“Well…if you can’t connect as gods then you have to connect as men.”
Now Votan craned back his head to laugh.
“What a naïve thing you are.
What he does as a man is why I was repulsed by him to begin with.”
Max glowered at him.
“That’s because you don’t have any idea what he’s really about.”
The words came with trepidation at first, but she soon felt herself building a head of steam.
“Yes he uses his powers to earn money.
It’s a questionable practice, and something we have to take a look at when we’re done dealing with Caquix.
But part of the reason he wanted to get rich is so he could buy the ancient temple grounds in
Yucatan
.”
Votan’s eyes flared.
“What temple grounds?”
Max stood up straighter and righted his shirt.
“The jaguar temple grounds.
Balek-Balam.
South of
Chichen Itza
.”
His voice grew loud.
“That was my temple!”
“That was our temple.
I’m just as much a jaguar god as you are.”
He scooped a hand through his hair.
“Anyway, I was surveying the land and figuring out borders when I was in
Yucatan
two years ago.
That’s when you started attacking me in the spirit world and I had to leave.”
Votan’s gaze moved up and down him.
“And just what did you plan to do with my…
our
temple?”
Max met his gaze.
“Protect it.
Rebuild it.
Make it a safe place for us to go lifetime after lifetime.
A place where we could leave messages for ourselves from past lives…or even have a vault we could access for wealth we want to pass on.”
Votan continued scowling.
He turned away.
“A vault would be good.”
Michelle’s brow lifted.
He headed for the guest bedroom.
“Anyway, make your pick Ixchel.
Guest bedroom or master bedroom.
There’s no threesome happening.”
“I pick neither.”
“Well—you can’t sleep on the couch anymore,” Max said.
“I can sleep anywhere.”
She turned into a jaguar and skulked away.
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*
Michelle was restless, even in the form that most relaxed her.
She ventured into the spirit world.
Her own stream was clear.
She stood on the light pondering.
If she let her stream engulf her for a little while her goddess memories might bring something to light that could help her current situation.
She hemmed and hawed about this for a few moments.
The stream was so intense.
She was already going through an ordeal.
She just didn’t have the strength to withstand her goddess essence.
She leaped from her stream and swam toward Max’s.
She had nothing to lose by making an attempt against Cabrakan now.
If he killed her she would just wake up.
That fact struck her for a moment.
Since she had a form in the mortal world her spirit couldn’t be destroyed.
It was like a video game character.
If she got tore up she could just wake up and try again with a fresh new spirit form.
For the demons she met in her stream it was different.
These were the only forms they had.
If they were destroyed in the spirit world they were truly destroyed.
She landed in Max’s stream.
Caquix took a corporeal form, a spirit and mortal body together, and managed to squeeze past the seal of the underworld into the human world.
His spirit could still travel back and forth.
When Votan and Max killed him in the mortal world his spirit would go back to the underworld.
That had to be what happened when the twins killed him two thousand years ago.
He wasn’t destroyed—just trapped.
She would have to mention this point to Max.
He wasn’t really murdering anyone.
He was just putting Caquix back where he belonged.
Michelle saw the behemoth.
The mountainous demon was close enough to lock its red eyes on her.
He resembled a Mayan totem she’d seen which she thought had been meant to resemble a man.
His head was as wide as his shoulders, bald, and with red flesh.
His torso had no definition; it was just a red square of flesh.
He wore a massive loincloth that draped down to the stream.
Squat legs with bulging square knees showed behind it.
My God he’s ugly.
She realized there was something on one of his huge shoulders.
A black bird.
Michelle stalked closer to him.
She gave a low hiss and already began to see red.
Her entire furred form coursed with adrenaline.
‘They sent you to do their dirty work, hm?’ Caquix said.
She bolted to a sprint and leaped at him.
The giant moved too slow to catch her.
She sunk her teeth into the bird’s throat and tumbled to the stream with him.
Before he could utter another word, she tore off his head.
Caquix vanished.
She licked at the blood he left on her lips.
The giant was turning around toward her, slowly, like a walrus on land.
She braced herself to leap at him.
‘I am Cabrakan, who shook the earth and made the sky tremble,’ he said.
She knew he was speaking some ancient Mayan dialect.
Somehow she comprehended every complicated-sounding word.
Michelle was at a loss a moment.
It seemed like she should give an equally lofty introduction.
Um…I’m…
‘Why did you vanquish the spirit of my father?’
She lifted her feline face.
