Текст книги "Irregulars "

Автор книги: Astrid Amara

Соавторы: Nicole Kimberling,Ginn Hale,Josh lanyon
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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

“But he didn’t just hurt Aztaws. Even though all Aztaw lords sacrifice humans for their blood, they treat us respectfully in the underworld until death, because our role is so important. Aztaws truly believe humans will be reincarnated as part of the eternal house powers they die to fuel. But Night Axe showed no such respect. Night Axe entered the human realm and killed en masse, torturing his sacrifices.”

August walked back over to the table and pulled on his coat. “If the other lords feared him so much, why didn’t they kill him?”

“He was too powerful,” Deven said. “He had enchanted armor and he can modify his body, allowing him to hide in plain sight in the guise of animals or other Aztaws. Coupled with his insatiable passion for battle, the other lords lost and were forced to offer gruesome tributes, killing their own people in the dark to be eaten by Night Axe’s soldiers. His soldiers were fierce and he had the tzimimi under his will.”

“So instead of killing him they exiled him here? To Mexico City?”

Deven scowled. “No! That would have defeated their purpose. They needed him stripped of power. And of course, human blood only strengthens the lords. Since they couldn’t defeat him, they worked together to align two tricky calendars and forced Night Axe to the realm of light, hoping he would weaken without darkness and starve without human blood or Aztaw food.”

“Clearly it didn’t work.” August snapped open a bottle of water and took a deep gulp.

“I don’t know how he managed to escape the realm of light, but he’s here.” Deven shook his head. “It shouldn’t be possible. There are no natural calendar alignments between the realm of light and anywhere else. It was the perfect prison.”

August arched an eyebrow. “The Irregulars have a report on the realm of light. From the way it was described it isn’t a prison, rather a place full of peaceful, bodiless beings.”

“No body means no blood. That’s hell for an Aztaw lord.” Deven shook his head.

“What were those veins floating all around him?” August asked.

“I don’t know, but it must have something to do with how engorged he was on human blood,” Deven said, frowning. “None of this makes sense.”

“Night Axe needs sacrifices to fuel his magic, yes?”

“Of course.”

“If he’s trying to keep a low profile here, it would draw attention to him if he murdered dozens of people to extract their blood,” August said.

“You think he’s developed another way of collecting sacrifices?”

August shrugged. “Hell if I know. Can you use your mirror to look into the future and see?”

“I can try, although I doubt it will help.” Deven pulled his obsidian mirror fragment from his pocket. He unwrapped its cloth and dipped a corner of the mirror into the puddled remains of their mixed blood.

Deven spat on the mirror. He didn’t expect to see much. Premonitions were murky at best and subject to change. He’d rarely found anything worth learning when peering into the cloudy uncertainty of the future.

The opaque surface of the mirror shimmered and cleared. He looked at the image. From a pool of darkness glowed the bones of a horde of Aztaw soldiers, running full speed, weapons raised as they charged.

Deven pulled out his knife and shouted to August, “Run!”

Chapter Seven

The air snapped like exploding light bulbs. The corner of the warehouse ripped open to reveal a jagged pool of darkness. At least a dozen Aztaw soldiers poured from the breach between realms, raising dart blowers, swords, and batons spiked with obsidian blades.

Deven caught August’s sleeve and pulled him to the front door. Adrenaline tensed the muscles of his body into flight mode.

August stared at the coal black crack in the air, then seemed to finally comprehend the danger. He pulled his new shard pistol from a holster hidden under his jacket.

“Too many! Run!” Deven urged.

“There are civilians out there!” August cried. He grabbed another object from his pocket, a powdery white ball that resembled something for a bath. He hurled it at the soldiers. It hit the Aztaw in front and a fine white powder burst out explosively, shooting upwards to coat all of them in glittering fragments of light.

“What the hell is that?” Deven cried. He yanked open the door.

“Glamour bomb!” August shouted. Half a dozen poison darts flew past their heads, embedding in the door. “We can’t have them seen here.”

“Go, go!” Deven pushed August out into the street. He broke into a run.

The hot midday sun blinded Deven. He followed August down a narrow side street. Something knocked over behind him and he heard angry yelling in Spanish.

Deven glanced over his shoulder to see what looked like a mob of angry Mexican men charging him.

