Gods of Jade and Shadow(64)

“Such language. Besides, you haven’t even asked what you are playing for.”

“What?” Martín asked.

Martín noticed that the cigar had now developed a head of ash on the tip and needed to be rolled against an ashtray, but Aníbal did not seem in a hurry.

“To the world outside I simply built and own this hotel. Do you think me an ordinary businessman?”

“I guess not.”

“How am I different?”

“How am I supposed to know?” Martín shot back.

Aníbal opened his mouth, and out curled the cigar’s smoke, rising as high as the ceiling, twisting, and expanding, acquiring a shape. It danced above Aníbal’s head, alive, vital, its shape that of a four-legged animal.

“I’m a sorcerer, but more than that, a priest. A loving servant of the Lord of Xibalba.”

Aníbal flicked his finger against the cigar, and the accumulated ash rose, combining with the smoke, to further define the animal above him. It was a dog, and when Aníbal flicked his finger again, the smoke and ash rained on the old man, settling like a mantle on his shoulders. Aníbal then opened his left hand and ash fell on the floor, the labyrinth that had been contained on the page now reproduced there, its lines spreading and dancing around Martín’s feet. He took two steps back, but the ash rose knee-high and he realized he could not move back or forward.

“Xibalba, it is here and it is there, the Black Road reaches far and wide. Mortals stand, breathe, walk upon Xibalba and do not even know it, having forgotten their allegiance to the Place of Fright. But we will change that. They will know the name of their Supreme Lord.”

“All right, I get the point,” Martín replied. Now his tone was mellowing as he realized the old man was more dangerous than he’d thought.

“Do you?”

Beneath his mild-mannered face, Aníbal hid a bleak interior, and his eyes were two prick points of glowing red, as if someone had lit them with a match.

“You are playing the one game that matters, Martín. It’s the game of creation,” Aníbal said. “Temples will rise for Vucub-Kamé and there will be rejoicing and there will be sacrifice.”

The ash and smoke came together, forming a dark temple, and then another, until there were dozens of them surrounding Martín. Even someone as obtuse as he could understand the meaning of such an apparition. He bowed his head, afraid, but also aware there was no escaping this fate, that he’d walk the road and he’d somehow ensure Vucub-Kamé’s victory, and with it the world would change.

The old man carelessly let his cigar fall on a silver ashtray and yawned.

“Well, we should begin now. Don’t you think? After all, your cousin will be here soon,” Aníbal said.

Martín shivered. Any living man who will face the Land of the Dead will shiver, but he nodded his head too.

Aníbal closed his fist, and the ash and the smoke formed a wide circle, onto which he stepped and motioned for Martín to join him. Martín obeyed, watching as the gray ash turned black. Beneath them the floor melted, as if it were made of tar, and Martín closed his eyes. He was afraid, like when he’d been a small child and thought monsters lurked under his bed; only now they did, and he assisted them.





The outside of the Uay Chivo’s house was unassuming; its pale blue paint had peeled and the potted plants at the windows were wilting. The inside was a different story. First of all, Casiopea was certain the interior was too spacious, as if extra rooms could exist within the limits of this home, breaking all laws of physics. Second, it was filled with peculiar, unsettling items. The studio they wandered into had two large stone statues of goats, fitting considering the name of the sorcerer who owned the place, and creepy since the goats were carved in a very realistic style, their huge blind eyes making Casiopea frown.

On the shelves there sat multitudes of jars stuffed with herbs and dried plants, others filled with bits of starfish and corals. Some contained whole specimens: fish, snakes, lizards, scorpions, carefully preserved. Bottles glinted with their multicolored liquids and powders, here a green, there a vivid red.

There was a metal safe, which Hun-Kamé manipulated, revealing a small chest, and inside this chest an even smaller box. The house was dark, nobody was home, but the eyes of the stone goats did not allow her to relax. They’d tricked a god and invited themselves into the abode of a spirit, but they had not stolen from anyone yet. This audacious act seemed to Casiopea more perilous than their previous encounters, even if the house was quiet and empty.

“Why is it taking you so long?” she asked, watching Hun-Kamé as he worked his magic.

“All three of these boxes are made of iron, which annoys me, and therefore I proceed more slowly than I’d like,” he replied.

“Please hurry. I think I heard something.”

“I am doing what I can. It’s not just the metal. He cast protective spells. There are locks upon locks.”

With a click, Hun-Kamé finally opened the third box to reveal…nothing. There came thin, malicious laughter, and Casiopea turned around to find two young men, their hair slicked back with too much pomade, and an older gentleman standing at the doorway, looking at them. It was the older man who had laughed, a gray-haired fellow in a long gray coat who leaned on a cane decorated with the silver head of a goat, a cigarette dangling from his lips.