The Shadow Crosser

by J. C. Cervantes

  1987.

  1987.

  1987.

  Did I mention 1987? The gods were trapped in time more than thirty years ago? As soon as those mind-blowing, impossible words were spoken, our destiny strands vanished. Dust and debris drifted down from the ceiling. The stars on the floor started flashing brightly.

  Alana shielded her eyes, scrambling for her shades. “I don’t see any gateways in here.”

  “I don’t want to die in an ancient clock!” Louie cried.

  “K’iin?” Ren said. “Are you there?”

  The hole in the floor went dark. The walls began to close in on us at a rapid pace—so fast we would go splat in a matter of seconds. Four feet. Three.

  “Zane!” Alana cried.

  We pressed our hands and feet against the encroaching walls, trying to stop them. “K’iin!” I screamed.

  “I can’t do you a favor if I’m dead!” Ren shouted.

  A beam shot out of the floor again. “Just testing your resolve,” K’iin said. “Ready, set, go!”

  The room turned upside down. The ground—or was it the ceiling?—disappeared under our feet, and we tumbled into a dark abyss. We finally stopped, one on top of another in a pile of limbs, and I thought we might be stuck there forever. But then I opened my eyes to see that we were jammed at the end of the time tunnel. We had fallen up! Alana and Ren were ahead of Louie, and I was dead last, clinging to his ankle to keep from sliding back down.

  Louie kicked, nearly smashing my nose. “Hey!” I shouted.

  Alana was close enough to the top that she could climb out, then help the rest of us.

  As we clambered out into the ice cave, no one spoke. No one said What the hell?, K’iin’s bonkers, or You should never trust an ancient calendar. Maybe we were all in shock. K’iin’s cost was too high, because the answer equaled a no-way solution.

  And then Ah-Puch’s words flew into my brain: We are no longer here, Zane.

  So he knew. He knew he was lost in time and he hadn’t told me, because he thought he was protecting Ren, protecting all of us from attempting an impossible quest. But here’s the thing about gods—yeah, they’re strategic and cunning and powerful and sometimes super smart, but they lack something that matters even more. They don’t have the stubbornness of a human heart. Not by a long shot.

  Alana led us to an invisible gateway that she was hoping would get us to Montana. We needed to bring our comrades up to speed, and it wasn’t like we had anyplace else to go.

  “How will we ever save the gods now?” Alana whispered, staring at Ren’s watch. “Do you think you could…?”

  Ren caught Alana’s meaning. “I can only stop time for five minutes. That isn’t the same thing as traveling through it.”

  Zotz and Ixkik’ were bigger geniuses than I’d given them credit for. They had managed to hide the gods in a place no one could ever reach. Well, unless you lived in the ’80s. So Brooks had been right. Our enemies no longer had access to the gods.

  “If we don’t save them,” I said, “does that mean none of us were ever born?”

  Ren thought for a second, then shook her head. “Not unless they also wipe out the gods in 1987,” she said. “Right?”

  “How should I know?” I groaned. “You’re the time goddess’s daughter!”

  Alana paced. “Ren’s right. If the gods are in 1987, they’ll still meet our moms or dads. So we get to live.”

  “For now,” Louie snarled sarcastically.

  For now was good enough for me.

  This was the part when I would typically say to my friends We’ll find a way. But to be honest, I was all out of optimism, and that’s saying a lot, because I practically stockpiled the stuff. How could we ever save the gods now? There was no We’ll find a way, no Ixtab to go to, no Hurakan to lean on, no Fire Keeper to give me answers. All we had were each other and a weakening moon god.

  I didn’t even have the heart to put the sunglasses back on and give Itzamna the terrible news.

  Alana inched back. Her eyes flashed midnight blue as she turned her head to the right and said, “Oh my gods! Are you okay?”

  “Not really,” Louie said, gesticulating. “I think we got taken. I think that K’iin thing is a con artist.”

  Alana batted his hand down and said, “Not you, Louie! It’s Adrik. He fell off his horse.”

  Horse?

  “You can talk to Adrik from this far away?” I asked. I knew they had a super-killer twin connection that didn’t even require physical contact, but this? It was over-the-top epic!

