Dr. Delgado stood back, legs apart, hands in the air, and closed her eyes, as if she was concentrating hard.
Max ran back to the door and tried to open it. It was locked, as he knew it would be. He banged on it crazily with his fists, yelling: “Help! Help!”
“No one can help you now,” said Dr. Delgado. Her hair was standing on end and her frumpy suit was blowing as if she was in a wind machine.
Max jabbed at his phone—no service.
Dr. Delgado screamed and, as she did, a figure stepped out of her body. It was a man, Maya by the looks of him, with an enormous nose, straggly black hair, and a receding hairline. He looked angry. Very angry.
He pushed the empty shell of Dr. Delgado to one side with his foot.
Lord 6-Dog let out an agonizing moan. “Tzelek!”
“How did he get here?” asked Max.
“He’s supposed to be in Xibalba. Lord Kuy sent him back there. We saw it with our own eyes,” said Lola indignantly.
“You know what they say,” said Tzelek. “You can’t keep a good man down.”
“You are not a good man,” said Lady Coco.
Tzelek laughed. “Very true. That made it even easier. As soon as I landed back in Xibalba, I raced over to the portal at the Black Pyramid. There is so much evil in the air—mostly thanks to me and my efforts while I was alive—that the portal is always hazy. At this time of year, it’s positively sheer. With the help of a rogue site worker, I infused myself into a prized pot, jammed on the lid, and had myself shipped to the Peabody Museum. As soon as this Delgado woman opened the pot, I leapt into her brain! And here I am, fighting fit and ready to crush you, Brother. You’re going down.”
“That is against the rules,” complained Lady Coco. “You cannot jump between worlds. You must go back to Xibalba.”
“It is still the Day of the Dead, Mother,” said Tzelek. “And my brother is so dead.”
Lord 6-Dog staggered to his feet and pushed in front of the other three to protect them. “Swear not to harm my companions. This is not their battle.”
“I will do what I like,” said Tzelek.
Lola took a deep breath. “You are beaten already. Ah Pukuh and all your little friends have gone running home with their tails between their legs. Xibalba is finished. No one is interested.”
Tzelek focused on her with blazing eyes. “I don’t care about Ah Pukuh and his Death Lords. I am greater than all of them. Under my leadership, Xibalba could be invincible again. Ask Lord Kuy. He has the wisdom of an owl and the instincts of a vulture. And he has chosen to side with me. But first, I must settle an old score with my brother.”
Lady Coco glanced at Lord 6-Dog. The bleeding seemed to have stopped and he was looking stronger. “Why so much hatred, Tzelek?” she asked, playing for time.
“Why? Because it’s all I’ve got. 6-Dog had the life, the riches, the power that should have been mine. All I have is the hatred. And now I have this moment.” Tzelek looked scornfully at Lord 6-Dog. “Are you ready to die, mommy’s boy?”
Lady Coco put out an arm to stop Lord 6-Dog. “Ignore him, Son. The Day of the Dead will soon be over. He will have to return to Xibalba.”
“Then I must make haste,” said Lord 6-Dog, shaking her off. He assumed a fighting stance. “This battle has been a long time coming.”
“You think I would fight a monkey?” snorted Tzelek. “Reveal your true self, 6-Dog.”
“No!” screeched Lady Coco. “If you leave your host body, you cannot rejoin it.”
“So be it,” said Lord 6-Dog.
He stood as Dr. Delgado had, legs apart, arms raised, eyes closed in concentration. There was a terrible roar, a howler monkey roar, and out stepped Lord 6-Dog, most fierce, most handsome, most mighty king of the ancient Maya. The gash from the video camera still glistened on his forehead.
His howler monkey body slumped to the ground.
As the two (im)mortal enemies faced off on the bridge, Max, Lola, and Lady Coco dragged the lifeless forms of the monkey and the museum director off the walkway and back to the relative safety of the doorway. Then they stood at the end of the bridge to watch and hope.
The battle was on.
Lord 6-Dog flexed his arms like a body builder, reacquainting himself with the muscles and nerves and reflexes of his former self. He pulled an obsidian-bladed battle-ax from his belt and spun it in his hand, weighing the heft and balance.
