The Smoking Mirror (10 page)

“But we stayed distant, even then. Because humans must find hope on their own. You must face the darkness alone. You’ve been given the tools, but the fight is yours.” He stood, pressing his hat more tightly upon his head, adjusting the string beneath his chin. “And that’s why I have to leave you now. I will not say the coming challenges are easier than the first three. That would be a lie. I will promise you, however, that if you stay together and put your love for family above all else, you will make it through to the heart of Mictlan. There the greatest barrier to your happiness awaits you. I believe in you both, little brother and sister. I know that you are strong enough to stand when everyone else would cringe and bow.

“Fight for your mother’s freedom, twins. I’ll see you on the other side.”

And he stepped into the darkness outside the cave and disappeared.

Chapter Twelve

Johnny stared for a long time at the entrance to the cave, Xolotl’s words echoing in his head. The weight of the work before them suddenly settled on his shoulders. Physically and emotionally, he was exhausted. He wanted nothing more than to sit down beside the fire and rest for days.

So instead he shrugged and beckoned to Carol. “Time to get moving. Six more of these stupid deserts left.”

Carol sighed. “I feel like I’m at the Mall, going and in and out of changing rooms.”

“About that. I just wanted to half-shift into the jaguar-boy or whatever. I think I can hold that form long enough to get down the mountainside. Haunted ruins, that’s what’s next. Do we really need an animal form for ghosts?”

“Okay, it’s worth a try.”

Johnny let his
tonal
come forward, stopping it partway through the transformation. With most of his attention on maintaining that unnatural blend of human and beast, he exited the cave and made his way along the dark path that threaded through the peaks and down the other side of the freezing mountains. The wolf-girl followed close behind him, her labored breathing a sign of how difficult she found her transitional shape. Before too long, however, the howling, icy winds were gone, and the twins reverted to human form with a sigh of relief.

The mountain slope was gradual and carpeted with dead grass. Johnny’s feet were pricked from time to time by burrs and thorns, but beyond that, the descent was pretty easy.

Carol finally broke their sustained silence by clearing her throat.

“Johnny, I, uh, want to apologize. I haven’t been there for you like I need to be. I took refuge in my friends and left you pretty much alone. That was wrong.”

Johnny waved her concerns away. “Oh, that wasn’t your fault, Carol. I’m the one who didn’t want to share his feelings, remember? I just thought that if I didn’t talk about it, that if I kept my pain really close, then Mom would be alive in me, you know? I was, this is kind of stupid, but I was afraid that if I talked about it, I’d start accepting it, and then I would move on. I didn’t want to, you know?”

“Yes, I get you. Well, the good thing is, we’re a team again, right? Just like when we stood up to those bullies that one time. What were we, five years old?”

Johnny thought of the two of them, facing down a gang of kids three years older than them. He laughed at the image. “Yeah. Stupid Martínez kids. Their parents had them so spoiled, huh? But we didn’t give them our toys that day, and we ran them off. That was pretty cool. Sure, Carol. We’re a team again. The Garza Twins. All we need are rings and a monkey.”

“What?”

Johnny pretended to be shocked. “Dude, I keep telling you…you need to watch more classic cartoons. Filling your head with a bunch of boring history is going to drive you nuts.”

“No, listening to your weird pop-culture allusions is what is going to drive me nuts.”

“Dude, you’re a girl! What do you even talk about with Nikki and all them? Because, yeah, your friends don’t seem all up on all this stuff you know, like, pre-Colombian political systems and stuff. Just saying.”

“Well, we don’t sit around talking about action films and 70s cartoons. We, you know, talk about…”

Johnny snapped his fingers. “Boys. You talk about boys. Predictable.”

Carol flushed red, and Johnny laughed.
Oh, man. When she starts dating, we’re going to have so much fun, Dad and me. Threatening the stupid punks and all.

“Uh, if you’re done mocking me, you might look down there.” Carol gestured at the valley that now spread below them. Its dark red sands were dotted with ruined stone structures of all sizes, from small homes to enormous cathedrals.

“Okay. Ruins. And ghosts. What can we expect?”

“Based on what they’ve already tried, they’ll want to freak us out and/or separate us. So, uh, don’t let the ghosts freak you out, and stick close to me.”

