Fortunately, Dez—to give credit where due—had not only seen the problem, he’d come up with a damn good solution in the form of a Nightkeepers-versus-
winikin
training challenge: If the
winikin
—working in their own teams rather than the usual Nightkeeper-led groups—could infiltrate the Nightkeeper-guarded main pyramid, retrieve a hidden artifact, and get it to a designated rendezvous point for pickup, the king would think about making the
winikin
-only teams permanent.
It wasn’t a promise, but it had sure as heck fired up most of the
winikin
. As for the holdouts—Sebastian and several of his cronies—well, Cara and Zane were keeping a sharp eye on them.
Unfortunately, she also felt the need to keep a sharp eye on Zane too. She’d been getting a weird vibe off him over the past few days, and although she hadn’t expected things to be normal between them after what happened, this felt like something else. Or else she was projecting, trying to distract herself from the knowledge that Sven was still in the compound and didn’t show any signs of taking off. And when he wasn’t in her peripheral vision, Mac was.
“Team four is in position,” Lora reported. Her appointment as a team leader had gotten some grumbles after the way she froze up under fire the other day, but Zane was convinced that the responsibility would be the kick in the ass she needed to make her step up, and Cara had let him have that one.
“Team two is in the backup position,” Natalie’s voice said suddenly in her ear. “There are three heat signatures near the primary position, nothing on visual.”
“Copy that,” Cara said, forcing her brain back on track.
The heat signatures meant either Alexis or Michael was there casting a cloaking shield, or Patience was using her talent of invisibility to hide the ambush. But as part of prepping for the “us versus them” training run, the
winikin
had pooled their observations on the magi, and they had come up with a few workarounds that could—maybe, hopefully—help even the playing field. The heat- and infrared-sensitive goggles they were wearing were just one of many tricks they had up their camo-colored sleeves.
Their sniper was another.
“Zane?” she said into her mike. “How does it look?”
All the way up at the ass end of the regular firing range, the ex-marine sharpshooter was nearly a half mile upwind of the proving grounds, well outside the regular battle zone and higher up than even the main pyramid. From there, his telescopic sights showed him almost all of the grid, and would—according to him, anyway—allow him to hit whatever he was aiming at even that far away, using specially designed paint-containing rounds.
“I’ve got a good view,” he answered. “There are two sentries on the ground level of the pyramid, watching the corners, and at least one, maybe two concealed in the temple at the top. There are two more on the tunnel entrance, and there’s a three-man patrol headed west along causeway B.”
She glanced at her wrist display to confirm the positions of her teammates, which were marked on a topo map with tiny locator dots. But although the locators and other toys were nice, it was almost time to turn them off, along with the radios and other electronics, in order to simulate the conditions they would be facing during an
actual battle, when the barrier flux would often knock out all electronic communications.
Just as she had the thought, an orange flare hissed up into the sky trailing ochre smoke, signaling that they were two minutes to the hard threshold of the pretend equinox and its communications blackout.
Her stomach knotted and sweat suddenly slicked the grip she held on her machine gun.
Don’t freak; you’ve done this before, and for real
. She had been out with five different ops teams. She had killed
xombis,
gunned down
makol,
and seen blood and ichor fly. Always before, though, she had been on a Nightkeeper-led team, safe behind a magical shield and with someone else giving the orders. Now she was in charge. There was nobody looking out for her, nobody making sure she didn’t screw this up. And that was a hell of a thing.
All too aware of the seven others crouched behind her—Sebastian, Kels, Foohey, Rinna, DD, Nance, and Tooky, all depending on her to get them through this and kick some Nightkeeper ass—she blew out a breath and concentrated on not letting her nerves show.
“Radios off,” she said quietly into her mike. “Stick to the plan if you can; do your best if you can’t. And gods be with us.” She removed her earpiece, then dropped it in her pocket, conscious of the others doing the same behind her. And although the mike and earbud still pinched awkwardly sometimes, she felt naked without them on. Turning back to her teammates, she made herself wink. “It’s almost go time.”
