“I need a moment’s rest.” Ah-Puch coughed. “Though I really hate this place.”
“Zane?” Ren’s voice quivered.
I went over to where she was pointing at the sand. There were several rounded paw prints (like those of a massive wolf) with four long claws on each. But they were staggered in such a way I wasn’t sure that whatever made these prints had four legs.
Rosie growled, foam oozing from her mouth as she sniffed and scratched at each.
“Hellhound?” I guessed.
“Aliens,” Ren whispered.
“Neither.” Ah-Puch stood next to us. He tilted his head and took a deep breath. “Smells like Ahuitzotl.” He pronounced it Ah-weet-so-tul.
“What’s that?” Ren’s eyes widened, but not from fear—more like fascination.
“A Mexica water monster with an ugly, lopsided face, spiked fur along its spine, and a lizard tail with a freakish hand at the end to drag around its screaming victims.”
“Victims?” Ren’s eyes widened.
“Ahuitzotl likes to eat humans—especially nails, eyes, and teeth.” Then, more to himself, he muttered, “So, someone found a way to bring back the monsters….”
My heart pounded in my ears. “Why was it here?”
Ren nodded. “And where did it go?”
Rosie sniffed the ground ferociously, each breath getting shorter and more pronounced until she poked her head beneath a mesquite bush. She let out a long woeful whine, backing out with something in her mouth. Please don’t be a hand or a foot or an eyeball, I thought.
“What’d you find, girl?”
In her mouth was one of Brooks’s demon-fighting flashlights, and it was still on (in non-demon-killing mode), which told me it had been dropped recently. The shock hit me like a sledgehammer to the gut, and my knees nearly gave out. It was impossible. Brooks had come here. How?
I scrambled beneath the bush and came back with her torn backpack. The gateway map was still inside. She would never have left this behind. Not unless she was forced to.
That’s when I noticed, beyond the bush, a cow skull stuck on top of a branch that had been rammed into the earth. Something was attached to the skull. I tried to hurry over for a better look but was slowed down by my limp. I’d gotten so used to walking straight and fast with the help of Fuego, I’d forgotten what this felt like. Drawing closer, I saw what was tied to the skull. A brown hawk feather. Brooks’s feather. And if she had been here, my guess was that Hondo had, too.
I looked around frantically for their footprints. And then I saw the blood—a trail in the sand like it had just been spilled. My legs shook.
“Where are they?!” I demanded from Ah-Puch, who now stood next to me. As if he had the answers.
“That could be anyone’s blood,” he said.
Rosie sniffed the fresh sangre, gave me a mournful look, then threw back her head and let out a howl.
I held my breath. “Show me smoke if it’s Hondo’s blood and fire if it’s Brooks’s.”
Rosie blinked as a plume of smoke trailed out of her nose.
I fell to one knee.
“Zane,” Ren said quietly, “you need to keep your cool…so we can think this through.”
She sounded like Brooks. Always ready to make a plan, but what good were plans? They burned faster than brushwood no matter how hard you tried to keep them away from the fire.
Heat pulsed painfully in my limbs. I was chasing a monster I didn’t know, an enemy without a face. And my uncle was hurt.
“They were ambushed,” I hissed as I stood. Why hadn’t Brooks and Hondo listened and just gone home? “What if the monster…?” I didn’t even want to finish my thought.
“It didn’t kill them,” Ah-Puch said.