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If those names weren’t nasty enough, the pictures were even worse, and I’m not talking about a bad hair day. I’m talking rotting teeth, bloated guts, bleeding ribs, and bulging eyes. The demon runners were basically these guys’ hit men.
I kept turning the pages, and as I read about all the horrors of Xib’alb’a, my insides collapsed slowly. I should’ve been the one to have to cross Blood or Pus River. Not Rosie.
The house felt empty and awful without her. It was hard to even remember a time she wasn’t here, bouncing, wagging her tail, and dropping a ball at my feet so we could play fetch. Did I tell you how easy she was to train? Never jumped on the furniture or begged for food at the table. And when I was sick, she lay in my bed like she was sick, too.
Rosie was the truest friend I ever had, better than any human, and I couldn’t protect her. I couldn’t run fast enough, kill the demon runner fast enough, do anything fast enough. All because of my stupid leg. Which—let’s get real—doctors couldn’t fix, because I was the son of some monster!
I took a deep breath as I turned the page to Ah-Puch: Maya God of Death, Disaster, and Darkness. According to the book, ancient Maya were terrified of death, and I didn’t blame them if they had to spend eternity with this guy.
His picture took up a whole page. He looked like a bloated zombie with decomposing gray skin with nasty black spots, and he had a dark, twisted smile. That wasn’t even the grossest part. He wore this weird helmet that had eyes hanging off it, the eyes of the people he’d recently killed. Around his fat neck was a red cape made of human skin, and stitched to the hood was an owl’s head. My eyes froze on that image. It looked exactly like the black yellow-eyed owl that had whispered to me and shook me up earlier.
The prophecy has begun….
My pulse pounded in my ears, but I couldn’t look away. It was like driving by an accident you know is going to be awful and you don’t want to look but you do anyway. Apparently, the mangy black owl was Puke’s evil pet, Muwan, which acted as his messenger and spy. Could she have helped the demon runners find him at the volcano?
In the days when Ah-Puch roamed free, he used to go to the houses of the sick and dying and wait outside, his rusty laugh echoing in the wind. The guy was about as evil as you could get.
I slammed the book closed. No way would I ever let him out! I didn’t care what the Great Soothsayer thought she saw. Or how strong the magic was. It could call me all it wanted, but I wasn’t going to answer.
That was it. No more wasting time. I hated to break my promise to Ms. Cab about staying put, but I couldn’t wait another second to get the truth out of my mom.
A minute later I crossed the street toward Mr. O’s house. It was the biggest one on the road—two stories with a red-tile roof, huge windows, and a giant stone wall that surrounded the place. But the best part was the spiral staircase that led to the roof, where he let me keep my telescope. In the summer, we’d hang out up there, eat tacos, drink virgin strawberry margaritas, and stare at the constellations. I tried to teach him their names, but he never cared about the details. He simply w
anted to see the stars.
A pack of coyotes cackled in the distance—they sounded like a group of witches. I kept my eyes open for demon runners, but even more open for Brooks. I was hoping she would slip out of a shadow—okay, maybe not in a surprise-attack kind of way, but in a hi-sorry-I-bailed kind of way. I admit it. I really wanted to see her again. I had so many questions for her, but mostly, how did she know about the prophecy? And where had she gone?
When Mr. O opened the door, he stepped aside, gesturing for me to come in. The smell of fresh-roasted green chile wafted from inside. My stomach growled.
“Dinner’s ready,” he said.
Then I remembered. He was supposed to show me his discovery tonight. I’d forgotten all about it. I tugged up the zipper of my jacket. “Sorry, Mr. O, but can you drive me into town?”
“Now? The caldillo is ready. And my secreto. I’m so excited to show you.”
“Can we do it tomorrow? I… I need to talk to my mom.”
We were in the car two minutes later.
“Are you in trouble?” he asked as we drove down off the mesa’s dirt roads and into the valley.
I almost laughed. Yeah, I was knee deep in the stuff without a shovel. All of a sudden I wondered if going to the bank was such a good idea. Maybe I should’ve waited for Mom to get home.
We parked next to Mom’s little Honda at the Land of Enchantment Bank. The lot was dark and eerily quiet.
“You can leave me here,” I told Mr. O. “I’ll go home with Mom.”
“It must be muy importante for you to come here,” he said. “Maybe I should wait.”
“Nah, that’s okay.”
“Just until you get inside,” Mr. O insisted.
I got out of the car slowly, suddenly unsure of myself. Heaps of worry filled my head. What if she didn’t want to talk about it? What if she lied? What if she told me the truth, and it was that I was part demon? What if I didn’t really want to know? Did that make me a wuss?
I lumbered to the glass doors and peered inside. Mom was vacuuming the lobby in a dancing kind of way. She had on earbuds and was singing to some song I couldn’t hear.
I banged my old cruddy cane on the locked door.
