With a loud shriek, Brooks swooped down—actually, she flipped 180 degrees and went into a dive that nearly made me heave. But, lucky me, I didn’t upchuck. That came after we landed on the icy surface below.
After I saw all the eyes.
Fuego zipped back to me as I took in the eyeballs (big and squishy with black irises). They were packed into the ice walls, shifting back and forth like they were following our every move. They didn’t have lids or lashes or anything resembling normal or human. For all I knew, they belonged to demons.
I gagged, readied Fuego, and scanned the place. Which, by the way, was so not a good entrance to hell. I mean, Ixtab could’ve totally given me an elevator and ixnayed the creepy polar chamber and ogling walls.
Rosie appeared beside me, whining and dancing in place. I shouldn’t have looked down to where she was fixated. But I did. That’s right. More eyeballs were lodged beneath a thin layer of ice right under our feet.
I jumped back, gagged, then barfed.
Hondo climbed off Brooks’s back and swayed, his face looking a little green. “Dude, hold it together, man.”
I tried to warn him, but it was too late. He stared at the eyeballs looking up at him. He might’ve yelped. Then he hurled, too. Twice as much as I had, by the way.
Brooks had already shifted back. She wrinkled her nose and hooked one arm under Hondo’s while I held up his other side. “You okay?” I asked.
“Are those ojos real?” he slurred.
“Don’t look at them,” Brooks said.
“¡Están por todas partes!” he cried. “¡Odio los ojos!”
He was right. The eyes were everywhere, and I hated them, too.
It was always obvious when my uncle hit his freaked-out threshold, because Spanish came pouring out of his mouth.
“How about we don’t stand in the vomit?” Brooks grimaced.
We stepped back a good five feet. The ice chamber was only about fifteen by fifteen.
Brooks and Hondo started shivering uncontrollably. I pulled Rosie’s heat inside of me and created a tiny fire between my hands that everyone huddled around to try and warm themselves. That’s when the jade tooth around my neck vibrated. I held my breath, hoping I hadn’t imagined it. There it was again. Was it Hurakan trying to communicate with me?
“What happened to Ren?” I asked after the jade went still. Had she tumbled into this subzero hell, or had something even worse befallen her?
“She was smart enough not to follow us.” Brooks blew warm air on her hands and nestled close. Which I didn’t mind, exactly.
“Are you sure?” I said, looking up. “What if she went into one of her trances again and she’s stuck up there, and…”
Brooks frowned at me. “I’m sure she’s fine, Zane. And even if she did, she’s better off up there than down here.”
Hondo wore a stunned expression. “Did I just fly?”
“Technically,” Brooks said, “I just flew.”
Hondo hunched closer to the flame. “Who knew getting into hell would be so hard? I mean, shouldn’t it be the opposite?”
A cracking sound caught our attention and a set of doors slid open in the ice wall. Ren stepped out, wide-eyed and panting, as if she’d climbed Mount Everest. “You’re okay!” she shouted. “I told you that wasn’t the way!”
The doors closed and disappeared behind her.
“There’s an elevator?” Hondo snarled. His lips were turning blue. “Are you k-k-k-kidding me?”
“There was an elevator,” I muttered.
“I tried to tell you about it,” Ren said. “I didn’t see the button at first. It was actually a rock, but it totally looked out of place,” she explained. “Super-slow elevator, though. And there was a creepy voice that kept singing ‘Welcome to the dark side. One way only. What goes down doesn’t come up.’”
Brooks glared at me. “I’m following her from now on.”