Jaguar at the Portal

by Aimee Easterling

Yeah, you try not thinking about a white elephant and see how well it works out for you.

  But other than his quip, Tezzie continued to wait through his follower's monologue. Which Finn took to mean he was on the right track. Either that, or the god was trying to decide the best way to smite his impudent worshiper. Whatever.

  "In other words," the shifter concluded, "You need me. And I'm willing to help you break free if you in turn give me veto power over your schemes." Then, without waiting for the god to either argue or agree, Finn continued: "If we want to function as a team, I need to know a little bit more about how this process works. Other than switching places with Ixxie, how else can you escape from your prison with a little mortal aid?"

  I could jump into your body right now, Tez replied, his very voice a pout. Well, I could once you picked up my statue, which I can make you do any time I want....

  "So why haven't you made the switch already if it's that easy?" Finn asked, maintaining the same calm tone he'd used before. He didn't entirely believe Tezcatlipoca's assertion, but it did make sense that a god who could affect a were-jaguar's shift could also switch places with said were-jaguar at will.

  And yet, Tezzie had clearly decided not to steal Finn's body in the past. So he likely would continue feeling the same way in the future. Or at least the were-jaguar hoped that was the case.

  Because I don't want to become a mere mortal! And I don't want to share a body with you! You're too weak to make it into the statue even with a push from me, and mortal souls require a physical body.

  The god's tone added a silent "duh!" to the end of his last sentence, and Finn forced down a smile. Of course Tezzie would prefer to remain in prison indefinitely rather than accepting a second-best host, especially if the option would require sharing. Tezcatlipoca didn't seem the type who'd ever learned to divvy up a pie without taking the lion's share.

  "So, if you dropped into my body right now, you'd die when I do and then disappear?" the shifter asked, trying to understand the rules that governed his pesky deity.

  No, of course not! Now it was Tez's turn to be shocked. Gods don't die, you silly mortal. Well, we do eventually grow weaker and weaker if no one thinks about us for a while. He paused, as if trying to decide if he'd given too much away. But Finn had concluded the exact same thing aloud mere moments earlier, so Tezcatlipoca clearly felt he hadn't spilled the beans. But I'd be limited to your powers—which, let me tell you, are so puny as to be basically nonexistent—until you perished. And after that, I'd have to hop from host to host until I found someone strong enough to boost me back to godhood. The process could take centuries!

  "Okay," Finn said after mulling Tezzie's words over for a moment. "So you'd really prefer to swap places with a deity. But surely there are gods other than Ixxie in the world. What about Quetzalcoatl? You said he was your foe." And I wouldn't be burning bridges with the woman I love by entrapping him. Not that Finn wanted to shut anyone away inside the were-jaguar figurine, but it seemed like giving Tezzie at least part of what he craved was the only way out of this mess.

  Oh, his name rolls right off your tongue days later while it took several attempts to learn mine, Tez said, even more irritable than usual. Well, if you must know, Q is almost certainly more powerful than I am at the moment. I'd have to be extremely tricky if I wanted to trade places with the feathered serpent god.

  "But won't that be the case with any deity?" Finn demanded. "If you give me the facts, I'll help you. Hopefully we can find someone much stronger than a mere mortal—but who we can both agree on—to take your place in prison, and then I'll do what it takes to reel him in. After which, once you've broken free of your prison and have your own body again, you'll protect the female were-jaguar you showed me from Mirabelle. Are we agreed?"

  Yeah, sure, whatever.

  "No, Tezzie, no vague promises," Finn pushed. "Tell me what you're promising."

  Okay, Tezcatlipoca growled. If you manage to help me escape this prison and return to my godly power, then I'll save that precious she-jaguar so you can mate with her. I'll even give you a few pointers on courting.

  "Um, that last part won't really be necessary," Finn muttered under his breath. But, taunts aside, the deal was struck, so he finally felt comfortable picking up Tezcatlipoca's statue and slipping it back into his pocket.

  It looks like I'm now officially partners with a god. The only question was—how much would Finn end up regretting joining forces with a deity who had no moral compass other than looking out for himself?

