by Meg Cowley
There was silence, for a moment, and then all I could hear was my blood thundering through me as I sagged with relief. Juan was pale in the moonlight, and I could see his eyes glaze over in shock. Poor guy. He’d done well. He staggered to the edge of the cliff and peered over. Not even ripples remained of the man.
“Forget him.” My voice was hard. I was no killer and I wouldn’t harm another hair on these men’s heads, but I wasn’t about to nurse them back to health, either. “We need to run, now. Gonzalez is still out there. We have to make sure he cannot find us, magic or not.”
I shot the gun into the ground twice, flinching at the sound, and tossed it into the cenote.
“That’ll buy us a few minutes. Run!”
We set off at a sprint through the jungle as Juan’s necklace hovered in front of his chest, pointing due north towards Cancun and the ley lines to guide us. My bracelet glowed as bright as molten metal as it encased us in a protective bubble through which we could not be seen, heard, or traced. Our steps erased themselves behind us as we ran, long into the night, until we could run no more.
Eventually, we collapsed in a clearing. Who knows where? I fought the exhaustion, but weeks of little sleep and the tolls of the past few days were too strong a pull, no matter that Gonzalez chased us, poisonous creatures lurked in the shadows, and jaguars stalked the jungle. Sleep claimed us.
~
I woke with the first light and a dull head for a few moments before I remembered where I was, and why. My eyes snapped open. Juan was beside me — too close for comfort, I would have normally said — for I seemed to have slept tucked under his arm, but I was strangely grateful for it. We hadn’t been eaten by jaguars, in any case. Always a bonus. I nudged him awake as I moved away from him. For a moment, he pulled me closer — I’m assuming on instinct — before he opened his own eyes, blushed furiously, and let me go. I glared at him and scrambled to my feet. I must have been growing soft. I’d normally have punched anyone else who tried that.
The jungle was alive around us, and we could hear no trace of mankind. For a moment, it felt like we must be the only two people in the entire world. My stomach interrupted the strange peace with a large rumble. We also had no food, water, or means to contact the outside world. By my best guess, we were within an hour of Cancun… but by truck, not on foot.
“What do we do now?” I said to Juan, an edge of desperation in my voice. I wasn’t panicking, it wasn’t in my nature, but I couldn’t see a way out of this predicament alive and with the Kukulkan Skull. I couldn’t see a way out of the jungle, for starters.
Juan stood with a yawn and tapped his pendant. Once more, it jumped into the air and tugged at his neck. He smiled tiredly at me. “We follow this. It’ll lead us to Cancun, and before that, the road. I’m sure we can hitchhike into the city.”
“What then? Gonzalez has the relics, and we don’t know where he is or where he might be going. My bet is he won’t be leaving them at the warehouse any longer, now that it’s compromised. By now, he’ll have discovered we’re definitely not dead, too, which puts us back on the hit list. We can seek out the artefacts with magic, but we might not get there in time.”
Juan shrugged and smiled again, this time with a hint of his usual spark. “He’ll definitely be rushing, now he knows we’re not dead. Whatever he plans to do with the skull, wherever he plans to send it, he will move it now, if only to get rid of the evidence pointing to him.”
“And you know where he’ll be?” I said, a grin creeping into my own lips as I realised what his spark meant.
“You really ought to learn the magic of tongues, chica. Gonzalez was so sure he had beaten us, that he gave away the next part of the puzzle. The artefacts are to be transported by sea. To where and for what purpose, I do not know, so this is the last chance we shall have to stop him.”
“Where from?”
“The port of Cancun. He has a private boat there, waiting to take them away.”
“It will be easy to find?”
Juan paused. “Not exactly, but we are Magicai.”
“The skull felt…”
“Different,” we both said at the same time.
“Exactly,” said Juan.
“If we can trace that, we can trace everything that Gonzalez has stolen. Will he not think to mask it?” I frowned. Gonzalez was Magicai; surely, he would not miss such an oversight.
