Hurakan’s voice raced toward me telepathically. Get the rope around him, Zane!
Jordan broke free and bolted toward his mother, who was still trying to rip off the cord. Hurakan dove for him but missed by a long shot, landing with a double thud to his head that knocked him out.
“Zane!” Ren shouted. “I can’t hold on much longer.”
Jordan was unraveling the blistering rope around the demon goddess. I launched myself onto his back, seized the slack, and wrapped it around his throat. He wailed and shuddered.
“Get out of there, Zane!” Ren yelled. There was a burst of blinding light as I jumped back, but Ixkik’ got her hands on my arm, gripping me so tight I couldn’t distance myself. She put a loop around my wrist, searing my skin.
I tore at the rope, but its magic wouldn’t release me. I summoned Fuego, and my spear zoomed over and began sawing the cord. Hot white sparks blinded me.
Everything spun violently. I was falling into space. Voices vanished. Darkness closed in.
Just when I thought I was gone, I felt strong hands grip me from behind. Tugging, twisting, breaking me free.
There was another flash of light so bright it was like a thousand suns were exploding. The earth shook once…twice. Then everything went still.
And I looked up at my rescuer.
“Mom?”
She fell to her knees and pulled me into a fierce hug, saying incomprehensible words broken up by her heaves and sobs.
“I’m okay,” I reassured her. “See?” I pulled back and gave her a relieved but trembling smile. “All in one piece.” Well, sort of, unless you counted all the gashes and burns the time rope had left on my arms, hands, and cheek, and the sheer terror still coursing through my veins. “Don’t worry—Rosie’ll fix me up.”
“I could have lost you,” she cried, her eyes wide with fear.
“But you didn’t,” I said. “You saved me. But how? How could you—”
“How could I, a mere mortal, save you?” she asked, a smile creeping onto her face. “Desperate moms have superpowers, didn’t you know that?”
This time I was the one who pulled her into a hug.
“Zane!” Ren hurried over and threw her arms around both me and my mom, muttering, “That was too close,” over and over and pretty much smothering us.
Hurakan groaned and turned onto his side. My mom’s eyes fixed on him, and her expression froze when she saw the resemblance to me.
“Dad?” I helped him to his feet. It was muy cool that I was taller than him (by at least three inches). He rubbed the back of his head, grimacing. “This non-godly power stuff is dreadful.”
Ren tapped his shoulder gently. “But it’s not forever. I mean, you’ll get your godliness back, right?”
He gazed at my mom, then looked away. “I imagine we will. Someday.”
Someday was good enough for me, because it wasn’t never.
“So Ixkik’ and Jordan—” I began.
Ren cut in, “Are stuck in a time loop with no chance for parole. I wasn’t sure I could even do it.”
“You’re sure they won’t be coming back?” Mom asked. Her voice was still shaky.
Ren snapped the time rope, retracting it to the size of a ruler. “Positive.”
“How…how…did you get the rope?” I asked, still dazed. “I thought only Pacific could use it.”
She shook her head and sucked in a sharp breath. “Pacific knew the time rope was our only chance to get rid of Ixkik’ for good.” She hesitated, as if she couldn’t believe she had possession of something so magical, so powerful. “It didn’t work for her anymore, and after you left to face off with Blood Moon, we knew we had to do something drastic. That’s when Marco came up with the plan to be you and throw Ixkik’ off-balance.”
Hurakan opened and closed his jaw like he had been clocked. Which he had. “Your mother sacrificed everything by giving that to you, Ren.”
“Ren can’t give it back?” I asked.
Hurakan shook his head, and Ren pressed her lips together. “It’s definitely mine now,” she said, “and I have a lot to learn. It almost slipped from my hands.”
I tried not to imagine what would have happened in that event.
“Why didn’t you just stop time?” I asked. Seemed like that would have saved us a lot of pounding.
“I tried,” Ren said. “My watch doesn’t work anymore, and even if it had—”
“You couldn’t have also thrown them into a time loop,” Hurakan put in. “Not simultaneously.”
“Bird!” I shouted, remembering that Brooks had gone after him, which meant he was still a threat. “He’s still free!”
“Bird’s in a cage.” Hondo’s voice reached us before he walked in, hoisting an ax over his shoulder. His eyes darted everywhere before he let out a huge whoop. “I don’t see the rest of the wicked familia around, so does that mean the plan actually worked?”
Actually? I wasn’t about to ask how many time-loop practice runs Ren had been through. Probs none. I shuddered thinking how poorly all this could have turned out.
For the next couple of minutes, everyone talked over each other, telling me what had happened after I left Hurakan’s tree house.
Ren said, “Rosie found your dad, and he told us that the only way to trap Ixkik’ was to make her show her face, and that led us to figure out how to trap her, which led to Pacific giving up the time rope—”
Hondo cut in, “And Adrik was a boss. He took control, called his sister telepathically, because, man, we needed our friends to round up all the gods.”
“And when I found out you were in trouble,” Mom said, “I knew I had to come, too.”
Just then, a loud roar from above caught all of our attention. We looked up to see a massive dragon, blue and shimmering, flying our way.
“Itzamna!” Ren shouted.
He had a teen passenger, and from the blazing eyes and murderous expression, I knew it was Ixtab.
The dragon perched on the remains of the roof, claws extended, and threw his head back to release a wave of fire that looked like it could incinerate the entire universe.
Hurakan said to me, “He wants to talk to you alone.”
“You speak Dragon?”
“You don’t?” Hurakan asked, and I couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not.
Almost everyone took off toward the jungle. Mom, who’d been clinging to me, stretched my shirt as she left. My dad hung back.
“I thought he wanted to talk to me alone,” I said.
“Who cares what he wants,” Hurakan said. “I’m sticking around.”
With a fiery snort, Itzamna floated down and shifted into his godly form. Teen Ixtab stormed over, glaring. “Zane Obispo! You are impossible to communicate with.”
Whoa. Seeing the goddess of the underworld as a kid was weird. I felt like I shouldn’t look directly at her, in case I laughed or something. But I didn’t have a choice, because she was only inches from my face.
“Didn’t you see I was inside Rosie?” she growled. “Can’t you read hellhound signals? Howls? Fire colors in the pupils?”