by David Bowles
Leaning its great head down to with arm’s reach of Johnny, the jaguar opened unspeakable, slavering jaws to reveal teeth the length of a man’s leg and a gullet that glistened darkly with ominous implications. A rumbling growl was born in the depths of this black mountain, building toward a crescendo…. But the growl, unexpectedly, became a voice: a voice like the fulminating roar, but speaking in words Johnny could understand. The jaguar was addressing them in Spanish, antiquated and replete with difficult words, but intelligible nonetheless.
“Have I your attention, humans?” It turned its fiery eyes on Johnny. “Do you understand me, boy?”
The voice was all around him, echoing in the air, trembling in the ground, whispering in the very depths of his soul. He had heard that voice many times before in his darkest dreams. There was no choice but to answer it.
“Uh, yes.”
“Good. I have been awaiting you for some time. We have much to discuss. First, however, let me assume a less theatrical form.”
The great jaguar began to shudder, its limbs twitching. Then, heaving and pulsing, its flesh began to shrink and run together, gradually taking on another form. Though still imposing, the beast was now a giant of a man, standing a foot and a half above the tallest Johnny had ever seen. The skin of a jaguar was draped around him like a robe, its head hooding him and enfolding his handsome pale face in shadows. Behind his head, inexplicably floating in space, smoked a black mirror, made, as far as Johnny could tell, from obsidian. The young man was reminded for a moment of Catholic icons, saints with their circles of light. Except this was a circle of darkness, absolute and purest night. The man wore a gray tunic beneath the robe, decorated with black and gray feathers collected from, Johnny noted, crows and ravens and vultures. His right foot was shod in a sandal, but his left leg tapered to bare bone just above the ankle, and the skeletal left foot appeared to be caught within the slightly convex surface of the mirror that still smoldered on the cave floor.
“If you have not yet guessed, I am Tezcatlipoca, boy. Enslaver of Men. Master of Earth and Sky. Enemy of Both Sides. Omnipresent Darkness. I effect change, pull down the old ways in favor of stronger ones, destroy the weak. I existed before this world’s beginning, and I shall be here at its end. An end, I should add, that will come very soon, now that you two have begun to wield the savage magic.”
Johnny’s hands curled into fists. His heart beat wildly, almost painfully in his chest. “If you think,” he panted, “that we’re going to help you destroy the universe, then you must be out of your freaking mind. Or maybe you’ve been chewing on some funky cactus, huh?”
“Johnny,” Carol breathed in a nervous warning. His mother gripped his hand tightly. He ignored them both.
“Yeah, no, you had our mom captive for six months. Our dad nearly lost it. Carol and I were pushed to our limits. You basically screwed our family, big time. So, you peg-legged freak, get the hell out of our way before you get a taste of the savage magic you’re so excited about.”
A grin spread across Tezcatlipoca’s face, baring his feral teeth. “You have summed up perfectly, if somewhat inelegantly, the very seed of your enslavement to me. That you are too young or stupid to understand only adds to my enjoyment of your predicament. In any event, please. Please make me get out of your way. I have been looking forward to this moment eagerly, boy.”
Johnny could only focus on the word enslavement. A growl rose from deep within him, as if his tonal itself were responding to the dark god’s taunts.
“Me too, you scabby old gib.”
“Johnny, stop.” His mother’s voice was as firm and determined as ever. He couldn’t help obeying her. “He’s goading you. Don’t fall into his trap.”
“Your mother is very wise, boy. But very mortal. I think I will kill her now. Attempt to stop me, if you dare.”
Verónica Quintero de Garza dropped to her knees, clutching at her throat and gasping. Pulling away from his mother and sister with a growl, Johnny shifted into the massive harpy eagle and launched himself at Tezcatlipoca, razor-sharp talons raking at the god’s face. The dark lord leaned out of the way swiftly, reaching up a powerful hand to seize Johnny’s legs and fling him toward the cavern floor. Beating mighty wings desperately, he barely managed to avoid slamming brutally against jagged rock.
