The Storm Runner

by J. C. Cervantes

  The alux snarled as Brooks took it higher and higher, spinning in circles so fast that even I got dizzy.

  I raced toward my mom. Her neck was bleeding, but the cut wasn’t deep.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  She pressed her fingers to her wound. “I’m fine. Just a scratch.”

  Brooks let out a horrible screech, but I couldn’t see her anywhere. Was she all right? I hobbled across the field, weaving between the cows, wishing I could fly, too.

  Then came the sound of bones breaking. Monster bones, I hoped.

  11

  Brooks circled above and the moonlight caught the tips of her widespread wings. It was an awesome sight.

  Mom glanced around. “What happened to the alux?”

  “Brooks took care of it,” I answered with a goofy sort of smile. Ms. Cab had said nawals were tricksters, but she had to be wrong, because Brooks had just saved our lives.

  Mom looked utterly confused. “The girl from school?”

  “She’s… she’s sort of a hawk.” I pointed to the sky.

  “Hawk?” Mom looked up, mouth agape.

  “She’s a shape-shifter.”

  “Shape-shifter… Okay…” Mom narrowed her eyes. “What’s going on, Zane? What aren’t you telling me?”

  What was I not telling her? How is it moms always know how to turn the tables?

  Before I could answer, Brooks landed in hawk form next to us. The air shimmered and she was human again. “You guys okay?”

  I nodded. “How’d you find us?”

  Brooks blushed. Actually blushed! “Hawks have exceptional hearing. And eyesight. Superior to every animal in the world,” she said. “Makes tracking pretty easy.”

  She’d been following me and didn’t want to admit it. Being the nice guy I am, I let her off the hook. I mean, since my mom was there and everything.

  “Th-thank you,” Mom stuttered, looking a little stunned.

  “You totally got rid of that thing!” I said.

  “The little monsters hate heights,” she said casually. “Best way to take care of them is to… are you sure you want to know?”

  I rolled my eyes. I’d killed a demon runner! Or had she forgotten?

  Brooks said, “I snapped its neck and dropped it into a den of coyotes.”

  “Okay, kids, help me out here. I’m lost,” said Mom. “What’s going on?”

  Brooks looked at me warily, but she didn’t need to worry. I wasn’t going to spill. Ms. Cab was right—Mom would do anything to save me. She’d risked her own life with that psychotic dwarf-thing. The less she knew, the safer she’d be.

  “I… I don’t know.” The lie tasted worse than all the ones I’d thrown up earlier. “But we should go back to the bank, make sure Hondo’s okay.”

  Mom scowled. “You’re going home, where you’ll be safe.”

  I started to argue, but Brooks shook her head. “Hondo’s fine. They don’t want him.”

  “How do you know?” I asked. “That thing attacked him. It could’ve killed him.”

  “I was following it,” Brooks said. “Hondo held his own. Which is super impressive, because aluxes might be small, but they can be vicious.”

  Relieved, I got into the car, sliding into the backseat with Brooks. Mom turned the key and the engine started right up.

  “Did that thing temporarily freeze the engine or something?” I asked as Mom drove the two miles toward home.

  She told us that aluxes were magical and masters at playing games with humans. Okay, so she knew a thing or two about Maya creatures. What else did she know?

  Brooks crossed her arms and whispered, “They’re vile little monsters, created by someone for a specific purpose. So the question is…”

  I gazed out the window. Who’s trying to kill me?

  “Why would it come after you, Zane?” Mom’s voice trembled.

  Brooks offered, “Mistaken identity. Happens all the time. I actually think it was after me.”

  I immediately saw what she was doing, and I was impressed she could think on her feet like that. She didn’t want my mom to worry or get in the middle of this. That made two of us.

  “Okay, then why would an alux be after you?” Even though the question was directed at Brooks, Mom looked at me in the rearview mirror, and I could see the doubt in her eyes.

  Brooks fabricated some big story about how her dad traded antiques around the world and the alux’s owner had accused him of selling her a fake Maya death mask. It all went south from there. Brooks got separated from her dad the night it all went down, and she hadn’t been able to find him afterward. Now she was on the run.

