“Cool trick.” Hondo licked some sugar off his fingertips. “But why would anyone name their house the Scream?” He shot me a wary look.
Ren whispered, “Because people scream a lot in there?”
My stomach turned in on itself as I stepped closer. I saw that the gate had eight panels and inside each one was a carving I was sure hadn’t been there before: a round face with a wide-open mouth and terrified eyes. Perfect.
Brooks scowled, shouldering past me. “I don’t like this. I thought we were here to…” She hesitated, choosing her words carefully, especially with Rosie there. “We only need to make Zane kind of D-E-A-D, Quinn,” she said in a low voice as if I wasn’t standing right next to her.
Quinn knocked twice on three different panels, like some kind of code, and said, “We are here to make Zane D-E-A-D.”
“Fake D-E-A-D,” I reminded her.
Quinn ignored me. “Brooks, did you think I was going to smother him with a pillow? This is a precise art. One wrong move and it’s lights-out forever. And now we’re late!”
“Whoa!” I held my hand up in protest. “What do you mean, ‘lights-out forever’? Ixtab said there were side effects, but she didn’t say anything about me actually dying in the process!”
“I say we take our chances with the gods.” Ren elbowed me. “If they find us, I bet we could outrun them.”
Hondo shook his head. “As crazy as it sounds, this is the better strategy to give you the best chance of survival, Zane. But whoever is doing this”—his dark eyes met Quinn’s—“they better be a pro.”
Quinn sighed. “It’s not like I’m bringing him to some street vendor selling dark magic. Puh-lease! Fausto’s the best. Obnoxious, but the best.”
Leaning closer to Brooks, I muttered, “Street vendors sell dark magic?”
She gave me a light shrug and twisted her hair around her pinkie, which was never a good sign. I hated when she was nervous, because it usually meant I should be freaking out.
I felt slightly dizzy as the gate clicked and opened slowly like it was automated. I looked from worried face to worried face. A cool breeze drifted from the courtyard inside, but it was too dark to make anything out.
Just as my foot crossed the threshold, a shrill scream pierced the air. We all jumped back. Everyone except Quinn. “Sorry,” she said. “I forgot to tell you about that little welcome. It’s just a recording. Part of the stupid ambience.”
“Any other stupid surprises?” Brooks asked.
Quinn twisted her mouth, and in this dim light, she looked like Brooks minus the nose freckles. “Nope. I think that’s the only one,” she said. “But who knows with Fausto. He thinks he’s funny, but he’s totally not.”
“Who is this Fausto dude, anyway?” I asked, not sure I even wanted to meet the guy.
“An expert death magician, among other things.” Quinn walked through the gate.
Great! My executioner was a prankster mago?
Hondo hooked his arm around my neck, tightening his grip. “Don’t worry, kid. No one’s going to do any death-magic-mojo-kung-fu on you unless it feels right.”
Brooks took my hand. You don’t have to do this.
For once Brooks was wrong. Too many people were counting on me. I had to follow through.
I stepped inside El Grito.
We entered a narrow outdoor passage where moonlight spilled between the trellises above. It led to a shadowed garden with a grove of purple-flowered trees.
“Are those heads hanging from the trees?” Ren asked with horror.
Good thing I could see so clearly through the dark or I might have lost it. “They’re masks,” I said. Every branch was filled with them, dangling by what looked like fishing wire and twisting in the breeze. Beyond the garden was a big stone house with at least four stories. Thorny vines climbed the walls.
“Whoa!” Hondo breathed. “This place is like…king status. But the masks? No me gustan.”
“I don’t like them, either,” I muttered. Rosie grunted in agreement.
Ren had already headed over to examine one of them. She tapped a flesh-colored mask that had slits for eyes and a gaping hole for a mouth. “These could be alien faces, if you ask me.”
I went over to get a better look. All the masks were different. Some were jade mosaics, others were painted papier-mâché with horns and pointed eyebrows, and the rest were made of wood and stone. But all of them were in the middle of a scream. Even the wolves, lions, and jaguars.
