At the end of the hall, the gloomy orange haze from the flaming sky poured into the window between the animal hides. He aimed for the window and flung himself through it, grabbing the animal hide on his way out, clutching it. He swung. His shoulder slammed into the stone wall. The animal hide ripped, and he plummeted two stories to the ground.
He jumped to his feet and checked around for Gimlet. She was nowhere to be found. That’s what he got for not tying her up and giving her freedom to roam. Last time he’d be nice.
“Gimlet!” he called out into the vacant grounds, turning his head every which way in search of his pet cornurus. Skullface had said he would draw Gimlet over to the ball court.
A squal vaulted through the window he had just jumped through. Cross dashed down the lane of statues and cut around the palace.
The melted-faced squal met him in the courtyard. It had cut him off by going through the palace. The two squals approached cautiously from front and behind.
Cross turned sideways so that he could keep an eye on them both.
“You’re the mo-sss-st sss-stubborn sss-soul,” said the squal on his right. “When you sss-set your mind to sss-something, it is-sss sss-set.”
“I’m not worth all this trouble.” Cross stepped backwards. “Just go back and tell your clan someone else already captured me before you got to me.”
The melted-faced squal to his left stepped forward. “Your beautiful mind is-sss worth the trouble. And even if it were not, we are forbidden to return without you.”
“Then, I guess I’m going to have to burn you all like I did the last one.”
The melted-faced squal stepped closer. “There are three of us-sss this-sss time. How do you sss-suppose you’re going to take us-sss all?”
“That’s a surprise.”
It was so much of a surprise, not even Cross knew exactly how he was going to do it yet. His best option was to make it to the blade house. But the blade house was several houses away and the path to it was blocked by the squal in front of him.
The dome shaped Bat Aviary towered right next to him. He could lose the squals in there and then make his way to the blade house.
Cross sprinted through the alley of stone-carved bats leading up to the aviary. The squals chased. He slammed the iron aviary door behind him.
The squals bashed the solid door from the other side. It cracked open just enough for them to slash their claws through. They ripped his shirt sleeve, trying to grab him and pull him out.
CROSS SHOULDERED THE IRON AVIARY DOOR WITH ALL HIS MIGHT. Finally, the squals snatched their arms back. The door closed. He slid the latch in place, locking the door, and backed away. He drew in a shaky breath. The squals would never give up.
A narrow wooden bridge wound from the entrance through a jungle of dead trees and vines. It was elevated above the forest floor which was filled with boulders and a few hazy ponds, bubbling. It would be a bone breaking jump down. The canopy of the trees rose even higher, but barely touched the top of the dome shaped fencing of aviary.
He spotted a wooden shack at the other end of the bridge in the center of the aviary. He had never been inside the aviary, let alone that shack. There had to be a way out somewhere on the other side of that shack. Most of the other houses of Xibalbá had back doors.
The iron door banged. The squals were throwing their bodies against it without any regard to their health. Either they were going to break through the gate or end up breaking their own bones, possibly both.
The canopy above wisped. Shrieks and flapping noises exploded throughout the aviary. Bats swooped down and swarmed out of their cave-like roosts below.
Cross rushed across the bridge. Bats half his size snapped their fangs at him and snatched with their talons. He ducked them, sprinting toward the shack.
Halfway across the bridge, a bat swooped in front of him. He swung the barbot wing and knocked it out of the air. It spiraled to the forest floor several feet below the bridge and splashed into a pond.
Behind him, the squals burst through the iron door, knocking it off is hinges. A swarm of bats flew out the door, while others attacked the squals, lifting some of the pressure off Cross. Not nearly enough though.
A bat wrapped its talons around the barbot wing. The wing snapped in half. Another bat slammed into his back, sinking its talons into his flesh. The force sent him tumbling into the dark shack. He rolled around trying to get the creature off his back and writhed in pain.
“Off of him.” A squal snatched the bat off Cross. Some of the skin on his back ripped away along with it. Cross arched his back in agony.
