The Smoking Mirror (11 page)

Johnny shuddered with realization. “Carol, that tower was carved from bone. From a single, freaking
huge
bone.”

“What sort of creature has a bone that size, Johnny? That’s got to be a hundred feet tall.”

“Well, I’m guessing whatever it was doesn’t exist anymore.”

They walked around the base of the tower, looking for the ghost dog. There were no markings of any kind anywhere on the surface of the stele and no sign of Puchi’s doppelganger.

“Weird. They used her to lure us here,” Johnny mused aloud, “so where’s the trap?”

“There’s no trap, kids.”

Despite six months without hearing it, Johnny recognized the clipped, lightly accented voice immediately. Verónica Quintero de Garza stepped from within the ivory white tower, a haunting smile on her cracked lips. Her dark hair was standing out wildly in all directions, her brown eyes sunken deeply into a face stripped bare of its normal elegant make-up.

“I sent the vision of Puchi to draw you here,” she continued, her hands reaching out to them. Johnny noted that her slacks and blouse were badly stained and torn. “I don’t have much time. They use this tower to send demons against you, trying to make you despair. In moments they’ll return to try again. So let me be quick,
mis amores.

“
Han sido muy valientes, los dos.
Very brave. I’m prouder than you can imagine. But you cannot continue. The danger is too great. Even if you get past all obstacles, when you stand before
him
, you’ll be weakened beyond belief. And he will twist you, make you give your power to him. Rather than risk that, I’m willing to sacrifice myself.”

Carol, who had been trembling for a while, suddenly cried out. “No, Mom! You can’t!”

Johnny shook his head.
It’s a trick. Has to be.

“This is nuts. They’re really desperate, Carol. To give themselves away like this? We scare them.”

“What are you talking about? Johnny, that’s not a fake! That’s
Mom
!”

The phantom turned loving eyes on him. “Yes, Johnny, listen to your sister. It’s really me.”

Johnny laughed, finally certain. “Oh, they’re scared, alright. And scared people always screw up. It’s not her, Carol, and now you know it.”

Carol closed her eyes and nodded. “I guess…I guess I just wanted to believe…”

Their mother’s double narrowed her eyes. “Kids? What are you going on about? You need to leave, now. Travel counterclockwise until you come to the Green Road, and then follow it back. You’ll emerge…”

“Carol, sing.”

She stared at him, her mouth open. “Sing
what
?”

“Anything. One of Mom’s lullabies.
Use the Force, Luke.
”

Closing his eyes, Johnny began to picture his mother, dressed to the nines, her hair perfectly done, make-up flawless, all five foot six inches of her joyously alive as she walked along an exhibit of her sculptures. In his mind, she turned to him and beckoned.

Carol’s voice began to echo in that damned wasteland, at first tentative, then with greater confidence and beauty, sounding out clear, powerful notes that seemed to set the tower thrumming:

A la ru ru niño
A la ru ru ya.
Tus sueños te protegen
De la oscuridad.

A la ru ru niño
A la ru ru ya,
Porque viene el coco
Y te comerá.

Y si no te come,
Él te llevará;
Y si no te lleva,
Quién sabe qué hará.

Este lindo niño
Ya se va a dormir
Háganle la cuna
De rosa y jazmín.

Toronjil de plata,
Torre de marfil,
Arrullen al niño
Que ya quiere dormir.

As the dark lullaby flooded his soul with memories, his mother’s face loomed larger and larger, filling his mental vision. Her eyes crinkled beautifully, and she called to him, as she always did.

“
Juan Ángel, ven acá, amor.
”

Not
Johnny
. Never Johnny. And in that moment, the love he had been bottling up within him—fearful of forgetting, frightened of losing the sound of her voice forever—came rushing out like a tide, and he instinctively directed it at the specter before him, shouting with authority he had never imagined he could muster:

“Show us what you really are!”

A muffled shriek made him open his eyes. Before them their mother’s form
peeled away
, revealing a pterodactyl-like monster with the backward-bent legs of a rooster. Its human-like face was shattered and scarred, and as it spread its leathery wings, it shrieked again in bitter rage.

“Behold Ixpuztec, master of faces!” Its voice was like the snapping of dry bones. “And now I shall gladly rip yours from your foolish heads you sniveling brats!”

Ixpuztec’s wings beat the air twice, lifting about four meters. Then the demon dove at them, razor-sharp talons first.

