Brooks harrumphed. “Shouldn’t we all be more worried about turtles cruising us across a million-foot-deep ocean? Not doing it. Nope. I’ll fly, thank you very much.”
“You heard Ah-Puch,” I said. “Only they can get us into SHIHOM.”
Dark wings sprouted from Brooks’s back and stretched toward the sky. “Then I’ll fly until we get close.”
The turtles started to scratch at the sand like bulls getting ready to charge.
“Great,” Adrik said to Brooks as he backed away. “You’ve gone and made them mad.”
The god of death was wrong. The turtles did not choose who they wanted to ride on their backs. They marked us! First, they closed their eyes and sucked in what seemed like a gallon of air.
We all held our breaths.
And then Pshhhhkkrrrttt!
We got hosed.
The thick pink substance was like Silly String.
And it had some serious distance, but worse was the smell: like vinegar mixed with Raid. I was super glad my mouth was closed. Hondo? He wasn’t so lucky. And no, you do not want to know what curses flew back at the turtles. But the tortugas didn’t seem to care. They just blinked slowly while my uncle
turned red in the face.
“Couldn’t they have just tapped us or something?” Adrik looked disgusted.
“Hondo,” I said, trying not to laugh as I peeled the sticky goop off my T-shirt, “what happened to Mr. Chill?”
Hondo shot me a death glare that pretty much said I will turn you into turtle soup. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve been in a good battle? Three months. Three!”
“Say your peace mantra,” Ren insisted. “Don’t even think about fighting. It’s not good for you.” She blinked. “I mean, unless you’re defending yourself.”
The messenger turtle placed its forehead against my dog’s. Both sets of eyes shimmered the same coppery gold. Then the tortuga’s shell began to glow in alternating blue and yellow like a cheap neon motel sign.
“Rosie speaks turtle?” Hondo muttered.
“They’re glyphs,” Brooks said, coming closer.
Rosie whined and walked backward toward me, wagging her body like a fish.
I looked at Brooks. “What do the glyphs say?”
“Forget about speaking,” Adrik said. “The turtles can spell?”
Pressing her mouth together in concentration, Brooks said, “I’m not, like, a hundred percent sure, but I think it’s saying, These kids are smelly like…elephant breath. Or maybe it’s lizard breath?”
“Smelly?” Alana echoed. “They sprayed us!”
The turtle waded over and blinked up at Rosie again. This time my dog grunted twice, stomped her front paw once, and disappeared in a cloud of black mist.
Great! She got the shortcut to SHIHOM? Sometimes I think being a hellhound has way more benefits than being a godborn.
I changed Fuego into a tattoo as we all climbed onto our assigned turtles’ backs. I rode with Alana, Ren was paired with Adrik, and my uncle went solo. A minute later, we were floating across the sea. A thin layer of mist rose in curls from the cool surface, chilling the quiet air. The tortugas stayed in their own lanes, evenly spaced about fifteen feet apart, and swam at a snail’s pace.
Brooks soared high above. Hondo seemed to be meditating, or envisioning his next battle, and Adrik was completely focused on the ocean, as if preparing for a monstrous shark to chomp on his foot. Ren sat in front of Adrik and stroked her turtle’s neck.
Alana sat behind me with her arms at her sides. She blew out a long breath and traced her fingers through the cool water. “All this…it’s so hard to believe. How is it even happening?”
“I remember when I first got introduced to the Maya world,” I said. “It was pretty freaky, and I couldn’t believe a lot of stuff, even when I was looking right at it. But you get used to it.”