Chapter Six

 

Reality was crumbling around them. Johnny couldn’t see anything, but he felt and heard great chunks breaking away and sliding into the void. Instinctively, he knew that his own flesh would soon be in danger. Gripping his sister’s hand more tightly, he moved forward. It was like pressing against a sheet of plastic, a membrane that gave slightly but wouldn’t allow them through. Johnny was nothing if not stubborn, though. He strained with every ounce of will he possessed. The membrane stretched further and further. He could feel Carol shoving against it as well. Together they advanced through the howling dissolution till the barrier gave way and, with a sudden snapping sensation, they tumbled through.

Johnny rose to his feet, dusting himself off. Lifting his eyes, he took in the strange panorama. Behind him, stretching away in all directions, was a curtain of mist that seemed to curve slightly in the distance. The ground he stood on was covered with glittering black sand of apparently painfully rough texture, to judge from the way Carol sat cursing and picking bits of it out of her palms. Ahead of them, perhaps a hundred yards away, a river flowed darkly. It’s freaking huge, Johnny thought. Can’t even see the other shore.

“Johnny,” Carol asked, rising to her feet at last, “where are the stars?”

Looking up, Johnny was surprised to find, not the overhanging rock of an enormous cavern, but an empty sky that glowed with gloomy grayness. There was no visible sun, moon or stars. From time to time strange black forms were silhouetted against the gloaming, too far away to distinguish clearly.

“Okay, this is officially freaking me out,” he muttered. He turned back to the wall of mist. It stretched all the way up into the weird sky, blending into the gray expanse. Reaching out a hand, he probed the foggy barrier. It was resilient to the touch, pushing back at him. “I’m guessing this is the membrane we just came through.”

“Listen,” his sister whispered. From within the mist came unearthly sounds: deep roars, rattling hisses, insane chattering.

“Okay,” Johnny breathed with forced humor. “Time to look for another way out of here. Maybe the river?”

Glancing about, Carol groaned. “There’s nothing here. No trees, no rocks. Nothing. How are we supposed to cross it, swim?”

A low, growling voice chuckled. “I wouldn’t recommend it, dear. You’d drown before you got to the other side.”

Johnny turned and almost fainted. A huge dog was standing beside him, its massive head on a level with that of a tall man. Black lips curled back in a horrifying grin that revealed long, pointed teeth. The creature’s blunt snout crinkled up as it smiled, and its blue eyes radiated human-like intelligence. Short pointed ears twitched as the twins took several steps back. Johnny saw that the left one was ragged, as if chewed on in a fight. The hellhound eased its wrinkled bulk back onto its haunches, perhaps trying to make them feel less threatened. Its short, reddish fur, Johnny noted, was crisscrossed with scars.

“Of course, drowning would be the least of your worries,” it continued, its mouth impossibly forming English words. “There are all sorts of hideous beasts inhabiting the Chignahuapan. Trust me when I say that you would not want to face them alone.”

Carol was the one who finally spoke, her voice trembling. “As opposed to facing them with…you?”

The dog cocked its head oddly. “Precisely. Didn’t the tzapame tell you about me?”

Johnny cleared his throat. “Well, Pingo did mention a dog…”

The hellhound’s eyes narrowed. “Pingo, eh? Leave it to that little fool to muddle such an essential bit of information. A quick introduction then. I am Xolotl. Let me say that slowly: show-low-tull. Master of Lightning, Lord of the West, Guardian of the Sun. A shapeshifter, somewhat like the two of you.”

“Are you…” stammered Carol “…are you a god?”

Xolotl laughed, a low, pleasant rumble. “No, girl. Not a god. The tonal of a god, his beastly side. The part of him able to pad through the darkness and stop the slimy things that crave destruction. I’ve been sent to give you aid, to the degree that I can.”

His heart still pounding in fear of the huge dog, Johnny took a tentative step forward. “Why?”

“Pardon me?”

“Why give us aid? I mean, we’re here to get our mom back. I don’t understand why some mysterious god’s animal soul would be interested in that. Don’t you guys have like more important stuff to worry about?”

Xolotl lowered its head to look more fully into Johnny’s eyes. “Juan Ángel Garza, I assure you that there is presently nothing more important than this quest of yours. Though, hrm, I don’t quite remember why.”

“You don’t,” Johnny tried to sound as cold as possible, “remember? What the heck does that mean?”

“Come, boy. Tell me it’s easy for you to recall your human life when you’re in jaguar form. Some things are forgotten. That’s the price we pay for this ability. What I do know is that you are both very special. Twin naguales are very rare, and very sought after. Different factions of extremely powerful beings will want to discover whether you possess xoxal.”

“Show shawl? What’s that?” Carol asked.

“Savage magic. A special sort of spiritual energy that, very infrequently, twin shapeshifters are able to wield. Being so rare, it is little understood. The ancients used to say that xoxal was the ultimate power to create or destroy, to heal or obliterate. Among other things this savage magic should allow you to transform into virtually any animal.”