Seizing the screech owl feather, Johnny transformed, clutching at his clothes and spiraling away on an updraft. Carol was now a snatch-bat, and Johnny caught a glimpse of her as she raked her own obsidian claws against Ixpuztec’s already ruined face.

Fly, Johnny, fly! I’m right behind you!

Catching a strange, rushing current, Johnny corrected his trajectory and then hurtled parallel to the Black Road. Ahead the sky wavered and seethed, like summer air above the blacktop. Twisting his agile owl head, he saw his sister gliding behind him. Below her, rushing upward, was a cloud of black: Ixpuztec, accompanied by thousands upon thousands of ravens and vultures.

Well, Carol, we’re almost past this desert. I see the next one up ahead. Lava plains, right? Scarface and his feathered friends can’t cross over. We’re almost in the clear.

The warm current soon drew them to a chain of volcanoes that appeared to serve as a border between the two circles of Mictlan. The mass of demonic birds had almost caught up when the twins winged their way between two bubbling calderas. An explosion of super-heated gas and ash fried the hundreds of ravens and vultures who had not turned aside at the last minute.

Wow, that was close
, Carol projected.

Yeah. Those birds got fried extra crispy. We just need a jalapeño and some charro beans, and we’d have an awesome feast
.

Gross!

Yeah, well, after who-knows-how-many hours or days in the Underworld, I’m really working up a craving for some comfort food, you know. Anyway, four down, five to go. I think we’re really getting a hang of this, yeah? And look, just a bunch of lava flows. Great updrafts. I think we’ll get through this desert quick.

He glanced down just in time to see the enormous flying wyrm before it wrapped itself around him and plunged toward the fiery plains.

Chapter Thirteen

Carol screamed in her ragged bat voice as the winged serpent lunged through the air, seizing her brother in coils of shimmering red and gold. Pulling her own wings tight against her body, she dropped like a stone after them. The wind whistled past her sensitive ears in a warbling wail, but before she could reach Johnny, another huge iridescent snake emerged from the sulfuric mists and plucked her from the air with the tip of its twisting tail.

Terrified, she squirmed around inside the serpent’s unalterable grip, almost shifting before she remembered the bat was her only flight-capable option if she got free. She soon realized she couldn’t reach her animal talismans anyway, so she worked to calm herself down. It was difficult. She knew she was panicking, but couldn’t help remembering what had gotten her here. Overcoming the
cehualli
attack, convincing the
kamasotzob
to help her, being saved by Xolotl from the icy whirlwinds only to watch him abandon her…All of those trials paled beside the psychological ordeal of facing the doppelgangers of her loved ones and hearing their dreadful but inescapably true pronouncements.

Dad said that souls had their humanity stripped away, bit by bit, till only a wisp was left. I can’t let that happen to me. I’ve got to hold on to who I am.

Her captor veered left and then right, avoiding the super-heated blasts of steam from below. Carol, her mind calmer, waited to discover where the creature was taking her.
Hopefully Johnny will be there, too, and together we can figure out a way to escape.

The wyrm’s wings beat the hot air for several minutes before it began to descend into the large, bowl-like caldera of a smoking volcano. Craning her head back, Carol saw that the crater contained a steaming lake, at the center of which stood an island of volcanic rock. Lava dribbled from a sort of shattered hill, draining down into the water in a glowing ribbon. Along the fiery stream a massive black temple had been erected, its ziggurat steps reflecting the red with hellish fierceness. It was atop this temple that the flying serpent released Carol and landed, coiling its body beneath itself and digging winged claws into the black stone to support its upper half. It had no legs.

Tightening her own talons around her clothes, Carol spread her wings, ready to attempt her escape.

“That would be quite useless.” The voice was smooth and aristocratic, employing the cultured tones of a Spanish prince or Aztec emperor. Carol lowered her wings a bit as a man ascended the steps to stand a few yards away from her. He was tall and thin and extravagantly dressed. On his head sat a golden circlet, part of a headdress from which a ridge of white feathers emerged, followed by blue-green plumes that swept backwards down the black, downy cape draped over his broad shoulders. His skin was the faint blue of the dead except for strange golden tracings: ancient glyphs tattooed on cheeks, chest and forearms. Around his eyes was a black mask that glittered with pinpricks of blue fire like the glowing azure of his irises; a loincloth of the same material hung to his knees. In his right hand he clutched a sinister-looking dart and in his left, a broad shield at the center of which had been mounted an obsidian mirror. Carol saw her bat form reflected in its depths and quailed.