The masking spell was good—from afar, they appeared rough, unapproachable, but undeniably human. But the masking spell hadn’t applied evenly and at certain angles Deven saw their Aztaw bodies poking through the deception.

In their natural form, the soldiers were slightly larger than humans, with pale skin like rice paper stretched over their glowing bones. Skirts of cotton and feathers covered their waists and armor of finely braided, enchanted husks protected their bony chests like bulletproof vests. The fierce black and yellow markings of the Lord of Hurricane’s house darkened what could be seen of their skulls underneath the human camouflage. One of them had obviously protected his face from the glamour bomb and his lidless eyeballs rolled in his skull sockets.

They moved as if drugged, slower than August and Deven, but their determination to follow didn’t waver.

“We’ve got to get away from all these goddamn people!” August gasped, sprinting from a busy intersection and down another side road.

The Aztaws continued doggedly in pursuit. Glimpses of raised spears and batons shimmered into sight and disappeared as the masking spell failed under the heavy sunlight. The range was too far for Deven’s knives but maybe not too far for his new freeze balls.

But as he pulled one from his pocket, August barked, “No! Too many civilians.” He stopped for a moment, concentrating, as if discerning their location. He pointed to the left. “This way. Hurry!”

Deven did as he was told, racing to keep up. Up ahead a temporary fence cordoned off a vacant construction area. Vaguely he remembered it was a Sunday.

But there was a guard for the site, who yelled and rose as if to physically restrain them from entering the property.

“Corre!” August shouted at the man. The guard picked up his phone. Then his mouth went slack as he saw the dozen angry men chasing Deven and August. The guard dropped the phone and ran toward a trailer on the periphery of the site.

“Where are we?” Deven panted.

“New subway tunnel drilling site. Come on!”

“Good thing I took up running!” Deven shouted to August. To his surprise, August barked a short laugh.

At the poorly barricaded tunnel entrance August paused to pull out his utility knife and quickly selected a tool that came off the knife. He cradled the small metal sliver in his hand.

The masking spell was wearing off the soldiers. They looked more like a furious attacking Aztaw army. But it wasn’t as if Deven didn’t have practice running for his life from Aztaw soldiers. He knew what to expect. Aztaw soldiers were fierce but unimaginative; they hunted in formation and never strayed. Normally, Deven would do anything but flee in a straight path from Aztaws. But he was stuck following August into the tunnel.

They entered the smooth, cylindrical shaft, lined with concrete walls. The ground was roughly hewn rock and soil. Dim emergency lighting lined the ceiling, but as they plunged deeper, shadows overpowered the light. The tunnel entrance gaped like a minstrel’s mouth, a circle of light in swallowing darkness.

Once the soldiers entered the tunnel, August tossed the sliver he held in his hands and it spun like a propeller. August shoved Deven hard against the concrete wall and covered Deven’s body with his own.

An explosion rocked the tunnel. A blast of hot air knocked both of them over. August held him tightly underneath him as another wave of heat threatened to blow them into the darkness. Deven’s nostrils burned with the stench of scorched ozone.

After a moment, August pulled himself off Deven and stood. Deven blinked, feeling stunned. “What was that!”

“Mage grenade.” August stared intently at the tunnel entrance.

Deven stood to watch as well, bracing his hands on his knees, catching his breath.

August leaned against the tunnel wall, breathing hard. “Goddamn Aztaws are scary.”

Deven nodded, remembering the first time he’d met one, age ten; he’d thought his father had dragged him down to the hell his grandmother had always been going on about.

A shuffling sound directed Deven’s attention to the tunnel entrance. Most of the Aztaw soldiers remained motionless on the ground, but several slowly rose to their feet. August looked shocked. “Shit!”

“Can I use these freeze balls now?” Deven asked.

“Yes, yes!”

Deven pulled one of the balls from his pocket. It fit nicely in his palm and was soft and slightly warm.

The soldiers moved toward them, cursing in Aztawi. One’s glowing tibia protruded through his skin. Another had lost the bottom half of his jawbone. Still they charged. Deven threw the ball. As it spun in the air it hissed and popped like fire on dry wood. It launched itself at the nearest soldier and slammed into his body. The Aztaw gasped, freezing solid, falling backward from the force of the impact.