  “Did everyone get to Montana safely?” Ren’s words rushed out in a flood of worry.

  Alana nodded. “He says everyone is fine, but he hit his head hard and got knocked out. Then he went into a dream world where he almost connected with a god, but he isn’t sure which one.”

  “Tell him to try again!” I cried.

  Alana frowned condescendingly at me. “Zane, he is not going to get a concussion on purpose just to talk to gods who wouldn’t be of any help anyway.” Her eyes drifted away as she nodded. Then she looked up again and said to us, “Adrik says he hit his head so hard that maybe his for-real gift got knocked into place. He’s laughing, but I don’t think it’s funny. No, it’s not, Adrik! None of this is funny.”

  “What does ‘for-real gift’ mean?” Louie asked.

  “He says he’ll show us when we get there,” Alana said, rolling her eyes.

  “I’m just glad everyone is okay,” Ren said.

  A sudden fire raced up my spine, pulsing in waves of heat like it was trying to tell me something. I was relieved to feel it again but pretty sure I didn’t want to know what it was warning me about. My mind riffled through all the possibilities. Or impossibilities. I knew there was no place on Earth where Zotz and Blood Moon wouldn’t be able to find us. But I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want everyone to freak out.

  And then the fire bloomed in my chest so hot I gasped. A disastrous realization came to me. Holbox! If the entry stone was powerful enough to grant our enemies access to the World Tree, it could also break through Ixtab’s magic border around the island. Crap! Why hadn’t I thought of that before?

  The threat Ixkik’ had previously launched now hit me right between the eyes: Oh, how those you love will pay, Zane Obispo. I promise you they will pay.

  “I have to go home!” I shouted. “My mom—she’s not safe. Ixkik’ said she would come for her.”

  Ren covered a gasp, then said to me, “I’ll go with you!”

  Alana swept her hair off her face and with her eyes averted said, “Right. Okay.”

  “Are you still talking to Adrik?” Louie asked.

  She held up her hand to silence any more questions. Leaning against the icy wall, she nodded. What was Adrik telling her? Finally, she looked up at me with an almost smile. “Your mom is on her way to the ranch. Hondo sent for her.”

  I thought my chest was going to collapse into my stomach. Relief cooled the fire in my veins as I thought about how much I loved my strategic-genius uncle in that moment.

  “On her way how?” I asked. “How do we know she wasn’t followed?”

  Louie said, “Yeah, like a decoy, and she’ll lead the baddies right to us.”

  Alana hesitated. Her eyes shifted back to their natural gray. “We, um…we know people, and she’s not alone.”

  Know people? Who was she, some kind of mafia kid?

  “What do you mean, ‘not alone’?” I pressed. “She’s a human, not a sobrenatural. A bunch of demons could snatch her on her way to the Cancún airport, or at the gate, or…” I admit it—my brain was in high-alert panic mode. And why did Alana look so calm? It was muy annoying.

  Then four words spilled from her mouth that took my panic down a notch. “Rosie is with her.”

  Rosie. My perfect, beautiful, faithful hellhound, who could travel like mist. When I saw her again, she for sure was going to get a lifetime supply of snake heads or any other gross thing she wanted.

&
nbsp; “Plus,” Alana went on, “your mom didn’t have to go to Cancún. A helicopter picked her up and took her to a landing strip. She’s now in flight….” She squirmed like she didn’t want to talk about this but knew she didn’t have a choice. “On my dad’s jet. They’re only an hour from Montana.”

  Jet. Servants. Mansion. Right. Alana and Adrik acted so chill and down-to-earth I forgot they were rich.

  “You have a private plane?” Louie’s eyes bugged out. “Like, a real one?”

  Alana’s cheeks brightened. “It’s my dad’s.”

  “Can you get us to the ranch your way? Through the portal?” Ren asked Alana, changing the subject and the focus.

  Alana smiled gratefully. “If you guys help me,” she said. “Like in the library.”

  We all joined hands. Louie squeezed himself in between me and Ren as Alana said, “Think Montana. I’ll do the rest.”

