So that was it. In the great rematch between the Hero Twins and the Death Lords, the Death Lords won. No bones about it.
“Thanks for coming,” said Max to Ted Williams. He couldn’t meet the great man’s eyes.
“Our pleasure. We’ll be off now, if you don’t need us anymore.”
Max nodded. “No sense in us all getting sacrificed.”
Ted Williams rubbed his neck. “We can stick around if you want us to. We’re dead anyway, so it makes no difference.”
“You’ve done more than enough,” said Max.
“Wish we could’ve got a win for you.”
“Me too,” said Lola.
Ted Williams smiled at her ruefully. “You know what they say about the Red Sox?”
Lola rolled her eyes. “It’s not about winning, it’s about believing.”
“Yes,” said Ted Williams. He looked embarrassed. “Good-bye, then.”
“Good-bye,” said Max.
Lola said nothing.
“Keep believing,” called Ted Williams as he and the rest of the greatest players in Red Sox history vanished back into the mist.
Ah Pukuh’s voice came over the loudspeaker.
“Ladies and gentlemen, zombies and ghouls, we hope you enjoyed tonight’s game. The winners were, of course, the Death Lords, and the losers were all the rest of you. There will be a brief interlude while we set up for the human sacrifice portion of the program. Please do not attempt to leave the ballpark as all gates have been locked.”
Max wanted to go and say good-bye to his family, but the field was ringed by Ah Pukuh’s heavies, and they weren’t letting anyone go anywhere. He could see his mother crying hysterically and his father arguing with a security guard. Uncle Ted and Zia were calling out to Lola. All over the stands, people were screaming and crying, and fighting to get out.
The noise was like hell on earth.
Max sat in silence with Lola and Lord 6-Dog in the dugout.
He was almost glad when the bogus Plague Rats launched into another set.
All was hustle and bustle on the field as Ah Pukuh’s lackeys assembled a stage under the Green Monster. On it they placed a huge throne swathed in jaguar fabrics and a long, low table.
Next, a massive stone altar was rolled in and set in the middle of the field.
A procession of grim-looking priests, draped in black with matted hair and painted faces, circled the field, each swinging a large incense burner.
When the priests’ acrid smoke had dispersed, five monkey-faced monstrous little men paraded in, each carrying a Jaguar Stone on a cushion. They arranged the five Jaguar Stones on the table below the throne and sat in front of them to guard them.
Another squad of priests entered, this time carrying blue paint, knives, and special bowls to catch the blood.
Max felt sick to his stomach.
“We could run,” he said.
“Where to?” said Lola.
“Do you think it will hurt?”
“Maybe not,” she said. “Those obsidian knives are very sharp.” They watched for a moment as the priests set out their equipment. She took his hand. “Hey, Hoop, do you remember the first time we met? Landa was chasing you, and I told you to follow me to the Blue Pool and we escaped down the underground river?”
Max nodded.
“I wanted to tell you that I’ve always regretted that. I should have taken you back to your uncle’s house. Then maybe you’d never have gotten involved in any of this.”
“And I wouldn’t have gotten to know you. And you wouldn’t have found your parents. And we wouldn’t be cousins. It all happened for a reason. You can’t go back.”
Lola did a double take. “You’re sounding a bit like Lord 6-Dog.”
Max laughed. “And what an honor to meet an ancient Maya king. Shame I’ll never get to tell my children about it.”
“This wasn’t your world. You’re not Maya. You shouldn’t be here. You don’t deserve any of this. I’m so sorry.”
“You can’t say that,” Max pointed out. “The Death Lords chose me because I look like my ancestor, the Spanish conquistador Rodrigo Pizarro. They chose you because you look like your ancestor Princess Inez. They needed both of us to get their hands on the Yellow Jaguar. There was nothing we could have done to stop this from happening.”
Lola was staring at him.
“What? What’s the matter?”
“Really, Hoop? You’re not going to say that it’s not fair?”
“That used to be my catchphrase, didn’t it? But I’ve learned a lot from you, Monkey Girl. And I get that life isn’t ever fair. It’s a challenge. A different challenge for everyone. And it’s how we react to that challenge that says who we are.”
“I think I’ve fainted,” said Lola. “I’m hallucinating. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Are you sure you’re Hoop? You’re not some actor he paid to stand in for him?”
“I wish I was an actor. Because this is how it ends. We get sacrificed and Ah Pukuh gets to boast that he beat the Hero Twins and the Red Sox.”
