Ah-Puch stretched his arms in front of him and popped his creaky elbows. “That gateway took too much energy. I need to eat. Definitely no fish. Preferably, a rib eye. Extra rare.”
Rosie licked her chops and whined at the mention of steak.
That’s when I noticed the dimming sky. A giant fist got lodged in my throat. “The sun’s setting! Wasn’t it just dawn?”
“Yes, well, I had to take an under-the-radar gateway, and those can be real time sucks,” Ah-Puch said like it was no big deal that we’d lost a whole day. So now I was down to two days and the few hours I had left tonight.
“We didn’t have that time to waste!” I growled.
“That’s what I said,” Ah-Puch agreed. “Time to eat.”
“I said time to waste, not —”
“Where exactly are we?” Ren asked.
“They call this paradise Cabo San Lucas,” Ah-Puch said. “Well, that’s not the true name, but history is quite the liar sometimes, isn’t she? Just ask the ghosts of the forgotten Pericú people.”
“Can we just get to the Fire Keeper?” I asked, trying to keep my cool.
A few tourists cruised by, followed by a skinny dude on a bike pulling a covered carriage. “¿Quieren un aventón?”
“We don’t need a ride,” I told him, waving him past. “Look,” I said to Ah-Puch. “The deal was to take us to the Fire Keeper. Today! So, where is he?”
“Do you mean in this exact moment?”
My hands trembled with the craving to throttle him. “You get what I mean.”
“How should I know?” he said. “Give me a break here. You asked to come to Land’s End in Cabo San Lucas and I delivered—flawlessly, I might add. Now we just have to narrow things down a bit. Not to worry.”
I was definitely going to strangle the god of death. “Then I guess you’re going back to the Empty, because the deal was to take me to the Fire Keeper today.”
“Then I have until midnight, don’t I?” There was a challenge in Ah-Puch’s eyes that reminded me of the powerhouse he used to be.
“Can’t you call up one of your spies in Xib’alb’a?” Ren asked him.
“I have to be careful how I communicate. If the gods find out a part of me is free…”
I didn’t catch the tail end of Ah-Puch’s sentence, because a loud and terrible cry came from the palm tree above our heads. I swung my gaze upward. Clinging to the trunk was a blue-haired monkey. His mouth was shaped like a giant O and his scream sounded like a mix of gnashing teeth and a horrifying howl.
I jumped back in case the thing was about to leap onto my head, and nearly tumbled into the water.
“What’s wrong?” Ren said, following my gaze.
“That…” I said, pointing up.
“The tree?”
“Ren, the monkey. He’s pretty hard to miss.”
“Zane, there is no monkey. Are you feeling okay? Maybe your blood sugar is dropping, or you’re having hallucination side effects. You should eat something.”
Was I hallucinating? But the monkey looked so real, and that screech…Ah-Puch lifted his gaze and I was sort of hoping he’d point and say Hey, check out the blue primate, but his eyes didn’t register that he’d seen the monkey either. And then the thing vanished into a cloud of yellowish smoke. I didn’t even have time to register that, because Ah-Puch sniffed the air hungrily and announced, “I smell fresh blood.”
Rosie butted my ribs as Ah-Puch started to take off. I grabbed the god by his scrawny arm, stopping him in his tracks. “I said no killing or devouring, remember?”
Ah-Puch’s eyes narrowed. “How accurate is that spear of yours, godborn?”
I gripped Fuego tightly. “Why?”
“Because that blood I smell? It’s on its way. And it’s going to kill us. Well, mostly you, which I suppose by extension means me.”
“What do we do?”
“Run!”
“Run?” I shouted. “To where?”
“We have to get to open water,” Ah-Puch said. “Hurry!”
“How do I know your nose isn’t as bad as your ears?”
“I know blood, godborn.”
Okay, that convinced me. Ren and I took off with Rosie a few paces ahead. I glanced over my shoulder to see Ah-Puch dragging himself after us. A part of me wanted to leave him behind, but we’d made a deal, so I backtracked with Rosie.
“Get on Rosie,” I said to Ah-Puch.