The soldier beside him tossed his spear and barely missed Deven’s neck. He and August ran deeper into the tunnel. He threw the other two freeze balls in his pocket. Each hit their mark, but the three remaining soldiers were close. Deven tossed one of his knives, but it hit the soldier on his armored chest, causing no damage.

August fired his shard pistol. Thin, needle-like slivers of metal sprayed from the smoking barrel. Several of the thin slivers sliced through the soldier’s rib cage and stuck in his bones, but others shot through him and out the other side. The wounds were severe but not debilitating. The soldier’s knife was nearly long enough to be a sword and he raised it to cut August down.

Deven didn’t know if August had experience with hand-to-hand combat. He wasn’t about to find out the hard way. He threw himself between the soldier and August, blocking the blow clumsily with a knife. The blades clashed and his knife clattered to the ground. The soldier swung again. Deven ducked low and threw himself forward into the soldier, knocking him off balance.

He spun and pushed August out of the way as the other soldier swung his baton. The blow landed hard on Deven’s arm, sprawling him onto the tunnel floor. Pain radiated up his side. As the soldier raised his baton again, Deven pulled the last knife from his back pocket and hurled it at the soldier. The blade sank deep into the soldier’s eye and he screeched, dropping the baton as his hands fumbled blindly at his face.

Two remaining soldiers were nearly upon them, and Deven was out of weapons. Without another choice, he yanked the pen from his hair and frantically started scribing glyphs on the ground. Each symbol brightened, then dulled into deep black, sinking to the underworld. He wrote around himself in a circle, the pen growing colder in his hands. It was a dark, purplish red when full of his energy, but almost immediately the color began to drain from it as he wrote the spell, and Deven felt himself weaken as his energy drained out to fuel it. He could almost smell the stench of corn on Lord Jaguar’s breath as he held the weapon between his fingers.

He drew the symbol of a dog eating itself, the pyramid, the black reed. He drew crossbones and a quail feather. He drew the images of the lords who created the house power.

August stood in front of Deven, shard pistol aimed at the soldiers. “What are you doing!” he cried.

Deven finished the last glyph and jumped to his feet, grabbing August and yanking him into the circle as a wall of sparks shot from each glowing glyph and linked to form a fiery curtain around them. The sound of howling wind filled the circle, deafening in volume.

“Is it a shield?” August shouted, covering his ears.

“No! I took us out of time!”

“What?”

The soldiers charged through them into the black emptiness of the unfinished subway tunnel. August spun to watch, gun aimed.

“Don’t shoot!” Deven cried above the wind. “We’re in a time lock. It won’t do anything.”

“They passed right through us!” August shouted.

Deven felt sick with exhaustion. The benefit of being able to fuel his own magic without sacrifices was lessened by the fact that it sapped most of his strength. The sucking wind grew louder. They didn’t have much longer. “We have to get out.”

“They may double back when they reach the end of the tunnel.” August watched for them anxiously.

Stepping out of time was a tricky prospect and Deven watched the edges of the time lock sizzle, blacken, and fly away like charred embers. He gripped his pen and drew a symbol in the air, conjuring the image of the grinding wheels of calendars. They had mere seconds before the calendars moved again.

“We’ve got to go, now!” The roar was deafening. Deven’s pen was nearly white, its inky power drained from it. He shoved it back behind his ear and grasped August’s arm. He stuck out his foot and smudged one of the symbols.

The floor beneath them split and cracked away in a perfect circle.

“Jump!” Deven shoved August toward the natural world.

August landed on the tunnel floor and spun. He looked back and went sheet white. Deven glanced down and saw the movement of thousands of glowing bones, felt the furnace of heat of the Aztaw world—his world—rumbling below.

Dangling from earth, Aztaw looked like hell incarnate. The smell of burning maize overpowered Deven.

August gripped Deven’s arm and jerked him up. The circle of earth beneath Deven’s feet crumbled and collapsed into the dark underworld. Everything Deven knew and had cared about was down there in that heat.

No, no, I want down, Deven thought, but August’s hand was warm in his and held him tight. As the tunnel floor plummeted into darkness August hauled Deven back into the human world.

Chapter Eight

When they emerged from the construction tunnel, filthy and exhausted, Deven saw city lights twinkling in the darkness. The smell of sewage and lime permeated Deven’s senses, reminding him he was in Mexico once more. A sick, nervous grief tore at his throat and left him ragged. If he’d only dropped...

