CHAPTER NINETEEN
It turned out that picking our way through the crowd on the way to El Castillo was pretty slow going. That was fine with me. The longer it took us to get there, the more time I had to get my head together. Cesar walked on my left, Matt held my right hand, and Richard and Adriana formed the front and back of the square. The twins were out in front of Adriana somewhere. Suddenly the earth began to shake and I was thrown against Cesar.
“Don’t worry, I have you,” he said, somehow managing to stand up straight while the rest of us flailed about.
“What the hell was that?” Matt asked Richard.
“It’s most likely the beginning of the transition. We’d better speed this up.”
Just as we began to press forward with more speed, another quake hit. This time, people began to scream. Some dropped to the ground in an effort to steady themselves, but they only ended up getting trampled by others who decided that running was the best way to deal with the situation.
“Stay together, stay together!” Richard yelled. “Everyone grab a hand on each side and keep moving for-ward!”
Suddenly, with a great groan, the earth began to split apart beneath my feet. I saw the people around me diving out of harm’s way, but I was too late. I cried out as I felt the earth beneath me crumble away. I held on to the edge of the chasm, my feet struggling for some kind of foothold. I could hear the terrified cries of people all around me, as they could no longer hold on and were forced to let go. I kept my eyes forward, not want-ing to look down. But my hands were slipping. Then I felt hands gripping my forearms.
“You got her?” Matt asked Cesar.
“No problem,” Cesar answered.
Together, they lifted me like I weighed nothing and set me on my feet. As we hurried away, I turned my head, expecting to see a crack in the ground. Instead I found myself staring at a miniature version of the Grand Canyon. It was nowhere near as wide, but it was so deep that its bottom was swallowed by darkness.
“You guys, we have to hurry.” Then I panicked. “Wait—where’re the twins?”
“They’re fine,” Matt said. “They’re with Richard and Adriana over there. They weren’t as close to the split as we were. My, I’m so sorry. You just slipped out of my hand.”
“It’s okay, I’m fine.”
As we started to walk toward the twins, I spotted Avery Wells in the crowd.
“Come on,” I said, picking up the pace. “Did you guys just see him?”
“See who?” Richard asked.
“Avery Wells,” I said. “He’s right over…where’d he go?”
“I’m sure you saw him,” Adriana answered, looking around at the thinning sea of tourists. “We’ve spotted some of Toltec’s shifters and Lucas Moss since the museum started to clear out some. They lost a few shifters. That could work to our advantage.”
“Our biggest worry right now is getting you around this chasm and up to El Castillo,” Richard said.
And as I turned around to get a better look at the situation, I could easily see what Richard meant. The split had sliced the park right down the middle. The Temple of the Jaguars was completely gone, as was half of the Venus Platform that had been diagonal to it.
“We’ll have to take her back down the other side by the rift’s tail end,” Richard said after a minute.
The ground started to shake once more, but this time there didn’t seem to be any new rifts opening up. Though people began to scream again, the noise soon died down when the tourists began to see that they were safe. Then we heard it. It sounded like high-pitched eek eek sounds coming from deep within the pit. All eyes were fixed on the pit as a black, winged creature soared up. Its face and body were like a bat’s and it had a long skinny tail. And it was huge. I felt every cell of my being shrinking in revulsion as I watched it fly higher, making that terrible screeching sound. Everyone seemed frozen in fear and disbelief.
“Demon!” Richard yelled. “We’ve got to go now. But slowly. We don’t want to attract its attention with too much movement.”
No sooner had Richard spoken than the bat thing honed in on a woman trying to run for safety. It swooped down, picked her up in its talons, and dropped her into the pit. I turned away. As we all slowly made our way to the right, the crush of the crowd became too much. People were shouting out names, looking for their friends and loved ones. I could see that the throng was headed toward the exit gate and was pushing way too hard. More people had fallen and were now being walked on. When a young woman fell right in front of us, Matt grabbed her under the arms and quickly set her on her feet again. All of a sudden, I noticed that the twins weren’t following us. I stopped dead.
“What are you guys doing?” I yelled. “Come on!”
Damian slowed down and looked back at me. “It’s okay! I’ve got a feeling this is where we come in,” he called.
I looked from him to Lyssa, who was nodding her head.
“Wait, no!” I hollered. “We can’t just leave them here!”
