by David Bowles
Carol’s heart ached suddenly as it hadn’t in some time.
“She’s in there.”
Johnny squeezed her hand and then let go. “Yeah. I can feel her, too. Let’s go save her, no?”
As they began to move toward the fortress a huge parliament of owls fluttered out of its crevices to settle all around them, hemming them in. Huge lechuzas and smaller tecolotes cocked their heads silently and wouldn’t move aside. When Johnny tried to push some out of the way with his foot, a group of them lifted into the air before him, hovering in silent menace, talons at the ready.
“Dude, what the heck?”
“I wonder…Maybe if we shift into flying creatures we can just go above them.”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
“But then they might see us as even more of a threat. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not spend a lot of time fighting a horde of owls right now. Bigger fish and all. Yikes, excuse the mixed metaphors.”
Without warning, the wall of owls parted and a strange beast approached, a sort of were-owl: a huge avian head atop a feathered, humanoid body, its legs bent like a bird’s and ending in enormous talons, its arms vast wings that presently hung somewhat like a feathered cape. It jerked forward with a strange strutting step and regarded them, hostility and violence in its eyes.
“Ah, hell, no.” Johnny took his own owl feather in his hand.
“Johnny, no, don’t antagonize the…”
As usual, he didn’t listen to her. Instead he shifted partially, imitating the being’s form to a great degree.
“You’re not the only one with a sharp beak, bro,” he muttered gutturally.
“Foolish shifter,” replied the were-owl with a hollow, reedy voice. “I have worn this form for longer than your weak race has walked the earth, ever since the Third Age, when rains of flame effaced the world. Do you actually expect I will be in the slightest intimidated by your mocking me?”
“Probably not, but just so you know, I’m not intimidated by how super old you are, dude. Who freaking cares if you’ve been eating bird seed for a million years? I’ll still kick your feathered butt if you don’t get out of the way.”
“For what purpose do you approach Chicunamictlan?”
Johnny laughed. “Chicano Mictlan? Qué onda, homie…is this where raza go when they die?”
“Insolent gib, speak not with disrespect of Chicunamictlan, the mighty Halls of Death.”
“So that’s the name of the fortress?” Carol broke in, trying to diffuse the tension.
“Indeed. Within its dark, blood-tinged depths, souls find their final extinction. But you are living humans, and you cannot pass.”
“Oh, yeah?” Johnny’s voice was a snarl. “And who’s going to stop us, huh?”
“I am Prince Muan, chief among the Tlatlacatecolo, Keeper of Mictlantecuhtli’s Strigine Brigade.”
“Huh? Chief among the tacos locos? Keeper of the grimy braids?” Johnny turned to Carol. “Can you translate?”
She sighed. “He takes care of the owls.”
“Ah.” He made a dismissive motion with one wing. “Man, you dudes need to tune into TV shows or surf the Internet or something. You talk like dead people. Oh, sorry, that’s right.”
Visibly controlling himself, Prince Muan spread his wings slightly. “You have yet to respond to my question. What brings you to this place?”
Carol didn’t wait for Johnny to smart off again. “We’re here for our mother. She’s in there,” she motioned with her head toward the fortress, “so that’s where we’re going. We’ve crossed all the required obstacles, Prince Muan, and I’m pretty sure that means we get an audience with Lord and Lady Death. So…if you’ll just have your brigade get out of our way, we’ll go talk to them.”
“Impossible, wench. They are presently indisposed. Governing the Underworld is no child’s game, understand. They have not the time to entertain the sniveling requests of every…”
“Let them approach.”
Two voices, in unison, uttered the words with enough volume that the parliament of owls actually shook, their feathers ruffled by the force of their rulers’ command. The voices were spectral and monstrous, utterly inhuman and creaking with hoarse and eldritch harmonics that no twelve-year-old should ever have to hear. Carol’s mind buckled at the mere thought of looking on the beings who had spoken.
Muan ducked his head in obeisance. “As you please, Great Ones. Jolom, Chabi…move aside. The two of you as well, Juraqan and Kaqix.”