He smiled. “To be sure, I invite you to make the attempt. My fire serpent, Xiuhcoatl, would easily recapture you. However, even if he did not, I could bring you back down with little effort. In fact,” he pronounced with a slight tipping of his shield, “you are now quite unable to escape.”

Irritated by his mocking tone, Carol flapped leathery wings, only to discover that he had been telling the truth. Some sorcery kept her talons firmly attached to the top of the pyramid.

“We need to converse, you and I, Carolina. Return to your normal form. Now.”

Carol stared at him with red eyes, and then gestured with her wing.

“Ah, you wish for me to turn around? Childish thing. Do you truly believe me interested in your unripe flesh? Very well. Dress quickly.”

He gave her his back, and it was her
tonal
that rather randomly sensed his cape was covered in eaglet down. Shifting into her human form, she pulled on undergarments, pants and shirt. Xiuhcoatl hissed softly, smoke curling from its nostrils. Carol jerked her chin up at it in a defiant gesture, and it flicked its forked tongue at her hungrily. As she bent to slip on her socks, she noticed a single shimmering scale that had flaked free of the winged serpent, lying a few feet away. The seed of a plan began to germinate.

She was slipping into her sneakers when the masked blue man faced her again.

“Better. Do you know who I am, Carolina Garza?”

“No. Batman? A
lucha libre
wrestler?”

His grim smile conveyed a desire to break her bones slowly. “I am
Huitzilopochtli
, you sniveling wench. Resurrected warrior of the south. Lord of sun and fire and battle. Do you know me?”

Carol recognized the name immediately. Her father had told her many stories of the arrival of the Aztecs in the Valley of Mexico. She had been fascinated by the nomadic Mexica tribe and how they had been forced to leave kingdom after kingdom until settling at Lake Texcoco, and how they had worked as mercenaries for decades until forming the Triple Alliance that in a century had conquered the entire Valley of Mexico. Dr. Garza had written several monographs about the first Moctezuma. That pre-Colombian king had sought to erase the history of the nations he conquered and replace it with a glorified tale of Aztec dominance. His brother the high priest had developed a religious doctrine that required greater and greater human sacrifice to stave off disaster. They had elevated their bloodthirsty god of war to the head of their pantheon.

“Sure, I know who you are. The god the Aztecs worshipped above all others. The one who led them out of Aztlán, down into Mexico.”

Huitzilopochtli’s smile broadened. “Very good! I see your father taught you well, Carolina.”

She stopped in the middle of tying her left sneaker. “How do you know about my dad?”

“I am a
god
, little one. Of course I know.”

Carol scoffed. “You’re a
cruel
god. By the time they got to the Valley of Mexico, the Aztecs had really changed, huh? Human sacrifice…that was your idea, wasn’t it? Conquering weaker nations, slaughtering men, women and children to make sure the sun would rise. All that tragedy.”

The god made a dismissive gesture. “Oh, enough. You and your Western notions of right and wrong. My people were not some pasty European race. They were warriors. The conquest of Mexico was their birthright.”

“Whatever.” Carol shook her head and stood, her shoelaces tied. “What’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong, no matter what. Cruelty and murder are evil
anywhere
. Some god you turned out to be. My dad says you were probably just a human leader who got elevated to divine status after his death.”

Huitzilopochtli crossed the space between them in three broad strides. “Do I look like a mere man to you, child? For a thousand years I walked among the people that would become the Mexica, sustained by
cehualli
, preparing the way for their dark destiny. No human elevated me to divinity, you stinking wolf. I won apotheosis by my own hands. I was translated to a perfect state through the power I alone learned to wield.”

Carol suddenly understood. “Human sacrifice. That’s how you got access to the shadow magic. And that’s why you needed the empire, the Flower Wars, the temple steps all covered in blood and
your
name at the top of the list of gods…Tell me the truth. You didn’t come up with the idea by yourself, did you? Somebody else showed you how to use
cehualli
and how to prep the Mexica, right? Maybe Tezcatlipoca?”

The god’s blue eyes flamed with rage, like twin shards of brimstone in the nethermost regions of Hell. Carol knew she was in great danger, but she couldn’t stop. Her only chance for escape required she push this petty deity to his limits. “I wonder what sort of a people my ancestors would’ve been if they’d worshipped, say, Quetzalcoatl as their main god.”

“Do not pronounce his name here, foolish girl.” Huitzilopochtli’s voice was cold and brittle. “His protection is meaningless in Mictlan. Besides, the feathery worm knows the truth: human life was stolen.
He stole it.
A price must be paid for it to continue. And his own temples flowed with the blood of sacrifice as well, lest you forget.”