  Chapter 36

  The boy was gone. He'd taken the time to build an arrow out of sticks to point Ixchel back onto the nonexistent trail, then he'd likely taken to his heels as soon as his employer walked out of sight.

  Well, I shouldn't really be surprised, the vet thought, peering up the hillside in the direction the sticks indicated. No, she wasn't startled by the boy's absence, but she also wasn't prepared for how alone she felt now that both Ixxie and Finn were absent from her life. Her guide's desertion was just the icing on the cake.

  Reaching up to finger her necklace, the vet remembered too late that even her family memento was now absent as well. She knew it had been the right decision to present the cat charm to her patron goddess, and Ixchel hadn't hesitated to make the gift once Ixxie explained that the necklace would help build a tie to her next potential priestess.

  No, she hadn't hesitated at the time. But now the necklace's absence made Ixchel feel even more bereft. Too bad doing the right thing always left her isolated and lonely.

  Or, apparently, not entirely isolated. The vet jumped as the chime of an alarm rang out above the river's gurgle, and it took her a moment to realize that the sound actually emanated from her cell phone. The device had been riding in her pocket all day despite the fact that she had no one to call, and despite assuming that there would be no reception in a Mexican wilderness area.

  "Seriously? I can pick up a call here but we barely get reception at my practice back in West Virginia?"

  Even as she muttered to herself, Ixchel was fumbling out her phone and looking at the screen. Unknown caller.

  It couldn't really be Finn, could it? Twenty-four hours both felt like too much and too little time between contacts with the were-jaguar who had turned her life upside down. Too much time because, if Finn had wanted to remain in touch, surely he wouldn't have left her stranded for an entire day without any explanation. And too little time because how could anyone, even a were-jaguar, manage to deal with Tezzie in a span that could be easily measured in hours?

  Well, Ixchel wouldn't know which of the dozens of scenarios running through her head were right until she answered the phone. So she closed her eyes and punched the talk button, not quite sure what kind of explanation she was hoping to hear.

  "Hello?" Ixchel said cautiously. Then she was glad of her vague greeting because the voice that met her ear wasn't Finn's at all. It belonged to her brother.

  "Fernando here." Her caller sounded like a soldier reporting for duty, and Ixchel grinned despite herself. Trust her oldest brother to start strong and continue forging ahead until he achieved his mission. "Don't hang up."

  "I'm listening." Those two words were all Ixchel could commit to, because the sound of Fernando's voice made her throat tighten and prompted tears to well up behind her eyes. Yes, she was smiling, but she was crying too. Which was a pretty good indication of what the vet's moods were like at the moment.

  "Antonio told me you ran away from him," Fernando said gruffly. "Ixxie, you can stop running."

  "Ixchel," the vet replied tersely. On this one point, at least, she resolved to stand firm. After all, she'd left her childhood nickname behind a decade ago. Plus, it was confusing to be referred to by the title that she'd so recently used for a god.

  "Ixchel," her brother repeated carefully. "Okay, I probably don't deserve to call you Ixxie anyway. Not after...well, everything that happened back then." The line went silent for several seconds as Ixchel and her brother bo
th remembered parents who could no longer mediate between warring siblings. For their sake, Ixchel decided she ought to listen to what her brother had to say.

  "So why don't I have to run away?" the vet asked at last. And as she spoke, she finally admitted that—despite her best intentions to be on her guard if her brothers ever caught up to her—it still meant a lot that Fernando had taken the time to call.

  And how had her brother discovered the number of a burner cell that Finn had picked up in the Villahermosa airport? Ixchel resolved to deal with that issue later.

  For now, the vet decided it was time to be entirely honest with herself. And if she were being honest, she'd concede that it had hurt when her brothers never bothered to track her down after they were released from prison.

  Perhaps, if she was no longer telling herself lies, Ixchel would also accept the fact that she hadn't really been running scared for the entire last decade. Yes, for the first year or two, she had fallen prey to nightmares about Antonio finding her and punishing her for turning him in. But after that, she'd stopped herself from reaching out to her brothers mostly because she'd been flattened by the notion that her siblings didn't even care enough to bother finding their sister to exact revenge.