The screech owls that had blocked their way wheeled off to dusky recesses in the crystalline walls of Chicunamictlan. Prince Muan made a sweeping gesture with his right wing. “Proceed. If your offerings do not satisfy my sovereigns, we will have occasion to speak one final time before I feast on your eyes.”
“Okay, that wasn’t awkward.” Johnny smirked as he returned to his human form. “Come, Carol. Let’s leave this loser behind us.”
They crossed the remaining distance between them and the entrance, around which scenes of death had been etched into the crystals. Bats flitted in and out of the darkness, twittering and diving at black beetles. Carol, having worn the form of a kamasotzob, felt no fear of them, but she took her brother’s proffered hand all the same, and they stepped across the threshold.
Inky blackness surrounded her, so she shifted just her eyes and let her wolf vision pierce the dark. They were proceeding along a corridor whose shape and dimensions varied unpredictably: at times the ceiling loomed yards above them; at others, it was just inches away. The walls closed in at them and then receded.
“No human mind designed this crazy place,” Johnny muttered, glancing at her with feline eyes.
“No, an ancient, sociopathic god did. And he’s got our mom.”
Johnny just grunted in reply, for the corridor had come to an end, emptying into a staggeringly cavernous hall lit by blue will-o’-the-wisps hanging suspended in the air. Ranged along the sides, standing at the ready between unevenly spaced stalagmites, were hundreds of skeletons, each clutching a spear, club or scythe. Their eyes glowed with the same blue fire that flickered above. Several turned their skulls to regard Carol, and the nape of her neck prickled with fear. But, the garrison of calacas only worried her for a moment. In the distance she could dimly see two figures.
“Come closer,” they urged in frightening voices. Snakes and scorpions skittered frantically across the floor at the sound.
Gripping Johnny’s hand more tightly, Carol kept putting one foot in front of the other. She slipped her free fingers into her pocket and felt for the bag of jewels. Oh, thank God. The sooner we get this over with, the better.
Having faced the Ajalob, she thought she would be prepared for Lord and Lady Death. She was not. The closer she came to them, the more oppressed she became by thick, swirling cehualli, as if the sovereigns of Mictlan exuded that dark magic. Her stomach twisted into knots at the sickly sweet smell of blood and flowers.
The rulers of the Underworld struck real horror in her soul.
Seated on thrones molded from human bones, Lord and Leady Death loomed gigantic, nearly twice the height of a normal man and woman. He was gaunt and gray, his parchment skin pulled taut across wiry muscles and his abdomen so deeply sunken Carol could make out the outline of his spine. He wore a simple breechcloth, white with a single blue line at the fringed red edge, which was clearly dripping blood. His gnarled, thin legs were bare, but his splayed feet were fitted with black sandals. Draped across his shoulders was a tilma cape, bone white with the same turquoise stripe and fringe as his breechcloth. The cape was spattered with blood, which formed mind-twisting patterns as Carol stared. Around his neck was a yoke necklace of silver and turquoise from which small, gold-plated human skulls hung. Above this yoke, the skin of his lower jaw had been peeled away, exposing the bone. Though the rest of his face had flesh, it had worn thin and rotted in places, and his eyes were glowing red points in a circle of black. Atop his skull sat an extravagant headdress, formed of owl
feathers and silver. From each side jutted a vicious-looking spike.
His companion was a more familiar sight to Carol, though not less frightening as a result. She wore a red huipil blouse and skirt, and around her neck was a chain from which dangled human hands and skulls, small enough that Carol suspected they belonged to children. Her face was a fleshless skull over which she had draped a black mantle that extended past her knees. It glittered with silver stars. In one bony hand she grasped a black orb; in the other, a sickle.
La Santísima Muerte , thought Carol. Dressed like a twisted copy of the Virgin of Guadalupe, a mockery of Tonantzin. She’d seen the image tattooed on arms and legs, displayed on t-shirts and truck windows. Not just an Aztec deity, Godmother Death was worshipped in the 21st century in the twins’ own home town by people whose lives skirted the edge of normalcy, people for whom danger and death were occupational hazards.
I wonder if they’d be so eager to kneel to her if they were standing right here.
On the high backs of the thrones perched owls and bats. Before the Lord and Lady stood an obsidian basin. Between them, some ten yards away, a narrow archway led to the unknown bowels of the Underworld.
