Have you made that trip to the bookstore for your very own copies of Jessica Andersen’s Nightkeepers series after reading all the excerpts today? Well, hurry! You don’t want to miss this last one!

We’re closing our day out with Skykeepers, the latest book in Jessica’s Final Prophecy series.

Thank you all for joining us today and for checking out Jessica’s series. Hope you enjoy them after you make that run to the bookstore!

Ancient prophecy holds that 12/21/2012 will bring a global cataclysm. Mankind’s only hope lies with the Nightkeepers, modern magic-wielding warriors who must find their destined mates and fulfill the legends to defeat the rise of terrible Mayan demons.

In the third of the Novels of the Final Prophecy, Skykeepers, Michael Stone is a man with a dark secret that has skewed his magical abilities dangerously toward the underworld. Seeking redemption, he sets out on a perilous mission to save the daughter of Ambrose Ledbetter, a renowned Mayanist who died before he could reveal the location of a hidden library. The Nightkeepers must find the library before their enemies gain access to its valuable cache of spells and prophecies.

Sasha Ledbetter grew up hearing heroic tales of an ancient group of powerful magi who were destined to save the world from destruction. She never expected that her bedtime stories would come to life in the form of Nightkeeper Michael Stone, or that she’d hold the key to the warrior’s survival. As Sasha and Michael join forces to prevent the imminent battle, sparks of attraction ignite between them, and they’re forced to confront the unexpected passion that brings them together … and also tears them.

November 18
Three years and thirty-three days until the end date
The Yucatan

Michael Stone stood atop a midsize Mayan ruin called the watchtower, his dark, shoulder-length hair blowing a little in the sea breeze. Behind him was an expanse of lush, stone-studded greenery; ahead was a white stone cliff that dropped steeply to a gleaming, tourist-dotted strip of coral beach. Beyond that was the vibrant blue-green of the Caribbean.

It was a hell of a view, that was for sure.

The ruined port city was called Tulum, which meant “wall” in Spanish and referred to the sturdy stone balustrade that enclosed the city on three sides, with the cliff and ocean forming the fourth. The fortification was impressive, even in ruins, but it hadn’t protected the city from the ravages of the conquistadors and their missionaries. And in the almost five hundred years since Cortés first landed, the place had become a tourist trap, due largely to its small, walkable size and prime beachfront location.

The deets spooled through Michael’s brain, courtesy of the report he’d downloaded from his e-mail a couple of hours earlier. It’d been sent by the Nightkeepers’ archivist, Jade, his former lover-turned-friend. The thought of her brought a twinge of guilt and regret, but both had become too-familiar companions over the past year-plus, ever since the talent ceremony that had unlocked a shit-ton more than just his warrior’s talent. Since he couldn’t change the past—his and Jade’s or otherwise—he pushed aside the guilt and tried to focus on what he ought to be doing- namely reporting back to home base with a whole lot of negatives.

Still, though, he hesitated, standing alone atop a pyramid where one of his ancestors might have stood centuries earlier. Sunlight glinted on the dark sunglasses that shaded Michael’s piercing eyes, which were so dark green they were nearly black in some lights. A seabreeze tugged at his jeans and tee, molding the fabric to his big, fighting-lean body as he pictured that hypothetical ancestor, a Nightkeeper mage like himself. The image didn’t last long, though, largely because Michael wasn’t nearly so deep into the whole ancestor-worship thing as some of the others. Not like the winikin, who saw it as their duty—one among many—to remind the Nightkeepers of their history, usually when they least expected or wanted it. Sort of like a Discovery Channel sneak attack. Despite the knee-jerk avoidance the lectures had spawned in him, though, Michael found himself struck by the ruins, and their spanning view of the sea. He could almost picture the seagoing outriggers the ancient Maya had used to transport their goods along the coast, the pack trains coming from the inland city-states, and the open-air market that had formed where the two commerce streams met at Tulum’s port.

And you’re so incredibly stalling it’s not even funny, he thought wryly, forcing himself to palm his phone out of his pocket and speed-dial Strike’s cell.

The Nightkeepers’ king picked up on the third ring. “Tell me something good.”

“Sorry. I’ve got bad, bad, and more bad.”

Strike’s low curse suggested that the others had also come up empty in their ruin-ratting searches for a new intersection, which was a major problem. Ever since the Xibalbans had destroyed the sacred chamber beneath the ruins of Chichén Itzá, the Nightkeepers’ powers had been inconsistent at best, weakening at worst. Without a direct connection to the sky plane and the gods who lived there, the Nightkeepers’ magic was fading at a time when the few remaining prophecies said they were supposed to be growing stronger, gearing up to fight the demon Banol Kax and their earthly agents, the Xibalbans.

Worse, the Xibalbans had direct access to the underworld through a hellmouth located somewhere in the cloud forests of Ecuador, which meant their dark-magic powers were just as strong as ever. The Nightkeepers had tried to find and destroy the mouth, but they’d been unable to find it, suggesting the Xibalbans had tucked the entrance into a fold of the barrier, removing it from the earthly plane.

Given the existence of the hellmouth, logic and the doctrine of balance—which had become a central force in Michael’s life since his talent ceremony—said there had to be another access point to the sky, another intersection. The billion-dollar question was: where?

The Nightkeepers had split up to search each of the sites mentioned in their regrettably incomplete archives as being places where the barrier separating the earth, sky, and underworld came very near the plane of mankind, potentially allowing access. Because of the exponentially increased power of mated pairs, Strike and his human mate, Leah; married parents Brandt and Patience White-Eagle; and newly mated Nate Blackhawk and Alexis Gray had taken the likeliest-seeming sites. Bachelors Michael and Sven had each taken a group of lower-priority sites, while the two nonwarriors—Jade and Strike’s sister, Anna—provided backup with the help of the winikin. On Strike’s say-so, the final remaining Nightkeeper warrior, twenty-year-old Rabbit, had skipped the assignment to start his freshman year at UT Austin with his human girlfriend, Myrinne. The kid was on call if anyone needed him.

Six months ago, that would’ve been a big “no” as far as Michael was concerned—Rabbit was a half-blood, pyrokine, telekine, mind-bender, and juvenile delinquent all wrapped up in one pissed-off package. He might’ve matured a shit ton since he’d escaped from his brief captivity with the Xibalbans, bringing Myrinne out with him, but Michael still figured the kid belonged where he was, learning how to be a better human being while the rest of them tried to figure out how to be better magi.

At each of the sites where they hoped to find a new intersection, the Nightkeepers had let blood from their palms and used the sacrifice to jack into the barrier, testing the strength of the connection. A new intersection should give them a power boost that was off the charts. Michael’s sites had barely registered on his own inner magic-o-meter.

“Are you sure?” Strike asked.

“Positive. There’s no sign of an intersection at Tulum, Xel-Ha, Ox Bel Ha, or any of the other sites I tried.” Michael might not be able to call the offensive weapons usually brought by the warrior’s mark e, but there was no way he’d missed an intersection—assuming, of course, that it acted like the one beneath Chichén Itzá. Before he could say anything else, though, he caught sight of an M-16-toting militiaman strolling around the edges of the watchtower’s lower level, “I’ve got company,” he reported. “I’ll call you back when I get to my hotel, sooner if I need an emergency pickup.” Sometimes it came in handy having a king who could teleport.

Michael flipped his phone shut and jogged down the steep, faintly slippery stone stairway that ran down the backside of the watchtower pyramid. When he hit level ground, he headed away from the ruin, angling in the opposite direction from the soldier in the hopes that the guy was just staying visible to the tourists thronging the popular site.

The other man changed vector to intercept, though, which had Michael muttering a curse under his breath. The ruins of Tulum weren’t normally under military control; technically they weren’t now, but there was a definite armed presence in the region, thanks to an ongoing tug-of-war between the government and a group of resorts that might or might not have been built on protected parkland right next to the ruins. Michael had bribed one of the soldiers to gain access to the watchtower ruin, which was supposed to be closed to the public. But the guy on his tail wasn’t the one he’d bribed; he was older and tougher-looking, with a serious don’t screw with me; I’m having a shitty week look in his eyes.

Although Michael had never been one to back down from a fight—fair or otherwise—things were apt to get dicey if the local militia took too much of an interest in him. The fake ID Jox had hooked him up with was good enough to get him across the border, good enough for most airports stateside, but it wouldn’t stand up to intense scrutiny. And while the other Nightkeepers could and would spring him out of a Mexican prison if it came to it, they preferred to avoid that sort of thing. The magi didn’t exist in absolute secrecy, but they kept a low profile when it came to normal human affairs.

Moving fast, Michael ducked around a man-high pile of rubble that had probably once been a stela. The high pillars had been carved with glyphs spelling out births, deaths, politics, war, and just about anything else human beings of any time period found important. Now, the state of the art in thirteenth century billboards was reduced to a hiding spot as Michael hunkered down behind the stela. Warning danced across his skin, courtesy of his warrior’s powers. But while he might not be able call fireball magic like the others, he was hell on wheels with its antithesis, shield magic.

As the soldier drew near, Michael pulled a carved obsidian knife from an ankle holster. Drawing the scalpel-sharp blade across his palm, he welcomed the bite of pain and the faint glow of red-gold Nightkeeper power it brought. Before the destruction of the skyroad he wouldn’t have needed the blood for a shield spell. Now, though, he needed blood for even lower-level spells.

Concentrating, Michael touched his talent, calling the power of the barrier and using it to cast a thick shield around his body: a faint tremor in the air, a few degrees of refractive index that hadn’t been there moments earlier. He couldn’t make himself invisible like Patience could, but he’d learned that if he cast the shield at a certain angle from his body, it distorted both light and sound, confusing human perceptions. Once the shield was in place, the soldier shouldn’t be able to see or hear him.

