“So that’s how you’ve been getting us everywhere so fast.” I’d always wondered how come Iktan never needed a gateway map like the one my friend Brooks and I once had to use.
“How many times do I have to tell you?” Ik growled. “Demons are superior to godborns.”
Sure, okay. Like I said, nothing was going to ruin my almost-home good mood. Not even an egotistical itchy demon. But there was something different about Iktan tonight—something I couldn’t name. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go find this godborn.”
“I still don’t understand why we’ve had to go to all this trouble for a few pathetic half-breeds,” she grumbled, falling into step with me. “And please do not bore me again by telling me about your vow to Ixtab.”
I’d promised the queen of the underworld that I would find all the remaining godborn children who were still out there. They deserved to know the truth about who they really were.
“Let’s hurry up and get this over with,” Ik went on. She might have looked like a little kid, but she sounded like a mean army sergeant. “You know the drill. We establish visual contact, assess the situation, then—”
“I make my move.”
“I was going to say ‘go in for the kill.’”
“Enough with the kill stuff, okay?”
“Such a killjoy,” she muttered before asking, “So, do you feel anything?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Nausea from your death gateway.”
“Focus harder! You never see me taking this long to do my job,” she whined. “Like I said, superior.”
Her only job was to track the godborns. The rest was up to me.
And my blood.
That’s right. I’d had to make a deposit (half a pint, to be exact) into the craptastic Blood Bank of Ik, so she could learn the “stink” we godborns share. Ever since she’d sniffed my blood from a cup, she could pick up a godborn’s odor from miles away. Demons don’t have very sensitive noses (unless their prey is right in front of them, like the cat); instead, they have these little scent receptors that pop out of their necks (it’s way beyond gross) like tentacles. Iktan could follow a single godborn trail, laid down more than forty-eight hours before, even in a crowd as big as ten thousand.
But Ixtab, being a meticulous goddess, had added an extra layer of security. Ik could only get me within half a mile of the godborn before the demon would lose the trace. I had to do the rest, using what I call my GPS—godborn positioning system. Whenever I got close to a godborn, I’d feel this kind of cold pull in my gut. I experienced it for the first time when my bruja friend, Ren, washed up on the shore of Holbox. Since then, all my time on the road had only made my skill stronger. Or, as Ixtab said, fine-tuned.
“It’s this way,” I said, leading Ik out of the alley and around the corner. The neighborhood was pretty sketchy at this time of night, with drunks staggering around, lost-looking tourists rolling their suitcases behind them, and a few homeless people hunkering down in shuttered doorways.
Ik looked around. “So where is the little beast?”
I turned in a slow circle, waiting for the connection to grow, to tell me which direction to take, but it was like something was jamming the frequency.
Or someone.
“Well?” Ik barked.
“Could you be quiet? I’m concentrating.” The signal was weak, but I cut right and headed down West Forty-Sixth Street. Stopping midway down the block, I turned around. “You’re sure this is the right area?”
Ik pressed her lips together like a curse word was wedged in the corner of her mouth. “Listen, Fire Boy, demons have the most sophisticated tracking ability in the universe, and all you godborns have the same stinky blood.” Dozens of three-inch blue spikes popped out of her neck, wiggling like worms on a hook. “We must be getting real close now, ’cause I’m comin’ up empty.”
“Could you not do that whole creepy tentacle thing in public?” Chills ran up my spine.
“Someone sounds jealousss,” she hissed, stretching the last s for way too long.
“Uh-huh. I’ve already done this sixty-three times,” I reminded her, scanning the street.
Ik rubbed her forehead impatiently. “Then be the pro you think you are and find the mutt.”
Long, lean shadows stretched across the asphalt. A cab rolled by slowly. Lights blinked off in the apartments above.
A slow-burn fire began to rise in my blood. “Something isn’t right.”
“I have an idea,” Ik said semi-brightly. “Let’s go over what you’re going to say. Loosen you up.”
“No thanks.” I kept moving.
“Do you just walk up to the godborns and say, ‘Hey, you’re part Maya god. Come with me or else’?”
“Not exactly.”
Up until now, I hadn’t let Ik stick around for any of the encounters. Lowering the godborn boom on the kids was enough of a shock—I didn’t feel like also explaining that I was hanging with a demon in disguise. Plus, two to one always makes a person feel ganged up on.
I focused on the connection that was getting stronger with each step. “I also tell them about the World Tree, where they can learn about their abilities and get trained in how to use them.”
“Okay. Then, after all that, do you tell them that Camazotz wants to feed their hearts to the Mexica gods?”
“Keep your voice down!” For half a second, I imagined burning off Ik’s eyebrows with a single spark from my fingertip. Instead, I whispered, “If you have to know, yes. I tell them about Zotz’s plan to use godborns to resurrect the Mexica gods and how it failed. They deserve to know the truth.”
Ik’s face turned bright red, and I thought smoke might start curling out of her ears. What was her problem? She took a couple of deep calming breaths. “How noble of you.”
More often than not, the truth worked. Most of the kids were pretty psyched to find out they had a godly parent and might have inherited a power of some sort, especially after I showed them my fire-shooting skills. I was always careful to leave the enemies-ripping-out-their-hearts stuff for last. By then, they were usually too distracted by the word power to care about anything else.
But, if I’m being totally honest, not everyone had been pumped about the news. A few godborns had thrown up or passed out. The runners were the worst—I hated chasing them down. In the end, curiosity always won out. So far…
The godborns’ human parents had a different reaction, but more about that later.
My blood ran hotter. Why couldn’t I shake this feeling? I twisted my hands around Fuego and tried to push the sensation away, but it punched me in the chest anyway.
There was no doubt about it: we were being watched. Or maybe I was just being paranoid. I mean, no one could be following us. Ik always released her magical misty whatever to cover our tracks so completely that even if we were ambushed and thrown into an underground cave, no one, not even Xib’alb’a’s best tracking demons or hellhounds, would find our leftovers.
“Uh…” I glanced over my shoulder at the dark and empty sidewalk. “Do you have a feeling something is way off?”