Page 48 of Corvus and the Broken God

“And yet you managed to build all this,” I motioned to the walls of the room, “by yourself?”

“I convinced a group of strong men looking for greater meaning in their lives that we could start a retreat for them and others. A meditation through work sort of religion that never caught on.”

His eyes danced with mischief. While I was certain he had been worshipped at some point in his life, this struck me as false. “Were you the head monk in this particular religion?”

“I was the god.”

Pfft. “I don’t believe you.” I looked back down at the page I had already read three times.

“I built it for the love of my life,” he said quietly.

A jolt of energy rushed through my heart and stomach, but I willed my body not to react. The love of his life, what a thing to say, whether it was true or not. Jealousy spiked in my chest and spread through my body like poison. Did she appreciate it? This act of love. Even if he had misread her and she never wanted to be isolated from the world, eventually leaving him for things he could not offer her.

Did she like it? This house he had built for them to retreat to together.

My eyes tracked the rows of words I read without absorbing their meaning. I took a few deep breaths to slow my heart rate. What had I been reading before he revealed himself to me? Oh yes, the gods and goddesses of the Mayan culture, mostly recorded by the people in undecipherable pictographs, largely lost to the ravages of time and weather. But they were real people after all, and I knew next to nothing about them.

“What do you think of the house, Corvus?” he asked, disrupting my reading.

Surprised, because what did it matter what I thought, I looked up at him. He gazed at me with unusual intensity. I glanced out the windows facing the courtyard, shrouded in evening darkness, reflecting only our silhouettes and the fire. I loved this house. Not only did I feel safe here, but accepted and truly free in a way I had never known before. I loved the thick stone walls, the vistas from the back rooms, the simplistic kitchen that worked beautifully for our needs, even my room, despite belonging to that other woman, whom I could not stand to think about. The gothic style, the bell tower I always looked for when flying back, the hot springs both under the house and in his courtyard—I loved it all. He was probably listening to my redux, so I said, “It’s a wonderful house, Camazotz.”

Despite my intentions, I glanced up in time to see a satisfied look on his face before he looked back down at his book.

“Don’t worry so much about the others like me. I have no intention of you meeting any of them.” The brief flare of happiness that had sparked from his look withered. We were more or less back to where we had been before this conversation, with me in the dark and wondering how I fit into his life, if at all.

Other than that one conversation, he gave me no other useful information. Each night we pored over our books, and I did my best to soak in knowledge he never intended for me to use. Why he wanted me with him was still a mystery. He never once revealed the real reason his enemies wanted to hurt him, and I was too invested now to push for answers. Despite all evidence to the contrary, I half-convinced myself that the only reason he had me do all my research was so I could be an asset once we got there. Because the thought of being left behind was intolerable.

Other than a couple of trips to town to buy some essentials for our journey, our days and nights passed much the same. No one came asking after Darryl. I even saw the sheriff's deputy in town once. He simply wished me a good day and went on with his business. With each passing day, I was coming to terms with my crime, what horrible things I was capable of doing, and the possibility that I could be expected to commit similar ones.

The one thing that didn’t happen the entire time in the remaining weeks was a repeat of that kiss. I tried to pretend it didn’t matter. I had blown my one chance.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

New Terrain

Our plane taxied on the runway in Atlanta. Now that we had made our connection, I could finally relax. In the window seat to my left, Camazotz read a yellowed copy of The Grapes of Wrath. He laughed at me when I suggested he get an e-reader or tablet for the trip. He said being current was my job and insisted some people still read paper books. Then he offered me a copy of Cannery Row, stating Steinbeck was a modern genius.

And that was that. To be stubborn, I ordered The Winter of Our Discontent on my tablet, so we were both engrossed in Steinbeck when takeoff pressed us firmly into our seatbacks.

I had been sneaking looks at him the entire day. At first glance, he looked completely human, wearing his “I’m on my way to Cancun” disguise I had picked out for him during our last trip into town. If I had truly believed he would balk at wearing the noisy Hawaiian shirt I had found for three dollars at the thrift shop, complete with multi-colored Woody vans and a hibiscus flower background, then I would’ve been wrong. He put it on without blinking an eye. Together with the ripped jeans and leather flip-flops, he looked like a hippie tourist from another time who planned to make an ass out of himself and everyone near him on his booze trip.

The problem was that his bearing was all wrong. He carried himself with the grace and confidence of a prince, not a youngish man about to cut loose. We had agreed his human form should be younger than normal to match me and to further his disguise. While his face fit his thirty-something body, his eyes held an eternal wisdom, as if by simply looking at you, he could read your darkest secrets. I convinced him to change his irises to the darkest brown, but while it was an improvement, there was just no way to hide his expression once he took off his sunglasses.

Those sunglasses are my favorite. I know the rest of the outfit was a joke. I’ve seen how everyone else dresses, Corvus.

Wait ‘til we get to Mexico. Trust me, you’ll blend right in. Glad you like the glasses though, but most people don’t approve of wearing them indoors.

The glare is bright through my window.

If you were a gentleman, you’d have offered the window seat to me, you know.

I turned my attention back to my book, which was brilliant if depressing, and pretended to ignore the warm press of his arm against mine.

Good thing I am only your Monster then.

I let out a sigh that was part chuckle, shutting down any further thoughts that could betray me.

The flight passed quickly, and before long, we were belched out into the humid heat of the Yucatan Peninsula. We took the shuttle to our resort and checked in with a group of passengers from our flight. I had picked a hotel built in the same style as the pyramids nearby, at least from the outside and only at first glance. The middle of the hotel was a huge atrium filled with oversized plants, with the rooms situated around it. The whole thing had a false, manicured feel to it, but I had stopped taking the world for granted after my real-life fall through the looking glass when I had wandered up my Monster’s mountain. Who knew? We could be on an ancient burial ground where the spirits walked at night.