Moments later, footsteps approached, boots ringing on stone.

Keep walking, Michael thought as the militiaman appeared, eyes sharp, M-16 still on his shoulder. Nothing to see here. Michael wasn’t a mind-bender like Rabbit, and thus wasn’t actually able to shove the thought into the human’s mind, but he figured the power of suggestion couldn’t hurt, and he needed the guy to keep going.

Whether thanks to wishful thinking or the chameleon shield, or a bit of both, the soldier kept going, not even glancing in Michael’s direction. Once he was gone, Michael dropped the shield and slipped into a milling herd of tourists headed back toward the hotels. He hadn’t gotten far when his phone chirped in his pocket. Seeing the main Skywatch number on the display, he flipped the phone and answered, “Stone here.”

“Get yourself someplace private.” It was Michael’s winikin, Tomas, sounding clipped and disapproving. As usual.

Michael stifled a curse at his winikin’s tone. The two of them had been close from Michael’s youngest years through his teens, when he’d lived and breathed martial arts and aced his schoolwork with minimal effort. Tomas had played the role of Michael’s godfather, standing in for parents who had supposedly died in a drunk-driving accident when he’d been a baby. Tomas—short and slight, like most winikin—had been there for Michael through college, and had just about pissed himself with pride when Michael had been recruited into the FBI’s training program. Things had changed, though, when Michael washed out of the program, then took a high-tech sales job and started partying more than he worked out. Tomas had poked constantly, telling him he was better than his job, that he should do something more, be something more. Eventually, they had stopped really talking to each other … until almost eighteen months earlier, when the winikin had dropped the dime on the infamous, the Nightkeepers are real, you’re one of them, and you’ve got four years to save the world and six hours to get your ass on a plane to New Mexico bombshell.

Hello, mind-fuck.

After learning that Tomas was actually his winikin, Michael had partway understood where his supposed godfather had been coming from all those years, pushing him to be a fighter, to demand justice, hell, to be the best at whatever he chose to do. But knowing what had caused the pressure didn’t really change the fact that his de facto father had stopped loving him—or even liking him—when he’d refused to do as he was told.

The tension between them had remained even after Michael gained his bloodline and talent marks, binding him to the barrier as a full-blood mage. Hell, things hadn’t even really improved between them over the past five months, ever since Michael had finally managed to cut ties with his old life and dedicated himself to becoming a better mage. On some level, he’d figured his new level of effort would finally make Tomas happy. That had been a “fail,” though. His growing role within the Nightkeepers hadn’t made any difference in his relationship with his winikin. They still rubbed each other very wrong.

“Get. Your. Ass. Private,” Tomas gritted. “Strike needs to make an emergency grab.”

Oh, hell. Shelving the interpersonal shit, Michael took a quick look around and headed for a likely-looking gap between two buildings on the edge of the hotel district. “What’s wrong?”

“Anna just got a phone message from Lucius,” Tomas reported.

Michael’s warrior talent flared hard, revving his magic and sweeping all the other garbage aside. Strike’s sister, Anna, was a Mayan-studies expert at UT Austin; Lucius had been her grad student until he’d gotten himself possessed by an underworld nasty called a makol, one of the minion species of the demon Banol Kax. In the months since his possession, the Nightkeepers had been unable to find Lucius. Strike hadn’t even been able to get a ’port lock, and there were only three things that could foil ’port lock: death, rock shielding, or the efforts of a mage capable of breaking ’port lock … like Iago.

“What did he say?” Michael asked as he headed for the alleyway.

“Supposedly, Iago and thirty or so Xibalbans are holed up in the old Survivor2012 compound. They’ve got Sasha Ledbetter there … and they’re planning on sacrificing her tonight at the height of the meteor shower. They couldn’t torture the library’s location out of her, so they’re going to see if they can get the answer out of her spirit.”

“Oh, hell.” Michael hissed out a breath as a complicated mix of emotions mule-kicked him in the chest and an image plastered itself across his mind’s eye; a promo shot of a dark-haired woman posing in a restaurant kitchen with a handful of peppers and a ten-inch knife, looking sexy as hell.

Sasha was the only daughter of Ambrose Ledbetter, an old-school Mayanist whose body had been found by Anna and Red-Boar deep in the rain forest near a Nightkeeper temple, headless and buried in a shallow grave. That hadn’t been the biggest shock, though. No, the major oh, holy what-the-fuck moment had been when they’d found extensive scarring on his right inner forearm, as though Ambrose—or someone else—had burned that skin away.

Did that mean he was a lost Nightkeeper, one who had somehow broken his connection to the barrier, thereby surviving the Solstice Massacre? The magi weren’t sure, but that had become an almost moot point when they learned that Ambrose had discovered, moved, and rehidden the Nightkeepers’ ancient library, an extensive repository of spells and codices that should hold all the information the magi were lacking  … like the location of a new intersection, and what, exactly, was going to happen during the three-year threshold leading to the end date, which was a little over a month away.

Unfortunately, Iago had gotten to Sasha first. The Nightkeepers had been trying to find the Xibalbans’ main encampment and mount a rescue attempt since then, with no luck … until now.

Michael’s gut twisted, partly with relief that she was still alive, partly with sick guilt that she’d been in Iago’s power for nearly a year now. Where the Nightkeepers sacrificed their own blood, the Xibalbans drew power from their prisoners and enemies. More, Iago was a borrower, able to divert talents from other magi and use them for his own purposes. There was no telling what foul magic they’d tried on her.

“Godsdamn it,” he muttered under his breath. The curse wasn’t entirely directed at the Xibalbans, either. If the Nightkeepers couldn’t manage to rescue one woman, how the fuck were they supposed to save the world?

The kick of anger brought an answering stir of heat. He’d never met Sasha, but ever since he’d first dug into the file that had been put together by the Nightkeepers’ tame private investigator, Carter, he’d been unable to get her out of his head. Part of it was revulsion toward the idea of a woman—hell, anyone—being held hostage by the Xibalbans. But that wasn’t what had him looking at her photos far too often, he knew.

There was something engaging about the impish glitter in her dark brown eyes, consistently visible in each of the snaps Carter had culled from a series of restaurant Web sites. The tilt of her dimpled chin carried a hint of go-to-hell defiance he could relate to, and the rest of her stirred his hormones, from her loosely curled dark hair and angular, almost elfin face, to the long, curved fluidity of her body—what could be seen of it beneath chef’s whites, anyway.

Carter’s factoid-laden report sketched the story of a child who had been raised partly in the field by her father, partly stateside by Ambrose’s live-in girlfriend, and had wound up breaking from them both when she left for culinary school. Estrangement, too, was something Michael could relate to, as was her extensive childhood training in martial arts. He’d always been a sucker for a woman with fight training.

Michael had spearheaded several searches of potential Xibalban hideouts over the past few months, but those look-sees hadn’t turned up dick, leaving him frustrated and pissed off, and worried about a woman he’d never met, one whose picture was burned into his conscious mind.

She’s in the Everglades, he thought, his pulse kicking at the realization that they’d finally gotten a break. But logic tempered the rush of battle readiness, and the stir of bloodlust that wasn’t entirely his own.

“It’s got to be a trick,” he said, thinking aloud. “It can’t be a coincidence that Iago suddenly pops up at the old Survivor2012 compound, given how well Leah knows the property.”

A former detective with the Miami-Dade PD, Strike’s human mate had studied the location as part of tying the site’s owner, cult leader Vincente Rincon, to her brother’s death and a series of ritualistic murders in the Miami area. With the help of Strike and the others, she’d gotten her revenge on Rincon, and the cult had disbanded. The property, which had been built up out of some seriously swampy land at the edge of the Everglades, had been resold before the Nightkeepers could snap it up. However, Strike and Leah had managed to search the property, discovering several ritual chambers hidden within a labyrinth of tunnels belowground. The compound had sat empty ever since. According to Carter, the place had been bought by a conservationist group looking to preserve the Everglades.

Ten bucks says the conservationists are a front for the Xibalbans, Michael thought. But that didn’t necessarily make Lucius’s call a trap. Iago could have been drawn there by the compound’s history, its isolated location, or the power given off by the numerous Mayan relics Rincon had bought on the black market and reassembled on the property.

“You willing to bet the library on its being a trick?” Tomas asked.

“Doesn’t matter either way, does it? We have to check it out.” Michael ducked into a deserted alley, where it would be safe for his king to materialize. “Tell Strike he’s good to zap.”

Tomas hung up without another word. A few seconds later, Michael heard the faint rattle in the air that presaged ’port magic, and then Strike materialized, zapping in maybe six inches off the ground and dropping to a bent-kneed landing.

The king was an imposing figure. Tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular, bigger than even larger-than-average humans, as were all full-blood Nightkeeper males, Strike wore his shoulder-length black hair tied back in a queue, balancing the severity of the look with a narrow beard that traced his jawline. His right forearm was marked with the glyphs denoting him as a member of the jaguar bloodline, as royalty, as a warrior and a teleport. Higher up, on his biceps, where only the gods and kings were marked, he wore the geometric hunab ku, the symbol of the 2012 doomsday and the Nightkeepers’ king. Even though he was wearing thoroughly modern clothes in his black-on-black combat duds and heavy boots, he looked almost medieval. He could’ve been a crusader, perhaps, or one of Arthur’s knights. Hell, maybe even Arthur himself.

Without preamble, Strike reached out and gripped Michael’s upper arm, forming the touch link necessary for him to transport another person. “Tomas has your armor and weapons waiting for you. This could be the break we’ve been hoping for.”