“It wasn’t even noon when we entered the warehouse!” August complained, scowling at the soil stains on his designer suit jacket.

“Time locks mess things up,” Deven said, too exhausted to explain. The Aztaw bodies littering the entrance had already started to desiccate from the dry summer heat. He felt drained and realized he hadn’t eaten anything since last night’s burger.

“Food. Now,” he mumbled. His tongue still smarted when he spoke.

August nodded. He pulled out his phone, frowning at a new crack across the screen. “Damn it!” He punched numbers angrily. When he got someone on the phone, he issued orders, mentioning the pile of Aztaw bodies at the tunnel entrance, the two that had gotten lost in the darkness, and something about how they could be tracked by glamour bomb residue. Deven heard August’s tone change, becoming apologetic as he asked for another cleanup team. August finished his call, gave Deven an irritated look, then led him to the nearest taqueria.

The place looked dirty, but the rotisserie near the entrance smelled wonderful and the restaurant had chairs, which was all that mattered at the moment.

They both collapsed into plastic seats. August ordered two beers.

“Maybe I don’t want a beer,” Deven complained.

“You need a drink as badly as I do,” August replied. He rubbed his hands over his face. “Why, you want a soda?”

Deven waved off the issue. He rested his head on his arms. “If you’re going to control everything, order me one of whatever you eat as well.” He yawned and closed his eyes.

August spoke to the waiter in broken Spanish, then switched back to English as he made several phone calls. At first Deven listened, but the warmth and delicious smells of the restaurant made him sleepy, and he found himself unable to do much more than long for his hotel bed.

A heaping platter of tacos al pastor arrived. August dove into the meal like he hadn’t eaten in weeks. Deven took one of the small, soft corn tacos and fell in love with the first bite.

The flavor was hearty, sweet, and tangy with lime and cilantro. It seemed even richer after his brush with the underworld. There was a familiarity about the flavor, something that reminded him of his Mexican mother and his childhood, but like all thoughts of her, he couldn’t pinpoint anything more than a generalized good feeling.

He took a sip of his beer and was shocked by how good it tasted when combined with a corn tortilla. And as far as he could remember he’d never eaten a radish. The sharp taste fascinated him, although it caused the cut on his tongue to burn. He loved the radish’s colorful pink skin. It was beautiful, really.

“You could have saved us a lot of running, you know.” August watched him with half-closed eyes. “You might have done that time lock trick back at the warehouse.”

“I shouldn’t have done it at all.” Deven drank more of his beer. The alcohol warmed his stomach, sent heat down into his kneecaps. “As it stands, that might have been the last mistake I ever make.”

“How so?”

“I just showed my hand, didn’t I?” Deven reached behind his ear and pulled out his pen.

August took it from him gingerly. The pen had almost returned to its natural rust-red color, but it was still lighter than it should be—it would take more of Deven’s strength to feed it what it needed to remain whole.

“Beautiful,” August said, studying the intricate carving. It was a remarkable work of craftsmanship, something Deven was proud to be the guardian of.

“This is your house power,” August said, understanding dawning. “Why hide it?”

“Night Axe saw us in the warehouse. He no doubt observed the pursuit of his soldiers. And now he knows I have this.”

“You think he’ll try and take it?”

“I would.” Deven yawned again. “Not only will it open the gates between here and Aztaw, but it will give him control over the surviving lords now that their own powers have been destroyed. As for the Aztaw citizens who led the revolt? They’re dead as soon as he returns.”

August frowned at the pen. “I didn’t think time was so malleable.”

“Time itself isn’t, but the way it’s measured is,” Deven said. He took the pen back and pulled one of the thin paper napkins from the table dispenser. He drew three cogs of different sizes, showing August how they fit together. “Time works on a series of calendars. Every calendar is unique to a location. There are times when certain moments intersect between each calendar. When that happens, a schism appears between the worlds that someone can pass through.

“Other worlds have their own calendars, although date matches are rarer. Location matters as well. Mexico City has hundreds of calendars, so there are more opportunities to find moments that coincide between the natural and supernatural realms. But in, say, Iceland, there are no calendars that match up with Aztaw. In South America, there are a few, but their cycle is long. It may be only once a century that a date from the South American calendar coincides with the same date on the Aztaw calendar and someone can cross between worlds.”

