Irregulars: Stories by Nicole Kimberling, Josh Lanyon, Ginn Hale and Astrid Amara (48 page)

“
Strange, since your brothers are already mounting a force
,” the large soldier said, coming to a halt beside Deven. His thin skin and skull bones were painted with the blue-green color of the rebellion. He bore no symbols of dynastic allegiance, but deep scars etched ruts in the bones around his eye sockets, showing he’d spent many years serving under one lord or another.

Deven looked at the agents. Many had indeed drawn weapons, but the soldiers weren’t giving them second glances, staring only at him.

“
Brothers
?” Deven asked.

“
The House of Jaguar stirs
,” the large soldier said.
“
A barricade is erected. They have begun an assault.
”

“
I have nothing to do with it.
” Deven’s mind struggled to make sense of the information as he drew.
Paper, blackfish, feather…
His hand shook as it scored images into the ground. His other hand gripped the hilt of his knife.

But the soldiers didn’t attack.

“
Night Axe, the Lord of Hurricanes, is on his way to destroy you,
” Deven warned. “
I will try and stop him, but you must prepare yourself. You have greater enemies than the House of Jaguar.
”

“
The Houses of Jaguar and Hurricane are one and the same.
”

Deven felt something sick twist in his gut. He finished the symbol for fire and stepped into the circle.

Light burst from glyphs and the ground lurched beneath him. Vomit rose up his throat as they moved through contorted time.

Darkness shattered with a blaze of red light and Deven shielded his eyes, muffling his cry of pain. The air was pulled from his lungs.

The portals were mismatched and they dropped from a height of a few feet. Deven landed hard, falling to his knees. Behind him, someone cursed.

The place they had traveled to was very cold, especially in comparison to the suffocating heat of Aztaw. Faint red light emanated from a tunnel to the side of the chamber, but otherwise it was dark.

Deven felt too weak to do more than kneel, breathing hard. The air was chilly and stale but still felt rich with oxygen and moisture compared to Aztaw. He was back in the natural world.

August hovered over Deven, fumbling with his hands out. “You okay?” He blindly felt Deven’s body as if searching for injuries.

No
, Deven wanted to say. A sense of betrayal overwhelmed everything.

“Deven?” August sounded worried.

Deven gripped August’s hand and pulled himself up. “I think I know how Night Axe escaped the realm of light.”

August looked as if he were going to ask a question, but then he squinted as someone turned a flashlight on directly into his face.

As if choreographed, the other agents simultaneously switched on a variety of flashlights and other small illuminating devices.

“Where are we?” Klakow asked.

“Underground.” Deven returned his brittle, nearly white pen to an inside pocket and put on his projector sunglasses.

They were in an old temple, sunken underneath what appeared to be crumbling cement foundations. The air was stagnant but cool; the ancient stone walls of the temple could be glimpsed through centuries of crumbled earth and mud. The old stones oozed rust-colored water that made the walls appear as though they were bleeding tears.

The space was large, perhaps as wide as a football field, but the low, precariously uneven ceiling made the dark space feel cramped. There was a circular stone well in the center of the temple.

“It has a cenote,” Agent Ortega said.

“What’s that?” Deven asked.

“A sacred well, important in Maya and Aztec rituals.”

As Deven’s eyes adjusted to the light, he made out other familiar Aztaw features scattered around the room—a pile of human bones, stacked to show the remains of a meal; a jade statue of the stars to draw power to the location.

Dr. Hansing stepped over the putrefying remains of some small animal, looking like she was going to be sick. She moved to August’s side. “You ready?”

The stench of blood overpowered even the odor of putrefaction coming from somewhere in the corner of the temple. And all around, visible through his glasses, Deven saw thick, braided networks of arteries, throbbing as they pulsed to a great heartbeat, gorged with blood. They were strung through the low cavern like vile party streamers, drooping low and forming tangled knots, all leading directly into a darker corner of the temple.

“Night Axe,” Deven whispered.

“Where?” August’s body tensed beside him.

“Corner, ten o’clock,” Ortega said, swiveling to face the threat.

The Aztaw curse for darkness sank through the air and at once their lights extinguished. The blood vessel emerging from August went suddenly taut and all the arteries strewn about the temple shifted.

“Stay close to me,” Deven whispered to August, drawing his knife. “Dr. Hansing—”

August flew forward as Night Axe yanked the artery connecting them. August’s hands and face slammed against the uneven stone floor and Deven watched in horror as August was dragged toward Night Axe, his fingers raking the stone in an effort to stop.

Night Axe appeared from the shadows, grinning as he reeled August in, hand over hand. He looked directly at Deven.

Then he jumped into the cenote.

“No!” Deven shouted, rushing forward.

August was dragged to the lip of the well. He cried out in surprise as he was yanked into the well after Night Axe. His shout echoed down the stone walls.

Deven jumped into the well after him.

Only once he was in free fall did he realize how stupid that was.

This is going to hurt like hell.
 

Chapter Seventeen

Deven stretched out his arms to try and slow his descent. His knuckles grazed stone, but the well was too wide to brace himself. A protruding stone snapped his ring and middle fingers and he instinctively jerked them back. A moment later he hit the water hard. The noise of his crash echoed through the vast, cold chamber. The impact sucked the air from his lungs and shocked his senses, and he floated, stunned for several seconds, forcing himself to breathe and assess his injuries. His back ached and nausea welled if he tried to move his left ring or middle finger. His boots filled with water and his feet sank to the sandy bottom of the cenote. But he could stand—the water level was no higher than his ribs.

