Gods of Jade and Shadow(23)

“How will we find the Mamlab? Where is he?” she asked.

“The Huastec people are cousins to the Mayans, and their gods are cousins of mine. The Mamlab are not one god, but several.”

“Loray spoke as though he was referring to one.”

“Oh, he is referring to one. The Mamlab live in the mountains, where they play music, drink, and make love to their frog wives. But some of them venture into town to partake in festivities and seduce enticing women. And the youngest, he is more insolent than the rest, and that cousin of mine has my ear.”

She knew of Chaac, who carried his stone axe and beat the clouds to release the rain. And there was the Aztec Tlaloc, with his heron-feather headdress, but the Mamlab she did not recall.

“And he, this god, he has a name, then?”

“The Mam is called Juan,” Hun-Kamé said laconically, sipping his coffee.

“Juan? What kind of name is that for a god?” she asked, dismayed to discover deities had names taken out of the Santoral. It hardly seemed creative, or appropriate.

“Sometimes he is Juan, sometimes he is Lord Thunder, sometimes not. Are you not Casiopea, Lady Tun, a Stone Maiden, and other permutations? And beyond these is there not some secret name in your heart, which you keep under lock and key?”

Casiopea’s father, he’d called her kuhkay—firefly—because the little bugs carried lights from the stars, and she was his little star. She wondered if he meant this, if this might be her long-lost name.

“Maybe,” she conceded.

“Of course. Everyone does.”

“Do you have a secret name?” she asked.

His arm stilled, the glass freezing in midair. He placed it down, carefully, on the table. “Do not ask silly questions,” he told her, his tongue whip-hard.

“Then I’ll ask a smart one,” she said, irritated by his scalding tone, hotter than the coffee they were drinking. “How will we find your cousin? The city is large.”

“We will let him find us. As I’ve explained, he is fond of pretty young women he can seduce. You will do for bait.”

He looked at her with a certainty that would accept no excuses, the certainty of a god before a mortal, yet she felt compelled to protest. Casiopea had a gap between her two front teeth and heavy-lidded eyes; neither trait had ever been declared attractive. The papers were full of ads for whitening creams that would yield an “irresistible” face. She was dark and made no effort to rub lemons on her skin to acquire what people said was a more becoming shade.

“You must be joking,” she told him.

“No.”

“You claim he is fond of pretty young women, and I am not a pretty young woman.”

“You have never gazed at your reflection, I suppose,” he replied offhandedly. “Blackest of hair and eyes, black like the x’kau, and as noisy.”

She could tell he wasn’t trying to flatter her; he had remarked on her looks like he might remark on the appearance of a flower. Besides, he’d insulted her in the same breath.

He did not mean it as a compliment. He couldn’t have meant it like that, she thought.

“Even if he’d look at me—”

Hun-Kamé rested a hand flat against the wooden surface of the table.

“Some of my essence drifts in your body. This means some of my magic rests upon your skin, like a perfume. It strikes a strange note, which will surely attract him. The promise of something powerful and mysterious cannot be ignored,” he said.

It puzzled her to imagine death as a perfume that clung to her and, rather than striking the sour note of decay, could be as pleasant as the scent of a rose. But she did not give this too much thought because she was busier summoning her outrage.

“I do not want to be seduced by your cousin,” she countered. “What do you take me for, a woman of ill repute?”

“No harm will come to you. You will lure him, bind him, and I will deal with him,” Hun-Kamé said.

“Bind him? You are mad. How? Won’t he know—”

“Distract him with a kiss, if you must,” he said, sounding impatient. Clearly they had been discussing the point far too long.

“As if I would be going around kissing men at the drop of a hat. You kiss him.”

She stood up and in the process almost toppled the table. Hun-Kamé steadied it and caught her arm, lightning fast. He stood up.

“I am the Supreme Lord of Xibalba, a weaver of shadows. What will you do? Walk away from me? Have you not considered my magic? It would be foolish. Even if you managed it, the bone shard will kill you if I do not remove it,” he whispered.

“Perhaps I should hack off my hand,” she whispered back.

Casiopea realized she should not have said this, alerting him to her knowledge of this exit clause, but she’d spoken without thinking, needled by his haughtiness. She wanted to bring him down a peg, and though it is impossible to humble a god, her youth allowed her to na?vely think it might be done.

“Perhaps. But that would be unkind,” he replied.

His gaze was hard as flint, ready to strike a spark. Despite her outburst of boldness, Casiopea was now forced to lower her eyes.

“It would also be cowardly, considering you gave me your word and pledged your service to me. Though it might merely reflect your heritage: your grandfather was a traitor and a dishonorable man. He knew not the burden of patan, nor its virtue.”