“Or it could be a godsdamned ambush,” Michael countered as the ’port magic rose up around them. But ambush or not, he was on board with whatever the king was planning. A fight was a fight. And this rescue was long overdue.

If you’re just now joining us today, you’re still in time for all the fun with Jessica Andersen’s Nightkeepers series. Be sure to also check out her Duck Chat and the excerpt from Nightkeepers, the first book in the series. They’re both previously posted, so have fun!

Next up in our showcase of her series is Dawnkeepers.

The final four-year countdown to the end of days has begun. According to ancient Maya prophecy, demons from the underworld will arise on December 21, 2012. Only the Nightkeepers, mortal descendants of an ancient race of magic-wielding warrior-priests, can prevent the apocalypse by stopping the demons from bringing the old legends to life.

Unlike his fellow Nightkeepers, Nate Blackhawk isn’t about to let the gods determine his destiny- especially when it comes to his feelings for Alexis Gray, his ex-lover and nemesis. But when they’re forced to work together, racing to recover seven antiquities before the demons get their claws on the vital artifacts, Nate and Alexis will have to face their feelings- and their past- in order to defeat a dire and ancient enemy.

Bidding on the thirteen hundred year-old Mayan statuette started at two grand and jumped almost immediately to five. At fifty-five hundred, Alexis caught the spotter’s eye and nodded, then leaned back in her folding chair, projecting the calm of a collector.

It was a lie, of course. The only things she’d ever collected were parking tickets at the Newport marina. She looked the part, though, in a stylish navy pinstripe pantsuit that nipped in at the waist and pulled a little across the shoulders, thanks to all the hand-to-hand training she’d gotten in recent months. Her streaky blond hair was caught back in a severe ponytail, and she wore secondhand designer shoes that put her well over six-feet. A top-end bag sat at her feet beside a matching folio, both slightly scuffed around the edges.

Understated upscale, courtesy of eBay.

In her previous life as a private investment consultant, the look had been calculated to reassure her wealthy friends and clients that she belonged among them but wouldn’t compete, wouldn’t upstage. She’d played the part for so long prior to last year’s “oh, by the way you’re a Nightkeeper” revelation that it’d been second nature to dress for this gig. But as bidding on the statuette topped sixty-five hundred and Alexis nodded to bump it to a cool seven grand, she felt a hum of power that had been missing from her old life.

I have money now, the buzz in her blood said. I deserve to be here.

It wasn’t her money, not really. But she had carte blanche with the Nightkeeper Fund, and orders not to come home empty-handed.

“Ma’am?” said a cultured, amplified voice. It was the auctioneer now, not the spotter, which meant the dabblers had dropped out and he had his two or three serious bidders. “It’s seventy-five hundred dollars to you.”

She glanced up at the projection screen at the front of the room. It showed a magnification of the statuette, which rested near the auctioneer’s elbow, top-lit on a nest of black cloth.

Described in the auction catalog as ‘a statue of Ixchel, Mayan goddess of rainbows and fertility, carved from chert, c. 700 AD, love poem inscribed in hieroglyphs on base,’ the statue was made of pale green stone that’d been carved with deceptive simplicity into the shape of a woman with a large nose and flattened forehead, her conical skull crowned with a rainbow of hair, and her large hands cupping the swell of her pregnant belly. She sat upon a stone, or maybe an overturned bowl or basket, and that was where the hieroglyphs were carved, curved and fluid and gorgeous like all Mayan writing, which was as much art as a form of communication.

Love poem, Alexis thought with an inner snort. Not. Or rather, it was eau-de-Hallmark read one way, but according to Jade’s research back at Skywatch, if they held the statuette at the proper angle under starlight, a new set of glyphs would show up, spelling out one of the demon prophecies.

Aware that the auctioneer was waiting on her, Alexis said, “Ten thousand dollars.” As she’d hoped, the advance jumped the bid past fair market value by enough to make her remaining opponent shake his head and drop out. The auctioneer pronounced it a done deal and she felt a buzz of success as she flashed her bidder number, knowing there would be no problem with the money.

The Nightkeeper Fund, which had- ironically- been seeded in the eighteen hundreds with the proceeds from her five-times-great-grandparents’ generation of Nightkeepers unwisely selling off the very Mayan artifacts they were scrambling to recover now, had been intended to fund an army of hundreds as the 2012 end date approached. That, however, was before the current king’s father had led his warrior-priests into an ill-fated battle and the demons and wiped out most of their culture. Only a few of the youngest Nightkeepers had survived, hidden and raised in secret by their winikin until seven months earlier, when the intersection connecting the earth, sky and underworld had reactivated from its two-decade dormancy, and the king’s son, Strike, had recalled his people.

Yeah, that had been a shocker. Alexis, dear, you’re a magic-user, Izzy had pretty much said. I’m not your godmother, I’m your winikin, and we need to leave tonight for your bloodline ceremony and training. And oh, by the way, you and the other Nightkeepers have a little over four years to save the world.

According to the thirteenth prophecy, since Strike had refused to sacrifice the human woman who became his queen, the countdown to the end-time had begun in earnest. Info from their archivist, Jade, indicated that they’d passed into the four-year cycle during which seven of the Banol Kax would come through the intersection one at a time, each on a cardinal day, and seek to perform a task described in the ancient Mayan legends.

If the task was fulfilled, the demon would return to the underworld, Xibalba, and the barrier between the worlds would thin to a degree determined by the demon’s power. If the task was blocked, however, the demon would be destroyed and the barrier would strengthen by the same amount. That was what had the Nightkeepers hustling to find the seven statues that were supposedly inscribed with star-script prophecies that supposedly explained how to defeat each of the demons.

Make that six statues, Alexis thought, grinning. Because I just bagged Ixchel.

“Excuse me, please,” she murmured, and rose, snagging her folio and bag off the floor.

She stepped out into the aisle while the discreet auction house employees whisked her statuette off the podium and set up the next lot, and the auctioneer launched into his spiel. When she reached the temporary office the auction house had set up in the hallway outside the big estate’s ballroom, she unzipped the folio and watched the cashier’s eyes get big at the sight of the neatly stacked and banded bills.

She handed over her bidder’s number. “What’s the total damage?”

“Let me check,” he said, but his eyes were still glued to the cash.

The two items she’d bought- the statuette and a Mayan death mask that had been an earlier impulse buy- wouldn’t be the biggest deals of the day by far, but she’d bet they’d be among only a few handled in paper money. Granted, she could’ve done the remote transfer thing, too, but she quite simply loved the green stuff. She loved the feel and smell of cash, loved what it could buy- not just the things, but the respect. The power.

And no, it wasn’t because she’d been deprived or picked on as a child, as someone back at Skywatch had unkindly suggested. Nor was it a reaction to the idea that the world was four years away from a serious crisis of being, as that same someone had offered, or a rejection of destiny or some such claptrap. In fact, she’d decided it was simple biology.

The Nightkeepers were bigger, stronger and more graceful than average humans, pumped with charisma and loaded with talent. At least most of them were. Alexis had somehow gotten the bigger and stronger part without the grace, and while she’d worked long and hard to camouflage the klutz factor, and most days managed to control her freakishly long limbs, the effort left her pretty low on charisma. So far she was decidedly average in the talent department, too, having gotten the warriors mark, but no inherent magical talent beyond the basics.

Ergo, her enjoyment of the occasional power trip. She liked living as large as possible. So sue her.

“This might take a minute,” the cashier said finally, looking away from the cash to bang a few keys on his laptop, and scowling when the thing bleated at him. “The network’s being glitchy today. I don’t know what’s wrong with it.”

“No rush.” she flipped the folio shut and turned away, figuring she’d use the brief delay to check in- which consisted of powering up her phone, text messaging Izzy that she had the statue and was headed back to Skywatch, and then powering off the unit without checking her backlogged messages.

She wasn’t in the mood for the chatter, hadn’t been for a while. That was a big part of why she’d jumped on the chance to fly out to the California coast for the auction. The quick trip had given her a chance to breathe air she wasn’t sharing with the same twenty-plus Nightkeepers and winikin she’d been cheek-by-jowl with for the past half year.

Besides, she could guarantee the messages on her cell were nothing critical, because she wasn’t in line for the important assignments yet. Strike had his advisors- Leah and the royal winikin, Jox. The three of them handled the heavy-duty stuff, and delegated the lower-impact jobs.

For now, anyway.

Alexis had her sights set higher. Her mother, Gray-Smoke, had been one of King Scarred-Jaguar’s most trusted advisors, holding political power equaled only by that of her nemesis and co-advisor, Two-Hawk. That pretty much figured, because Two-Hawk’s son was Alexis’s own personal nemesis, i.e. the someone who’d been driving her pretty much nuts over the past few months, ever since he’d dumped her ass right after the talent ceremony, and then acted like it’d been no big deal for them to go from burning up the sheets to a quick nod in hallway-passing.

Damn him. And damn her for falling right back into her old, bad guy-habits just as she was starting her new and improved life.

“Ma’am? You’re all set.” The cashier held out her paperwork. “I have a couple of messages for you, too. She said it was important.”

“Thanks.” She took the slips, glanced at them and tucked them into her pocket. Just Izzy mother-henning her. The winikin would’ve gotten the text message by now, so they were square.

A security guard set a metal case on the table and flipped it open so she could see the statuette and the death mask nestled side-by-side in a shockproof foam bed. At her nod, the guard shut the case and slid it across the table to her, rumbling in a basso profundo voice, “Dial the numbers to what you want, and hit this button.” He pointed to an inset red dot. “That’ll set your combination. If you don’t want to bother, just leave it all zeros and it’ll just act like a suitcase. Got it?”