The water was icy cold. His eyes adjusted to the dark. He heard splashing at one end and focused, hoping to find a sign of August. The chamber was wide underneath the mouth of the well, revealing a cavernous water table with a jagged limestone ceiling. Part of the well tapered to a low-ceilinged passageway where water dribbled from the rock. The remains of some long-ago human sacrifice huddled on the high ridge of the limestone. He searched the dry platform and the surface of the water. He’d lost his sunglasses in the fall so he couldn’t see the connection between Night Axe and his sacrifices.

He felt water churn around him and turned. The hard impact of Night Axe’s fist jarred him and he fell back into the water. Blood filled his mouth. Night Axe lunged again, but Deven sank deeper into the water, darting under the surface to the opposite edge of the pool.

He reemerged and gasped for air. His face ached from Night Axe’s punch.

Night Axe’s body was fat with human blood, his thin skin purple-colored in the cold. His striped black and yellow face paint had smeared in the water, making him appear even more menacing. Deven recognized the shriveled flesh of children’s tongues, forming a necklace around Night Axe’s bony throat. Water droplets pearled on the matted straw surface of his enchanted armor, making it look as though he were sweating.

Even from across the well Deven’s skin burned as Night Axe’s mirrored headpiece reflected back his own sensations, amplifying the ache in his fingers and his face. Blood dripped from Deven’s nose. He still couldn’t see August.

“You want this one?”

Night Axe lifted Agent August out of the water by his hair.

August gasped for air. His face was white with shock. Deven wondered if he too had broken something in the fall.

Before he could speak, Night Axe pushed August’s head back down under the water. August struggled underneath the surface, but Night Axe forced his head down, drowning him.

Fear filled Deven. “
Here
!” he shouted, grabbing the pen from behind his ear and holding it out with his uninjured left hand. “
Take it. Let him go
.” He gripped the hilt of the knife in his right pocket.

Night Axe greedily surged forward. He let go of August and grabbed the pen, clenching it tightly.

Night Axe’s face contorted the second he touched the obvious plastic. Deven grabbed his wrist and yanked him forward. He shoved his knife into Night Axe’s left eye, dragging the blade to split the eyeball open.

Night Axe jerked himself free, shrieking. The sound echoed through the cavern, amplifying his fury. Deven dropped beneath the surface of the water and kicked off the wall, aiming for August. He grabbed him by the arm and towed him to the raised limestone ledge, heaving him upward. August was conscious. He scrambled to the middle of the rock, sodden overalls and suit making it hard for him to move. Blood oozed from a wound on the back of August’s head. Deven saw that it formed a steady red stream, even when diluted by the water.

Bony fingers clamped Deven’s ankle. He was yanked under the water with great strength. He clenched shut his mouth and kicked out but hit nothing but armor. Panic seized him as he struggled to breathe.

Night Axe lifted Deven, throwing him hard against the rocky wall.

Pain blossomed across his back and his vision darkened. He fell back into the pool and choked for air.

Agents above them shone their lights into the well, forming circles of illumination in the cold water. They shouted Deven’s and August’s names, but before Deven could even draw a breath to respond, Night Axe was on him again, shoving him against the wall and punching him in the face.

Deven nearly passed out. Pain filled his senses, made it impossible to think. Blood filled his nose and mouth. He writhed as Night Axe tore through his overalls with sharp fingers, searching for the pen.

Tiny whispers of slivery metal shot past Deven and filled Night Axe as an agent from above fired a shard pistol. The slivers pierced Night Axe’s engorged arm and it burst open like ripe fruit, spilling the blood of his victims. The water turned murky red. Deven’s consciousness faltered.

Another round from the shard pistol flung Night Axe back and Deven fell into the water. The lord growled the command to summon his army in Aztawi. Urgency overwhelmed even Deven’s pain. He had to warn the agents above him. They didn’t know what to expect.

Night Axe ripped a bead from his necklace, shattering the string. He threw the obsidian bead upward and growled the Aztawi curse for a dark ward.

The opening of the well sealed shut with an oily pool of dark liquid, blocking the light from the agents and the world above them. Deven’s heart sank. Dark wards took heavy magic to build and dismantle, and Deven’s own abilities weren’t enough to rip a hole in it.

Desperation filled him. Neither he nor August would survive, that was obvious at this point, but he had to stop Night Axe.

He reached for his knife, but Night Axe was stronger and faster. He grasped Deven’s wrist and twisted, breaking the bone with ease. Pain shocked through him. He tried to move away, but Night Axe kept hold of him, jerking his knife free with one hand as he bent Deven’s broken wrist backward.

Deven gasped and shuddered, unable to concentrate on anything but trying to move away. Night Axe tilted the mirror in his headpiece. Deven’s pain reflected back to him and he cried out in agony. Every sensation multiplied, reinforced by the echoing mirror.

Night Axe split open the front of Deven’s overalls with Deven’s own blade. The tip sliced through Deven’s clothes and skin, and the pain magnified, built and repeated, growing until he could no longer contain it.

Night Axe searched through Deven’s inside pockets with bony fingers. He held the pen aloft in triumph. A primal instinct forced Deven to breathe past the blinding pain.

Night Axe let him go. Deven fell back into the water. He forced his aching body to move, using his undamaged hand to push water and distance himself. But to his surprise, Night Axe didn’t follow him.

Instead, Night Axe began to convulse. His uninjured eye rolled. He roared and gripped something invisible at his waist and pulled, twisting furiously. He thrashed in the throes of a seizure.

Deven turned to see August slide down the wall of the well, dropping the empty vial of poison onto the limestone. Blood began to stain August’s overalls.