The River of No Return
Page 1
EGMONT
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First published by Egmont USA, 2012
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New York, NY 10016
Copyright © J&P Voelkel, 2005, 2012
All rights reserved
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www.jaguarstones.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Voelkel, Jon.
The river of no return / J&P Voelkel.
p. cm. — (The Jaguar Stones; bk. 3)
Summary: “Deep in the jungle, Max and Lola battle a zombie army, mutant cave spiders, and even the ancient Maya Lords of Death”—Provided by publisher.
eISBN: 978-1-60684-270-6
[1. Adventure and adventurers–Fiction. 2. Supernatural—Fiction. 3. Mayas—Fiction. 4. Indians of Central America—Fiction.] I. Voelkel, Pamela. II. Title.
PZ7.V861Ri 2012
[Fic]—dc23
2012007093
Illustrations by Jon Voelkel
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.
v3.1
AUTHORS’ NOTE
The Jaguar Stones are fictional, as are all the characters in this book except for Friar Diego de Landa, the true-life Spanish priest who made one big bonfire of ancient Maya books and artworks. San Xavier is a fictional country based on present-day Belize.
To Harry, Charly, and Loulou
k yahkume’ex
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Authors’ Note
Dedication
CAST OF CHARACTERS
PREFACE: THE DREAM
I. ROGUE OCTOPUS
II. PIZZA GELATO
III. MASQUERADE
IV. THE BLACK PYRAMID
V. WAKING THE DEAD
VI. MIDNIGHT MEETING
VII. CLAUSTROPHOBIA
VIII. A NEW PLAN
IX. CRASH LANDING
X. CHANGES
XI. HURRICANE HOTEL
XII. IN THE DARK
XIII. TERMITE TAMALE
XIV. THE LAST JAGUAR
XV. THE VAMPIRE’S KISS
XVI. PYRAMID OF PERIL 3-D
XVII. SHAMPOOS, TATTOOS, BAD NEWS
XVIII. SHOWTIME
XIX. THE SUPERHERO TWINS
XX. THE TAPIR’S REVENGE
XXI. ACROSS THE ABYSS
XXII. THE VISION SERPENT
XXIII. ATTACK OF THE ZOMBIES
XXIV. FACING THE MUSIC
XXV. NO MORE SECRETS
GLOSSARY
A MIDDLEWORLD BESTIARY
A SIDE TRIP TO VENICE
MAYA BEAUTY SECRETS
MAYA CALENDAR
RECIPE—PIZZA GELATO
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
MAX (Massimo Francis Sylvanus) MURPHY: fourteen years old, only child, video gamer, drummer, pizza connoisseur
LOLA (Ix Sak Lol—each sock loll): Maya girl about Max’s age
DEMON OF FILTH: one of the twelve ancient Maya Death Lords—along with his colleagues ONE DEATH, SEVEN DEATH, BLOOD GATHERER, WING, PACKSTRAP, BONE SCEPTER, SKULL SCEPTER, SCAB STRIPPER, DEMON OF WOE, DEMON OF PUS, and DEMON OF JAUNDICE
NASTY (Anastasia) SMITH-JONES: Max’s friend, music blogger
FABIO: Venetian gondolier
FRANK and CARLA MURPHY: Max’s parents, archaeologists and Harvard professors
LORD KUY (coo-ee): messenger of the Lords of Death
AH PUKUH (awe pooh coo): Maya god of violent and unnatural death
EEK’ KITAM, aka BLACK PECCARY aka SKUNK PIG aka STINK PIG: zombie warrior from the Undead Army
OCH and his brother, LITTLE OCH: village children from Utsal
UNCLE TED: Max’s uncle, banana exporter and reformed smuggler
LORD 6-DOG (Ahaw Wak Ok—uh how walk oak): ancient Maya king
EUSEBIO: chili farmer and boatman
CHAN KAN: Maya wise man, Lola’s adoptive grandfather
CONCIERGE: head of Guest Services at the Grand Hotel Xibalba
BAHLAM: one of the last wild jaguars of the Monkey River area
RAY LOVE, aka LOVERBOY: movie star famous for his vampire roles
KOO: stylist at the hotel beauty salon
ANTONIO DE LANDA, aka TOTO: Spanish aristocrat and descendant of Diego de Landa, the priest who burned Maya books
PUNAK HA: ancient Maya king, Lord 6-Dog’s father
IXCHEL (eesh shell): ancient Maya moon goddess
PRINCESS INEZ: Maya princess, wife of Max’s conquistador ancestor