“In a Yankees uniform,” added Lola.
“Stop it,” said Max.
Lola groaned. “I kind of wish they’d get on with it. This waiting is torture, too.”
“So what do you think Ah Pukuh will do next?” asked Max. “He’s not going to settle for trophies on the mantelpiece. He’s got the attention of the world and he’s got the Jaguar Stones.”
“You don’t need Jaguar Stones to be unthinkably evil,” said Lola, looking at the ground. A moment later, her head popped up excitedly. “That’s it!” she said. “You don’t need Jaguar Stones!”
Max shook his head. “Say what? We’ve been risking our lives to track down Jaguar Stones and—not very successfully—keep them out of the hands of the bad guys. Now you tell me it’s not about them?”
“Yes! You know how the Maya don’t look at things as black-and-white? Nothing is all good or all bad. Well, it’s the same with the Jaguar Stones. They’re not innately good or bad. They simply channel the powers of the king. It’s all about how you look at it.”
“I haven’t got a clue what you’re talking about.” Max was too freaked out to follow her philosophical musings. He couldn’t take his eyes off the obsidian blade that awaited him on the altar.
Time was moving far too quickly now.
The band stopped, the trumpeters played their conch shell fanfare, and Ah Pukuh swaggered onto the stage in a black sequined tuxedo jacket. This time, his headdress was made of three live quetzal birds, the most endangered creatures of the cloud forest, bound cruelly together chest to chest, so that their beautiful, long, iridescent tail feathers sprayed out like a waterfall over Ah Pukuh’s fat head. His blotchy, pox-marked face was plastered in thick white makeup, his eyes were daubed in black, and his mouth was a red slash.
He looked repulsive, ridiculous, insane. But Max felt only fear at what this maniac was about to do.
Ah Pukuh picked up the microphone.
His ugly face was broadcast on the big screen.
“As Venus, the morning star, rises in the sky and heralds the start of a war that will never end, I want to thank the Hero Twins for ushering in my rule. You saw how I crushed them, outwitted them, broke them … and I will do the same to every living soul in Middleworld. So look your last at your loved ones, kiss your children good-bye. It’s time to get real, Middleworld. You are entering the pain zone. And you have only yourselves to blame.
His headdress was made of three live quetzal birds.
“When I first came here, I wooed you with hurricanes, floods, and epidemics. Instead of paying me tribute, you clubbed together and helped each other. That disgusting behavior will not go unpunished. It’s payback time. We’re playing by my rules now. And I am about to introduce you to the five Jaguar Stones that will make you wish you had never been born. Individually, they control time, weather, death, blood, and fertility. Together they form a Five-Headed Jaguar that will control every aspect of your miserable lives until the day I end them.
“As soon as we have dispatched the Hero Twins, symbols of all that is good, we can get on with my new age of all that is bad!” Ah Pukuh’s minions applauded, he posed for some press photographs with a baseball bat, and then he kicked the photographers off the stage. “Sacrifice time!” he bellowed.
Lord 6-Dog, Max, and Lola were pulled to their feet.
A minion with a clipboard dashed over to babble in Ah Pukuh’s ear. His voice carried over the war god’s microphone.
“We need to spare the monkey, your lordship. Research has shown that many humans prefer animals to other humans.”
“Why do I care about research anymore? I’m about to kill my entire demographic.”
“Quite so, Lord Ah Pukuh. But it was my understanding that you intend to do it as slowly and as painfully as possible. If we are to sustain the fear factor without jeopardizing our broadcasting coverage, we need to spare the monkey.” Lord 6-Dog was thrown back, while Max and Lola were dragged forward to the stage.
“Here they are,” boomed Ah Pukuh, “the famous Hero Twins, the last hope of Middleworld. Now watch, all of you here tonight, and”—he smiled into the TV camera—“all you viewers at home, and see how easily their little bones are broken, and how quickly their little hearts stop beating.”
As if to dramatize his words, a marching band of drummers began to tap out a slow roll like a fragile heartbeat.
Chan Kan walked onto the field. He looked very different from the tired, broken, almost blind old man who had thrown himself into Xibalba to save Max and Lola. This Chan Kan walked tall in his flowing white robes, his long white hair streaming behind him, his sharp brown eyes taking in every detail of the stadium and the audience and the sacrifice setup. Few people looked back at him, as most were more interested in the creature he led in on a leather leash, a cross between a giant chicken and a Tyrannosaurus rex.
