“And then we’ll be gone,” I added.
“Loooong gone.” Hondo mimicked throwing a football to make his point.
Rosie practically nodded.
Quinn eyed Hondo up and down. Then she flashed a quick glance at Brooks. “Fine, it’s your death. Follow me,” she said. “You all need some dry, warm, non-human-smelling clothes.”
We followed Quinn to the door she’d just come from. Beyond it, an escalator ascended into the darkness.
“Hell has elevators and escalators?” Ren said, looking up to what had to be a thousand floors.
Hondo tapped me on the shoulder. “How do we know this doesn’t lead to Bloodsucking House or Rip Out Your Guts House?”
“We don’t.” And with that, I stepped onto the escalator.
We ended up in a long hallway that reminded me of some run-down hotel. It reeked like rotting beans. “What’s that smell?” Ren asked, covering her nose with her sleeve.
“Pus River is just beyond these walls,” Quinn said. “Hang out here long enough and you get used to it.”
“Kind of like the dairy farms back home,” Hondo muttered to me.
Right. Except there was a big difference between cow manure and a river filled with oozing, contaminated yellow pus!
“We don’t have to cross that river, right?” I asked.
Hondo cleared his throat and spoke loudly. Too loudly. “A little pus never hurt anybody.” Then he turned to me and made a gagging face.
Rosie groaned. But Quinn seemed oblivious to Hondo’s attempts to get her attention. She walked ahead at a clipped pace, her head bent close to Brooks, whispering. I’m sure they had a lot of catching up to do. They hadn’t been in contact since we were in the Old World seven months ago.
“NO!” Quinn said to Brooks, quieting her voice a second later.
The worn velvety carpet was purple with big dark stains, which I was way hoping wasn’t blood. The walls were made of rough stone and covered in graffiti: a massive snake biting off someone’s head (bad memories), a crazed skeleton spearing a hellhound, an enormous hairy bat baring fangs dripping with blood. At the center was Ixtab, surrounded by hellhounds, holding a decapitated head toward the stormy sky. Yeah, you could call this place Nightmare Hall.
Quinn must have seen us staring, because she said over her shoulder, “That’s a battle scene from the old war days when Ixtab took over.”
Ren tugged on my arm. “What do you think the chances of Ixtab being my mom are?”
I was about to tell her she could do worse, when Quinn, still huddled with Brooks, hollered, “You can’t be serious!” She whirled to face us. “A mud person? That’s not possible!”
“Yeah, well, that’s what people say about aliens, too,” Ren said. “And guess what? Where do you think the Maya gods came from?”
Quinn swung her ponytail back and forth as she sauntered ahead. “Please tell me you’re not one of those people,” she said to Ren. “Let me guess. An ancient astronaut? Humans are so gullible. They’ll believe anything.”
Ren opened her mouth to argue, when I shot her a chill-out look. She scowled, and I could tell she was battling with herself. I knew the feeling. My mouth was always a few steps ahead of my brain, too. Ren’s cheeks reddened, and just when I thought she’d gotten herself under control, she blurted, “I’ve seen pictures of the carvings on King Pakal’s sarcophagus. He’s totally driving a spaceship. His hands are on levers and his feet are on pedals. And…” she went on excitedly, “his mouth is connected to what looks like a breathing tube!”
“Seriously?” Hondo said. “The Maya gods are aliens? That explains why the demons look so bug-eyed and they have those weird-shaped heads.”
Quinn snorted, then mumbled to herself as she picked up her pace.
I said to Ren, “Maybe cool it on the conspiracy stuff while we’re down here?”
She rolled her eyes and muttered, “It’s totally true.”
A minute later, we stood in a dim, cavernous warehouse with dark corners and rows and rows of dusty shelves. It kinda looked like Home Depot, but instead of tools and toilets, this place was filled with spears, clubs, axes, strange feathered masks and headdresses, and tiny clay statues. There was even a whole row of little golden frog figurines.
“What is this place?” Brooks asked.
“Junkyard Row,” Quinn said. “All the stuff no one in Xib’alb’a needs or uses gets sent here, and Clementino, the junk warden, gets orders on what to burn and when. The problem is, he’s way too nostalgic and, as you can see, he keeps more than he destroys.” She picked up an old flip-style cell phone. “It’s also stuff left over from the deceased. You wouldn’t believe what they show up w