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“Coming in for a landing,” Jazz said. “Might get a little wet.”
“Jump when I say so,” Flaco said.
“I can’t swim!” Brooks shouted. I could feel her panic as she tensed up for the first time since we’d taken flight. Below was a double-level boat too small for us to land on. So, dark sea it was.
“I got you,” I said, thinking of the disaster the last time we’d plunged into unknown waters.
Brooks paled and shook her head. “Don’t let go,” she said.
“I promise.”
Flaco hovered about five feet over the water. “Jump!”
He flew away as we dropped into the water’s freezing currents. I kept hold of Brooks, which wasn’t too hard, because she clawed her way onto my shoulders, pushing me down in her frenzy.
Keeping my calm, I opened my mind and let her in.
I need you to chill out or we’re going to drown.
She relaxed her death grip a little and clung to my back as I swam toward the boat. Jazz lifted us on board, where warm, dry towels were waiting, along with some snacks—a cooler filled with cherry Cokes, and a sack containing gummy worms and pizza pockets. All of our belongings were already on the vinyl bench seat. I hurried over and was relieved to find Ms. Cab’s eyeball still tucked safely in my backpack. But when I saw my boring old cane, my heart sank. I wished he’d left that behind.
Jazz took Hondo belowdecks to the cabin, where he could sleep off the poison, while Brooks and I sat huddled under a blanket at the stern. The boat looked like a fixer-upper fishing vessel with a rusted railing, pitted deck, and a covered second deck with a steering wheel, seat, and some gears.
I took a soda from the cooler but didn’t drink any. My stomach was twisted in knots. I’d failed. Wasted way too much time on a stupid idea, and now I had nothing. No plan. No powers. No future. The gods were ready to start a war over something I’d done. And Hondo was suffering a pain worse than death while we sat around under the stars. Hurakan had been right when he’d said what lies ahead is inconceivable.
A cool breeze drifted over us as the boat rocked gently in the water. The night replayed in my mind so fast I wasn’t sure any of it had really happened.
“Why’d Jazz bring us here?” I asked.
“Must not be safe in Venice Beach,” Brooks said, shivering as she sipped her Coke.
I stared into the darkness. “Where do you think Puke took Jordan and Bird?”
“Wherever it is,” Brooks said, “the jerks deserved it. I knew they were rotten, but I can’t believe they lied about defeating Ah-Puch. I take it back. I can totally believe it. Man, they’d do anything for fame and power.”
Okay, Bird and Jordan were jerks, but man, getting smothered by those oily, smelly black wings and carted off like a couple of corpses seemed tragic.
“I really want to know,” I said.
Brooks rolled her eyes. “I have no idea. Where would you take your sworn enemies if you were the god of death, darkness, and destruction and someone had moved into your castle?”
“Probably a putrid pit filled with vicious rats and killer ants that would eat out your eyeballs.”
Brooks let out a light laugh. “That’s sick, you know that?”
“You asked.”
La luna was a wedge clinging to the sky. I only had one moon left until Ah-Puch came to collect on our deal.
“Brooks?”
She turned away from me.
I twisted my hands together. “Something bad’s coming, isn’t it? When I met Hurakan… he saw the mark on my wrist….” Why was this so hard to talk about?
“So?”
“So, he said I have to be the one to stop Puke. Because my life’s now tied to his, because I was the one to let him out. And if I don’t…”