“Ah, combat. It has been ages since anyone was stupid enough to attack me. Thank you, boy. It will be a genuine pleasure to grind your mortal flesh against the bare rock of Mictlan.”
A gust of fire rushed at Tezcatlipoca then, and as the god turned to deflect it, Johnny rushed at him, sinking his talons into the god’s shoulders. The dark lord grunted and reached back to grab at Johnny, but Carol, in fire serpent form, flung herself through the air, slamming into Tezcatlipoca and curling about him. Johnny began to pound his beak against the god’s skull over and over as his sister started to squeeze.
“Impressive,” Tezcatlipoca grunted. Then he simply wasn’t there. Johnny and Carol dropped hard, hitting the mirror with a crunching thud. Above them, black smoke coalesced into the form of the god, smiling down at them. Then Tezcatlipoca took hold of both their heads and slammed them repeatedly against the ceiling before tossing them casually to either side of the cavern. Johnny, pain exploding within him, felt consciousness slipping, but he held on.
Too much blood loss , he thought weakly at his sister. I can’t react fast enough.
Carol didn’t respond. He could barely see her in the shadows of the rocks where she’d fallen. Her hair covered her face. Probably unconscious, shifted back.
Tezcatlipoca had turned his attention to their mother, who was attempting to run toward Carol.
“I promised you would be a witness and a tool in your children’s destruction, did I not? Be still, then, and behold.”
Verónica Quintero de Garza was jerked into the air by some invisible force and then violently hurled downward. Johnny gave a startled cry and dropped back into human form, frantically grabbing at his bracelet, searching for…there. A strand of Huitzilopochtli’s hair. Gripping it between his thumb and index finger, Johnny shifted.
The transformation was dizzying. Power like he had never felt trembled along semi-divine limbs, and knowledge of how to use it rose almost instinctively within his mind. Reaching out a pale-blue hand, he called his shield to him, and it hurtled toward his outstretched arm like an obedient hunting hawk.
“Leave my mother alone, you bastard!” he shouted as he flung dark energy at Tezcatlipoca. The Lord of Chaos turned and smiled, spreading wide his arms at the attack. Johnny sent wave after wave of hate-driven, angry black magic pounding against him, but the god absorbed it all.
“Wonderful! You have delivered yourself to me so utterly that I can scarce believe your naïveté. I should have guessed you would ignore all sense, but for you to transform into my very protégé, the creature whose life was sustained by lore he learned from me…the irony is simply delicious. Now, slave, feel my mastery of you and despair.”
The cavern went dark and silent, as if filled with a spiritual sludge that even now tried to force its way into Johnny’s mind and heart. Panicked, he began to push back with all the strength he possessed but it wasn’t enough. Like grappling fingers, the cehualli poked through his defenses, found a hold and pried open a hole. A black quiet poured into him that was worse than any nightmare his sister had ever faced. Fleeing the absence that tried to consume him, Johnny retreated into himself.
“Yes, very astute. Cede control to me, boy. Sit back and watch as I wreak havoc with your own hands.”
Johnny-as-Huitzilopochtli reached up with his free hand and snapped a stalactite off the ceiling. It was like being a marionette. His limbs moved against his volition. His demigod body took several steps toward his mother, arms cocking the stalactite back like a baseball bat. His eyes focused on the woman at his feet. He felt a sick smile spread across his corpse-blue face.
No!
“Oh, yes. She will die by your hand, boy.”
/> Johnny gave a wordless howl of frustration. Clinging to his tonal, he reached deep, tapped the savage magic, channeled it against Tezcatlipoca’s cehualli intrusion. The god redoubled, tripled the strength of his magical puppeteering. Desperate, Johnny dug in his soul, frantically sweeping away everything that impeded the flow of xoxal: memories, emotions, identity. He became an unthinking conduit through which the savage magic swept like a massive flood, ripping at the foundations of his very self.
Blue energy erupted like a geyser from his flesh, knocking Tezcatlipoca down, ripping through the rock above their heads, tunneling upward through the roots of the World Tree to bore like a laser into the starry sky far above.
