Jordan laughed. “Forced? No one forced her to do anything.”
Bird said, “We gave Quinn a choice. She chose to be queen. Much better than being a lowly nawal spy working for some has-been Sparkstriker who’s going to be dead anyway.”
So the Sparkstriker wasn’t dead yet. See? That’s what happens when you let your enemy do all the talking. They throw you nibbles of information that eventually add up to a whole meal.
“Pretty sure Quinn would never choose you,” I said. “She ran away before, remember?”
Jordan’s face hardened, and he began to lunge at me. Bird threw up an arm to block his brother. “We should try to get along,” he said to Jordan. Then he cast his gaze on me. “Considering our mother’s plan for you.”
Get along?
I hated these guys. I thought about all the lies they had told, all the stories they had rewritten, and wondered how many other falsehoods had been tucked into the corners of history without anyone’s knowledge.
“And what plan is that?” I ground out.
“Surrender, of course.” Blood Moon’s voice sliced the warm air. “You bind yourself to me and I will allow the gods to live.”
“Why would you let the gods live when you worked so hard to get rid of them?” I asked, closing my fist around the flame in my palm.
She hesitated. “The gods have no powers left. The devouring and time travel ravaged them. Tsk, tsk. How sad to be reduced to useless children. Ah—I couldn’t have planned it better myself, Zane.”
I dug Fuego into the soft earth. No way was I going to throw up the white flag for nada. I mean, let’s not forget this was the mastermind behind my dad’s near execution. This was the master of deception who always seemed to be a few steps ahead. Ah-Puch was right. If she wanted me alive so bad, it was for a really big reason. “I’m not negotiating with mist,” I finally said.
“Who said anything about negotiations?” Ixkik’ said.
Bird shook his head. “Just let us torture him.”
“Yes, it would be quite satisfying,” Ixkik’ said, “but let’s not forget he has value to our long-term plans.”
There was that word again. Plans.
“But I’m king,” Jordan argued with Ixkik’. “Shouldn’t I get to decide?” Instantly, a brilliant green-feathered headdress appeared on his head.
Was that his crown?
“Kings must sacrifice their heart’s desire and rule with their minds!” Ixkik’ growled. Her tone was a big fat warning: Don’t make me rip that crown off your head.
But a monkey beat her to it. The little guy swept in out of nowhere, snatched the headdress off Jordan, and vanished in a fit of squeals before the jerk could react.
“Under my rule,” Jordan yelled with a raised fist, “primates will be reduced to kitchen help!”
I couldn’t help but snicker. “So, if he’s king,” I said to Bird, pointing at Jordan, “what does that make you? A second-class prince?”
Bird snarled, and before he could speak, Jordan cut in. “I’m the oldest. Oldest gets to be king.”
“By fifty-eight lousy seconds,” Bird spat.
“Boys!” Ixkik’ warned, instantly silencing them. Then: “Do you surrender, Zane? Because I have already captured so many gods—more every second—and my demons are eagerly awaiting my command to strangle the life from their pathetic throats.”
Another god light flickered in the tree trunk like it was being smothered.
“STOP!” I screamed. Smoke trailed from my mouth and nose. My heart wanted to fight, but my mind told a different story. I had learned a few things about godly negotiations and how to use your one ace in the hole to get as much as possible.
“If I surrender,” I said, “you’ll let the gods go?”
“I’ll let the pathetic creatures live.”
“Which means they’ll be in prison,” I said.
“A roomy prison,” Bird offered as he rolled up his sleeves like he didn’t expect this to end without a brawl.
I was curious what Blood Moon’s final play was going to be. If I could anticipate it, I might be able to find a way out. “Why do you want me so bad?”
Jordan and Bird shared a glance. I thought they might bust up laughing, but they managed to keep it together. So Mom’s plan was that nasty, eh?
“Enough talk,” Ixkik’ said. “Do you surrender in exchange for the gods’ lives?”
