“He knew about the Prophecy of Fire, Brooks! How?”
Brooks looked shaken. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
I looked over my shoulder. “He said a storm was coming! Maybe I should pay him to read my future….”
“NO!” Brooks shouted. Then she took me by the shoulders and made me look into her eyes. “You make your future, Zane. Got it? All these other things? Distractions. Now come on. You have to stay focused.”
“But what if he can help us?”
Hondo ran to catch up. He was holding a rolled poster. “What’s all the arguing about?”
“We weren’t arguing,” I said, clenching my jaw.
“Yes, we were,” Brooks said as we continued walking.
Hondo gave me a sorry-dude-but-you-were-totally-arguing look.
It was pretty awful when you saw and heard things other people didn’t. Maybe being part god had fried my brain and I was officially deranged. Or it could have been some more shadow magic to distract me. Or that guy was just my imagination at work. Oh God, maybe Pacific hadn’t been real, either….
I reached into my pocket. Relief spread through me as my fingers found the jade still there.
As we hurried down the boardwalk, I kept wondering why my dad would want to give me a jaguar tooth, of all things….Why not something useful, like a sword, or poison-tipped daggers? Heck, why not help me bring down Ah-Puch himself? If my mom had his kind of powers, she’d take on the whole world to save me.
I wondered if she was worried about us. Maybe I should try to call her…. Bad idea. She might wig out and force us to come home. Then a brilliant idea struck me. I could ask Ms. Cab about her the next time the chicken appeared in one of my dreams.
We made our way past more booths, vendors, and street artists. Hondo nearly collapsed when he saw Muscle Beach—a whole gym right there on the boardwalk with huge dudes pumping iron in the sun. He stopped in front of the bright blue railing and smiled like a little kid. “This is awesome!” But Brooks urged us on, saying she just wanted to get this over with.
Halfway down the boardwalk, Brooks led us into a store called Jazz-E.
There were rows of colorful bikes, with a few scooters and longboards mixed in. Dozens of surfboards lined the walls. Toward the back of the shop was a little corner filled with postcards, shells, and other trinkets. The walls were painted gold and pink, and the place smelled like the cotton-candy booth at the state fair.
“Are we renting a bike?” Hondo asked.
Brooks shook her head and went up to the cashier at the back of the store. His face was planted in one of those tabloid magazines, but I could see he was huge. Even sitting, I guessed he was at least eight feet tall. He wore an eye patch, a silver hoop in one ear, and a plaid vest with gold buttons. He looked more like a pro-wrestling fashion pirate than a store clerk.
“It’s a fine day for blood,” Brooks said.
“Blood for the gods,” the giant said without looking up.
“Blood for the gods,” Brooks repeated.
Finally he raised his eyes. A huge smile spread across his clean-shaven face. “Little Hawk!” His voice boomed. He rounded the counter and scooped Brooks into his arms. “I thought I might never see you again.”
Standing up, the guy looked even weirder! He wore torn jeans and flip-flops the size of doormats. At least he had a shirt on under his vest.
“Hey, Jazz.” Brooks relaxed into his hug and smiled.
When he set her down, her cheeks were flushed.
“Don’t tell me you’re back,” he said, lifting one brow. “Surprised you got by the gatekeeper without me getting a phone call,” Jazz said. “The guy’s slacking.”
“Gatekeeper?” I asked.
That was the first time Jazz noticed me. Yeah, he was big and burly and sported more than a few tattoos on his arms, but the guy was like a jolly giant. He couldn’t stop smiling. Except when he looked at me. Then the smile disappeared like mist. “Who’s this?” he asked.
“I’m Zane,” I said, trying to sound cool, or at least not like a big chicken. But seriously, this guy could’ve smashed me under one flip-flop if he’d wanted to.
“We’re friends,” Brooks said. “And this is Hondo. He’s a wrestling champ,” she added, like he had just won a trophy yesterday.
Hondo tried to make himself a few inches taller by standing on tiptoe when he shook the big cashier’s hand. And his voice went a few notches deeper. “Good to meet you, man.”
“This is Jazz, descendant of the great Maya giants,” Brooks said.