“YES!” Tezcatlipoca shouted, triumphant. “Let it flow, Boy! Tear open a hole in heaven and let the end BEGIN!”
The boy was a beacon. Power burned him clean of anything else but this. He saw the woman, twisted on the ground. He saw the girl, lifting herself up on her elbows, eyes full of tears. He saw the universe buckle. Soon it would crack. The boy saw no reason for it not to. Let it crack. Let it burn. Let darkness fall forever.
Then a small voice whispered. The boy ignored it, but it was insistent. Over and over it whispered a phrase. He listened, hoping that his attention would silence it.
At the end, remember who you are.
The boy thought for a moment. He could not remember who he was. He was the beacon, the conduit, the tool. That was all.
The most important gift. It already lies within you.
But what was the gift? The boy had no idea. He did not know who he was. He had been burned clean of any gifts.
The universe groaned, ready to split asunder.
And then came a song. A beautiful, beautiful song, sung in bereft but loving tones by a familiar voice.
¡Oh madre querida!
¡Oh madre adorada!
Que Dios te bendíga,
aquí en tu morada.
Que Dios te conserve,
mil años de vida,
feliz y dichosa,
¡oh madre querida!
Sí estás dormidita,
escucha este canto,
que todos tus hijos,
convierten en llanto.
Tú que por tu hijos,
vives implorando,
en ti madrecita,
vivimos pensando.
Recibe el cariño,
de todos tus hijos,
que nunca en la vida,
podrán olvidarte.
Sí estás escuchando,
podrás alegrarte,
que todos tus hijos,
vienen a cantarte.
Tú nombre es María,
y no hallan que darte,
se sienten dichosos,
al felicitarte.
And with a shuddering rush, the boy recognized his mother, the woman who had loved him more than anyone for as long as he had lived. She had given him his name, and she would whisper it to him every night, thinking him asleep. Te quiero, Juan Ángel. Tu madre te quiere mucho.
“I remember who I am,” he muttered wonderingly, looking at Tezcatlipoca, whose smile began to fade. “I’m Juan Ángel Garza. Son of Verónica and Oscar. Brother of Carolina. And the gift I already have…it’s their love. Their love. And…the love I feel for them. You can’t touch that, can you?”
Tezcatlipoca stood but said nothing. Taking the love Carol’s singing had awakened, Johnny shut off the savage magic. Dropping the stalactite, he shifted back into human form and tossed the shield aside.
“Kill us if you want,” he said quietly. “But I’m not going to help you destroy the universe. You lose, freak. Game over.”
Tezcatlipoca stared at him wordlessly for a moment. Then he drew his hands out from beneath the jaguar robe. In his right he gripped a long, curved obsidian knife. Johnny looked down at his mother, knelt beside her. She was still breathing. Carol, pulling her t-shirt back on, crouched beside him and smiled sadly.
“Thanks,” he told her, reaching for her hand.
She nodded. Looking over his shoulder at Tezcatlipoca, she addressed the dark god. “We’re ready. Get it over with.”
His laugh was not unexpected. Johnny ignored it, stroking his mother’s tangled hair. Soon we’ll find out what our path to Beyond is, Mom. The three of us, together.
Moments stretched into minutes. Unexpectedly, the thrumming of the mirror began, and Johnny turned to see Tezcatlipoca activating his portal.
“I see by the look in your eyes that you are utterly bewildered. Good. My faith in your stupidity is not unfounded, I see. You believe that I have lost, that this ‘game’ has concluded. Eventually you will comprehend that everything that has occurred has been according to my plan. I have orchestrated your every step.”
Johnny quailed inwardly, but scoffed and spat. “Whatever. You almost brought about the star demon apocalypse or whatever. We shut you down. Period.”
“Foolish boy. Do you not understand that you would have been destroyed by so much xoxal long before you could have broken open the Tzitzimime’s prison? You are not strong enough to fulfill the destiny I have prepared for you. But you are much closer than you were scant days ago. With time I will shape you, boy, into precisely the tool I require. And when you are ready, I plan to wield you effortlessly. In fact, I suspect you will beg me to use you to bring about the end of this world that my brother so stupidly strives to preserve. You will turn your back on him, on your sister, on your parents, and willingly aid me.”
