Charlie Hernández & the League of Shadows

by Ryan Calejo

  “Barely,” I said sheepishly. And it was right about then that I realized I’d lost my mitt at some point in the scramble. I looked around for it but didn’t see Minnie anywhere. The nahual must’ve eaten her. Gobbled her up like a half-priced doggie treat at PetSmart. Better her than me, I guess.

  Violet was shaking her head. “But what happened? Who was that on the walkie-talkie?”

  “No idea. But I don’t think we wanna be here when Lassie’s man-eating cousin gets back.” I grabbed her hand. “C’mon!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The ancient wooden doors of the monastery swung open at our approach (though it didn’t look like anyone had opened them), and a flood of white light spilled out, swallowing us up in its dazzling brightness. Instinctively, I raised my arm to shield my face, but the light began to fade almost as suddenly as it had appeared.

  Beside me, I heard Violet say, “Interesting . . .”

  “Very,” I agreed, blinking sunspots out of my vision.

  Then I looked around—and gasped. Not because the room was so incredibly massive or because the walls were seamless slabs of white marble or even because the ceiling was made entirely of glass—a gigantic, translucent bubble through which I could see a blue-black canopy of stars twinkling almost close enough to touch.

  No, it was the people, or should I say the beings . . . that made my breath catch, that got my heart thumping crazily against my ribs.

  The tallest of the three was leaning against a great oak table in the middle of the room—a basajaun, no doubt about it. The dude was simply ginormous, easily over twelve feet tall, with long, whitish-yellow fur and a hard leathery face that looked almost human from certain angles. (Not many, but definitely a few.) An assortment of crude tools hung in its scraggly mane—a small rusty pick, the head of a hammer, a few smooth stones. . . . I even thought I saw a makeshift screwdriver dangling deep inside the matted strands of its bushy blond beard.

  I remembered hearing how basajauns were extremely industrious creatures—how they learned to build tools, cultivate crops, and how they taught those skills to early settlers. Now, judging from the smart brown eyes that stared back at me from within the folds of its thickly fleshed face, I had no doubt this creature was just as intelligent as the legends made it out to be. If not more.

  On the opposite end of the table, arms crossed in a watchful pose, stood the undisputed king of Salvadoran folklore: El Justo Juez, or the Just Judge. Dressed in dark flowing robes and high black leather boots, he looked like a mix between a Supreme Court justice and Batman. His shoulders were broad, his long, lean body fiercely upright, seemingly carved out of the hardest, driest stone. To top it all off, where his head should’ve been was a column of wispy gray smoke, which flickered every now and then with the sharp crackle of an ember. The fact that I couldn’t tell which way he was looking—or if he was even looking in the first place—somehow made him all the more terrifying.

  Over to our left, there was a massive fireplace where purple flames licked and popped. Sprawled out before it was a large and unbelievably beautiful dog. But not just any dog—El Cadejo. A being said to have taken the form of a canine after God created it to look after and protect man. Its glowing blue eyes smoldered like hot coals, and its fur, the color of freshly fallen snow, glistened as though it had been painted with sunlight.

  As I stood there gawking at the three legendary figures—I was pretty sure my tongue was dangling somewhere down around my ankles—someone spoke up from behind the cluster of plants in the corner. At first I saw no one. Then my eyes adjusted, and I realized there wasn’t anyone behind the plants; the plants were someone . . . a lady, curvy and barefoot, with huge anime eyes and hands so big they looked like they belonged on an NBA power forward. Her hair was a tangled mess of vines and leaves, and her skin was dark green, covered with lily pads and other small blooming flowers. She wore no clothes—only strips of fuzzy gray moss, which grew on her like lichen on a log.

  “Madremonte,” I breathed. Mother Mountain. “I can’t believe you actually exist. . . .”

  “And yet she does,” said a voice.

  I looked around and saw someone else—a woman in a fancy tiered gown standing at the window on the far side of the room. She was tall and slender, her long, pale arms glittering with an assortment of bracelets and jeweled armbands. A golden crown, studded with square-cut emeralds, sat atop layers of thick auburn hair, which coiled at the nape of her neck.

