The Shadow Crosser

by J. C. Cervantes

  Wiping blood off my lip with the back of my hand, I managed to crouch-stagger away from the wayward fists and flying bananas. I really wanted to launch some flames, but we were too close to the trees. A powdered-sugar donut smacked my cheek just as an earsplitting roar sounded.

  Everyone froze—except the monitos, who vanished into the trees.

  Hondo stood at the edge of the pandemonium with a grim expression and Rosie at his side. “Who started this?”

  It really was ironic. I mean, here was the guy who used to throw ragers and watch wrestling matches with his friends through clouds of cigar smoke. And now he was acting like some kind of…adult?

  The tall dude, who had grape jelly smeared across his face, pointed at Marco. “This jerk. He threw the first punch.”

  At that moment, the thing I hated most about Marco was his punch-now-ask-questions-later attitude. It was his fist that had knocked me to the ground, and the guy didn’t even look sorry.

  “You guys want to fight?” Hondo said to the entire group. “You’ve got extra energy to spend? All godborns to the arena—now!”

  “But training doesn’t start until tomorrow,” someone said.

  “Yeah?” Hondo’s jaw looked like it was set in stone. “Well, tomorrow came early.”

  Everyone hesitated, bits of food dripping from their faces. Then Rosie, with eyes blazing, roared so loud, godborn feet got moving rápido.

  As everyone filed out, Marco spat a loogie on the littered ground and said to me, “Don’t look at me! He totally deserved it, and you got in the way.”

  The tall godborn came at him, but he didn’t connect before Hondo threw up an arm, blocking the guy’s advance. “Dude! I won’t ask again.”

  “What about him?” The guy pointed at Marco, who was wearing the kind of smirk everyone wants to wipe off with a double bleach wipe.

  “Go!” Hondo warned, pushing his snow-covered hair back.

  The guy muttered under his breath and took off while Marco clenched his jaw.

  “You okay?” Hondo asked, noticing my fattening lip.

  I nodded, opening and closing my jaw as he clapped me on the back. Then, with a snicker and raised fists, he teased, “Did you have to box it out with the miniature monkeys?”

  “Ha! Funny,” I said. “But we don’t have time for this. I found chapat.”

  “What’s chapat?” Marco asked.

  Hondo exhaled and turned to Marco. “Why are you still here?”

  Marco stepped closer, his chin turned up all defiant. “Something creepy happened,” he said, looking around. “And since I don’t see anyone in charge, I guess you guys should know about it.”

  Louie stepped out from behind a tree, a miniature monkey on his shoulder. He was feeding it scraps of chocolate. For the first time, I noticed the snow had stopped.

  “Marco was sticking up for me,” he said, and the monkey nodded vigorously. “That guy was making fun of my dream about Chaac. I saw the rain god opening and closing his mouth like a fish.” He mimicked the movement. “He was drowning in darkness.”

  Drowning in darkness…The words were eerily close to what Ah-Puch had said about floating in utter darkness.

  “So you had a bad dream,” Hondo said.

  Marco snorted. “We all had the same dream. Or close enough.”

  “Who’s all?” I asked, taking deep breaths to prevent my heart from flying out of my mouth.

  Louie puffed up his cheeks and exhaled super dramatic like. “Me, Serena, Marco, and a few others that we talked to.”

  My pulse raced and blood pounded in my ears. I could sense how close we were to getting answers. “What was your dream, Marco?”

  He shoved his fists into his pockets and said, “Darkness, all that same stuff, but my…but Nakon and I were skydiving. He couldn’t open his chute and said he was trapped. And then he said some other stuff I didn’t catch, except…‘not here.’”

  A loud screech drew our attention to the trees above. Brooks flew down in normal hawk form, and just as her talons touched the ground, she shifted into a human. She had really gotten good at sticking her landings. Louie’s monkey threw its hands into the air and screamed as it leaped into the nearest tree.

  “You scared him away,” Louie whined to Brooks.

  Glancing around with a scrunched nose, Brooks shook a glob of donut off her shoe and said, “I’ve been tearing apart the jungle chasing miniature monkeys for the stuff they’ve been stealing, and you’ve been here having a food fight and making friends with the thieves?”