Johnny stood still holding on loosely to Carol’s hand. Thankfully, it seemed he had no desire for sarcasm.
Raising long, thin fingers tipped with black claws, the Lord of Death pointed to the twins. “Behold, breathing children. Having overcome every obstacle, you stand before us, we who bear the titles Mictlantecuhtli and Mictecacihuatl, King and Queen of Mictlan. You seek admittance to the deepest heart of our realm.”
Carol stammered. “Y-y-yes.”
“These are not questions, living girl,” Lady Death hissed. “Forbear speaking until you are commanded.”
Mictlantecuhtli continued. “Your purpose here is known to us. We shall not interfere with your quest, as its object is also living and therefore anathema to Mictlan. The Dark One awaits you, and you will either win passage out of our realm or be destroyed utterly. First, you must satisfy our requirements. Have you gifts with which to pay our toll?”
Swallowing heavily, Carol drew the little leather bag from her pocket and, releasing her brother’s hand, walked to the basin in front of Lord Death’s towering throne of bone. Pulling loose the drawstring, she poured the contents into the stone receptacle; the rubies, diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and amethysts shined brightly and made a tinkling sound that felt distinctively out of place in that dark hall.
Stepping back, she stared expectantly up at that giant, horrible face, choking back bile at the rank smell of rot that Mictlantecuhtli exuded. The ruler of the Underworld nodded once, satisfied.
“You may pass, Carolina Garza.”
“What…what about my brother?”
“He must pay his own price.”
Johnny finally spoke. “But I lost my gems…”
Godmother Death snarled in disgust. “Then you must offer other tender, churlish knave. Tax not our patience.”
Johnny grimaced and unslung his shield. “This belonged to Huitzilopochtli. It’s got to be valuable. I’ll hand it over to you.”
“Nothing stolen can you use, living boy.” The black orb twisted like a living thing in her hand.
“Then what I am supposed to offer, huh? You want the cape? You want me to rescue my mom in my birthday suit, cochina?”
“Imbecile. I care not for baubles or bits of rock. There is something precious to me, however, flowing through your very veins. If you would pass between these thrones, you must spill some of your blood.”
Carol’s stomach dropped. “No. No, Johnny, don’t. There’s got to be another way.”
“Don’t worry, sis. I’ll be alright. It’s just a little blood. I’ll shift, heal, and be good as new.” He got closer to the stone basin and looked up at the spectral queen of the dead. “So how does this work?”
In answer, she leapt from her throne and, suspended in the air above him, slashed at his left arm with her sickle, opening a long gash from wrist to elbow. Her orb floated free as she seized his hand with bony fingers and directed the flow of blood into the stone receptacle.
“Christ! That freaking hurt, you…you…” Johnny stared at the rising level of red. “That’s enough, no? Let go of me already!”
Carol, without thinking, moved to intervene but Mictecacihuatl released her brother before she had a chance to confront the goddess. Johnny collapsed to the floor, his face white.
“Shift, Johnny, shift!”
His body jerked and twisted, and soon the jaguar lay before her, growling weakly. Struggling to all fours it bared its teeth at Lady Death.
“Save your crude insults for your own mother, knave. She deserves them more. Be that as it may, you have paid the toll. Begone with you.”
Twitching his tail in anger, Johnny padded between the thrones and passed through the archway. Carol followed, eager to put the skeletal sovereigns behind her, desperate to see her mother again.
Chapter Eighteen
Johnny slouched his way along the dark stones of the corridor the Black Road had become. He felt dizzy and weak, but he refused to let Carol see how drained he really was. She needs me strong. Mom needs me strong. When the time came, he figured he would be able to draw on the savage magic to sustain him. In the meanwhile, he would simply fake it.
Before long, the corridor ended at another chamber, a large cave-like structure with shallow pools of mineral water interspersed among stalagmites and other formations. At the center of the chamber lay a large obsidian mirror like the one the Little People had used to send the twins to Mictlan, but marred by a network of fine cracks that covered its surface like a snarled cobweb.
A way out?
