The 52nd (The 52nd Saga Book 1) (2 page)

“What are you doing here? Leave right now!” Father ordered, confronting her in the middle of the square
room.

X’Tabay stepped closer. She was one of the few Celestial goddesses born evil. The last time I’d seen her was during World War II, luring a gentleman through the midnight woods of France to meet his deadly fate. Her face reminded me of a feline predator, lean and acute. Her figure hadn’t changed since then, nor had her straight black hair, which hung to the lowest curve of her
back.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. You were much more fun when you were human. I’ve always liked you, Ecatzin, but never as an immortal,” X’Tabay teased. She smiled like a would-be mistress, trying hard to seduce
us.

“That is enough. Leave at once, X’Tabay!” Mother
warned.

X’Tabay laughed, twisting a strand of hair around her finger as she walked toward my mother. Mother, calm as always, didn’t move a muscle. If she needed to, she could wipe out X’Tabay with a swift movement of her hand. But that would destroy our meeting place and raise questions with the Council; we weren’t allowed to hurt one another. As X’Tabay neared her, Mother squared her shoulders.

X’Tabay stopped within reach and glared with a taut smile. “Make
me.”

“Don’t do it, Valentina!” Dylan shouted, his voice striking the decaying walls with almost physical force. He stood motionless in the far corner near the candle. His body coiled; he was ready to pounce if needed. Valentina was the closest thing to a mother he had ever had. They shared a powerful bond, and he felt an innate duty to protect her. As his words soothed her rage, a disgusted scowl replaced Mother’s predatory expression.

“You make me sick,” Mother said, her lips curling downward.

X’Tabay’s smirk widened.

Father angled himself on the other side of X’Tabay. “Why are you
here?”

“Thank you for asking . . . what was it? Andrés? I never understood why you took on modern names. The humans don’t care.” She snickered.

“Answer him!” I yelled, my arms stiff and shaking at my
sides.

X’Tabay turned, pressing her lips into a line as she studied me. “Relax, sugar.” She glanced at Dylan with a flirting grin. “Hunahpu, you would understand, right, sweetie? I always did like you better than your brother.”

A low growl left Gabriella as Dylan’s jaw hardened. His crazed glare seemed capable of piercing
her.

“Whose side are you on?” he snarled through clenched
teeth.

Delighting in his reaction, X’Tabay began to stroll. “I’m curious,” she said in a malevolent voice. We wanted her dead, but we remained still, following her every
move.

“About what?” Andrés spoke
first.

“About the fifty-second, of course.” She flicked her eyes to me and then turned to Father. “Aren’t
you?”

Her glance left me petrified, a stiffness that burned cold and drained the blood from my head. X’Tabay knew things I wished she didn’t. She knew the sort of things the Council mustn’t know. If they knew about the fifty-second sacrifice, it would sabotage the prophecy. They wouldn’t allow a sacrifice to be saved. Ever.

I nervously reached for the citla in my pocket and spun it hard between my fingers. How would X’Tabay know anything about the prophecy? My family and I were the only ones to hear it. Tita had promised.

Before I moved to silence her, Father closed in on X’Tabay and pinned her against the back wall in a chokehold. The stone behind her crumbled to the
floor.

“The sacrifices are none of your concern and never will be. Leave at once. I warn you . . .” Father cautioned.

“Or what? You’ll kill me?” Her voice scratched as Father tightened his fingers around her
neck.

Suddenly I found myself in X’Tabay’s
face.

“What do you know? Who told you?” I demanded.

With his fingers fastened around X’Tabay’s throat, Father looked at me disconcertedly. He hadn’t caught on. I nodded with narrowed eyes. When it jolted his memory, he loosened his grip around her pathetic neck and glared at her, expecting an answer. But the light of the candle expanded into a large glow, and fine lights sparkled all over the room as the members of the Council appeared. Their eyes drifted to X’Tabay against the wall, then to Father and me, full of questions that would never get answered—not if I had my
way.

There were seven members in the Council, Aztec and Maya both, all once glorious, fine breeds. Now they were diluted. Their aura had faded over years of inhabiting Earth, and they were unhappy, though none of them would ever admit it. They valued humans and thus would live another five hundred unhappy years on Earth, all to protect their charges from the executioners. I never understood them. Still, they were set in their ways. The power they held in the Celestial realm—leading, judging, protecting, sacrificing in all manners other than blood—remained, unchanging, in this realm. I was stupid for what I was considering.