“Whoa. That would rock.” Johnny imagined shifting into a cheetah. Or a bear.

Xolotl closed its eyes and gave a shudder. “I’m afraid it’s been quite some time since I last visited the realm of men. It sounds as if you’re speaking English, but I’m not always certain what you mean.”

“He means that it would be great,” Carol put in. Johnny snorted, half in irritation, half in amusement. His heart rate had returned to normal. The hellhound, though imposing, no longer made him want to run away in fear.

“So, how do we know if we’ve got, uh, xoxal?”

“Unfortunately, it has been centuries since the last pair of xoxal-gifted naguales walked the earth. They, hrm, lost their lives fighting a great evil, so their lore wasn’t passed down to anyone else. Besides, I seem to recall that the power is different for each set of twins, so I don’t know that it would be of particular use to know what previous naguales had done to trigger their abilities.”

“Wow,” Johnny muttered snarkily. “That’s really helpful.”

Xolotl regarded him intently and rose to all fours. Oh, crap, now I’ve made him mad! I’ve got to stop being such a jerk all the time. Especially to huge freaking hellhounds.

“I understand your confusion and desperation.” The supernatural beast’s features softened as if in compassion. “It is difficult to lose someone you love, to search for them in frightening places, and to have to find within yourself the strength to overcome obstacles that ought to destroy you. You have both shown great courage by simply coming this far. You’ve faced your true natures without falling to pieces. I admire that tenacity. Cling to your stubbornness—you will need it direly.”

Johnny glanced at Carol pointedly. They both had a long history of being hard-headed, so no problem there.

“Pingo, I hope, explained that you travel by the Black Road. Very few souls leave the realm of men by this route any longer, and its guardians have grown restless and hungrier for cruelty than ever before. But if you are to rescue your mother and thereby stop the dark forces that even now rally against your world, you will have to face them. I will be your guide, so far as I can. What little I know, I will teach you. In the end, however, you two will face your mother’s captor alone. To be victorious, you must be true to who you are.”

Gah. More cryptic garbage . But a part of Johnny felt energized by Xolotl’s words. He liked challenges, liked competing. If I can do something, I can do it really well. Always have been able to. So I’ll get this magic stuff down in time to kick some underworld butt. I’m sure of it.

“Okay, then.” Carol nodded, her lower lip trembling just a little. “So I’m guessing our first obstacle is getting around that ginormous river.”

“Yes, Carolina. Luckily for you, no skill of yours is required this time around. All you need to do is to climb upon my back and grab a fold of skin. Don’t worry about hurting me, you can’t. Come on, now.”

What the heck. Might as well. After securing his clay water jug to a belt loop with the leather thong, Johnny gripped Xolotl’s skin and hauled himself up. The fur was surprisingly soft. Reaching his hand down to his sister, he laughed. “Better than riding a pony, Carol. I don’t think you’ll fall off this time.”

Her face red, Carol ignored his hand and clambered up on her own. “Don’t start with me, Johnny, or I’ll tell Xolotl that you’re not a dog person.”

The hound’s mirth rumbled beneath their legs. “This is good. Humor is good. Joy is better, but humor will do for now.”

With a bound he set off. The water was dark, and Johnny figured that meant it was very deep. This is no ordinary river. We’re in Mictlan now. It might go on forever.

As if reading his mind Xolotl growled a warning. “Don’t let go of me, not for a second. There’s no retrieving you if you fall. The depths of Chignahuapan are a dark corner of the universe that not even I dare explore.”

“Do you always swim people across?”

“People, never. You’re the only living humans to ever set foot in this place. I’ve ferried gods across, however, and a soul or two. The souls that once traveled this path to Beyond were buried with dogs, and the shades of those loyal beasts would bear their masters across. But those days are long past.”

The hellhound plunged into the inky waters, its legs pedaling beneath them. The light currents tugged coldly at the twins’ calves. Carol’s teeth chattered. Like mom, she can’t stand the cold. An image flashed through his mind: his mother, wrapped in a blanket, sitting at her worktable at 2am. The memory made his chest ache, but there was nothing much to distract him. Above them the gray sky stretched on forever, and on all sides the black waters steadily flowed. The twins and their guide advanced quickly, but the river seemed endless. That got Johnny thinking about the geography of the Underworld.

“So, Xolotl. What would’ve happened if we had, I don’t know, decided not to cross the river? If we just started walking along that black sand?”

“You would eventually circle back to where you started. Several years from now.”

“What about crossing back through the, uh, curtain?”

“You would be as lost as if you had tied a stone round your neck and dropped into the river. Like most hells, Mictlan is circular. The only way out is to head toward the center.”

Carol shivered violently. “Wait, ‘most hells’? You mean there’s more than one?”