Richard laid one hand on my shoulder. “Maya, the demon is from Xibalba. We’ve been given our job to do and they’ve been given theirs. Let’s go!”
We sped back toward the front gates, then took a sudden left turn. As we ran, I kept an eye on the twins until El Castillo blocked them from my sight. Would we ever see one another again? Up until today, we hadn’t even known what part they would play in all of this, and now it wasn’t just Matt anymore. There was a chance that I could lose my best friends. Still running, I wiped away my tears.
The weirdness of the earthquake and flying demon had both helped us and hurt us. As the museum emptied out, we could fight as shifters without worrying about being seen by too many tourists. On the other hand, we ourselves were now out in plain sight. There were no more crowds to hide in. As we got closer to the pyramid, it became obvious that Toltec had no intention of letting me near it.
I stopped running and looked up. “Richard,” I said, “I could open a portal to the top.”
“No, it’s just too dangerous. If you were off by even a fraction we could lose you,” Adriana said.
“She’s right,” Richard said. “It’s too risky
Before I knew what was happening, shifters were phasing all over the place. Matt and Cesar remained at my sides, looking for an opening. But not all of Toltec’s shifters had phased. I could see several of them standing at the foot of the monument to make sure we couldn’t get close.
“My, quick! Come back here,” Matt said.
I followed him around the northern side of the pyramid, where he took my arm, pointing to a small doorway under the staircase.
“Stay here until we can deal with the shifters,” he said. “Don’t come out unless Cesar or I come for you.”
I looked at the opening. It was pretty small. “Okay,” I said.
He helped me over the rope that kept tourists from entering, then I walked inside and followed a short tunnel. Before long, I came to a steep, narrow staircase. It led to several tight passageways and small chambers. I kept going. Then I spotted a red, jade-studded jaguar throne. I ran my hand over it. There was Balam, so ancient and yet so much a part of me. Just seeing the throne made me feel more at ease. That is, until I heard footsteps coming into the chamber.
“Matt?” I whispered.
“I’m afraid not.” Victrixa. “You know what they say about payback?” she asked in an acid tone.
“And let me guess. You’re the bitch.”
She smiled. “We gave you your shot, but you turned it down. Now it’s over.”
She phased into Kan and I could feel a cold chill run down my spine as I once again looked into her menacing, reptilian face. Then she began to slide toward me. I looked around. There wasn’t anything here to fight her with. People weren’t even supposed to be here. Would it be easier to fight her if I phased? No. There just wasn’t enough room. She was closing in fast. This was worse than when I’d first met her in the bathroom. Now I had only one choice. I clo
sed my eyes and centered myself as fast as I could. My powers were definitely expanded here. I could feel it right away. No sooner had I visualized the little doorway of the temple than I was there. Blinded by the sunlight, I just stood there until I heard Cesar’s voice.
“Maya, come quickly!”
He steadied me with one hand and we ran around the other side of the pyramid. Two of Toltec’s shifters suddenly appeared and came barreling after us. Matt was already around the corner, fighting a Toltec shifter that was twice his size. Cesar punched the guy’s face so hard there was a sickening crack when he made contact.
“Thanks,” Matt said.
Cesar gave a quick smile. “Okay, when we find an opening, we go all three of us. Like your American football.”
A wily smile crossed Matt’s face. Cesar was learning to speak his language, that’s for sure. As soon as they saw a break in the lower perimeter of the pyramid, they charged forward, carrying me between them. With their outside arms and shoulders leading, they were ready to pummel anyone that got in our way. We tore forward, and they thrust me partway up the stairs. For a moment, I was actually airborne. I hit the stone hard, which tore a hole my jeans and gouged my knee. When I looked back, they were in the middle of a fist fight with two Toltec shifters.
“My! Go!” Matt yelled.
Jolted out of my stupor, I turned and pushed off against the steps. I threw everything I had into propelling myself upward. My legs burned. I could feel the shin splints coming before I even hit the halfway mark, but I let the adrenaline carry me. My lungs complained with each breath I took. I refused to take my eyes off the top. I pushed the pain to the back of my mind and kept climbing. I lost my footing and slipped several times, but each time I pushed myself up and kept going. At some point, I noticed that I was leaving bloodstains on the stones. I knew it would only be a matter of time before Toltec sent someone after me.
