Chapter Five #3
“I ... your friend didn’t say anything about my legs.
..Hunter, hang on, I haven’t agreed to help you—” she protested, but he hustled her out the door and down the steps without too much trouble.
“Look, I appreciate that you offered to help me with Papi, but it’s really not necessary.
If you let me have your élan vital, then I’d be done with him forever.
I realize that’s a hard ask, but if I promise to help you get your sword back later, or maybe find a better one, then perhaps we could work out a deal. ”
“I said I would help you with your broker, and I stand by my word. No, my car is this way.” He stopped her when she headed toward the gate.
“That’s cool for you, but mine is outside your fence, and it’s a rental, so I’m not leaving it here.”
“One of my tribe will return it for you,” he said, catching her hand and swinging her around to the nearest vehicle, a Jeep that he favored.
“I don’t care. I left something important in the car,” she said, twisting her hand out of his, refusing to move forward.
“What did you leave? I will have it fetched.”
She hesitated, her eyes darting around the pools of light cast by the outdoor lanterns, finally saying, “It’s my moonstone. The one I use when escorting spirits.”
“Ah.” He thought about what he’d been told about the Hour. He wasn’t worried about his élan vital, but any other valuable might attract more attention than was wise. “Do you need it to ... er ... reap?”
“No, but it helps a lot,” she said, frowning at him.
“Then you can pick it up later, once we’re done,” he said, urging her a few steps forward until she was at the car.
“But—”
“Protests are futile,” he said, waggling his fingers with a little zip of dark power to make it snap and crackle on his fingertips. He didn’t want to actually frighten her, but felt a little persuasion wouldn’t hurt.
“Fine,” she snarled, getting into the car with a huff, and a slap to his hands when he tried to assist her into the seat. “But I protest you threatening me with backward feet!”
He chuckled to himself as he got behind the wheel, consulting his phone briefly for the nearest entrance to the Hours before setting off on a seventy-five-minute drive to the east. “What sort of hold does Papi have over you?”
She ignored him, staring ahead into the night.
“Have you known Sally long? I met her for the first time during the ‘free Desi’ adventure.”
Silence continued to fill the Jeep.
Hunter was simultaneously annoyed at her refusal to talk and entertained by her dedication to being miffed.
“What about reaperdom? How did you get into that? I assume you were born a reaper, but not having much call to chat with one, I’m ignorant as to your people. Why don’t you tell me all about it?”
She shot him a fulminating look that had him fighting hard to keep from laughing. He didn’t understand why he found her so delightful—her gorgeous legs aside—but he decided it really didn’t matter.
He simply didn’t have the time, energy, or desire to devote to her as she was due.
“Shall we have some music?” he asked, and, taking her silence as consent, put on a channel of 1970s rock classics. “I’ll warn you that I tend to sing along. I’m told I don’t have a hideous voice, but if it gets on your nerves, just let me know and I’ll stop.”
“How much longer is this going to take?” she asked more than an hour later, waiting until he wrapped up what he considered a very fine rendition of “My Sweet Lord.”
“I have a fondness for the Beatles, both collectively and individually,” he answered, flashing her one of his best smiles, the one that usually had women melting in his arms. Mabel appeared to be made of sterner stuff, and refused to melt at him.
He sighed to himself. “If you look across that bridge at the brick building, you’ll see the entrance. ”
She frowned at the building in question as they drove across a bridge spanning a fast-running river. “According to the sign, that’s a flour mill. Why is the entrance to the underworld in a flour mill?”
“You’d have to ask the Sovereign about that,” he said with a wiggle of his shoulders to ease the tightness.
He hoped it wouldn’t take long to find Sally’s friend and escort her out.
He very much wanted to figure out what was going on with Mabel’s blackmailer.
“The Court is responsible for the maintenance of the Hours. Here we are. Ready to step into Mayan history?”
“Not really,” she said, but she got out of the Jeep and followed him as he entered a small outbuilding next to the mill itself.
Once inside, they found a man sitting at a cluttered desk, playing a game on a computer.
The man leaped to his feet at their arrival, snatching a clipboard from a stack of what looked like pornographic magazines.
“Oh. Uh ... hello,” he said, hastily coming around the table to make jerky bows to both of them.
“I am Hunip. You are here to enter the Hour?”
“Yes. What sort of documents do we need?” Hunter asked, eyeing first the man, then the metal archway that led to another door.
“Is that an X-ray machine? Like security at an airport?” Mabel asked, staring at the bulky machinery next to the metal detector.
“The Hero Twins set it up a few years ago, after some tourists insisted on bringing in contraband. Please fill out the top part of the form only, and place your valuables in the trays, including the sword.”
Mabel shot him a quelling look as she sat on a hard plastic chair to fill out her form. Hunter sent his élan vital through the machine before filling out the tedious form. Mabel handed hers over, then, after putting her phone on the belt, marched through the metal detector.
“You’re cleared to go,” the guard said, nodding at Mabel as she stopped on the other side, next to the conveyor belt holding his sword, phone, and keys. “As for you, sir, you do need to fill out all the information on the upper part, including your address.”
“The red tape needed to get into an Hour these days is utterly ridicul—” The words stopped dead on his tongue as, to his complete surprise, Mabel suddenly snatched up his élan vital and bolted through the entrance to the Hour.
He stared for a good five seconds before dragon fire roared through him.
It wasn’t a common reaction, but it drove fury before it, enough that he thrust the form at the man and raced forward, through the metal detector, and the misty swirl of matter that was the entrance to Xibalba, Maya underworld.