I was so focused on the masks, I almost didn’t notice the guy step out from between the trees. He was about Hondo’s age, had shoulder-length blondish hair, a pierced nose and eyebrow, and his arms were covered in tattoos—mostly knives, dragons, and broken hearts. He wore jeans, a gray tank top, and an apron splattered with paint.
“Hey, Fausto,” Quinn said, barely looking at the guy. “Is everything ready?”
Fausto came over and gave Quinn a giant hug. She stiffened.
“Man, what’s it been, like a year?” he said. “I hope you’re staying awhile this time.”
Quinn blushed. Yeah, you read that right. The cranky ice queen blushed.
Hondo cleared his throat and stood taller. His head whacked a wolf mask. “We’re not staying.”
Fausto snapped his attention to Hondo. A slow smile crept up. “I wasn’t asking you, was I?”
I could tell Hondo wanted to deck the guy, but before he could say anything, Quinn stepped between them and said, “Fausto, you know why we’re here.”
Brooks added, “And we’re sort of in a hurry. We’ve got places to be.”
Right. Like New Mexico. My plan was to get to the godborns first. My dad had three days before he was transferred. The godborns might not have three hours, and like Ixtab had said, who knew how they were being treated—or if they were already hurt.
Rosie yawned and collapsed under a tree. I was about to die and all she could think about was sleep?
Fausto wiped his paint-stained fingers on his apron and scanned each of us. “So, who’s the lucky victim?”
I half raised a hand. “Uh…that would be me.”
Fausto studied me. “Nice spear,” he said, glancing down at Fuego, which was still in cane mode, so how did he know? Must’ve had something to do with him being a mago.
“Thanks,” I said, keeping my eye on Ren, who had wandered away, still checking out the masks. Moon shadows rose up from the ground, surrounding her like a blanket. I wondered why they had been MIA in Xib’alb’a.
“Okay, Zane,” Fausto said. “This is how it’s going to work. You choose a mask, you put it on, you die. Any questions?”
“Hang on.” Brooks held up her hand. “We need a little more information. Like, who are you, what are your credentials, and how in the heck do the masks—?”
“Make me D-E-A-D?” I asked.
Fausto ignored me, keeping his focus on Quinn and Brooks. “This has to be your little sister, Quinn.”
“Quit stalling, Fausto.” Quinn gave him a hard stare.
“People always want to hurry death magic,” he muttered. Then he answered us. “The masks are supernatural artistic perfection made by me and every generation of my family before me. There’s only been one mess-up—okay, maybe two, and it was, like, three generations ago, some distant uncle. I’ve got a one hundred percent success rate, which basically means the death magic will kill you enough, but not so much your heart stops beating.”
“What do you mean ‘kill me enough’?” I said. “You’re either D-E-A-D or you’re not.”
“Oy…Let me explain in terms you might understand.” Fausto scratched his chin.
Brooks frowned, and I could tell she already hated the guy.
“Think of it as anesthesia,” Fausto went on. “You get enough, and it takes you under. You get too much, and you’re a goner.” He gestured to a group of trees. “Those are battle masks over there, and beyond that, ceremony masks. And that tree there?” He nodded to the closest and the only one
without purple flowers. “Those are all death masks. Worn by great warriors, priests, kings, and queens—worn by their corpses, actually, and infused with my death magic.”
“You want me to put on a mask a D-E-A-D person wore?”
“Seems pretty morbid, if you ask me,” Hondo said.
“I didn’t ask you,” Fausto said.
Hondo tensed. I could totally tell he was imagining putting Fausto in a chokehold. Just when I thought he’d lose his cool, Quinn wrapped her arm around Hondo and squeezed. I swear my uncle grew like three inches.
Fausto’s eyes narrowed to barely there slits. “Really, Quinn?” he said, offering a painted-on smile. “Trading down for a human now?”
Quinn batted her eyes all cool-like, and as she opened her mouth to say something (probably sarcastic and annoying), I jumped in. “They hate each other,” I said. “Fight all the time.”
Leave it to stupid adults to ruin everything. If Quinn made Fausto mad, he could make a mistake, and then I’d be a goner. No thanks.