“Got it.” A whim had her dialing in a string of numbers and hitting the red button, and there was something satisfying about hearing the click of the locks engaging. When they did, the readout zeroed, which she thought was a nice touch.

Once outside, she found herself under the clear blue sky of a perfect February day in NorCal, the sort that made her wish she’d opted for the convertible when she’d rented her car. But it’d been drizzling when she landed, so she’d chosen a sporty silver BMW that hugged the road like a lover. Convertible or not, the silver roadster ought to be automotive muscle enough to entertain her on the way back to LAX.

Sure enough, once she was on the road with the metal case in the passenger seat beside her, the feel of engine power and smooth leather lightened her mood, sending a victory dance through her soul. She had the statue, and she wasn’t technically due back at Skywatch for another day. There was a sense of freedom in the thought, one that had her cranking the radio to something loud and edgy with a heavy backbeat as she pulled away from onto the narrow shoreline drive that led away from the lavish private estate that was being sold off, piece by piece, to settle the owner’s debts.

Alexis had thought it a stroke of luck that the sale had come up just as they’d started tracking down the lost artifacts, but Izzy had reminded her there wasn’t much in the way of actual coincidence in the world. Most of what people thought of as happy accidents were the will of the gods.

The thought brought a quiver of unease.

“They’re just dreams,” she told herself, sending the BMW whipping around a low-G curve that dropped off to the right in a steep embankment and a million-dollar view of the NorCal coast.

Still, dreams or not, she didn’t like the way the nightmares had stuck with her over the past few months, or how they kept changing, evolving, each time showing a new detail of the same scene. In it, she wasn’t sure if she was herself or the mother she’d never known, wasn’t sure if the shadowy figure of a man wearing the hawk medallion was supposed to be Nate or his father.

“I’m not a seer, damn it.” Needing to prove it yet again- to herself, to the gods- she unbuttoned her right sleeve and shoved it up to her elbow, baring her forearm. On the inside, just beyond her wrist, she wore two marks: the curling b’utz glyph representing the smoke bloodline, and three stacked blobs of the warrior’s talent mark that had given her increased reflexes and strategic thought, along with a power boost and the ability to call up shields and fireballs. “See? No itz’aat’s mark. I’m not a seer, and those are just dreams.”

And if she told herself that a hundred or so more times, she thought as she yanked down her sleeve, it might even play like the truth.

“Damn it,” she muttered, and hit the gas too hard going into the next curve, which was a blind turn arcing along a sheer cliffside drop. Easing off and shaking her head at herself for getting all tangled up when she was supposed to be enjoying the satisfaction of a job well done, she nursed the car around the corner-

And drove straight into a wall of fire.

She screamed and cramped the wheel as flames lashed at the car, slapping in through the open windows and searing the air around her. Worse was the power that crackled along her skin, feeling dark and twisted.

Ambush!

Her warrior’s instincts fired up; she fought the urge to slam on the brakes and hit the gas instead, hoping to punch through the fire, but it was already too late. The car cut loose and slid sideways, losing traction when all four tires blew.

Heart pounding, she fought the wheel, fought not to inhale. Smoke burned her eyes and throat, and the exposed skin of her wrists and face. Then she was through the fire magic and back on the open road, but it was too late to steer, too late to correct if she even could without rubber on the rims.

Alexis screamed as the BMW hit the guardrail and flipped.

Jessica Andersen hit gold with her idea to use the Mayan Long Count calendar as the concept for her Final Prophecy series. There will be a lot of interest and intrigue during the journey to the earth’s demise, so we’re doing our part in making sure everyone has a good taste of Jessica’s series.

So today we’re giving you a look at excerpts from the books so far in Jessica’s Nightkeepers series.  Check back throughout the day for the next installment. You don’t want to miss a one of them!

First up is Nightkeepers…..

According to the Mayan doomsday prophecy, time ends on December 21, 2012. In Nightkeepers, the last king of an ancient race of magi must team up with a sexy Miami-Dade narcotics detective in order to reunite his scattered warriors and fight the gods of the Mayan underworld. Wielding ancestral blood magic, the king must choose between his duty to avert the 2012 apocalypse and his love for the woman who is the gods’ destined sacrifice.

Summer Solstice, 2008

The blonde leaning over the garden center’s display table of annual flats was wearing a tight pink tank top and no bra. Not that Strike was looking or anything.

“I just love impatiens, don’t you?” She bent over further to select just the right six-pack of flowers, giving him an eye-full.

Hello. He dialed down the water wand he’d been using to fertilize the hanging begonias, and moved around the table. “Impatiens are pretty enough,” he said, pretending to look at the flowers. “But I prefer the full sun varieties, myself. No tan lines.”

She shot him a gotcha look before nodding at his right arm. “Nice ink. Aztec, right?”

He normally wore long-sleeved shirts to avoid just this sort of conversation, especially from people who noticed that his business partners, Jox and Red-Boar, wore similar glyphs. Today was summer-hot, though, and he’d gone with cutoffs and a black t-shirt that bared his marks: the jaguar that symbolized his bloodline and the ju that marked him as royalty.

“They’re Mayan.” He could’ve told her that the Maya had been the only society in the New World to develop a fully-functional writing system, or that it was because they, like the Egyptians two millennia earlier, had been taught by an older warrior culture that went back twenty thousand years or so to Atlantis.

He didn’t tell her that because one, she’d think he was whacked; two, lectures weren’t sexy; and three, the details, like the forearm marks, weren’t relevant anymore. The barrier was sealed, the Nightkeepers unnecessary. In four-plus years, the Great Conjunction would come and go with nothing more than a Michael Bay disaster movie and some empty hype.

Hopefully.

“Very nice,” she said again, and it was clear she wasn’t just talking about the marks.

“Thanks.” Strike was bigger than average- most Nightkeepers were, or had been- and he kept himself fighting fit. Add that to deep blue eyes, shoulder-length black hair worn in a ponytail regardless of trends, and a close-clipped jawline beard, and he had a look that either fascinated women or scared them off, depending.

The blonde didn’t seem scared as she took a long look around the garden center.

The sturdy barn-red store was flanked with plastic-covered greenhouses, with the one- and five-gallon shrubs grouped out front like leafy islands sprouting from an ocean of parking lot. The balled-and-burlapped trees were set around the perimeter, and tables of flowers and veg flats were strategically placed so shoppers couldn’t miss them on the way in. “This place is cute,” she said finally. “Yours?”

In other words, was he an owner, a contract landscaper working out of the nursery, or a schlub who, at thirty-three, watered plants for a living at seven bucks an hour? “Mine and my partners’,” he said, wondering how she’d react if he told her it was a little bit of all of those things.

He was part owner, along with Jox and Red-Boar, because all three of their names were on the Nightkeeper Fund started by his umpteen-great grandfather after he’d sold off most of the old artifacts. Strike also did some landscaping now and then, when he got the itch. And yeah, he was thirty-three, and although he had an MBA from Harvard Biz and used it to manage the Fund, at the moment his career pretty much consisted of watering plants and discussing the intricacies of dried versus composted cow manure.

That, and studying spells that hadn’t worked in twenty-four years.

“Want to give me a behind the scenes tour?” The blonde shot him a look of pure invitation that normally would’ve had his glands sitting up and taking notice. Now, though, his libido sort of shrugged and yawned, which gave him serious pause. Oh, come on. How could he not be interested in getting some of that?

He ought to be. . . hell, he was trying to be, but he was doing the auto-flirt thing- and had been for the past few weeks- all because of some seriously funky, sexed-up dreams that had him waking up horny as hell. He could clearly picture the woman in those dreams: her high-cheekboned face and pale blue eyes, a set of full lips that seemed made to wrap around a guy and hang on for the ride, and white-blonde hair that sifted through his fingers like spun platinum.

He looked at pink-top again to make sure. Nope, wrong blonde. Assuming, of course, there was a ‘right’ blonde. . . which was a serious stretch because even if the barrier was active- which it wasn’t- and he’d gone through the talent ceremony at puberty to get his full powers- which he hadn’t- Nightkeeper males weren’t supposed to be precogs. Which meant the dreams were just dreams, and he should be good to go.

Only he wasn’t.

“There’s really not much to see out back.” He smiled in an effort to soften the brush-off. “Besides, I’ve got to keep working. My boss is a real ball-buster.” There was even a bit of truth to that- Jox might be the royal winikin and thus technically Strike’s servant, but the garden center was his baby, and woe to he who skimped on watering duty.

Surprise flicked across the blonde’s face, along with a hint of temper he figured she was entitled to. “Really? Wow. Guess I called that wrong.”

“My bad, not yours.” He cranked the water wand and hit a hanging pot of salmon-colored begonias. “Enjoy the impatiens.”

As she huffed off and the begonia pot overflowed, a voice from behind Strike said, “What are you, fucking stupid?”

Exhaling and counting to ten backwards, Strike dealt with the water first, shutting it off and dropping the hose. Then he turned and held out a hand. “That’ll be five bucks, Rabbit.”

Wearing low-slung jeans, heavy workboots and a black hooded track jacket even though it was in the high eighties and rising, with the hood pulled up over his shaved-bald head and his iPod buds stuck firmly in his ears, Red-Boar’s seventeen year-old son was dressed to depress, and wore the ‘tude to match.

Smirking, the kid dug in his pocket, pulled out a ten and slapped it in Strike’s palm to pay the “no saying ‘fuck’ on the job” fine they’d been forced to institute when Rabbit graduated high school a full year ahead of schedule, blew off his SATs to joyride down the coast in Jox’s truck, and then emailed all his completed college applications to the US Embassy in Honduras while swearing to Jox and Strike that he’d submitted the apps on time.