I reached the top! I collapsed against the wall of the Temple, trying to catch my breath. And that’s when I felt it. Adriana had been right. I could feel the power that the pyramid was amplifying. I looked down at the fighting, so far below me. It looked totally surreal. Still staggering, I walked around the corner, following the edge of the Temple. There was the bat demon, still flying above the museum. But something was wrong with it. It kept shaking its head, like it was trying to fly straight but couldn’t. Then I spotted Damian and Lyssa far below. They looked so tiny. They were facing each other and holding hands, and somehow they were pushing thoughts into the bat demon’s mind.
The twins were kicking some serious butt. Now it was my turn. I ran back around the corner and entered the temple. It was time to tap into the energy of that baby and see what it could do. I closed my eyes, focused, and where it would normally take me minutes to tap into the earth’s energy, up here, it was only seconds. I let go and found myself standing on the windy platform on the very top of El Castillo.
I could feel the power from the earth beginning to enter my body before I even called for it. I moved my legs apart for a firmer stance, took another deep breath, and opened myself up to it. Give me strength, Balam, I called. Give me strength. I don’t know how long I stood there, trying to let in as much k’ul as I possibly could. I looked down at myself. I was blazing with bright light. I was my own sun! And then, suddenly, it felt like something was going horribly wrong. My insides felt as though they were burning, like someone had sent acid through my bloodstream. Still I allowed it in until I couldn’t take it anymore. I let out a piercing scream and raised my arms up above my head in a V. I let go. Power streamed out from my hands, like a giant flame thrower, lighting up the sky. As the k’ul poured out of my body, the pain gradually subsided.
From my perch, I could still see the twins standing close to the abyss. They were struggling against five demons now, trying to focus their telepathy on a couple at a time. After a minute, one of the demons looked up and turned its attention to me. I had an idea. It took almost every ounce of strength I had to work against the k’ul exploding out of my body, but I was able to get my arm down enough to aim the energy at the demon. It instantly burst into flames and fell like a comet back into the pit.
I took out two more the same way, then I looked around again. I saw shifters battling one another as both humans and animals. There had to be fifty of them, and I knew at least twenty of them were ours. From where I stood, it could have been something off of Animal Planet. There were large birds swooping down from the sky, doing a lot of damage with their talons and beaks. I spotted tunkuruchu among the birds and wondered briefly if it might be Richard. Liam had phased into a polar bear and was attacking a huge bull. At first, they looked evenly matched, but then I saw the danger. The bull lowered its head and gored Liam. I had to look away. When I looked back, he had phased back to his human form and had both hands on his stomach. He fell to the ground. My heart sank.
As I bowed my head, I suddenly caught a glimpse of Victrixa out of the corner of my eye. She was standing at the bottom of the pyramid just next to the abyss. What was she up to?
I looked along the other edges of the chasm and noticed that Avery Wells and Lucas Moss were doing the same thing further along the pit. What was going on? And why weren’t those disgusting bat demon thingies attacking any of them?
I took out another demon with a fiery blast of k’ul, only to see Victrixa turn around and look up. I looked down at her with a big grin on my face. Honestly, I just couldn’t help it. She just looked so pissed, and I was so way tired of her trying to kill me. As the power running through me began to weaken, I glanced down behind me and saw that there were wounded shifters on the ground. I looked for Cesar and found him fighting an elk, but why couldn’t I find Matt? Where the hell was he?
As the energy flow continued to cut back, a feeling of total exhaustion started to replace it. When the last of the energy had left my body, I started to fall forward. I was caught just in time by Matt and Richard.
Then I heard Matt’s voice. “Oh, my God! Look what it did to her, Richard! Look what it’s done!”
“Okay, Matt, let’s hand her down,” I heard Richard say. He sounded far away. “Cesar,” he was saying, “take her nice and slow.”
Barely conscious, I could feel myself being passed from one set of strong arms to another. When I woke up, it was just for a moment. I could feel the motion of the van as it rocked back and forth on the highway. I opened my eyes and realized I was riding with my head in Matt’s lap.
“Shh,” he whispered. “Go back to sleep, babe.” The last thing I remember was the expression on Matt’s face. He looked devastated. But I realized I could only tell from the look on his face. I couldn’t feel him anymore. Just for a split second, before I passed out again, I saw Cesar lay his hand on Matt’s shoulder.