Anger throbbed in my chest. My eyes blazed. “Look, you know I am going to come for you! You know I can’t just sit back and do nothing.”
“Listen to me!” He growled like he was using his last ounce of strength. “That’s exactly what Zotz and Ixkik’ want. It will only send you down a dark and dangerous rabbit hole, and there will be no victory,” he said. “I am…I was the god of death, darkness, and destruction. If I could see a way out, don’t you think I would tell you? Don’t you think I would love nothing more than to shred our enemies?”
“You never give up!” I said, knowing that I had to keep him here, keep him talking. I had to be more convincing. “You fought your way back from the inferno I trapped you in. Back from death! You know better than anyone that there’s always a way out!” Maybe he wouldn’t help me save the gods, but he might care if it meant saving Ren. “They have the entry stone—they’re coming to SHIHOM to kill all of us. We need you!”
He was silent, so silent I was worried he had left. Then he finally said, “The devourer…” He spoke through what sounded like gritted teeth.
“Devourer?” And just like that, the memory of Ixtab telling me about the Mexica earth goddess who gives and devours life slammed into my brain. Ugh! Why couldn’t I remember her name? “You mean the devouring goddess?” I blurted. “Is she the one they resurrected? She did this to you?”
“Yes,” he groaned. I could tell he was barely holding on.
“Please give me more clues about where you are. Think of anything.”
“Ren,” he managed. “She is the only one…”
“The only one what?!”
The centipede shivered once, then began to crawl across the wall, and I knew Ah-Puch was gone.
“Ah-Puch!” I shouted. “Come back!”
The word devourer made me sick to my stomach. Were the gods being eaten alive by that Mexica goddess?
Fury, panic, and bone-deep fear scrambled all my thoughts. This. Was. So. Not. Happening.
In my mind’s eye, I placed the memories side by side:
I am the keeper of time.
Time was invented in this place.
The seeds of this evil could only be discovered in the underworld.
Master of deception.
“What does it mean?” I said. The blue flame rose higher.
Time.
Evil.
Deception.
I set Fuego against the wall and thrust my hands into the blue blaze, as if I could will more memories to appear. I’d been led here, to this exact spot, for a reason. The crackling flames spat and hissed. I leaned in closer, plunging my face inside them as the same words echoed through me:
Time. Evil. Deception.
Time. Evil. Deception.
As the words repeated, a picture appeared in the fire. It was the same image Alana had drawn in the sand, except more detailed: three circles with glyphs and evenly spaced teeth and notches, like gears. The smallest circle, labeled with the Maya number system, was housed inside a medium-size one, and third was much bigger. I could tell that if one circle was turned, the other two would move as well. It looked like this:
It’s the three ancient Maya calendars, I thought.
Then poof! The calendars dissolved, and the flame went out. I staggered, trying to still my pounding pulse as I grabbed Fuego and leaned against it. That’s when I noticed the centipede was still clinging to the wall. Its body pulsed once, twice.
Ah-Puch?
The insect started to lengthen. Then it plumped up like someone was filling it with air. As it grew longer and fatter, it whipped its neck and creepy antennae in my direction.
Right. Some peaceful labyrinth this was.
When the centipede had reached a length of about three feet, its mouth (which, by the way, had an evil-looking hook on each side) opened wide—wide enough to swallow a baseball.
“Gaaah!” So I screamed. Sue me. You would have, too, especially if you knew that centipedes usually wrap their bodies around their prey and release a bunch of venom into them, i.e., give them a slow and painful death, before eating them.
¡No gracias!
“Intruder,” the nasty centipede whispered.
I backed up slowly—you know, no sudden movements to freak out the bug. “I was just leaving,” I grunt-laughed.
“K’iin,” the centipede said, “can only be seen by the dead. You are not dead.”
Keen?
The beast jumped onto my shoulders and wrapped itself around my neck, squeezing. My air was immediately cut off, and I felt razor-sharp legs piercing my skin.
I clutched its slimy body, trying to rip it off as I summoned the fire within me, but the thing held on and squeezed like a vise. I could feel its poison burning in my blood.
My vision started to fade. I fell to my knees, clawing and gasping.
Then, with one last effort, I willed Fuego into spear mode and thrust it into the centipede, ripping hard to the right.
Shkwert!
Warm bluish blood oozed down my shirt. I dropped to my knees, choking on the humid air as the bug’s gutted body slipped off me and writhed on the ground. Noxious yellow gas spiraled from the corpse and filled the chamber, burning me so bad I could feel the hair on my head singeing right off.
Just as I was about to expel a flame to bring down the entire chamber, the darkness and gas disappeared.
I was back in the jungle, doubled over, sucking wind. My ears were ringing with the same three words: Time. Evil. Deception.
“Stop!” I shouted, covering my ears. My hands flew to my hair. “I have hair!”
Rosie and Kip hurried over.
“Are you making fun of me?” The spirit narrowed his eyes. “Being bald has its perks, you know.”
I shook my head and sucked in more fresh air.
“What did you see?” Kip asked. “You were gone for quite a while. Why are you choking? Do you have allergies, too?”
The ear ringing faded when I tried to talk. “A centipede”—cough—“tried”—double cough—“to kill me.” But when I looked down, there was no centipede blood on my hands, my shirt, or Fuego.
Rosie sniffed me ferociously, checking me out. Then she grunted once, like Yeah, right.
“Not possible,” Kip said. “The labyrinth is a place of safety and peace. Of visions and answers to your problems. Tell me, what exactly did you see? Before the chapat.”
I hesitated, standing upright. “Memories.” I turned my hands over, looking for any cuts or bites, but there were none. Had I dreamed the whole thing?
“Ah, the Hall of Memories,” he said. “That’s usually a nice walk.”
“You mean hell walk,” I said.
“‘Your mind is a gift, a miraculous warehouse of answers,’” he said. “That’s a direct quote from one of my old textbooks. I wasn’t much of a student, but I remember that one in particular—”
Rosie growled, revealing her fangs.
“Welp,” Kip squeaked, jumping back. “Ahem. Yes, okay. Whatever you saw had to be important. What else?”
No way was I going to tell him about Ah-Puch or the words that were still flickering inside me like a freshly lit flame. But maybe the spirit would know what the image of the calendars meant. I stood and said, “I saw three wheels with glyphs and numbers.”