Both squals tussled with the bat. The lower jaw on one of the squal’s dangled. Cross must’ve broken it when he bashed it with the wing back in the palace.
The bat latched its talons onto the slack jawed squal’s chin and ripped its lower jaw right off its face. Black blood gushed out of its neck. It collapsed, hissing.
The squal with the melted face, whom Cross had stabbed with the lit candles, slapped the bat against the floor repeatedly until it quit flapping and shrieking.
Melty-face then stepped over Slackjaw, who was lying on the senseless floor, and reached out to Cross as if it honestly cared about his wellbeing. “They did not injure you did they?”
Cross backed away on his bottom, scanning the one room shack for an exit. A door was directly on the opposite side of the shack only a few feet away.
“You’re only delaying the inevitable,” said Melty-face.
“That’s the point,” said Cross.
“We will have your memories-sss. You cannot run forever.”
“I don’t plan to.”
“Yes-sss. We know all about your plan to go to paradise and drink from the River Lethe. Quite ambitious-sss. But you’ll never breach the great wall. The guards of the A’raf will annihilate you on sss-sight. And that does-sss no sss-soul any good. At least if you come with us-sss, you’ll be giving back to the community. Your memories-sss will help all of the damned. You’ll be a hero. The Man Who Remembers-sss will, himself, be remembered as-sss a sss-savior.”
Cross sprang to his feet, raced through the shack and out the back door. He slammed the wooden door behind him. It was much weaker than the iron door at the entrance and it was rotting away. He braced it shut with his back.
The bridge continued from the rear of the shack and led to the other side of the aviary where there was a rear exit.
Oddly, the squal hadn’t yet tried to break down the door like they had done with the entrance. Cross peeked through a crack in the door. Slackjaw’s body remained on the floor still bleeding to second death, but Metly-face was nowhere inside the shack.
The squal must’ve circled around to the rear exit and was planning to meet him in the back of the aviary. There would be a squal waiting for him outside either door. Squals were tricky that way.
Maybe there was a hole in the fencing at the top of the aviary that he could slip through. If not, he could make one. Everything in Xibalbá was ancient and falling apart. With some brute force he could break through. He could sneak through the top and then slide down the side of the aviary. The squals wouldn’t expect that.
He climbed onto the bridge railing and vaulted over to a tree. He scaled high enough up that he could see the entire aviary below. No sign of any of the squals and most of the bats had flown the coop.
Melty-face entered the aviary through the rear entrance just as Cross had suspected it would. The squal stopped at the edge of the bridge where it met the shack, turning its head side to side, searching.
Cross grabbed the wired fencing above him and shook it, trying to find a weakness. Vines were wrapped tightly around the wiring, giving the fence extra strength. It wouldn’t budge.
The tree limb he was standing on snapped. He tumbled. His chest slapped a limb. He hugged it, preventing himself from falling further.
“Come down from there,” said Melty-face, pleading with its clawed hands. “You’ll fall and damage that
beautiful mind.” The squal scrambled up the tree.
Cross wished he had a gun so he could threaten to blow his own brains out. That would make the squals back off.
He swung a leg over the limb, and regained his footing. The squal drew closer. A vine swung down and slapped Cross in his face. It hung directly from the top of the aviary where he had been jostling the wiring. He must’ve loosened it. He pulled it taught to see if it could hold his weight. It held.
He thanked the Great Goddess for such a blessing and kissed the vine. He wrapped the vine around his arm and flung himself outward just out of the reach of the squals swiping claws. He sailed above the aviary peacefully, and then his momentum slowed; he swung back toward the welcoming arms of Melty-face.
He lifted his legs as high as he could over Melty-face’s outstretched arms and swung pass the squal, then over the roof of the shack. He was too high to jump onto it without breaking bones.
With nowhere to land safely, he was just a naked pendulum, and his clock was ticking. At the peak of the swing, the vine jolted as though on the verge of snapping. The wiring at the top was buckling and lowered him down a drop, now at the perfect height for the squal to grab him easily.
