Glancing over, I saw her huddled. She wasn’t moving. Clearly, she had a lot more self-control than I did. Fury at the bats rose up inside me. A deep orange ember began to glow beneath my skin. The creatures that were terrorizing me retreated with an angry screech as I got to my feet. The entire world took on a faint reddish tint, and I knew my eyes were ablaze, too. Smoke streamed from my fingertips, creating long black trails. I didn’t know how it happened, but the smoke took the shape of a giant net, wrapping around Ren. The bats beat against the net, but they couldn’t get through.
Rosie launched herself into the air, snatching up a few bats in her mouth as she sailed over the starboard side. I wanted her to barbecue the little beasts, but she’d just as likely set the boat ablaze and everyone with it.
The world lurched. I was growing weaker with each passing second, and soon the smoke-net would vanish. I hated to admit it, but I needed the god of death’s help. As I hurried over to him, the bats shrank back. Ah-Puch uncurled himself, heaving. I grabbed his hand, placed the corn in his palm, and shouted, “Take it!”
Shakily, he popped the entire blue seed into his mouth. A millisecond later, he stood upright, seizing the bats out of the air with such incredible speed his arms were only a blur. Faster than I could shout his name, he snapped the creatures’ necks and sucked the blood from their bodies.
There was no time to be disgusted.
I didn’t see what happened after that, because in a single flash, Rosie leaped back onto the boat. A single line of fire exploded from her mouth, wrapping me in a spinning inferno that didn’t touch the floor. I used my last bits of strength to knock the nearby beasts into the flames. Their charred bodies fell around me, and then slowly, the heat drew closer, engulfing me. Instinctively, I leaned into the blaze, and as I did, the puncture wounds on my hands disappeared before my eyes.
Then came the Fire Keeper’s voice: You really need to fight more like a destroyer.
I didn’t register the insult, because I had bigger things on my mind: Where are you? How do I find you?
But the inferno died before there was an answer.
I looked up.
Ah-Puch stood over Ren. A sea breeze parted his thick dark hair as he licked the blood from his fingertips. Gone was the little old feeble man. And in his place?
A stronger, very familiar version of the god of death, darkness, and destruction.
I think I’d forgotten how threatening Ah-Puch was. (I know, I know, how could anyone forget such terror?) Not only did the guy tower over me, but there was a fierce darkness and determination in his eyes and in the etched lines of his face that commanded utter dread.
A low rumble emerged from Rosie as she faced Ah-Puch. But she wasn’t foaming at the mouth, her eyes weren’t glowing red, and she wasn’t shooting fireballs. Those were all good signs that Ah-Puch didn’t intend to eat us all for dinner.
Ah-Puch raised a single eyebrow and gestured to Ren.
Shaking off my shock, I raced over to her. (Yeah, I had to step over all the blood-drained bat carcasses.) She rolled onto her back, looking up at me wide-eyed.
“Are you all right?” I asked, taking a quick inventory of any wounds. “You…you don’t have a single mark.” I mean, I know our super Itzel clothing was supposed to be daggerproof, but what about the exposed skin? Was Ren immune to the bats or something?
“I forced my mind to focus, to visualize the outcome,” she said. “Like Hondo showed me.”
“They don’t like the smell of her blood,” Ah-Puch said with a small smile.
I shot him a look over my shoulder. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
But I didn’t get an answer. Rosie wandered over sheepishly, sniffing Ren as she got to her feet. Ren’s eyes were glued to Ah-Puch. “You…you…” For once she was at a loss for words. Finally, she managed, “You ate those bats.”
“I didn’t eat the bats,” he said. “I drank their supernatural blood.”
Ren gawked at this version of Ah-Puch. “Is that why you’re…?”
“So intimidating?” Ah-Puch offered.
“I was going to say scary,” she said.
Ren and I exchanged a worried glance, when Ah-Puch added, “I see your apprehension…but not to worry. This new beautiful form of mine is, sadly, only temporary.” He sighed dramatically. “The bats’ blood was stolen, not a sacrifice, but even if it had been, part of me is still swimming in the eternal fires Zane created.”
“I said no devouring!”
“You said no devouring anyone,” Ah-Puch reminded me. “That means a person, a human—you didn’t say anything about monsters.”
Already, he was finding loopholes. “You tricked us—led us right to those things.”
“The blood made me do it,” he said with a straight face. “I was so hungry, and they were coming no matter what. We just met them halfway. You would have had a harder time fighting them off in town, and all those humans could have been hurt. I did you—us—a favor.”