Tzelek stood watching him, a sneer on his face, one hand behind his back.
“Where is thy weapon?” Lord 6-Dog asked him.
Tzelek produced from behind his back the scepter of the Jaguar Kings.
“Where didst thou get that?”
“It was a gift from my friend Kuy.”
“It belongs to the Jaguar Kings. It is their sacred scepter. Thou knowest thou canst not use it against me.”
“Watch me.”
Tzelek raised the scepter over his head, muttering incantations. Energy crackled in the air, gathering and swirling around the end of the leg-bone, meshing like cotton candy into a spinning ball of pure energy. With a flick of his wrist, Tzelek sent the ball hurtling toward Lord 6-Dog. “You have no idea how my powers have grown since last we battled, Brother.”
“And thou hast no idea how much I have learned from Ted Williams.”
Lord 6-Dog planted his legs and swung his battle-ax like a baseball bat. He hit the ball square on and sent it shooting straight back at Tzelek.
Tzelek ducked just in time and the ball went smashing through the wall of the globe with a force that sent shards of glass flying and shook the room so hard, it knocked Max and Lola off their feet.
Tzelek produced from behind his back the scepter of the Jaguar Kings.
Now it was Lord 6-Dog’s turn to sneer. “Surely, thou knowest that I cannot be harmed with the sacred scepter of my ancestors? Unlike thee, I am a Jaguar King. That bone comes from my flesh and blood.” He paused a moment to look Tzelek up and down. “Which is more than can be said of thee, thou cuckoo in my family’s nest.”
“How dare you?” thundered Tzelek. “My mother died on the day I was born. Your parents were the only parents I ever knew.”
“What a pity, then, thou didst repay their kindnesses by murdering my father.”
“I did it because he favored you. He always favored you.”
“Perhaps, because I never tried to murder him.”
“You smug piece of dirt!”
“I speak only the truth. I was the legal heir. The blood of the Jaguar Kings flows through my veins.”
“Why is your blood any better than mine?”
“My father was a king. My mother was a queen.”
“And didn’t you just love to remind me of that every day of our childhood? It was you who turned me to evil, 6-Dog. You and your constant jibes. I took my burning rage and I poured it on your family’s happiness, like a vat of boiling oil. And when I had killed your father, I set out to acquire the power and wealth that had been denied me. I have worked my way through the echelons of evil to become the baddest bad guy standing. There is none more powerful than me. I am the inheritor of the universe. So tremble before me, 6-Dog, for today I begin my reign.”
“Thou didst always talk too much. Put down the scepter and I will put down my ax. Let us fight, man to man.” Lord 6-Dog put up his fists.
“Don’t tell me what to do.” Tzelek was shaking with rage. “If I can’t use this butcher’s bone, neither can you.” He grabbed an end of the scepter with each hand and brought it down hard onto his knee to break it in two. But instead of breaking, the leg-bone bounced off his knee and out of his hands, and slid spinning across the glass bridge until it came to a stop at Lord 6-Dog’s feet.
Lord 6-Dog picked it up and, after a moment’s consideration, handed it to his mother. Then he kicked his own ax over the bridge.
“Are you mad?” asked Lady Coco.
“Tzelek is unarmed. There is no victory in winning without honor.”
“You will regret that,” muttered Lady Coco, shaking her head in despair. “You have been battling Tzelek for three bak’tuns, twelve hundred solar years. Have you learned nothing, Son?”
Tzelek listened jealously to this exchange. “You never called me ‘son,’ ” he said in a quiet voice. “I am glad you are here today to see me rip out the heart of your favorite, and eat it for my victory dinner.”
“Enough talk!” complained Lord 6-Dog. “Let us fight!”
“Very good,” agreed Tzelek. “Since you chose the weapons—or the lack of them—I choose the arena.”
“Are we not fighting here?”
“Here? In the confines of a room? This is hardly the site for the battle at the end of the world.”
“I am weary of thy games. Let us fight, man to man, here and now.”