  When she turned to face us, I saw she had eyes so bright and green there was no way they could possibly be human. In fact, I knew exactly what she was—a bruja. My abuela had described many of them.

  “I must beg your perdón for such a terrifying greeting,” she said, and this time I recognized her voice—which had a distinct air of royalty to it—almost immediately: She was the lady from the walkie-talkie. The one who had saved me. “Our night watchman happens to be a Nahual of the Forgotten Foothills, and they are without a doubt some of the most unruly creatures walking our planet.”

  I didn’t think “unruly” was the right word (more like psychopathic or savage or maybe even bloodthirsty), but I wasn’t going to argue.

  “However, their loyalty is without question,” she continued casually, “and thus they are indispensable. Do try to forgive him. And you have my word that it will never happen again.” Then her lips split into a mesmerizing smile as her brilliant emerald eyes locked onto mine. “In any event, Charlie, Violet, it is my pleasure to finally meet you face-to-face. . . . My name is Joanna. I am the Witch Queen of Toledo. And we are the League of Shadows.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  At first all I could think was, We found them! We found them, we found them, we found them! And it felt amazing. Like, incredible! But then I realized something was weird. . . .

  “Wait. How the heck do you know our names?” I started to say. And that’s when something even weirder happened: What felt like a tidal wave of information slammed into me with enough force to knock me back a step.

  Suddenly, I knew the answer to my question. But not only that—I knew the answer to every question I could possibly come up with. I knew this place wasn’t just a monastery; it was also what was known as a Provencia—an ancient, warded structure of which there were dozens spread throughout the Americas and the Iberian Peninsula.

  I knew that these Provencias served as regional strongholds for the League and their allies. I knew that the first had been built more than twelve hundred years ago, during the time of the Spanish Kingdom of Asturias, and that the one we were currently standing in had had its bricks blessed by Pope Alexander III and a Cistercian monk in AD 1174. Over the last nine hundred years, it had survived two different all-out attacks from a horde of Oókempán ogres and a raging wildfire started by some naughty duendes.

  Somehow I also knew that all the mythological beings standing before me referred to themselves as “sombras,” or shadows. I knew there were good sombras and bad sombras. I knew La Liga was a coalition of good sombras and that they had been engaged in a millennia-long struggle against La Mano Peluda—or the Hairy Hand—a cabal of evil sombras intent on expanding their dominion from the Land of the Dead into the Land of the Living. I knew that the Land of the Living—or, our side of things—was teeming with all sorts of supernatural races and beings, everything from clans of tiny, spear-wielding pixies called zips to tribes of Basque giants known as jentilak. I knew that over the years most of these races had entirely segregated themselves from one another, because all they’d ever end up doing was warring over land or resources or power, and that it was La Liga’s function to bring as many of them together as possible in order to form a unified front against La Mano Peluda.

  I also knew that the big hairy basajaun dude had been following Violet and me for a couple of days now. Images of us biking around Miami, trekking through the Everglades, even facing off against Sihuanaba flitted through my mind like an old-fashioned film reel on fast-forward. There I was, tripping o
ver the mangroves, my hair matted to my forehead, sweat pouring down my face. And there was Violet, slinging a rock at the horse-faced demon. I knew that it was Queen Joanna who had ordered the basajaun to follow us and that she’d been preparing to contact me before she found out we were on our way over.

  An instant later (or at least what felt like an instant later—in reality I had no clue how much time had passed) a flash of bright light streaked across my vision, and I came back to myself with a gasp, looking around dazedly. “What. Just. Happened . . . ?” I whispered.

  “El Cadejo touched your mind,” the Witch Queen of Toledo said casually, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Now you know all that you need to. Again, I apologize, but there isn’t much time for questions.”

  “El Cadejo is an ancient being,” El Justo Juez explained. His voice crackled like a hearth. “He existed long before modern languages were invented; he is unbound by them. He can speak directly to a person’s soul.”

  The fate of this world hangs by a thread, pequeño. Even the slightest misstep on our part could spell the end of mankind. Words once again bounced around inside my brain as if I had thought them up myself, but this time I knew who it was. El Cadejo continued: A darkness has begun to slither out of the old and forgotten places of the earth, an ancient evil whose thirst for domination cannot be quenched.