Fenway shook at the creature’s footfalls.
“Behold the Chee Ken of Death,” said Ah Pukuh, “the Fowl of Fear, the scourge of Xibalba. With its curved beak of doom, it will now peck out the hearts of these criminals.”
The crowd gasped to see the twenty-foot chicken.
“What’s happened to Thunderclaw?” asked Max. “I thought he was on our side. How did he get so big?”
Lola was staring at the chicken’s handler.
Chan Kan rolled his eyes at her to indicate that a guard was right behind him with a blade in his back. Then he stared at her meaningfully. He seemed to be pushing out his chest.
Eventually, she saw what he wanted her to see: he was wearing a pumpkin seed necklace. They exchanged a little nod.
A smile twitched on Lola’s lips.
“I saw that,” whispered Max. “Please don’t tell me you’ve had an idea.”
“I’ve had an idea,” Lola whispered back.
“Whatever it is, forget it,” Max begged her. “Please don’t make this harder than it has to be. Let’s just give up and be sacrificed. I want to get it over with. We’ve lost, Monkey Girl. Accept it. If they don’t kill us soon, I will literally die of terror.”
“Pull yourself together, Hoop. We will die as we lived, as Hero Twins.”
Max looked at her strangely. She was talking very loudly, as if she wanted the whole crowd to hear.
“Not me,” he said. “I’m done.”
Lola gave him a little wink. “It’s not the winning, it’s the believing, remember?”
She began to fight back against the guards who held her. “If I am to die,” she called up to Ah Pukuh, “I demand the right to make a speech.”
Ah Pukuh looked at the nearest producer for advice. The producer nodded furiously and encouraged the cameramen to get close-ups of this cute Maya girl. A makeup artist rushed over to dab her with powder and fix her hair. Someone put a mic in her hand.
She took a moment to look around the stadium, meeting the eyes of everyone who had believed in her. Then she began to speak: “Look at this creature,” she said, pointing at Thunderclaw, “and what do you see? A monster?” The crowd shouted their agreement. “Well, I’ll tell you what I see. I see my old friend, Thunderclaw. I knew him when he was just a little chicken. I saved him from the cooking pot more than once. I don’t know what they have done to him in Xibalba to change his appearance so much. But I do know that he is not the Fowl of Fear. He is the Fowl of Friendship.”
Thunderclaw regarded her lovingly. He seemed to be shrinking.
“So now, I want to ask the rest of you who’ve come here from Xibalba: Are you really on Ah Pukuh’s team? Or are you just misunderstood like Thunderclaw? Which team are you really on? Think carefully before you answer. Because it’s an absolute fact that good always wins. That’s just the law of the universe.
“No matter how hard you try to destroy Middleworld, there will always be a little seed of good that you can’t wipe out. And every day it will grow bigger and bigger, until one day it will find you and choke you like your own personal strangler fig.”
The TV camera zoomed in on a zombie shedding a tear of self-pity.
Ah Pukuh reached down to grab the mic, but Lola ducked out of his reach.
“And while we’re thinking about good and evil, let’s talk about the Jaguar Stones.” She pointed to the five stone jaguar heads that snarled in freeze-frame on the table. Every Maya head in the audience turned to look at them. “No matter what you’ve been told, they have no power over you. They’re not good or bad—they don’t control anything—they’re just symbols of kingship. And, apologies to you, Lord 6-Dog, but we all know what happened to the Maya kings. They got lazy, they got greedy, they got fat.” She pointed to Ah Pukuh, lolling in his throne. “Remind you of anyone?”
There were snickers in the crowd.
“When the Maya kings stopped pulling their weight, the Maya people walked away. And you can walk away right now. Yesterday, I saw the treasures of the Maya in the Peabody Museum, and I can tell you that they were not made by kings. They were made by people like you and me, people who honed their skills through training, and practice, and talent. Who do you think made the Jaguar Stones? It was a human sculptor, not a god. All Ah Pukuh knows how to do is steal, and cheat, and lie. He can’t build a pyramid, or weave a shawl, or paint a pot. He even needed human scribes and artists to set down his own story. Every single one of us is more powerful than he will ever be.