SYLVANUS GRISWOLD MORLEY: archaeologist most famous for his excavations at Chichen Itza and his work as an American spy in World War I
LADY COCO (Ix Kan Kakaw—each con caw caw): Lord 6-Dog’s mother
HERMANJILIO (herman-kee-leo) BOL: San Xavier archaeologist, university professor, Lola’s mentor
RAUL: Uncle Ted’s butler
JAIME BEN aka LUCKY JIM: Uncle Ted’s former foreman and bodyguard
ZIA: the Murphy family’s mysterious housekeeper
“One last mission,” Max pleaded. “Just help me rescue the White Jaguar, and I promise I’ll never ask you for another thing.” He gave Lola what he hoped was an irresistible smile. “It’ll be fun. You and me, working together again. Like old times.”
Lola curled her lip at him. “There is no you and me.”
“How can you say that,” protested Max, “after everything we’ve been through together? Underground rivers, haunted temples … we’re a team, remember?”
“I will never be on your team!”
She tried to run, but he blocked her way.
“Please, Monkey Girl, I’m begging you.”
“Don’t call me Monkey Girl.”
“But it’s our thing. I call you Monkey Girl because you hang around with howler monkeys. And you call me Hoop because … um … what was it again?”
“It’s from the Mayan word for matchstick.”
“Matchstick?”
“Red hair, white body—it’s a joke.”
He looked unconvinced. “So you’ll do this one little thing for … for Hoop?”
“You’re not Hoop.”
He pulled the brim of his Red Sox cap lower. “Yes, I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Oh, let me think,” said Lola, looking him up and down. “Well, for one thing, Hoop keeps his intestines on the inside of his body.”
The boy followed her eyes down until they came to rest on a loop of squirming purple intestine that was hanging out from under his shirt.
“Oops,” he said.
“So which one are you?” asked Lola, folding her arms. “From the trailing innards, I’m guessing the Demon of Filth?”
The boy smirked and nodded.
Lola rolled her eyes. “Every night it’s the same. One of you Death Lords appears in my dreams in some stupid disguise and tries to persuade me to bring you the White Jaguar.”
“Hold that thought,” said Filth, “while I change into something a little more comfortable.” With a disgusting array of squelching, slurping, and popping noises as his body parts freed themselves from their disguise, the Demon of Filth shed his outer persona of a fourteen-year-old Boston teenager and emerged as his true self: a moldering corpse in a rat-skin loincloth, dragging his diseased guts behind him. A cloud of flies instantly formed over his head. “That’s bette
r,” he said, stretching his waxy limbs. “Now where were we?”
“You were just leaving,” replied Lola.
“I’m not going anywhere, Ix Sak Lol.” (He called Lola by her Mayan name, meaning Lady White Flower.) “I’m under orders to torment you until you give in.”
“Whose orders? Ah Pukuh’s? I’m not afraid of him.”
“You should be afraid of him. He is the god of violent and unnatural death, and he blames you for everything. As he sees it, you are all that stands between him and the power he seeks. He expects you to put things right.”
“Why me?”
“It was your friend who stole the White Jaguar. So you need to bring it back. Or else.”
“Or else what?”
“Or else Ah Pukuh will personally extract your heart.”
Lola shrugged. “I can’t win. If I do bring it back, Ah Pukuh will have all five Jaguar Stones—and I’ll be doomed along with everyone else in Middleworld.”
“Then join us, Ix Sak Lol. Come over to the winning side. We’d be like family.” Filth glanced at her slyly. “Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted—a family?”