  She was seriously convincing.

  Mom’s shoulders sagged. “So you have no one?”

  Brooks looked out the window. “I’m trying to find the only real family I have left.”

  Something told me that wasn’t a lie.

  My head was swimming in a million directions. So someone had sent the monster to kill me, to prevent me from releasing Ah-Puch….But who? Hadn’t Ms. Cab said that only she, some dead seers, and now Brooks knew about the ancient prophecy?

  I wanted to ask Mom to finish her sentence, That half-breed is the son of… but it was too awkward with Brooks in the car. To be honest, I didn’t really want to talk to Mom right then. It would only lead to her asking me loads of questions I wasn’t ready to answer. Maybe we could have a serious talk after the eclipse. Then I’d finally find out who my father was.

  Hondo was home when we got there, wearing down the carpet in the living room with his anxious pacing. He had a puffy eye and a bloodied lip. “It’s about time!”

  “Come on,” Mom said, and we all went into the kitchen, where she pulled some wrapped burritos from the Frigidaire and nuked them. Brooks pecked at the edges of her tortilla. I must have been starving, because I wolfed down two while Hondo told us his war story.

  Thankfully, it had been so dark in the bank when the lights went out that Hondo never figured out he was fighting an ancient Maya elf or whatever it was called. And the security cameras hadn’t picked up anything, because they had “strangely” malfunctioned. After we left, the intruder had run off. Hondo had pulled the alarm and stuck around to answer the cops’ questions about the “attempted robbery.”

  “What the hell was that little thing?” he said. “It had some serious moves. I mean, not as good as mine, but still….”

  “A wanted criminal,” Mom blurted. “Works for an underground organization, some kind of mafia.”

  I couldn’t believe how fast the lie came out.

  “A mini mafioso?” Hondo asked. “Kind of like that wrestler, the Goblin. Remember him, Zane? Real small, but wicked fast.”

  By the time we finished eating, Mom looked exhausted. “We should all get some rest. We can talk more in the morning.” She turned to Brooks. “You’ll stay here tonight.”

  What? A girl spending the night? In my house? Then I realized I actually had no idea where Brooks went whenever she took off. When she agreed to stay over, my breath hitched in my throat. I offered my room, but Mom said Brooks could have hers.

  “I’ll sleep in the chair in Zane’s room,” Mom said when Brooks tried to argue. “To make sure…” She hesitated. “Just in case.”

  “I can take care of myself, Mom!”

  She messed up my hair playfully. “Maybe I want you to take care of me,” she said with a smile.

  While Mom did the dishes, I went to find Brooks. She was sitting on the edge of Mom’s bed, kicking her feet. I briefly thought about what Ms. Cab had said about not being able to trust her. But she’d just saved our butts, and evil people didn’t do that sort of thing. “Brooks?”

  She stared straight ahead with a faraway look in her eyes. “Whoever sent that alux is going to figure out it didn’t succeed.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Someone wants to stop you from releasing Ah-Puch, and they’re willing to kill you to do it.”

  “The demon runners
are rooting for me to do it, and some mysterious person wants to prevent me from doing it. Who do you think it could be?” I swallowed the lump in my throat, thinking about all the creatures in my Maya book, trying to decide which was the least evil.

  “No idea,” Brooks said. “Ah-Puch has a lot of enemies. It could be anyone.”

  I was sort of hoping she could help me narrow it down through the process of elimination. Then at least I’d know what I was dealing with and where I stood. But, truth be told, I didn’t even know where I stood with Brooks. “How did you find out about the prophecy in the first place?”

  Brooks’s mouth was a thin line. “Secrets like that are hard to keep.”

  That’s how it was in school, too. Someone would tell a secret at lunch and by the end of the day, the whole school knew about it. I picked mindlessly at a chip of paint on the doorjamb.

  “Who told you?” I asked.

  “I promised I wouldn’t tell.” She looked miserable, like she wanted to break that promise. “I… I would if I could.”