August frowned. “If Night Axe wants to reenter Aztaw, he’s going to have to find a place where the dates align and make a gate.”

“Right. Unless he has this.” Deven wagged the pen. “This is the Jaguar dynasty house power. It rewrites the calendars, so it can force connections between dates. It allows me to slow down or speed up the turning of these wheels.”

“In the tunnel, you created a time lock,” August confirmed. Deven nodded. “So you basically wrote us out of the calendars?”

“Yes, but you can’t exist outside of time for long. As soon as the wheels start turning again, you’ll fall between them and disappear.”

August paled a little at that. “Good way to kill off your enemies.”

“It takes a great deal of energy to do that,” Deven said. “It wouldn’t be a problem if I had dozens of sacrifices to bleed into the pen, but since I’m the only one fueling it, I have only enough strength to do one or two tricky rewrites before the pen drains of energy and I’m exhausted.”

“Could you pass it to another human to use?”

“It would have to be someone with magical abilities, otherwise I’d have to drain their blood. And it would have to be done quickly. If the pen runs out of ink it will starve and die. A house power is like a living object. It must remain fueled to survive.”

August was silent for a moment, eyeing the pen. “How many dates intersect between the realm of light and Aztaw?”

“None,” Deven said. “That’s why he was sent there. Nor are there any dates that intersect with calendars in the natural world.”

“There aren’t any spatial portals between here and there either. It’s why there is such little information about the realm. Information comes to us secondhand, from some being who knew of another realm where someone had once seen an inhabitant there.” August frowned. “So a thousand years ago your Lord Jaguar used this pen and forced a connection.”

“Yes.”

“Is there another pen somewhere?” August asked.

“No.”

“Has it been out of your possession at any time?”

Deven smirked. “You sound like the man at the airport.”

“I’m serious.” August narrowed his eyes. “That isn’t a memento from a dead relative, Deven. It’s an extremely dangerous weapon. Did you ever lose it?”

“Of course not. It’s been in my sole possession since Jaguar gave it to me.”

“And when was that?”

“A little over a year ago.” Deven swallowed. “As the rebels laid siege to Lord Jaguar’s palace.” Nausea rushed through him and Deven dropped the remains of his last taco, no longer hungry.

August looked at the pen, seemingly poised to ask another question. Instead he signaled the waiter for the bill.

“For what it’s worth, something that valuable should be locked up in the Irregulars’ treasury, not perched behind your ear,” August said finally.

“It doesn’t leave my possession,” Deven stated. “I swore to preserve it with my life.”

“The one you made the promise to is dead,” August said quietly.

“That doesn’t matter,” Deven replied, feeling his anger rise once more. “Don’t you understand? I served Lord Jaguar from the age of ten. I watched him destroy enemy lands with a swipe of this pen. The ability to manipulate calendars is one of the greatest house powers in Aztaw. Time is sacred in Aztaw and this pen represents that great part of their culture. If the rebels succeed in destroying this, they destroy what defines Aztaw society.”

“But the soldiers have rebelled against that society.” August eyed the pen warily. “If they want to end the domination of the magical lords over them, I can see why they’d destroy the trappings of their servitude.”

Deven scowled. “It’s too important to be destroyed for politics. Besides, it strengthens their connection to the human world.”

“The new Aztaw realm doesn’t need connections to the human realm, does it?” August continued. “With the lords dead, and the house powers gone, human blood isn’t needed. You said the citizens slaved to support a sacrifice industry that took resources away from their own well-being. This may be exactly what the new, freer Aztaw needs—a break with contact from the human realm. A chance to live without spells and magic.”

Deven bit back his angry response and instead downed the rest of his beer. He hated how quickly August had moved to the side of the rebels, although he shouldn’t have been surprised. Of course an American would want a more democratic, unmagical world to thrive.

“How did the other lords succeed in forcing Night Axe through the gate between realms?” August asked, changing the subject.

“I don’t know. He was in a weakened state where he couldn’t change his body when they forced him through a gate.”

“Why didn’t your precious lord send him between the calendars?”

“He probably had used almost all the pen’s energy just to help capture him.”

