“The orb,” I whispered.
“Yes, the orb, you fool!” Steam practically rolled off Ixtab’s head and I was super glad she didn’t have her goddess powers right then. “I used the hellhound to keep an eye on things here, not knowing she would be my very lifeline, but getting you to listen to me was harder than turning a demon vegan!”
Hurakan said, “Zane rescued you.”
Ixtab’s eyes flicked to my dad, then back to me. “By the skin of his teeth.”
“But you were rescued,” Itzamna reminded the goddess. “We all were.” Then, turning his attention to me, he added, “There’s someone else we need to thank. Your uncle is the greatest shadow crosser I have ever seen. He truly saved us all.”
A huge balloon of pride expanded in my chest. The greatest shadow crosser ever. Knowing Hondo, he was definitely going to have that printed on new business cards.
Itzamna went on. “This is a glorious day. Let’s not ruin it with what might have happened and how close we were to annihilation, both literally and in the history books.”
“Easy for you to say, Itzamna,” Ixtab complained. “You aren’t…” She glanced down at herself and groaned. “You aren’t an adolescent!”
“You weren’t in such great shape earlier,” I said to the moon god, remembering his sickly gray self. “How’d you get better?”
“The gods might be in a weakened state,” Itzamna said, “but with so many of them awake now, the Tree has been powered up, and me as well.”
That gave me hope that everyone else would return to normal, too. I never thought I would say this, but I wanted that to happen soon, because hanging around with a bunch of angry teen gods might be worse than being with the angry old gods. “How long will…?” My eyes darted between Ixtab and Hurakan.
“We be like this?” Ixtab hissed. “It better not be long! I have an underworld to run, a spy network to oversee, demons to punish.”
“There is no way to tell,” Itzamna said, throwing a chill-out glance Ixtab’s way. “But we are facing a bigger problem.”
I clung to Fuego, wishing I never had to hear the word problem again. “What?”
“Our written history—the truth—has been completely destroyed.”
Nodding, I said, “Ixkik’ was going to make me rewrite it, to change sobrenaturals’ memories, all because—”
“You are my chosen scribe with the power of the dragon,” Itzamna said.
“Dragon this or that,” Ixtab said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “Who cares? Someone just needs to reconstruct what was lost. Looks like that’s you, godborn.”
All six god eyes were on me. “You want me to write the history? What do I know about it? Nothing! There…there has to be someone else.”
“You’re the only one who can,” Itzamna said. “Well, technically, I could do it, but I am in serious need of a vacation and a float through some healing stardust.” With one finger, he pulled on the lower lid of his left eye. “Look at these eyes. Puffy and bloodshot!”
“You need a vacation?” Ixtab growled. “I haven’t had one in three centuries!”
As annoying as the gods were, and as tedious as it sounded to have to record centuries of history, seeing all those books go up in flames and knowing the truth could be stolen made me want to bring it back. “Okay, okay. I’ll do it. But I’m going to need some help….”
“That’s my boy,” Hurakan said, which sounded really weird coming from a guy my age. “In the meantime, we will continue what we started at SHIHOM. But the godborn training will be incomplete without the truth, and our history will be in danger until we replenish it.”
“There are other dangers,” Itzamna said.
I rubbed my eyes and wished I was back on Isla Holbox, where I could toss all these problems and dangers to the bottom of the sea.
“Don’t tell him all the horrors at once,” Ixtab said, grinning.
I looked at the moon god expectantly.
He sighed and said, “Well, it does make for a more exciting ending to this tale.”
I felt a pounding headache coming on. “Just tell me.”
“Some of the godborns took off from Montana. We don’t know where they went.”
I was totally unsurprised. After all, Serena and a few of the others had publicly declared that they wanted to take down the gods, steal all the power and magic for themselves. But where had they gone? Did they really think they could hide from the gods? Okay, maybe they could at the moment, but that moment wouldn’t last forever. “How many?” I asked.
Ixtab scowled, holding up five fingers. “I cannot wait to find the traitors and give them a long cruise down Blood River.”
“You’re offering cruises in the underworld now?” Ah-Puch popped out from behind a wall. He eyed Ixtab and covered his mouth like he might start laughing.
“Another word,” she said, “and I will rip out your spine one vertebra at a time.”
Ah-Puch held up his hands in surrender, a corner of his mouth curled up in a sly smile. “I was just going to say it’s time for a serious party!”
Turns out the god of death meant it when he said serious party. It took two weeks to organize. The good news was that Itzamna postponed his vacation in order to attend, and in the meantime, he healed the scorched jungle. The bad news was that Ah-Puch was constantly hollering at the air spirits, whose “party standards were appalling at best.” But once he told me he hadn’t been invited to a fiesta in over a thousand years, I kind of understood why it was such a big deal for the guy.
When Ah-Puch wasn’t party-planning, he and Hondo were prison-planning for Bird and Zotz. Let’s just say they made a deal with Sipacna and the Four Hundred Boys. Yeah, the giant and ghosts were more than happy to take the villains off our hands, and something told me it was going to be pretty hellish for Bird and the teen bat god.
The godborns returned from Montana, except the rogue bunch that I really hoped someone else found waaay before Ixtab did. Blood River is pretty creepy—take it from someone who knows. Anyhow, they made us tell them the story of how we rescued the gods so many times I decided to write it all down. It only took a single night, thanks to magic paper and my having the power of the dragon. Ixkik’ had lied about the paper being destroyed. At first, we couldn’t find it, but then Itzamna discovered that the monkeys had stolen the stash during all the chaos. I felt kind of bad for the rascals when he reclaimed it, so I let them keep a few sheets. Sorry, Itzamna.
I also began rewriting true history, which should have taken a thousand years, but with the aid of Itzamna’s magic, I would be done in a year, tops. To be honest, it wasn’t half bad.
I had collected all the ashes from the bonfire and stuck them in a dozen huge stone vases. Whenever I sat down to write, the ashes would float into the air and whisper their stories to me. Rosie lazed about the biblioteca while I worked, perking her ears over every whisper. I guess hellhounds don’t like ghosts too much.
The day of the party, Rosie seemed more restless than usual. She sniffed around all the library’s corners and then lay down next to me with a sigh. She turned over and kicked her legs in the air, demanding a belly rub.