  I didn’t know what to believe. On the one hand, Brooks acted like a friend most of the time, but she was so secretive and mysterious. On the other hand, Ms. Cab had warned me not to trust her. Why would she tell me nawals are tricksters if it wasn’t true?

  “You saved my mom. So… um… thanks.” Then our eyes met. It was really hard to concentrate when she looked at me like that, all soft and understanding. I cleared my throat. “We have to stop Ah-Puch.”

  “We will.”

  The way she said it, with all that determination in her voice, made my spine tingle. I tapped my fingers on the door and said good night.

  Back in my room, I sat on my bed and pulled out the Maya book again. There were so many gods, legends, and creatures, and all of them had different names and stories, depending on the Maya region of either Mexico or Central America. Mom had said my dad was from the Yucatán, but nothing in the book was categorized by geography. I fell back against my pillow in frustration. My muscles ached. My eyes burned. I closed them for a second….

  When I opened them again, it was already two in the afternoon. The eclipse was only three hours away. How had I slept for so long?

  I stumbled into the living room, where Hondo was watching TV, as usual.

  “Where’s Mom?”

  Hondo didn’t look up. “Had to give the cops a statement. Then she had something else to take care of.”

  “Take care of?”

  “Yeah. She said she’d be back tomorrow and you’re supposed to stay home with me. Don’t worry, kid. I’ll make sure you don’t starve.”

  Sudden gusts rattled the windows. Thunder crashed in the distance.

  “Why didn’t she wake me up?”

  “She tried, but you were dead to the world.”

  I rubbed my head. It must’ve been the tea Ms. Cab gave me.

  “Iron Skull’s wrestling,” Hondo said. “Want to watch?”

  “What about Brooks? Is she still here?”

  “Think I saw her out back. Why she’d want to be in this nasty wind, I have no idea.” He rocketed off the couch when Iron Skull body-slammed his opponent. “Did you see that?”

  Something felt off. Where would Mom go that would take more than a day? Maybe it was a good thing she wouldn’t be here for the eclipse. My stomach turned when I remembered what I had to face. Ms. Cab better get here soon with Rosie, I thought.

  I started for the back door, then realized I was in yesterday’s clothes and probably smelled like Hondo’s gym bag. So I took a record-breaking thirty-second shower and brushed my teeth. As I was pulling a T-shirt over my head, I heard a long howl in the tangled wind. I froze, not sure it was real.

  There it was again.

  “Rosie?”

  I’d know that cry anywhere.

  It was Rosie! Ms. Cab had brought her back!

  With my cane in hand, I lumbered outside and looked around the yard. No Rosie. I was about to head to Ms. Cab’s when I realized which direction the cries were coming from.

  The volcano.

  12

  A voice in my head was screaming, Don’t do it! But this was Rosie. My Rosie!

  I hobbled past Nana’s headstone and across the desert, zigzagging between the mesquite and ocotillo. A jackrabbit skirted out from a bush, and I nearly stumbled over it.

  Huge black clouds formed, so thick they blocked out the sun. The wind kicked and screamed, doing its best to knock me off my feet, but I pressed on toward the Beast, still hearing Rosie’s cries, and keeping an eye out for Brooks the whole time. When I got to the secret entrance, Rosie’s cries sounded even more desperate.

  I scurried inside, crawling through the narrow passage and then balancing carefully down the steep slope to the bottom. There was nothing but heart-stopping silence. Even the wind had stopped howling.

  “Rosie?” My voice squeaked.

  The place still reeked of vomit and rot, which reminded me of the demon runner, and just thinking about that stinking monster made me want to punch something. Suddenly, my blood ran hot—so hot, I felt like I might burn from the inside out. That’s when I looked down at my throbbing hand. It was covered in yellow ooze. The demon runner must have left slimy residue on the wall I had touched.

  Panic rose fast and furious. The poison! It pulsed and stung. My skin began to puff up with big purple welts. Sweat trickled down my neck, and when I wiped it away with my clean hand, I saw that my perspiration was yellow.

  I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths.

