To be honest, I didn’t mind. I’d missed her a lot. No amount of FaceTime can make up for real face time. Mom seemed just as happy to see Brooks—the hug she gave her was, like, a whole three seconds longer than mine. Not that I was counting or anything.
And when Mom met Adrik and Alana, she smiled, hugged them too (awkward!), and said, “Welcome to our home. Are you hungry? Do you want to get cleaned up?” Most moms would probably ask a million questions, like Where are you from? How old are you? What’s your favorite (fill in the blank)? How do you feel about being a godborn? But my mom had a gift for knowing what to say (or not) and how to say it.
She was the queen of making people feel comfortable. Mostly other people, because she kicked me out of my room to give Adrik and Alana a place to sleep. Brooks would stay with Ren and her grandfather in the casita. Me? I’d get the hammock on the beach patio. But I didn’t mind. I mean, falling asleep under the stars while listening to ocean waves is hard to beat.
First, though, I enjoyed a light bedtime snack of Mom’s homemade lasagna. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t so light, but I hadn’t tasted her cooking in so long…. As I chowed down, Mom filled me in on all the island gossip: Old Man Pedro had given up beer, a new mural was being painted on the side of a food market, and Ms. Cab and Mr. Ortiz had eloped and were on their honeymoon.
Honeymoon?! I couldn’t believe it. I mean, Ms. Cab had been rejecting Mr. O’s expressions of love for what seemed like forever, and now she was his wife? Had she been pretending the whole time, or had he finally worn her down? It was too weird to think about. And did old people actually go on honeymoons?
That night, Rosie slept right underneath me. It hadn’t always been like that. After Ixtab turned her into a hellhound and moved us to the island along with my favorite dormant volcano, Rosie had preferred sleeping inside the mountain at first. Ixtab had made it a gateway to the underworld in case of emergency, and I figured Rosie liked being close to the goddess. But now her loyalty was in the right place again: with me.
So there I was, hammock happy, dreaming of surfing a massive wave, when I heard, “This is no time to sleep in, Obispo!”
Quinn.
As she stood over me, the rising sun was at her back, and no, she did not look like a haloed angel. Not even close. More like a silhouette of Darth Vader with braids. She swept her black wrap behind her and huffed. “Does it look like I have all day?”
I turned over and saw Rosie open one eye, blink at Quinn, then go back to sleep. Typical.
Quinn grabbed the hammock and pushed, threatening to dump me out. Before she could, I rolled to my feet. “What…what time is it?”
“Time to go to the underworld.”
I groaned. “Again?” I seriously hated that place. Last time I was there, I’d nearly frozen to death. Then I was thrown into a bath of bone dust and chased by flying demons. So, yeah, I didn’t have a whole lot of warm and fuzzy memories of the trip.
A gunning engine caught my attention. I looked across the pale beach toward the surf. “Is that…What’s that car doing here?”
“It’s your ride to Xib’alb’a,” Quinn said. “Why aren’t you moving?”
“Hang on,” I argued. “Why do I have to go to the underworld? What did Ixtab say about Ik and everything that happened? Does she have any intel?”
Quinn gave me a look that registered in her dark eyes as I’m only going to say this once. “She said she wants to talk to you. Directly. She hates secondhand information, and if you keep her waiting, she’ll probably make you swim laps in Pus River with a corpse tied to your back.” She flashed a fake smile and added, “So, how about we get moving?”
I looked down at my plain gray T-shirt and faded sweatshorts. Ixtab would for sure hate my clothing choices. “I can’t go to the underworld in my pajamas.”
“No time to change.”
I ran a hand through my bedhead hair and grabbed my flip-flops from underneath the hammock. It was bad enough I was going to have to stand in front of the queen of fashion looking like a wrinkled beach bum, but having morning breath? That might earn me a lifetime of bone-crushing duty. “Do you have any mouthwash?”
With an exaggerated sigh, Quinn said, “Let’s go, Obispo.”
We jumped into the backseat of the black Mercedes sedan. But there was one problema.
“Where…where’s the driver?” I practically choked on the words, because no way was I going to trust some invisible ghost to get us to the underworld.
“Haven’t you ever heard of a driverless car?” Quinn rolled her eyes. “Really, Obispo. I just don’t see why Brooks likes you so much.”
My face got all buzzy and hot. Likes? I figured Quinn meant like a brother, or a friend, or a favorite pair of slippers.
The tint on the windows was so dark I couldn’t see beyond it, not when we splashed through the breakers, not when we cruised under the ocean with a few bumps and thumps that rattled me, and not when we came to an abrupt stop in Xib’alb’a.
We stepped out of the car into what looked like an airplane hangar, except it held dozens of super-cool exotic cars that Hondo would be able to name in ten seconds flat.
“Hang on,” I said nervously. “You aren’t taking me back to Clementino for a bone-dust bath, are you?”
Quinn tilted her head like she was thinking about all the evil ways she could torment me. “Well, that would keep the demons from sniffing you out and eating you, but we don’t have loads of time, so I’m taking a shortcut.”
She led me to a marbled hallway with six red doors on each side. The last one on the right read: ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK. Then in smaller print: RISK OF DECAPITATION, DISEMBOWELMENT, OR FLAYING OVER AN OPEN FIRE.
So, of course that was the one we went through.
We landed in a big room with a window overlooking some kind of massive stadium. All the seats outside were filled, but I couldn’t hear the crowd at all. “Where are we?”
“Hellhound races,” Quinn said. “This is Ixtab’s skybox, and that’s a one-way mirror, so no one can see you. Oh, and it’s also soundproof, so no one can hear you scream.”
“Great,” I muttered as I looked around. The room was decorated like the goddess’s private chamber, where she had once revealed to me that she’d tricked the Maya gods into thinking I was dead. There were black leather wingback chairs and gray velvet sofas with fluffy pillows. The walls were covered in gold wallpaper, but unlike in her chamber, there were half a dozen painted portraits of hellhounds. I held my breath, looking for Rosie’s face. Thankfully, she wasn’t among them.
“Okay, my job is done,” Quinn said. “See ya.”
“Wait!” I clutched Fuego. “Why are you leaving?”
She glared at me. “Because I am a warrior of the White Sparkstriker tribe. I am too valuable to serve as your escort to the underworld. And I don’t want to be here when you tell Ixtab all the clues you missed on your little godborn tour.”
Here’s the thing about Quinn. She’s like a pot of water. She can be cool and still, or hot and bubbling. I got the feeling that if I pressed her further, she would boil over and scald me.
After she left, I stood there alone. You have no idea how awful it is to hang out in Ixtab’s underworld chambers waiting for her to arrive. It’s a gazillion times worse than sitting in the principal’s office, knowing she’s going to waltz in any second with an exasperated attitude and a million detention slips.