Jaguar Sun (11 page)

Suddenly I heard a loud crack.

“Shit! Maya, are you okay?” It was Lyssa’s voice coming from somewhere.

“I got her.” It was Matt’s voice.

I felt myself being picked up and put down on something soft. Then I heard Damian’s voice.

“I’ll get some ice.”

“She’s gonna have a nasty bump,” Lyssa said, sounding closer to me.

“She’ll be okay,” Matt said.

I opened my eyes. I was lying on the couch. They were all staring at me. “What happened?” I asked.

“You fainted and hit your head on the coffee table,” Matt said, holding ice wrapped in a kitchen towel to the back of my head and stroking my hair. “Can you see okay?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said. How the hell could the reincarnation of anything but a huge dork possibly faint and smack her head on a table?

Matt helped me sit up, and I sat there, holding the ice against my head as gracefully as possible while the debate continued.

“I don’t understand what this really means,” Lyssa was saying. “What’s the point?” Damian gave her a look. She tilted her head to the side for a moment and said, “Oooh.”

I couldn’t stand it. “Hey, hey, wait a minute! You can’t do that! Jeez, this is worse than you two babbling in Spanish all the time.”

Matt looked at Damian. “Wait a second. Did you just show her what you know?”

“Yep.”

“That is so awesome,” Matt said.

“Yeah, it’s freakin’ fabulous,” I said.

“Look, honey,” Damian said squeezing in to sit next to me, “I know all this is scary, believe me, I do. I mean, you have no idea how frightening the very thought of having her in my head all the time is—”

“—hey!” Lyss broke in.

“As I was
saying
,” Damian said, “I think there’s a reason for everything that’s happening. I’m just not sure what that is yet. But we’ll figure it out.”

I could somehow hear, in my soul,
Balam
telling me that Damian was right. This wasn’t about just individual powers or shape-shifting. I should have been afraid, I guess. How could I be as important as all those Mayas in the book? I couldn’t even vote yet. But there was obviously something happening that was bigger than us. I looked around, thinking about how different we were just two weeks ago. The changes in us were happening fast, as if there was some kind of urgency to it. Damn, my head was killing me, and I was tired of everything running around in it. Well, I guess it was better than having two people running around in it. I couldn’t imagine what the twins were feeling.

“Time for a break,” Matt said, grabbing the remote and sliding down to the floor between my knees. We snacked on Doritos and dip while we channel surfed.

“Hey, go back a channel,” I said.

“The History Channel? Not exactly the kind of relaxation I had in mind, babe.”

“Shh,” I said. He went back, and we watched and listened as the narrator described the end of the Mayan calendar that was set to occur on, according to many researchers, December 21, 2012.

“Isn’t that the end of the world thing?” Lyssa asked.

“My God, it’s only three weeks away,” Matt said, looking up directly into my face. “Maya?”

“This is it,” I said, “I know it, Matt. I can
feel
it.”

“I think we’re just going to have to trust it,” Damian sighed. “Which sucks. I’m a man of reason, not faith.”

“We’ll figure it out somehow,” I said. “I mean, we’ve made it this far.” I could feel
Balam’s
strength filling me. “I … I feel like I’m being called to something. We’re on the right path, I know it. This is going to sound crazy, you guys, but I think we’re going to be led to the next step. We just have to wait.”

“I just can’t believe I missed it. It’s been all over the news and the Web,” Damian said.

Matt stood up and pulled me to my feet. “I think I’m gonna take Maya home. She probably shouldn’t drive, just to be on the safe side. Do you guys mind if we leave her car here overnight?”

“No. Lyssa can drive it in to school tomorrow,” Damian said.

“I can speak for myself, thanks,” she snapped.

“Oh, my God,” I said.

~ ~ ~

That evening I somehow managed to catch up on most of my homework, even though my head still hurt. I was just starting to look through the list of topics for our upcoming biology project when the doorbell rang downstairs. I heard voices briefly before Dad called me down.

“Maya,” he said, “there’s a Ms. Mendoza here to see you.”

Aw, crap, crap, crap.

I sighed and walked downstairs, pretty much resigned to my fate. I mean, I’d ditched school. I’d been caught. Now I had to take what was coming to me. It was a little bizarre that my English teacher had bothered to come to my house to see me about it. But there she was, standing in my living room. She was wearing a skirt, jacket, and heels, like she’d just now come from school. And she wasn’t smiling.

“I’ll let you two ladies discuss your business,” Dad said, shooting me a look before closing the door to his office.

“
In Lak’ech
, Maya,” my teacher said, holding her hand over her heart.

My eyes bugged out of my head. “You’re … you’re …” I couldn’t speak.

“A shifter, yes,” she said. “Is there somewhere we could talk?” She looked around the house and changed her mind. “Maybe we could go for a drive?”

My stomach was practically jumping out of my body. “Uh, sure,” I mumbled. “I’ll just let my dad know.” She was only the second adult shifter I’d met, other than Victrixa. What if she was somehow part of all that? That shady group? I knew deep down that it wasn’t Victrixa I feared as much as the others who’d been in my vision. I hadn’t been able to see them. They could be anyone. Maybe I was just being paranoid. I hoped I was. I swallowed hard.

“So, uh,” I said, as I closed the passenger side door of her car, “is this about missing school today? I mean, I’ve never ditched classes before, and I promise it was for a really good cause,” I blurted.

She smiled and started her car. “Not really. Although I did notice that Matt Caldwell and the Vasquez twins were also absent today. Also without permission, I might add.”