  "It would make more sense if I told you a little bit about what we're doing now," Fernando answered slowly as the vet felt her way through her own convoluted emotions. "But I don't want you to hang up on me while I'm talking. You won't, will you, Ixxi...Ixchel?"

  Geez. Now Fernando suddenly wanted to turn sweet and caring? Ixchel was going to be crying too hard to speak any minute now, but she was able to force out a few words first. "I won't hang up, Nando."

  The vet could almost hear her brother's smile coming through the ether and into her cell phone. Fernando had always possessed the most engaging grin, probably why he'd been married with two children by the time his kid sister graduated from high school. Back then, to stand in front of Nando's smile was like basking in the sun after a long winter night, and Ixchel let her eyelids drift shut now so her brother's words could bring back fond memories.

  "Okay, so I was able to get your phone number because I'm with the CIA now," he started. "I pulled some strings."

  "CIA!" Despite herself, the vet's eyelids flew up. "Then you probably could have found me anytime you wanted."

  "Yeah, I did find you. Years ago. But, Ixxie, you didn't want to be found. It was obvious from the way you traveled clear across the country to go to school. The way you never even contacted Maria or gave anyone a forwarding address. We'd done so much to you...." He paused again, then went on: "I thought you deserved your privacy. So I told the boys to leave you alone."

  All this time, Ixchel had assumed that her brothers hadn't cared enough to hunt her down, and now she found that their absence was instead due to a decree by the new patriarch of the clan. Even when their father had been alive, her oldest brother had been a natural leader. Now, with Papá gone, Ixchel suspected that all of her siblings listened when Fernando spoke.

  "So why was Antonio at Maria's then?" she asked after digesting this realignment of the past.

  "Well, you know he always was a maverick."

  Despite his words, Fernando's voice was still warm, and Ixchel suddenly wondered if she'd read the situation all wrong. Had Antonio been ready to break down the door of her bedroom that morning because he wanted to get back at her for past betrayals...or did her sibling simply want to see his baby sister as much as she craved seeing him? "Yeah, I guess so," she murmured. "Let me guess. He's a spy now too."

  "I'm not a spy, baby sister," Fernando grumbled. "And, no, Antonio isn't with the CIA. He's a CFO—chief financial officer—at a big-name bank."

  "Are you serious? People actually trust him with their money?"

  "And they fight over him too," her oldest brother confirmed. Then his tone went grim. "Ixchel, what you don't realize is that you did us a huge favor when you turned us in. We got lucky and ended up with misdemeanors, and now I realize that the experience was the only thing that could have shocked us straight. Sure, your decision was a risk, but it worked. José coaches Olympic-level athletes now and Santiago is a Marine. We all owe you our lives."

  The news was far better than Ixchel could have hoped for. As a result, she should have been ecstatic, chomping at the bit to hunt down her successful brothers and see what kind of men they'd become.

  The trouble was, the vet was still quite capable of counting. Ixchel had five brothers, and Fernando had only listed four careers. Surely Miguel, her most level-headed sibling, would have done something equally fabulous with himself. Maybe it wouldn't have been flashy like her other brothers' choices. Yes, likely Miguel would have been drawn to a helping profession, would have turned into a therapist or a mediator.

  But Fernando knew how close she and Miguel had always been. So leaving his name out of the litany of success had meaning. Their middle brother's absence from the list signaled that something bad had happened in prison.

  Incarcerated prisoners get hooked on drugs all the time even if they go in clean, she couldn't help thinking. They also learn skills that change their lives for the worse instead of the better.

  And the gang culture in prison made violence a fact of life. There was rape, assault, and even murder to deal with.

  Ixchel didn't want to ask, but not knowing was even worse. "What about Miguel?" she said, hearing her own voice return to the pitch of childhood. She'd give anything to have Fernando present this news in person so he could enfold her in his strong male arms and protect her as she cried.

