“You two are on his hit list,” Brooks finished. “And the only place you’ll be safe is at the Tree.”
Adrik and Alana shared a knowing glance. Silent words passed between them as their eyes flashed that electric blue. Then Adrik said, “Okay. We’ll go.”
“Bueno.” I pulled my phone free.
Alana practically lunged for it. “Who are you calling?”
“1-555-MAYAGOD.”
It was protocol. After I found a godborn and got them to agree to go to the Tree, I always left a recording for one of Ixchel’s assistants, usually an air spirit (they’re into this kind of reunion/happy-ending sort of thing). It was their job to then explain to the godborn’s human parent that their kid had been chosen for an exclusive art, music, math, engineering, et cetera summer camp complete with a scholarship to college afterward. No parent had refused yet.
As soon as I finished my message, including explicit directions not to call the twins’ aunt, Alana leaned into my phone and added, “If you call the Witch, we bolt.” Then she gave me half a grin and said, “Just making sure they get it.”
Hondo stretched his arms over his head and turned to me. “Your mom doesn’t know you’re home. You should go see her. She’s gonna flip.”
As we drove through the moonlit jungle, I was relieved that Adrik and Alana had agreed to go to the World Tree, and not just because they could finally learn who they really were. Two things were certain:
1) They had stolen something tonight that our enemies were after.
2) They weren’t like any of the other godborns, and I was going to find out why.
The past three months had been the longest of my life. They’d also been the más difíciles.
Before, I hadn’t I realized how much I needed my family to feel strong. And I don’t mean like fire-missiles strong—I mean the feeling that you belong somewhere, that someone has your back no matter what. Someone like my mom, who pretty much went crazy screaming and laughing and crying when she saw me, squeezing my guts out with a muy fuerte abrazo.
To be honest, I didn’t mind. I’d missed her a lot. No amount of FaceTime can make up for real face time. Mom seemed just as happy to see Brooks—the hug she gave her was, like, a whole three seconds longer than mine. Not that I was counting or anything.
And when Mom met Adrik and Alana, she smiled, hugged them too (awkward!), and said, “Welcome to our home. Are you hungry? Do you want to get cleaned up?” Most moms would probably ask a million questions, like Where are you from? How old are you? What’s your favorite (fill in the blank)? How do you feel about being a godborn? But my mom had a gift for knowing what to say (or not) and how to say it.
She was the queen of making people feel comfortable. Mostly other people, because she kicked me out of my room to give Adrik and Alana a place to sleep. Brooks would stay with Ren and her grandfather in the casita. Me? I’d get the hammock on the beach patio. But I didn’t mind. I mean, falling asleep under the stars while listening to ocean waves is hard to beat.
First, though, I enjoyed a light bedtime snack of Mom’s homemade lasagna. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t so light, but I hadn’t tasted her cooking in so long…. As I chowed down, Mom filled me in on all the island gossip: Old Man Pedro had given up beer, a new mural was being painted on the side of a food market, and Ms. Cab and Mr. Ortiz had eloped and were on their honeymoon.
Honeymoon?! I couldn’t believe it. I mean, Ms. Cab had been rejecting Mr. O’s expressions of love for what seemed like forever, and now she was his wife? Had she been pretending the whole time, or had he finally worn her down? It was too weird to think about. And did old people actually go on honeymoons?
That night, Rosie slept right underneath me. It hadn’t always been like that. After Ixtab turned her into a hellhound and moved us to the island along with my favorite dormant volcano, Rosie had preferred sleeping inside the mountain at first. Ixtab had made it a gateway to the underworld in case of emergency, and I figured Rosie liked being close to the goddess. But now her loyalty was in the right place again: with me.
So there I was, hammock happy, dreaming of surfing a massive wave, when I heard, “This is no time to sleep in, Obispo!”
Quinn.
As she stood over me, the rising sun was at her back, and no, she did not look like a haloed angel. Not even close. More like a silhouette of Darth Vader with braids. She swept her black wrap behind her and huffed. “Does it look like I have all day?”
