The Smoking Mirror (16 page)

In answer, she leapt from her throne and, suspended in the air above him, slashed at his left arm with her sickle, opening a long gash from wrist to elbow. Her orb floated free as she seized his hand with bony fingers and directed the flow of blood into the stone receptacle.

“Christ! That freaking hurt, you…you…” Johnny stared at the rising level of red. “That’s enough, no? Let go of me already!”

Carol, without thinking, moved to intervene but Mictecacihuatl released her brother before she had a chance to confront the goddess. Johnny collapsed to the floor, his face white.

“Shift, Johnny, shift!”

His body jerked and twisted, and soon the jaguar lay before her, growling weakly. Struggling to all fours it bared its teeth at Lady Death.

“
Save your crude insults for your own mother, knave. She deserves them more. Be that as it may, you have paid the toll. Begone with you
.”

Twitching his tail in anger, Johnny padded between the thrones and passed through the archway. Carol followed, eager to put the skeletal sovereigns behind her, desperate to see her mother again.

Chapter Eighteen

Johnny slouched his way along the dark stones of the corridor the Black Road had become. He felt dizzy and weak, but he refused to let Carol see how drained he really was.
She needs me strong.
Mom
needs me strong.
When the time came, he figured he would be able to draw on the savage magic to sustain him. In the meanwhile, he would simply fake it.

Before long, the corridor ended at another chamber, a large cave-like structure with shallow pools of mineral water interspersed among stalagmites and other formations. At the center of the chamber lay a large obsidian mirror like the one the Little People had used to send the twins to Mictlan, but marred by a network of fine cracks that covered its surface like a snarled cobweb.

A way out?

Thoughts of escape, however, were interrupted by the sight of his mother, just a few yards from the mirror. His heart almost shattered as his animal eyes took in her brutalized form. She had a stone yoke around her neck, and a strange, glittering rope or cable ran like a lead from the yoke to a stalagmite. She was still dressed in the paint-speckled jeans and sleeveless blouse she’d been wearing on the day she disappeared. Her dark hair was tangled and matted, her face smeared with grime. Her eyes widened as she saw her daughter standing beside the jaguar.

“
Mamá
!” Carol shouted, and the two of them rushed to her side. Johnny shifted into human form and threw his arms around her. With shuddering sobs, she hugged them tightly.

“Oh, my beautiful children. How…how did you find me?”

“It was the Little People,” Carol explained. “They used their
chay abah
, a mirror like that one, to send us through.”

Johnny’s mother reached up and laid a palm on each of his cheeks. “My sweet boy…You’re a
nagual
, yes?”

“Yeah. So is Carol.” He touched the stone yoke, anger flooding his heart. “And we’ve got the
xoxal
, Mom. So don’t worry.”

He stepped back out of her embrace and partially shifted into a crocodile. Then, his joy and rage mingling in the deepest regions of his soul, Johnny pulled up enough savage magic to close his jaws around the yoke and shatter it.

Verónica Quintero de Garza stood, staring at him dumbfounded. Johnny shifted back. He checked his mother’s neck to make sure she wasn’t too badly bruised or cut and Carol stroked her hair and brushed the dust from her clothes, trying to help her feel more herself.

“Children, I am so happy to see you again,” their mother said once she had gotten over the shock of seeing her son become a were-croc, “but we need to leave this place before Tezcatlipoca returns. He orchestrated this, you understand.
Los quiere aquí,
wants both of you in this chamber with me. I don’t know why, but let’s not stay and find out.”

Carol looked around. At the far end of the chamber was another opening, leading who-knew-where. “Well, we can’t go back the way we came, so…”

“I was actually thinking we could use the mirror,” Johnny said.

“But we don’t know the chant,” Carol pointed out.

“No, but we’ve got like savage magic and stuff, Carol. Let’s try to focus on the obsidian, see if we can’t make it start smoking and so on.”