“I’m tempted to think he would not. The chances are that he has had very little time to spend with the artefact. After all, he has had to keep up appearances of having nothing to do with its disappearance, so he will be unaware of the latent power it emanates, or think to conceal it. Who will know he has it? Who will come looking? No, he thinks himself above discovery, above the law.”
“His arrogance will be his undoing.”
“Exactly.”
There was just one problem I saw, and I pointed it out to Juan. We were in the middle of the jungle, who knows how many hours from where we needed to be, and running out of time.
“I don’t suppose you can teleport?” I asked, feeling glum.
Juan laughed. “If only we could.” Magic couldn’t do everything, unfortunately.
It took us the rest of the day to reach the road and hitchhike into the city; a risky business, I understood. Quintana Roo was a safe province, but even so, few folks stopped for hitchhikers and those that did… well. Let’s just say we had to be discerning on which offers we took up. Eventually, though, we made it, and Juan used the last of his money to buy a cheap phone and a taxi into the port.
As the taxi drove, he rang the last point of contact he had: a Magicai superior he could trust who could alert the police. My instincts fought against it; to involve Ordinaries in a Magicai fuelled incident that had already included careless murders was against everything I stood for. No matter my own recklessness, I always tried to ensure no innocents were caught in the crossfire.
And then there was the matter of the head of the Secretaria de Cultura, Ricardo Gonzalez, and his impeccable reputation. If a figure so high in the esteem of everyone else was a crook, how could we persuade anyone to think otherwise, and how could we be sure they weren’t dirty, too?
It was a mess, to be sure, but Juan was adamant and refused to back down with a doggedness that both infuriated me… and elicited my respect. If he felt so strongly about it, it was on his own shoulders if this all backfired. I only hoped it wouldn’t.
I listened as Juan told his superior of all that had passed, including our kidnap and attempted murder at the hands of Gonzalez, in whispers and mutters, and in English, as soon as he’d established the driver spoke not a word of my tongue.
He sighed as he ended the call and dragged a hand over his face to rub at his eyes. He looked as tired as I felt. Not even the growing hum of the ley lines could replenish us from lost sleep in an instant. My hand passed over my bracelet and under a concealment charm, I drew energy from it. My hand slipped to cover Juan’s, and through the bond between our skin, the energy flowed to him, too. He looked at me, but I kept my gaze fixed firmly ahead, so he was under no illusions. He nodded. Just friends. We’d been through a lot together in a few short days, but I felt at ease around him as I did with so few other people. Every now and then, it was nice to feel less alone. Especially with what we faced.
“What did they say?”
“Felicia isn’t sure she believes everything I say, but we have enough evidence to convince her to act. She’ll do what she can to intervene, but for the most part, we’re on our own.”
“Great,” I said glumly. Backup would have been useful, but at least this way, we could probably get away with using some of our powers without worrying about them being seen by Ordinaries.
On balance, in my sleep deprived state, backup sounded better.
The taxi clanked to a stop outside the port and Juan sorted out his payment whilst I stepped out to evaluate our surroundings. Energy pumped into me. We were so close to Cancun and the ley line convergence
now that my body almost hummed with its power. If magic was visible, I’d have glowed like a lightbulb.
One flash of Juan’s badge and we were inside the port. We were lucky in that respect. Gonzalez’s hired goons were obviously so incompetent, that beyond our phones, we still had all of our personal effects.
We followed the tenuous trail of Kukulkan’s magic to find Gonzalez in a marina far from prying eyes, on what could only be described as a luxury yacht. That was how he intended to play it, then: smuggling everything on a private boat with no charter of goods, no record. As we watched from behind a shipping container, lackeys busied themselves in the dock and the deck, hauling small crates up with pulleys and onto wheeled trolleys where they vanished below, no doubt to be stacked in some corner of the huge vessel. I doubted a boat like this would be searched by customs. No, Gonzalez had played his cards well. No one would suspect him, and why should they? The well respected and ever honourable champion for Mexico’s culture, heritage and environment.