  “Ay, sí, let’s just tell the children everything!” Madremonte snapped. A flurry of purple leaves tumbled out of her hair. The vines looping around her arms seemed to twist tighter, turning from a bright green to a deep dark brown.

  “We’ve already discussed this, Señorita Monte,” the witch queen said firmly. “The child represents our best chance to win this war.”

  “Sí, the child does,” she agreed in an exasperated tone. “But that is not the child!”

  “If you have your doubts, speak them now,” said El Justo Juez. “No espere.”

  “My doubts? Bueno, para empezar . . . how old is he? Eight? Nine?”

  “I’m twelve,” I said, and Madremonte raised one mossy eyebrow in mock surprise.

  “Oh, twelve. Is that so? Well, you are just all grown up, aren’t you?” Then, to the others: “Which would still make him the youngest Cambiador in history.”

  “Youth is not a disqualifier,” Joanna said.

  “Nor is it a guarantee of ability,” Madremonte shot back. “And let us not forget the prophecy or the meaning of the two horns. They represent a double portion of power, no? Meaning that the fifth Morphling will be the most powerful yet. And we all know that two manifestations for a Morphling with absolutely no training is already unheard of. Now consider this child. . . .”

  What about him? asked El Cadejo.

  “Ay, just look at that thing on his arm, for the love of the mountains! ¡Mira!” Her eyes, a swirling storm of yellows and browns, zeroed in on my claw. “Correct me if I am wrong, but from where I am rooted, that would certainly count as a third manifestation. Such ability is beyond even what was foretold in the prophecy. And let us not forget that the prophecy makes no mention of a claw in the first place! That child is not a Morphling. This has been brutally clear from the moment we began watching him. What more evidence do any of you need? This is not photosynthesis, mis compadres. . . .”

  “I do not believe it is that simple this time,” the queen said in a low, thoughtful voice. “I sense something in him . . . algo diferente.”

  “That is because your hope has blinded you! It has caused you to lose sight of the truly important tasks such as using what influence we have left to rally our allies and instead go searching the globe for child heroes!”

  That is not fair, El Cadejo said, fixing her with his glowing gaze.

  “¿Cómo no? It is merely the truth! The lobisomem clans have begun infighting again. The mukis of Cajamarca have stopped arming anyone but their own kin, which, need I remind you, violates the treaty of 1496, a treaty ratified in the halls of Castile by Joanna’s own ancestors! And the Nacaome comelenguas, those wretched tongue-eating birds, have begun feeding on cattle and livestock in full view of villagers, which effectively violates every other treaty that’s ever been agreed upon! The sombras are leaderless. They are all doing what is right in their own eyes. We must show strength, not desperation!”

  As if to emphasize her point, a faint shudder shook the room. No one—except Violet and me, that is—seemed to notice.

  “Can you not feel the darkness creeping into this world?” Madremonte whispered, touching a hand lightly to Joanna’s arm. “Can you not feel its hungry jaws tightening around our throats? The influence of La Liga is already diminishing. Our alliances are collapsing all around us. Tell me that you do not hear the whispers of war on the winter winds.”

  La bruja’s beautiful green eyes shifted first to me, then back to Señorita Monte. “Indeed I do, for its awful song haunts me both day and night.” She looked around at the others. “Juez, your best judgment. Is my course righteous, or does my heart deceive me?”

  There was a brief moment of silence during which the column of wispy smoke above his shoulders wavered. When he finally spoke, his voice was like the sizzling of hot coals. “I do not pass judgment on issues of the heart, mi reina. I only judge between right and wrong.”

  “Muy bien,” Joanna said. “Then this matter shall be resolved tonight. I will take the boy to see the oracle.”

  Juez stepped forward. “Perhaps that may not be the wisest course. We have not received any communications from our Provencia in La Roja in more than three days. I suspect treachery within our ranks. There have also been sightings of an Oókempán hunting pack in the region. It is far too dangerous.”