  “They’re not all thieves!” Louie cried.

  Brooks’s eyes flicked to my bloodied mouth.

  “I’m fine,” I said before telling her about the drowning-in-darkness nightmares.

  She threw her attention to Louie and Marco. “You guys had the same dream?”

  Louie shivered. “Something real bad is up.”

  “We bet you know what it is,” Marco added, crossing his arms.

  Hondo dragged a hand through his hair. “I better get to the arena, see if the other godborns dreamed about their godly parents. Maybe it all adds up to an answer. You good here?” he asked me.

  Nodding, I steered Hondo away from the others and said in a low voice, “I need to tell you what I learned. I’ll meet up with you in thirty.”

  After my uncle took off, I rejoined the two godborns. Louie said to me, “That lightning ceremony hurt, by the way. You could have warned us about that.”

  Marco had the same scowl he’d worn that day when he was imprisoned in the junkyard. “Did you dream about Hurakan, Zane?”

  “No.” Only the Red Queen. And then I wondered why Hurakan hadn’t tried to reach out to me. Probably because the Red Queen had taken up all my headspace.

  “So the gods are trying to communicate with their kids through dreams,” Brooks said, but it was more like she was talking to herself.

  “Well, they’re doing a pretty bad job of it,” Marco said. “You’d think gods would be able to speak more clearly.”

  Louie took another bite of the bar and spoke around a mouthful of chocolate. “My dad talked real clear during my claiming.”

  “What do you mean?” Brooks asked.

  “When I was pounded with lightning,” he said, “he told me I was the son of the great rain god and didn’t need any training. He said our powers were a force…. No, that wasn’t the word. Maybe he said our powers were the greatest of all the gods. Yeah, something like that.” He licked chocolate from the corner of his mouth.

  Marco harrumphed, then his eyes widened. “Wait! Why would the gods need to talk to us in our dreams…? Where are they?”

  “At their mountain resort,” Brooks said with so much sarcasm I thought her tongue would fall out of her mouth.

  Alana emerged from the trees, followed by Adrik and Ren. “We just ran into Hondo. You found chapat?”

  I nodded.

  Marco’s eyes flitted from face to face. “Come on, man. What are you guys not saying?”

  Ren sidestepped a smashed pile of grapes and said, “All the Maya gods were taken by some Mexica sleep god, and Zotz and Ixkik’ have an entry stone that gives them access to this place so they can get in and murder us.”

  Ah-Puch’s unfinished words filled my head: Ren is the only one. The only one what?

  “Well, that’s one way to put it,” Brooks muttered.

  “Actually, I think it’s the devouring earth goddess,” I said. “Not a sleep god.”

  “Did you say ‘devouring’?” Louie whined. “As in eating?” His eyes bugged out. “Is someone going to eat the gods?”

  I spilled the beans to Marco and Louie about my Red Queen dream and the clues she gave me. After all, we were now in this together—I felt like keeping the truth from them would only make things worse.

  Louie looked woozy as he sat on a nearby chair and unwrapped another chocolate bar.

  Marco ran his thumb over the scar on his chin. “And this Itzamna dude is the only one not asleep? Pr
etty convenient, if you ask me.” The way his brain went straight to corruption made me think he really was the god of war’s kid.

  Louie gave a short nod. “Yeah, Zane. How do we know the moon god isn’t behind all this?”

  “Nah,” I said. “The guy was for sure freaked. Plus, his strength comes from the World Tree, which is powered by the gods. Anyway, we don’t have much time before the underworld falls to Zotz and Ixkik’…and once that happens—”

  “Adiós, gods,” Marco said flatly.

  “But they’re already out of commission,” Louie said. “Why kill them, too?”

  “Maybe they aren’t in a great hiding place?” I guessed. “Maybe…” Think like a villain, I told myself. “Maybe hiding them isn’t enough,” I said, and as the words fell from my mouth, they felt truer than anything that had been said so far. “They can’t risk the gods being found. They want to end them forever.”

  “We have to tell everyone the bat god is coming,” Louie said.

  “No!” Marco clenched his jaw. “That would only cause a panic.”

