Ellen crouched near the top of the stairway as William stepped slowly down the stairs. Luckily the stairs were covered in thick shag carpeting, the kind of carpet that had already gone out of fashion when she was a kid, so he didn’t make a sound. Next to the front door the fat solitaire-playing goon slept, his rifle on his lap. Ellen didn’t like guns, which some people thought strange since she was born and had spent all of her life in West Virginia. She’d always hated hunting, and dead deer hanging on the backs of trucks made her queasy and terribly sad. But she knew the gun on the fat man’s lap was something as hard-core as what Steve would have used in Iraq. It looked grotesque, rising and falling on his belly as he snored. Next to him, a small black-and-white monitor mounted to the wall showed a series of live surveillance camera shots: the dirt road outside the fence, illuminated in spotlights, the inside of the fence perimeter, and the outside of the enormous reinforced front door. No one could arrive at El Varón’s by surprise.
William looked at her, and she knew what his expression said: Don’t go in the room without me. She nodded. He waved her back, and she moved up another step into the shadows. Now she could only hear the snoring. William disappeared around the corner, and she said a silent prayer for him.
She struggled to calm her breathing. It was intensely quiet in between the snores. They were lucky El Varón was gone, or else Mr. Fat Guard would probably be too terrified to doze off. Everyone was so rigidly well behaved and subservient when El Varón was around that this night seemed bizarre. When the cat’s away. She and William were mice.
Only El Varón wasn’t the least bit catlike. More like a snake. Or a spider—something venomous.
She waited, praying William’s idea would work.
William was making his way through the living room now, she knew, past the garish boom-boom room and into the kitchen. Beyond the kitchen were the doors to the patio and pool. William—and she had felt a wave of pride when he told her—had been carefully monitoring and mapping all of the goings-on, from the stations and paths of the guards to the placement of alarms and cameras. He had noticed the guards setting an alarm each night when they locked up the patio door. Four beeps and it was armed for the night.
And all the while she’d been worried he was going brain-dead from the video games and TV. She’d been blessed with a damn smart kid. Brilliant, in fact, as his third-grade teacher had repeatedly said. Sneaky, too. And once they’d gotten away from here—which they were going to do, since she couldn’t even consider any other possibility—she’d make sure he got a real education. College, graduate school, the works. No matter what it took.
But what was her life going to be like after this? Was Ray okay? Was he even alive? She had to believe he was. William seemed to think so, and if anyone could pick up on something like that it was him. But how would she find him again? And then what? Back to the Brotherhood’s compound? Was she cursed to go from one armed compound to another? Living behind high walls and razor wire the rest of her life? “He calls you his pajarita. His little bird,” Costanza had said.
Well, fuck that. Fuck all of that.
A shrill piercing screech ripped through the silence. She’d known it was coming, but it still almost made her scream. Whoop-whoop-whoop. He’d done it. He’d opened the patio door. God, please let him be okay. Please don’t let them hurt him.
Below her, Mr. Fat Guard stumbled past the stairs and vanished into the living room, his gun and enormous key ring jangling. Now was her chance.
She hurried down the stairs, rounded the stairwell, and descended one more flight. A door stood at the end of a short hallway. On each side of it were murals. Mayan art—the strangely cartoonish, simplistic but alien style that always made her imagine the early Mayans ate a lot of the funny mushrooms they found in the jungle. Two long, oddly angled human figures, with oversized skeletal heads. Holding something in their long-fingered hands. It took her just a moment to figure out what those bony hands were holding. Human heads. With stylized blood spraying from the bottom of their necks.
There was a word, in black, blocky letters, written on the door: Xibalba.
And on the side of the door, an enormous, thick padlock.
Shit.
And then she smelled it—a hint of something rotten. When she’d worked at Doris’s Diner, the Dumpster would be at its worst the day before trash pickup. Especially in the wretchedly hot days of summer. And then she found a better comparison—the smell coming from beyond the door smelled like the meat stalls in the Guatemalan markets. She had almost given up eating meat after wandering through the aisles of butchered pigs, stacks of pale chickens, and hunks of beef carcasses. It was the floor that grossed her out the most—what felt like walking on a huge, black scab. And the smell of old blood, mixed with new blood.
The earsplitting alarm shut off in mid-whoop.