I turned over and saw Rosie open one eye, blink at Quinn, then go back to sleep. Typical.
Quinn grabbed the hammock and pushed, threatening to dump me out. Before she could, I rolled to my feet. “What…what time is it?”
“Time to go to the underworld.”
I groaned. “Again?” I seriously hated that place. Last time I was there, I’d nearly frozen to death. Then I was thrown into a bath of bone dust and chased by flying demons. So, yeah, I didn’t have a whole lot of warm and fuzzy memories of the trip.
A gunning engine caught my attention. I looked across the pale beach toward the surf. “Is that…What’s that car doing here?”
“It’s your ride to Xib’alb’a,” Quinn said. “Why aren’t you moving?”
“Hang on,” I argued. “Why do I have to go to the underworld? What did Ixtab say about Ik and everything that happened? Does she have any intel?”
Quinn gave me a look that registered in her dark eyes as I’m only going to say this once. “She said she wants to talk to you. Directly. She hates secondhand information, and if you keep her waiting, she’ll probably make you swim laps in Pus River with a corpse tied to your back.” She flashed a fake smile and added, “So, how about we get moving?”
I looked down at my plain gray T-shirt and faded sweatshorts. Ixtab would for sure hate my clothing choices. “I can’t go to the underworld in my pajamas.”
“No time to change.”
I ran a hand through my bedhead hair and grabbed my flip-flops from underneath the hammock. It was bad enough I was going to have to stand in front of the queen of fashion looking like a wrinkled beach bum, but having morning breath? That might earn me a lifetime of bone-crushing duty. “Do you have any mouthwash?”
With an exaggerated sigh, Quinn said, “Let’s go, Obispo.”
We jumped into the backseat of the black Mercedes sedan. But there was one problema.
“Where…where’s the driver?” I practically choked on the words, because no way was I going to trust some invisible ghost to get us to the underworld.
“Haven’t you ever heard of a driverless car?” Quinn rolled her eyes. “Really, Obispo. I just don’t see why Brooks likes you so much.”
My face got all buzzy and hot. Likes? I figured Quinn meant like a brother, or a friend, or a favorite pair of slippers.
The tint on the windows was so dark I couldn’t see beyond it, not when we splashed through the breakers, not when we cruised under the ocean with a few bumps and thumps that rattled me, and not when we came to an abrupt stop in Xib’alb’a.
We stepped out of the car into what looked like an airplane hangar, except it held dozens of super-cool exotic cars that Hondo would be able to name in ten seconds flat.
“Hang on,” I said nervously. “You aren’t taking me back to Clementino for a bone-dust bath, are you?”
Quinn tilted her head like she was thinking about all the evil ways she could torment me. “Well, that would keep the demons from sniffing you out and eating you, but we don’t have loads of time, so I’m taking a shortcut.”
She led me to a marbled hallway with six red doors on each side. The last one on the right read: ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK. Then in smaller print: RISK OF DECAPITATION, DISEMBOWELMENT, OR FLAYING OVER AN OPEN FIRE.
So, of course that was the one we went through.
We landed in a big room with a window overlooking some kind of massive stadium. All the seats outside were filled, but I couldn’t hear the crowd at all. “Where are we?”
“Hellhound
races,” Quinn said. “This is Ixtab’s skybox, and that’s a one-way mirror, so no one can see you. Oh, and it’s also soundproof, so no one can hear you scream.”
“Great,” I muttered as I looked around. The room was decorated like the goddess’s private chamber, where she had once revealed to me that she’d tricked the Maya gods into thinking I was dead. There were black leather wingback chairs and gray velvet sofas with fluffy pillows. The walls were covered in gold wallpaper, but unlike in her chamber, there were half a dozen painted portraits of hellhounds. I held my breath, looking for Rosie’s face. Thankfully, she wasn’t among them.
“Okay, my job is done,” Quinn said. “See ya.”
“Wait!” I clutched Fuego. “Why are you leaving?”