I looked away from them and glared at X’Tabay, backing away with Father as Huitzilihuitl, the Council’s leader, stepped forward. He had a large nose and dark eyes that were set far apart. His black hair was pulled back into a knotted ponytail that hung past his broad shoulders, and his soiled work clothes were smeared with grease and stunk like
oil.

“What are you doing here, X’Tabay? I will spare you if you tell me who sent you and why you are here. If you do not, I can make no such promise,” said Huitzilihuitl.

He ran his fingernails, packed with black crescent moons of grease, along X’Tabay’s shoulders. She wasn’t accustomed to being touched. She would normally kill anyone who did, but because it was Huitzilihuitl, she gulped and stayed
still.

“Child, if you do not speak now, you will surely perish,” said Chac, Mother’s father. He looked like a Mayan carving with his wide nose and square jaw, so still and calm. Mother had his sleek black
hair.

My lips curled. I wanted to rip X’Tabay to
shreds.

“She is not here of her own accord. She’s a messenger,” Xquic spoke up, her emerald eyes on X’Tabay. Xquic was Dylan’s mother, a refugee goddess from the Underworld with skin the color of vanilla liqueur and a long, messy black braid. Most Xibalban gods didn’t know all the Celestials, but Xquic knew precisely who the interloper was. Xquic was one of the more important gods of the Council. Using the ornate mirror hidden in a locket around her neck, Xquic had the power to see those chosen by the Underworld gods for sacrifice, a list she would soon deliver to us. “Aren’t you?” she accused X’Tabay.

X’Tabay erupted into a mocking
laugh.

“Speak!” Tez bellowed from the far right corner. His shout, so powerful his gelled hair loosened, rippled through X’Tabay and struck her silent. Tez shook in his gray designer suit. Wall Street was doing him good. He harnessed his shudders and stepped closer, a calm, political smile parting his face. He spread both hands out with palms up and raised his eyebrows. “Last chance,” he
warned.

Tez and I had worked hard to keep the prophecy a secret. But if X’Tabay got in our way, stopped us from saving this foreseen sacrifice, it could dissolve our plans of a peaceful society. Tez warned me with the slightest glint in his eyes to watch myself. I swallowed and looked away, trying to disguise my flaring emotions. Tez wouldn’t have a problem getting rid of X’Tabay in front of Huitzilihuitl, even though killing another Celestial was forbidden.

“What’s it to you?” X’Tabay
spat.

“You don’t ask the questions,” Tez said, stepping back to deflect the Celestials’ curiosity in his sudden interest.

Tez looked at me again, differently than he ever had during the previous five Councils. Tonight, strain showed in his subtle nod and around his eyes. As I stared back, making sure I had seen him clearly, I couldn’t prevent my own eyes from growing wide with shock. My heart now pounded uncontrollably.
Is this
it?

X’Tabay surveyed the Celestials. Their eyes were like marbles, hard and shiny. They didn’t blink as they gazed on her. X’Tabay straightened up uncomfortably.

“I wasn’t sent by anyone. I came on my own,” she finally admitted.

“What for?” Huitzilihuitl
asked.

“Let’s just say it’s about an old
legend.”

“Speak!” Huitzilihuitl ordered.

X’Tabay’s glare snapped to mine, and she took a few slow steps toward me. “Years ago, I heard there would be a change at the end of the Long Count. The type of change that would mean a new monarchy, new ownership, and that it would come in the form of a pitiful sacrifice.”

“You’re lying,” Huitzilihuitl said, throwing me a suspicious
glance.

She looked at him. “Am I? Why would I risk coming if it was only a
fable?”

“Which sacrifice?” Huitzilihuitl
asked.

“I suspect it will be the fifty-second. I came because I wanted to see whom was chosen. I’m curious.”

“Preposterous!” I shouted. “The treaty was signed because there was no other alternative, and now you think a nobody sacrifice is going to change all this? You’ve lost your
mind!”

Chills flooded through me, even though I hadn’t physically felt a fluctuation in temperature for nearly five centuries. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Father watching me closely.
Have I said too much? Did I give anything away?
Father and the rest of my family knew of the prophecy, but they didn’t care about it like I had all these years. For some reason, I always felt cautious about it, the idea of saving a sacrifice for the first time, like I was protecting more than a prophecy.