Someone was yelling. That asshole fat guard was screaming at William. She flushed with an instant violent anger. If that piece of shit hurt her son…
But she needed to get back upstairs. Before someone caught her. She pulled the padlock, just in case it had been left unlocked—no luck. She turned, ran up the first set of stairs, and peeked around the corner. Nothing, just light from the TV, some cheesy telenovela playing at low volume for no one.
And then she heard William, panicked, apologizing in Spanish. “Accidente,” he kept saying. She walked quickly toward the back door, and now three of El Varón’s armed goons stood around William.
“What’s going on?” she asked. She was always forgetting her Spanish when she got frightened or mad.
The goons turned. The fat, mealymouthed guy walked up to her with no trace of his earlier leer. Again she struggled to understand what he was saying, but got only the gist—the boy had tried to open the door. He’d set off the alarm. He’d been told the rules over and over again.
“I left my book outside. I just wanted to get my book, Mom. I forgot about the alarm.” He repeated himself in Spanish for them.
“Come with me, William.” She glared at the men. “He’s a boy, dammit.” She grabbed William’s shoulders and hustled him to the stairs.
When they got back in the bedroom she mock-scolded him for the cameras they both assumed were watching them. Waved her finger in his face and all—she was proud of her dramatic touch, even if they weren’t being monitored. And then, when they both crawled into bed, she whispered into his ear: “Good work, kiddo. But we’re not getting out through there unless we find a key to a very big lock.”
Ellen awoke later, her brain fuzzy. What time was it? She’d heard muffled noises from outside the room, maybe from downstairs. William was already sitting up next to her, his eyes wide.
“Something’s happening,” he said.
Ellen got out of bed and slipped into her pink bathrobe, cinching the belt. “I’ll see if I can find out what’s going on.” William grabbed her arm. “Please be careful, Mom,” he whispered, his eyes wide.
She kissed his forehead. “You know I will.”
She opened the door, hoping no one would hear the telltale click. When she heard the commotion downstairs, she knew it wouldn’t be a problem. She crept carefully to the edge of the stairwell. Shadows of several men stretched along the floor. El Varón moved into view, and she ducked out of the way, her heart hammering.
Someone cursed in Spanish. Another laughed—the overweight pervert. She peeked around the stairwell. There was more commotion, and she froze as someone fell into her view. A man, his hands tied behind his back. His head bloody, his face concealed in shadows.
A word in English: fucker.
The fat goon grabbed him by the back of his shirt and hoisted him up to his knees. Ellen could only partly understand what he said amid the flurry of Spanish obscenities. Something about paying for his lies. El Varón stepped back into view, in front of the bloody bound man. He was dressed in a black suit, but it was disheveled. His white shirt was spattered with blood. Ellen withdrew as far as she could, hoping the shadows fully concealed her.
El Varón knelt in front of the bound man, who was shaking uncontrollably. Ellen felt her stomach knot. She could smell his rank sweat and piss all the way at the top of the steps. El Varón smiled, and for the first time she saw the unconcealed malevolence behind those dark eyes and brilliant white teeth.
“Por favor, Jesús Cristo, por favor, mi familia, Señor…” the bound man was crying.
El Varón laughed, deep and throaty and cold, and Ellen understood his reply distinctly: Your savior has no power here.
And then he said something that she could barely make out, but she was too terrified to move any closer to catch it. Something about death, and hell, and a word she understood when she heard it: subterráneo. The bloodied man started to wail, and the fat goon yanked the back of his shirt so hard it choked off his voice.
“Xibalba,” El Varón said. She-bal-ba. You’re going to Xibalba.
She withdrew back into the darkness as they dragged the screaming man down to the basement.
The glaring face of an Aztec warrior hovered over him, garishly painted, eyes ablaze, teeth clenched. If that wasn’t horrible enough, insects crawled all over that grim face—scorpions, spiders, beetles, all over his skin, in his nostrils, his eyes, and swarming in and out of his mouth.
No, it wasn’t an Aztec warrior. It was Mantu.
“Ray? Dammit, Ray. Come back to me, man.”
Ray felt the slap. His face burned. Slowly the insects and the Aztec paint melted away, and Mantu’s sweaty face moved closer. “It’s me, Ray. You’re slipping, man. You need to look me in the eyes and listen, okay?”
He had been somewhere else. It had been nice, if a little strange—inside of some kind of damp, reddish chamber. Mantis Lily had been feeding him a thick yellow liquid out of a pink-veined bladder while hundreds of tiny mantises were slowly eating bits of him—gnawing on his fingers, his face, and his feet. It hadn’t been painful, though—on the contrary, the nibbling of their minuscule teeth had been quite pleasurable.
