roared through her at the realization that he actually thought he could play her, that he could- Kiss her.

He covered her mouth with his before she could brace or defend. His lips were hard, quick and clever; his tongue didn't ask, it demanded. But if he was angry-with the situation, with her-then she was far angrier. l.u.s.t and fury mixed and amped, setting her aflame. She told herself to pull away, crack him in the jaw, knee him in the b.a.l.l.s, make him pay for making her want to weep, rage, and scream. But the heat flared higher, bringing the crackle of magic. And instead of pulling away, she moved in.

She kissed him back, openmouthed and searching, got a handful of his shirt and pulled him closer. Their lips and tongues clashed, teeth nipped a sting of pain, a taste of blood, dark and inviting.

He broke the kiss, groaned her name, and pressed his forehead to hers. He was breathing hard, his eyes desperate. "Please, don't give up on me, Reese. Not now, when I'm trying to do the right thing." And he meant it, she knew. Problem was, he saw the world through serpent-colored lenses . . . and he could talk himself into almost anything.

She shook her head, pulled away. "I can't do this. I can't go through it all again." And, tears clouding her vision, she did what she had just claimed she never did. She ran.

Dez let her go. He didn't know what else to do, what else to say that would convince her he was telling the truth. You can't, a whisper said deep in his soul. Either she believes in you or she doesn't. He told himself not to blame her, that he'd given her a thousand reasons not to trust him, and only a few on the other side. He had hoped those few would be enough, though. Maybe not.

"G.o.dsd.a.m.n it," he said hollowly as she headed around the corner of the garage. And was gone.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

Reese ran until she couldn't anymore, then walked, pressing the heel of her hand into her cramped side. The winter sun shone down on her, making her light-headed. Or maybe the spins came from the endless expanse of sky above the canyon, which trapped her without walls or promises.

Sure, she could snag one of the Jeeps and start driving, but she would take way too much baggage with her-knowledge of Iago, Anna's warning, the serpent staff, the end-time war, all of it. How could she leave that behind, knowing that she could help? More, how could she abandon this odd group of strangers who had become her friends?

From the day she turned down the Denver cops' offer to relocate her and became an informant instead, refusing to let the Cobras win, she had been trying to make a difference. What was more, she had almost always been part of a team. She had drifted on the outskirts of those teams, it was true-as both a snitch and a bounty hunter-but there had been others around her, people who were also trying to make the world a better place. She had lost that when she went private, with her jobs becoming a one-man show and Fallon easing her out of cop work "for her own good." Stumbling onto the Nightkeepers' world had changed all that, though. She was part of a team here; she could make a difference.

She couldn't walk out on them, on what they were doing. That was a no-brainer. But she could work from anywhere, which meant that the decision to stay wasn't nearly so simple. Not when things had suddenly gotten far too complicated. Even if she stayed, even if she gave Dez the chance he had asked for, on some level she would always be watching him, waiting for him to make a move against Strike. How could she be with him like that? But she didn't think she could stay at Skywatch and not want to be with him, because when he had kissed her just now it had felt like she was his entire focus, like nothing else existed in that moment except the two of them. Finally.

d.a.m.n it, Dez. How freaking typical of him that when he finally got it, when he finally wanted her so much that he didn't give a c.r.a.p about anything else, it was in a situation like this.

When the trail she'd been stomping along doubled back, she stopped, blinking up at the back wall of the box canyon. She hadn't meant to hike this far, at least not consciously. Now though, something tugged at her, drawing her onward.

Off to one side, the library door stood open, inviting her in. She could go in and begin searching for the mountain temple Keban had mentioned, getting a head start on Jade and Lucius. That was something real and tangible she could do, something that would put off the decisions she needed to make.

It wasn't the library she was being drawn to, though. The world spun gently around her as her feet-which suddenly seemed very far away from her head, as though the top and bottom of her had become disconnected somehow-carried her up the path to the pueblo. On one level, she was getting worried-was she dehydrated, feverish, suffering some new aftereffect of the makol bite? The larger part of her, though, was caught up in the sudden swirling conviction that she needed to do this, that it was important. Come on, the mud-daubed walls seemed to beckon. This way.

She found herself in one of the rooms where opposite walls were carved and painted with the squiggly petroglyph lines that might be water, might be wind, might be serpents. Dizzy and suddenly very tired, though she had really been up for only an hour or so, she put her back to the wall and slid down, so she was sitting with the serpent symbols right above her. The air was warm, the sun a honey-colored reflection from another room, making everything putty colored and soft, as her eyes . . . drifted . . . shut.

She awoke moments later, but she wasn't really awake. She was dreaming. She had to be, because there was a see-through warrior sitting opposite her, beneath the second set of petroglyphs.

