Page 71 of Corvus and the Broken God

Ancient eyes bored into my being, seeing past all my façades, my fake disdain, and my weak attempt to pretend to be better or above the people around me. He saw right into my mushy center, the part where I had never been enough for anyone. Discarded by my parents, barely tolerated by my uncle, ridiculed at school, and dismissed by my job. Destined for loneliness.

“Hmm,” he said, turning his eyes back to the road.

Be calm, be calm, be calm. I chanted the words over and over as I stared straight out, keeping my breaths even as my heart tried to beat out of my ribcage.

“I thought you learned that lesson a thousand years ago,” he said, voice low and serious.

“Me too,” I said, voice barely shaking.

“I say we kill him for good this time,” said Rune. “This is the perfect opportunity.”

This time, I kept my body from reacting.

“What fun would that be?” said Chaac, squeezing my thigh before removing his hand. “We will never have another opponent so fierce.”

Well, he had that wrong. If they killed him, I’d make sure they regretted it one day. Then again, that day might come soon if he found his lover turned to stone back at her house.

I would turn them all to stone, I decided. Hunt them all down, one by one. I would learn how to decipher the ancient texts back at the fortress on the mountain, and if Camazotz had truly remade me in his likeness, then I’d have nothing but time.

Planning revenge had taken my thinking to a different place, one of hunter, not prey, but I didn’t have time to get too involved in my grim fantasies before Chaac pulled off to the side of the road, taking a narrow, dirt path I would never have spotted. The car slowed as the road worsened, tarmac becoming clay and gravel. We swerved around the largest potholes. It took about an hour to get to our destination, but the road was so bad, it felt more like three.

No one spoke. If that was due to the tense exchange earlier or because this group of people had run out of things to discuss, I’d never know. Even if the real reason was they suspected my true identity, as Ixtab had earlier, the silence benefitted me. Sometime soon, we would reach our destination. Once I was certain Camazotz was safe in his new prison, I’d slip away. Then I could figure out what to do next.

The road ended at a small hut, similar to Hiroshi’s in its simplicity. Except this one had been abandoned and showed signs of neglect. The wind whipped a piece of plywood covering a window, the knock, knock, knocking providing a sinister background soundtrack. Chaac pulled in next to it, and the other cars parked around us in every available space. Most of them stopped along the road. The truck hauling my Monster’s oversized body pulled up past ours, the only vehicle to move in so closely.

Everyone exited the cars, and I followed, doing my best to look bored. Heart racing, I took a few deep breaths, exuding the calm I didn’t feel. Several well-dressed people walked past me, and I wondered who they were. Were they also demigods? Had they been there when they took my Monster down, while I cowered under their chairs?

The same men who had loaded the truck now worked to loosen straps, lowering the tailgate. I looked away, examining a particularly large iguana whose skin was a disturbingly bright orange, a color closer to the range I’d gotten used to in my bird vision than one I saw with my human eyes. Ghost wings rustled under my skin, aching to burst out of me, to hoist me up and away from the danger that thickened the air.

When I looked back, calmer now, my companions had moved closer to the truck. I hung back, poised for something to happen. My lover, pumped full of drugs, and me, no longer a struggling architect, not even fully human anymore, but no match for the ancient demigods who had brought down one of the feared Mayan Death Gods. Or had he allowed it with his own reluctance to admit truths he had ignored?

Four men approached the back of the truck, placed their hands on the railing, and pulled the stretcher out. I had missed them loading him into the truck, but this made sense and made his giant bulk manageable. What I wouldn’t have given to know what these people thought about dragging the inert body of something out of their worst nightmares down this abandoned path. A few of them glanced at his torso, his wings folded over his chest. Another at the giant horns, curving out past his shoulders. Those horns weighed fifty pounds at least. Even at rest, his neck muscles bulged from the weight they so effortlessly carried. Looking at him now, I wondered what he had been thinking walking into a negotiation looking like this. He should’ve worn his human skin, especially considering the actual charges against him.

My companions looked him over as well, if only to reassure themselves he was truly sedated. I stood at the edge of the group, alert yet trying not to look it.

When Chaac headed past the hut, I followed him, Rune and Micheline falling in behind me. Creaking, the stretcher’s wheels ground into motion, giving me a way to keep track of his progress without being obvious.

Rocks and gravel made the simple act of walking in thin-soled sandals challenging. Chaac’s shoes, fancy boots with thick soles, made me question how I ever thought I’d be able to pull this off. But it was too late to turn back now.

The smell hit me first, the fresh, piney scent, alerting the group we had reached a cenote. A nearby motmot's bird cry confirmed it. Unsure if Ixtab had been here before or not, although I guessed she had, I walked a couple of feet past Chaac and glanced down at the dark hole in the ground. Just making sure everything’s in place, nothing to see here.

The men struggling to move Camazotz’s body down the rocky road came to a halt near the spot where the path dropped at the edge, a sharp turn leading to the primitive steps carved into the side of the cliff face. The steps, uneven and slanted, looked treacherous for a single person to climb down them. How the hell were they planning on moving his giant body down there? The four men transporting the stretcher were each handed large rucksacks by other men who had carried those on their backs. One by one, they pulled out wetsuits and diving equipment.

As soon as the last man was suited up, they went to stand by the side of the cliff. They were about ten feet from the steps, and I was just about to ask what happens next, when Chaac went to the stretcher. It was only about five feet from the edge, so I had no time to prepare myself for when he leaned his entire body against it and pushed. With a jarring screech, he sent the drugged body of my lover and the stretcher he was carried on flying down into the hole.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Lost Crow

The gasp that left my mouth was impossibly loud. But there was no way to cover my surprise. My only saving grace was the splash he made as his powerful body broke the surface of the water before sinking. The divers jumped in quickly afterward, adding their quieter and cleaner splashes to the noises.

The temptation to jump after them, to drag his heavy ass out of the murky depths, was strong. I should have asked him what would happen if he drowned. How could he possibly drown yet remain alive until someone cut his head off? Self-preservation kept me in place, but only just. Chaac’s gaze burned the skin on my face. I looked up and met him straight on. A sinister smile met my challenge, but then he turned away, dusting off his hands as if he had completed a satisfying task.

“Coming, darling?” he asked me, turning back to the path before I had a chance to answer.

I stood in place, torn about what to do. Would Ixtab walk away without supervising? She seemed like someone who micromanaged the people around her, but then again, I had a narrow sliver of experience from which to pull. Stalling, I looked around, realizing like an idiot most everyone had gone. If it hadn’t been for the divers, with their equipment that looked impressive to my inexpert eyes, I would’ve believed this whole caravan out to the middle of nowhere had been so Chaac could dump his archenemy into a deep, wet hole in the ground. Only he hadn’t bothered to watch him sink to the bottom.

“It’s going to take them at least an hour to find the right cavern. Don’t worry, we left him a stockpile of canned food. At least he can put those talons to use.”