Now he was back in this strange place, staring at this dark-skinned man. He blinked a few times, and then the reality of his situation whooshed him back.
“God, Mantu.” He felt feverish, his mouth tasting something foul. “What’s happening to me?”
“The poison is taking you over. But you’re strong, amigo. Tougher than you look. I’m surprised at how well you’re hanging on. I think it might have gotten the best of me by now.” He opened a bottle of water and poured it on Ray’s face.
Ray shook his head, sputtering. “Okay, damn.” His stomach lurched, but he breathed deeply and fought the nausea. The transition from the weird world in his head back to the real one was like being thrown out of a fast-moving car.
“We’re almost there. I’m pretty sure she lives in a village outside of San Andrés Sajcabajá.” He shook Ray by the shoulder. “You need to sit up. And I know it’s hard but you need to keep your eyes open. Wide open. I want you alert when we get there, because if you go too deep it might be too late. I need to ask around the village to find her. Like most naguales, she lives outside of town. Her people respect her, but they’re scared shitless of her, too.”
“Can she fix me?”
“I sure hope so. Jeremy tried to recruit her, but she wanted nothing to do with us. She’s probably too wild anyway. Naguales are powerful, but independent, and they don’t like people trying to force them to do anything. She’s not really a healer, but you need more than a healer right now. She works with the dark shit that’s gotten inside of you, so she’ll know how to get it out. But we shouldn’t be wasting time. Come on. Sit up straight.”
Ray sat up and blinked. The sun was going down, and the pink and orange of the sky were so intense it hurt his eyes. The woods and mountains all around them looked malevolent, and he kept seeing faces in the vegetation. This was far worse than the horrible drug he’d snorted at Crawford’s party. He shivered. “Is it cold, or is it just me?” he asked.
“It’s cooler in the mountains, but it ain’t cold in here. It’s the poison making you feverish.” He reached into the back and grabbed a Mayan blanket. “Here. This will help you stay warm. And please try to keep your eyes open. When you close them, you start to drift. Wherever it’s taking you, it’s getting harder and harder for you to come back.”
He nodded. “I forgot all about this place. I mean, here—the real world. Where I was…seemed so real.”
“That world is real, I think. I heard one of the Brotherhood chemists talking about these kinds of brain poisons. If you don’t get that nasty shit out of you, your soul and your mind wind up lost. Wandering around there with no way back. Your body—well, you might as well be a potted plant.”
Ray thought of Mantis Lily and shivered. “She’s there, too. She’s projecting herself into it.” He pulled the blanket up to his chin. “Let’s go. Hurry.” The other world was lying in wait. Lily was in there, working her magic from its darkness, pulling him deeper. He even smelled her jasmine perfume in the still air of the van.
Mantu started the engine. “You’re a strong motherfucker, Ray. Stay strong for me a little bit longer, okay? Stay strong for Ellen and William. They’re gonna need you.”
Ray nodded as the van lurched forward up the dark mountain road.
Ellen answered the door. She was barely awake, groggy from having been up so late, and William still lay sleeping.
El Varón stood outside the threshold, dressed in his impeccable white linen suit. He was energized, almost glowing. “I need to speak to you,” he said. He seemed to be holding in some enormous bit of news. His eyes were wide open and wild.
“Go ahead,” Ellen said.
He shook his head. “We need to speak in private. Please. Only for a moment.” His smile was as kind as ever, but after having seen him mocking the bloodied man begging for his life, she could never unsee his cruel malice.
She looked back at William, who was still asleep. “Okay, but I need to clean myself up.”
“No, it’s fine. You are beautiful first thing in the morning,” he said. “Just a few moments.”
She smiled. “All right.”
He gestured down the hall. She stepped into the hallway, cinching her robe tighter. Her bare feet felt suddenly lewd, painted toenails and all. She stifled a shiver of revulsion. If playing up to him was a way to bide their time until they could escape, so be it. But it wasn’t going to be easy.
He led her down the hall. Took a key ring out of his pocket. Motioned for the two guards to leave them alone.
Her eyes locked on the keys.