“Look around you,” said Tzelek. “I did not choose this room at random. We are literally in the middle of the world. We are in the middle of Middleworld. And we are outside time and space.” Tzelek closed his eyes and stretched out his arms. Slowly at first, but faster and faster, the globe around them began to spin, and as it spun, it grew bigger and bigger until the walls melted away altogether. Max, Lola, and Lady Coco were still crouched, terrified, at the end of the glass bridge, but the bridge was no longer inside a building in Boston. It was now a raised platform standing on a large scrubby field, between two ancient Maya pyramids.
Tzelek and Lord 6-Dog stood facing each other in front of the bridge.
Behind Tzelek stood the Black Pyramid of Ah Pukuh. Behind Lord 6-Dog stood the Green Pyramid of Itzamna. Neither structure was as Max had last seen them; they both looked brand-new, freshly painted, clear of all vegetation. But the rest of the location looked like the setting for a nightmarish music video: the colors were too saturated, the contrast too intense and, around the edges where there should have been green jungle, there was nothing but a burnt purple haze.
“What is this place?” said Lady Coco.
“It is the scene of thy little 6-Dog’s death,” Tzelek replied. “You may say good-bye and wipe his nose one last time, if you like.”
Lady Coco growled. “I will say good-bye to you first, Tzelek.”
“I think not.”
“In a fair fight, my 6-Dog could beat you with one arm behind his back,” Lady Coco insisted.
“Who said anything about a fair fight?”
On the steps of the black pyramid, thick smoke billowed from hundreds of burning incense pots.
Tzelek clicked his fingers.
Out of the smoke, weapons clanking as they descended the steps, marched the most fearsome army that Max had ever seen, a sea of black-painted warriors in white-feather headdresses, a host of mythical Maya beasts (including Eek’ Chapaat, the monstrous centipede, and Kamasootz’, queen of the bats), assorted ogres and giants, and battalions of zombie warriors in their various stages of death and decay. Each and every one of them was armed to the teeth—including, for many of them, a set of fiercely sharpened teeth and flesh-ripping fangs. They raised their weapons as one and, with a thunderous noise, shouted, “Hail Tzelek, King of Xibalba, Lord of the Middleworld.”
Lord 6-Dog shook his head in disgust. “Thou wert ever a sniveling coward. Canst thou not keep thy word and fight like a man?”
“You have your supporters,” replied Tzelek, indicating the trio on the bridge. “It is only fair that I should invite my nearest and dearest. Since your family has disowned me, I have been forced to make a new family for myself.” He smiled and indicated the crowd behind him. “Meet the guys.”
“I’ll show you family!” roared Lady Coco, whirling the scepter above her head and chanting in Mayan.
“No, Mother!” called Lord 6-Dog, but it was too late.
Down the central steps of the pyramid of Itzamna came a parade of Jaguar Kings. Max recognized many of them from the bathroom mirror at the inn. But this time, they all wore full battle gear and were accompanied by their bodyguards, warriors, and household retinues. At the very end, carried on a litter by his guards, came Jade Frog, the founder of the dynasty and owner of the leg-bone that had summoned them all here.
Lord 6-Dog’s father, Punak Ha, peeled off from the rest to come and stand on the bridge with Lady Coco. They looked at each other tenderly, the old king and the howler monkey that used to be his wife.
“It is good to see thee, my dear,” whispered Punak Ha, not commenting on her new appearance. “I have missed thee.”
“I have so much to tell you!” Lady Coco’s eyes were shining but she tried to assume a somber expression. “But, of course, I have missed you, too.”
“If the worst parents in the world are ready,” said Tzelek, “perhaps we can get this massacre started.”
Both armies stood at attention, facing each other at opposite ends of the field. There was an echoing rattle as they lifted their weapons, ready to charge.
From his vantage point on the bridge, Max felt like a spectator at a medieval joust.
He switched his attention to the main players. They were working themselves up to battle, trading insults like the two little brothers they had once been. Suddenly, this whole scene looked ridiculous.
Childish.
How many times had this scene played out?
How many more times would it be played?