  The rest ended up being a side trip to a pizza place. We landed in the kitchen supply closet and all Louie could say was “I tried to think Montana, but I’m hungry and pizza sounded really good.”

  “You can eat whatever you want at the ranch. Now focus!” Alana commanded.

  The promise of food was enough to get Louie on the same page, because the next thing I knew, we had rolled out of the gateway and smack-dab into a steaming pile of manure.

  The good news was we hadn’t landed facedown in the stuff. We all got up and inspected our dirty clothes. The bad news? When we looked around, we saw we were in a cattle pen, facing a thousand-pound-plus bull that looked like he wanted nothing more than to split our guts wide open.

  I summoned Fuego to my hand just as Alana said, “Nobody move,” with not a single tremor in her voice. Maybe she was used to bulls? Maybe this was her pet and, like Rosie, he just looked ferocious?

  The muscular beast was about ten feet away—too close for comfort. He pawed the dirt and started to rumble and grunt.

  Rrrummph. Rrrummph.

  “Eek!” Louie squealed.

  “Nice bull-y,” Ren purred.

  I gripped my cane as we stood frozen in the fenced pasture not sure what to do. I know what you’re thinking: You’ve got amazing Fuego! You’re the son of fire! But I couldn’t just gore the innocent animal or turn him to steak.

  The bull glared at us, tossing his head. I quickly threw up a wall of smoke, hoping it would be enough to at least slow him down if he decided to charge.

  He decided to charge. And guess what? The smoke only gave us a ten-step lead at best, and the corral’s gate was a good thirty feet away.

  “AAAAH!” we screamed, and ran. Have you ever tried to sprint through mud and manure? It’s worse than wet sand. And a whole lot smellier.

  “Do something!” Louie screamed.

  “Ren, shadow!” I hollered.

  Suddenly, the world went still. No sound, no movement, no breeze around us. Just my crashing heart and wheezing breaths.

  I came to a stop in my poop-covered shoes, held my side, and turned to Ren. Her watch was glowing.

  “Thanks…for…stopping…time,” I said between gasps.

  “No way could I sic a monster shadow on the poor thing,” she said, a small smile playing on her lips. “But sometimes you just have to take the bull by the horns.”

  “Ha!” Louie muttered, nearly tripping as he slowed down.

  “I thought we’d be skewered for sure.” Alana fell against Ren, laughing between gasps of air. “Old Smalls is faster than I remember.”

  “Smalls is bigger than a tow truck.” Louie was panting and sweating like he’d run a marathon in the Sahara Desert.

  We all spun to see the bull suspended in the air mere steps behind us. He was in mid-stride, openmouthed, and wearing a glare so deep it looked etched on his face. And those long spiky horns that could double as demon fangs, size extra-large? Practically in my back pocket. Okay, I didn’t have a back pocket, but you get the point.

  But something was missing. The last time Ren had stopped time was at SHIHOM, and she had used a shadow to protect those of us she didn’t want frozen. So where was the shadow now? When I asked, she just shrugged and said, “It was all instinct. Maybe I’m getting more precise?”

  As we headed to the gate, I took in the amazing scenery. All trees, mountains, and a dozen shades of green that folded in on us as if to say Welcome. The daylight was fading, and it was hard to tell where the horizon ended and the sky began.

  “Can we eat now?” Louie said as he exited the corral.

  We hosed ourselves off near the cows’ water trough, and I steam-dried everyone’s clothes as best as I could by waving handfuls of fire over them. Then we walked about a quarter mile. The land rose and fell until we emerged on a wide grassy plain that smelled like pine and wet wood. In the distance was a log mansion complete with a wraparound porch and at least six stone chimneys. Behind the house was a gran white barn, a field of grazing horses, and three other houses—we’ll call them mini mansions, because they were way bigger than a normal house but not quite supersize.

  “Whoa!” Louie said. “This is the hideaway?”

  Alana nodded and sighed as we approached the wide porch of the main house. Lights shimmered behind the big windows.

  Hondo bolted out of the front door, slamming the screen behind him. “Adrik said you found K’iin?”

  I nodded.

  “So where are the gods?”

  “Where is everyone else?” I said, wishing I didn’t have to give him an answer.

