Rosie threw back her head and let out a happy howl.
Hondo pulled me into a headlock and squeezed. “Good thing we have the location tracker, Diablo. What’s up with the feathers? You been cleaning birdcages?”
He’d grown out his hair to just below his ears, and I guess Quinn must have liked it, because she smiled when she saw him. But the second he looked at her, her face returned to ice-queen mode. “I have to go see Ixtab. Give a full report,” Quinn said before shifting into her giant eagle self and flying off.
Hondo’s grin vanished. “Does she ever stay put?” Then he slung his arm over Brooks’s shoulders. “Admit it,” he said. “You missed me, Capitán.”
A small smile crept over Brooks’s face. “Not as much as you missed me.”
“Could someone please kill those headlights?” Alana tugged a pair of silver sunglasses out of her pocket and planted them on her face. With her red-tipped hair, she looked like the kind of person who might be famous.
“What’s with the shades?” I asked.
“I’m super sensitive to light,” she said.
Was that the gateway to her godborn power? The weakness that was really a strength, like my limp or Ren’s trances?
Hondo went over and turned off the headlights as I created a small bonfire in the sand. “Is that better?” I asked.
Alana nodded. “It comes and goes,” she said, tugging off her glasses.
When Hondo returned, he pointed at Adrik and Alana. “I thought there was only one godborn left.”
After Brooks and I filled in Hondo and Ren about everything that had happened, my uncle said, “Two-faced demon…” Okay, he said a lot more than that, but my mom would kill me if I wrote down all that cussing.
“We didn’t do anything to those monsters,” Alana complained. Then, as if the reality of it all was just now washing over her, she whispered, “They…they could have killed us. You saved our lives.”
“Let’s not get carried away,” Adrik said. “How do we know the demons weren’t after them and we just got stuck in the cross fire?”
“Because my sister and I have been tracking Ik,” Brooks said, raising a single eyebrow. “She could have killed Zane at any moment over the last three months, but she waited until tonight to turn on him. Until Zane led her to you.”
“Good point, Capitán.” Hondo rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Demonio estúpido. ¿Por qué join the losing team?”
Excellent point. Why would Ik choose to leave Ixtab’s army, the most powerful in the universe, to join a bunch of loser gods who’d already had their butts whipped?
“And why would Ik want these godborns and none of the rest?” Ren asked.
Something told me Ik hadn’t been after Adrik. And she hadn’t even known about Alana. She wanted whatever it was they had lifted from that store. More specifically, Camazotz and Ixkik’ wanted it.
“Look…” I began, addressing the twins. This part was never easy. And now that I also had my friends’ eyes on me, I felt like I was taking a test I hadn’t studied for. “Before we point fingers, I need to know who might be waiting for you back in New York. Ik could do something….” Iktan wouldn’t hesitate to hurt someone the twins cared about. Not if it would get her closer to whatever her bosses wanted.
“What he means,” Brooks explained, “is that we need to cover all our bases, make sure there are no loose ends.”
“I know what he means,” Adrik said stone-faced. “There’s no one waiting for us.”
Alana blurted, “Unless you count the Wicked Witch of the West.”
Rosie collapsed onto her belly with a groan I translated as This is going to take a while. Peace out.
“You live with a witch?” Ren asked.
“A wicked witch,” Alana repeated. “And believe me—”
Adrik cleared his throat, cutting her off.
Brooks drew closer, mirroring his scowl. “We can’t help you or protect your family unless we know what’s up.”
Adrik clenched his fists. “Alana’s right.”