A stick snapped in the woods to Corey’s left and he froze. He’d seen the warning sign at the trailhead, but hadn’t thought they’d actually encounter any cougars. He bit the inside of his cheek and hefted his backpack further onto his shoulder. Was it hungry or curious? Slowly, he turned his head and met the yellow eyes of a cougar, his body tense, crouching in the shadows.
“Zy?” he whispered.
Zyanya touched his lips with her fingertips, moving beyond him, soundlessly. She took one step toward the cougar before she bounded from the trail, her body arching in a black blur that disappeared in a tangle of limbs. A screech pierced from the thrashing shadows that had Corey stumbling backward, flailing in the shallow river.
The cougar growled, the sound followed by a cry more feline than human and Corey stepped backward, the icy water up to his ankles and his worn sneakers slipping on the smooth stones at its bottom. He stumbled as he reached the opposite bank. It was just as he’d seen that summer and now here it was again, he was sure; fur tangled in shadows until he couldn’t quite make out any definite shape other than to rule out human completely. His hands shook and he couldn’t stand.
The crying and hissing continued as his legs gave way, dropping him to the rocky ground beside the trail.
Zyanya’s cry became a high pitched scream and Corey covered his ears. He’d heard that scream before when he was a child facing a shape-shifter who’d just become jaguar. He’d heard it again in a middle school documentary South America and had been sent back to the hospital after a “relapse.”
Tree limbs cracked and shattered, the thudding of heavy paws drawing weak until overpowered by a crushing and crackling Corey could only imagine coming from bone.
His heart hammered and he scrambled backward, the red dirt giving way beneath his feet, his clawing hands. He pushed to his hands and feet before his legs regained their strength and he stumbled forward. He took a deep breath, glanced over his shoulder at the lithe woman in leather boots, and took off at a run.
He had to get to Maddy before the jaguar woman got to him. He had to save her life, to get her to safety.
Corey tripped on a tree trunk and cut open his palms as he hit the ground. He dusted them on his jeans and continued. The parking lot couldn’t be more than half a mile back down the trail. He crossed the river again, his shoes slipping on the rocky bottom.
How had Zyanya turned into a jaguar? How had she made Maddy lie so still in her trunk? Was she really dead or had she been poisoned? Cursed?
His heartbeat sped and his blood pounded in his temples, the altitude cutting his breath. If he ran every day like Garrett, he’d have more endurance, but he wasn’t Garrett. He was Corey Walsh, failing attorney and lacking father.
He dropped his backpack and tripped up the stairs the forest service had made from dirt and logs. A few more steps and he’d be there. All he had to do was get her to the ranger’s station and she’d be safe. He could call an ambulance and forget he’d ever met Zyanya, except Zyanya stood at the top of the stairs, blocking his path.
Corey took a deep breath, his body heaving. “Get out of my way.”
Zyanya stepped toward him and Corey tripped backward down the steps.
“We have work to do,” she said, her voice calm.
He shook his head. “I want my wife. She needs help.”
Zyanya touched her cheek, wiping away a drop of blood from the trails of the cougar’s claws. “She doesn’t need your help or anyone else’s.”
Corey fisted his hands. “You’ve killed her.”
Zyanya placed her finger between her lips and sucked the blood away. “Not yet, and if everything goes according to plan, I won’t have to.”
“You mean the flute,” he said. “Garrett has it. We could wait by the car.”
Zyanya leaned in close to him, her face within inches of his. “What if he doesn’t have it?”
Corey stepped back, his foot hitting his backpack and folding his ankle. He crashed to the ground. “He has it.”
“The only things I know about you are that you stole my medallion when we were children and you’re a lawyer. Neither leads to a path of trust.”
“What do you plan to do?” Corey asked.
“We’re going to find the Temple of Quetzalcoatl
Corey stared beyond her at the steps to the parking lot. It was late spring, so there should be more visitors in the park, but it was the middle of the week as well.
“You wouldn’t make it,” she said.
“How do you know that, but can’t tell that I’m being honest with you about the flute?”
Zyanya grabbed his shirt below his chin and hauled him to his feet. “It’s time to go.”
“What about the codex? I’m missing the last page.”
“Then we go back to the page before. We visit and we stay there with the Aztecs until they lead us to the temple.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment