Her eyes searched my face and I could tell I’d hurt her. “Just put up a wall. Easy as that.” She spun on her heels and began walking back to the house.
I followed, not knowing what to say. I mean, could she blame me? It was like reading someone’s diary, but way worse!
“Brooks, hang on.” I couldn’t keep up. Yeah, some demigod I was.
“You think I want you in my head?” She whipped around to face me. “You think you’re the only one who has problems? The only one who’s in danger? Well, let me tell you…” Her face was red with anger as she poked me. “Not everything is about you, Zane Obispo!” Brooks froze in mid-thought, her finger still on my chest. “Holy K! You made a deal… to save me?”
“Um—you were sort of out cold. I don’t think your memory is exactly running on all cylinders….”
Tears filled her eyes and she socked me in the arm. “You’re such an idiot!”
Oh boy. I hated it when Mom cried, and this felt infinitely worse. “Don’t cry,” I said, patting her shoulder, as if that would stop the waterworks. “It’s fine. I… I couldn’t let you die. We’re like… family now, right?”
She threw her arms around me, squeezing me so tight I thought she might choke me to death. Her hair was soft and smelled like lavender soap. I felt like a wooden soldier, arms stiff at my sides. Was I supposed to hug her back? I mean, I definitely wanted to, but…
When she let me go, the scowl was back. “I can’t let you be that monster’s soldier for me. That’s so not happening.”
“Wait a second,” I said, glad to change the subject. “How come I’ve never been able to do telepathy with anyone before now?”
Brooks shrugged. “Maybe it’s because you’ve been touched by our world, or by the magic… or maybe because of the eclipse. I don’t know for sure.” Then she grabbed my arm and turned my hand so she could see the inside of my wrist. A black symbol was inked there like a tattoo. A quarter-size skull, with sleeping eyes. “He’s claimed your life,” Brooks whispered in horror.
I gripped my wrist, covering the tattoo, knowing it was more than a design. It was a binding promise.
“Zane Obispo!” Brooks threw her fists onto her hips. “If you think I’m going to let you turn yourself in to that evil stinking god and spend your eternity in the land of fear, then—”
“You’re not.”
She blinked.
“We’re going to stop him first,” I said.
16
“It’s my stupid fault,” Brooks said. “If I’d done my part, we wouldn’t be here right now. I’ve ruined everything!”
“No, you’d be in the underworld, swimming in Pus River,” I mumbled. My eyes scanned the desert. I needed a walking stick, since I’d lost another cane to another lousy monster. At this rate, I was going to need a jumbo pack. I broke off a long branch from a creosote bush. It was skinny but better than nothing.
“Zane.” Brooks’s voice was small. “I have to tell you something.”
But before she could say anything else, Hondo threw open the back door.
“We’ve got a problem.”
“Um, what’s up, Hondo?” I asked.
“There’s a grande chicken that’s been pecking at the front door for the last two hours and it won’t go away.”
Three days ago I would’ve considered it a prank, but after everything that had happened? I started for the door. “Let’s go see this pollo loco of yours.”
A minute later, the three of us stood on the front porch looking down at the three-sizes-too-big chicken that wasn’t acting like a chicken at all. It didn’t bob around with its head down. It hurried back and forth in a frenzy, spreading its wings, clucking and clicking up a storm.
“It’s rabid,” Hondo said. “Like in those scary movies when the animals kill everyone? You ever see Cujo or The Birds?”
Brooks cocked her head. “Do you think it’s trying to tell us something?”
Forgetting that Hondo was standing there, I asked Brooks, “Can you use your bird brain… er, I mean your bird connection and figure out what it’s saying?”
“You think all bird-speak is the same?” Brooks tilted her chin up proudly. “Pu-lease.”