It was an impossible choice. How could I agree to the gods being locked up forever? Shouldn’t they get a say? And what about my friends? They were outmatched and outnumbered. Unless, I thought, unless I can get Ixkik’ alone and end her. That would take the queen off the board. It would throw the demons into a tailspin and enrage the twins so much they wouldn’t be able to see clearly enough to win a battle against a bunch of kick-butt godborns.
“How about we smoke out your friends,” Ixkik’ said, “and ask them what they think you should do?”
With the flick of Jordan’s wrist, a few demons took off into the jungle. Before I could blink, a fire erupted beyond the trees. Billows of black smoke rose into the sky.
Itzamna released a pathetic cry.
“No!” I screamed, trying with all my strength to pull the fire into me, but it was growing too big too fast. Monkey shrieks carried through the jungle. “STOP!” I shouted.
“Choose!”
“I’ll do it!”
The flames died as a thin stream of mist floated across the meadow along with Blood Moon’s voice: “A deal with a god is binding,” she said as the mist took the shape of a bony hand reaching toward me.
“On one condition,” I said angrily. “You have to spare the gods—”
“We’ve established that,” Ixkik’ said in an annoyed tone.
“And you have to let my friends go. They have to leave here unharmed.”
“Done!” Ixkik’ said. “You will serve me for as long as I decide in exchange for your friends’ freedom and the pathetic gods’ lives.”
Wait. Why had she agreed so quickly?
The phantom hand lingered in front of me, waiting. My gaze swept across the field, landing on the dragon. Itzamna’s eyes were vacant, absent of any answers.
“I want collateral,” I said, swinging my attention back to the mist that was Ixkik’. “Proof you will keep your word.”
Bird sneered. “Like what?”
“I want to see Quinn.”
Jordan and Bird shared a surprised glance.
“And I want you to let her escort my friends home.” I knew that the godborns, Hondo, and Brooks would never leave here without a fight, and I thought that maybe, just maybe, Quinn could talk some sense into them. And if she couldn’t, she had an army of demons that could force them to go.
Jordan rubbed his forehead, clenching his jaw so tight I thought he’d grind his teeth to powder.
“You can have ten seconds with her,” Ixkik’ said.
Jordan glowered at the Tree.
A few seconds later, a crow descended from the sky and landed right in front of me, shifting into Quinn. Her hair was dull and hung loosely around her face. She wore a long, simple black frock and a defeated expression.
“Zane,” she said. Tears flooded her eyes, but they didn’t fall. “I will take your friends to safety, and then I will return to…” She faltered. “To my husband. You have my word.”
Jordan’s expression was a combination of relief and suspicion.
Quinn began to back away, and as she did, she mouthed to me, Don’t be fooled.
In that moment, every ounce of me hurt, like I had been pummeled in the wrestling ring for days. Fire erupted across the unburned parts of the jungle.
The phantom mist hand drew closer. “Shake!” Ixkik’ shouted. “Or I burn it all down!”
“NO!” Quinn spun wildly. Enormous black wings sprouted from her back. Claws erupted from her fingers. “You promised my sister would go free!”
Ixkik’ laughed. “I didn’t promise anyone else would.”
/> Quinn fully shifted back into a massive crow, shrieking like La Llorona as she took off into the darkening sky. But just as she got about twenty feet off the ground, a chain made of mist grabbed hold of her leg and held her in place. She struggled uselessly.
I reached for all the power in my storm runner leg, calling any bit of fire to me that would listen. Sweat trickled down my neck and back as the heat burned through my veins.
The ghost hand hung there, waiting.
“You can end all this with a simple handshake,” Ixkik’ hissed.
It’s my fault she wants you, Itzamna managed. I should have seen it.
What are you talking about?
The power of the dragon.
What did that have to do with any of this?
Itzamna’s voice was choked off by a hard tug and Jordan’s laughter.
Bird’s gaze landed behind me. A look of bewilderment swept across the twin’s ugly mug. And then I heard a familiar voice outside. Mine!
“Guys,” my voice said, “looks like you’re making deals with the wrong Zane. How embarrassing.”
I spun to find me—standing behind me! Marco? The dude even had Fuego—okay, it was a cheap imitation, but only I would know that.
