She continued, “You were supposed to be the surrogate, the stand-in for Kinich’s power. Kinich got his wish of mortality so he’d finally stop his incessant yapping—‘I want to be mortal, I want to be mortal. Waaaah!’” she whined mockingly. “He needed to learn the grass isn’t greener. And then, when he saw the baby, he would finally believe that Payals were meant to be, paving the way for the rest of us to live happy existences. And once we are all happy…”
She zoned out completely.
I shook her by the shoulders. “What? We what?”
Eyes glossed over, she replied, “I can’t remember. I’m useless without my dead. Especially, Estevan and Gunther. And my unicorn.” She held her hand over her heart and sighed. “I can’t even remember the words to my favorite song, “Pop Goes the Weasel.’” She sprung from the couch and began clapping. “Oh! Oh! But I do remember this one from the Stones!”
Cimil began howling the words to “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.”
“Oh my god. Please stop,” I said pressing my hands over my ears.
She halted her oratory assault. “But it’s so true!” she said. “Sometimes you only get what you need. It’s sort of ironic, isn’t it?”
Not as ironic as finding out I was pregnant. “Why me?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know? I just follow the signs, I don’t make them. Well, I used to follow the signs. Now they’re gone. No more world. Poof!” She sighed. “No more garage sales. No more used picnic baskets, golf clubs, and exercise equipment. Bad times. Bad times.”
“Wow. Yeah. Useless crap. Such a loss for humanity. Especially when compared to…losing humanity.”
Nut bag.
Then a new panic attack hit me. “Wait. Will the baby be all right? I mean, I have Kinich’s powers—will it be safe? And am I even human anymore?”
Her eyes filled with tears. Tears! This was too much.
“You can’t ever go home if you’ve never lived there,” she began to blubber again and sank into the couch.
“No more gibberish. Answer me!”
Her head dropped. “The last thing the Book showed me was a date. The final day. We have eight months.”
There were no words for the despair I felt. There was no point of reference for the darkness that threatened to consume me. This couldn’t be happening.
“Penelope, you are needed. Acan and Camaxtli are strangling each other.”
I looked up at Zac hovering in the doorway. If only I could remember who the hell Acan and Camaxtli were. These Mayan names were a mess. If we didn’t have bigger fish to fry, I’d call a vote to rename everyone with simple, easy names: Bob, Carol…Jenny. We’d keep Belch. Zac, too. Those were good names.
Then I remembered…Dammit! I need to find Kinich. I needed to tell him about the baby before he left.
Wait. Think. Do you want him to stay with you because you’re pregnant? Don’t forget, the world is going to end; you don’t have a minute to lose.
I froze in my tracks with that thought. I didn’t want to spend my last days on earth with a man—uuuh—ex-god who didn’t want me. Yes, I loved him, but sulking and crying and withering away wouldn’t save the world. It wouldn’t save me.
It won’t save…my baby.
Oh hell. Am I really pregnant?
Then, and I don’t know how it happened, but it did. I chose. I chose not to crumble. I chose not to let the hurt of rejection or the anger of the crappy hand I’d been dealt pull me under and sink me. I chose to fight. I chose to win or go down trying.
So there it was. I ate the lemons, swallowed them whole, and spit out the seeds.
Well, I’ll be damned. I was strong enough.
I looked at Cimil and Zac, “Get ready boys and girls, because there’s a new sun god in town.”
***
Guy was the first to echo the sentiment that most of the gods were thinking. “We fight and attack as planned. Every last one of us.”
“All of us?” Bees, who wore a shades-of-summer camouflage jumpsuit, asked as she petted the hive on her head. The bees purred with delight.
“The Great War is the turning point,” Guy replied. “If we do not win, the apocalypse is inevitable. So we must use every means we can to win. Your bees can assist with monitoring the Maaskab’s movements during the battle.”
The bees made a cheery little buzz. Such little warriors.