He’d probably figured- hoped- that his father would cut ties after those stunts, leaving him free to do whatever the hell he wanted. Instead, Red-Boar- aka the sole survivor of the Solstice Massacre- had surprised all of them by rousing his PTSD-zonked self long enough to ground Rabbit’s ass, cancel his AmEx, julienne his license and order the kid to work at the garden center all summer, where he’d promptly started cussing out the customers. Thus, the fuck fine.

Strike pocketed the ten. “You want change?”

“Put it on account.” The kid’s eyes, so light blue they were almost gray, followed the blonde into the store. “But seriously. How can you not want a piece of that?”

“I take it you’re done pruning out back?”

Jox and Strike did their best to keep Rabbit away from the front of the store as much as possible because they never knew what he’d get into next. Sometimes his ideas were brilliant, sometimes terrifying, quite often both. But Rabbit was Red-Boar’s son, which meant he was one of them. It also meant that he was at a serious disadvantage, because his father was a head case and nobody knew a damn thing about his mother except Red-Boar, who wasn’t talking. So Strike tried to cut the kid some slack. In the end, the four of them were a family, albeit a seriously dysfunctional one.

Rabbit lifted a shoulder, still focused on the front of the store even though the blonde was long gone. “Why don’t you check on the pruning for yourself, Strike-out?”

“In other words, no.” Strike rubbed absently at his wrist, which had started aching early that morning, along with most of the rest of his body. He was tired, and vaguely pissed off for no good reason. There was nothing wrong, but there was nothing particularly right, either.

He was used to living with Jox, Red-Boar and Rabbit in a strange bacheloresque symbiosis that was part necessity, part history, but it wasn’t the life he would’ve picked. Four and a half more years until the world doesn’t end, he reminded himself. You’ve just got to hang on until then.

“Delivery’s here,” Rabbit said, shifting his attention as an eighteen-wheeler turned up the driveway. “I’ll sign for it.”

“No way.” Strike grabbed Rabbit by the back of his hood, knowing the kid was just as likely to blow straight past the truck and down the street to the liquor store, bucking for another shoplifting conviction. He headed the teen toward the greenhouse with a shove. “Prune. Now.”

“Fuck you.”

Strike patted his pocket, where he’d stuck the ten. “We’re even.”

He signed for the delivery- more cow shit- and headed into the store, which was functional and homey without being unrelentingly cute.

The walls were lined with shelves and bins holding everything from fifty-cent peat cakes to three hundred dollar customized bird feeders, complete with advanced squirrel deterrent systems that made no sense to Strike because, hey, squirrels were people, too. Rows of freestanding shelves held the seeds and chemicals, and twenty-pounders of fertilizer, crabgrass killer and Slug-B-Gone were stacked neatly in a row headed for the check-out area, where books and magazines competed for space with other point-of-purchase doodads. The counter was paneled in rustic wood like the rest of the shop, and the high-tech cash register was disguised to look like something out of the forties.

Behind the counter, Jox was perched on a barstool chatting with the blonde, who he’d apparently talked into a pink ceramic pot for her impatiens, along with a bonsai money tree.

The winikin was wearing khakis and a green long-sleeve jersey that covered the two jaguar glyphs on his arm- one for Strike, the other for his sister. Anna might’ve renounced her magic and taken off, but the bloodline connection remained unbroken. Jox’s dark skin was relatively unlined for his fifty-seven years, his close-cropped hair shot through with silver. He looked relaxed enough, but his expression was edged with the same tension Strike felt in his own gut, the same sense of dread mingled with anticipation.

The thirteenth prophecy spoke of the final five years before the Great Conjunction, when a great sacrifice would be required to keep the Banol Kax from coming to earth and precipitating the big Game Over. Thing was, King Scarred-Jaguar’s attack on the intersection twenty-four years ago had sealed the barrier, preventing the few surviving Nightkeepers- i.e. Strike, Red-Boar and Anna- from using their powers. The seal also prevented the Banol Kax- and the gods, for that matter- from even communicating with the earthly plane, never mind reaching through the barrier to posess a willing- or unwilling- host. In all those things, Scarred-Jaguar’s vision had proven true, though it had cost him the Nightkeepers.

Had it been worth it? Strike didn’t know, and a whole hell of a lot of the answer depended on whether the barrier stayed sealed through the final five-year countdown.

With her purchase concluded, the blonde wiggled out, winking at Strike. “Your loss.”

“No doubt.” He watched her go, thinking that Rabbit was right. He was an idiot. Scratching a red patch on his inner wrist- he must’ve gotten nailed by a spider or something- he told Jox, “Your shit’s here.”

“Thanks.” The winikin skirted the counter and headed for the back, where a set of swinging doors led to the warehouse and loading dock. “Watch the register for a few minutes. I want to make sure they didn’t send me broken bags again.”

“Ah, yes. A smell to remember.” Strike took Jox’s customary place on the barstool behind the counter, swallowing hard against a sudden, unexpected surge of nausea.

A glance around the storefront showed a few browsers, but nobody who looked like they needed immediate attention. Which was a good thing, because all of a sudden he wasn’t feeling so hot. His wrist was burning like a sonofabitch, and when he looked down he saw three right hands where there should’ve only been one. A quick grab told him he hadn’t sprouted extra limbs; he was seeing triple. He was also sweating like a pig, and the idea of sticking his head in the john so he could barf in peace was sounding real good.

Narrowing his eyes to cut the spin, he groped for the phone to buzz Jox out back, and came up with a utility knife instead. This’ll do, he thought out of nowhere.

Moving without conscious volition, he flipped the knife open and sliced the blade across his right palm. Blood spilled over, tracking down his wrist and across his glyph marks. Then the pain hit, first from the cut, and again when he slithered off the barstool and landed hard on his knees. His head spun and the nausea increased, but it was more like a pressure in his throat, a burning compulsion to say- what?

Jesus, what the fuck’s going on? he thought, but the acid burning at the back of his throat told his head what his heart already knew. It was the summer solstice, one of the four days each year that the barrier used to be at its thinnest, when a Nightkeeper’s powers had been strongest.

The barrier- and his powers- were coming back on line after all these years.

Panic mingled with excitement as blood dripped onto the floor, pooling near his right knee. The warm smell touched his nostrils, tangy and sweet and calling to something inside him, something that ripped at his chest like fear. Like heartache.

“Pasaj,” he whispered. The word was the basic command for a Nightkeeper to open a connection to the barrier, to his ancestors, and it hadn’t worked since the massacre. Except that now, gray-green mist filled his brain and the world started to slide sideways beneath him. “Pasaj!” he said again, louder. “Are you out there? Talk to me, damn it!”

He heard distant voices, a woman’s cry of alarm. “He’s bleeding! Someone help!”

Inside his head, though, there was nothing beyond the spin, and the terrible, awful pressure in his throat. Then he saw something in the grayness behind his eyelids. A single slender thread of yellow in the fog. Holy crap. Acting on instinct, he reached out with his mind and touched the thread, grabbed onto it, and whispered the second word of the barrier spell. “Och.” Enter.

And the world around him vanished.

Welcome back to Duck Chat!

Today we’re talking to Jessica Andersen, so pull up a chair and get comfy!

With the ancient Mayan prophecy as the backdrop for her Final Prophecy series, Jessica is right on track with some thrilling and intriguing work that readers are clamoring for, and it will take them straight to the supposed end of the world late 2012.

Born and raised in Massachusetts, Jessica is, of course, a New Englander at heart. During her grad school years, she did some scientific work and research for the genetic changes responsible for certain types of glaucoma, all of which help hone her writing skill to give thousands and thousands of romance readers such terrific books today.

Jessica will be popping in and out today, so now’s your chance to ask her a question to find out what you’ve always wanted to know when it comes to to her and her writing. So let’s chat!

DUCK CHAT: Jessica, congrats on the success of your series, Final Prophecy. First, would you tell our readers about the series overall, then we’ll talk about the books themselves.

JESSICA ANDERSEN: Hi, and thanks so much for having me for a visit!

Hmmm… a quickie on the series, eh?  Okay, here goes: Ancient prophecy holds that 12/21/2012 will bring a global cataclysm. Mankind’s only hope lies with the Nightkeepers, modern magic-wielding warriors who must find their destined mates and fulfill dire legends to defeat the rise of terrible Mayan demons.

In Nightkeepers, the king of the magi falls for a cynical narcotics detective and must decide between duty and desire when the gods choose her as their next sacrifice. In Dawnkeepers ex-lovers reunite to track down several critical antiquities, and must learn to trust each other in order to defeat an ancient and unexpected enemy. In Skykeepers, a driven warrior-mage rescues a beautiful nonbeliever who may be the key to a vital cache of artifacts, but his dark past threatens their growing love. The fourth book, Demonkeepers, will be out in April 2010!

DC: Has the series evolved as you originally envisioned it?

JA: I’d say that the overall arc has been pretty much how I originally sketched it out (so far, anyway). However, there have definitely been some surprises! Two characters have refused to die on me, even though that was what I had thought would happen. Another was killed unexpectedly. And a couple who I thought was a couple turned out not to be!  Eeek!

DC: What was it about the Maya Prophecy that drew you to begin writing your series?

JA: My parents took me out of school so we could travel down to the Yucatan a number of times when I was a kid, back before Chichen Itza was fully restored, and before many of the major ruins became tourist-ified. The ruins, roads, cenotes all made a huge impression on me, as did one particular Maya guide, who talked to me about anti-Mayan prejudice and some of their beliefs.  So when I was researching for a story and came across the concept of the 12/21/2012 end to the Maya calendar, I sat there and thought “I totally have to write about this!”

