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“Looks like the Sparkstriker’s done,” he said.
“Wait!”
“What?”
“What if I never learn… to control it?”
“It’s your dominant power—it will yield. Eventually. But you really should be friendlier to it.”
I started to ask if I could trade fire for something easier, but I was already flying back.
An instant later, I sat up on Sparkstriker’s table with my nose dripping blood. Oh yeah, I’d forgotten about that little side effect of travel to the Empty. I blotted it with my shirt.
“It… it’s fire,” I sputtered.
A slow smile spread across the Sparkstriker’s face. Then a bell in her hair gave a small jingle. She looked over her shoulder at the cave opening. “Blasted hounds of hell!”
“Wha…? Blasted what?”
“No more time,” she said, shooing me out of the cave. My lightning-pounded leg buzzed with incredible strength.
“But you said blasted and hell in the same sentence….That can’t be good. What did you mean?”
“When my bells ring, it tells me someone’s arrived… in the Old World.”
I knew I wasn’t going to like the answer, so I didn’t ask the question.
But she told me anyway. “Ah-Puch is here, Zane. Are you ready?”
37
Who could ever be ready to face and destroy the god of death? I wasn’t, even though I was the Son of Fire and had a tricked-out super cane/spear and a lightning-enhanced leg that made me feel like I could scale tall buildings in a single bound.
Everything went berserk. The bells in the Sparkstriker’s hair started jingling so loud they made my ears ache. Then her eyes rolled back until only the whites were showing, and her skin vibrated and flapped like loose rubber. No wonder her face was so out of whack. Was I supposed to do something? Call 9-1-1 for the supernatural? Give her CPR? Find some superglue?
“You idiot!” That was Nobody. She swooped into the cave and morphed into her human form. I could see now that she was young—maybe Hondo’s age. She had pale freckled skin, shimmering dark eyes, and an upturned mouth that looked like it was on the verge of a sneer. Definitely not a smile.
“I didn’t do anything!” I shouted, hoping the Sparkstriker would come out of her creepy, face-morphing seizure any second.
“Get a bolt!” Nobody commanded.
This time I knew what she was talking about. I hurried to the well and came back with a small piece of lightning. Nobody laid the Sparkstriker on the slab, then took the hammer and pounded the bolt into the Sparkstriker’s chest like some kind of defibrillator. The old woman snapped straight up and took a gasping breath. Her nose had shifted another inch to the right and her mouth was so close to her chin I thought it might slide off her face any second.
“Blasted gods! That was annoying!” Sparkstriker said, hopping onto her stool. “How dare so many descend at the exact same time!” She cursed and pounded her fist into the stone slab.
Nobody began to adjust the Sparkstriker’s nose and mouth as though her face were made of wax. “We’ve got the whole Council of Gods out there,” the Sparkstriker hissed. “And Ixtab…” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “She’s hunting for Ah-Puch as we speak.”
Why the heck was the council here? They had to be here to hunt down Ah-Puch—or maybe even me. Hadn’t Jazz said this would be the last place they’d look? The gods were fast.
“No!” My voice erupted in a hot panic. “I have to find him first!”
Nobody rolled her eyes. There was something annoyingly familiar about the way she did it with a toss of her head and a subtle tilt of her chin.
The Sparkstriker’s gaze hardened. “The Storm Runner’s right. Track down Ah-Puch before Ixtab and her hellhounds do. I’m counting on you, Quinn.”
“Quinn?” My heart came to a stuttering stop. “As in Brooks’s sister? As in promised to…” Was it Jordan or Bird?
Quinn’s eyes cut my way angrily. “I’m a warrior huntress of the White Sparkstriker tribe.” She said the words like they were rehearsed. But behind her cold glare, I could