Johnny smirked. “Yeah, why don’t
you
stick close to
me
, huh?”

“We’ll stick close to each other, alright?” Her eyes flashed lupine yellow.

“Don’t get all
esponjada
, Carol. I’m just kidding.”

They soon found themselves ambling along among the ruins. The buildings seemed impossibly old, inscriptions and decorations worn nearly invisible by the passage of time. Johnny studied their unusual architecture, not detecting any signs of the major trends in either European or Mesoamerican design. Granted, he was still an amateur, but as far as he could tell, the structures had not been made by human hands. The dimensions were off, the symmetry awry, the engineering techniques were frankly, alien.

“Carol, you’re the Mexican history buff…How many ages have gone by, in Aztec mythology?”

“We’re in the…fifth, I think. Yes. This is the fifth sun. The last age.”

“What happened to end the other ones?”

“Oh, uh, destruction? Remember what Xolotl told us. Some gods, mainly Quetzalcoatl, kept trying to create intelligent beings, but then they’d get wiped out.”

Johnny nodded, running his fingers along the frame of an enormous doorway. “The
Balamija
have these huge were-jaguars that killed off the giants of the First Age. That’s what one cat told me. I wonder…maybe these are buildings from all the way back then.”

Carol shrugged. “Who knows? Or maybe from one of the other ages.”

Unbidden, a thought rose to Johnny’s consciousness. “Oh, man.”

“What?”

“Xolotl. He said it was mainly Tezcatlipoca doing the destroying, right?”

Carol swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

“And what about our world? The fifth one. What do the legends say?”

Carol squinted, as if thinking hard. “I’m not sure, Johnny. I’m more interested in
actual history
, not
mythology
, you know.”

Raising an eyebrow, Johnny gestured around them. “Dude, it seems to me that mythology and history? Same thing.”

“Okay. Touché or whatever. Your point?”

“My point is: what if that’s what he wants to destroy the world? Maybe he needs to kill us or something to make it happen.”

Carol’s face went pallid. “Or maybe he needs our help. Our
xoxal
.”

“Why the heck would we help him? That’s crazy.”

“Maybe that’s why he’s got Mom, Johnny. So he can blackmail us.”

The idea was sobering. Johnny tried to imagine himself choosing between his mother’s life and the destruction of the entire world.
Screw that. We’ll find another way. We’ll beat Mr. Chaos-and-Dark-Magic. Even if he is a god.

“And you’ll fail her,” a voice muttered nearby. Johnny whipped his head around and saw his grandmother, fluttering spectrally in the doorway of a nearby building.

“
Abuela
Helga?” Carol whispered.

“Yes, it’s me, you cold-hearted child. You sent me to my death, so you shouldn’t be surprised to find me here, in the Land of Shades.”

“Wait,” Johnny said. “
We
sent you to your death? But you just
let go
, didn’t you? You had been holding on, waiting to tell us what we were. Then you escaped…”

“Oh, you’re right that I was holding on,” the phantasm hissed, writhing angrily. “For years I waited for you to visit me, trapped in that broken body. But you were too good to come across the border, weren’t you? Too young and full of life to spend time with an old, crippled woman.”

Tears slipped down Carol’s face. “Oh,
abuelita
, I’m so sorry! I was selfish and unthinking…”

“Yes!” raged the apparition. “You were cruel! And as a result, you didn’t learn of your abilities. Your mother had no one who could help her fight off the dark that crept round your home and dragged her down. This is
all your fault!
”

Carol was openly weeping now, and Johnny’s chest felt like it would burst.
This isn’t right, though. She wouldn’t treat us like this. She wouldn’t even
feel
that way. Not
abue.

“Shhh, Carol,” he muttered. “Stop crying. It’s not her.” Turning to the specter, he repeated with more confidence. “You’re not her. You’re some demon pretending to be her. Well, you can go tell your master I said his little tricks are worth crap. We’re coming for our mother, and we’re coming for
him
. He wants
xoxal
, we’re going to give it to him. But he ain’t going to like it. You tell him that, you fake. Tell him to stick his
cehualli
where the sun don’t shine.”

“Fool. Don’t listen to me then. Ignore me like you’ve done for years. You’ll pay the price, and so will my daughter.”

With that, the ghostly form faded away. Johnny put his arm around his sister, urging her to continue walking.