‘He’s not supposed to be here.
Neither are you.’
‘I am here because he bade me to be here.’
‘Leave or I’ll destroy you.’
The giant went silent a few moments.
‘I will leave,’ he finally said.
Really?
Awesome!
‘But speak to me first.’
She hesitated.
‘Okay.’
‘Are you not Ixchel, goddess of desire, birth, and healing?’
She stared at him a moment.
The words rang true, but also left her stricken inside.
The books of B’alam referred to her as the goddess of medicine and midwifery.
Goddess of desire?
‘Yes.
I’m Ixchel.’
He slowly lifted one stout hand to gesture.
‘Then how can it be that you are doing battle?
You are not a warrior.’
She swallowed.
‘I’m full of surprises.’
‘And why are you the enemy of my father?’
‘He wants to do bad things in the mortal world.
My purpose is to stop him.’
Plus he’s an asshole.
‘I am not gifted with wisdom.
I have thoughts I wish to put into words, but I must speak slow.
Please let me say what is in my core to be said.
Be patient.’
She blinked at him.
‘Okay.’
‘My father was arrogant.
He wanted all the riches.
The twins Huna and Balan knew it would not be good for the world of men for such a being to exist with them.
This is why they tricked him, and sealed him into the underworld.’
With you so far.
‘Is not the world of men a different place now than it was when my father fell?
Are not arrogance and the quest for riches seen as good things?
My father is alone in the mortal world, using his powers to attain his riches and power.
Why do you seek to vanquish him for doing this?
It is said that the jaguar Maximon commits far worse sins.
This is why I came to blight his stream.
Yet he is made your mate, and my father is made your enemy.’
The truth he spoke struck her, but she didn’t let it show.
‘Your father plans to do a lot worse than manipulate a stock portfolio.’
‘I do not understand.’
‘He’s evil.
I can sense it, and I know to trust my senses.
Besides that, he’s already shown me what a loathsome creep he is.
He’s going back to Hell.’
Cabrakan’s red eyes began to glow and raised both his short arms.
‘You are the one who is loathsome!’
He lumbered toward her.
Michelle cringed back.
The brute was slow, but the size of a building.
She forced herself to hold her ground.
The magic came immediately now when she hissed.
Transparent red lava poured from her eyes and mouth.
Cabrakan stepped into the flow.
His foot melted off.
She clamped her jaw shut.
Oh no!
The behemoth’s face contorted.
He crashed backwards screaming in pain.
Michelle walked toward him weighed by sympathy.
His fat leg had a gory stump on the end.
Could she heal him?
Cabrakan mistook her advancement as a continued attack.
He scrambled onto his stomach and pushed apart the stream to reveal a black pool.
The beast desperately crawled into it.
It closed behind him, and the rent in the stream came back together.
Michelle stood frozen in the silence that followed.
She would have cried if her jaguar form allowed her tears.
Cabrakan was right.
She wasn’t a warrior.
*
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*
Max led Votan to the garage under his building.
He used his keyless entry to unlock his Maserati.
Votan halted to stare at it.
“Why do you drive such a small vehicle?”
Max shrugged.
“Status symbol.
It’s bigger than it looks inside.”
Votan worked his way into the passenger seat.
“Flaunting your wealth is important to you?”
He turned on the ignition.
“It was, when I was trying to get laid.
Now that I have Michelle in my life it’s not as much of a priority.
She’s obviously not a gold digger.”
Votan grunted.
“Hold on to your toys then.
You’ll have need of them once again in the future.”
He leaned over the seat to back out.
“About that—what makes you think she’s going to leave me for you?”
He shifted into drive.
“You take her for granted.
She’s young and naïve, but she’s not an idiot.
She knows I’ll treat her better than you.”
“I’ll treat her fine.
I’ll cherish her.”
“Really?”
He pulled out of the garage.
“Is that why she abandoned you those lifetimes after you did something that made you ‘unworthy of her’?”
Votan gave a low growl.
Max felt as though a rabid pitbull sat beside him.
“I’ve learned from those mistakes.”
Max shook his head a few millimeters in each direction.
He tried to refocus on the mission.
“Maximon, let’s talk frankly.
Not to rile each other.
Just truth.”
“Go ahead.”
He lowered his visor.
The morning sun was just peeking over the horizon to cause a glare on the building in front of him.
“I’ve known Ixchel for almost a thousand lifetimes.
I know her even better than she knows herself.
