Note to Hurakan: WHAT FACE?
“Do I look familiar, Fire Boy?” she cooed. “You’ve seen me before.”
Fire Boy? Every inch of me froze. Where had I heard that before?
“Pretty sure I’d remember that,” I said. Flames erupted under my skin. Man, did I want to launch a few at her, but I couldn’t shake Hurakan’s warning. What if I incinerated her too soon and ruined something?
“I was there at the twins’ party in Beverly Hills,” she went on. “The butterfly mask? You looked right at me. What a terrible night that was, the night you ruined my sons’ destinies and all I could do was stand by and watch.”
I stretched my memory to that night Brooks and Hondo and I had crashed the twins’ fiesta. Brooks had pointed out the masked people. That butterfly girl over there? She probably wants to be a model.
Crap! Blood Moon had been there? Watching us? The idea of it sent chills down my spine.
“No?” she said. “Well, I’m quite certain you will remember this.” She tipped her head down. I held my breath. She lifted her face. Bye-bye, Mr. Potato Head.
Hello…“Iktan?” I staggered back as shock waves rolled through me. Please, please, please tell me I hadn’t spent three months with the enemy! “You…I…you…pretended to be a demon all this time?”
“I am a demon, Zane.” Her blue skin stretched thin when she smiled.
“You’re a…a…goddess,” I argued.
“Of the waning moon,” she clarified.
The faceless moon, I thought. “So you’re what, like, part demon, part goddess?” What did that make the twins? Godborns and demons? Where was a chair (or better yet, a demon-burning flashlight) when I needed one?
Crappity crap crap!
That’s why her poison had felt so powerful back in New York. It was god/demon poison! And that’s how she had found us on our way to SHIHOM. She was there when Hondo and Ren called to tell me the claiming ceremony had been moved up. She knew we would be leaving early. “Not much of a power player among the gods, are you?” I spat out angrily.
“But look how the power has shifted.”
Power. Shifted. Right. My senses flew back to me. This was my chance. But I had to be sure. “So, uh…is this…how you look for real? Just like any other demon? I would have thought, as a moon goddess, you’d be more special.”
“Oh, but I am. The moon has many phases,” she said. Her features melted like hot wax, dripping down her neck until I could see what was underneath. A paler-than-bone face, pockmarked and filled with spidery blue veins. She had no eyebrows, the same narrow eyes, a large round nose, and a wide mouth—probably to fit all those fangs.
Fire burned so hot inside me I didn’t have to question the message. Yup, this was her true face.
Instantly, a flame erupted in my free hand, and I flung it at the goddess/demon/monster. Ixkik’ batted it out of the air like it was nothing more than an empty soda can.
“Didn’t the great Hurakan ever teach you to learn your enemy’s strengths before you try to annihilate them?”
Was she immune to fire? I willed Fuego into spear mode and hauled my arm back faster than a flash of light. My spear ripped through the thick air only to smash into a wall of mist, which froze it in mid-flight.
Ixkik’ laughed, flashing a mouthful of crooked fangs. Man, she could really use some orthodontics.
I watched as Fuego pulsed blue, struggling to break free of the goddess’s magic. If my best weapons couldn’t be used against her, how was I ever going to beat her? Hurakan might have been a powerless teen god, but I sure could have used his strategic mind at that moment.
“You said something about another pawn.” Why did I have a sick, sinking, can-barely-take-a-breath feeling I was going to hate her next play?
“We’ll get to that,” she said. “But first, I want to make sure you paint me in the best possible light.” Her dress shimmered as she came down the steps, drawing closer. She still reeked.
“And how’s that?” I asked. “Evil?”
“See? There’s the problem. Demons are always being demonized.” She blinked her reptilian eyes. “My father was a great demon lord of Xib’alb’a,” she said. “The demons followed and glorified him in ways the pathetic gods never would. I much preferred my demon brethren to the selfish, arrogant gods.” She slowed down for this last part like she really wanted me to hang on to her every word. “And now I can finally let the demons rise to their appropriate status. I can reinstate my sons’ greatness, which you stole from them. And you will help me by rewriting that history.”
“I’m not going to steal people’s memories and feed them lies!”
“Sounds like you could use some motivation,” she said way too cheerily. “Ready to meet the pawn?”