Melty-face waited patiently on its perch. Cross bunched his knees to his chest and kicked off of Melty-face’s body. The squal clawed at his legs, shredding his pants and skin.
Cross sailed over the bridge, looking for somewhere he could jump before the wiring gave way. Melty-face leapt onto his vine. It snapped. They plummeted.
Branches broke his fall on the way down and nearly broke one of his ribs. He plowed into the bridge on his shoulder and debris showered him. Melty-face next to him was staggering to its feet, jostling broken shards of bone from the barbot wing.
Cross kicked the squal in the head. It keeled over onto its back. He snatched up the dagger sized shard of bone and plunged it into the flailing squal’s chest.
The miserable spirit withered into the black ash-like state of second death, crusty and hard on the outside, soft and gooey on the inside. It was now stiff and frozen in the position it burned, arms and legs curled like a dead spider. That didn’t always happen when spirits burned, but the contorted appearance always gave him the willies.
Cross dropped the bone and crossed himself. The Mother, the Maiden, and the Crone.
“You did that to yourself,” he said to the charred spirit. “Told you to leave me alone.” He wiped its black blood off his hands and onto his shirt.
Burning a squal wasn’t as easy as stomping on a cockroach, but just like squashing a bug, a squal dying a second death didn’t mean shit in the grand scheme. More would follow. No one could get rid of them all.
He sprang to his feet, only a short distance to the front entrance where the third squal was most likely waiting outside—unless the poison calabash it had eaten had taken affect. Then he’d have one less squal to worry about. Not taking any chances, he proceeded to the rear exit and raced out that iron door.
A squal met him there.
“Son of a bitch!” Cross threw his head back in exasperation. They tricked him. “I thought’ you’d be out front.”
“That’s-sss what we wanted you to believe,” said the squal.
It stood taller. The curvature in its spine had straightened. Its knees pointed forward and its skin was drier. The moistness seemed to have been sucked out of it. It must’ve been the squal that had eaten the calabash. The poisonous affects were taking place. It would burn soon.
“What if I had went out the front door then?” asked Cross.
The squal shrugged its unusually broad shoulders. “You would have had a much bigger head sss-start.” Slowly, it curled the corners of its slimy mouth upward and flashed its thorny teeth.
Cross darted down the lane to the shivering house. He could trip the unsuspecting squal on the slippery ice inside.
He flung the door open. A green jaguar lying just inside lifted its head and growled.
“Shit!” Wrong house. Cross slammed the door in the jaguar’s face and spun around to flee. Only then did he notice the alley of stone jaguars leading up to the house. He should pay more attention.
The squal raced up the alley towards him. Cross dove out of its way. The squal slammed into the door and broke through it. Jaguars growled inside. Cross scooted backwards on his bottom.
The squal launched out of the jaguar lair as if tossed. It tumbled backwards and landed on all fours in a slide. The squal hissed and backed away from the house.
A handful of green jaguars poured out the house, snarling. They flocked around the squal, attacking it from all sides. A cloud of rustled dust obscured Cross’s view. Gnashing and tearing of skin.
“Eat him,” Cross cheered the jaguars on. “Eat him up!”
They’d have him for dessert. He hopped to his feet.
A couple of jaguars launched into the air, hurled outward from the pack and thumped to the ground on their sides. The rest of the group dispersed into the grounds of the kingdom, leaving three jaguars lying dead with the victorious squal standing triumphantly.
Cross’s heart rose in his throat. He rushed to the blade house, at last. This time he made absolutely sure he had entered the intended building.
He swung the door open, sending a draft swirling into the house nudging the thousands of blades that dangled from clotheslines strung along the walls and the ceiling. The wooden paddles and axes clunked together; the obsidian blades swished and clinked.
He grabbed the first blade closest to him, a flat wooden paddle with triangular obsidian blades around the edges. The clothesline was threaded through its handle and prevented him from taking it.
He yanked on the blade. The rope pulled taught and a blade swung down from the ceiling. He jumped backwards. The blade swung toward the entrance. The squal entered the house and dodged the razor-sharp pendulum.