Thoughts of escape, however, were interrupted by the sight of his mother, just a few yards from the mirror. His heart almost shattered as his animal eyes took in her brutalized form. She had a stone yoke around her neck, and a strange, glittering rope or cable ran like a lead from the yoke to a stalagmite. She was still dressed in the paint-speckled jeans and sleeveless blouse she’d been wearing on the day she disappeared. Her dark hair was tangled and matted, her face smeared with grime. Her eyes widened as she saw her daughter standing beside the jaguar.
“Mamá!” Carol shouted, and the two of them rushed to her side. Johnny shifted into human form and threw his arms around her. With shuddering sobs, she hugged them tightly.
“Oh, my beautiful children. How…how did you find me?”
“It was the Little People,” Carol explained. “They used their chay abah , a mirror like that one, to send us through.”
Johnny’s mother reached up and laid a palm on each of his cheeks. “My sweet boy…You’re a nagual, yes?”
“Yeah. So is Carol.” He touched the stone yoke, anger flooding his heart. “And we’ve got the xoxal, Mom. So don’t worry.”
He stepped back out of her embrace and partially shifted into a crocodile. Then, his joy and rage mingling in the deepest regions of his soul, Johnny pulled up enough savage magic to close his jaws around the yoke and shatter it.
Verónica Quintero de Garza stood, staring at him dumbfounded. Johnny shifted back. He checked his mother’s neck to make sure she wasn’t too badly bruised or cut and Carol stroked her hair and brushed the dust from her clothes, trying to help her feel more herself.
“Children, I am so happy to see you again,” their mother said once she had gotten over the shock of seeing her son become a were-croc, “but we need to leave this place before Tezcatlipoca returns. He orchestrated this, you understand. Los quiere aquí, wants both of you in this chamber with me. I don’t know why, but let’s not stay and find out.”
Carol looked around. At the far end of the chamber was another opening, leading who-knew-where. “Well, we can’t go back the way we came, so…”
“I was actually thinking we could use the mirror,” Johnny said.
“But we don’t know the chant,” Carol pointed out.
“No, but we’ve g
ot like savage magic and stuff, Carol. Let’s try to focus on the obsidian, see if we can’t make it start smoking and so on.”
Their mother shook her head. “No, Juan Ángel. That’s the passageway the Dark Lord uses. I’m pretty certain it doesn’t lead back to our world. At least, not any good place in our world. Olvídalo.”
“Pero, ma, si intentáramos…”
“I said forget it, m’ijo. Seriously. It doesn’t matter how powerful you think you’ve become, my love. You are not ready to face a powerful god. We need to go, now, before…”
The mirror trembled, and the three of them turned to stare at it. Smoke began curling from the cracks, as if a fire had been kindled beneath it. Strengthening this impression, strange glints of phosphorescence seemed to eddy in the mirror’s depths. But then the surface of the mirror bulged, rippling upward as if something within it were pushing out. Like Freddy in the old Nightmare on Elm Street films. Then it was as if the surface of the mirror tore, and an impossibly enormous black-spotted paw thrust itself into the air, bending and stretching forward to sink vicious ebony talons into the rocky dirt.
“Run!” their mother screamed. Johnny grabbed her hand and dashed toward the passageway, but stalagmites burst upward from the ground behind them to create a wall. Another massive paw ripped through the mirror with an audible groan, as if the very fabric of the world had been rent apart by its grappling claws.
Carol pointed at the other side of the mirror, where fewer obstructions blocked the way. The three of them ran around the base of the chay abah. Johnny kept his eyes on the emerging forelegs of the dread beast, which tensed as if against some great weight. With an agonizing howl that thrummed through the mineral ceiling and sent a shower of red dust raining against Johnny’s head and back, an indescribably huge jaguar erupted from the mirror, smoke curling from its rippling flesh as it snarled and shook itself. It slammed its paw down in their path, blocking their exit.
The ears of the jaguar, twitching this way and that, nearly scraped the chamber’s high dome, and its tail slapped angrily against the farthest wall, knocking loose shiny mineral cascades. The rocky earth recoiled against the touch of three of its deadly paws, causing them to sink deep in the ground; the fourth still trapped within the mirror, which was now as glowing and smoky as an awakening fumarole.