Lola looked flustered. “I have a family,” she answered defensively. “Chan Kan calls me Granddaughter.”
Filth laughed so hard that his intestines danced pinkly on the ground. “Chan Kan? That lying snake! You bad-mouth Ah Pukuh, but you praise Chan Kan?”
“He adopted me; he gave me a home.”
“He has deceived you.”
Lola’s skin prickled. “What do you mean?”
“Ask him yourself”—Filth snickered—“if you live that long. You have until the next new moon to return the White Jaguar or …” He mimed open-heart surgery.
“Never.” Lola’s eyes flashed defiantly. “I will never betray the people of Middleworld.”
Filth regarded her with interest. “Your selflessness is nauseating, but it gives me an idea. Let me rephrase my offer. You have until the new moon to return the White Jaguar, or it’s Matchstick Boy’s heart we’ll take.”
“Leave Hoop out of this. He isn’t Maya. This is not his fight.”
“Ever heard of globalism, Ix Sak Lol?”
“Stay away from him!”
A smile spread across Filth’s rotting face. “I knew it! You might sacrifice your own life, but you would never sacrifice his!” He whooped in triumph like a sick hyena.
“You’re insane,” said Lola.
“I am inspired,” replied Filth gleefully. “I can’t wait to tell the guys about my idea.”
“The guys? You mean the other Death Lords? You can tell them from me that your idea won’t work.”
“You’d let the Murphy brat die?”
“Of course,” bluffed Lola, “if it would save the rest of humankind.”
“You are lying, Ix Sak Lol. You do not have the stomach for this fight.”
“Try me.”
“Oh, we will try you. Return the White Jaguar, or you will have your little boyfriend’s blood on your hands.…”
“He’s not my boyf—,” began Lola, but Filth had vanished.
All this time, the dream had taken place in what Lola had assumed was some dark and musty cavern in the underworld. Now flaming torches blazed into life, and she saw that it was a room built out of stone, its walls painted blood-red with toxic cinnabar. In the center, surrounded by jade carvings, quetzal feathers, painted pots, jaguar pelts, cocoa beans and spiny oyster shells, was a carved stone sarcophagus worthy of an ancient Maya king.
And then she understood that her dream was set in a royal tomb.
But why?
Was it to be her tomb?
She tried to wake herself. But like being stuck in quicksand, the more she struggled, the deeper the dream sucked her in.
There was a noise behind her, and she turned to see a stone slab descending to block the doorway. She wanted to roll out under it, but her feet seemed to be glued to the floor. With seconds to spare before the slab reached the ground, something—someone!—shot underneath and tumbled into the tomb.
“Hello, Monkey Girl,” he said, getting to his feet.
“Very funny,” said Lola. “I see you’ve remembered to tuck in your intestines this time.”
“I’m sorry? Is that some kind of password?”
“Stand still and let me look at you.”
Lola inspected her visitor from head to toe.
Max shuffled uncomfortably. “What are you doing?”
“I’m looking for a clue.”
“What kind of—?”
“Got it!”
It was a trace of black hair dye, a few dark patches left over from Max’s stint as a rock star in Spain. But it was enough to convince Lola that this was the boy from Boston and not a Death Lord in disguise.
“Hoop? Is it really you? What are you doing here?”
“You tell me. This is your dream. What happens next?”
Lola considered the question.
And suddenly, she knew exactly what happened next. She wanted to warn him, to tell him to run from her, and never stop running. But she couldn’t speak.
Meanwhile, Max looked innocently around. “This place looks familiar. Have we been inside this temple before?”
His smile faded as she pulled a knife out of thin air and hurled it at him.
“Have you gone crazy?” he yelled.
She tried to hold down her own arm, to fight the force that was making her attack him. She focused her mind and tried to wrestle back control, but it was no use. The Death Lords were directing her dream as if it were a movie, and she was nothing but a puppet in their evil show.