  At the queen’s shocked look, Juez asked, “What’s wrong, mi reina?”

  She did not know of the fall of Toledo, El Cadejo answered.

  Joanna squeezed her eyes shut for a brief moment. Her cheeks had suddenly turned deathly pale. “Ojos que no ven, corazón que no siente,” she whispered after several seconds. She sounded completely heartbroken, and I was pretty sure she was fighting back tears.

  Violet nudged me. “What does that mean?”

  “Eyes that do not see, heart that does not feel,” I said into her ear.

  It was almost a whole minute before the queen spoke again, and when she did, her voice was little more than a rasp. “It seems the hour of judgment is upon us. I pray our courage does not fail us now.”

  “And I pray our good sense does not either,” Madremonte said. With that, she started toward the back of the monastery, trailing a tangled mass of vines and purple weeds. I finally got why they called her Mother Mountain—because that’s exactly what she looked like: a forest-covered mountain on two legs.

  El Justo Juez spun in her direction. “Señorita Monte, ¿a dónde vas?”

  “My forests need me,” she said as she disappeared through a golden door below the wall of windows. “I don’t have time for babysitting!”

  El Cadejo turned the fuzzy white dome of his head toward Juez and must’ve communicated something, because they both abruptly started toward the same door.

  “They’re leaving?” Violet asked Joanna.

  “They have many matters to attend to,” the queen replied calmly.

  Suddenly, about seven or eight itty-bitty little guys in Spanish breeches, pointy hats, and what looked like clogs made of rocks came bumbling out of the hallway to our left. They had bloated purple eyes the size of plums and skin so pale you could almost see through it to the cords of wiry muscles flexing beneath. Between them, they were hefting a large wooden chest loaded with all sorts of ancient-looking weapons—swords, battle-axes, maces, and leather slings. They made it about halfway across the room before one of them saw Violet, shrieked like a terrified billy goat, then tripped over his own two feet, taking a few of his buddies down with him. The heavy chest clattered loudly to the marble floor, and when Joanna turned to glare at them, they all immediately dropped to one knee, bowing their little heads in reverence.
The layers of dark hair snaking out from under their hats hung over their faces like silky curtains.

  “¡Perdone, mi reina!” one of them cried.

  “¡Sí, perdone!” shouted another.

  “¡Perdone, perdone!” the rest of them began to chant.

  Then they quickly surrounded the chest, picked it back up with a collective grunt, and disappeared down another long hallway, chattering noisily among themselves like a flock of excited geese.

  Joanna sighed. “Duendes can be a little skittish around humans.” She glanced down at my claw, her expression still tight. “Charlie, let me take a closer look at that. . . .”

  “Uh, sure.” I held up my big red lobster claw, feeling sort of embarrassed, and after a moment’s study, she began to wrap it in a thin white cloth (to me, it looked like the stuff doctors use to make casts) that she seemed to have materialized out of thin air. As she worked, I was struck by how familiar she looked; I’d seen this lady before—there was no doubt in my mind—and maybe even more than once. The only question was, where . . . ?

  When she finished, I flexed my claw, testing it. The material fit pretty snugly but still let me work the pincers. It looked just like a regular old cast.

  “Cool,” I said.

  “Sí, cool.” La bruja’s lips smiled, but her eyes still held a look of concern. “This way you won’t attract any unwanted attention.”

  Just then, the huge hairy hominid to her left let out a deafening roar. The sudden explosion of sound washed over me like a meatball-scented tsunami, and I almost colored my undies.

  “Geez . . . ,” I said. “What’s up with him?”

  “He would like both of you to know that he’ll be joining us tonight,” answered Joanna.

  “Really? All that grrrrrrr just to say, ‘I’m coming with’?”

  “Juan is a very passionate individual.”

  Huh. A basajaun named Juan. I kinda liked it.

  “He once saved an entire Spanish military infantry unit,” Joanna continued. “Juan single-handedly fended off more than two hundred vampire dogs with only the jawbone of a dead mule. He then gave one of his more impassioned speeches at the foothills of the Pyrenees, rallying the soldiers to help him drive the rest of the marauding Dips out of the country.”