And all the while, the lives of ordinary people were torn apart because these ancient forces of good and evil went on fighting for all eternity.
There was a split second of silence before the conch shells blew to start the battle.
“I can’t watch.” Max buried his head in his hands.
“Here we go again,” said Lola.
Lord 6-Dog put up his hand to stay the advancing armies.
He turned to Lola, eyes blazing. “What didst thou say?”
“I’m sorry,” said Lola, sounding terrified. “I didn’t mean it.”
“What didst thou say?” he asked again in a gentler voice.
“I … I just said here we go again because, you know, this is not the first time that you and Tzelek have battled to the, um, death.”
She bit her lip.
Lord 6-Dog was still staring at her.
“What now?” asked Tzelek, irritated.
“Brother,” said Lord 6-Dog, turning to him, “we need to talk.”
“Talk? Is this a joke? We need to throttle and maim each other, is what we need to do.”
“We have already done that and it got us nowhere.”
“What has happened before will happen again,” said Tzelek. “That’s the whole point of history.”
“Perhaps we need to move on.”
“The only thing I need is to see you dead.”
“I am already dead, and so art thou. We died twelve hundred solar years ago in the battle that destroyed us both.”
“It may have destroyed you, but it drove me on. My hatred for you is even stronger than death.”
“Who are we fighting today? We are all just ghosts. How can either of us win?”
“Not to give away my tactics, but I intend to win by ripping out your heart.”
“I understand thy hatred. For twelve hundred years, since the day thou didst kill my father, I have lived and breathed my desire for revenge.”
“That’s more like it,” urged Tzelek. “Bring it on.”
“No, I will not fight thee. Thou art not my enemy.”
“What? Yes, I am. What are you saying?”
“I am saying that my battle is within myself.”
“You’re scared,” jeered Tzelek.
“No, fighting is easy. What I am about to do is much harder.”
“If it’s sorcery you’re thinking about, don’t bother. I am a master of the black arts.”
Lord 6-Dog smiled. “Thou wert always good at magic, even as a child. Remember the day thou didst teach me to produce a cocoa bean from my ear? I wish I could still do that. Wilt thou teach me again?”
“What trickery is this?”
“No trickery. I just want to say that I am sorry, Tzelek. It must have been hard to lose thy mother and feel like an outcast in my family. I am sorry for the part I played in thine unhappiness. Wilt thou forgive me?”
Tzelek gave Lord 6-Dog a look of incredulity mixed with disgust. “What sick joke is this?”
“It is no joke, brother. I am serious.”
Tzelek put up his fists. “Just fight, you coward!”
“My father—our father—told me that I would not win if I fought thee. Now, I see what he meant. I have been a terrible brother. Instead of welcoming thee into my family, I resented thy presence. I fought with thee when I should have shared with thee. It is my fault thou art cast as a villain.”
“It’s really not. Can we just get back to fighting? Remember I killed your father. I destroyed your kingdom. I like being a villain!”
Lord 6-Dog stuck his hand on Tzelek’s shoulder.
Tzelek winced.
“I forgive thee,” said Lord 6-Dog softly. “What’s past is past. Let us go forward as friends and brothers.”
“No! You can’t do this to me!” Tzelek turned very pale; so pale, in fact, that he was becoming transparent. “You hate me and I hate you. That is what nourishes me! I demand that you hate me again! I need your hatred. I feed on it! It is who I am.”
“It is gone,” said Lord 6-Dog. “I am free of it.”
With agonizing cries, Tzelek and his armies shriveled up and dissipated like smoke in the wind. And when the smoke was gone, there was a silence, full of peace.
“Well played, Son,” said Punak Ha.
“Thank thee, Father. In all honesty, it feels good to be rid of the hatred.”
“And rid of Tzelek,” added Lady Coco.
“Just one thing, Son.”
“Yes, Father?”
“Now that thou hast vanquished all the foes of Middleworld, I assume thou hast no further need of the scepter?”
“Dost thou want it, Father? Take it. It is thine.”
“Return it to Jade Frog. He has difficulty walking without it.”
