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“That’s of no consequence,” she purred. “I’m sure your friends have run into my entire army by now, and the gods are weak and worthless.”

My friends knew what they were doing. They wouldn’t walk into some dumb demon trap…would they? As for the gods…“They’ll get their powers back,” I said. “And they’ll come for you.”

“Perhaps,” Ixkik’ said nonchalantly. “But it will be too late, and I have you to thank for that.”

I tried to move forward, but the mist was like a blanket wound tightly around my legs. It swirled up my torso, sending an icy chill up my spine. The fact that Blood Moon was talking to me meant she wasn’t ready to kill me. Not yet, anyway. “Me? I’ll never help you, so I guess you’ll have to find someone else.”

“Oh, but there is no one else. You are Itzamna’s chosen scribe.”

“So?”

“The fool gave you—you—the power of the dragon.”

Yeah, and a lot of good that was doing me now. “How does that help you?”

She didn’t even hesitate. She couldn’t wait to impress me with her plot. “The dragon represents both power and magic. And that means that you and you alone have the power to rewrite all I have destroyed.”

Rewrite? That was her endgame? I pushed back my sopping hair, trying to put the pieces together. She had needed the stone to get into SHIHOM and the library, a place that Saás had said the gods couldn’t access. Then Ixkik’ had proceeded to burn the history books, but why?

“Pretty sure people will know fact from fiction,” I said, wishing I wasn’t glued in place.

“You are so simpleminded,” she said. “No one will ever know, and I am done talking. It’s time for us to begin.?

?

I knew better than to believe that. She was dying to show me how smart she was, to dangle her power in my face. “So how does it work, exactly? You think I’m going to use some magic dragon power to write a bogus story while you keep me imprisoned? The truth paper won’t let me.” I took a deep breath and pushed my luck just one more inch. “Seems like you haven’t thought this out very well.”

The goddess laughed. “There is no such paper anymore. When I burned history, I burned truth itself!”

Gripping Fuego, I leaned forward. “What do you mean, ‘truth itself’?”

“Those books…those words were more than history. When I destroyed them, a gap was created in the sobrenaturales’ imaginations and memories.”

A gap? I shook my head. “I still remember, and so do my friends.” I didn’t know if that last part was true, but I was pretty sure that if I could recall Maya history, they could, too.

Ixkik’ exhaled dismissively. “Oh, the forgetting will come once I fill the gap. When you write a new history in which Jordan is king. All the sobrenaturales will know him as their only ruler, and they will hate the gods and godborns even more than they do now.” She let out another exaggerated sigh. “It won’t hurt too badly, Zane. You won’t remember the past. You, too, will fall under the spell of your own words. Isn’t that magnificent?”

I felt sick. Worse than sick. Of all the possible plans that had run through my head, this for sure wasn’t one of them. She was going to make herself a hero and the rest of us villains.

“No way,” I whispered, wriggling uselessly in the mist. “I won’t do it.”

“Oh, but you will, because I have a new pawn on the board.”

The rain slowed to a fine sprinkle as the silvery-purplish mist parted and slowly vanished into the air. I found myself in a dilapidated stone structure that looked like it had been bombed once or twice. Its arches and steps were battered and weather-beaten. Its walls and roof were half-gone.

Now that I was no longer wrapped, I could take a couple of steps forward. Flames erupted behind my eyes, coloring everything an angry red.

A woman materialized near the broken steps about fifteen feet away. She had her back to me, and thick silver hair cascaded to her waist. She wore a fitted green metallic dress that looked like it was made of lizard skin.

Make her show you her true face, Hurakan had said. Only then can you defeat her. I held back my fire. Waiting. Heart pounding.

Slowly, Ixkik’ turned. Shock and terror gripped me so hard I fell back. My gasp ricocheted across the stone. I blinked, sure it was a trick of the shadows and light. But this was no trick.

The goddess had no face.

Did you get that? The goddess had NO FACE!

No eyes. No mouth. No anything! Where her face should have been, there was only a waxy-looking surface. Kind of like a bare Mr. Potato Head but way grosser.


Tags: J.C. Cervantes, Jennifer Cervantes The Storm Runner Fantasy