“Jazz-E,” the giant corrected. “And no, I didn’t steal my name from Jay-Z. More like the other way around. But you can call me Jazz. Just don’t confuse me with Sipakna,” he insisted. “That hombre was an arrogant, wicked giant, giving us all a bad name. I come from much better stock.”
Whoa! I was in the presence of a real live giant! But how did Brooks know him? Was he some long-lost relative? A friend of the family’s?
Jazz’s gray eye crinkled around the edges when he looked at Brooks. “Any amigos of Little Hawk’s are…” He hesitated, then laughed. “Ha! Kidding. I don’t keep amigos.” Then to Brooks, “What brings you back here? I know you don’t need a surfboard.”
Brooks glanced around the shop. “I need… to see them. Jordan and Bird.”
Who were they? I wondered.
Jazz crossed his boulder-size arms over his chest. “After what they did—?”
“Jazz…” Brooks’s voice trembled. “My friends… they need to talk to the twins, and you know the only way they might help…”
“Is to trade magic or play their game.” Jazz nodded gravely like we were asking him to supply us with daggers for hand-to-hand combat.
“We don’t have any magic to trade, and what do you mean game?” I asked. Brooks hadn’t said anything about a game before this. “Like Monopoly?” I guessed. Or maybe Scrabble. I was a champ at Scrabble. Or maybe he meant mind games. I got a terrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Hondo, on the other hand, was beaming, practically salivating at the idea of competition.
Jazz rubbed his chin as he went back behind the counter, mumbling something under his breath. He tapped some buttons on the cash register, then pulled out two quarter-size black stones. They were round, flat, and shiny.
“What’s this?” Hondo said, taking one from the giant.
“Our key to see the twins,” Brooks said.
“Made from ancient obsidian,” Jazz added. “Magician stone.”
“Looks like volcanic glass,” I muttered, taking the other. I’d seen it once in a museum, and I used to search the Beast for any traces of it, but I’d never found any.
Jazz closed the register and eyed me. “This kid’s smart. Where’d you find him?”
Brooks said, “It’s kind of a long story.”
“Wouldn’t have to do with—?”
Brooks cut Jazz off with an icy glare, and I wondered what she was afraid of him saying. She adjusted her pack. “So, Jazz… any trouble around here?”
He leaned forward, raising a brow. “What kind of trouble?”
“You know—creepy demons, angry gods, that sort of thing,” I said.
“The kind that ride motorcycles,” Hondo added.
I watched Jazz carefully. There was something about him… the way his face twitched and his eyes shifted. It looked like he was uncomfortable in his own skin—like he was wearing a mask.
“Well,” Jazz said, “if you’re talking about Loser of the Underworld, no. We haven’t seen him. Word on the street is he’s out for revenge. All sorts of theories are flying around: he’s aligning with his brothers, searching for his underlords, looking to free every enemy of the gods. No one knows for sure. But we’ve got eyes everywhere. The whole boardwalk is filled with our guys: jugglers, acrobats—”
“They work for you?” Hondo asked.
“Every vendor out there works for the twins,” Jazz said.
“But�
�” Hondo began.
“I know,” Jazz said. “They’re meant to look like regular humans. Can’t wear a sign around our necks, now, can we?”
So the tarot reader was a gatekeeper. I wondered how many other people I’d met were part of this Maya mayhem, hiding in plain sight.
“You need to protect more than the boardwalk,” Brooks said to Jazz.
He nodded. “We’ve got them posted at each of the cosmic roads, too.”
I was about to ask what the heck a cosmic road was when Brooks explained. “Magic roads the gods travel.”
That wasn’t in my book.
“Don’t worry, Little Hawk,” Jazz said. “We used extra magic to guard the place. The twins even shut down their lair, moved uptown.”
“What do you mean moved?” Brooks said. “They’ve been here… for, like, ever.”
“Security’s orders. But their new crib? Man, it’s incredible. The view…” He sighed.
“How far is it?” I asked. I mean, what if they’d relocated to Nebraska?
But Jazz didn’t answer. He merely shook his head, then pounded his fist into his palm. “Believe me, when I catch the idiot bonehead who let Ah-Puch out, I’m going to send him spinning into the center of the Milky Way.”