“I’m pretty sure that wasn’t his idea.”

Huitzilopochtli lifted his dart and pointed it at her menacingly. “You are too trusting of the worm and his mutt. But they cannot protect you. They cannot save your mother, either. You have mentioned Tezcatlipoca. In truth, he is a mighty force, one to which I bend my knee gladly. Under his aegis, I shall once again rule over humanity, and the blood of thousands will imbue my spirit with unimaginable might!”

His voice made her tremble, but she smirked as bravely as she could. “We won’t let you. Me and Johnny. Xolotl. Quetzalcoatl. Tonantzin, the mother of all.”

He simply stared at her, apoplectic.
Almost there.

“Here I stand, the god of your ancestors, and you spit defiance at me. You are like Malintzín, turning your back on your people.”

Carol knew he meant Malinalli Tenepal, the indigenous princess whose knowledge had helped Hernán Cortes defeat the Aztecs, the empire the young woman had blamed for the tragedies in her life. “They
weren’t
her people. Her people had to pay
tribute
to the Mexica. She probably believed she was helping to free them. Her only mistake was thinking the Spaniards would be much better. Their view of the universe was also pretty messed up. I’ll bet Tezcatlipoca had something to do with that, too. Didn’t it ever occur to you that maybe he was pitting both sides against each other? He loves chaos and destruction, no? Wants to see the world end? Where do you fit in as god of humanity
if they’re all dead
?”

Now. He’ll hit me, throwing me toward his monster snake, and I’ll get my chance. It’ll hurt, but I’ll heal quick.

Instead, Huitzilopochtli lowered his dart and nodded, his expression softening slightly. With a careless gesture, he let his shield tumble from his hand. It slapped against the black stone with a dull thud.

“I must admit, Carolina Garza,” he said, his voice raspy with odd emotion, “that you indeed have a point. Truth be told, this conundrum is why I had you brought here. You understand, do you not, what the Dark Lord intends to do? He means to break you and your brother, to unhinge your minds or twist your wills so that you freely elect to place your
xoxal
into his hands. Bringing together his shadow sorcery and your savage magic, he will burst open the prison that contains the
Tzitzimime
, ancient star demons eager for your world’s destruction.”

Carol trembled, and not just at the frustration of her plan. Though she had basically figured out Tezcatlipoca’s endgame, to hear it stated so matter-of-factly was frightening. Still, she clung to the shreds of her bravery, keeping her head high.

“We’re not that easy to break.”

The blue god’s fist tightened around the dart as his free hand cut sharply through the acrid air. “He has broken emperors, philosophers, saints,
gods
. I assure you there is no other possible outcome if you continue along the Black Road.”

“If we continue. As opposed to what, exactly?”

Huitzilopochtli reached out and touched her cheek. She felt a nervous surge within her, a burble of feelings she couldn’t decipher.
Was that really me, or did he make that happen? Either way…Gross!

“You ally with me. I can rally much of Mictlan under my banner, and together we can march against him and his boney puppets. Enemy of my enemy and so forth.”

Carol felt absolutely no desire to join forces with the bloodthirsty deity. Nor did she believe for a second that he really wanted to overthrow Tezcatlipoca.
But if I play along some, maybe I can still make my plan work.

“How can you expect me to trust you? I…I won’t lie. It’s been really hard, and I’m not sure we can make it to the center, much less take him on. But you…You want to
rule the world
. You say you need our help, but what happens after?”

“You can trust me,” muttered the Aztec god of war, “because I am telling you the truth. Once we have defeated Tezcatlipoca, I shall demand your loyalty. And if you choose to defy my sovereignty, I shall kill you. Until then, however, we can work as…equals.”

Yeah, right
. “Prove it, then. Take your spell away so I can move around.”

Huitzilopochtli shrugged and made a slight gesture with his right hand. “You have been released, but I caution you. Should you attempt to wield your savage magic against me, my fire serpents will rend you to bloody bits.”

“You’re a real charmer. Do all your potential allies get this treatment? Oh, yeah, I forgot. The Empire.” She stretched and inched slightly toward Xiuhcoatl. “Okay, if we’re really going to hash this out, I need Johnny here. I can’t make a decision without him agreeing to it.”

Nodding, the god lifted his head toward the gray sky. After a second or two, his eyes narrowed. “How odd.”

“What?” Carol took another step to her left.