Lord 6-Dog borrowed a shield of brined cotton from a nearby warrior to use as a ceremonial platter. Then he laid the leg-bone on it and made his way through the ranks of kings to Jade Frog, looking rather like a chef serving up a Sunday roast.
“Venerable ancestor, I present the sacred scepter of the Jaguar Kings,” he said, kneeling before the old man.
“I am proud of thee, 6-Dog,” said Jade Frog. “Thou hast broken the cycle and restored the balance. I am glad to get my leg back after all this time. But now we must take our leave.” Lord 6-Dog nodded. “I am ready to accompany thee.”
“No,” said Jade Frog, smiling. “Rejoin thy friends. It is not thy time.”
As Lord 6-Dog made his way slowly back over the glass bridge, Jade Frog waved the leg-bone above his head in farewell and the Jaguar Kings vanished like smoke on the wind.
“Where did everyone go?” asked Max.
“Hold tight,” said Lola. “Something’s happening.”
The towering pyramids crumbled in front of their eyes and, in seconds, the battlefield was entirely camouflaged by jungle. The glass bridge was now floating in the night sky, with planet Earth revolving below it.
Looking down, Max saw a bobbing, multicolored mass weaving across the land surface of the Earth, swaying and turning in rhythmic circles. “Are we trapped now?” he asked. “Will we ever get down?”
“They’re dancing us down,” said Lola. “All the Maya around the world. They’re dancing the story of creation and the birth of the stars. They’re dancing us back to Earth.”
As they came nearer to the ground, the clouds engulfed them, gradually solidifying like frosted glass, until they stood once again inside the great globe of the world that sat hidden beneath the dome of a stately white building on Massachusetts Avenue in central Boston.
“Will Tzelek come back?” asked Max, trying to process what had just happened.
Lord 6-Dog shook his head. “No, he is gone for good.” He smiled weakly at Max. “But there will be other enemies to subdue. Be always on thy guard, young lord.”
“Where will you be?” asked Max.
“My strength is failing. My time here is done.” Lord 6-Dog put a hand to his injured head.
“Let us take off that headdress,” said Lady Coco. “The weight of it would give anyone a headache.”
With the help of his friends, Lord 6-Dog unloaded some of his battle gear and sat down on the walkway of the bridge, leaning back against the glass sidewall.
“You were amazing out there,” Lola said to him. “You broke the cycle of revenge.”
“I was inspired by thee,” he said, squeezing Lola’s hand. “Thou wert magnificent at Fenway. What a great king thou wouldst have made.”
“Thank you.” She bowed her head, so he wouldn’t see that her eyes were full of tears.
“Son, you’re wounded,” sobbed Lady Coco. “If you can just get back in your monkey body, we could get help.”
“It is too late, Mother, you know that. When the Day of the Dead is over, I must leave this mortal world.”
“Don’t say that!”
“Good-bye, Mother,” said Lord 6-Dog weakly. He lay back and closed his eyes.
“Noooo!” Lady Coco pulled at him. “You can’t leave me!”
But he was already dead.
Lady Coco howled in pain. “He is gone. He was without a body when he passed. This time he cannot return.”
A white light filled the globe room.
“Greetings,” said Ixchel, the young moon goddess.
Lady Coco stared at her mournfully, her eyes red from crying, the fur on her face tearstained. “My son is dead, Ixchel. If only you had come sooner.”
“He died a hero,” said the goddess, her face shimmering like moonbeams. “I have come to honor him as a champion of our people.” She knelt beside the fallen king and cradled his head. His body, bathed in her light, began to glow. He opened his eyes and looked straight at Ixchel.
“It is thee,” he said.
They looked at each other dreamily for a few moments, then Ixchel cleared her throat and assumed a businesslike attitude. “Lord 6-Dog, I come to you from the ancestors. You have done us great service in silencing Tzelek. Now you must choose your reward.”
“Seeing thee is my reward,” whispered Lord 6-Dog.
Ixchel tried not to smile. “You have a choice,” she said. “You may stay in Middleworld and live out your life in mortal comfort or …”
She hesitated.
“Or …?” Lord 6-Dog was staring at her intently.