The twins shared a what-the-heck? glance.
Marco stood at my side, smiling, waving the cane in the air like it was some kind of wand.
“Do you want more gods to die?” Bird said.
“If one more god light disappears from that tree,” I said, jumping into action, “you’ll never get the real Zane.”
Ixkik’ hissed angrily.
Jordan rubbed his chin. “Oh, I think we already have the real Zane. Unless you,” he said, directing the question to Marco, “can shoot fire the way he can?”
Crap! I hated to admit it, but that was a really good next move.
Marco shrugged and held out his palm like he was waiting for a gold coin to be dropped into it.
Instantly, I created a cone of fire around Marco and me, wide enough so as not to scorch him and high enough that the twins couldn’t see through it. “You have to get out of here!” I told him. “She’s burning down the jungle!”
He smirked. “We have this brilliant plan. Adrik called Alana—telepathically, I mean—and…” He fanned his face. “Could you turn down the heat?”
“Alana’s here?” I needed godborns to be leaving, not coming!
“No, she—”
Just then, another teenager’s voice reached into my mind. Get Blood Moon out in the open, Zane.
Okay, I didn’t recognize the voice, but I for sure recognized the tone. Dad? Rosie must have found him and woken him up!
A blast of thick mist killed the flames, leaving me and Marco visible again.
“Enough games!” Ixkik’ growled. “Two godborns are even better than one. Get them, boys!”
Jordan and Bird flew toward us. Marco lifted his fake spear, and just as I raised my hands to release a torrent of fire, thunder rumbled. Lightning flashed. Everyone, even the demons, froze and looked up.
The sky split open with a crack and a boom. Hail pummeled the earth, followed by sheets of rain that doused the flames burning the jungle.
“Take that!” Marco shouted.
The water-hating demons shrieked and ran for cover.
“Come back, you fools!” Ixkik’ yelled.
The field flooded so fast, I barely had time to process where the rain had come from. As if he could read my mind, Marco shrugged and grinned. “Louie was bored in Montana.”
That’s when all Xib’alb’a broke loose.
There was a bone-rattling shriek as I felt the rush of Brooks’s wings overhead, and I thought I heard Hondo’s voice somewhere in the commotion. I couldn’t see Blood Moon’s mist anymore. Quinn’s chain vanished, and she flew off into the jungle. Jordan and Bird instantly shed their human forms, opting for their monstrous bat selves instead. They unfolded their leathery black wings, and their eyes glowed red as they took off into the stormy sky. To get Quinn, I guessed.
Marco’s face changed back into his own, and he flashed a sinister grin. He moved like lightning, racing after the demons that had taken cover under the trees. Dragon-shaped shadows rose up from the soaked earth, their wings so massive they blocked out most of the daylight.
Ren!
“Kill the gods!” Blood Moon commanded, but I had no idea where she was or who she was talking to. Were there really demons holding the gods, just waiting for her cue?
Zane, Hurakan called telepathically. Make her show her true face. Only then can you defeat her. Do you understand?
I wanted to ask my dad what the heck he was talking about, but at the same moment, a sliver of fog lifted off the Tree’s trunk and zipped into the jungle. Using Fuego, I ran after it.
I rushed into the dark web of half-burned forest. The mist snaked between the trees, faster and farther. Rain slammed against the earth, limiting my vision. I turned up the speed, bounding over fallen branches and twisted vines. Voices shouted in the distance. Thunder crashed.
And then the trail stopped. I was at a dead end. Heart pounding, I stopped and looked in every shadowed direction, but the mist was gone.
“Come out, Ixkik’!” I shouted, wiping my eyes.
In answer, a purplish-gray fog—so dense I couldn’t see my own feet—wrapped around me. All sound vanished like I was underwater.
My brain raced in a thousand directions at once, never arriving at a solution that would (a) get me out of this and (b) get me out of this alive. Waves of nausea rolled through me, combined with anger that I had been so stupidly bold that I ran right into this trap.