“So let’s tell Ah Pukuh that he has no power over us. That we don’t care how many Jaguar Stones he has, we will never pay tribute to him.” Lola was yelling now. “He can do nothing if we choose to ignore him. That’s why he tried to steal Great Sun’s media presence. Why he built a spaceship. Why he organized this game. He’s a spoiled child who wants to be the center of attention. So let’s show him and his bullying friends that we’re not interested anymore. They belong to our past, not to our future. It is time for the good guys to stand up together and turn their backs on the oppressors. It is time for us to say NO MORE!”
And they did.
First it was the Maya people in the crowd, led by Chan Kan, who got to their feet. Then Lady Coco stood up and aimed her posterior at the Death Lords. Then the Hero Twins fans and all the other spectators, the poncho family, eventually even the visiting team’s supporters from Xibalba. One by one, every single person in Fenway Park, living and dead, rose up and turned their backs and yelled “no more.” At home, they turned their backs to their televisions and computer screens and tablets. The message was relayed around the world and picked up by everyone, Maya and non-Maya, who’d ever felt bullied, and cheated, and oppressed.
And that, it turned out, was pretty much all the people, everywhere.
Ah Pukuh didn’t have a leg to stand on. Literally. He stood up to protest but his shaking legs gave way beneath him and he sank down, weeping with self-pity.
Max ran to join Lola.
“You were amazing,” he said.
She grinned. “I was, wasn’t I? Look at the mighty Ah Pukuh now.”
The god of violent and unnatural death looked like a shriveled balloon. His makeup was running, his jacket was shedding sequins, his power was draining out of him. “What’s happening to me?” he asked the Head of Marketing, who had lost her platter in the melee and was now being carried on an old pizza box.
“It’s called losing brand loyalty,” she said. “Our target audience is moving on without us.”
“What will we do?”
“I vote we go back to Xibalba and play cards for the rest of eternity.”
“But what about my glorious rule? Middleworld is mine! I won the ball game!”
“No,” said the Head. “It isn’t, and you didn’t. PR is tricky. Mortals have a sense of right and wrong that’s not about keeping score. As I tried to explain to you when we started this campaign, it’s not enough to win the game. You have to win their stupid hearts as well.”
“Mortals are complicated. I hate them. Let’s grab the Jaguar Stones and get out of here.”
“Not so fast,” said Lucky, rapping Ah Pukuh’s greedy fingers. “Those Jaguar Stones belong to the Maya people, not to you.”
Oscar Poot carried over a cooler and a wad of bubble wrap.
“What do you think you’re doing?” snapped Ah Pukuh.
“I claim the Jaguar Stones for the living Maya,” said Oscar.
“Don’t you dare touch them!” Ah Pukuh went to pick up the Black Jaguar. “Come to daddy,” he said. The Jaguar Stone snarled and bit his hand.
Oscar Poot took the stone from him and stroked its head. It purred. “We will bring you home to San Xavier,” he said to it, “and put you on display where everyone can see you. You will inspire our people to new heights, you will embody their past, and you will remind them never to let anyone oppress them again.”
Gently, he picked up each stone in turn, wrapped it, and placed it in the cooler. If one of Ah Pukuh’s minions tried to stop him, the stones would snarl and bite. But, otherwise, they sat still and quiet, glowing slightly in the moonlight.
When all five stones were safely wrapped, Oscar locked the padlock on the cooler.
“This was not supposed to happen,” said Ah Pukuh as Fenway security slapped handcuffs on him. “I built my media platform. I tweeted. I blogged. I logged on. Middleworld was mine for the taking. Where did I go wrong?”
“You’re a bully,” said Lucky. “Bullies never have happy endings.”
“How dare you speak to me like that!” said Ah Pukuh, but no one was listening to him. Everyone was looking at his headdress, which was shivering pitifully.
“We must get those poor quetzals back to the cloud forest,” said Lord 6-Dog. “It is too cold for them here.”
“Shh, you said that out loud!” Lola warned him.
Lord 6-Dog smiled. “It has been such an extraordinary night that no one will blink at a talking howler monkey.”
He whistled, and his spider monkey helpers carried over a cage hastily made from a large wooden crate covered with batting fence. With a little help from the security guards, Lord 6-Dog and his spider monkeys were able to lift the shameful headdress into the crate and cut the shivering birds free from each other.
“Sorry, little brothers,” said the monkey king, “but this indignity will not last long.” He fastened the mesh tightly across the crate. “Now find somewhere warm and feed them insects and fruit,” he ordered the spider monkeys. “Animal rescue will come soon.”