Gabrán, who stood at my side, arms crossed, chimed in, “We should make the final decision when Niccolo arrives.”
“Niccolo answers to me,” Guy barked.
Gabrán frowned like a disapproving parent. “Yes, but he still leads the vampire army and is the de facto king. We must have his support.”
Guy growled. “The vampires will do as they are told or perish with the rest of the mortal world…”
Then rest of the conversation sounded like:
…Blah blah blah. I’m right and you’re wrong.
Blah. Blah. Am not. You’re wrong.
No, I’m right. Blah blah.
Blah blah…oh yeah? Prove it, blah blah…
I realized that the species was irrelevant; male posturing was universal.
“Both of you…can it!” I barked. “We’re sticking to the protocol, which is…” I looked at Gabrán.
“We list the options, debate the pros and cons of each, and then take a vote,” Gabrán stated with a disappointed sigh.
Very pragmatic. “Thank you.”
“Let’s start with thinking this through.” I glanced around the table. “Options?”
“We stay the course as Guy suggested,” Bees spoke up. “The gods will also fight—except for Cimil, Penelope, and Zac.”
That made sense, Zac said he was strong, but didn’t really have any gifts. I was pregnant—crappity-crap! Really? Really?—and Cimil was about as useful as a lump of dog poop.
“Okay, that’s one option. Others?”
“We do nothing,” Suicide suggested in a blasé voice.
I stared at her, wondering if she ever had the urge to apply her skills to herself.
“What?” she shrugged.
I shook my head. “Nothing.” I wrote down Do Nothing on my magic tablet, and then looked around the table again, hopeful that someone else might have a better suggestion. “Fate, how come you haven’t said anything?”
She waved her hand through the air. “Because, whatever we choose, this is our fate.”
Wow. Another shocking answer. No wonder the world was about to go down the crapper.
I thought about the tiny life in my belly. It didn’t feel real, but somewhere, buried beneath the layers of raw emotion was a gnawing urge to fight like hell to protect it.
Zac offered, “If the course we are on is the one that leads to the end, then we need to make a turn.”
“This is the problem,” K’ak pointed out, ever so carefully turning his head so as not to cause his enormous, two-foot-high turquoise-encrusted headdress to tip. “Without the book or Cimil’s powers, we do not know which action is truly the one we wish to avoid. What if the turn you suggest is the one we must avoid and the original plan is the one we must follow?”
“I have a coin,” Bees offered. “We could let Chance decide.”
“Chance is on vacation,” Ah-Ciliz, God of Eclipses, said in a dreary voice.
I looked at Zac, who stood by my side like a deadly sentry. “Who is Chance?” I whispered.
He leaned in and spoke quietly in my ear, “A friend of the family.” His warm breath sent a shiver down my spine.
As he pulled away, I couldn’t help but study Zac. His size matched Kinich’s, as did his confidence. His perfectly shaped body, packed with powerful muscles, only appeared fiercer in his black leather pants and dark tee.
“Seriously, you don’t have any powers?” I asked.
God of Seduction, perhaps? ’Cause…wow. I knew Kinich had given me the anti-deity whammy, but nonetheless, this guy still packed a punch. Pretty damned impressive, if you asked me
, because I wanted nothing to do with men, and I’d just had my heart trampled.
He smiled. “Like I said, you’ll be the first to know.”
It pleased him that he was inspiring very inappropriate and unwelcome feelings at this time in my life when I was hanging on by a thread.
Interesting.
Belch, who still wore his shiny green running suit, which now boasted several nasty-looking stains down the front, chimed in, “Does anyone have vodka? I need more vodka.”
“Amen to that,” said Suicide.
“You are the biggest group of misfits I’ve ever seen,” I scolded.
Several of the gods looked at each other and nodded in agreement, the only exceptions being Zac and Votan.
Christ. We were all in so much trouble.
I took a deep, calming breath. We were flying blind, so any choice we made could be the exact choice we wanted to avoid. Not easy. So many lives depended on us, on our every move.
