The Fire Keeper (The Storm Runner 2)

Ha! It had seemed pretty legit to me. “Yep, that rules out the gods.”

“Someone wanted to get to Zane…” muttered Brooks, still puzzling it out.

It creeped me out that a supernatural had laid a trap for me. How had they found me? I glanced at Ren, who was petting Rosie. Did the godborn have something to do with it?

Ms. Cab went on to tell us how she’d woken up at midnight to the mud monster standing over her bed. She’d tried to fight it off, but it overpowered her. The thing tied her up, took her exact measurements, and stole her voice. “Then it stayed up all night watching infomercials and talk shows,” she cried. “It was absolute torture listening to it practice talking in the mirror.”

So that’s why the creature had seemed like a really bad talk show host. I’d never get used to what seemed to be the unlimited boundaries of Maya magic. And what was up with those creepy beetles? And those images that had flashed through my mind? I was now sure they were of places in New Mexico.

Ms. Cab collapsed into a chair as her birds returned to the trees, squawking and flapping their wings wildly. “Yes, I know, but I’m safe now,” she told them. Then she turned to the rest of us. “If some wicked force came for Zane, then he’s been compromised. Someone knows he’s alive, and one way or another they will find their way onto this isla. And if they discover Ren’s a godborn, too…”

My mouth fell open. “You can see that…?”

Mr. O let out a low whistle. “La otra godborn…”

Ren looked at me. “When our hands were tied together, I felt so helpless. Then I remembered how you had used telepathy, Zane, so I…I tried it. I mean, Ms. Cab and I had to make an escape plan.”

Rosie grumbled while Brooks patted her and looked around suspiciously.

“At first the telepathy didn’t work,” Ren continued. “But I concentrated really hard, and then Ms. Cab’s voice flew into my mind like…like the wind. I told her about me.”

“Tengo muchas preguntas,” said Mr. O. “First, why was that thing here?”

Ms. Cab removed some seed from her pocket and scattered it on the ground for the birds. “Tell us everything, Zane.”

A few minutes later, I’d recounted all the grisly details of what had happened between me and the mud thing.

Brooks went over to the table, and examined a chocolate square. “Clever.”

Mr. O lifted the plate and spilled the remaining candy into his sack. “I will test it. See what I can learn.” Even though Mr. O didn’t have his greenhouse anymore, he still grew peppers, and he’d expanded to herbs and other plants. If anyone could figure out the poison’s properties, it was him.

Ren raised an eyebrow. “What were the bugs mapping?”

“I don’t know,” Ms. Cab said. Her face filled with more fear than when we were planning to stop the god of deat

h. At least then we knew what we were up against. But now? There was something infinitely more terrifying in the not knowing.

“Maybe it’s some sort of magic spell,” Ren guessed. “Or ceremony.”

“Magic,” Brooks uttered, still rubbing Rosie’s neck absently. “I’ve heard about these Maya magicians who found an old pool of mud deep in the jungle. Some believed it was left over from the first mud humans, and supposedly it had all this power.” She shook her head, scowling. “Gods never pick up their messes.”

“That’s right!” Ms. Cab said like a lightbulb had turned on in her mind. “The high priests discovered that some of the gods’ creation powers lingered in the pool, so they worked with magicians and made potions from it. But, as far as I knew, it was used up a hundred years ago.”

“Please tell me they didn’t bathe in the leftover people.” My stomach felt like it was eating itself.

Ren’s face went white. “Or that the mud wasn’t in that chocolate Zane ate, because that would mean…”

“I didn’t eat anyone!” I shouted.

“Think of it as a mud pie,” Brooks teased.

Mr. O patted my shoulder. “No te preocupes.”

Easy for him to tell me not to worry. He didn’t just eat an ancient mud person!

“Gross,” Ren uttered.

“But I still don’t get what ‘mapping’ means,” Brooks said.