My heart skipped a beat. “Yeah,” I muttered, “bonehead.” Great! Not only would the gods be after me when they found out I was a godborn, but pretty much everyone would want me dead once they found out I was the bonehead who had freed Ah-Puch.
Hondo cleared his throat. “Maybe the bonehead had a good reason.”
“Like what?” Jazz’s face went stone still.
“Like maybe it was an accident,” Hondo said. “Or maybe one of his demon runner things let him out.”
“That’s a lot of maybes….What did you say your name was? Hondo?” Jazz opened his mouth and tilted a can of Red Bull over it. Once the can was empty, he collapsed it with one hand. “Only problem is, the gods put him away, so a god had to let him out. And no god would break the Sacred Oath, so that tells me there are some dark secrets swirling around, and wherever there are secrets, there’s a teller. Give it time—someone’s going to squeal.”
My knees felt weak, and for the first time I had a terrible sense I was leading Hondo and Brooks off the edge of a high cliff.
“So all the gods know?” Brooks said, twisting her mouth.
Man, news sure traveled fast! I thought.
“Yep,” Jazz said. “But now they’re pointing fingers, fighting among themselves.” He tossed his crushed can into a trash can. “All the seers went dark.” He spoke to Brooks as if Hondo and I weren’t even there. “This is serious, Little Hawk. Very serious.”
I stuffed my hands in my pockets and gripped the jade. “So then… why don’t the gods come up with a way to recapture Ah-Puch?”
“Can’t find him, kid. Even if they could, it would start a huge war. Alliances would crack, deals would be struck, and we’d all end up dead anyway.” Then, with a shrug, he added, “I guess we’ve had peace for too long.”
Brooks turned to me and Hondo. “The Sacred Oath was meant to keep the peace.”
“Like a treaty?” I said. “Did they sign it?”
“Blood is thicker than ink,” Jazz said.
Brooks shuffled her feet uneasily, then said to Jazz, “We need one more thing….”
Jazz straightened his eye patch. “What’s that?”
“Encantamiento.”
I wondered what Brooks meant by enchantment.
Jazz nodded. “Harder to come by these days. But for you? Anything.” Then he started humming the same song the tarot-card reader had been singing.
“That song…”
Jazz leaned his beefy arms on the counter and glared at me. “What about it?”
“It’s the same…”
“Kid, you’ve never heard that song.”
I don’t know why I didn’t just walk away, or agree with the giant who was likely to send me spinning into the Milky Way. But the words forced themselves out. “The tarot reader. That’s his song. The prophesied days are a-comin’.”
The giant’s forehead started to sweat. He wiped it with the back of his hand and rose slowly, swaying.
“Jazz?” That was Brooks. “Hurry! Zane, Hondo—find some sugar.”
Jazz kept rising, or maybe his legs were growing. And before I knew it, his head had reached the ceiling, which was about fifteen feet high. One of his vest buttons popped off, and his jeans ripped along the seams. It was like watching the Hulk transform before my eyes. Except thankfully, Jazz wasn’t turning green.
“It’s his diabetes,” Brooks spat. She stepped between me and the giant and held her arms out in front of her. “Jazz, it’s okay. I’ll get you some more Red Bull. Or some chocolate.” She glanced around quickly. “Any candy around here?”
Hondo hurried across the store but came back empty-handed.
“So you met Santiago.” Jazz spoke slowly, but his voice had raised a few decibels, shaking the walls and hammering my eardrums. “That’s very interesting.”
Brooks found a small chocolate and handed it to her giant friend. “Come on, you know what happens when your sugar level drops. Eat this.”
Jazz’s eye grew bloodshot and his face became ashen. Reluctantly, he took the chocolate and didn’t even bother to unwrap it before he popped it in his mouth. I quickly slipped behind the counter before he could stomp me like a bug, and there I found a stash of Red Bulls. Up close, his huge toes were nasty and very hairy. He seriously needed to clip those nails.
I tossed a six-pack to Brooks, who opened each can and handed them over before the giant’s head rammed through the roof.