Shivers gripped my body, and I clung to Fuego to calm them. “You wanted me…. Well, here I am!” I increased the heat under my skin to stop my teeth from chattering, because no way did I want Ixkik’ to see how scared I was.
“Yes, here you are,” she said slowly, quietly. “I knew the real Zane would follow me.”
“Why don’t you quit hiding behind your mist and face me?”
Ignoring my request, the goddess said, “I thought you were smart, godborn. Haven’t you figured out my genius plan yet? Aren’t you dying to know it?”
“It’s not so genius if your demons are on the run and the gods are alive.”
“That’s of no consequence,” she purred. “I’m sure your friends have run into my entire army by now, and the gods are weak and worthless.”
My friends knew what they were doing. They wouldn’t walk into some dumb demon trap…would they? As for the gods…“They’ll get their powers back,” I said. “And they’ll come for you.”
“Perhaps,” Ixkik’ said nonchalantly. “But it will be too late, and I have you to thank for that.”
I tried to move forward, but the mist was like a blanket wound tightly around my legs. It swirled up my torso, sending an icy chill up my spine. The fact that Blood Moon was talking to me meant she wasn’t ready to kill me. Not yet, anyway. “Me? I’ll never help you, so I guess you’ll have to find someone else.”
“Oh, but there is no one else. You are Itzamna’s chosen scribe.”
“So?”
“The fool gave you—you—the power of the dragon.”
Yeah, and a lot of good that was doing me now. “How does that help you?”
She didn’t even hesitate. She couldn’t wait to impress me with her plot. “The dragon represents both power and magic. And that means that you and you alone have the power to rewrite all I have destroyed.”
Rewrite? That was her endgame? I pushed back my sopping hair, trying to put the pieces together. She had needed the stone to get into SHIHOM and the library, a place that Saás had said the gods couldn’t access. Then Ixkik’ had proceeded to burn the history books, but why?
“Pretty sure people will know fact from fiction,” I said, wishing I wasn’t glued in place.
“You are so simpleminded,” she said. “No one will ever know, and I am done talking. It’s time for us to begin.�
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I knew better than to believe that. She was dying to show me how smart she was, to dangle her power in my face. “So how does it work, exactly? You think I’m going to use some magic dragon power to write a bogus story while you keep me imprisoned? The truth paper won’t let me.” I took a deep breath and pushed my luck just one more inch. “Seems like you haven’t thought this out very well.”
The goddess laughed. “There is no such paper anymore. When I burned history, I burned truth itself!”
Gripping Fuego, I leaned forward. “What do you mean, ‘truth itself’?”
“Those books…those words were more than history. When I destroyed them, a gap was created in the sobrenaturales’ imaginations and memories.”
A gap? I shook my head. “I still remember, and so do my friends.” I didn’t know if that last part was true, but I was pretty sure that if I could recall Maya history, they could, too.
Ixkik’ exhaled dismissively. “Oh, the forgetting will come once I fill the gap. When you write a new history in which Jordan is king. All the sobrenaturales will know him as their only ruler, and they will hate the gods and godborns even more than they do now.” She let out another exaggerated sigh. “It won’t hurt too badly, Zane. You won’t remember the past. You, too, will fall under the spell of your own words. Isn’t that magnificent?”
I felt sick. Worse than sick. Of all the possible plans that had run through my head, this for sure wasn’t one of them. She was going to make herself a hero and the rest of us villains.
“No way,” I whispered, wriggling uselessly in the mist. “I won’t do it.”
“Oh, but you will, because I have a new pawn on the board.”
The rain slowed to a fine sprinkle as the silvery-purplish mist parted and slowly vanished into the air. I found myself in a dilapidated stone structure that looked like it had been bombed once or twice. Its arches and steps were battered and weather-beaten. Its walls and roof were half-gone.
Now that I was no longer wrapped, I could take a couple of steps forward. Flames erupted behind my eyes, coloring everything an angry red.
A woman materialized near the broken steps about fifteen feet away. She had her back to me, and thick silver hair cascaded to her waist. She wore a fitted green metallic dress that looked like it was made of lizard skin.
The Shadow Crosser Page 29