I for sure thought he would spread his wings and let all those creepy mini bats scratch out our eyes for an afternoon snack, but instead, the sea boiled and bubbled, splashing over the sides of the platform and making the surface even slicker and shinier.
Zotz floated above the mess as if he was afraid to get dirty. A thick tentacle whipped out of the sea and lashed through the air. Before we could react, the thing seized Adrik, spun him off his feet, and turned him upside down, shaking him like a piggy bank.
Alana screamed, “Leave him alone!”
I had to give Adrik credit. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t even close his eyes. And no amount of acting videos can teach you that kind of control.
“I sense he doesn’t have it, and I don’t want to hear him speak another lie,” Ixkik’ said. The tentacle slid up to Adrik’s mouth and covered it (gross!) so no words (or lies) could escape. “Let’s get on with this!” she commanded.
“Patience,” Zotz argued, eyeing Alana. Another tentacle whipped over the platform’s edge, gripping her around the waist so quickly I barely registered the motion before the slimy thing began to drag her toward the sea nice and slow, like it wanted to make sure we didn’t miss one heart-stopping second of her demise.
I sprang forward and tried to grab hold of her, but I slipped and crashed down on my knees. Hondo also made a lunge, only to slide across the platform’s surface and collide with me. His mask was now tucked beneath his shirt. Was he hiding it from the gods?
Adrik kicked and squirmed against the giant tentacle’s strength.
A hateful laugh came from deep within Zotz when Alana was tossed into the air like a coin. We all watched in horror as she fell toward the dark churning sea of sludge. Hondo and I scrambled and clawed our way across the platform like fish out of water.
Out of nowhere, Brooks swooped in. Ren, now awake, was on the hawk’s back, her blue eyes fierce and angry.
Zotz’s thick neck swiveled in Brooks’s direction, but before he could raise a claw, Brooks snatched up Alana and rocketed her out of the bat god’s reach. Then they were gone, as if the sky had swallowed them whole.
How was that possible?
Zotz stared at the silvery sky with a look of surprise that disconcerted me as he folded his wings. “Zane, Zane, Zane,” he said. “I suppose I will have to kill you all one at a time until I get what I want. And I was so looking forward to the thrill of the hunt. Oh, well.”
Hondo reached into his boot and pulled out something. That must be the stone! I thought. It was the size of a silver dollar and glowed red like a hot coal. “You want this?” he shouted. “Then come and get it!” He threw it high into the air.
The moment shrank down to a slo-mo tunnel view.
“Noooo!” Ixkik’ and I screamed simultaneously.
Hondo, taking advantage of the distraction, hurled his ax at Zotz. A wing lashed it away. I’m pretty sure Zotz would have bitten off my uncle’s head if he hadn’t been so focused on the stone still spinning toward the sea.
Brooks reappeared, the edges of her wings silvery blue, matching the sky. That’s when I realized she had never disappeared. She’d just used some sort of camouflage, like that night in New York. But how? Ren and Alana clung to her back.
Brooks dove toward the spinning red glow and nearly snatched it up…. But it slipped from her grasp and fell back toward the platform.
With a flick of his wrist, Zotz trapped the stone in a vortex, spinning it toward his outstretched talon. “Finally,” he said with a sigh. “And now for the disrespectful little thugs. I’ll start with the hawk.” He sniffed the air. “A ha’ nawal?” He traced a long claw across his jaw as he shook his gigantic head in amazement. “It’s been more than a century since we’ve encountered one of those, right, Ixkik’? Which will make her a valuable addition to my legion.”
“Our legion,” said Blood Moon.
Ha’ nawal?
I knew that Mayan word! Ha’ meant water. But…what was a water shape-shifter? Brooks had always hated the stuff!
“We have the stone,” Ixkik’ said. “Now, let the suffering begin!”
I had mere seconds, and all of them mattered. I closed my eyes, searching deep for a flame, for any ounce of my godborn powers. Just one spark…And then I remembered: The sludge hadn’t touched the top of my head. Or my eyes.
Fire. Fire. Fire.
“Zane!” Hondo shouted.
I opened my eyes. Zotz’s gnarled claw was within inches of swiping Brooks. A stream of blue flame burst from my eyes, shooting directly at the god’s neck. He clutched his burning throat in a silent scream as two bats raced out of it in a terrified frenzy.
The bat god fell to his knees, heaving. Steam rolled off his hairy back.
I lunged for the stone, but a frantic small bat got in the way, accidentally knocking it out of the vortex and over the edge of the platform, where it sank into the darkness.
“Oh, how those you love will pay, Zane Obissspo,” Ixkik’ hissed. “I promise you they will pay.”
Suddenly, jagged stripes of lightning split the sky into a hundred pieces. Rain lashed down violently. Thunder crashed. The world felt like it was colliding with the sun.
Ixkik’ shouted, “They’re here!”
They?
A thin spiral of dark fog spun into the sludge as Zotz beat his hairy wings furiously. His eyes were burning with rage and pain and lust for revenge. In that moment, I swear the world stopped spinning under the weight of my enemies’ threats.
Zotz flew closer to the black sea, desperately searching for the stone. Dark water splashed higher and higher like angry lava, driving back the bat god as tentacles lashed out.
The sky trembled, exploding in blasts of violent white.
“There is nowhere you can hide, son of fire!” Zotz screeched. “Nowhere you will be safe. I swear by the darkness, I will hunt you.” Then he disintegrated into a million specks of dust.
The tentacle holding Adrik vanished, too, and the godborn crashed down onto the platform, which groaned, then tilted.
There was no doubt about it: we were going down.
I jerked my gaze to my uncle. He put on the jade mask.
“Hondo!”
“The stone!” he shouted as he jumped into the roiling darkness.
As the platform sank under our feet, the last thing I heard was Blood Moon’s faint whisper:
“At last it is mine.”
I expected freezing wet darkness, not miniature monkeys.
Wait. I need to back up. The scene was like some kind of dream sequence. You know, the kind you feel like you’re looking at from outside your body?
We had fallen into the water/sludge/bubbling blackness. I squeezed my eyes closed and then—bam!—the next thing I knew, I was waking up drenched but clean on a fluffy white bed, staring up at a big ole opening in some thatched roof. Little greenish-gold eyes peered down at me from leafy branches above the hole. I blinked a few times, not sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. Blackish-brown critters that couldn’t have been more than ten inches tall perched on the boughs, babbling away and smacking their lips.
My first thought was I must be in Xib’alb’a and stuck in Monkey House. Then I remembered that there is no Monkey House.