My lip curled as he strode onto the deck in one of his pristine suits, despite the heat, and I saw the smug smirk on his face. A smirk of success. He thought he had this. He thought he’d gotten away with it. In his puffed up chest, I saw unyielding arrogance. He thought he deserved this.
Juan shifted beside me, and I tore my eyes away from Gonzalez — and suppressed the coil of anger rising in my stomach — to look at him, instead. His brows furrowed as he concentrated on absorbing every detail before us.
“When do we take him?” I asked evenly. I was looking forward to this. Recovering artefacts was one thing. Shoving it to people like Gonzalez was a whole new level of satisfaction. I enjoyed teaching people like him a lesson: the bad guy will never win, not in the end.
Juan chewed on his bottom lip as he contemplated. “They’re almost done loading the crates. I reckon this’ll be it. He wouldn’t risk multiple shipments, I don’t think. Too much notice. Besides, can’t you…?”
“Feel it? Yes.” I could feel it. That old magic oozing towards me, calling me to it. It was stronger this time as if the skull was growing more powerful. But then, the Day of the Dead approached. I swallowed. The skull was growing more powerful. I couldn’t tell whether it called to me to save it… or to use it… or maybe even to claim me… but either way, we were running out of time. The last of the crates was being uploaded and we didn’t have a plan.
Time for plan A, then. Also known as ‘wing it’.
Chapter Eight
“Follow my lead,” I said to Juan and strolled out from our hiding place with my head held high and my every move infused with an easy confidence — a lie, well-practised.
I savoured each moment of Gonzalez glancing up and recognising us, and realising what that meant. His careless glance flicked to and moved past us, and then his eyes snapped back in a double take. He froze, and his eyes locked on us, too, widening, but only for a moment.
His barked order left me in no uncertainty as his lackeys turned, saw us, and dropped whatever they were doing to advance on us with menace, spreading out to surround us, and no doubt capture us so Gonzalez could finish the job.
From every nook and cranny, guns and knives glistened as they were pulled out. As my glance flicked to Gonzalez again, his surprise had vanished, replaced with the sneer of someone who knows he has won. I’ll admit, I rarely lose control. But something in me snapped.
The anger coiling in me, fed over days of frustration, and culminating in our hopeless attempt to recover the artefacts already, boiled over. Magic blazed through me as I drew it forth until I contained so much energy, I blazed like the glowing sun. Gonzalez’s men had stopped in fear and wonder — they were Ordinaries — and after another beat, they cried out and scrambled back for I had melted their weapons in their hands. As they stumbled away, breaking the circle, molten metal hissed and crackled upon the concrete as weapons were flung away.
I smiled wolfishly.
It was the last straw. They broke and ran.
“Well, I did not expect to find a Magicai under my nose,” said Gonzalez with a scowl that betrayed I’d gotten under his skin and that we’d interfered with his plan again.
“Zoe,” Juan said behind me in his quiet, measured way.
I returned Gonzalez’s scowl, but subsided, still clinging to the well of power filling me up. I had a feeling I would still need it, but this was Juan’s corner to fight. As much as I wanted to engulf Gonzalez in magic, I had to let him have his say, or do whatever he needed to. It was only fair.
“Sir, there is still time to stop this.” As Juan spoke, I could feel the deep thrum of the skull’s magic, and I knew Juan could feel it, too. “You can still do the right thing.” He wet his lips with a nervous dart of the tongue. “Don’t make me end this badly for you.”
Gonzalez guffawed. I suppose I could understand that. To him, Juan was nothing more than a lowly curator, a scholar, and archaeologist, and I had no doubt he thought Juan a quiet and dull person, without an ounce of independence or fire in him despite his Mexican charm. Above all, he would not know Juan was also Magicai. I knew Juan would be reluctant to reveal it, but it was clear Gonzalez would leave him no choice.