  But, instead, the phone went silent and the vet heard the rasp of a masculine sob. Then a rustle as the device changed hands, followed by Antonio's husky tones. "Miguel didn't make it, sweetie," her second-oldest brother managed before his own voice broke. "Prison was tough, and he always had our backs. But, when push came to shove, we didn't have his. Miguel didn't come out alive."

  ***

  I killed my brother. She might as well have pulled the trigger when she put kind, caring Miguel in prison where he'd be trampled beneath criminal feet. Her favorite brother, and she'd murdered him.

  Ixchel only realized she'd said the words aloud when Antonio replied. "No, you didn't kill him, Ixxie. If anyone did, it was me." His words were angry, but the vet knew her brother well enough even after all these years to realize that he was angry with himself, not with her.

  There was a pause as muffled words Ixchel couldn't quite make out drifted from the phone's speaker. And when Antonio spoke again, his voice was more controlled. "Look, Ixxie, Fernando wants to talk to you again. But I need to see you. We're on top of the ridge—can we come down?"

  Despite herself, Ixchel's mood rose as she imagined Antonio bushwhacking through the Mexican forest in search of his errant sister. He was always the tough guy at school, but at home he was scared of spiders and hated getting his clothes dirty. Perhaps he really did care.

  Okay, so the vet would deal with her feelings about Miguel later. For now, seeing two living brothers would have to be enough. "Okay," she said quietly, and listened as the phone was once again passed from hand to hand.

  In the ensuing pause, the vet realized that there were more than two voices bickering on the other end of the line, and she was suddenly positive that all four of her remaining brothers had hotfooted it to Mexico the minute their aunt made that call. Ixchel could just imagine them fighting over Fernando's cell phone the way they'd bickered over the last tamale or the best seat on the sofa, and she suddenly couldn't remember why she'd worked so hard to stay away from this passel of brothers. In fact, Ixchel knew now that she loved them so deeply that her heart was trying to push its way out of her chest.

  "This is Fernando," her oldest brother said, having laid claim once again to the phone. His words made Ixchel grin—who but Nando would feel the need to announce himself a second time after such a short pause? As if she might have forgotten who he was....

  "Uh huh," she said simply.

&
nbsp; "Look, I know this is a lot to take in all at once, but I also need to warn you. I tracked down your known associates when Maria called, and that Mirabelle guy is bad news. Really, Ixxie. He's wanted in four states, and he was nosing around your veterinary practice asking questions after you left."

  Tell me something I don't know, Ixchel thought, rolling her eyes. Good thing Fernando hadn't been able to utilize the resources of the CIA when she'd first explored the world of dating, although the third degree he'd given each potential suitor at that time was bad enough. Papá had merely sat back with a smile during those endless family dinners. No need for her father to grill boyfriends when Fernando would do the job for him.

  And now the vet was seeing the adult version of that protective older brother. Unfortunately, she was no more willing to clue Nando in to her current reality of gods and shifters now than she had been to spill her guts about cute boys then.

  "Yeah, I'm trying to stay away from Mirabelle," the vet said at last when her oldest brother seemed to be waiting for a response.

  "Well, you're not doing a very good job of it," Fernando answered. "He followed you out of the country, and as best I can tell he's homing in on your current location as we speak."

  Chapter 37

  Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to be merely along for the ride while you have all the fun?

  Despite his grumbling, Tezcatlipoca had actually been enthralled to see his home country unfold before them as Finn ran, then drove, then flew north toward the seat of Quetzalcoatl's power. The process had taken most of the day, but Tez wasn't in any hurry. Not when he saw the thousands...no, millions...of potential worshipers who had spread out across the landscape in his absence.

  Now, if the deity could just keep his wayward worshiper on track long enough to reclaim that heritage....

  Are you listening to me?

  "I'm a little busy here, Tezzie." The words were merely a breath of sound, whispering out of Finn's human mouth and around a tiny pen light that the shifter was pointing toward his nimble fingers. "Breaking into a world-famous archaeological site with no equipment isn't as easy as you obviously seem to think."