“Yes, Carolina. But let’s focus on this one, shall we?”

What felt like hours passed in relative silence, empty except for the splashing of water and Carol’s steady breathing. But the quiet wasn’t so bad. It was the sitting still that was driving Johnny crazy. He hated having nothing to do. Like Mom, he mused. We both have to be active or we get antsy. Dad used to say we suffered from ADHD.

He was about to make some sort of clever quip when something grabbed his foot and pulled.

“Uh, Xolotl? There’s something under…”

It came again. This time, Johnny almost lost his balance. Carol twisted around, her eyes wide. “Put your arms around my waist!”

“What? No! I’ve got a good…”

A violent tug pulled his sneaker from his left foot.

“What the…Something just stole my damn tennis shoe!”

“Johnny, put your arms around me, now!”

An old anger rushed up within him. “Don’t tell me what to do, Carol. You’re not my mom. You’re not older than me. I don’t have to listen to…”

Now he felt the slimy thing curl around his foot, tightening like a noose. He tried to kick himself free.

“Crap! It’s got me!”

“¡Juan Ángel Garza,” Carol shouted, “que me abraces ya!”

Grumbling but afraid, he did as Carol said, conditioned by years of his mother’s shouted commands in Spanish. She leaned forward and wrapped her own arms tightly about Xolotl’s neck. “Uh, if it’s not too much to ask, could you swim faster, please?”

Snarling at some bone-white coils that broke the water beside them, the hellhound began to churn the water in earnest. The grip on Johnny’s foot was nearly unbearable.

“It won’t let go!”

One of the milky tentacles came closer, and Xolotl snapped its jaws on the creature, shaking it mercilessly. Johnny’s foot was released.

“Okay, I’m okay!”

Xolotl, perhaps drawing on deep reserves of energy, began to rocket across the water. The far shoreline was now visible, a broken horizon of jagged rock.  After a few minutes of sustained speed, the hellhound slowed. Carol’s death grip on the beast’s neck slackened, and Johnny sat up straighter, seizing a fold of Xolotl’s skin as he let go of his sister.

“I believe the danger has passed.” The hellhound turned its head and examined them with one wise blue eye.

“Leaving me with just one shoe,” Johnny muttered.

“You’ll not be needing shoes, for the most part.”

“Uh, do you see all those sharp rocks over there? You planning to let me ride your back all the way to the Lord and Lady of the Dead or whatever?”

Xolotl sighed heavily, causing the twins to shift. “You’re naguales. Your journey will largely be made in animal form.”

“But we can’t even control it!”

“You’ll have to learn.”

Carol turned and looked at him. Her eyes were full of tears. “You have trust me, Johnny. If I tell you to do something, you’ve got to just do it.”

“What?” Drama queen. Like always.

“You could have died! That thing might’ve pulled you into the river, and you’d sink and keep on sinking, and what would I do then, huh?”

She turned her back on him, stifling a sob.

The long silence that followed was suddenly interrupted by Xolotl’s rumbling, growly voice. “After that attack, you’re probably wondering why such a place as this even exists. What sort of a god would put souls through such torture just to move Beyond?”

Several snide comments ran through Johnny’s mind, but he kept his mouth shut and listened.

“From the very beginning, the oldest gods appointed a pair of brothers to oversee the development of life on your world, to ensure the balance of growth and decay, creation and destruction, life and death. Twins. They’ve had many names, but the Aztecs called them Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca. Well, as is sadly often the case, one brother’s envy of the other destroyed their friendship. Tezcatlipoca, hating the joy that creation brought Quetzalcoatl, began to undermine or outright destroy those creations, upsetting the balance. Time and again he wiped out life on earth. Quetzalcoatl, undaunted, would simply begin again.

“Finally, human beings came into existence and Tezcatlipoca, for some reason, decided to twist humanity to his purposes instead of obliterating it. One of the tools he used was fear, especially fear of death. But humans needed something tangible to fear, so the Lord of Chaos went to his brother the Lord of Creation and proposed a deal: he would not destroy man as long as he could create a way station for their souls, a stopover on their journey beyond all gods’ reach. Quetzalcoatl agreed, because he believed people’s faith and hope would be more powerful than their fear of the Underworld and its trials.”

Johnny leaned back a little, reflecting on the strange story. Is that why there’s evil in the world? Because one brother is crazy jealous of his twin?

Carol cleared her throat and reached up to rub Xolotl between the ears. “You’re his tonal, aren’t you? Quetzalcoatl’s.”

The hellhound said nothing for the space of several seconds, then murmured, “Yes.”

She doesn’t get it, though. She’s all relieved and teary-eyed. But if Xolotl, Quetzalcoatl’s animal self, is helping us, then that probably means Tezca-whatever has got mom. Which means we’re stuck in the middle of the oldest family feud in the universe.

Wonderful.