Sebastian glowered, but that was no surprise. A couple of the others, though, exhaled softly and nodded.
Then a red flare went up, signaling the start of the battle.
And the fight was on.
The world accelerated to a blur as Cara burst from behind the wall and pounded toward the target with the others right on her heels. The afternoon sun seemed to slam down on her, heating her to broil within seconds and coating her with sweat, but she didn’t care. Her strides lengthened; her feet flew as she hit the pyramid and headed up the blocky central staircase, taking the steps two at a time.
She was peripherally aware of the
pop-pop-popp
ing sounds that burst from the other positions as her teams engaged the enemy, drawing their attention away from the back of the ruin. She hoped.
“On your right!” Sebastian snapped, just as a black-clad figure whipped around the step-sided corner, firing as he came. She spun and threw herself to the side while her brain registered Nate Blackhawk’s formidable bulk.
Thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack!
Blackhawk opened fire and red paint splattered on DD’s chest and Tooky’s lower body, but then the remaining teammates opened fire. Within seconds, Nate was covered in
winikin
blue, dead by paintball rules. He looked down at himself, shocked.
I’m a mage,
his expression seemed to say.
A
winikin
can’t shoot a mage
.
But they could, and had. And the kill had a hot ball of emotion—part elation, part horror—jamming Cara’s throat and making it hard to breathe.
The three casualties all sat where they’d been hit. Blackhawk had to wait for ten minutes before he rejoined the fight, mimicking the way most of the Nightkeepers’ enemies could regenerate. The
winikin,
on the other hand, were out.
For them, dead was dead.
“Go!” Tooky waved them off. “Kick ass!”
Heart pounding, Cara bolted the rest of the way up the pyramid, leading the charge. Just as she hit the top, she heard a
zzzt-thwack
followed by a curse, and Lucius reeled out of the boxy temple that crowned the pyramid, clutching his blue-splattered heart. After a couple of soap opera–worthy gasps, he subsided to the stone flat and “died” with a last wheeze of “good luck” in Cara’s direction.
She sent a quick thumbs-up toward Zane’s position, and then slipped quietly into the temple with the others behind her.
At the center of the covered space a dark opening led to stairs leading down into the belly of the pyramid, to the inner tomb where the artifact was being hidden. Instead of bolting straight down, though, she boosted herself up through a hole in the ceiling and onto the roof, which gave her a vantage over the proving grounds.
She scanned the scene, confirming that her teams were all in their places. But her stomach knotted when she saw shadows moving on the far side of the low, blocky building very near where Natalie’s and JT’s groups would meet up for the next stage of plan A. Worse, four more black-clad Nightkeeper warriors were closing in; they disappeared behind a long, low temple just as Lora and the others reached it from the far side.
Oh, shit
. Cara’s heart thudded against her ribs as she suddenly realized she was in a hell of a situation. If she gave the signal and the others broke cover on schedule, they were dead. They might be dead either way, if she didn’t warn them there was trouble coming. But that warning would draw attention to her team. Worse, she shouldn’t go with plan B when there were so many enemy fighters right
near the pyramid. The others would scatter to relative safety, but she and her team would have a hell of a time making it back to the rendezvous point with the artifact.
So now what? Her breath thinned as it came down to a brutal, bloodthirsty choice: She could go with plan B and potentially save lives… or she could go with plan A and potentially win the game. The girl she had been when she first came to Skywatch never would’ve considered it an option—she had been raised to nurture, was programmed to reach out and help. But the leader she had become knew that the stakes were high, and the ones they would face over the next few months would be even higher.
And part of being in charge was knowing when to make sacrifices.
Her hands shook as she pulled a high-powered LED flashlight from her pocket, pointed it toward the firing range, and flashed the signal. Then she sent a small prayer skyward.
Please, gods, don’t let me screw this up
.
As if in answer, a brilliant yellow flare arced in the sky: It was Zane’s signal to the others to let rip with plan A. And once it was fired off, there was no going back. She had made her sacrifice; now it was up to her to make sure it counted.