Their mother shook her head. “No, Juan Ángel. That’s the passageway the Dark Lord uses. I’m pretty certain it doesn’t lead back to our world. At least, not any good place in our world.
Olvídalo.
”

“
Pero, ma, si intentáramos…
”

“I said forget it,
m’ijo
. Seriously. It doesn’t matter how powerful you think you’ve become, my love. You are
not
ready to face a powerful god. We need to go, now, before…”

The mirror trembled, and the three of them turned to stare at it. Smoke began curling from the cracks, as if a fire had been kindled beneath it. Strengthening this impression, strange glints of phosphorescence seemed to eddy in the mirror’s depths. But then the surface of the mirror bulged, rippling upward as if something
within
it were pushing out.
Like Freddy in the old
Nightmare on Elm Street
films.
Then it was as if the surface of the mirror tore, and an impossibly enormous black-spotted paw thrust itself into the air, bending and stretching forward to sink vicious ebony talons into the rocky dirt.

“Run!” their mother screamed. Johnny grabbed her hand and dashed toward the passageway, but stalagmites burst upward from the ground behind them to create a wall. Another massive paw ripped through the mirror with an audible groan, as if the very fabric of the world had been rent apart by its grappling claws.

Carol pointed at the other side of the mirror, where fewer obstructions blocked the way. The three of them ran around the base of the
chay abah
. Johnny kept his eyes on the emerging forelegs of the dread beast, which tensed as if against some great weight. With an agonizing howl that thrummed through the mineral ceiling and sent a shower of red dust raining against Johnny’s head and back, an indescribably huge jaguar erupted from the mirror, smoke curling from its rippling flesh as it snarled and shook itself. It slammed its paw down in their path, blocking their exit.

The ears of the jaguar, twitching this way and that, nearly scraped the chamber’s high dome, and its tail slapped angrily against the farthest wall, knocking loose shiny mineral cascades. The rocky earth recoiled against the touch of three of its deadly paws, causing them to sink deep in the ground; the fourth still trapped within the mirror, which was now as glowing and smoky as an awakening fumarole.

Leaning its great head down to with arm’s reach of Johnny, the jaguar opened unspeakable, slavering jaws to reveal teeth the length of a man’s leg and a gullet that glistened darkly with ominous implications. A rumbling growl was born in the depths of this black mountain, building toward a crescendo…. But the growl, unexpectedly, became a voice: a voice like the fulminating roar, but speaking in words Johnny could understand. The jaguar was addressing them in Spanish, antiquated and replete with difficult words, but intelligible nonetheless.

“
Have I your attention, humans?
” It turned its fiery eyes on Johnny. “Do you understand me,
boy
?”

The voice was all around him, echoing in the air, trembling in the ground, whispering in the very depths of his soul. He had heard that voice many times before in his darkest dreams. There was no choice but to answer it.

“Uh, yes.”

“
Good. I have been awaiting you for some time. We have much to discuss. First, however, let me assume a less theatrical form
.”

The great jaguar began to shudder, its limbs twitching. Then, heaving and pulsing, its flesh began to shrink and run together, gradually taking on another form. Though still imposing, the beast was now a giant of a man, standing a foot and a half above the tallest Johnny had ever seen. The skin of a jaguar was draped around him like a robe, its head hooding him and enfolding his handsome pale face in shadows. Behind his head, inexplicably floating in space, smoked a black mirror, made, as far as Johnny could tell, from obsidian. The young man was reminded for a moment of Catholic icons, saints with their circles of light. Except this was a circle of darkness, absolute and purest night. The man wore a gray tunic beneath the robe, decorated with black and gray feathers collected from, Johnny noted, crows and ravens and vultures. His right foot was shod in a sandal, but his left leg tapered to bare bone just above the ankle, and the skeletal left foot appeared to be caught within the slightly convex surface of the mirror that still smoldered on the cave floor.

“
If you have not yet guessed, I am Tezcatlipoca, boy. Enslaver of Men. Master of Earth and Sky. Enemy of Both Sides. Omnipresent Darkness. I effect change, pull down the old ways in favor of stronger ones, destroy the weak. I existed before this world’s beginning, and I shall be here at its end. An end, I should add, that will come very soon, now that you two have begun to wield the savage magic.
”

Johnny’s hands curled into fists. His heart beat wildly, almost painfully in his chest. “If you think,” he panted, “that we’re going to help you destroy the universe, then you must be out of your freaking mind. Or maybe you’ve been chewing on some funky cactus, huh?”

“Johnny,” Carol breathed in a nervous warning. His mother gripped his hand tightly. He ignored them both.

“Yeah, no, you had our mom captive for six months. Our dad nearly lost it. Carol and I were pushed to our limits. You basically screwed our family, big time. So, you peg-legged freak, get the hell out of our way before you get a taste of the savage magic you’re so excited about.”