  “We can’t keep this a secret,” Brooks argued. “It’s only a matter of time before the godborns start asking questions.”

  “We can make up an excuse,” Adrik suggested.

  Alana tugged on her hair, pacing slowly.

  “We aren’t going to lie to them,” I said. I knew the damage lies can do, the mistrust they create, and that was no way to treat the other godborns. They deserved to know that their lives were in danger.

  “I’ll tell them,” Louie volunteered, raising his hand. “I’d rather do that than go on any rescue quests or do anything dangerous.”

  “Who said anything about a rescue?” Marco said. “I don’t even know Nakon.”

  Ren looked stricken. “So you don’t care if Zotz and Ixkik’ hurt your dad?”

  “Nakon never cared about me,” he said, crossing his arms. But his mouth trembled, betraying the fact that he did care.

  “Fair enough,” Adrik said. Alana socked him in the chest and he rubbed the spot. “Ow!”

  I know Marco sounded super harsh, but I kind of understood. I used to be all sorts of angry at my dad for not being around when I was growing up. Connecting the godborns to their parents would take time—time we didn’t have.

  I quickly told them about the labyrinth, K’iin, and Ah-Puch communicating with me, withholding the part about Ren. I needed to talk to her alone about that.

  Ren’s eyes filled with tears. “A.P. can’t just give up!”

  “Gross!” Louie gasped. “A giant centipede tried to eat you?”

  “What did Ah-Puch mean by ‘already gone’?” Brooks said.

  “I don’t know,” I said, frustrated. “He just said ‘We are no longer here.’” I turned my gaze to Marco. “Like Nakon said to you. But where is ‘here’?”

  Marco’s expression hardened. “How should I know? Maybe you should ask the calendar.”

  “It’s not a bad idea,” Brooks said. “I mean, we’re talking about a calendar that can see across time and dimensions.”

  “We’re talking about a calendar that can find the gods,” I said.

  Maybe I should have softened the blow a little bit. Revealed the details more gradually. I mean, it was a lot for the godborns to absorb all at once. The Maya gods had been taken, and we didn’t know how to find or wake them. There was a cosmic calendar that might help, but if it existed at all, it was hidden, too. And everyone who had tried to find it was dead. Meanwhile, Zotz and Ixkik’, masterminds of power and evil, were raising the stakes every minute. Not to mention the devourer, a wicked Mexica goddess, being resurrected. Oh, and the World Tree was likely to fall in the next couple of days, meaning none of us were safe.

  Things were grim. So, no, I didn’t sugarcoat it. I laid it all out there.

  No one spoke.

  Marco shoved a table; its legs scraped across the stone floor. “Find and unlock a thing that only the dead are allowed to see? Do you have a death wish, man?”

  “It’s a threat,” Ren said. “Don’t you see? Pacific put security in place to keep people from looking for her calendar.”

  “The centipede tried to choke him!” Marco argued. “That’s no threat.”

  My mind kept turning things over and over and over, trying to put all the pieces together.

  Time. Evil. Deception.

  “Why didn’t the Red Queen just tell you about K’iin?” Louie asked. “Then you might not have gotten choked.”

  Brooks said, “Seeing the future isn’t an exact science—sometimes it only comes in little pieces.”

  I stared at Ren, wondering what her role was in all this. Was she the time part? Or was I grasping at straws? I thought about her dream—if it was real, was Pacific trying to communicate with her?

  “Ren,” I said, “your mom mentioned a cave…?”

  “The Cave of Crystals.”

  “What if that’s where K’iin is?” I asked. “Could she have been trying to tell you where to find it?”

  “So we could see where she and the other gods are being kept!” Ren nearly shouted.

  Marco shot me and Ren a glare. “Are you all listening to yourselves? Who cares about K’iin! Let’s get out of here and save ourselves.”

  “If Zotz and Ixkik’ are in control,” I said, “there is no ‘out of here.’”

  I could tell Marco’s wheels were turning. Prison, death, or quest? Quest, death, or prison? Finally, he grunted. “Fine. But can we at least be smarter than the bat and Ixkik’? We have to think like they do and try to anticipate their next move.”

