“It’s good to see him with the others,” Hannah said, setting her plate a seat away from Jox and pulling out the chair. At his ‘huh?’ look, she tipped her chin toward the main table, where Strike had shifted over, so he and Leah shared the main spot at the end of the long table. The noise level was high, the spirits higher.
Jox grimaced. “This was her idea. I don’t like it.”
“A barbecue’s never a bad idea,” Wood said, dropping down to sit between them, his plate heaped to overflowing with chicken wings and grilled vegetables.
“It is if I have to watch you eat all that.” Jox shifted away and stood, collecting his plate and empty beer bottle. He leaned back in to say, “One of these days, you’re going to wake up with a dickey-doo so big you won’t be able to see your dickey-doo. If you know what I mean.”
Wood rolled his eyes. “Dude, everybody knows what you mean. You didn’t exactly invent the word ‘subtle.’” He slung an arm around Hannah’s shoulders. “But you’ll excuse me if I enjoy myself until the day my dickey-dooage catches up with me.”
Jox glanced at the other table, saw Strike tip his head down toward Leah and laugh at something she said. “You’re not the only one enjoying himself these days. Might be a good thing for some of us to remember we’re gearing up for a war.”
“Jox, wait.” Hannah reached out and caught his hand as he passed, then let go when he stopped, leaving the cool imprint of her fingers to linger on the skin of his wrist.
He resisted the urge to rub the spot. “Yeah?”
“I wish you’d give her a chance. I think she’s going to be good for him. For all of them.”
Exhaling, Jox shook his head. “She’s distracting him.”
“From what? He’s working like a dog. Yeah, maybe he’s working on figuring out her magic, but there’s nothing wrong with that- he needs all the help he can get, and if there’s even a ghost of a chance that she linked to one of the gods and retained some of the magic, don’t you think he should absolutely, positively follow up on the theory?”
Jox set his jaw. “He needs to practice. Magic isn’t all instinct, you know.”
“He’s a warrior. His full power isn’t going to hit until he has other warriors to join with, and something real to fight. Besides, he and Red-Boar have been meeting for night sessions.”
They have? Jox almost asked, but he stopped himself, because he didn’t want to look like an idiot winikin who couldn’t keep track of his own Nightkeeper.
Hannah must’ve read his surprise, though, because her expression softened and she reached for his hand again, this time not letting go. “You’ve done all that the king could’ve asked in raising his son. Strike is a good man. He’ll learn to be a good leader, a king in his own right. I think she’ll help with that, if you give her a chance.”
“I’m his winikin,” Jox said. “It’s up to me to help him figure out the best course of action.”
“But who’s helping you figure it out?”
“I don’t need anybody.” Jox looked from her to Wood and back. “Enjoy your dinners. I’m going to start cleaning up.”
***
Patience leaned into Brandt’s solid, reassuring bulk and let the conversation at the long table flow around her as night fell. She was sated with junk food, pleasantly tired from the raucous game of touch- and, since her husband had been on the opposing team, occasionally grab-ass- football, and feeling looser than she had in weeks.
None of them had forgotten about the pressure they were under- how could they with just under six weeks until the talent ritual and eight until the equinox?- but it’d been good to let it go for a few hours and just relax. Their reclusive leader- she couldn’t think of him as a king, even though she knew that was the proper term- had even put in an appearance, and seemed to be making an effort.
Before tonight she would’ve bet he didn’t even know all their names. During dinner, though, she’d revised her opinion. He wasn’t aloof or uncaring; he was trying to figure out how to be a Nightkeeper, just like the rest of them were.
Sure, he’d had the advantage of being raised knowing he was a Nightkeeper, and the son of the king, but tonight was the first time she really understood that he, Jox and Red-Boar had truly thought the barrier was sealed and the end-time would never come. Strike was struggling with the same stuff she and Brandt were, questions of free will and destiny, and the overwhelming sense that there was no way in hell the ten or so of them were going to be able to save the bloody world, with or without the super-karma some of the others seemed to think her twin boys conveyed.
At the thought, she looked over at the nest of pillows and blankets she’d made for them at the edge of the floodlights, where they’d conked out an hour ago.
The toddlers were gone.
Her heart bumped and a little “Oh!” noise escaped from her mouth as she straightened and looked around.
“Problem?” Brandt asked immediately.
“The boys. I didn’t see them wander off.”
Conversation slammed to a halt and the others looked at her, then around their chairs, like the twins might be under the table begging for scraps or something. Which just went to prove how little kid sense they had. She’d be shocked if any one of them had ever babysat, and the family thing had put something of a distance between her and Brandt and the others.
“Chill, I’ve got it.” Patience pushed away from the table, waving even Brandt back to his chair. “They can’t have gone far.”
Thankfully, the compound was fully enclosed, and just the other day Red-Boar and Strike had renewed an old ward spell that was supposed to repel unwanted critters, like poisonous snakes and the like. Immediately following the twins’ arrival, the winikin had kid-proofed wherever necessary, which meant the pool, kitchen, and even the bathrooms either had folding gates or childproof latches at the access points.
That wasn’t to say the boys couldn’t have gotten themselves in trouble- Braden, in particular, was a master at disassembling things, the more high-tech and expensive, the better- but it did mean they probably hadn’t put themselves in too much danger. Or so she thought as she headed across the patch of darkness. Then she reached the pool area and stopped dead.