“I know it wasn’t her,” Carol managed to say at last. “But what she was saying was true.”

“Maybe. But our real grandmother forgave us. You saw that. You felt it when we ran with her freed
tonal
under the moonlight. Whatever that thing was, it just used our own guilt against us. And when other quote-unquote
ghosts
appear, they’re going to do the same. So get yourself psyched up. I’m sure this is just the beginning of the attack.”

They continued along the Black Road, which for a time became the cracked cobblestones of some broad ancient highway. Lined with massive headless statues and broad, shattered plinths, the road led them deeply into the remains of a mighty city, overgrown with thorny black vines. Pale moths and beetles scurried over fallen granite blocks, and the eyes of vultures and ravens followed the twins as they went by.

They were passing under a bridge-like structure that stretched over the highway when another specter stepped onto the cobblestones before them. Unmistakable in his black suit, tortoise shell glasses and meager goatee, the man stared at them sadly.

It was their father.

Putting out an arm to stop his sister, Johnny shook his head. “Forget it. We know you’re not really him. Don’t even bother. First place, he isn’t even dead.”

“Oh, Johnny,” the phantom whispered, his hazel eyes watery. “Of course I wasn’t dead the last time you saw me. But I couldn’t bear to be without your mother anymore. Once I knew you two were safe with her sister, there was nothing keeping me from putting an end to my pain.”

Carol clenched her fists. “You shut up. Our father would
never
kill himself.”

“Wouldn’t I? All those times you checked in on me, found me drunk and weeping in my study…Did you really never think that I might consider this option? I’m sorry, Sweetie. I know I always told you to stand strong against the darkness. But at heart, I guess I’m a coward. The worst thing is that I know the truth now. Your mother is here, trapped. If only you had been faster. I suppose some of my weakness is in you, too. But now it’s too late. Say you rescue her. What will you three return to?” The apparition began to weep. “Forgive me, kids!”

Johnny was filled with rage. He knew this thing to be a mirage drawn from their own fears, but it felt so real having reached into their hearts in the most cunning of ways. Ironically it triggered the opposite reaction of what Tezcatlipoca and his servants had intended.

“You are
not
my dad. My dad loves me, and he’s struggling right now to get his head sorted so that he can give Carol and me a normal life. You can point out my weaknesses and screw-ups all you want, demon, but you are
not
Dr. Oscar Garza. You don’t even come freaking close. You couldn’t even tie the man’s dress shoes, you piece of scum.”

With an expression of sadness on his face and a disappointed shake of his head, the specter oozed into a towering pillar and could be seen no more. Carol, who looked really spooked by the somber pronouncements of the fakes, allowed Johnny to lead her along. The road led into a huge plaza ringed by thick tree stumps that had petrified over millennia. A strange, echoing animal sound flittered through the air, and Johnny felt Carol stiffen beside him. Then he heard her gasp.

“Oh, my God, Johnny. It’s Puchi.”

Johnny turned to where she indicated and saw the ghostly image of their favorite dog. Puchi had been at their side since they’d arrived from the hospital as newborns until she had died of old age two years ago. It had been devastating to watch her go blind and slow down till one day they’d discovered her, curled up under a grapefruit tree, her body cold and lifeless.
And when Dad buried her out back, we cried like we had lost our best friend. Come to think of it, that’s pretty much what had happened.

The apparition was young and healthy, though, and ran about them with unbridled joy. Carol knelt and called to her with a soft whistle. Puchi rushed at them then bounded away playfully the way she once had when she wanted to be chased.

“Carol,” Johnny warned as his sister stood, “don’t even think about it. This is a trap.”

His sister’s voice was calm but distant. “I’m not stupid, Johnny. Of course it’s a trap. But it’s coming no matter what, so why don’t we just play along? That way we have a few minutes with her, even if she isn’t real.”

With a shrug and a sigh, Johnny went along with her. They followed the dog off the Black Road, onto an intersecting boulevard lined with thorny black rose bushes that led toward a white tower looming in the near distance. As they came closer, Johnny saw that the building was a single piece, as if cement had been poured into an impossibly massive mold. There were no apparent doors or windows, only a jagged parapet ringing the very top. The spectral canine dove into a tangle of silvery, wilted herbs that encircled the tower’s base, and the twins came to a stop.