by Dela
“Zara, isn’t this going to be so fun?”
“Plenty,” I moaned, turning to watch the front door.
The snow fell heavily as Lucas walked out with two suitcases in each hand, my parents behind him. Lucas loaded the car as Mom and Dad climbed into the open seats and shivered. When Lucas got in, he just wiped his wet hands on his jean shorts and ran them through his hair to pull it back up, no sign of a shiver.
Halfway there, I turned around to Dad. There was slight discomfort on his face as Lucas revved the engine that had only intensified as we barreled through the fresh snow. I turned back around to look anywhere but at his fright. It only reminded me of the fear I carried within, and the real reason why we were going on this trip.
Minutes later Lucas pulled into the valet stand. I didn’t even know airports had valet parking. The uniformed man at the curb called Lucas by name as another opened my door. Lucas gave him a thick wad of folded bills and moved to my side. He grabbed my hand and pulled me closer, then gave orders to the other valets who had appeared out of nowhere.
“My family is waiting inside,” Lucas announced three dollies later.
There were festive songs playing in the decorated terminal, a careful attempt at merriment, but on the ground it was anxious chaos as travelers rushed to their gates. I panicked, picturing an executioner swooping through the crush. Lucas’s fingers tightened around mine almost before the thought had formed, as if he was reading my emotions, and then he led us through the masses.
Heads turned from all directions toward Lucas. I thought it was just Lucas’s ridiculous beach attire, but then I spotted Andrés and the others, and I realized that all eyes were pulled toward the royal immortals. Together, they were alluring.
Max and Casey didn’t blink when Lucas greeted Gabriella with a kiss on the cheek.
“Max, Casey, this is my sister Gabriella,” he said.
Gabriella smiled as she leaned in and kissed their cheekbones. Her tight shirt exposed a lot of cleavage, but the button-up shirt skimming over it made her look tasteful. I imagined a piece of stone guffawing. That’s how the twins looked. Ridiculous.
“Nice to meet you, boys. This is my husband, Dylan,” she said, tugging slightly on Dylan’s arm.
The twins seemed reluctant to look at Dylan. I could see Lucas laughing silently out of the corner of my eye as Dylan stepped forward in his fedora and shook their hands.
“Nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you,” he said.
For the first time in my life, the twins were speechless.
“I have a twin too,” Dylan interjected, searching for something to break the awkward silence. “He’s not as cool as you, though.”
Max and Casey’s paralysis finally broke into shaking laughter.
“He’s okay sometimes,” Max said with a shrug at his brother.
I sat in the aisle next to Lucas for all three hours of our first flight, eating bag after bag of pretzels out of nerves.
“Would you like me to buy you a meal?” Lucas asked.
“No way, plane meals are disgusting.”
“Have you ever had a plane meal?”
“As a matter of fact I have. Once. I can’t do it again,” I said, putting pressure on my upset stomach.
“Very well.”
Each time the attendant offered us another bag of pretzels, Lucas graciously accepted and handed his over to me right away. My appetite returned in full force by the time we reached our layover in Houston, and my stomach was making all sorts of noises.
“Eat something now,” Lucas said as we exited the plane. “They won’t offer any meals on our next flight since it’s only two hours.”
He looked around at a few places in the terminal and then finally pointed to a restaurant with a display of different cheeses. “There. They have great mac and cheese.”
“You like mac and cheese?” Finally, something we can agree on.
“Who doesn’t like cheese?” he asked.
I smiled. “Sounds perfect.”
By the time we arrived in Merida at midnight and got through customs, my starving state had returned. I had heard about street tacos in Mexico, and I wished we could stop and try some, but Andrés and Valentina insisted we wait to eat at their house, a place off the beach twenty minutes away.
The airport there was just as small as ours, but when I walked off the plane into the air-conditioned room, I felt a smudge of unfamiliar humidity. When I caught my reflection in the windows we passed along a wall, I realized that my hair had already gone all Medusa. Lucas looked past my frizzy hair and met my eyes in the glass, unable to contain a sort of anticipation. Then his hand rubbed the small of my back. I smiled, but wondered what it meant as we moved to the baggage claim.
Two men dressed in short-sleeved, collared blue shirts piled our luggage onto small trolley carts and followed us outside. They were short and had to sway from side to side to see around the piles of luggage. As we passed through the automated doors, the thickness of the warm night air clogged my lungs, and I grabbed my throat in despair. I felt suddenly sticky underneath my coat. I slumped it off and swung it over my arm.
“Are you okay?” Lucas asked.
“I’m fine,” I said. I inhaled again and found the air wet but breathable. I didn’t like it.
We walked past the taxi line and stopped at the curb, where five short chauffeurs stood under a dim streetlamp, holding papers bearing our names. Behind them were long white sedans that looked like they belonged on an English manor, not on the beach. I had already connected rich gods to expensive, foreign cars, but Max and Casey flipped out.
“No way!” Casey screamed.
“Maybach Landaulets?” Max asked giddily.
“What’s that?” I asked.