“Or you may rise to the heavens with me tonight.”
“And if I choose to go with thee …?”
“You will be a star in the night sky, the closest star to the moon.” She lowered her glance. “We will be together for eternity.”
“I would like that,” he said.
“Please, no,” Lady Coco begged him. “Don’t leave me, Son.”
“Come now, Mother. All my life thou hast nagged me about meeting the right woman. And now, finally, I am in love. Surely even thou must think a goddess good enough for thy son?”
Lady Coco nodded through her tears. “Look after him for me, Ixchel.”
“I am the goddess of motherhood, Lady Coco. I know how much you love him.”
“He has been wounded.”
“I am also the goddess of healing.”
Lady Coco sighed. “Good-bye, my little 6-Dog. I will look for you in the sky.”
“And I will shine down on thee, Mother, every night.”
“Don’t be sad, Lady Coco. It is a time of change for you, too,” said Ixchel. “You have fulfilled your mission in Middleworld.”
Lady Coco gasped. “But it’s so sudden. I’ve been so happy here.…”
“You, too, shall have a choice. You may return to your husband, Punak Ha, in the underworld, or you may live out your days as a howler monkey.”
“A talking howler monkey?”
“No, you would lose the power of human speech.”
“You could express yourself through art!” burst out Lola excitedly. “The ancient Maya always depicted scribes and artists as monkeys! I could teach you to paint!”
Lady Coco’s little forehead was furrowed with the effort of curbing in her monkey spirit. “It sounds nice, Lady Lola, but I must go to Punak Ha. In my day, a wife’s duty was to her husband.”
“You were a good wife,” said Ixchel. “You pricked your tongue with thorns for royal rituals. You rose at dawn to knead the tortilla dough. You waited for your husband to return from battle. But times have changed. Now Punak Ha will wait for you. There is time enough to return to him when your adventures are over.”
Lady Coco’s eyes lit up. “Then I choose to be a howler monkey, wild and free, swinging with my troop through the beautiful forest.”
“I hope you’ll come and visit us at the Villa Isabella,” said Lola.
“Every day,” said Lady Coco. “I’ll bring the troop to sample Raul’s cashew crumble.”
“So be it,” said Ixchel. “I wish you a lifetime of happiness, Lady Coco.”
“Thank you, my dear. Call me mother-in-law.”
They all hugged each other, and Ixchel left a sparkle of moondust on everyone’s cheek when she kissed them.
“Ready?” Ixchel took Lord 6-Dog’s hand.
“Ready,” he replied.
“Then let us go.”
Lady Coco clutched her Dawg Doll close as the moon goddess and the handsome Maya king melted into the shaft of moonlight and disappeared.
The doors of the globe room unlocked themselves.
Dr. Delgado sat up and groaned. “Where am I?”
Lola helped her to her feet.
“How did I get here?” asked Dr. Delgado, looking around at all the broken glass.
“It’s okay, he’s gone now,” said Lola.
“Who’s gone?”
“Tzelek.”
“Tzelek? That was the name painted on the pot with the lizard handle. I was unpacking it at the museum.…” She held her head. “I opened the lid and something jumped out at me. I … I … I don’t remember anything else.”
“He took over your body to get him here, so he could fight one last battle with his arch-enemy, Lord 6-Dog,” explained Lola.
“Lord 6-Dog? The great king of Itzamna?”
“He was in the body of that monkey who came to the museum with us on Halloween.”
Dr. Delgado stared at her like she was crazy. “Are you asking me to believe that the ancient Maya have the ability to come back to life?”
Lola laughed and shook her head. “It was the Day of the Dead, remember?”
“I don’t remember anything.”
“Then you’re going to want to hear about the Red Sox game last night.”
Lola picked up the body of Chulo, the howler monkey who had hosted Lord 6-Dog all this time. She kissed his sleeping head. “You won’t believe what’s been happening,” she whispered to him. “But it’s over now. Everything’s going to be all right. Just sleep and dream about the forest. In the morning I’ll bring you all the mangoes and bananas you can eat.”
As they left the globe room, the shattered world reassembled itself.