I ran my hands over my face. “So our options are to fight or do nothing? That’s it? Can’t we try to negotiate with the Mobscuros”—I decided the time had come to name our evil Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup treat—“or cripple them and buy some time?”
The group debated for a moment and came to the unanimous conclusion that the more time we gave, the worse off we were, and that the Mobscuros were not interested in negotiation.
I closed my eyes. We were missing something. Something big. It didn’t make sense that the Maaskab or Obscuros—Mobscuros—would want to end the world. Give it a yucky, evil makeover? Sure. But destroy it completely?
Regardless, the gods were right; we didn’t have many options: wait, fight, do nothing. The only one that felt right was to take out as many bad guys as possible. If we were going down, we’d go kicking and screaming.
“If no one has any other suggestions, then it’s time to vote. All in favor of initiating the Great War?”
I looked around the table. It was unanimous. Even Suicide raised her hand. Maybe we could send her ahead and then the Mobscuros would be too depressed to fight.
It was worth a try.
CHAPTER 36
I didn’t know exactly what to expect when I entered Kinich’s room. Part of me had pathetically hoped he’d changed his mind and stayed. Part of me kicked myself for wanting him to stay at all. I deserved better. I deserved to come first. Or even in the top three.
But it didn’t really matter anymore how I felt, because his bag was gone, the room empty.
I walked to the glass door and looked outside. The miles of lonely desert now seemed bleak instead of calming. The sky, a perfect crisp blue, only reminded me of what we were all going to lose.
I needed to take a walk and clear my thoughts.
Still barefoot, I turned to retrieve my boots in the closet and ran straight into Zac. I jumped from my skin.
“Jeez, you scared me.” I placed my hand over my thumping heart.
“My apologies. I came to tell you that Kinich paid me a visit.”
“You saw him? He’s still here?”
Zac shook his head. “No. He left me a note with instructions and asked me to give you this.” He held out a clean white envelope.
“Any clue what it says?” I asked.
“No.”
“What did yours say?” I asked.
“He requested I care for your…needs in his absence.”
“Needs?” The way he’d said that word implied all sorts of things. Very sexual things. Doubtful.
“There was also mention of making the asshole who burnt the inside of his one point seven million dollar car pay dearly.”
Yikes. One point seven? Well, serves him right!
I took the envelope. “He didn’t say anything else?” There was that dang lump in my throat again.
His ice-blue eyes turned to azure blue. “I’ll be in Kinich’s study if you need me.” He gave my shoulder a squeeze then turned to leave.
“No. Wait. Don’t go.” I suddenly didn’t want to be alone for this.
I ripped open the envelope. Inside was a small sheet of crisp paper and the words, Forgive me for not saying good-bye. I leave you in the care of my brother. Zac has sworn to protect you and be your Right Hand.
May the sun always shine upon you.
— Kinich Ahau
I looked up at Zac. “So, he made his choice. He left. He really left.”
Zac reached out and clutched my hand. “I am…sorry.”
“Did he say where?”
Zac shook his head. “We know not. But perhaps he left because he is ashamed. In his new fragile state he is unable to be of use in battle. Perhaps he simply wishes to enjoy his new life as a human.”
My knees trembled, threatening to give out.
I quickly pulled it together and straightened my back. “Fate has spoken.”
His head dipped. “I see you’re catching on.”
I unexpectedly felt dizzy again and the room turned black.
CHAPTER 37
“She’s coming around,” I heard a female’s voice off in the distance. “Penelope! Can you hear me?”
Someone tapped my cheek. “She’s in shock,” I heard the same female voice whisper. “I can’t believe he left her. What kind of moron leaves a pregnant woman?”
“He was not informed of the news,” argued the man.
“She didn’t tell him?” said the woman.
“She did not have the chance,” the man replied.
“You idiot. Why didn’t you tell him?” she asked.
“I did not see him, and if I had, it is not my place to meddle.”