  “How can we be smarter than a god?” Adrik asked.

  “We all have gifts,” Marco said.

  I threw a side-glance at Alana. Her shades had dropped to the middle of her nose, and her eyes were glued to the ground.

  “My dominant power is ‘duplicity,’” Marco went on, making air quotes. “I guess I can change faces. So far all I get are different eyebrows or a different chin or nose. It’s dumb.”

  “Cool,” Ren said. “Can you show us?”

  Marco scowled. “That would be a definite no.”

  “At least you don’t have to be asleep to use your powers,” Adrik grumbled.

  “Seriously?” Alana kicked a half-eaten apple across the ground. “At least you guys have gifts! So stop complaining!”

  Everyone got awkwardly quiet. Louie offered her a piece of chocolate. But Alana stormed off without another word.

  “I’ll go talk to her,” Ren said.

  “No, I’ll do it.” Adrik shook his head. “I’m her brother.”

  After he left, Ren faced Marco. “Okay, son of war. How do we anticipate Zotz and Blood Moon’s next move?”

  “What if they’re out of moves?” Louie said. “What if this is it?”

  “Jerks like that?” Marco raised his eyebrows. “They like power, but they like gloating over it even more. This is a game, and winning is no fun unless it’s public.”

  “Whoa,” Louie said. “You got all that because you’re the god of war’s kid?”

  Marco cringed. “No,” he said. “I play sports. But it’s the same idea.”

  The hairs on my arms stood at attention. Marco was right. Zotz loved an audience. But not Ixkik’. She liked to slink around in the shadows like a thieving rat that only comes out at night. And until we knew for certain which one of them was in charge, there was no way we could guess their next play.

  “As fascinating as all this is,” Brooks said, “shouldn’t we be asking how to find that cave?”

  Silence fell over us like a thick cloud.

  Marco rubbed his thumb over his scar. “If you can find K’iin, and it shows you where the gods are, and if you survive, you need to figure out how to wake them up.”

  “And rescue them without getting eaten,” Louie said.

  “First things first,” I said, feeling overwhelmed.

  Ren nodded. “We need to go to the Cave of Crystals.”

 
; “You mean you need to go,” Marco said. “I’ll stay here and…” He didn’t finish, but his eyes said it all. They were a mix of anger and defiance, and I understood. He didn’t want to sit around doing nothing, helplessly waiting to go down.

  “Okay. You get ready to defend SHIHOM and the World Tree,” I said, “if it comes to that.”

  Louie covered his face with his hands and moaned.

  “We’ll take the twins with us,” I said.

  Brooks ran a hand through her hair. I could tell she was frustrated and not used to so many voices brewing in the quest pot. “Zane…” she said in a warning tone.

  “What? We can’t do this alone,” I told her. “We’ll need the godborns’ help.”

  Ren kicked a lump of melting snow with the toe of her boot, fixing her eyes on Marco. “Find out all the godborns’ gifts. Make a list of which will be the most useful.”

  “But don’t tell them anything,” Brooks put in. “Not yet.”

  “Fine,” Marco said. “But about this quest…Where’s the element of surprise? Zotz and Ixkik’ know you’re going to try a rescue mission. They’ll be waiting.”

  Ren twisted her watch anxiously.

  Ah-Puch’s words echoed through my head: Ren is the one…

  And then, finally, the revelation hit me like a two-ton wrecking ball. The idea was bold and brilliant and unexpected. Even old Zotz and faceless Ixkik’ wouldn’t anticipate this move, not in a million years. My mouth spread into a full-on grin as hope filled my chest. “You’re right,” I said to Marco. “They’re expecting us to storm the castle.”

  Brooks followed my gaze to Ren’s watch and caught on. “Because that’s what we’ve done before,” she said slowly. She went over to Ren. “But for this quest, we have a secret weapon.”

  Ren’s eyes met mine, then she glanced at Brooks. I saw understanding bloom in her eyes. She nodded slowly and whispered, “We’re going to stop time.”

  Mission Don’t Get Devoured had officially started.

  Rosie and I met up with Hondo, and I told him the plan. He hated it. Every single detail of it. But that didn’t stop him from telling me, “I’m going with you.”