He was timeworn, careworn, his face weathered, his skin tough, but even in his translucent state she could see that his hair was dark, with only a few threads gone gray. Wearing a brown robe worked with intricate patterns of beads and feathers, along with flat jade prosthetics designed to exaggerate his nose and sloping forehead, he struck a halfway point between Mayan and Hopi. His eyes were wholly black, with no whites at all, and his forearm was marked with the glyphs of the serpent and the warrior.

A tremor ran through her at the realization that either this was a really vivid dream . . . or she had been shanghaied by one of Dez's ancestors.

You seek the serpent temple atop Coatepec Mountain. His lips didn't move; the words sounded in her head.

"Is that its name?" Her voice echoed strangely; her body felt very far away.

There, he must fulfill the prophecies, or the earth plane will suffer Vucub's twilight.

Dread and excitement churned through her; an ancestor had come to her, was talking to her. But considering whose ancestor it was, she didn't dare take any of it at face value. Swallowing, she whispered, "Are you Anntah?"

The spirit guide nodded. "I called you here to bring him a message. Tell him that he must do as he was born to do, or the sacrifices that have led to this point are meaningless."

Hearing the familiar words from long ago, she narrowed her eyes as suspicions took root. "I've heard that rhetoric before. You got inside Keban's head, too, didn't you? You told him to sacrifice Joy and save Dez instead. It was you all along."

"Fool!" The word cracked in her brain, bringing a slash of pain. "Do not question me, and do not think that you are protected by destiny. You were never meant for him."

Her poker face failed her abruptly. "That's a lie."

The spirit's lips curved cruelly. "He was meant for the twins of the star bloodline. With them gone, he has no destined mate and must fulfill the prophecies alone. You must give him the message and leave, or you will answer to Lord Vulture when he arrives."

When his presence wavered, she reached for him. "Wait! What-"

His image fractured abruptly, turning into honey-colored shards that spun away from her and disappeared.

She blinked awake to find her body stiff, her heart racing, her stomach knotted with stress and heartache. The afternoon shadows said she'd lost half a day, and her pulse thudded in her ears as she tried to process the new information: The mountain they were looking for was called Coatepec.

The threat from Lord Vulture was real.

Anntah was an arrogant, opinionated b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

And she and Dez weren't destined mates.

That last part shouldn't have bothered her the most, but it did, making her realize that on some level she had wanted to believe the G.o.ds were rooting for them to get together, maybe even helping. That would explain how she'd been brought back into his life, and why she sensed the magic, especially his, even though she was only human. But if she believed Anntah-and in this case she unfortunately did-then coincidences really did exist, and it was an accident that they were back in each others...o...b..ts. If they weren't destined mates, then there was no grand plan for them, no cosmic interference, no hope of her ever wearing his jun tan. And, she realized with an embarra.s.sed start, she had wanted that too. Somewhere deep down inside, she had let herself imagine them belonging to each other permanently, at long last.

How could she still want that, even knowing that he had hidden the truth from her, over and over again? How could- "Enough," she said, closing her eyes and digging her fingers into her aching scalp. "You're not nineteen anymore, and the world doesn't begin and end with Mendez." Or, rather, their relationship wasn't central to the end of the world. Mendez himself could very well be, and the Nightkeepers needed to hear what Anntah had told her. Shoving the personal stuff behind a mental tape line that said "do not cross," she got herself up and headed down the trail to the library. Swinging open the door, she called, "I know what mountain were . . ." She trailed off when she found the cavernous s.p.a.ce deserted.

That put a shimmy in her stomach. Not that Jade, Lucius, and Natalie were chained to the place, but under the circ.u.mstances they should've been there working . . . Which suggested that something else had happened that took priority.

Oh, G.o.d. Suddenly aware that she'd been out of the loop for hours, she reached for her armband, only to realize she wasn't wearing it. How had she forgotten it? Stupid. For a second she thought they might be off looking for her, then remembered that Strike could instantly lock on to her with his 'port talent. Or did the pueblo walls mess with that the same way rock and certain forms of magic did? Either way, she needed to get her a.s.s back to the main mansion and see what was up.

She got lucky; there was a Jeep in the parking area, keys in the ignition. She dumped the vehicle near the mansion's front door, noting that Keban's body and pickup were gone. But she was far more concerned with what she was going to find when she pounded along the covered walkway and blew through the main door, her instincts shrilling a warning when she realized that the normal background energy of the place had dimmed. The magi were gone. "h.e.l.lo?" she called. "Anyone?"

"In here."

She followed Lucius's voice, found him sitting alone at the breakfast bar, crutches leaning nearby. One look at him told Reese that her instincts had been right, as usual-he was waiting for news. "What happened?"