My mind fell into place. As it did, I wondered if I really wanted to come around. Reality was waiting for me, and it was a place far too painful to be at the moment. I’d had about all I could take.
“Penelope. Please wake up.” I realized it was Emma speaking. “They’re getting ready to attack. I’m going to the Command Center to monitor everyone on the satellite.”
I lifted my lids slowly; they felt like they had lead weights attached.
“Did he really leave? Or was it a dream?” I asked, my mind foggy and slow.
Emma brushed the hair back from my forehead. “Yes, honey. He’s gone. I’m sorry. And I’m even more sorry because I know your heart’s been broken. But you have to be strong. Too much is at risk.”
The bedroom came into focus, and as it did, the starkness of the situation hit home. But I’d already had a heart-to-heart with myself, so I knew I couldn’t let my broken heart distract me.
“Well, I guess the bright side is,” I mumbled, “that now I have one less problem. I’m down to four.”
Emma chuckled. “That certainly is something.”
Zac appeared behind Emma, his blue-green eyes glowing with warmth. “I happen to agree. I once tried to count mine, but got bored after number five thousand two hundred and twenty-two. Four is good. Very manageable.”
Sure. I’d accidentally become the “surrogate” Sun God, was carrying the real Sun God’s baby, my mother was still a captive of the Mobscuros, and the world was ending. Not that I was complaining…’Cause it’s still just four.
“Piece of cake.” I sat up slowly. The room still wobbled unnaturally, but at least now I understood why.
Pregnant. Wow.
“Is everything ready?” I mumbled.
“Everyone is almost in position. Every Uchben soldier, vampire, and allies of the gods. Even the others.”
“You keep mentioning the others. Do you mean leprechauns?”
Zac chuckled. “No. They don’t fight; they are peaceful people.”
“Maybe you should try taking away their clothes. I hear that makes them angry.”
He raised both brows. “I do not wish to know how you came into possession of that knowledge.”
“So who are the others?” I questioned.
“Why don’t we save the debriefing on immortals for another day. You need nourishment,” he replied.
“I’m not
hungry.”
“Penelope,” Emma pointed out, “you can’t think just about yourself.”
She was right. I’d almost forgotten. It was all very new. “All right. I want egg rolls, sourdough bread, and spinach salad.”
“I will obtain your meal,” Zac said and disappeared.
“I think he likes you, Pen,” Emma whispered.
I rolled my eyes. “I think I’m pretty much done with men for eternity.”
“All right. But he’s hot.”
“Emma! I’m not exactly on the market; Kinich has been gone for an hour, the world is going to end in eight months, I’m also pregnant.”
She held out her hands. “Actually, you were out for five hours, so…Kinich has been gone a little longer.”
I growled.
“Okay. But Zac’s really hot. And ain’t nothin’ wrong with a little rebound romp.”
“Emma. Seriously?”
“I’m just sayin’.” She smiled with a goofy grin.
No, she wasn’t serious, but I appreciated the effort to make me laugh.
“All right, my little goody-goody.” She stood up. “After you eat, Zac will drive you to the camp. I’ll see you in the Control Room.”
“So this is it? We’re going to attack? So fast?”
“The troops were already on standby. They mobilized five minutes after the meeting concluded. They should be hitting the Maaskab village any minute.”
Emma turned to leave.
“Hey,” I called out.
She froze with her back to me. I noticed that today she wasn’t wearing one of her usual girly outfits, but the standard Uchben uniform: black tee and cargoes.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “I mean, with what Guy’s about to do?” Yes, Guy was a god and immortal, but that didn’t mean going head-to-head with the Maaskab wasn’t dangerous. Who knew what those monsters had up their sleeves? After all, look what they’d done to Kinich.
She shrugged without looking my way. “A god’s gotta do what a god’s gotta do. Especially the God of Death and War.” She left without letting me see her face. I understood why. Tears didn’t serve any purpose at this point.