When the door opened she almost laughed. This was the inner sanctum, El Varón’s bedroom, even more hideous and garish than she could have imagined. The floor was covered in thick red carpet and the walls were painted with murals—jungle scenes, with a jaguar perched atop an ecstatic naked woman, a vibrant quetzal, and an Aztec pyramid towering above the trees. Another of the ubiquitous closed-circuit TVs sat atop a cabinet, showing rotating images of the compound’s exterior. And the bed was a monstrosity of gold and mahogany, with golden jaguar heads on the bedposts and a bedspread that seemed to be—and most likely was—made of exotic animal pelts. An elevated bathtub made of gold and marble and surrounded by plants took up the far corner.
And a handgun—gold plated—sat on his dresser amid bottles of cologne.
“You like it, yes?” he asked.
It took every bit of acting ability for Ellen to keep her composure. She had sold a few pieces of her grandmother’s gold to buy Christmas presents one difficult year when Steve had been in Iraq. And she’d thought her little kept-woman, birdcage room had been gaudy with its faucets and bedposts. But the gold in this room alone was probably worth more than Blackwater’s entire yearly budget. “It’s very nice,” she said, praying she wouldn’t break into laughter.
He seemed ready to burst. “Tonight is a very special night, Ellen. And I want to share it with you. I am having some very good friends and business associates over for a small fiesta and I want them to meet you. To introduce them to you so they can see how beautiful you are.”
“That sounds nice,” she said. “I like parties.”
“There are certain times when the stars are in the right places in the sky—when they come together in the proper patterns to make magic.”
His eyes were so wide, his awful smile so big, she wondered if he’d been snorting his product. And what the hell was he talking about with making magic? It sounded like Lily and Crawford’s brand of voodoo. And the Brotherhood’s. She wanted nothing to do with any of it.
“Some of this magic can only be done by a man and a woman. There is magic between the sexes that is much more powerful than a man or woman can achieve alone.” He took off his jacket and hung it on a hook by the door. Ellen heard the metallic ching of his key ring.
Noted.
He held out his hand, indicating that she should sit on the bed. She pulled her robe tightly around her and sat. She didn’t know what she would do if he tried to seduce her. Fight him off? Scream?
He stood in front of her, looking down, his eyes softening. “You are very special to me, Ellen. Foolish people doubt the Old Gods of my people, but I prayed to them to bring a woman of power to me. To be a companion for me, but also to share with me in my work. And they accepted my sacrifices, and brought you here.”
You brought me here, you fucker.
And then he bent down.
Oh, no, please, Jesus, don’t let him—
He knelt. And took her hand into both of his soft, long-fingered, delicate hands. “Ellen, I have the whole world to offer to you. Not just here, but all the places we can travel together. Paris, Rio, Havana. Egypt, even. You will be my queen, my Isis.” He brought her hand up to his lips. They were hot as they settled wetly on the back of her hand.
She laughed, a choking cough, and caught it. Then the laugh came out through her nose, and she had to bring her hands to cover her face.
El Varón dropped her hand and drew back.
She took a deep breath. Keep it together. Then wiped at her eyes. Faked a sob. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I wasn’t expecting this.” Fake it until you make it, girl. You might not have gotten a lead role in the high school play, but you need to work it like a pro.
It worked. His smile was tinged with pathos, and she wanted to smack it off his face. “You are the only woman in the world I would ever offer this to. And together”—he closed his eyes—“we will do things that will make the gods jealous.”
She wiped at her eyes. “I’m sorry, but I need to use the restroom for a moment.”
“Of course, Ellen.” He motioned across the room. “Then we will have breakfast together. I think champagne will make a good start to our special day.”
She closed the door and went immediately for the medicine cabinet, turning on the water to cover any noise. As expected, the inside was full of pill bottles. She examined them, but of course they were in Spanish. She found two bottles that had stickers on them with drawings of a half-closed eye and a car smacking into a wall. Universal code for May cause sleepiness/Do not operate heavy machinery. She poured a few pills from each bottle into her hand and dropped them into her robe pocket. She put the bottles back and quietly closed the cabinet door.
She looked around. More gold, from the faucets to the mirror, the curtain hooks, and even the sink drain. The fancy gold straight razor on the sink caught her eye. It would make a good weapon, but stealing that would be too obvious. Next to it was a bottle of hand cream and a collection of nail files and a cuticle pusher. She opened the shower and saw a clod of hair stuck to the gold drain and almost gagged.
Hurry.
She flushed the toilet and washed her face. When she stepped back into the room El Varón had put on his jacket and was standing by the door. Ellen faked a smile, tilted her head demurely, and said, “That champagne sounds wonderful.”