  “They’re doing a training exercise over by the barn,” he said. “Don’t deflect, Diablo.”

  “How are the godborns?” Ren asked. “Do they know anything?”

  Hondo eyed us suspiciously. “They know nothing. Now how about you tell me what you know.”

  Alana walked up the porch steps and said, “I have to find Adrik.” Probably to check on his head bump. And then she was gone, followed by Louie, who was no doubt looking for the kitchen.

  Hondo’s eyes found mine and held my gaze. I saw the questions rising, so I cut to the chase. Not wanting to repeat myself, I put on Itzamna’s shades.

  “Zane!” the god cried. “You left me alone for so long I thought K’iin had thrown you into a time loop. Those are the worst—imagine living the same moment over and over and over for all eternity.”

  “We’re fine,” I said before I explained the shades to Hondo. He just rubbed the back of his neck, shaking his head. “Wait a second,” I said to Itzamna. “How come you didn’t want K’iin to know you were there?”

  “We have a bad history, and that’s all I’m going to say on the matter.”

  Yeah, probably some dumb calendar war, I thought.

  “If she’s so all-seeing,” I asked, “how come she didn’t see you?”

  “She wasn’t looking.”

  “Zane,” my uncle said impatiently, “give it up, man.”

  “The gods are lost….” Being the bearer of bad news sucks. Big-time. “They’re in a place we can’t get to,” I said, and even as the words left my mouth, I didn’t want to believe them.

  “Of course we can get there,” Brooks said as she came around the side of the house. “Just tell me where. I’ll fly around the world if I have to.”

  I loved that Brooks thought that scheming and planning and outsmarting your opponent would always win the day. And I really wanted her to believe that for a little longer, but there was no longer. There was no way to prepare her or Hondo for what I had to say next. “They’re in 1987.”

  Brooks shook her head. She staggered back like someone had punched her in the chest. “WHAT?! How? No…Why?” Her brain was in full-throttle denial mode. “Did you say 1987…as in the year?”

  I nodded slowly.

  A terrible silence pressed against us, against our breath and hope and confidence.

  My uncle ran a hand over his long hair. “We have to stop them.”

  “We will,” Ren said, touching his arm gently.

  “How?” Hondo asked.


  “Nothing is impossible,” Brooks said. “If we can pool the godborns’ powers and work together, we can fix this. Right, Zane?”

  Her determined amber eyes softened as she looked my way, and I found myself nodding, making a silent promise I wasn’t sure I could keep.

  “Can any of the godborns travel through time?” I asked hopefully.

  Hondo quickly told us about the godborn gifts. They ranged from being able to talk to animals and bending like a rubber band to walking through solid surfaces and having supersonic hearing. “No time traveling,” he said.

  Brooks twisted a strand of hair around her pinkie. “But Marco has off-the-charts super strength.” She said it with so much admiration I felt a stab in my chest. I know, I know, bad time to be feeling jealous. But give me a break—he couldn’t be that strong.

  “And Adrik,” she went on, “he…uh, got a new skill when he hit his head.”

  “Alana said something about that,” I said. “What is it?”

  But I didn’t get an answer, because Itzamna gasped so loud I thought it was his last breath. “That’s it!” he shouted.

  “What’s it?” Ren said.

  Itzamna posed a question none of us had thought to ask: “How could Zotz and Ixkik’ lock the gods in time?” He paused, like he was waiting for one of us to say what he already knew. “The time rope!”

  Ren practically jumped out of her skin. “But I thought no one could take the rope from Pacific!”

  “They would only need a single strand for a one-way ticket,” he said. “Zotz and Ixkik’ must have found a way to steal it before the devouring, and they used it to send the gods back to 1987.”

  My mind buzzed with one part hope and another part horror. “But how could they send them across time all at once? There’s, like, a couple hundred of them.”

  “Do I have to do everything on this quest?” Itzamna sighed. “I don’t know where the enemy would get that kind of power.”

  “Power isn’t always what you think it’s going to be,” Marco said as he waltzed onto the scene with a scowl and a puffy black eye. I didn’t bother asking. His eyes darted from face to face. “What? Did I say something wrong? Who wants to fill me in?”