Jazz guzzled two cans, then staggered. His eye ballooned, he hiccupped, and then came a burp with the force of an arctic blast, except this was warm and wet and blew my hair back. And the stench? If you can imagine Coke mixed with beans and rotting cabbage, you’ve got a good idea of the smell.
Hondo fell back, covering his nose and mouth. “Dude, gross!”
Slowly, Jazz began to shrink back to his normal eight-foot status. “Ohhhh…” He mopped his brow with a towel. “That was a relief.”
Brooks tapped her foot impatiently. “You know you need to keep your sugar level up. Your diabetes is serious. How many times have I told you?”
Jazz threw his hands in the air. “I’m trying, okay?” Then his gray eye met mine and held my gaze for a long three-count. “You’re sure you met Santiago?”
“Uh…” Was that a trick question?
“You couldn’t have seen him,” he said, like he was answering his own question.
“Why not?” I asked, insulted. I know what I saw.
“He’s invisible.”
“Oh,” I said sarcastically. “I mean, if you put it that way.” I hesitated, then let the truth rip. “I still saw him!”
Jazz narrowed his eye. “So tell me, Zane”—he stretched my name long and thin—“who are you, really? And what are you doing here?”
I wasn’t about to admit I was the bonehead he wanted to crush, or a godborn. Geez, how many wanted lists could I be on? I tugged my sweatshirt sleeve lower to cover the god of death’s stupid mark and stuffed my hand in my pants pocket.
Brooks shifted uneasily. I could tell she wanted to say something but didn’t know what. That was a first.
“I’m searching for my dad,” I blurted.
Jazz grunted like he knew it was a half-truth. I didn’t like the way he was ogling me. It was like he was thinking liar, liar, liar, and the more he thought it, the hotter I felt. The jade turned over in my hand and pulsated.
Had someone turned on a heater? The room started to spin. Slowly at first, then so hard and fast I felt myself being ripped away from my body, one ragged thread at a time.
A terrible pain gripped me in my leg, like a million white-hot pokers were stabbing every nerve. I wanted to scream in agony, but nothing came out.
The last voice I heard was Hondo’s.
>
“Stop the bleeding!”
21
There was a sudden mind-numbing rush. Then everything was a spinning blur—swirls of color, mist, and words.
Now, now, now.
Had the whole world turned upside down or… was I dead? I wondered. I was just in Jazz’s store when… when I collapsed? No, I disappeared. No, that wasn’t right, either.
Ms. Cab’s voice found me in the oblivion: “Hold on tight, Zane.”
The spinning stopped, and I blinked. My eyes cut through the darkness. But my vision had changed. Things seemed bigger, and their edges were fuzzier. It was like I was looking through eyes that weren’t mine.
The night smelled of salt and ruin. To my left was the glimmering sea, as black as the Beast’s walls. To my right were massive stone structures—pyramids with narrow dirt paths that gave way to a green jungle. And I was on top of another pyramid, high above it all.
My heart pounded. How the heck had I gotten here?
This is only a dream, I thought. Any second now, Ms. Cab’s going to march her chicken self out and start screaming at me.
I willed myself back to Jazz’s, but nothing happened. Fine, I’d climb the hundreds of crumbling steps that led down from the pyramid to some sort of plaza below. I’d hack my way through the jungle if I had to!
I was about to get to my feet when I saw two huge spotted paws stretched out in front of me. I swallowed hard, hoping that the beast those paws were connected to was sleeping. Okay, so maybe I wasn’t going to just cruise out of here.
Carefully, I inched my arm back.
A paw followed.
My breath stuck in my throat. I waited a few seconds, then flexed my fingers softly.
Claws emerged from the outstretched paw. What the…? That paw was mine! I screamed, but it came out a roar. And not even a good one. More like a raspy little cough. I looked down at my legs, my chest. I swiveled my head to see my muscular spotted back. Yep! I was a jaguar, all right.
My body stiffened. My ears pricked, nostrils flared. Even the fur on my spine stood straight up. I wasn’t alone.
A shadow shifted. As if by instinct, I crouched lightly on the pads of my paws. From a darkened doorway, another jungle cat emerged. He stalked toward me. His fur was obsidian black and shone almost silver in the moonlight.
The Storm Runner Page 17