All she could do was hope that Max saw the sorrow in her eyes as she aimed another blade at the boy she considered her best friend.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! As soon as one knife left her hand, another one took its place.
Max jumped and dodged and ducked, like a character in one of his video games.
But no matter how agile Hoop was, Lola knew there could be no escape.
This royal tomb would also be Max Murphy’s last resting place.
With a bloodcurdling scream, she shut her eyes and let loose the final volley that would chop him into little pieces.
Mission accomplished.
As the mutant corpse-eating tomb slugs slithered out to begin their feast, she turned away. It’s only a dream, she told herself.
But when she woke, her face was wet with tears.
Now she knew that the Death Lords meant business: if she didn’t return the White Jaguar, they would wreak their vengeance on Max—and it would be her fault, just as surely as if she’d killed him herself.
The new moon would be in two weeks’ time.
Two weeks.
She had to warn him … before it was too late.
“I like your purple hair,” said Max. “It was black last time I saw you.”
Nasty Smith-Jones combed her spiky bangs with her fingers. “Yours was black, too, in Spain, remember?” She peered at Max’s thick reddish hair. “There are still some bits that haven’t quite washed out.”
“That was my rock-star look. I’m thinking of dying it again.”
“No! If my parents realize you’re the same boy they met in Spain, they’ll ban me from ever seeing you again!”
Max looked offended.
“You can’t blame them,” Nasty pointed out. “You promised to take them to a high-society wedding, not a grudge match between an ancient Maya god and a talking howler monkey!”
“I guess they have a point.” Max laughed. “So what did they make of it all? I thought they’d have dragged you back to Boston on the first plane out.”
“I convinced them it was performance art and that we’d been lucky to see it. Once they’d calmed down, they decided to carry on with their grand tour of Europe.”
“And now here you are in Venice.”
Nasty smiled at him. “Here you are, too.”
It was a golden afternoon. As their gondola
floated down the Grand Canal, the sun bounced off domes and church bells and glass-fronted galleries, and transformed the water into shimmering emeralds as green and bright as the Monkey River in the jungles of San Xavier.
Nasty stuck out her tongue at some children on a bridge as the gondola glided underneath. “Bummer that you’ve just arrived and I’m flying home tonight. It would have been fun to hang out.”
“I’ll be back in Boston soon, too,” Max assured her.
“You’re not going back to the jungle?”
“Nope. All that Maya stuff is over now. The Death Lords can’t get me anymore.”
“So that gross guy in the eyeball headdress won’t be back?”
“Ah Pukuh? No chance. According to the Maya calendar, he’s next in line to rule the cosmos. But he’d need all five Jaguar Stones to do any real damage.”
“How many has he got?”
“Four.”
“Four!” Underneath her punky black eyeliner, Nasty’s blue eyes were wide with alarm. “You mean he only needs one more?”
“Yes, but he can’t get it. It’s impossible. Trust me.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Good to know!” Nasty grinned at Max. “So call me when you get back and I’ll give you the inside tour of Beacon Hill. Iggy Pop once stayed at a house on our street.”
“Cool,” said Max, trying to sound nonchalant, but inside his heart was pogoing for joy. Did Nasty Smith-Jones, the coolest girl in Boston, just ask him out?
He exchanged a knowing smile with Fabio, their stripy-shirted, straw-hatted gondolier, and sank back into the cushions.
Life was good.
His quest was over and he was finally free of the Maya and the Jaguar Stones and the twelve Lords of Death. Nobody was threatening him, nobody was chasing him, nobody was trying to kill him. He was an ordinary kid again, just one more American tourist in Venice, with nothing more pressing to worry about than what kind of pizza to try next. He closed his eyes and let the baking Italian sun burn away all memory of Xibalba, the cold and watery Maya underworld.
“Attenzione!” called Fabio.
Max held on tightly as the gondola lurched from side to side, rocking and spinning, as if it were caught in a whirlpool. The gondolier fought to keep control, but when his oar was snatched out of his hand by the raging water, he gave up and cowered in the back of the boat, every bit as scared as his passengers.