Johnny stood, his eyes stinging. “It’ll…it’ll be a cold day in hell…” he began.
“Indeed it will.” Tezcatlipoca pulled his jaguar cape tight about him and stepped into the smoking mirror, disappearing in a black swirl.
In the silence that followed, Johnny turned to Carol, tears streaming down his face.
“Never. You hear me? Never. I’ll kill myself first. And if I can’t, you’re going to have to, Carol.”
Chapter Nineteen
Carol balked at her brother’s request. I couldn’t ever kill him. Not even if he were about to destroy the planet. When she’d seen him standing there, that column of blue light bursting from his transformed body, the shape of Huitzilopochtli that he had so stupidly assumed, she had felt only fear for him. She loved him too much to do anything but try to bring him back with her cuicuani singing magic. The thought of using her abilities to end his life…it was impossible.
“No one,” their mother breathed, “is going to kill anyone. Not even themselves.”
She shifted briefly into her jaguar form to heal her wounds, and then she became human again. Her hair hung straight and long, and her skin glowed beautifully. Sitting up, she brushed dust from her blouse.
“That monster kept me from shifting for months. I feel much better now. Still could use a hot shower, pero ni modo.”
They helped her to her feet. Johnny ducked his head in shame.
“Mom, I’m sorry. Perdóname.”
“Shh. Ya. We’re all fine now.”
“But you heard what he said,” Johnny whispered. “He planned all of it. And he’s going to do more. He’s going to make me…”
She put two fingers against his lips, silencing him. “He can’t make you do anything you don’t want to, Juan Ángel. And when it comes time to face him again, you won’t be alone. There are many people that fight his schemes. You are in good company, I promise you.”
Carol felt weirdly jealous. Why didn’t Tezcatlipoca attack me with cehualli? Why was he so totally focused on Johnny? Is it…because I’m a girl? That’s really stupid.
Johnny seemed to sense her jumbled-up emotional state. “Carol, I think he knew he could make me snap faster, you know? That’s why he focused all his attention on me. And he knew you are my balance, so he tried knocking you out. Doesn’t know how stubborn you can be, though. Thanks.” His eyes went serious but soft. “I would’ve burned myself out from the inside. I had no control. But you sang for me, Sis. You made me focus on Mom and stuff. You saved
me.”
Without warning, he threw his arms around her and squeezed. “Thanks,” he muttered thickly into her hair. Carol hugged him back.
“Okay,” she said, looking at her mother. “What’s next?”
“Well, we need to get out of here.”
“Like Carol said, we can’t go back,” Johnny warned.
“I know. So…” Their mother gestured at the opening in the far wall. A dark path made its way to the threshold and beyond. “Let’s see what’s at the very center, kids.”
The passageway they entered was brief. It opened onto an even vaster chamber ceilinged in living wood. The World Tree, Carol realized. We’re right beneath it.
There were three other passageways that debouched into the cavern, and from each a different path emerged: red, green, white. All the paths, including the black one they had been following, converged at the center of the chamber, which was dominated by an enormous stone-lipped well that coruscated with light from deep within and illuminated the entire space with a dappled glow. As Carol watched, dozens of brilliant, sparkling masses came streaming along each path and poured themselves into the roiling luminosity at the very heart of Mictlan.
“They’re souls, no?” Johnny muttered. “Passing Beyond. Everything Tezcatlipoca made people fear is a lie. They aren’t destroyed. He can’t snuff them.”
Carol heard something then. Tilting her head, she tried to listen more closely.
“¿Qué pasa, amor?” her mother asked. “Are you okay?”
“Don’t you hear that? It’s…music.”
The portals of her soul opened, and the song rolled in on majestic swells of sweet bliss. There were no words. It was a hymn of completion, of satisfaction, of long-needed rest. Hope, she felt. And love. Eternal epiphany. Unity. Peace.