The party preparations got under way in the afternoon. The maids and cooks were rushing around madly, chopping vegetables and stirring enormous pots. Men she didn’t recognize showed up in trucks with boxes of liquor, crates of squawking chickens, and enormous sides of beef. A half dozen younger men in black sweat suits set up a PA system and a large stage near the pool.
“This is crazy,” William said. He had just gotten out of the pool and was dripping next to her. She saw the far-off look in his eyes and whispered to him. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
William glanced around to make sure no one was listening and put on his glasses. “It looks like there’s going to be a lot of people here. That means he won’t be able to follow us around all night.”
Ellen nodded. “He’ll be distracted. Hopefully drunk.” And ready for whatever special things he had planned for her, unfortunately. But there was no need to burden William with that now. “So let’s you and me wait for the right opportunity. If we can get ahold of someone’s keys, we can get the hell away from this crazy freak show.”
William grinned, but it quickly faded. “Mom, I think there’s something wrong with Ray. Like he’s really sick.”
Ray. She’d been trying not to think about him. With El Varón basically proposing to her and probably getting sexed up about his magical evening ahead, it made her sick to think about Ray. And how sorry she was going to be for what might happen in the hours ahead when a drunk El Varón dragged her back to that horrible bedroom. She ruffled William’s wet hair. “He’s strong, William. You know that. He’ll be okay. And when we get out of here, we’re going to find him. And we’ll be together again. Just the three of us.”
William nodded, but he didn’t seem to believe her.
“Oh, God,” William whispered. He walked in the bedroom and shut the door. “I had to stop playing Xbox. There’s a band outside, practicing.”
Ellen rolled her eyes. “Let me guess. More of those songs about stupid drug dealers and lopping off people’s heads. And drinking tequila with their dozen girlfriends. Am I right?”
William pretended to stick his finger down his throat. “The songs are about El Varón. Can you believe it?”
“Unfortunately, yes. I can.”
“Mom, can we please go somewhere we can never hear an accordion again? For the rest of our lives?”
Ellen laughed. “Amen to that, little man.”
Someone knocked on the door. William stepped behind the bed. “Come in,” Ellen said.
It was Costanza, carrying a bundle of clothes. “For you, Señora,” she said quietly. She wouldn’t make eye contact. “He wants you to wear this tonight.”
Ellen took the clothing and placed it on the bed. “Thank you, Costanza.”
The tiny woman caught her eye and raised her bony finger to her lips. Then she pointed at the clothes, turned, and left the room. When the door closed, Ellen picked up the folded garment. It unrolled. A gown. A thin, plain white gown made out of a rough fabric.
Something fluttered to the floor.
“Mom—” William said, pointing, but Ellen shushed him with a quick glare.
She picked up the piece of paper.
He listens everywhere. Please put this down toilet when you are finished. He wants you to be his bride tonight. If you are going away you need to go tonight or he will hurt you because he is a nagual and not a man. I will pray for you and your son.
“Let me see it,” William whispered.
Ellen led him into the bathroom, closed the door, and turned on the shower and the sink faucet full blast. She gave William the note. There was no sense in hiding anything from him anymore. The kid was handling all of this much better than she was. He blanched, then leaned close and whispered in her ear.
“I know what that is now,” he said. His voice was quavering. “There’s a book on the shelf downstairs. It’s in Spanish but I can read most of it. It’s about monsters and mythology and stuff. Mayan mythology.”
She nodded.
“Naguales are like witches. But they can change shape. Like into animals. Or ghosts. Or balls of light.”
Ellen pulled her ear away and looked at him. The boy was terrified. She wanted to tell him that was crazy. Silly superstitious stories. But Ray had told her about what had happened that night in Blackwater, and she knew that those silly superstitious stories could be real. William had seen too much already in his short years—things that would drive many adults to madness. Things that were supposed to be impossible—that should be impossible. Like balls of light that hid terrible things within them.
She leaned in and whispered, “He’s not laying a finger on me. Or you.” She held his head in her hands. He was such a kid still, with his crazy hair and dirty eyeglasses. Just a kid, and burdened with such ugly, horrifying memories. How did he manage it? How long could he manage it? She looked at him and mouthed the words I love you.
His eyes welled up, and he fell into her, sobbing. His body shook against hers, and the tears soaked into her shirt. Her tears followed, dropping on his head, as she let go of all the pent-up fear. They both sobbed beneath the sound of running water until there was nothing left.
When it was all over, she tore up the note into tiny pieces and flushed them away.