She glared at me. “Because I am a warrior of the White Sparkstriker tribe. I am too valuable to serve as your escort to the underworld. And I don’t want to be here when you tell Ixtab all the clues you missed on your little godborn tour.”
Here’s the thing about Quinn. She’s like a pot of water. She can be cool and still, or hot and bubbling. I got the feeling that if I pressed her further, she would boil over and scald me.
After she left, I stood there alone. You have no idea how awful it is to hang out in Ixtab’s underworld chambers waiting for her to arrive. It’s a gazillion times worse than sitting in the principal’s office, knowing she’s going to waltz in any second with an exasperated attitude and a million detention slips.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention.
Slowly, I turned to find Ixtab standing a couple of feet behind me. She looked taller, probably because she had on white platform sneakers—like fresh-out-of-the-box white. She wore red skinny leather pants and a white silk blouse with tiny skulls embroidered on the collar. Her gold earrings dangled low enough to touch the skulls.
“Hey,” I managed.
She stared at me, unblinking.
Was I supposed to say something else? How’s the weather in the underworld this time of year? How have you been? How do you keep your sneakers so clean?
She eyed me up and down so hard I swear my skin was going to burn off any second. My hands started to sweat.
“You’re taller,” she finally said with a glower that could shrink a dinosaur to the size of an ant. “And extremely unkempt.”
I wanted to say, And you look supremely angry/bitter/hostile, which means you’re probably going to skin me alive for something I don’t even know I did, and couldn’t you have come to talk to me on the beach, because I’d much rather die in the sun than in hell. Instead, I word-vomited all over the plush rug.
“I didn’t know Ik was a rat. I don’t know when she was turned or who turned her. She never let on—I mean, there weren’t any signs or clues, other than the whole thing about the Statue of Liberty being made by a demon, but by then it was too late, and she just turned on me, almost killed me.” I was hoping that last bit would get me an ounce of sympathy.
To my right, a big TV screen dropped from the ceiling and blinked awake with an image of the racetrack below.
“Welcome to the two thousandth anniversary of Xib’alb’a’s hellhound races,” an announcer boomed. “Plague, Misery, and Scab Face are the front-runners, so place your bets, beg fortune to smile on you, and—”
With the wave of her hand, Ixtab muted the voice. The goddess waltzed over to the sofa, plunked down, and began flipping through a home design magazine. “Tell me about the godborns.”
“Uh, well, we found them all, and they all agreed to go to the World Tree.” I forced a smile, thinking that must count for something. “Sixty-five in total, and—”
“I am completely uninterested in one through sixty-three.” She looked up. “Tell me about the last two.”
“Oh, Adrik and Alana?”
“Really, Zane. Do you always have to state the obvious?” Ixtab stood and, with a perfectly manicured hand, motioned for me to continue.
I felt myself start to loosen up a little as I told her every detail, including how the twins had stolen something from the antiques shop. I kept my eyes on the screen as half a dozen red-eyed hellhounds took their places at the starting gate. Man, they looked gigantic and fierce and out for blood.
Ixtab came closer, so close I could smell her perfume, which was clean and spicy and made me think of oranges. “Did they exhibit any godborn gifts?”
I thought about the answer before I spoke, just to make sure I didn’t give her even a speck of false information. “Uh…” My brain froze up. “It was dark.”
“And you see perfectly well in the dark.”
“Oh yeah, they unlocked a door that they didn’t have a key for. And they can talk telepathically without even touching, but when they do, their eyes melt. I mean, not melt. They go from brown to, like, electric blue.” I heard myself babbling and I really wanted to shut up, but my brain kept firing the words minus the punctuation. “Like a bluish molten color it’s kinda cool actually and Alana wears shades because she’s sensitive to light and don’t you want to know what they stole?”
Ixtab turned away and poured some tea from a brass teapot that hadn’t been there before. A rope of steam rose from the cup, looking like it was waiting for a neck to wrap around. I retreated and swallowed the expanding bulge in my throat.
Ixtab took a careful sip, then turned back to me. “They don’t sound terribly gifted,” she said.