Quinn must have recognized her mistake, because she quickly shoved Hondo away and said, “As if.”
Brooks rolled her eyes as Hondo smiled wider. I thought he’d collapse under the weight of Quinn’s rejection, but nope. He winked at me like he was saying See? She likes me.
“Can we just get on with this?” Quinn asked.
With a sly grin, Fausto said, “As soon as I get my payment.”
“After we see you don’t one hundred percent kill him,” Brooks said.
“Fair enough,” Fausto said.
“So, what do you mean the masks were worn by corpses?” Did no one else catch that? “Like, did you steal these masks off their cold bodies?”
“It’s not like they need them once they’re dearly departed, dude. And it is my magic.”
I really hoped he had cleaned/disinfected/fumigated these things. My stomach was in knots. “Does it matter which one I pick?”
“For sure. Pick the wrong one and you’ll be decapitated.” He busted up laughing. “Don’t look so wrecked, dude. It was a joke.” Rosie lifted her head and growled at Fausto, who held his hands up defensively. “Sheesh. No sense of humor. Go on, amigo. You can’t choose wrong.”
Yeah, tell that to the ancestors. I went over to the death-mask tree and looked up. My stomach clenched as I scanned the faces, looking for the least creepy one. Brooks stood by me and said, “How about that one?” She pointed to a plain wooden mask, but my eyes were already drawn to a simple jade one. The eye holes were large, and so were the nostrils, but the mouth was closed. And there was something about its plain expression that felt…harmless.
Was this the right one? I wondered. As if by way of an answer, a sudden heat pulsed in my blood, slow at first, then searing hot. I looked down at my hands. My palms were glowing. Before anyone else noticed, I clenched them.
Hondo spoke in a low, soothing voice. “Visualize the right one. You have to see it in your mind’s eye.”
Ren walked over. Two shadows followed her closely. They circled the mask as if they were inspecting it. “I like it,” she whispered. “Do you think King Pakal’s death mask is here, too?”
I reached up and unhooked the mask from the wire. It was heavier than I expected. The heat racing through me faded.
Fausto eyed Ren. I wondered if he could see her shadows, but if he could, he didn’t say anything. He turned back to me and raised an eyebrow. “Interesting choice.”
The way he said interesting didn’t make me think interesting. It made me think wouldn’t have been my choice. “Who did it belong to?” I asked.
“The Red Queen.”
“Who’s that?” Brooks asked.
“A noblewoman from, like, the year 600,” Fausto said. “Some archaeologists found her tomb in 1994, and ever since they’ve been trying to figure out who she was. But those morons will never know the truth.”
“Which is?” I asked.
“Alien,” Ren muttered.
Heat pulsed down my arms and into my legs, erupting in a tiny flame at my feet.
“Whoa,” Fausto said.
I watched the flame float up like a leaf lost in the wind. And just as it died, I heard the same man’s voice: Excellent choice. I nearly dropped the mask.
Everyone stared at me expectantly, and I could tell they hadn’t heard the whisper. Ren’s shadows wrapped around her as I looked down at the Red Queen’s mask. Quickly, I tugged Quinn to the side, out of everyone’s earshot, and spoke in a low voice. “What if Fausto’s powers are weakening, too? What if he messes this up?”
“I already asked,” she said. “He is losing his power, but the magic is already in the masks, so you’re covered.”
That made me feel oh so much better. Not!
“You have no choice but to do this, Zane, if you want to survive in the human world. Or would you rather go back to Holbox?”
No, I wasn’t going to run away, despite Hurakan’s advice to do just that. “Let’s get this over with.”
We rejoined everyone, and just as I lifted the mask toward my face, Fausto shouted, “Hang on!”
“What!”
“I forgot. I’m supposed to tell you about the potential side effects, which seriously takes all the fun out of it.” He recited the long list in such rapid succession he sounded like one of those TV ads for drugs you’d rather not have to take. “Migraines, diarrhea, vomiting, tooth and hair loss, insomnia, kidney failure, high blood pressure, nightmares. Let’s see…what else?”