"The monitors caught a huge magic spike at a highland village called Xik. The team zapped down to pick up Rabbit, Myrinne, and Sven and then bounce to Xik, hoping to get there before the makol finish harvesting the village."

"Harvesting." Reese shivered at the hideous accuracy of the word. "Did Dez go with them?" she asked, but they both knew she was really asking where he stood with Strike and the others. Please don't say he's locked in the bas.e.m.e.nt. She could see the logic, but didn't think she could stand to see him locked up again. The first time, it had been for the best. This time . . . h.e.l.l, she didn't know what was right anymore.

"He took off right after you did. He said he was going to take care of Keban's body, drove off in the pickup." Lucius's tone was carefully neutral, but she heard the question in it.

"If that was what he said, then that's what he's doing. He's not a liar." Which was true. He omitted. He talked around issues and was occasionally guilty of some whoppers in the flawed-logic department. But he rarely lied outright.

"Without an armband, driving a vehicle that isn't hooked into the Skywatch system?"

"I didn't say he always plays by the rules. Just that he's not a liar." But her heart sank as she saw Lucius's mistrust. Softening her voice, she said, "Look, I'm not saying that his motives are always a hundred percent pure, but I believe him when he says he doesn't want the throne."

"Despite his history?"

"He's not the guy he used to be." It wasn't until she said it aloud that she realized she really believed it, deep down inside. She didn't know whether the change had come from maturity, breaking his bond with the star demon, the Triad magic, or a combination of all those things, but he was truly a different person now. A better man. "He took the fealty oath and swore on his honor." Which in his own way, he held sacred. "I think you should give him a chance."

"Is that what you're going to do?"

"Honestly? I don't know what I'm going to do. This is all so complicated." She paused. "And there's more. I had a vision, just now." His eyes fired as she described the spirit guide and repeated his warnings. Halfway through, Lucius grabbed a napkin and started taking notes; she could see the wheels turning in his brain. Although she was tempted to leave out the parts about her and Dez not being a destined pairing, she told him.

"I'm sorry," he said when she was finished. "That sucks."

She shrugged. "It doesn't change anything." But they both knew it did. "How about Coatepec Mountain ? Do you know where it is?"

"Not offhand, but the name is sure as h.e.l.l familiar." He pushed away from the breakfast bar and grabbed his crutches. "I'm going to collect Natalie and hit the books. You want to come with? We could use you."

"Later."

His eyes sharpened on hers. "You're going after Dez?"

She blew out a breath, then nodded. "He needs to know what Anntah said . . . and that I'm not running away this time. I don't know exactly what's between us at this point, but whatever it is, I'm going to fight for it."

But first, she stopped in her room for her armband and more firepower. As she headed back to the Jeep, her armband staticked and Jade's voice said, "We've got the others and are headed to Xik now. Wish us luck."

Luck, Reese thought. But so far, luck had been painfully short for the magi. And time was running out.

The village of Xik

Mayan highlands

As Strike triggered the 'port, Sven hung on tightly to Mac's ruff with one hand, the joined hands of Jade and Patience with the other, awkwardly touch-linking himself and the coyote into the circle. Mac whined, quivering. He knew what was coming, and wasn't a big fan:'port magic freaked him out.

Calm, Sven sent to the big canine using the simple glyphlike command images that Carlos had been teaching him, and got a surge of deep suspicion in return. He was still getting used to communicating with his familiar, a process that hadn't exactly been easy, given that Mac was opinionated, quick-tempered, and a little on the flighty side. Their partnership was turning out to be less about Sven giving orders and more a constant state of negotiation, which was exhausting. Carlos had a.s.sured him that things would get better, but right now, it was all he could do not to lose track of his familiar. He'd learned his lesson, though-the last time Mac took off, it had taken Sven hours to track him down the rain forest based on oh-so-helpful thought-images like: Leaves, leaves, leaves. Jaguar p.o.o.p. More leaves.

"Hang on," Strike said, and then triggered the 'port. Sven braced himself against the familiar sideways lurch, the whip of gray-green barrier magic flying past, and then the universe rea.s.sembled itself around him.

Tightening his grip on Mac's ruff as the big coyote quivered and strained, sending a sudden flow of Enemy! Run! Bite! Runbiterun! Sven checked out the scene. And saw that they were too d.a.m.n late. Again.

The magi had materialized in an open courtyard surrounded by twenty or so thatched-roof huts, several damaged, most untouched. Cooking fires still hissed and popped, one burning a pan of corn to s.h.i.t, mute testimony that the place had very recently been inhabited. A radio played somewhere, Madonna crooning about being a virgin. And that was it. There was no other sound, no signs of life. The village was empty.