They laughed at me and turned to Lucas, who looked outright guilty.
“What?” I asked again.
“They have suicide doors,” Max added.
“What?”
Before I could object, Andrés turned to my parents.
“Valentina and I will take the first car. Mitch and Lori, you take the next. Max and Casey, you have your own car, as do Lucas and Zara. Dylan and Gabriella, you will follow,” he arranged firmly.
“That is very nice of you, but we can take a cab. It’s more practical,” Dad said bravely when no one spoke up.
“Mr. Moss, you are my guest, and it is my pleasure to welcome you as I would my own family. If you took a cab, I would be offended. Now, not another word, please. I believe your daughter is starving.”
Dad shot me a puzzled look. I shrugged innocently as my stomach grumbled. Dad finally nodded, and as Andrés and Valentina entered their car, I leaned against Dad and whispered into his ear.
“What bothers you more? The fact that he’s rich or that he doesn’t have gray hair?” I realized as I said it that I’d never asked Lucas how they really were so rich.
Dad reached for his salt-and-pepper hair. “I don’t have that much gray hair, do I?”
“Get in the car, Mitch,” Mom said as she stepped inside.
I glanced at my car. Lucas held a hand out to the open door. “After you.”
The first thing I noticed was the bucket seat I slid into. Lucas was already getting in on the other side as I slid back and got comfortable. Then I noticed the oversized sunroof, open to reveal the stars. And then the space, and how my legs could stretch all the way out with room to spare. And the stark white color of the leather, the rugs, and the doors. I wondered then, since it was so spotless, whether they had just bought these cars as well. Lucas, who had been watching me all the while, chuckled softly.
“These are on loan to us from our dear friends in Germany,” he said, answering my train of thought as the car moved.
“How do you read my mind?”
“I don’t; I’ve just gotten really g
ood at predicting what people are thinking, especially you.”
“I see. Well then, what am I going to say next?”
He laced his fingers together and laid them on his flat stomach.
“You are going to ask how we pay for all of this,” he said.
He confounded me, but then the window open to the driver’s compartment caught my eye.
“No, wait, now you’re going to ask why I speak so freely in the driver’s presence,” he added.
I blushed as the driver looked at us in the rearview mirror.
“Raul is a dear family friend.”
Immediately the wrong questions flooded my mind. Who is Raul? How does he know the Castillo family? Does he know about their secret? Does he know why we’re here? I shrank into the seat, scared that I knew so little about this new world, completely in over my head.
“Raul is an Alux,” he said. I vaguely remembered hearing the word once before, in the garage at Fallen Leaf. He spoke before I could ask my obvious question. “You will learn more about them in time.”
It’s been time, I thought angrily, but I was also very tired and very hungry.
“So, where does all your money come from?” I settled for asking as I watched the black streets pass.
He threw a pressed smile at Raul and sighed. “Our Aluxes,” he said. Then he chuckled lightly and glanced at Raul. “And so my answer comes to you once again,” he said. Raul smiled but said nothing.
“What does that mean? Are they not human?” I whispered.
“Aluxes are Mayan, but not human. The Celestials assigned them to serve and protect us after the transformation. They remain invisible until it is time to serve. Niya and Malik have their beef with them every now and then. They both tend to get a bit protective of us.” He winked.
“I wouldn’t know the feeling,” I joked back.
Lucas laughed.
“Do they have any powers?” I asked as we passed dim streetlights.
“They will use their powers to protect us only when my family and I are in imminent danger, and only against those who mean us harm.”
“What can they do?”
“What the Mayans were good at: fighting. They probably seem short to you, but size is deceiving. They. Can. Fight. Some of the best fights I’ve ever had. After the transformation, well, I guess you can say we all had a big throwdown to see what everyone’s strengths were.”
“Do they launder money too?” I asked.
Lucas and Raul laughed together. I felt young and dumb.
“No, muñeca,” Lucas said, recovering. “They take work all around the world. Their income goes into a pool. We have a few offshore bank accounts, which is what we use to pay for everything. It would be easier to compel people and just take from them, but we like to think we still have humanity left in us after all. So we pay for our material things just as any normal person would.”
“Oh.”
He remained patiently silent, expecting more questions.
“Where are Tita, Niya, and Malik?” Dim lights turned to small outdoor restaurants with flashy signs in all colors, and taco kiosks on every street corner. I was surprised at the number of customers they had at this late hour.
“They’re coming tomorrow.”
“How do Niya and Malik travel? Were they on the plane in a crate, with the dogs and cats?”
Lucas let out a loud laugh. “No, babe, we have a private plane, so Niya and Malik can roam freely. Tita volunteered to stay behind so that they didn’t have to fly alone. They will arrive tomorrow night.”
“Oh.” I shut up then, trying to control the jittery nerves in my gut, and realized he had just called me babe.
“How are you doing with everything?” he asked a minute later as I rested my head against the window.
“I try not to think about it.”
Soon the city lights were behind us, and the tropical trees were black silhouettes against the stars. The Milky Way swirled above us, a golden glow bursting with burning stars. Lucas shifted and angled his knees closer to mine.