The gate was ajar.
Her heart lunged into her throat, blocking the scream as she bolted through the gate and skidded across the patio. Please no, please no, no, no… The litany spooled through her mind while she searched the backlit blue-green water. Guilt hammered alongside fear. She’d turned her back on them, on her babies, and they-
Weren’t in the pool.
Nearly bawling with relief, she spun a full circle, looking for them, and saw a faint green glow coming from the pool house, the illumination nearly lost amidst the blue-green light coming from the pool itself.
Heart rate settling some, she headed for the small structure, which was a single-room box done in the same sandstone as the rest of the mansion, with a bathroom and shower off one side. She’d mostly avoided the area out of deference to Strike, who was using the pool house as his living quarters. Now, though, she poked her head around the edge of the door and immediately exhaled at the sight of Braden and Harry, alive and well and sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring up at Rabbit in rapt attention as he told them a story.
The scene was lit with a single green glo-stick Rabbit must’ve carried with him. Wearing track pants and a wifebeater tank, the whip-thin, muscled young man would’ve looked like just another mall rat if it weren’t for the shimmer of power that touched her skin as she paused just outside the doorway. It wasn’t the sexual energy of the other trainees, though, but rather something faintly wistful and wanting. A sense of loneliness.
Patience could relate.
Brandt had told her to avoid the kid, but as far as she could tell, Rabbit wasn’t a bad guy. It was more that Red-Boar, Strike and Jox weren’t sure what to do with him, which seemed to translate to letting him run more or less wild, then whacking him with some punishment or another when he broke rules that hadn’t- as far as she could tell, anyway- been clearly stated in the first place.
She recognized the pattern from working with at-risk kids at the dojo. Parents- and sometimes social workers or courts- sent the troublemakers to her to burn off some of their energy and anger, and learn mental discipline. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. It depended largely on the home environment, and she didn’t think Rabbit had lucked out in that department.
The teen’s eyes flicked to her, but he continued his story. “On the fourth night, the Banol Kax put the twins inside the house of bats, which was full of death bats. These were great beasts with teeth like ceremonial knives, who wanted only to kill the young boys. But Hunahpu and Xbalanque had their magic blowguns with them, and they were able to crawl inside the blowguns and hide, keeping them safe from the death bats. The next morning, though, when Hunaphu looked out to see if it was dawn, one of the bats swooped down and cut his head off!” He paused, but the boys didn’t move, just sat there, wide-eyed.
He looked over at Patience, as if checking whether she was okay with the admittedly gory tale, but she motioned for him to go on. It was part of the Popol Vuh, the creation myth shared by the Maya and the Nightkeepers. If this world was to be the boys’ destiny, they might as well hear the stories from the beginning.
“Instead of admitting defeat to the Banol Kax who had imprisoned them in the House of Bats, Xbalanque summoned a rabbit. To the rabbit he said, ‘Soon we will play the ball game. I want you to hide in the tomato patch near the ballcourt. When I hit the ball into the tomato patch, you should hop into the distance as though you are the ball bouncing away.’
“Later that morning, the Banol Kax came for the twins. They took Xbalanque to the ball court and set Hunaphu’s body on the dais, and used Hunaphu’s head as the ball for their game. The Banol Kax threw the head onto the court, and Xbalanque hit it with all his might. It soared out of the ballcourt and bounced once, bounced twice, and landed in the tomato patch. Then it appeared to bounce off into the distance. While the Banol Kax chased after it, Xbalanque raced to the tomato patch, retrieved the head and restored it to the body of Hunaphu, who became whole again. That was how, with the help of a rabbit, the hero twins defeated the Banol Kax once again.”
Rabbit was silent for a moment, then he glanced over at her and said to the boys, “I think your madre is looking for you two.”
Two pairs of sleep-filled eyes turned to her. Braden held up his arms in mute demand. Harry simply smiled.
Instead of picking them up, she sat down between them. Within seconds, her lap was full of the warm, sleepy-smelling bundles of her sons. She smiled over their heads. “Thanks. I owe you one.”
“No problem. My bad for leaving the gate open when I came in to do a few laps.” His voice went defensive, borderline surly. “I would’ve closed it when I was done.”
“I believe you.”
He stared at her for a moment, then seemed to deflate a little, like he’d been braced for her to bitch him out. He tipped his chin down in a half-nod. “Cool.”
Patience heard Brandt holler her name from the picnic area. Easing the boys aside, she stood and called back, “We’re good. Be right there.” She shot a look at Rabbit, who was fiddling with his glo-stick. “You coming back out?”
He smirked, but lifted a shoulder. “Sure.”
“Then grab a kid and let’s go.”
He hesitated, but when Harry lifted his arms in a gesture of ‘me!’, a grin touched the corners of his mouth and he hunkered down and offered his shoulder. “Piggy-back?”
Harry climbed aboard and Patience hoisted Braden, and they headed back to the picnic.
As they left the pool area- locking the gate behind them- Rabbit spun in a drunken circle, making Harry giggle. Patience grinned in answer, and did the same with Braden, and they staggered along, laughing. But as they went, Patience couldn’t help wondering what the teen had really been doing in the pool house, wearing track pants and carrying a glo-stick.
He hadn’t been swimming, that was for sure.