“I am the god of death! I will not ride a hellhound.”
“Then I guess it’s back to the inferno.”
With a scowl, Ah-Puch climbed on Rosie, muttering words I can’t repeat.
Once we got to the dock, Ah-Puch herded Ren and me into a sleek powerboat. The kind that’s shaped like a bullet and built for speed. He and Rosie hopped in behind us.
Groping through compartments, Ah-Puch finally found the owner’s manual. Furiously, he flipped through the pages.
“What are you doing?” I hollered.
“Learning to drive,” he said as he fumbled with the ignition.
“We need a key.” I looked under the seat and turned over some cushions, hoping to find one hidden.
“Is Ah-Puch joking?” Ren’s eyes darted around nervously. “We can’t take this boat. We’re going to end up in a Mexican jail!”
“Uh, I’m more worried about the blood that’s coming,” I said.
“What did you mean, blood is on its way?” Ren asked Ah-Puch. But he was too busy starting up the boat to answer. Don’t ask me how, since we hadn’t found the key.
“I can steer,” I said, and as soon as the words left my mouth, my brain sent an all-out panic alert: WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! You can’t sail into open waters with the god of death!
Ah-Puch waved me off while Rosie leaned over the port side, her tongue hanging out of her mouth like she couldn’t wait for the blood to arrive.
Whatever.
“We can’t just steal a boat!” Ren hollered over the roar of the engine.
“There was nothing about that in our agreement,” Ah-Puch said as we cruised across the harbor and into the open sea. “And unless you want the looming horror we’re about to face to show up on the gods’ radar, we need to get to open water. Trust me.”
“Stop saying that!” I groaned. “I’ll never trust you.”
It was entirely possible Ah-Puch’s sense of smell was way off since he wasn’t exactly himself. I mean, here we were, stealing a boat, racing across the ocean, and Rosie wasn’t even howling or snarling or foaming at the mouth. If there was any danger, believe me, my hellhound would know. Right?
“How do you know how to drive this thing?” Ren shouted as we skip-jumped over the water. A nearby tourist was thrown off his Jet Ski in our wake.
Ah-Puch gestured to the owner’s manual now tossed to the floor.
Okay, so the guy was some kind of godly speed-reader.
Just then, Ren tugged on my sleeve and pointed across the water. “Here comes the horror.” No more than six inches above the ocean’s surface, a black cloud the size of Hondo’s old truck was zooming toward us.
Ah-Puch glanced up. His few strands of white hair blew wildly around his hollow face. “Zane! I need more nourishment. To fight them off.”
“Them? What is that thing?”
A strange buzz-hum ricocheted across the sea. The winds reached deafening speeds. Two boats careened, barely missing each other. A parasailer tumbled out of the sky. The black formation was only about fifty feet away, and no matter which direction Ah-Puch spun the boat, the cloud followed, matching our speed easily.
Rosie reared her head and let out an epic roar. Oh sure…now she warns us of danger! Flames erupted from her eyes and nose and mouth, directed at the cloud, but the thing was fast, instantly ducking Rosie’s blazing fire trails.
Ren rushed to the stern, like she wanted to get a better look.
“What are you doing?” I screamed. “Get down!”
The cloud was coming right for her. She stood there
frozen.
I launched Fuego over her head. It whizzed across the air, hitting the target, but only managing to split the stupid cloud in half. A few tiny…forms fell into the water. Just as Fuego circled back, a horde of what looked like giant bees emerged from what was now two clouds. Their hum-buzzing raised the hairs on my arms and neck.
Crap! They weren’t bees.
They were bats with curled, flesh-colored claws and crooked fangs, which, by the nasty way, hung out of their hairy mouths. Dozens of the creatures came at us in a frenzy.
“Be still!” Ah-Puch said.
“Are you kidding?”
“The more you move, the more agitated they become, trust me.”
If there were a way to remove those last two words from his brain, I would have done it in a flash.
Ah-Puch collapsed to his knees, releasing the wheel and sending the boat skittering sideways. He rolled himself into a ball.
