Free Storm Kissed by Jessica Andersen Page B

trading center for the Puebloan tribes, and may have had ties to the Chacoans in the canyon country south of here.”
    “Try definitely had ties to the Chacoans,” Dez said under his breath, shifting to get at his water bottle and take a swig. “This was one of ours.” Even a thousand years later, the place vibrated with echoes of Night-keeper magic, warming him slightly as the sun started its downward slide and the shadows grew.
    “Although early scholars thought the huge North Ruin might be an archaic apartment building, we now think there were maybe only a couple of hundred permanent residents, with thousands of other people gathering here during ceremonial days . . .” The kid-herder’s voice faded as the group moved along the path.
    “. . . sooo bored,” a straggler said, her ennui reaching Dez on an echo.
    “I know, right?” said another. “This blows.” Her voice dropped to a carrying whisper. “You wanna sneak back around to the gift shop? I’ve got my mom’s AmEx. ”
    “I—”
    “No,” interrupted an older, equally bored voice, though this one coming from an adult. Auxiliary kid-herder, no doubt. “Come on, let’s go catch up with the others.”
    There were grumbles as the three moved off, with the first of the girls complaining in a put-upon voice, “Why do we have to know this crap anyway? It’s so old . Why can’t we learn about stuff that matters ? ”
    Dez snorted to himself. “Consider yourself lucky somebody gives a shit whether you learn it or not. And the old stuff—especially this old stuff—matters more than you’ll ever know.” At least, she would never know if the Nightkeepers had anything to say about it.
    The shadows lengthened further. The air chilled. The park cleared.
    Dez tugged his fleece-lined cap down over his smoothly bald scalp and turned up the collar of the heavy desert-camo jacket he’d bought from an army surplus store, along with night-vision goggles and a KA-BAR knife. He should’ve gone with the lined pants too. He might still be in New Mex, but he was practically on top of the Colorado border, and the sharp wind smelled of snow. Not to mention that serpents didn’t do too well in the cold, and the main effect of the Triad magic—aside from saddling him with a now-decamped spirit guide and some nasty dreams—had been to skew many of his senses closer to those of his bloodline totem.
    The Triad magic had affected each of the chosen magi differently: It had given detail-oriented Brandt a mental filing system that contained all of his ancestors’ spells and talents, yet the same spell had nearly killed Strike’s sister, Anna. It wasn’t clear whether that was because she lacked the warrior′s mark, because she had forsaken the Nightkeepers to live out in the human world, or what, but she had suffered a hell of a cranial bleed. She was up and moving now, and the doctors said her scans were within normal limits, but still she ghosted from day to day, silent and foggy-eyed.
    Seeing her around Skywatch had hammered home to Dez that he was seriously fucking lucky. The Triad magic hadn’t just picked him; it had saved him, given him a second chance. And in the process, it had sleeked him down and enhanced his existing magic. Like a serpent, he used all of his senses, analyzing scent signatures by both smell and taste, and detecting minute changes in body heat. Not to mention that his warrior′s talent gave him the sharpened reflexes and strategic thinking of a killing machine, and the lightning magic gave him some serious shock-and-awe. The three together made him a formidable weapon, and he was determined to be the best damned soldier he could be. He couldn’t undo the past, but since waking up from the Triad transition, he had thrown himself into the Nightkeepers’ war, taking his own ego out of the equation and doing whatever he was damn well told.
    That is, until last week when he got Keban’s strangely formal note—his fucking marching orders: