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“I don’t know, Ms. Cab,” I said, trying to sound calm. “Seems like they’d want to know the dude they locked up forever ago is getting ready for parole.”
“It is not my duty—”
I held up my hand to stop her. “Right. I get it. Ancestral legacy.”
Fine, if she wasn’t going to alert the gods and she wasn’t going to off the guy, then how was she going to make sure I kept all eight pints of blood in my body?
Ms. Cab’s face was tight and pale. “Soon after Ah-Puch is free, the gods will know it. Believe me. Then they can worry about how to deal with him.”
“So how are you going to stop him from… you know, killing me? He’s a god, Ms. Cab!” I said, as if she needed a reminder.
“I will bring him an offering.”
“Offering?” The word practically got stuck in my throat. “Like… a present?”
“Like fresh blood.”
I was starting to see white spots. “You don’t mean like a live animal or… a person, right?”
She stroked her chin, thinking. “He prefers snakes.”
“Seriously? The dude drinks snake blood?” Maybe someone should make him a carne burrito smothered with green chile, I thought. He’d never go back to blood again.
Ms. Cab stood. “We need to focus. You must be strong now, understand?”
Strong? I’d just killed a demon runner! Which only reminded me of Rosie. I’d failed her, and I vowed to myself tha
t I would make things right again.
I stood, locking eyes with Ms. Cab. “I… I’ll help with the prophecy, and the… offering or whatever, but after I get Rosie back. You’re her only chance, and if I lose her, then I won’t be the same….” My voice cracked. “Please, Ms. Cab, I’m begging you.”
“You would risk everything for a… a dog?”
I didn’t bother to explain that Rosie was more than a dog to me. We were one unit. I simply nodded.
Ms. Cab pinched the bridge of her nose and gave a deep sigh. “I’ll investigate, reach out to some old friends who help souls cross over, see if they’ve seen Rosie. Perhaps they can watch out for her. But I won’t go far, and I’ll be back before the eclipse tomorrow.”
It was better than nothing. At least I could get a report and then figure out what to do next.
“But you must promise me not to go near that volcano or that girl in the meantime,” Ms. Cab said. “Brooks had no business coming here. You are not to trust her, do you hear me? Stay inside your house until tomorrow. If you can do that, then I will do my part.”
“Deal!” But then I wondered why I was in danger if the demon runners wanted me to release the Stinking One. What had Brooks said about trying to make things right? And how could I turn my back on her? She’d risked her life in that cave to attack the demon runner.
Ms. Cab mumbled something under her breath as she studied the paper.
I looked down at the sheet. At first it reminded me of a crinkled bus map with crisscrossing lines in all different colors. Then I saw a dozen or so blue squares that started flashing as if they were on a computer screen. I’d never seen anything like it.
“This is a rare item, Zane. Most gateway maps have been destroyed. Like a near-extinct species, there are only a few left.” She adjusted a bobby pin in her hair. “Those who possess one keep it secret. Do you understand?”
“Yes… I understand.”
“These flashing squares mark the gateways to the different layers of the world,” Ms. Cab said. “They change every day. See how this one is flashing faster than the others? It means it’s going to close here and open somewhere else very soon. Look for one that’s blinking more slowly.”
“So how do you know where these places are?” There weren’t any names on the map, only strange unrecognizable symbols, hieroglyphs of some sort.
“That’s easy. The map corresponds with the cosmos, and it shows the four directions—east, west, north, south—in four different colors. But you have to be trained in reading the lines and the various glyphs. Right now, the closest”—her finger traced one of the black lines to a bright blue square that was barely flashing—“is in Lola’s Taco Shop in Tularosa.”
“There’s a gateway to another world in a taco shop?”