“Why all the fuss?” snapped Ah Pukuh, who was still hanging around unsure of where to go, as he didn’t have any friends to tag along with. “Just strangle them and have done with it!”
The little birds squawked in fear.
Lord 6-Dog laid a protective hand on their crate. “They have been hunted almost to extinction; let us hope these gallant survivors find mates.”
The quetzals made little cooing noises that suggested they liked that idea.
For Ah Pukuh, it was the last straw. “You are all so smug, and I am sick to death of you! Prepare to die right now!” he screamed. “Death Lords, bring it on!”
The Death Lords lined up and concentrated very hard.
“Earthquakes!” commanded Ah Pukuh.
A small crack appeared in home plate.
“Floods!” commanded Ah Pukuh.
A small puddle formed at the base of the Green Monster.
“Diseases!” commanded Ah Pukuh.
A small spot appeared on Oscar Poot’s nose.
“That’s it?” screamed Ah Pukuh. “That’s all you’ve got?”
It was all they had.
As the moon shone down on Fenway Park, Ah Pukuh and his followers vanished back to Xibalba forever.
The audience turned to the front and cheered.
But one voice cheered louder than the rest.
“MAC! WOOHOO! MAC!” yelled a voice from the top of the Green Monster.
He looked up.
“Nasty!”
She waved. “I brought the band!”
The real Plague Rats took their places on top of the Green Monster and started a real concert.
“You’re late,” said Max when Nasty came down to talk to him.
“Yeah, my parents wouldn’t let me leave the house.”
“Why not?”
“They knew you were in town.”
“Oh.” Max had an unfortunate history with Nasty’s parents, right from when they’d first met in Spain. They were always walking in just as he was leaping out of a coffin or somebody’s stomach was exploding. Their dry cleaning bills had increased enormously since they’d met him.
“No,” said Nasty, “it’s great! They love you! You’ve won them over! They saw tonight’s game on TV and they’ve changed their minds about you completely! Look, they’re over there.”
Max looked. Nasty’s parents were chatting to his parents and waving to him enthusiastically. Lola and her parents stood nearby.
He nodded approvingly. “This is a good party,” he said in amazement.
“It’s the best party ever!” said Nasty.
It was dawn before Max and Lola finally escaped all the people who wanted to hug them, and congratulate them, and date them, and shake their hands, and nominate them for high office. Eventually, they snuck out, found a spot in the deserted concessions concourse, and choreographed a victory dance on the spot.
“Can you believe it?” said Max. “We’re alive!”
“It feels amazing,” said Lola.
Then she screamed as a massive bat jumped out in front of her. Wait, not a bat, a man in a cape. Antonio de Landa.
“Ugh! Go away! What do you want?”
“Señorita Lola, I want to talk to you.
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I want to say I am sorry, lo siento. For everything. Everything I have done is wrong.”
“I know. The police are looking for you. Why aren’t you in prison?”
“I will surrender when I have talked to you.”
“Save time. Do it now.”
“Por favor, Señorita Lola, have pity. I am a broken man. Even before Tzelek, my wife was a monster. I want you to know that we are parting. She will have no claim on my estate.”
“Why would I care?”
“Because I need to give this to you.” He handed her an envelope.
“What is it?”
“It is the deeds to my property in Spain and everything I own.”
Lola recoiled in disgust.
“There is nothing from Cahokia. That money has been returned.”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“Then think of it as a legacy for your people. My ancestors stole the treasures of the Maya and I wish to make reparation.”
“You should take it,” Max urged her. “His place in Spain is worth a fortune. You could do a lot of good with that money. Maybe even start that Maya school you’ve always talked about.”
Lola thought for a moment. “Okay, then. On behalf of the Maya people, I accept your gift. But only on the condition that you and your descendants never ever come near me, or talk to me, or try to contact me ever again.”
“As you wish, señorita. And now I will say adiós.”
“Where are you going?”
“To prison, I expect. I am handing myself in. Do you know where is the nearest police station?”
As Max considered the question, a police car cruised slowly by.
“Wait!” yelled Landa. “Wait for me!”
With a final flick of his cape, he took off after the police car to flag it down and begin his punishment for a lifetime of villainy.
And that should have been the end of the story of the city boy and the jungle girl who joined forces to save the world from the Maya Lords of Death. But life is never that simple, is it? Everybody’s stories are as tangled as vines in the rainforest. And, as Max and Lola were about to find out, the end of one story is often the beginning of another.