DC: If you could retire any question and never, ever have it asked again, what would it be? Feel free to answer it.

JA: LOLOL!  Okay … you know what? I’m quite honestly drawing a blank here. I guess I figure that if I’ve agreed to speak, blog, or otherwise, then I’m offering myself up to talk about whatever interests readers. That’s one reason why I try these days not to just cut and paste canned answers when I do interviews and whatnot. I may be giving the same information to similar questions, but I try not to let it sound the same too often. Besides, you never know … you might catch me in a weird mood and I’ll let rip with something I would normally keep under wraps!

DC: I’ve heard writers often say their stories take them in surprising directions, or dialogue flows from some unknown place. Is it the same with you? Do your characters surprise you sometimes?

JA: Most definitely! I’m usually in charge through the first two hundred pages of the manuscript, but after that, all bets are off!

DC: Let’s start at the beginning with book one, Nightkeepers. Would you tell us about Jaguar and Leah, with a look inside their story?

JA: Here’s a place where I’m going to deviate from my ‘no canned answers’ thing, because I think that the back-cover blurbs describe these stories very well:

As a Miami narcotics detective, Leah Daniels never knows how her day will turn out. But she certainly doesn’t expect to be strapped to a stone altar as the human sacrifice in an ancient Mayan ritual designed to coax a demon from the underworld—or to be saved by a handsome warrior-priest king who claims to recognize her from his visions.

Striking Jaguar thinks he is the last of the Nightkeeper warrior-priests, but as the end-time approaches, his mentor reveals that there are twelve others. In reuniting them, Strike—king by birthright—gains the power to summon a Mayan god to combat the demons. But the woman of his vision is the gods’ chosen sacrifice. Now he must decide between love and duty … or find another way to invoke otherworldly magic in a death-defying race against the end of time.

DC: Do you ever argue with your characters while you’re writing? Who usually wins?

JA: I wouldn’t say that I argue … it’s more that the words stop coming. If I think the story should go one way and the character needs it to go another way, I get blocked. Then it’s time for me to take a shower, muck a stall, go for a drive, do some mowing … something that’ll get my brain wrapped around what, exactly, isn’t working.

DC: What is sure to distract you from sitting down and working/writing?

JA: When I’m at the beginning of a story, almost anything. When I’m at the end of a story, almost nothing.

DC: The second book in the series is Dawnkeepers, where we meet Nate and Alexis. Please tell us about them.

JA: Again, from the back:

Nate Blackhawk can’t help but resent the demands of his bloodline. Unlike his fellow Nightkeepers, he isn’t about to let the gods determine his destiny—especially when it comes to love. Which means he refuses to submit to the unquenchable desire he feels for Alexis Gray, the shockingly beautiful trainee who first appeared in his visions. But that’s easier said than done, considering that Nate needs Alexis’s help in uncovering the seven Mayan artifacts inscribed with clues on how to defeat the demons.

Alexis is willing to do whatever is necessary to prove herself as a Nightkeeper. She believes in the life she was born into and the future the gods have written for her—even when it comes to Nate, who seems intent on ignoring the intense passion between them. But as she and Nate test their powers in a race to recover the seven statuettes before the demons do, Alexis finds it impossible to deny her feelings for the one man who’s destined to be hers.

The latest book in the series is Skykeepers, and Michael and Sasha are featured. Would you please give us some insight into their story?

Again, from the back:

Michael Stone is a man with a dark secret that has skewed his magical abilities dangerously toward the underworld. Seeking redemption, he sets out on a perilous mission to save the daughter of Ambrose Ledbetter, a renowned Mayanist who died before he could reveal the location of a hidden library. The Nightkeepers must find the library before their enemies gain access to its valuable cache of spells and prophecies.

Sasha Ledbetter grew up hearing heroic tales of an ancient group of powerful magi who were destined to save the world from destruction. She never expected that her bedtime stories would come to life in the form of Nightkeeper Michael Stone, or that she’d hold the key to the warrior’s survival. As Sasha and Michael join forces to prevent the imminent battle, sparks of attraction ignite between them, and they’re forced to confront the unexpected passion that brings them together … and also tears them apart.

DC: You have  an undergraduate degree in biology and a PhD in genetics. Did your education help when writing your books? How?

JA: My research training definitely helps me track down the information I need and want when I work on these books.  I love the history and the science of the Nightkeepers’ world, so the research has become as much a hobby as a job.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that as I write, I keep wanting to include all the cool details I’ve learned about. . . and usually wind up with a really fat manuscript. So then I have to cut it back by focusing on the details that need to be in the story for the sake of the romance and the plot, and aren’t just cases of me thinking ‘ooh, that’s cool!’

DC: How many books are planned in the series?

JA: I’m planning nine books and at least one novella, with the series finishing (you guessed it) at the end of 2012!

DC: What’s on the horizon for Jessica Andersen?

JA: The fourth Keepers book, Demonkeepers, will be out in April 2010, followed by Visionkeepers in October (or maybe November? I’m not sure). I can’t wait to share these stories with readers!!!

Lightning Round:

- dark or milk chocolate? Milk all the way!

- smooth or chunky peanut butter?   – Hmmm… depends on whether I’m feeling mellow (a smooth day) or kind of sharp (definitely chunky).

- heels or flats?   – OMG flats! I have one pair of high-heeled boots—if the dress doesn’t go with those boots, then it doesn’t come home with me!

- coffee or tea?   – Tea! Preferably Taso Awake.

- summer or winter?    – Can I say fall?  I’m a New Englander, so autumn has that perfect-temp-not-too-rainy-pretty-foliage thing going on.

- mountains or beach?    – Mountains, definitely. I love hiking and being active, and am not so much into water sports outside of chlorinated pools (somehow I’m always the one who steps on the jellyfish and/or snapping turtle).

- mustard or mayonnaise?    – A light scraping of both, one on each slice of bread. What? Me particular? Never!!  (Snicker)

- flowers or candy?    – Candy.  Total sweet tooth here.  Though flowers are a lovely touch, too J.

- pockets or purse?    – Purse. I’m not a girly-girl by any stretch, but I’m also incapable of remembering to check my pockets before putting things in the laundry. Having destroyed entirely too many paychecks in my time, I’ve forbidden myself to use my pockets.

- Pepsi or Coke?    – Coke. Or Red Bull. Both diet!

- ebook or print?    – I’m still a print girl, all the way. I’d like to say I’ll change for the sake of the earth, but I haven’t managed it yet…

And because we still enjoy the answers we get:

1. What is your favorite word?   – This week it’s ‘douchebag.’ I don’t know why, but it keeps popping up in my dialog.

2. What is your least favorite word?    – Colic.

3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?    – Seeing someone do something amazing that I could never, ever do (e.g., Olympic-level athletics, great hip-hop dancing, etc.). It makes me want to go do the things I can do that not everyone else can!

4. What turns you off creatively, spiritually or emotionally?    – Arguing with my fiancé, worrying about the health of my family members, friends, or pets.

5. What sound or noise do you love?    – A really deep, strong bass line.

6. What sound or noise do you hate?    – Smoke alarms and snoring.

7. What is your favorite curse word?    – Frak.

8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?    – Helicopter pilot.

9. What profession would you not like to do?     – Bad helicopter pilot.

10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?    – “The Rainbow Bridge is to your left.”

DC: Jessica, thank you for spending the day with us. It was a pleasure!

Winners, winners, win-ners! (Think a nifty little cha-cha tune). In this edition of “Catching up with Contest Winners,” We’ve got two winners of signed copies of Nightkeepers by Jessica Andersen. These lucky winners commented on one of the posts from Andersen’s guest day in June–see here. Lots o’ comments, lots o’ comments.

And the lucky winners are:

Ann_Hedonia

and

Greta

Congratulations! Please email your info to Syb: redwyne at gmail dot com. And please put “Andersen Contest Winner” in the subject line!

Devon’s review of With the MD…at the Altar? by Jessica Andersen
Romantic Suspense released by Harlequin Intrigue 1 Jun 08

So I seem to be in an experimental mood lately. First an inspirational, then my first ever Harlequin Intrigue. I read this one because Jessica Andersen has guested on the blog lately, and there was an interesting Gothic sound to the description. But before we get to my review of this tale of reunited lovers in a cursed Maine village, can we look at the title? Goofy. This story has nothing to do with marriage. They aren’t former spouses, or fiancées, there was no wedding in the story. I imagine it was meant to go along with other titles in the miniseries, but…goofy.

With the MD…at the Altar? was a fast paced and entertaining tale. The plot was kind of cartoon-y or soap opera-ish. Raven’s Cliff, a small fishing village is plagued by a mysterious illness. It puts some people into comas, and turns others into raving, homicidal maniacs. At her wit’s end, the village doctor, Roxanne Peters, reaches out to the CDC. Unfortunately, they send her ex, the talented and arrogant Luke Freeman. As Roxie struggles to get along with Luke, more people fall sick, someone is trying to sabotage them, and at least one mysterious lunatic is up to no good along the shore.

This book kept my interest. It had a certain Days of Our Lives quality to be sure, but it was fun. Unfortunately, it also had the most annoying hero and heroine to come down the pike in awhile. I almost felt bad for disliking Roxie so much, like I was jumping on the bandwagon, since nobody in Raven’s Cliff liked her. But she was so petty and whiny. She always seemed angry, jealous or envious. Or boring. She did something pretty stupid at the beginning that just bugged me. No wonder the townspeople didn’t like her.