Cross gripped his new blade and snatched. The rope came with it and dangled from the loophole in the handle. He chopped at the squal. It ducked, grabbed his shin with its hand-like foot and pulled his leg from under him.
His back slapped the ground, widening the gaps torn open by the bat’s talons. The squal grasped his neck with its foot and leaned over him.
“Our chieftain ordered us-sss not to burn you. We are to bring you back in one piece. But sss-some of us-sss wonder if you’re truly worth all the trouble. No one is-sss for certain if we absolutely need every piece of your sss-spirit intact. It’s-sss a mere precaution.” It tightened its grip around his neck.
The largest blade in the house hung over them. Cross followed the line of a rope near him. It led from the floor, up the wall and to the large blade. If he could cut the rope, that blade would drop onto the squal’s head. He needed a distraction.
“It’s true. You need me in one piece,” said Cross, not really knowing for sure himself. He slid the blade back and forth, sawing at the rope as he spoke. “But you don’t have to take my word or it. Take me captive. I ain’t goin’ nowhere. There’s no need to anger your chieftain. He’ll reward you for following his exact instructions.”
“Our chieftain is female,” the squal snapped, with a hiss of hot breath and stringy drool.
Cross kept sawing. “My mistake. You all look alike. I can never tell. I have to say though, you’re better looking than the others. Not my type—no squal is—but you’re the most attractive squal I’ve seen so far. Still not sure if you’re male or fe—”
The squal clasped his throat cutting off his air supply. Its gaze landed on the rope Cross was cutting. It followed the rope up to the large blade.
Cross hacked the rope. It snapped. The large blade rained down.
The squal released Cross. Both of them rolled out of the way. The large blade staked into the vacant floor and would have skewered them both together as one kabob.
Another blade stabbed the floor inches away from Cross’s ear. Hatchets swung back and forth from the ceiling.
Cross clung to the wall. He f
ollowed along the wall, cutting more ropes as he went until it was raining knives, daggers and swords. Neither the squal nor Cross was concerned with each other now. They both dodged for their afterlife.
A battle axe swung down and lopped one of the squal’s arms off at the shoulder. Black blood spouted out the wound. The squal roared in pain and collapsed.
Cross didn’t bother waiting for it to burn, and by the protection of the Great Goddess, he managed to dodge blade after hailing blade and rolled out of the house uncut.
Immediately outside, another squal met him. It had a gaping hole in its neck and no bottom jaw. He’d assumed that Slackjaw had died a second death after the bat tore its jaw off.
The squal wheezed through its torn open neck. Black blood gushed out of it and clumped to the ground.
Cross groaned. “Why won’t you hurry up and burn?”
Something hard bashed Cross in the face. He wiped the splattered calabash juice off his forehead, making sure none of it slipped into his mouth, and gazed up the hill at the tree in the court.
Bolon-Hunahpu was laughing as only a skull could. Cross could almost hear its annoying jaws clunking together. The branches swayed backwards and shot forward in a snap just as the squal lunged at Cross. A bushel’s worth of calabash smacked the squal in the back. It toppled face first into the ground, knocked out cold.
Bolon-Hunahpu waved its branches side to side. It was a goodbye wave. They’d probably never see each other again.
The skull yelled across the land: “Catch up with Cottontail for me!”
Cross raised his hand to wave back. Slackjaw began to gather itself to its feet. It stumbled. Cross raised his obsidian blade and lopped off the squals head. The head rolled down the hill and the body dissolved into the nothing of second death.
Cross crossed himself—The Mother, the Maiden, and the Crone—and spotted his pet cornurus.
“Where you been, Gimlet?” he said as he raced over to her.
Unlike trees, his cornurus never talked. But that didn’t stop Cross from holding full conversations with the bulky half bull, half lizard. He found comfort in talking to someone who couldn’t talk back. Gimlet couldn’t lie to him or take advantage of him. He preferred the companionship of animals because of their loyalty. He always knew where he stood with a beast.
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