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Flaco eyed us, glanced at the row of guards, then looked back to Brooks and grunted. “Fresh meat. Hmmph. Magic. Hmmph.” He gripped a pen. “They got names?” he asked her, like we weren’t even there.
Brooks spat out some made-up nicknames. “El Rey and R-rana,” she sputtered.
Hondo shoulder-bumped me, mouthing I’m the king. I had to admit my uncle looked good tall, but it felt super weird to peer up at him, even if it was only a couple of inches.
The monkey screeched, making Hondo and me jump at the same time.
Flaco scratched under the little beast’s chin. “Neither looks like a king or a frog… Well, maybe that one there…” He was pointing at me with his bony finger. “He might be a frog,” he said with a chuckle.
Rana? That was the best Brooks could come up with?
The skeleton jotted down the names, then reached under the counter. “It’s your funeral,” he muttered as the wall to our right opened with a groan.
Before we could go in, three guards stepped forward to pat us down. My stomach roiled when my thug found the jaguar jade and motioned for me to hand it over.
Brooks and Hondo peered closer.
Holding it up for the guy’s inspection, I said, “Lucky tooth. Except it hasn’t been very lucky.” I tried to laugh casually but ended up sounding like a big phony.
The guy held up the stone, examined it, then handed it back to me with a grunt. I let out a long breath as I set it safely back in my pocket and entered the opening.
When Brooks pressed a button on the wall, I realized we were in an elevator. But it wasn’t an ordinary elevator. It was a gold cage illuminated by a pale blue glow.
“What’s that tooth?” Brooks asked.
How could I answer without breaking my promise to Pacific not to tell anyone about her? She’d never said how long I had to keep the secret, though, so I guess I could have told Brooks that I’d met the goddess of time, who was in hiding under the ocean….But it might be dangerous for Brooks to have that kind of information. In the same way she had tried to protect Jazz, I needed to protect her.
“I got it from Ms. Cab,” I said, thinking quickly.
“How come I’ve never seen it before?” Hondo asked.
Brooks’s eyes bored into me with an intensity that made me dizzy.
“So,” I said, wanting to change the subject, “Jordan and Bird are the twins?” Yeah, I was a little slow on the uptake. “If they’re so tough, why do they use pseudonyms?”
Brooks looked up, watching the exposed cables carry us. “They changed their names to fit in when they came to the US. I guess they’re named after some basketball stars from back in the day.”
“Best clutch players ever,” Hondo mumbled.
“What’s clutch?” Brooks asked.
Hondo glanced at me, then away quickly. “Just… er… they work perfectly under pressure and, um… they always find a way to succeed at the last possible moment.”
My mouth went dry. I didn’t want to think about the twins’ super strengths anymore. Turning to Brooks, I said, “Frog? Really?”
“You know what a group of frogs is called?” she asked.
“A herd?” Hondo guessed.
I shook my head and adjusted my cuffs. “An army.”
Brooks smiled softly but kept her gaze straight ahead. Okay, maybe being a frog wasn’t so bad after all.
A terrible pressure began building in my chest as the elevator climbed. Wait a second. I could’ve sworn this building wasn’t tall, so how…? I peered at the buttons for the first time. Instead of numbers, there were dots and lines. Three dots in a row, a single dot over a straight line…
Brooks caught my gaze. “Maya numbers,” she explained.
“How far up does this thing go?” Hondo wondered aloud.