Luke was no prize either. He was a weenie, plain and simple. His and Roxie’s relationship ended when he abandoned her in an African hospital, sick with fever, to take a new job. Dreamy! Then, when the chips are down, Luke decides it’s time to pack up his team and go back to DC. My hero! There’s some psychological mumbo-jumbo about why he does such things, and Luke and Roxie had been having problems anyway, but please, what a cowardly jerk!

As you can imagine, the romance between the whiner and the weenie did not interest me all that much. The chemistry was nil, and I didn’t like either of them. But the Fish Virus of Doom, and the mysterious crazy people running around kept me reading and piqued my interest for the other books in The Curse of Raven’s Cliff mini-series. If they’re as borderline silly as this one, I’ll be entertained indeed.

Grade: C+

The Summary:

It had been two years since she’d last come face-to-face with Luke Freeman—and the heartache small-town doctor Roxanne Peters vividly recalled. Bringing in the medical expert was Raven’s Cliff’s best hope of solving a mysterious illness, but keeping things professional was vital to surviving both this “reunion” and an elusive stranger’s newfound interest in her.

Still, working long hours in close quarters led to sizzling tension, making Roxanne imagine a future that no longer seemed possible. But when Luke’s smoldering gaze met hers, it was clear he, too, remembered all they’d once shared. And this time there was no backing down…

Read an excerpt here

In our continued quest to keep you all as informed as possible, we have enlisted the help of Jessica Andersen, author of June release Nightkeepers. Nightkeepers features Mayan mythology and history. Don’t know much about the Maya, you say? Well, read on (and be sure to read Part 1 as well.)

Did you know?

• The ancient Maya worshipped their departed ancestors as being next to the gods. They believed that the best way to communicate with the gods was to be close to death, either through a near-death experience or an orgasm (the little death).
• The ancient Maya built tall pyramids not only in celebration of the gods and as astronomical tools, but also so they could act as landmarks, rising up from the otherwise featureless rainforest canopy.

• The ancient Mayan empire once included portions of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador and Belize.

• Although called an empire, the ancient Mayan society was actually made up of loosely connected groups and kingdoms that often fought among each other, and took their defeated foes as workers. . . or sacrificial victims.

Do you feel a bit smarter? Read Nightkeepers and learn more!

Gwen’s review of Nightkeepers (The Final Prophecy, Book 1) by Jessica Andersen
Paranormal romance released by Signet 3 Jun 08

This is the start of what promises to be a very fun paranormal romantic suspense series. You can’t get a lot more ambitious than calling a series “Final Prophecy” and talking about how the world will end in our lifetimes. Luckily, Andersen delivers a fun story and engrossing romance to go along with the dire predictions.

I enjoyed this story. I wasn’t swept away in rapturous waves of “OMFG! YOU MUST READ THIS”-ness, but I did like it. I had a more “Hey – this is pretty good” reaction, with a couple of slow moments.

The only serious bone I have to pick with the book is it’s a LOT of world-building all in one little ol’ book. And it was CONFUSING at times. I much preferred the story when I could just focus on the characters and their relationships. But, even then there were a LOT of them to keep up with. I wanted to draw myself a “relationship map” so I could keep track of who was with whom, and what their relationship was with the rest of them.

The mythos behind the Final Prophecy series promises to be unique, if a bit unusual – Mayan gods and goddesses. Sherrilyn Kenyon’s new pantheon in her Dream Hunter books risks the same thing Andersen does – introducing a new pantheon to readers. When an author veers off the beaten path of Christian, Greek, and Roman pantheons they have to do one of two things: (1) spend a LOT of time in the book setting a reader’s baseline understanding, or (2) provide a glossary. Both are painful, but perhaps the glossary is the lesser of two evils (ask Ward). Lots of info dumping really, really slows a story down. I’ll be waiting to see how Andersen resolves this in book 2. I have a hard enough time trying to pronounce the names, let alone knowing what a god/goddess is supposed to represent or be able to do – all those X’s…

I enjoyed Andersen’s characterizations. I liked how her heroes and heroines were as normal as possible – foibles, mistakes, and normal tendencies in amongst the bizarre and otherworldly happenings. Some of the settings were stretching my ability to suspend disbelief, but I was able to just roll with it and enjoy the story. I really enjoyed Rabbit and the complexities behind his relationship with his dad. In fact, one of my favorite paragraphs is a scene with Rabbit in it:

[Rabbit] was doing his damnedest to keep the thing away from the sacred chamber, trying to give his old man and Strike a chance to save the world, but he was losing steam. His breath burned in his lungs, and his legs were on fire as he bore down and widened the gap, running with muscle and heart and a touch of magic, a litany of oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit, sounding in his brain.

That is just such a well-written scene. In just a few short sentences, the entire scene is set, characters are described, and the drama unfolds. Not too many authors are proficient enough to really do this so elegantly. Luckily for us, Andersen is one of those authors.

This was a good, ambitious book. I enjoyed it and will gladly read the next in the series, though perhaps not the exact moment it releases.

Grade: B-

Summary:

According to the Mayan doomsday prophecy, time ends on December 21, 2012. In Nightkeepers, the last king of an ancient race of magi must team up with a sexy Miami-Dade narcotics detective in order to reunite his scattered warriors and fight the gods of the Mayan underworld. Wielding ancestral blood magic, the king must choose between his duty to avert the 2012 apocalypse and his love for the woman who is the gods’ destined sacrifice.

Read an excerpt.

Nightkeepers by Jessica Andersen, the first book in the Novels of the Final Prophecy series, just released on 3 June 2008. It is the first book in a series featuring Mayan gods and goddesses and the END OF THE WORLD! Get your excerpt here. Ms. Andersen recently guested here at TGTBTU (see here and here). The Maya, huh? Certainly an unusual element for a paranormal romance novel. Since your knowledge of this ancient civilization may be a bit rusty (or non-existent), Ms. Andersen has provided us with some interesting tidbits.

Did you know…?

• During the spring equinox, the architecture and carvings of El Castillo, the main pyramid at Chichen Itza, form a snake-shaped shadow crawling down the entire side of the pyramid, paying homage to Kulkulkan, the Mayans’ feathered serpent god.

• The ancient Maya had the only fully developed writing system in the New World.

• Despite movies depicting Mayan gold, the Maya weren’t known as metalworkers. They carved stone, particularly jade and obsidian, worked pottery, wove intricate textiles and wrote books called codices that were made of folded fig bark painted with limestone. All but four of these books were destroyed by the Conquistadors and their missionaries.

• The ancient Maya built their intricately carved temples and pyramids largely without the aid of the wheel or metal tools.

Consider yourself smarter!

If you have been a reader of the blog for a while, you no doubt are aware I am something of a fan of Jessica Bird, a.k.a. J.R. Ward. I happen to think the author is beyond cool. I was blown away by Dark Lover and still to this day am in love with that book as well as Lover Awakened. Hey… everyone has a favorite brother.

When it came time to for Lover Enshrined I thought it would be tres nifty to have her CP, the ever nifty Jessica Andersen do the interview… we got lucky (or they gave in so I would shut up), at the end of the interview you can read how YOU can get lucky *G*

Dr. Jessica Andersen, author of the newly released paranormal Nightkeepers, interviews J.R. Ward, otherwise known as the WARDen, author of the also newly released Lover Enshrined. Read on…

Hey Duckies, author Jessica Andersen here! I don’t know where you all are at, but here in the Northeastern USA it’s hot as blazes. Hello, early heat wave! In an effort to cool things down, I thought I’d keep it light today. I’m joined by my good buddy and critique partner, J.R. Ward, and we’re going to do a little quacking about her awesome new release, Lover Enshrined, the sixth book in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series.

Jessica Andersen: Hey JR, dude. Thanks for agreeing to do this mini-interview!

J.R. Ward: Actually, thank you for doing it!

JA: Staying on that ‘keep it light and cool’ theory, I thought we could do a ‘these are a few of my favorite things’ list… so here goes. As always in the BDB books, Lover Enshrined has got a ton of great zingers and one-liners among the characters. What’s your favorite line in the book, and why?

JRW: Man, there are a number of them! I think my fav is when Wrath is explaining to John Matthew that the last time Lassiter, the fallen angel, was on the planet there was a plague in central Europe. Lassiter’s response: “Okay, that was SO not my fault.”

JA: Building on that idea, what’s your favorite scene in Lover Enshrined?

JRW: Lemme think… the one with John Matthew on page 497 (I’m quoting the page to avoid a spoiler) just tore at my heart, in a good way and a bad way. I also like the one with Phury on page 492… that was just a great scene (it’s the one where he emerges from the Scribe Virgin’s private quarters.) That one also leads up to my favorite line in the book: “He finally felt like the hero he had always wanted to be.” But my absolute favorite scene… was the one at the end when Z comes to Phury, with the Brotherhood. Got me all teary when I wrote it to be honest. It was so great to see the twins reunited and the Brothers all together… and yeah, that’s my fav.

JA: Thinking of the series as a whole, which of the book covers is your favorite, and why?

JRW: You know, I like them all but I think Dark Lover is my favorite. I love the red and the black, plus it was the first one and set the standard for them all. So, yeah, have to go with the king on that one!

JA: Okay, shifting the topic slightly, what’s the funniest thing a fan ever asked you, either online or during a public appearance?

JRW: Actually, I’d have to say it wasn’t a question, but how a question was raised. This lovely woman who always attends the Cincinnati signings, lifted her hand up to her face, putting it on her forehead (to indicate she had something to ask). The thing was, she had her fingers orientated so that it put a loser sign on her forehead as she looked up at me. I busted out laughing and was like, are you losering me at my own signing?! Of course everyone cracked up- she handled it very well, though. And she’s still coming to the signings!