I know what she’ll be like in the future, as she matures.
She won’t put up with you using the powers of the B’alam to enrich yourself.
She may seem tolerant now, but this is your honeymoon.
When she truly understands what you’re doing it will be despicable to her.
Even if she unbonds with me for a time she’ll eventually leave you and come back to me.
You’ll never give up all your schemes to keep her.”
Max drove several minutes in silence.
He already had a sense of this.
It felt like déjà vu.
They’d had the same wedge driven between them in prior lives.
“Maybe I would give it all up.”
Votan scoffed.
“Maybe I’ve learned from past mistakes.”
“You don’t remember your past mistakes—or the turmoil you suffered once you’d lost her for good.”
His voice grew quiet.
“I sense it.”
Votan laughed.
“You can’t change your spots, little cat.”
“Let’s hope you’re wrong.”
He pulled into
Columbus Square
.
“We both need to do better for her.”
Votan grudgingly nodded at this.
“Yes.
She deserves better.
She’s rising to the challenge more than I’ve ever seen before.
Dispatching Cabrakan so fast.
She’s impressed me.”
“Me too.”
Max parked in one of the guest spaces.
“I’m not sensing his presence.”
Votan stared at the massive buildings.
“He’s not anywhere around here.
That means one of three things.
He’s away.
He went away when he saw us coming.
Or he never really lived here and just misled Ixchel.”
Max soothed back his hair with a groan.
“This is impossible.”
“Maybe not.”
He exited the car and headed for the first building.
Max followed but with a grumble.
How about telling him what they were doing?
He hated that Votan had such a great advantage over him.
They entered a massive lobby with curved counters on either side of them staffed by doormen.
Votan pointed straight ahead.
There were inner glass doors that led to elevators, and beside it, a wall of mailboxes.
“I might see a name I recognize for him,” Votan said.
Max nodded, but the space before him where Votan had been standing became empty.
He proceeded in cat form past the attendants.
Max transformed and followed.
They sneaked in behind a woman laden with shopping bags.
They transformed back to human once at the mailboxes.
Max scanned the names beside him, unsure of what he was looking for.
Then it jumped out at him:
VUCAB CAQUIX
He pointed.
Votan’s brow crinkled upwards.
“He used his real fucking name?” Max said.
Votan looked at him.
“So, we’ve found him.”
“Now what?”
“We’ve little time.
He’ll know we’ve come here and move.”
Max laughed.
“Then we have plenty of time.
It would take him forever to find another place like this.”
“Mm.”
His yellow eyes fixed on the name.
“There were so many other lifetimes and so many other places where our jobs would be easier.
He lives high up in a guarded fortress.
When he’s not here he becomes impossible to find in the city.”
“Yep.
He knew exactly the best place to set himself up.”
Votan turned up his hand.
“I don’t know how to proceed.
He knows our every move outside of the circle.”
“Speaking of which, we should take our discussion there.
I don’t want to volley ideas when he’s listening.”
Votan led the way back toward the glass doors.
“Agreed.”
Max waited until they were out of the parking lot before resuming their conversation.
“Have you considered the possibility that she won’t give up either of us?”
Votan looked out the window.
“I don’t want to consider it.”
“That’s childish.”
He fumed through his nostrils.
“What do you want me to say?
That I’ll share her?
That I’ll stay forever in this crowded nightmare of a city?
That we’ll live happily ever after in your condo having threesomes every night?”
Max took it all in.
“Yeah,” he said after a while.
“That’s exactly what I want you to say.”
“Mother fucker.”
“It’s what she wants.
Have you considered that?”
“Psh.”
“Of course.
Blow it off.”
He turned out of traffic.
“You say I’m some pathetic fool because of how I care so much about money.
What about you?
You only think about yourself.”
“I’m not perfect, but I’m better for her than you.”
Max shook his head.
“Not even you believe that.”
“As long as you’re misusing your powers it’s true.
You’ve given that to me.”
This stung him.
Votan was a selfish brute of a man, but he had incredible insight.
Max swallowed down a lump in his throat.
“I don’t even like day trading anymore.
It was stressful even before my streams got clogged.
Most guys get out a lot sooner that I have.
I’ve been at it eleven years.”
Votan eyed him.
“So.
You’ll retire to the
Yucatan
?”
“That was the plan.
Until some violent jackass chased me away.”
Max couldn’t turn toward Votan while he was driving.
He was almost certain, however…that he saw the man’s face soften.
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