  I heard the rustle of wings behind me. When I opened my eyes I saw Brooks the hawk swoop into the chamber. She changed into her human form right before my eyes. I didn’t think I’d ever get tired of seeing that kind of magic—the way the air shimmered around her in blues and golds and greens.

  Brooks’s eyes searched my face, then landed on my neck. “The poison. We have to get it out.”

  “I’ll be fine.” My blood would protect me, Ms. Cab had said. But without her tea as a pain suppressant, how bad would it hurt? On a scale of one to ten, I was shooting for a one.

  Brooks shook her head. “The poison’s had time to ferment since yesterday,” she said. “It’s more toxic now.”

  I snapped. Maybe it was the poison talking, but when your blood’s boiling, and venom is in your bloodstream, and you have no idea if you’re half monster, you do and say things that are completely whacked. “Why’d you really come here? If this Ah-Puch is so wicked and can really destroy the whole world, then why send some random girl to find him?”

  Brooks clenched her jaw. I could tell she was trying to decide if she should let me have it with words or with a punch to the gut. She did neither. “I can help you.”

  “I don’t need your help!”

  Brooks ignored me. “It’s going to hurt.”

  Why do people always say that? As if the warning somehow makes it better. Truth is, I’d rather not have known what she was about to do. But I found myself nodding, and she changed back into a hawk before I could stop her talon from slicing my arm open from elbow to wrist.

  The pain was terrible. Yellow ooze rushed out of me instead of blood, pooling on the ground, where it sizzled and smoked. And let me tell you, it smelled worse than ten-day-old fish and vomit combined. I gagged.

  Brooks took her human form and said, “Squeeze it out,” while she demonstrated by kneading her own arm.

  My eyes were half-closed and I shook my head. Had I been more coherent I might’ve screamed N to the NO!, but my hand must’ve ignored my brain, because it started to squeeze.

  The burning was worse than anything I’d ever felt. A million whispers bounced off the cave walls, angry and tormented. The cave began to spin, and I thought I might pass out.

  Then, gradually, everything came back into focus. The whispers disappeared, and bit by bit my pulse steadied until I felt like myself again. When I looked down at my arm, the wound closed up right before my eyes. “That’s freaking amazing!” I felt sup
ernatural and totally awesome. My skin had just healed itself!

  “It’s a nawal thing.”

  “Pretty sure it has to do with me being supernatural.”

  Brooks gave a small shrug.

  I shook out my arm. “How’d you find me?”

  “I knew you’d be reckless enough to come back here alone. I was waiting, up top,” she said, pointing above. “But when I called to you, the wind swallowed my voice.” She inched closer. “So, the magic summoned you?”

  “No, but I heard Rosie.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Her cries. They were so loud I was sure she was here.”

  Brooks’s face fell. “That… that wasn’t Rosie, Zane. Don’t you see? They’re tricking you.”

  “I know what I heard!”

  Taking my hand, she said, “The eclipse is coming, and we have to find the artifact before then. I can’t do it without you. You’re the one in the prophecy.”

  “And then what?”

  “I have to leave.”

  “But you just got here!” I blurted out. I couldn’t help it. I’d only known her for a few days, but the idea of life without Brooks around seemed so…boring.

  “Do you hear Rosie now?” she asked.

  I shook my head and circled the cave. Careful to avoid toxic slime, I pressed my ear to the walls like maybe my dog was inside one of them.

  Brooks followed closely, speaking in hushed tones. “You’re right, you know. Who am I to think I can stop the evilest god of all time? I’m doing it to…” Her voice trailed off. Then she added, “I’m only part nawal. It’s why I can’t shape-shift into anything except a hawk—no one wants to train a half-breed. But if I could accomplish something big, I wouldn’t be a nothing my whole life.”

  I recalled what the alux had said to my mom. “Yeah, being a half-breed nothing would officially suck.” I kicked a rock across the ground.

  “Ugh! I’m so stupid! That’s not what I meant. I mean—”

  “It’s okay. I get what you mean.” I could identify with her need to be something bigger, a better version of herself. “So nobody sent you? You just, like, ran away?”