The Storm Runner (The Storm Runner 1)

“You’re brilliant!”

“You’re only seeing that now?”

“By the way,” I said, “I like your freckles.”

“What?”

“They disappeared when you were enchanted, but now they’re back.”

Her face flushed. “You’re annoying,” she said through a giant yawn. Then she put her head on my shoulder.

My whole body tensed. As her breathing slowed, so did mine. She fell asleep and I stayed still, not wanting to disturb her. She needed her rest, this girl who couldn’t swim but knew how to fly.

The world was quiet except for the purr of the engine, and for a minute I thought nothing could touch us. Not out here in the middle of the sea, where everything else was so far away.

A plan started to form in my head.

Carefully, I slipped out from under Brooks and eased her down onto the bench, covering her with the blanket. Then I went to the railing, leaned over, and whispered, “Pacific, are you there?”

No answer.

“I know you’re down there,” I said. “I could really use your help right now.”

The black waters swelled.

“FYI, I’m on the gods’ most-wanted list, and good old Puke has the twins, and the whole world is pretty much disintegrating while you hide out.”

A sheet of fog wrapped around the boat, and I couldn’t see more than a couple feet in front of me. And was it my imagination, or had the temperature dropped like fifty degrees? I was rubbing the chill off my arms when something began to materialize in the waters below.

I blinked and looked closer. It was a rowboat. Someone was inside.

And it wasn’t Pacific.

30

“You call that a boat?” a voice said.

I peered through the dark as the fog lifted around the figure in the dinghy. The sea was now frozen solid, as smooth as a sheet of glass. The man stood and stepped onto the slick surface. He had on a pair of jeans and a plain gray T-shirt. I couldn’t see his face very well, because it was hidden under the rim of a baseball cap that read chargers with a lightning bolt slicing the letters in half. His arms were covered in tattoos of snakes slithering through piles of red and blue feathers.

With the force of thunder, it hit me. This was the Feathered Serpent. As in Kukuulkaan. As in Brooks’s Holy K god of coolness. AKA K’ukumatz.

“You’re… you’re… K’ukumatz. The guy who created the worlds with Hurakan.”

“Call me Mat. And for the record, he created the worlds with me.”

“Mat,” I repeated dumbly.

“Isn’t that what you humans do, shorten honorable names? Change them according to your wishes?” His voice was deep with a faint accent I’d never heard before, like a cross between Spanish and something that was sharper, harder.

The surface of the water rose around our boat until it was flush with the deck and Mat and I were standing on even ground. Except he was a head taller. And his eyes? They were a shimmering violet. His chin was sharp and his skin weathered.

“Some also call me Kukuulkaan,” he said. “But I hate that name. Imagine the nicknames: Kookoo, or Kook.”

I thought about my own insulting nicknames. “You can call me Zane,” I said quietly, trying not to wake Brooks.

He looked at his wrist like he had a watch on, but he didn’t. “So, Zane, I was sent here by an old friend.”

A lump formed in my throat. How much did Mat know? Had Pacific or Hurakan told him about me? Wasn’t I supposed to be a secret?