“Okay, Zane,” Fausto said. “This is how it’s going to work. You choose a mask, you put it on, you die. Any questions?”
“Hang on.” Brooks held up her hand. “We need a little more information. Like, who are you, what are your credentials, and how in the heck do the masks—?”
“Make me D-E-A-D?” I asked.
Fausto ignored me, keeping his focus on Quinn and Brooks. “This has to be your little sister, Quinn.”
“Quit stalling, Fausto.” Quinn gave him a hard stare.
“People always want to hurry death magic,” he muttered. Then he answered us. “The masks are supernatural artistic perfection made by me and every generation of my family before me. There’s only been one mess-up—okay, maybe two, and it was, like, three generations ago, some distant uncle. I’ve got a one hundred percent success rate, which basically means the death magic will kill you enough, but not so much your heart stops beating.”
“What do you mean ‘kill me enough’?” I said. “You’re either D-E-A-D or you’re not.”
“Oy…Let me explain in terms you might understand.” Fausto scratched his chin.
Brooks frowned, and I could tell she already hated the guy.
“Think of it as anesthesia,” Fausto went on. “You get enough, and it takes you under. You get too much, and you’re a goner.” He gestured to a group of trees. “Those are battle masks over there, and beyond that, ceremony masks. And that tree there?” He nodded to the closest and the only one
without purple flowers. “Those are all death masks. Worn by great warriors, priests, kings, and queens—worn by their corpses, actually, and infused with my death magic.”
“You want me to put on a mask a D-E-A-D person wore?”
“Seems pretty morbid, if you ask me,” Hondo said.
“I didn’t ask you,” Fausto said.
Hondo tensed. I could totally tell he was imagining putting Fausto in a chokehold. Just when I thought he’d lose his cool, Quinn wrapped her arm around Hondo and squeezed. I swear my uncle grew like three inches.
Fausto’s eyes narrowed to barely there slits. “Really, Quinn?” he said, offering a painted-on smile. “Trading down for a human now?”
Quinn batted her eyes all cool-like, and as she opened her mouth to say something (probably sarcastic and annoying), I jumped in. “They hate each other,” I said. “Fight all the time.”
Leave it to stupid adults to ruin everything. If Quinn made Fausto mad, he could make a mistake, and then I’d be a goner. No thanks.
Quinn must have recognized her mistake, because she quickly shoved Hondo away and said, “As if.”
Brooks rolled her eyes as Hondo smiled wider. I thought he’d collapse under the weight of Quinn’s rejection, but nope. He winked at me like he was saying See? She likes me.
“Can we just get on with this?” Quinn asked.
With a sly grin, Fausto said, “As soon as I get my payment.”
“After we see you don’t one hundred percent kill him,” Brooks said.
“Fair enough,” Fausto said.
“So, what do you mean the masks were worn by corpses?” Did no one else catch that? “Like, did you steal these masks off their cold bodies?”
“It’s not like they need them once they’re dearly departed, dude. And it is my magic.”
I really hoped he had cleaned/disinfected/fumigated these things. My stomach was in knots. “Does it matter which one I pick?”
“For sure. Pick the wrong one and you’ll be decapitated.” He busted up laughing. “Don’t look so wrecked, dude. It was a joke.” Rosie lifted her head and growled at Fausto, who held his hands up defensively. “Sheesh. No sense of humor. Go on, amigo. You can’t choose wrong.”
Yeah, tell that to the ancestors. I went over to the death-mask tree and looked up. My stomach clenched as I scanned the faces, looking for the least creepy one. Brooks stood by me and said, “How about that one?” She pointed to a plain wooden mask, but my eyes were already drawn to a simple jade one. The eye holes were large, and so were the nostrils, but the mouth was closed. And there was something about its plain expression that felt…harmless.
Was this the right one? I wondered. As if by way of an answer, a sudden heat pulsed in my blood, slow at first, then searing hot. I looked down at my hands. My palms were glowing. Before anyone else noticed, I clenched them.