Everything happened at superspeed.
I shoved Ren behind a seat, shouting, “Use the camouflage!”
The only problem? When I twisted my button, zero camo. And like before, Ren’s didn’t work, either. Thanks, Itzel. I was so going to give her a seriously bad review for this.
Ren wailed, cowering and putting her arms over her head to try to protect herself from the bloodsucking beasts that were now swarming the boat.
I dropped to my knees and balled myself up, too.
The bats landed on me. It took every ounce of concentration I had not to move. Their little claws tap-danced all over my back, up my neck, and across my head. Their mouths pressed against my ears and cheeks, breathing hot puffs of air. I squeezed my eyes closed, wondering how long they were going to torture me, and then I glanced out of the corner of my eye. One of the beasts had his mouth wide open, and he plunged a mouthful of fangs into the back of my hand.
“AAAAH!”
I jumped up, sending them into a tizzy. I kicked and punched, jabbing Fuego at them, making contact with their fat hairy bodies, but there were too many. The bats shrieked at a frequency so high I thought my teeth would crumble to dust.
Ah-Puch released a shriek to match, and it sent chills down my spine. He could speak bat?
The beasts swooped in a cloud of hair and teeth and claws. I could feel the skin on my hands and neck splitting open with each bite. They were drinking my blood! I fell down, my heart pounding, my vision fading.
Ren…
Glancing over, I saw her huddled. She wasn’t moving. Clearly, she had a lot more self-control than I did. Fury at the bats rose up inside me. A deep orange ember began to glow beneath my skin. The creatures that were terrorizing me retreated with an angry screech as I got to my feet. The entire world took on a faint reddish tint, and I knew my eyes were ablaze, too. Smoke streamed from my fingertips, creating long black trails. I didn’t know how it happened, but the smoke took the shape of a giant net, wrapping around Ren. The bats beat against the net, but they couldn’t get through.
Rosie launched herself into the air, snatching up a few bats in her mouth as she sailed over the starboard side. I wanted her to barbecue the little beasts, but she’d just as likely set the boat ablaze and everyone with it.
The world lurched. I was growing weaker with each passing second, and soon the smoke-net would vanish. I hated to admit it, but I needed the god of death’s help. As I hurried over to him, the bats shrank back. Ah-Puch uncurled himself, heaving. I grabbed his hand, placed the corn in his palm, and shouted, “Take it!”
Shakily, he popped the entire blue seed into his mouth. A millisecond later, he stood upright, seizing the bats out of the air with such incredible speed his arms were only a blur. Faster than I could shout his name, he snapped the creatures’ necks and sucked the blood from their bodies.
There was no time to be disgusted.
I didn’t see what happened after that, because in a single flash, Rosie leaped back onto the boat. A single line of fire exploded from her mouth, wrapping me in a spinning inferno that didn’t touch the floor. I used my last bits of strength to knock the nearby beasts into the flames. Their charred bodies fell around me, and then slowly, the heat drew closer, engulfing me. Instinctively, I leaned into the blaze, and as I did, the puncture wounds on my hands disappeared before my eyes.
Then came the Fire Keeper’s voice: You really need to fight more like a destroyer.
I didn’t register the insult, because I had bigger things on my mind: Where are you? How do I find you?
But the inferno died before there was an answer.
I looked up.
Ah-Puch stood over Ren. A sea breeze parted his thick dark hair as he licked the blood from his fingertips. Gone was the little old feeble man. And in his place?
A stronger, very familiar version of the god of death, darkness, and destruction.
I think I’d forgotten how threatening Ah-Puch was. (I know, I know, how could anyone forget such terror?) Not only did the guy tower over me, but there was a fierce darkness and determination in his eyes and in the etched lines of his face that commanded utter dread.
A low rumble emerged from Rosie as she faced Ah-Puch. But she wasn’t foaming at the mouth, her eyes weren’t glowing red, and she wasn’t shooting fireballs. Those were all good signs that Ah-Puch didn’t intend to eat us all for dinner.
Ah-Puch raised a single eyebrow and gestured to Ren.