“Don’t make me laugh, Señor Santiago. The only people this is going to end badly for are you two.”
Juan would not give up. Not yet. “Do you know what you have taken?” His voice cracked. “Do you know how dangerous the Kukulkan Skull is?”As he said the name, it seemed to linger, whispering through the air in its own voice. A shiver caressed my spine. “Its strength, and its danger, grows as the Day of the Dead approaches. Do not do this, I beg you. The skull must be kept safe. It must not be misused. We cannot let it fall into the wrong hands.”
“Who says it is going to leave mine?”
“No,” Juan spluttered as he realised what Gonzalez meant. “You would not. Surely?”
“The world is much bigger than you, Señor Santiago. This skull is far too valuable for what it can do to sit untouched and forgotten in a museum. I will use it for what it was intended. With it, I shall be a god amongst men.”
“I won’t let you do that.” Juan clenched his teeth.
Gonzalez laughed again. “You and what army?” He spread his hands as if inviting one and shrugged. “There. Exactly. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to be late.” He turned away, towards the cabin on his boat to start the engines. “Ah, of course.” He turned back to us with a gleam in his eyes. “Even after everything, no hard feelings, but you’ll understand, I can’t leave any loose threads behind.”
With that, Gonzalez thrust his hands at us. I knew the crackle of magic would hit my senses in a moment, and on a reflex, flung out a shield to surround us both. Not an instant too soon, the blinding flash and bang of magic colliding with it stunned us for just a second, and then my shield had disintegrated, and I fired back with my own brand of attack, sending a rushed charge of energy back towards him.
His attack was far more powerful than I had imagined, and that told me two things: he was far more powerful than the two of us combined, and I had to be careful, because more than likely, we would have to outwit him.
I had no time to think because he followed his first attack with a second, even more powerful one. Blue lightning crackled towards us, and although I flung out my own magic to deflect it, only Juan’s shield saved us.
With an unspoken agreement, we dived in opposite directions, each trying to draw him away from the other. Juan’s magic leapt forth from his outstretched fingers — all elements summoned — and for a moment, surprise crossed Gonzalez’s face again that Juan had also concealed his own Magicai skills from him before it set once more in a grimace.
A fiery jaguar pounced onto the yacht, followed by a watery spider monkey that clambered from the sea onto the deck, and wispy birds, nothing more than wraithlike clouds, peppered and pecked at Gonzalez, diving upon him in a mob.
He vaporised them all in a moment with a snap of his hands, but the distraction was a
ll we needed, and when his vision cleared, we were gone.
He prowled upon the deck, and I could feel tendrils of his magic worming through the air, trying to feel us out. Without a sound, I made myself disappear; his magic would not be able to sense me. To him, I would be invisible and utterly unperceivable — a nifty trick I had learned in Peru, but that’s a tale for another time. It wasn’t the first time it had come in handy.
Protected by my wards, I crept closer, dancing past the tendrils of magic he sent to seek us. They were as invisible as I was, but after a life working with magic, I could feel them as clearly as if they were physical snakes stretching across the docks. Unseen to Gonzalez, I ran up the gangway as light-footed as Juan’s fire jaguar, which had once more swirled into existence and prowled the docks, unable to find an opening in Gonzalez’s own shield.
My ward, however, circumvented it all. I was neither a physical object his shield could repel nor a magical construct. I did not suppress my gleeful smile, teeth bared and all, as I slipped right into his circle of protection. He wheeled around immediately. He must have felt my presence crossing the threshold of his protection, but seeing nothing was there, whipped to face the jaguar again, which had prowled closer in his moment of distraction, circling his protection with its teeth gleaming in a soundless snarl.
I summoned the magic to me once more. His shield was powerless from within, and as balls of magic formed in my palms, I flung them outwards. For a moment, they shattered, hanging, as they collided with the invisible wall in the air, and then the magic caught, and ripped outwards, tearing the shield to shreds as it crisscrossed it in lightening-like veins, and disintegrated it into nothing.
