I See Fire | Wattys 2021/22 Shortlist | ✔

Chapter Forty-Three

The drive of a new target made the heat recede from my hands again, a slim measure of comfort that utterly failed to placate my nerves. I'm here to help. I'm here to help Jem and Emma. I repeated it like a mantra as I snuck to a line of bushes and wriggled behind them around the nearest hill. Another hill blocked my way. This one offered no cover, but with the darkest shadows above me and the conversants' eyes adjusted to the fire, I would be safest on top.

I took a long, long moment to listen for shell skirts and other dangers, then flicked to both dogs with a hand gesture I had seen Xolotl use. They lay down. I gestured for them to stay, and glided across the dip between the hills. The one before me was not steep, and in seconds I was flat on my stomach again at its peak. I inched forward until I could see the fire.

In the middle of a clearing, flames licked thick, broken sticks in a round pit. A ways off to the left lurked the imposing hulk of a white-walled house, two stories tall and devoid of windows. Two figures stood by the fire. Mictlantecuhtli was unmistakable. He looked like a skeleton, his face made of steep angles that cast their own shadows in the firelight, his eyes sunken until you could see the outline of his skull. He was dressed in finery unrivaled by any god I had yet seen, in person or in story. The person he spoke to had her back to me. Her garb was winter clothing: a wrap around her waist like a skirt, and a hooded shawl with the hood drawn up.

"Did they take it?" she said.

"They did," answered Mictlantecuhtli. His voice was the grate of bone on bone. "They left for the tree half a day ago."

Was he talking about the gods? I swallowed back a fresh wave of fear. Was I so far behind them? And what was the tree? The way to the sky-world that Chal had told me to meet them at?

The woman gave a laugh that made every hair on my arms rise. "So I can stop hiding, then?"

"Do you trust that the threat has been eliminated?"

"Did my Centzon Huītznāuhtin intercept them?"

He gave a terse nod. The woman tugged her waist, and the wrap fell away to reveal a white dress beneath. The shawl slithered from her slender shoulders, and one flick removed the pin from her hair. It cascaded down her back in a glowing silver waterfall.

"Perfect," said Coyol. "Then they are caught. Remind me to reward you for this."

No.

No.

The gods had said Mictlantecuhtli never took sides. They said he was on nobody's side but his own.

"And the sun?" said the lord of the underworld.

"Dead at yesterday's sunset." Coyol discarded her shawl. "The others don't know yet. How sad it will be when they find out."

Her voice was anything but. My ears were ringing. Huitz?

And the others? They couldn't all be caught. They couldn't.

"I would not assume too quickly that you captured them all," said Mictlantecuhtli coolly as he turned his back on Coyol. My arms turned to jelly. "Mictlan tells me there is still a presence wandering about. If that is one of yours, you may wish to inform them that this is not their playground and I am not their ally. If it is one you wish to catch, do so. Then take your fights out of Mictlan and do not bother me again."

Coyol's smile was snuffed out in an instant. "One escaped?"

"This is now your brothers' problem."

One god, escaped? Only one? What had happened to the others? What had they "taken" from Mictlantecuhtli, that made Coyol relax like the fight was over? My breathing came in shallow pulses like my lungs had forgotten what a breath was. This couldn't be happening. The gods had fought so hard to stay even one step ahead of their sister... had this all been a trap?

Of course it had been a trap. Mictlantecuhtli was working with Coyol.

The gods had been caught. Jem and Emma had been caught. The fight was already over.

My shaking elbows gave out under me. I had counted on the gods being able to handle all this. I should never have left Tlalocan. I should never have left Grillo Negro. I had sunk myself into this, and now, Jem, Emma, and my last hope were all prisoners to a goddess who wanted to destroy absolutely everything. Was there no more way to stop her? There had to be. There had to be. If there wasn't...

"You will tell me, Mictlantecuhtli."

The ominous crackle of magic made me lift my gaze. Coyol had the death god ringed in a circle of silver. Arcs like lightning made hoops over the ground, only knee high, but coiled tight with the potential to leap when touched.

If Mictlantecuhtli was phased by this, his bony face did not show it. "Go see for yourself from the ones you caught. Or ask your brothers."

"You are fully aware that they do not speak. And seeing the ones I caught does not account for allies. I only just killed Mixcoatl, hiding in a cave in the north, the coward. There is nothing to say they didn't have others in hiding."

"Am I supposed to know by sense alone? Only one came to talk to me. You are lucky the rest did not scatter while they had the chance." The crackling intensified. I had to strain my eyes to realize that a ring of red-black lightning had blocked Coyol's from the inside. "From what I feel, it would have been their second strongest. Do with that what you will. Now leave, or I will have the Tzitzimime see you out. I hear they are not fond of you since you drove them from the sky."

Coyol sneered. "I'm not scared of your Tzitzimime."

The light from the silver lightning was now enough to illuminate skeleton-women lurking all around the clearing's fringes. The eyes of more glowed like cold blue stars in the darkness beyond. A magic-bolt snapped to the house's wall. I feared for its thatched roof.

"Its strength is fading," said Mictlantecuhtli. "You may wish to catch it before it attempts to pursue the others and does more damage to your forces."

Coyol spat a curse like a foul taste. "I will remember this." She lifted her hand and sent a blinding silver bolt skywards. It was lost in the sky's depths. "Seal the tree," she said, as if speaking to a Centzonhuītznāhua right beside her. "Half of you, stay and guard the captives. The rest, join me."

Centzon Huītznāuhtin appeared; dozens of them. They filled the clearing and stepped from the shadows around the house. The fire flickered eerily across their identical, expressionless faces. Mictlantecuhtli's expression slipped to one of disgust. Was he not going to fight them? If he turned on Coyol now, it might at least buy the last god time. Time to hide, or to get away.

But Mictlantecuhtli remained where he was, his hands once again lost in the sleeves of his robe. He would fulfill his side of this deal with Coyol, and nothing more.

"Fan out," said Coyol without removing her eyes from the death god's. "Stay in clusters. They are losing strength, but any one of that group's strongest is still a danger."

I lay paralyzed on the hilltop as Coyol's star brothers dispersed among the Tzitzimime. The skeleton-women shifted to let them by. Hungry blue lights in empty eye sockets lingered on the Centzon Huītznāuhtin's backs.

"And keep your bone-demons off my brothers," growled Coyol with a last filthy look at Mictlantecuhtli.

"You speak like I control them."

She ignored him and spoke to the Centzon Huītznāuhtin again. "Call me when you've caught them. If you haven't caught them, don't call."

She shot silver at her feet and vanished.