JA: What was your favorite song (or songs) to listen to while you were writing Phury? Did you mainline the opera, or was the soundtrack straight up ZeroSum fare, or…?

JRW: Huh… well, I listened to opera a lot, yes. But as always there was rap and hip hop in my ears while I ran during the writing of the book. And when I run I plan a lot so even Phury was touched by the likes of Fifty and Pac and Kanye and Lil Jon and Jay-Z…

JA: When you’re treating yourself, what’s the treat? Chocolate? Massage? White water rafting?

JRW: Right now? Breyers vanilla and coffee ice cream!

JA: And now for the lightning round… please answer the following with a word or phrase only, no explanations:

Favorite DVD? “The Office”, any season

Favorite guilty pleasure on TV? “Flavor of Love”, any season

Favorite guilty pleasure in the fridge? Ice cream, see above

Favorite word for the Chicago Manual of Style? Okay that’s a trick question! LOLOLOL geeee I’d have to go with c***sucker.

JA: And finally, what is your favorite recent release about the Mayan 2012 doomsday and the men and women who are bound to protect us from the apocalypse?

JRW: OMG, it’s totally Nightkeepers by Jessica Andersen! Have you ever heard of her? Fabulous writer, wicked sense of humor… and excels at fondue. You.are.welcome.

JA: And there you have it, Duckies! Straight from the WARDen herself, a little light fun on a hot day.

Hi Duckies! Author Jessica Andersen here, hoping you’re as excited about the launch of Nightkeepers and my Novels of the Final Prophecy series as I am… or if you’re not, that maybe I can convince you to be. [Ed.: Nightkeepers releases 3 Jun 08.]

Given that it’s launch day, I thought it’d be fun to talk a little about the 2012 end date that forms the basis of Nightkeepers. First, let me start by saying that I’m not all that big on personal drama. Or if we’re being technical, I’ve got drama queen tendencies and have learned to control them most of the time, not the least because my beloved perpetual fiancé (PF), while normally a highly functional and enjoyable human being, can be prone to freaking out over random stuff.

PF grew up in the city, and although we’ve lived in the not-city for some time, he still regularly convinces himself that the enormous state forest behind our house is home to:

1. Yeti
2. Terrorists
3. Serial killers
4. Hantavirus
5. Ghosts
6. All of the above

The identity of the scourge is usually related, as you might guess, to whatever we’ve been watching on TV. And okay, the time the brown bear came up on the porch and looked in through the sliders probably didn’t help the Yeti thing. But still. Honestly.

Me, I don’t get too worked up about that stuff. I love disaster movies and end-of-the-world scenarios. I deal pretty well with emergencies. I slept through the millennium changeover, trusting that the computers would still work the next day. And I generally try not to talk myself into freaking out about Big Scary Stuff that might not be real. But that begs the question: what if it is real?

Which brings us to the premise of Nightkeepers. The basic blurb is:

The ancient Mayan Long Count calendar completes its five-thousand-year cycle on December 21, 2012. According to scientists, that’s the day that the sun, moon and earth will align at the galactic center, in a conjunction that some researchers predict could trigger cataclysmic upheavals (sun spots, magnetic reversals, etc.). The Novels of the Final Prophecy tell of the ancient Mayan myths that come to life in the last four years before 12/21/2012, and their opposition by the Nightkeepers, descendants of an ancient magic-wielding race sworn to protect mankind from the apocalypse.

In the first book, Nightkeepers, the last king of the magi is forced to team up with a Miami-Dade narcotics detective in order to reunite his scattered warriors and fight the gods of the Mayan underworld. Wielding ancestral magic based on bloodletting and sex, the king will have to choose between his duty and his love for the human woman who is the gods’ destined sacrifice.

Pretty cool, huh? At least I think so, and I had a heck of a fun time writing it. During the writing process, though, I did a ton of research into the 2012 end date. . . and I started to creep myself out, because entirely too many lines of evidence seem to point toward something happening on that day. On the scientific side, the 2012 conjunction is likely to bring massive sunspots that could very well mess up our satellites and/or burn through our weakened ozone layer. Other research points toward the earth’s weakening magnetic field, suggesting that a magnetic reversal is imminent, and hoo boy, wouldn’t that wreck havoc on the machines we depend on for our everyday lives?

We are now at the end of what the Maya called the Age of the Jaguar, which was said to be ‘a time when men turn away from the gods and look to machines.’ After the 2012 end date, the question is: will the world cease to exist, or will we enter the next age, the Age of Enlightenment, that of a more global consciousness?

I won’t go into all the arguments for and against (check out my site under the ‘Background’ and ‘References’ sections), but suffice it to say that even non-dramatic me is halfway to thinking that something Big and Bad could very well happen during the winter solstice of 2012. . . and that maybe, just maybe we’re going to need a group of heroes to help the cycle of time reset itself, ensuring that mankind will continue on toward globalization rather than apocalypse.

Or maybe that’s my own personal Yeti. Let’s just say I’ve been trying to keep PF away from my research material, and I’ve been careful to watch my Mayan documentaries after he’s conked out for the night… because the last thing I need is for him to convince himself that the 2012 doomsday is real. If that happens, I have a feeling I’ll be spending that night in a bomb shelter surrounded by canned beans and bottled water, rather than throwing a party, which is my current plan.

So, what do you think… Bomb shelter or party??

** We will be giving away two signed copies of Nightkeepers.  The winners will be taken from the comments on any Jessica Andersen post (here, any of the ‘Did You Know’ posts and the Book Alert).  Thanks **

I met Jessica Andersen in Dallas last year. I think I made an ass of myself standing line staring at her before I finally had to say I am sorry I KNOW I know you.

I am shy… I am working on it. We were chatting later at the Berkley party, when I found out they were her new publisher. I was delighted, being the Penguin whore that I am… and she said that word… paranormal. So I figured I was going to have to pretend to be interested to be nice.

Color me SHOCKED when she told me about the book. Serious… here is the summary

According to the Mayan doomsday prophecy, time ends on December 21, 2012. In NIGHTKEEPERS, the last king of an ancient race of magi must team up with a sexy Miami-Dade narcotics detective in order to reunite his scattered warriors and fight the gods of the Mayan underworld. Wielding ancestral blood magic, the king must choose between his duty to avert the 2012 apocalypse and his love for the woman who is the gods’ destined sacrifice.

I know! Have you heard of anything like it? For those of you looking for a new paranormal author and are tired of bloodsuckers (or just want a lil variety in your paranormal diet). Write down this date…

AVAILALABLE JUNE 3, 2008

Jessica will be chatting tonight at EnchantingReviews, visiting with Book Binge on Friday (And they will be hosting a contest!) and at Freshfiction on the 29th. AND she is rolling out a brand spanking new website tomorrow. I will try and drop you a note when it goes live – or feel free to post here and tell us *g*.And she will be one of our guest bloggers in June… most likely on the 3th. I will try and twist her arm into giving away a book. Now I will shut up and you can read what you are here for anyway… enjoy

E-X-C-E-R-P-T
from NIGHTKEEPERS by Jessica Andersen

With her purchase concluded, the blonde wiggled out of the garden center, winking at Strike. “Your loss.”

“No doubt.” Strike watched her go, thinking that Rabbit was right. He was an idiot. Scratching a red patch on his inner wrist- he must’ve gotten nailed by a spider or something- he told Jox, “Your cow shit’s here.”

“Thanks.” The older man skirted the counter and headed for the back, where a set of swinging doors led to the warehouse and loading dock. “Watch the register for a few minutes. I want to make sure they didn’t send me broken bags again.”

“Ah, yes. A smell to remember.” Strike took Jox’s customary place on the barstool behind the counter, swallowing hard against a sudden, unexpected surge of nausea.

A glance around the storefront showed a few browsers, but nobody who looked like they needed immediate attention. Which was a good thing, because all of a sudden he wasn’t feeling so hot. His wrist was burning like a sonofabitch, and when he looked down he saw three right hands where there should’ve only been one. A quick grab told him he hadn’t sprouted extra limbs; he was seeing triple. He was also sweating like a pig, and the idea of sticking his head in the john so he could barf in peace sounded real good. Squinting to cut the spin, he groped for the phone to buzz Jox out back, and came up with a utility knife instead. This’ll do, he thought out of nowhere.

Moving without conscious volition, he flipped the knife open and sliced the blade across his right palm.

Blood spilled over, tracking down his wrist and across his glyph marks. Pain hit, first from the cut, and again when he slithered off the barstool and landed hard on his knees. His head spun and the nausea increased, but it was more like a pressure in his throat, a burning compulsion to say- what?

Jesus, what the hell’s going on? he thought, but the acid burning at the back of his throat told his head what his heart already knew. It was the summer solstice, one of the four days each year that the barrier used to be at its thinnest, when a Nightkeeper’s powers had been strongest.

The barrier- and his powers- were coming back on line after all these years.

Panic mingled with excitement. The warm smell of his own blood touched his nostrils, tangy and sweet and calling to something inside him, something that ripped at his chest like fear. Like heartache.

“Pasaj,” he whispered. The word was the basic command for a Nightkeeper to open a connection to the barrier, and it hadn’t worked in twenty-four years. Now, though, gray-green mist filled his brain and the world started to slide sideways. “Pasaj!” he said again, louder. “Are you out there? Talk to me, damn it!”

He heard distant voices, a woman’s cry of alarm. “He’s bleeding! Someone help!”

Inside his head, though, he saw something in the grayness behind his eyelids: a single slender thread of yellow in the fog. A travel thread. Holy crap. Acting on instinct, he reached out with his mind and touched the thread, grabbed onto it, and whispered the second word of the barrier spell. “Och.” Enter.

And the world around him vanished.