And as she did, her eyes flashed a familiar glowing blue.
Okay, so I was a little slow on the uptake, but being in the underworld can really turn your brain to mush.
Ixtab’s molten eyes made it clear.
“Oh my gods!” I practically shouted. “WTX!”
“WTX?”
“What the Xib’alb’a.”
“Get ahold of yourself, Zane.” She sighed. “And please refrain from using the sacred name of the underworld in your dramatics. A curse like that could bring all kinds of trouble down on your head.”
WTX is officially struck from my vocab, I thought.
“The twins…they’re your kids, right?” I knew it! Okay, I didn’t exactly know, but I had definitely sensed that there was something different about them. So, this was why Ixtab had summoned me. She didn’t want to hear a firsthand report about Ik—she wanted to hear about her kids!
“Do you like the races?” she asked, motioning to the TV screen.
She turned up the volume so I could hear the announcer: “We’re only minutes away, and the hellhounds look restless. Who will be this year’s champion? Who will be chosen to serve our queen?”
Was Ixtab seriously going to ignore my question?
“Do you?” she asked again.
“Uh—never seen them,” I said. “The winner becomes your servant?” How was that a victory?
“None will ever be as grand as your Rosie,” she said quietly, and I could tell she missed her. “Don’t you agree?”
“Yeah, but, um…” HELLO! ARE THEY YOUR KIDS?!
The announcer droned on while the camera panned the track. It looked just like a horse racetrack except that the fence was made of bones and steam rose from the dirt.
“Do you think Rosie misses it here at all?” Ixtab asked.
My cheeks flushed with anger. “Why would she? She has a great life, and we’re the perfect pair.” To emphasize my point, in case the goddess hadn’t been listening, I added, “She belongs with me.”
“But you’d give her up if that was in her best interest.”
How could living in the underworld ever be good for Rosie? And why did that matter now?
Oh. OH!
I finally got it. Ixtab was talking about Adrik and Alana.
“I’d do anything if it was best for Rosie,” I said, and I meant it.
Ixtab nodded thoughtfully. “You are not to mention me to Adrik and Alana.” Her voice was empty of any emotion, which was weird, but maybe only by human standards. I mean, gods don’t feel things the same way we do.
“Oh,
okay, but…” I inhaled, deeply worried that what I said next might land me in Rattle House, or worse, corpse-diving in Pus River. “You never said you had two kids.”
“In what world would you think that is any of your business?”
“Look…” Yeah, I know. I was pressing my luck. But I’m famous for being stubborn. And though we weren’t exactly friends, Ixtab and I we were definitely allies in a shared history way. “I know you wanted me to find the godborns,” I said. “You baited me that first day in your chambers, when I was playing dead for the gods. You wouldn’t have told me about the godborns if you didn’t want me to be curious, if you didn’t want me to find your kids.” There. I’d said it. And my head was still attached to my body.
“Ah, Zane. The son of fire.” She stretched the word fire. “How strong and bold you’ve become. Is that good or bad? Only time will tell. For now, my offspring are none of your business beyond your personal guarantee that they get to the World Tree safely. Because if even a hair on their heads is touched…”
“Let me guess: you’ll throw me into Blood River.”
She’s the goddess! I thought. Couldn’t she protect them much better than I ever could? And how was this my problem? I had fulfilled my end of the bargain. I’d spent three months in demon purgatory, found all the godborns, and blown their minds with the truth. Wasn’t that enough to earn me a free cruise or something?
“I see you still have no imagination,” she said. “I can think of exponentially worse punishments.”
Crap! I could barely keep my own butt out of trouble. Now I had to be responsible for two godborn thieves who carried secrets in their pockets?
“But you’ll come to the claiming ceremony, right?” My eyes flicked to the television, where black streaks zoomed around the track, and all I could think was Rosie would smoke them all.
“Of course. Do you really believe I would leave my heirs without their full powers just when they might need them the most? Really, Zane. What do you think I am, a monster?”
The Shadow Crosser Page 5