“Oh.”

She continued to drive and when she started to leave my neighborhood, my heart rate doubled.

“Relax, Maya,” she said as she pulled into a parking space at the Galleria. “I just didn’t think it would be a good idea to talk about this in your house with your father there.”

“Talk about what?”

“Victrixa Mata.”

God, just the mention of her name gave me the creeps. I could feel goose bumps all up and down my arms. “You know her?”

“Well, we know
of
each other, let’s put it that way. Maya, my name is Adriana Mendoza. I
am
a shifter, and I’m also of Mayan ancestry, just like you are. I was asked to take a teaching job at your school so I could watch you and make sure Victrixa kept her distance. Unfortunately, I only just found out that she was mentoring you last week.”

“Who is she, Ms.—”

“Adriana, please. Call me Adriana. Victrixa Mata is a leading member of a group called Toltec. It is Toltec’s mission to make sure that the world, human and shifter, does not transition into the New Age on December 21, 2012.”

“You mean that shit is
real
?” I said, before I could stop myself. “Oh, I’m sorry.” I felt myself flush.

“No need to apologize, I’m sure it comes as quite a shock,” she said. “But it is indeed very real, and Toltec will do anything they can to stop it.”

“But … why?”

“Well, what we know is this. There are two surviving holy books from the Mayan civilization that existed thousands of years ago. One of these books, the
Popol Vuh
, contains the Mayan creation story. The second book, the
Chilam Balam
, holds prophecies based on the famous Mayan calendars. I assume you’ve learned something of those?”

“Yeah. In Spanish class,” I said. (It made total sense. It was the only part of Spanish class that was in English, so I’d actually understood something for once in my sorry life.)

Adriana smiled. “Basically, we believe the
Chilam Balam
tells us that when the Mayan Long Count calendar ends on December 21
^st
, a New Age will arrive. This New Age will be the opposite of our current times. There will be no war or violence, no greed, no hate. The earth will be cherished as it once was and no longer be destroyed as it now is. All of the peoples of the world will unite, and there will be an end to chaos.”

“That’s
it
? That’s what all the fuss has been about? All the TV shows and movies?”

“Well, no one is guaranteeing a smooth transition. There could be some bumps in the road. It would probably take weeks or even months to see the effects. Maybe longer. We can’t be sure.”

“And these Toltec people?”

“Toltec is by far the greatest threat to the change. They want very much to stop this from happening. Its members profit far too much from the fear, hatred, and chaos in the world the way it is now. They value money and power above all else. They are corrupt and evil.”

“But, but…what I don’t get is, what would they want with me, Ms.—Adriana?”

“The events of the 21
^st
won’t just happen by themselves, I’m afraid. Has your grandmother explained to you the meaning of
k’ul
?”

“Sure, it’s the flow of life. The life force we all have.”

“That’s right. It’s the divine force in everything. It’s energy. Different people have more or less of it. Shifters happen to have quite a lot. That’s how we can identify one another. You see, Maya, this energy runs through everything all over the earth. And, in order to set the transition in motion, the energy must be set in motion.”

“Huh,” I said, “I did a report on the Egyptian pyramids once, and it said that they’re supposed to be, like, processors of energy or giant conductors or something. Is that kind of what the Mayan pyramids were built for?”

“Exactly.”

“But you’d still need something to start the whole process off, though. Right? I mean, what’s supposed to get the transition started?”

“You are.”

CHAPTER NINE

“But that’s insane!” I protested. “I’m just a high school junior. Why does everyone think I have anything to do with this?”

But I knew in my heart it was true. It was the reason why my mark was different and why I’d been having visions. It was why my friends were developing crazy powers. My heart was pounding and my arms and legs were going numb.

“Because you have more
k’ul
than anyone our world has ever seen,” Adriana said. “You’ve been accumulating it for centuries, all for this one day in time.”

“The reincarnations,” I said. “So Damian was right.”

“The Mayan people have always believed in reincarnation. We had been searching for you for years, as had Toltec. But it wasn’t until last summer that you were found.”

“Last summer?” I asked.

“It must have been quite soon after you and Matt got together and all the changes started happening. You had such incredibly strong
k’ul
that Richard sensed it. Around the same time we also learned that Victrixa had purchased a large piece of property nearby. That also tipped us off.”

All I could do was blink my eyes and try to keep up with all of it. “Who’s Richard?” I asked.

“Richard is my mate. He found you last June. He’s been keeping an eye on you ever since.”

“His second form wouldn’t be an owl by any chance, would it?”

She laughed. “Yes.
Tunkuruchu
. I’ll have to speak to him about his hooting habits.” She laughed again. “Oh, Maya, you have no idea how very glad we are to have found you … if for nothing else than to keep you safe from Toltec.”

But I knew that wasn’t the only reason. As we talked, the weight on my shoulders was growing heavier.

“I need to talk to my Grandma,” I told her.

“Of course you do,” she said. “I’m sorry. This is a lot. I know it must be very hard for you to take it all in.” She laid one hand on my shoulder. “I can’t even imagine. But you’re not alone in this. You need to know that. And before you say anything, I should tell you that, either way, we are prepared for your answer. If you decide to go, we have everything all arranged. And if not, we will be able to offer you our protection until after solstice on December 21
^st
.”

It was funny how she phrased it that way, as if I really had a choice, because we both knew I didn’t. Plain old history class seemed like a total waste of time when you compared it to actually helping to make the world better. I just wished I believed in myself as much as Adriana seemed to.