“Since I got mad at you for withholding information from me, I feel I can’t be a hypocrite and do the same,” he said dutifully.
“Okay.” My stomach cramped suddenly.
“The Celestials would come after anyone responsible for killing another Celestial. If they come after us, they will find that we have saved a sacrifice as well as killed one of their own. They like their peace, and if anyone meddles with it, the consequences . . . would not be favorable.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I felt the blood rush from my head and the poisonous nausea come back. “Who said anything about killing a Celestial?”
“Xavier may not return to the Underworld when it is time to close the portal. And if that is the case, he must die.”
“You can’t.” It came out before I realized what I was saying, but I knew I was right by the way my body pounded.
“We don’t have a choice. He’s here to harm you!”
“What if you’re wrong?”
Lucas raised his voice through gritted teeth, and his striking features were dark with disbelief. “I am doing this to protect you.”
“I know, and I am grateful, but it doesn’t make sense. Think about it. It’s too easy. I don’t know how, but since . . . what happened this morning, I feel it in my bones that something very bad would happen if Xavier died.”
“Of course you do. You’re connected to him,” Lucas sniffed sourly.
“No, Lucas. That’s not it.”
Lucas sat at the edge of his seat and drew his heels in.
“Xavier knows I swore an oath to the Celestials that I would never break this rule. This gives me leverage, Zara. He would never suspect it.”
“You can’t!”
“Xavier’s plan, Zara, is to kill you on an altar in this world. He’s not even going to bring you to the Underworld!” he said, disgust clear in his tone. “You dying here will bring his spirit out of Xibalba and back to life. He wants to kill you soon—any day now. I’m sorry, Zara, but my first priority is keeping you safe. We can worry about the Celestials later.”
Tears swelled in my eyes. He looked away with grief and sat still. Finally, as the car slowed, he cast a tight smile in my direction. “We’re here.”
It was pitch black outside when Raul turned onto a sandy road. The car’s headlights revealed a waist-high gate in a wall of high bushes. Raul followed the caravan’s taillights through its open doors. The road was slightly bumpy and dimly lit by flaming torches encased in glass atop modern-looking pillars every ten feet. At the end of the road stood a tall, bright house. Short servants stood waiting at the steps to the front door, between more pillars of fire.
“Welcome to my home, Zara,” Lucas said as Raul stopped at the steps.
A dark-haired man in a black collared shirt opened my door. He wore a jade-colored ribbon tied in a bow just under his neck, leaving the ends hanging down his chest. I took his hand nervously and stepped out into the awful wall of humidity.
Then I looked up, and up, and up. The house rose three stories high above a large central terrace. Floodlights beamed up each thick tropical tree lining the perimeter of the house. As the cool, salty breeze blew against my face, I recognized the sound of ocean waves crashing against the shore.
“Lucas, your home . . .” I said.
“Lucas, hey Lucas!” Max and Casey called as they ran over to us. Lucas turned toward them.
“Hey Lucas, I just wanted to let you know—” Max began, but Casey jabbed him in the ribs. “Okay, we both wanted to let you know that this is awesome. Maybe we can go get some drinks later and talk?”
“Talk about our sister, of course,” Casey added, trying to regain control over his excitement.
Lucas chuckled. “Sure. I would like that.” Then he slapped each of
their shoulders and slyly pushed them toward the door. “Come inside, I will show you where your rooms are.”
“Wait, rooms? We have our own rooms?” Casey asked.
As the twins ascended the stairs in a near run, snorting like pigs, Lucas stepped back and reached for my hand. I jerked away in confusion, asking myself what his gestures meant.
“It’s only my hand,” he said, but his eyes were different. They were open and free, and I could see the truth in the depths of them. No more secrets, I thought.
I smiled and fitted my hand into his slowly. The tingling fire was fierce at first, but then it calmed to a cool touch as he grasped it more firmly. It was a simple tickle when we reached the top of the stairs.
Another servant waited inside the foyer, a short woman wearing a modern-day Puebla dress with a top of black ruffled lace draping across her chest and off-shoulder sleeves, above a sheath fitted tightly from her bust to her knees. A jade-colored feather extension dangled next to her right ear. She was holding a silver platter of ice-cold beverages.
I was beyond parched, but I recognized none of the offerings. I grabbed the first one that looked refreshing, a Coke-type bottle with a picture of an apple on it. Cold condensation wet my fingertips and dripped on the floor as I lifted it.
“Thank you,” I said.
She looked up at me and smiled wordlessly.
“Gracias, Marifer,” Lucas said from behind me, choosing a fluted glass filled with clear liquid.
We passed a spiral staircase and stepped into a museum-sized room open to the balcony walkways of each floor above it. I froze when I saw a tall Christmas tree lit with soft white lights in the middle. Some twinkled on and off beneath elaborate decorations in shades of white, cream, and jade. There were glass balls, seashells, glittering sprays, and snowflakes. Not a single branch remained bare.