There was more?
“Oh, and acne. Some people break out. But I totally disinfect all the masks to help avoid zits.”
“Not to mention the gross remains of skin and hair and bodily—” Brooks caught herself and zipped it.
“Dude,” Hondo muttered to me. “You sure this is worth it?”
I met Brooks’s gaze. If only we could use telepathy without touching. Not that I needed it right now. I could tell she was thinking, THIS IS SO NOT WORTH IT.
But I had no choice. I had to avoid the gods’ detection. Then something occurred to me: “How exactly does this prevent the gods from seeing me? Does it make me invisible to them?” I asked Fausto.
He shook his head. “The gods are good at sniffing out life essence, but if yours is only at two percent, you won’t even register. I mean, unless you walk right up to one, which I wouldn’t recommend.”
He for sure didn’t need to worry about that.
“Other than hiding from the gods, why else would someone use death magic?” Ren asked.
That was a good question. I imagined Fausto didn’t get tons of customers.
His eyes grew big like Ren had taken him by surprise. “To hide their magic, why else?”
Why would someone want to hide their magic? I wondered as I raised the Red Queen’s mask and took a deep breath. Brooks death-gripped my hand. Her eyes flashed amber. You better still be Zane after this.
Right. What if the Red Queen possessed me or something? Or what if a part of her came back with me? Just the thought of it gave me the creeps.
Brooks hugged me, but it didn’t help as much as I would’ve hoped.
I managed a weak smile as I stepped back and, with a shudder, pressed the mask to my face.
My legs buckled. The world dissolved. And I found myself in a small vaulted chamber about half the size of my bedroom. A single wall torch illuminated the space, which was taken up by a rectangular stone sarcophagus. To my right was a doorway that gave access to the chamber. Red powder was scattered across the sandy floor.
This was not what I was expecting. I mean, I didn’t feel dead. Maybe this death magic was going to be easier than I thought.
“Hello?” I called out, steadying myself with Fuego. My voice echoed.
A shimmering cloud appeared on top of the sarcophagus, and an older woman materialized out of it. She had olive skin, black hair tied up in a tight bun, and a band of jade stones around her forehead. “Zane Obispo,” she said with a smile. “Oh, I h
aven’t had a visitor in so long. So few choose my death mask, but I can tell just by looking that you are smarter than most.”
I didn’t know what to make of her or this place. “Er…am I dead yet?”
“I am dead. You are soon to be masked by death. I should introduce myself.”
“You’re the Red Queen?” I guessed.
“I am, and you must hurry. I can only be here for one minute and thirty seconds. Now, the rules: I cannot provide any information unless you ask the right questions, and you cannot ask the same question twice or more than one question at a time. One minute fifteen seconds.”
My throat throbbed painfully. I tried not to think about the fact that I was standing in an ancient tomb with a dead queen. “I thought…aren’t you supposed to, you know…make me dead?” No one had said anything about a question-and-answer period.
“Here you stand before the great Red Queen and you choose to waste time. I offer you an answer to any question, and by the looks of you, you need answers. I didn’t come all this way for a single death deed. I am fulfilling a debt, and you’re wasting time.”
There was no time to ask about her debt. “I heard a voice in the fire—it whispered to me.”
“That is not a question.”
“Why did the voice whisper to me?”
The Red Queen extended her small hand and called a piece of the torch’s light to her. The fire sphere floated above her palm. “To tell you something.”
I was about to argue that that was the worst answer of all time, like Alice in Wonderland bad, but we were on a tight schedule. Then it struck me—what if the voice that had been whispering to me all this time was the Fire Keeper dude? What else had he said? Time for the story to escalate. Had he been creeping on me since the night Ren got to the island? At Ms. Cab’s I had asked him who he was, and he’d said, You’ll find out soon enough.
“Who does the voice belong to?” I asked.
“I’m not good at voices. Do you have a recording?”
“You said you would offer an answer to any question.”
“That was my answer.” The Red Queen glared at me. “Look at me like that again and I will lock you in this sarcophagus with only worms for company.”
The Fire Keeper Page 16