“Well, thanks to his desire to save his little writing implement, that bastard is now back amongst the living.”

Deven was too tired to argue against criticism of Lord Jaguar. He clenched his jaw shut angrily.

August leaned forward. “If we have to fight Night Axe, we need to know how they weakened him.”

Deven shrugged. “He is mortal, although like any Aztaw his life span can stretch eons. Cut out his heart, cut off his head, stab him in the throat, like a human being. The only catch, of course, is that he can change his form.”

August drained the last of his beer. “We need a better way to see what he’s up to than your temperamental vision serpent.”

“You’re the one with all the technical gizmos pouring out of your pockets,” Deven said.

For some reason this was funny to August. “Gizmos,” he repeated. “Haven’t heard that word in a while.” He waved his credit card at the waiter.

Deven rose slowly from his chair, his body aching from the run and the blow to his arm. “I should cover my half,” he offered, but August shook his head.

“It’s all going on the agency credit card, don’t worry.” August flashed him a quick, magnificent grin. “Well, now that you’ve bared all, I’d prefer it if you whipped out your magic faster next time. My legs are killing me.”

Deven walked beside him out to the curb. “You run fast,” he complimented.

“It’s amazing what the threat of death can inspire.” August launched his arm into the air and flagged down a taxi.

Back at the Bristol Hotel Deven wanted nothing more than to collapse on his bed and sleep for an entire day. Instead, August started packing.

“Get your things together,” he ordered.

“Why?”

“Because your little Aztaw friend found us with no difficulty, I can’t imagine it will be any harder for Night Axe.”

Deven forced himself off the bed and did as he was told. It took less than a minute for him to finish packing. August was still carefully folding his shirts.

“You want help?” Deven offered.

“No.”

“You sure brought a lot of clothes.”

August’s cheeks turned a little pink. “How you dress says a lot about who you are.”

“Oh?” Deven sat on the edge of his bed, glancing down at his dirty cargo pants and dark T-shirt. “What do my clothes say about me?”

“That you don’t have any personal pride.” August turned and gave him a discerning look that unsettled Deven.

 Deven swallowed. “Yeah? And I suppose if you wear tailored suede suit jackets it says you have a lot of pride?”

“No. It says I’m worried about what people think about me.” The corner of August’s mouth lifted and he looked almost shy. “Actually, you can help. Pack my computer, would you?”

“Sure.” They worked in companionable silence for a moment. “One of these days, can I see your knife? The one you keep pulling out of your pocket?”

“Of course. It’s a generation eight magical utility blade, but mine’s down to its last refills. I need to buy another, I haven’t gotten around to it.”

“Doesn’t the agency provide your weapons?”

“We get an expense budget, but the new generation ten models are over that. Carlos and I were going to get new ones for each other on Christmas.” August frowned. He held the shirt in his hand limply.

Again, Deven was at a loss as to how to offer support. His therapist had once told him, when he felt out of his depth, to offer a person a polite pat on the back. It insinuated good intentions and oftentimes physical touch said more than words ever could. So Deven reached over and patted August’s arm, a stiff, awkward movement that didn’t look nearly as good as it had in his mind.

August seemed touched by it, however. His eyebrow quirked up and he smiled a little. “Read about patting people in a book or something?”

Deven laughed nervously. “Or something.”

August cocked his head, studying Deven. “You know, for someone who grew up in hell and returned to the real world only a year ago, you’re doing pretty good, Deven.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” August swallowed. “And thank you. For what you did in the tunnel.”

Deven frowned, trying to remember. He touched the pen behind his ear.

“You saved my life.” August sounded a little annoyed that he had to say it out loud. “Twice. The guy with the knife? And the baton?”

“Oh. Right.” Deven shrugged. “I wasn’t counting.”

August stared at him.

Deven felt conspicuous. “You’re welcome?” he offered, not sure if there was some sort of protocol he was supposed to engage in after saving someone’s life.

Whatever it was that August was trying to say, he gave up and turned back to his packing. It was well past midnight when they checked out of the Bristol and checked in to El Angel Hotel a few blocks away. This one had a modern lobby and the room, while smaller, was more tastefully furnished and less inundated with wicker. Deven didn’t bother unpacking. He shut the curtains, lay down on the top of the comforter, and was out before August even started to unpack.