Pulse drumming, she dropped back down to the temple floor and motioned for the others to follow. “Quietly,” she warned in a nearly soundless whisper.
Cool darkness closed around her as she moved down the stairs, and she switched to night vision, which made the outside world seem suddenly very far away. She tried not to imagine the firefight outside, yet at the same time wouldn’t let herself blunt the sharp edges by brushing it off as just a game.
This could be real,
she thought as she
led the way across a slick landing to a second set of stairs.
It could all be real
.
Zzzt-pop!
A miniexplosion flashed, momentarily blinding her. She fell back into Sebastian and caromed off the wall as foxfire booby traps flared to life all around them, further overloading the night vision. She ripped down her goggles, brought up her weapon, and signaled for her teammates to follow her, taking high and low positions.
She went low, came around the corner to find Alexis crouched and waiting, and opened fire just as a spell detonated around her. She lived; Alexis “died,” and looked surprised as hell doing it.
Cara didn’t stop to gloat, just waved her teammates past. “Move!” she barked. And they moved.
The next few minutes were a blur of gunfire and magical explosions, and a dizzy high-speed weave through labyrinthine tunnels to the inner chamber. “Grenade!” she snapped, and stepped back as Sebastian lobbed his own personal contribution to their armaments—a paint-filled grenade that atomized the spray so finely that it could penetrate a mage’s shield spell. There was a sharp crack followed by a vicious curse in Michael’s voice.
Another blur of activity followed, fragmented with image memories that burned their way into her retinas: Michael coated from head to toe in blue paint; the surprise—and perhaps reluctant admiration—on his face when she darted in and grabbed the paint-slicked pottery figure that was their goal. Then they were running through the tunnel leading out. She saw blue-splashed bodies, though she didn’t know who had cleared the way, didn’t hear any more
pop-popp
ing of paintball fire. But as she burst out into the sunlight and the coast
was clear ahead, all she could think was that she had the statue—she freaking had it!—and they were going to win.
She
was going to win, and everyone would know it.
Triumph flashed through her, bright, shiny, and unfamiliar. The Nightkeepers would see that she could make decisions under fire, that the
winikin
would obey her and they could fight on their own. She would be a hero. More important, the
winikin
would have a reason to follow her now. Maybe this was what Zane had been talking about that night: the moment when the balance would tip and the last of the holdouts would accept her. And Sven would see that she could handle— Shit, it didn’t matter what he saw or didn’t see. He was just another mage.
And she wasn’t the winner until they reached the rendezvous point.
Yanking her flare gun free, she blasted a trailing track of blue across the sky to signal the retreat, hoping to hell there were other survivors. She and her five remaining teammates raced to the drop point they had started from, darting into the black-painted circle that said they were in place for a teleporter to pick them up from their so-called op. “Come on, come on, come on,” she chanted as the seconds ticked by and nobody else showed up.
“Try another flare,” Sebastian said.
She fired again, though it was a dangerous move that pinpointed them too closely. Already the enemy would be headed their way, following the flare trail. “We’ll give them sixty seconds,” she said through gritted teeth as the exhilaration of victory started to wobble.
At T-minus thirty seconds, she headed for the control button that would change the indicator light to amber, indicating that the op was over, that anyone not in the pickup zone had been left behind. Her stomach heaved.
Six survivors—herself and five others. Was that all she would come home with? At the fifteen-second mark, she strained to hear footsteps—something, anything that said more were coming.
Ten. Nine. Eight
.
Sebastian grabbed her arm. “Look!” There was a flicker of motion and Dez stepped out from a gap opposite them, weapon raised.
Cara clamped her lips on a scream and hit the button. A siren whooped and the light turned amber. And the game was over.
“We did it!” The cry came from Natalie, who burst from a nearby doorway, eyes shining from a red-streaked face. She flung herself on Cara, spinning them both around in a circle. “We won. We
won!
” Suddenly they were surrounded by
winikin,
all clamoring and high-fiving, and seeming not to care that they were covered with red paint.