“
Silencio
, Lucas,” Huitzilihuitl ordered. He turned to X’Tabay. “Who is your
source?”

“Like I said,
years ago
. This was a leak . . . there are no sources,” she
said.

With a prolonged inhalation, Huitzilihuitl narrowed his eyes and stepped closer. “X’Tabay, the sacrifices are our duty. If we felt something was amiss, we would know. How dare you enter our Council with such nonsense? You have no authority here. Leave now, or face the consequences.”

As X’Tabay pivoted toward me, my breathing slowed and my stiffness returned. She watched me with hateful, beady eyes and leaned to whisper into my ear, “Be grateful I can’t touch you, otherwise you’d be dead right now. If I am correct, and there
is
a change, I will end your pathetic immortality more quickly than anything I’ve ever
done.”

“GO!” Tez screamed.

My body loosened when X’Tabay turned back to the Council, but the tightness didn’t ease completely until she snapped her fingers and evaporated, leaving the rest of us in silence.

“What does this mean?” Chac asked. “Is this true? Have you seen something?”

“No, I have not,” Tez lied. “X’Tabay has never been up to any good. You can’t trust
her.”

He turned to Xquic, who raised her eyes from her locket with a concerned look. “You were right. X’Tabay is working with someone,” she
said.

“Have you seen something?” Huitzilihuitl asked, staring at the
locket.

Xquic embraced the tiny piece and swiveled it between her thumbs. “I haven’t, but I don’t open it during the dry years. It’s only meant to be opened during the Council.”

I moved to the entrance and waited as the bickering I had predicted began. It was fairly common for the Council, and as it escalated, I listened to the sounds outside to escape. Below me, an iguana hunted in the forest, and a refreshing breeze gently blew against my back. I stared back at the Council, irritated with their endless arguing, unchanging each time we met. It was obvious that everyone was sick of this system, but still, no one did anything about
it.

First the small god, Chico, condemned Xquic for something she might have prevented, even though he had no idea what he was talking about and was reacting in anger. Then Ix Chel, the old goddess, fought with Tez over something she assumed he would have foreseen. And just like that, one by one, the Council members descended into yelling at one another, fueled now by pure frustration at X’Tabay’s revelation.

I couldn’t help but notice that Huitzilihuitl stood motionless, avoiding the quarrel and watching me with accusation in his eyes. Had I leaked too much information? I froze within the power of his
stare.

“Lucas,” he called, arms folded across his
chest.

As my defiance shriveled up like a raisin, the room gradually grew silent, and all eyes fell on
me.

“Yes?” I answered. I tried to sound brave, but I felt
weak.

“I wouldn’t have expected you to speak up against X’Tabay. All these times we’ve met, and you’ve never spoken more than two words. Why did you speak up? Do you know something?” he
asked.

“I haven’t got a clue. She’s
mad.”

“Aren’t we all?” Chico barked at Huitzilihuitl. “Who are we to decide the fate of the worlds? Every one has reached its end. We’ve been doing this for four hundred and eighty-five years! Haven’t you at least thought that something would change? We aren’t the only Celestials out there—X’Tabay could be working with anyone by
now.”

Mother stepped closer to the Celestials. “Chac, Huitzilihuitl, have you thought of any alternatives if our arrangement with the Underworld comes to an
end?”

Chac rocked his head side to
side.

“Dylan, what say you?” Huitzilihuitl
asked.

Dylan glanced at Gabriella, as he often did to check her well-being. She didn’t look good. Her shoulders slouched, and her eyes drooped. Dylan turned back to Huitzilihuitl, his face drawn with empathy. “It’s only a matter of time until Mictlan finds another way to get to the Middleworld and take unchartered sacrifices,” he
said.

Huitzilihuitl’s face didn’t change as it turned to the right. “And you, Andrés?”

“I agree with Dylan,” Andrés said, “but only because we have a different perspective than you. As Watchers, we are forced to see the executioners carry out their task. There have been occasions when an executioner was tempted to take an additional sacrifice. We haven’t had to interfere with a mission yet, but I fear we need to start thinking of alternatives to keep the peace, in case the treaty is
broken.”

My eyes zoomed in on Huitzilihuitl as Father spoke. Judging by his aloof attitude, he still did not trust me, and another piece of my confidence shriveled. I remained
still.