Quinn is down there. I need to find her first, learn what happened before we just rush in.
Okay, so nothing had changed in the last three months. Brooks was still the ultimate planner.
A second later, we’d landed and found Brooks’s sister. She was in the form of a very familiar white cat, perched on the hood of a gold Honda, licking her paws like she had nothing better to do. Ha! So that’s why Ik had failed her feline-for-dinner mission—Quinn, another powerful shape-shifter, had probably changed into a flea at the last second.
Quinn and Brooks reassumed their human forms. Quinn wore white jeans with rips in the knees and a gray sleeveless sweater. Brooks was in her signature black leggings and plain tee with a white sweatshirt tied around her waist.
Pressing her finger to her lips, Quinn tugged me into a crouched position between a row of cars and telepathically informed me that Ik had disappeared when she went after her. I followed the kids here, she added. They’re hiding out in a car at the opposite end of the lot.
They’d found an unlocked car? We need to talk to them before they try to take off again, I told her.
I rigged the gate so they can’t get out. And don’t forget, they just saw a demon, Quinn said. Believe me, they’re too scared to go anywhere. But we do need to hurry. No doubt Iktan will be coming back with an army.
Reaching into her boot, Brooks tugged the gateway map free. She studied it with a frown.
I explained that Ik wouldn’t be able to find the godborns without me, because she couldn’t sniff them out within half a mile. For maybe the hundredth time, I was super glad for Ixtab’s magic, born from her brilliant, cautious, overly skeptical mind.
“Nothing to stop her from tracking Quinn and me, though,” Brooks whispered as she scanned the map. “Maybe you shouldn’t be here.”
“This is my mission,” I argued. No way was I going to abandon the last two godborns or Brooks and Quinn. “Let’s just be quick.”
“Any gateways nearby to get us to Isla Holbox?” Quinn asked Brooks.
“We’re taking the godborns to my house?”
Quinn quirked an eyebrow. “It’s still surrounded by Ixtab’s shadow magic. We’ll be safe there until we can figure out next steps.” Then she turned to Brooks. “Any luck?”
Brooks’s frown got deeper. “Just give me a couple more minutes. I’ll figure it out.”
Quinn filled me in on some of the undercover work they’d been doing over the last few months. When it was my turn to talk, the sisters just kept nodding like I wasn’t telling them anything they didn’t already know. Then it hit me. “Were you…were you guys watching me the whole time?” No wonder Brooks hadn’t called. She was too busy spying on me!
“Ik…” Brooks’s cheeks flushed. “We were watching Ik.”
Apparently, part of Quinn’s assignment in Xib’alb’a (the stuff she couldn’t tell me about when I’d last seen her down there) was related to a tip that Ixtab herself might be a conspirator with Camazotz. No way could that be true. There were so many other much more credible suspects. I mean, the bat god had once called the underworld home, so it made sense that he still had friends there. I was about to argue on behalf of Ixtab, when Quinn added that the intel had led nowhere. Relief spread through me.
Right. Ixtab was the queen of the underworld, probably the most duplicitous of all the gods, so why should I care?
Because she’d saved my life more than once. And Rosie’s. Not to mention she reunited the god council and stopped my dad’s public execution. All that counted for a lot in my book.
>
Quinn said, “The traitors ended up being some demons in Ixtab’s army.”
“But Ik wasn’t one of them,” Brooks chimed in, turning the map upside down.
“It’s like Iktan came out of nowhere.” Quinn twisted her mouth like she was considering a new idea. “That’s why we were following your moves. To see if we could find out what she was after.”
“I still don’t get what Ik or the bat god wants with these godborns. We’ve already gone down that road. Our blood isn’t powerful enough to resurrect a Mexica god.”
“I don’t know,” Quinn said. “But whatever it is, these godborns are different and somehow necessary to Zotz’s plans.”
Brooks showed the map to Quinn, pointing to a spot. “There’s a gateway in a laundromat ten blocks from here. We have twenty-six minutes before it closes, so let’s do this.” She folded up the map and stuck it back in her boot.
I thought about what Ik had said about gateways being all around, and I wondered how many invisible ones were looming right in front of us.
“Hang on,” I said to Brooks. “Are you…are you working for the White Sparkstriker tribe now, too?” Quinn had joined the super-secret group of spies to get out of marrying Jordan, one of the obnoxious hero twins. Maybe she’d recruited Brooks.
A clanking sound caught our attention. The kids were climbing the fence about twenty yards away.