A grin spread across Tezcatlipoca’s face, baring his feral teeth. “
You have summed up perfectly, if somewhat inelegantly, the very seed of your enslavement to me. That you are too young or stupid to understand only adds to my enjoyment of your predicament. In any event,
please
.
Please
make me get out of your way. I have been looking forward to this moment eagerly, boy.
”

Johnny could only focus on the word
enslavement
. A growl rose from deep within him, as if his
tonal
itself were responding to the dark god’s taunts.

“Me too, you scabby old gib.”

“Johnny, stop.” His mother’s voice was as firm and determined as ever. He couldn’t help obeying her. “He’s goading you. Don’t fall into his trap.”

“
Your mother is very wise, boy. But very mortal. I think I will kill her now. Attempt to stop me, if you dare
.”

Verónica Quintero de Garza dropped to her knees, clutching at her throat and gasping. Pulling away from his mother and sister with a growl, Johnny shifted into the massive harpy eagle and launched himself at Tezcatlipoca, razor-sharp talons raking at the god’s face. The dark lord leaned out of the way swiftly, reaching up a powerful hand to seize Johnny’s legs and fling him toward the cavern floor. Beating mighty wings desperately, he barely managed to avoid slamming brutally against jagged rock.

“
Ah, combat. It has been ages since anyone was stupid enough to attack me. Thank you, boy. It will be a genuine pleasure to grind your mortal flesh against the bare rock of Mictlan
.”

A gust of fire rushed at Tezcatlipoca then, and as the god turned to deflect it, Johnny rushed at him, sinking his talons into the god’s shoulders. The dark lord grunted and reached back to grab at Johnny, but Carol, in fire serpent form, flung herself through the air, slamming into Tezcatlipoca and curling about him. Johnny began to pound his beak against the god’s skull over and over as his sister started to squeeze.

“
Impressive
,” Tezcatlipoca grunted. Then he simply wasn’t there. Johnny and Carol dropped hard, hitting the mirror with a crunching thud. Above them, black smoke coalesced into the form of the god, smiling down at them. Then Tezcatlipoca took hold of both their heads and slammed them repeatedly against the ceiling before tossing them casually to either side of the cavern. Johnny, pain exploding within him, felt consciousness slipping, but he held on.

Too much blood loss
, he thought weakly at his sister.
I can’t react fast enough.

Carol didn’t respond. He could barely see her in the shadows of the rocks where she’d fallen. Her hair covered her face.
Probably unconscious, shifted back.

Tezcatlipoca had turned his attention to their mother, who was attempting to run toward Carol.

“
I promised you would be a witness and a tool in your children’s destruction, did I not? Be still, then, and behold
.”

Verónica Quintero de Garza was jerked into the air by some invisible force and then violently hurled downward. Johnny gave a startled cry and dropped back into human form, frantically grabbing at his bracelet, searching for…
there.
A strand of Huitzilopochtli’s hair. Gripping it between his thumb and index finger, Johnny shifted.

The transformation was dizzying. Power like he had never felt trembled along semi-divine limbs, and knowledge of how to use it rose almost instinctively within his mind. Reaching out a pale-blue hand, he called his shield to him, and it hurtled toward his outstretched arm like an obedient hunting hawk.

“Leave my mother alone, you bastard!” he shouted as he flung dark energy at Tezcatlipoca. The Lord of Chaos turned and smiled, spreading wide his arms at the attack. Johnny sent wave after wave of hate-driven, angry black magic pounding against him, but the god absorbed it all.

“
Wonderful! You have delivered yourself to me so utterly that I can scarce believe your naïveté. I should have guessed you would ignore all sense, but for you to transform into my very protégé, the creature whose life was sustained by lore he learned from me…the irony is simply delicious. Now, slave, feel my mastery of you and despair
.”

The cavern went dark and silent, as if filled with a spiritual sludge that even now tried to force its way into Johnny’s mind and heart. Panicked, he began to push back with all the strength he possessed but it wasn’t enough. Like grappling fingers, the
cehualli
poked through his defenses, found a hold and pried open a hole. A black quiet poured into him that was worse than any nightmare his sister had ever faced. Fleeing the
absence
that tried to consume him, Johnny retreated into himself.