Shaking off my shock, I raced over to her. (Yeah, I had to step over all the blood-drained bat carcasses.) She rolled onto her back, looking up at me wide-eyed.
“Are you all right?” I asked, taking a quick inventory of any wounds. “You…you don’t have a single mark.” I mean, I know our super Itzel clothing was supposed to be daggerproof, but what about the exposed skin? Was Ren immune to the bats or something?
“I forced my mind to focus, to visualize the outcome,” she said. “Like Hondo showed me.”
“They don’t like the smell of her blood,” Ah-Puch said with a small smile.
I shot him a look over my shoulder. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
But I didn’t get an answer. Rosie wandered over sheepishly, sniffing Ren as she got to her feet. Ren’s eyes were glued to Ah-Puch. “You…you…” For once she was at a loss for words. Finally, she managed, “You ate those bats.”
“I didn’t eat the bats,” he said. “I drank their supernatural blood.”
Ren gawked at this version of Ah-Puch. “Is that why you’re…?”
“So intimidating?” Ah-Puch offered.
“I was going to say scary,” she said.
Ren and I exchanged a worried glance, when Ah-Puch added, “I see your apprehension…but not to worry. This new beautiful form of mine is, sadly, only temporary.” He sighed dramatically. “The bats’ blood was stolen, not a sacrifice, but even if it had been, part of me is still swimming in the eternal fires Zane created.”
“I said no devouring!”
“You said no devouring anyone,” Ah-Puch reminded me. “That means a person, a human—you didn’t say anything about monsters.”
Already, he was finding loopholes. “You tricked us—led us right to those things.”
“The blood made me do it,” he said with a straight face. “I was so hungry, and they were coming no matter what. We just met them halfway. You would have had a harder time fighting them off in town, and all those humans could have been hurt. I did you—us—a favor.”
“We could have died!” I shouted.
“But you didn’t. Plus, having the battle in the open water kept us out of the gods’ field of vision. All we need is those idiots descending upon us. Then you really will die.”
Ren inched closer to Ah-Puch. “You said we could trust you. No more tricking us so you can drink blood. And no more asking us to follow you, because we won’t.”
Ah-Puch clenched his jaw.
“And you…” Ren swung her gaze my way. “You were
like a walking wall of fire, and that smoke—it…it protected me.”
I glanced down at my fingertips, shaking my head. “Yeah, I don’t know where that came from.”
“Oh, I don’t know…maybe because you’re the son of fire?” Ah-Puch said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Son of the creator and destroyer.”
Maybe it was the adrenaline, but I felt invincible, like I could seriously take on an entire army of demons or bats or…whatever. “Except I can’t control it,” I mumbled, thinking no one heard me.
Until Ah-Puch said, “You will.”
I stared at him in surprise, wondering what he knew that I didn’t.
Ren’s gaze fell to the dead creatures scattered around our feet. “I sort of feel sorry for them.”
Was she serious? “They tried to kill us!” I reminded her.
“I know, but maybe we should toss them overboard. Like, give them a proper burial at sea or something.”
Rosie groaned like she didn’t think the little monsters deserved anything other than what they got. She stood at attention as the last traces of the sun melted into the sea.
“What are they?” I asked Ah-Puch.
“A specific variety of magic,” Ah-Puch said, “that I haven’t tasted in a thousand years. Quite a delicacy.”
“Why were those monsters here?” I said. “How did they even find us?”
Ren cleared her throat. “They came to steal me.”
I jerked my attention back to her. “How do you know?”
“Because they kept trying to lift me up.” She narrowed her cool eyes. “I think they’re the same monsters as the ones the other night, back in Sievers Cove.”
Ah-Puch started up the boat and turned us back toward shore. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a shower, order chef service, and get into a nice clean suit before I tell you a sordid tale about the bats.”
“I like sordid,” Ren said way too enthusiastically.
“Er…I don’t have enough money for chef service,” I said. “Maybe some tacos?”
A slow grin spread across Ah-Puch’s face. “We don’t need money.”
* * *
The Fire Keeper Page 20
