The Storm Runner: Chapters 24–32

Eyeballs floated in his eye sockets, and he wore a long white tuxedo jacket with a dead red rose pinned to one of his silk lapels.

My stomach roiled when my thug found the jaguar jade and motioned for me to hand it over.

"If they're so tough, why do they use pseudonyms?"
Brooks looked up, watching the exposed cables carry us. "They changed their names to fit in when they came to the US. I guess they're named after some basketball stars from back in the day."

She pointed to a short, stout guy.

Then she grudgingly handed Bird her present—a gold-plated seashell Jazz had given us for the occasion.

Jordan threw himself onto one of the sofas and propped his feet on a matching velvet ottoman.

I weighed both options, trying to decide which would make them angrier—a lie, or the fact that I was the one who had freed their nemesis.

"We've got raw power," Bird asserted, almost as though he were trying to convince himself, not Brooks.

The twins were physically powerful, more than we ever could be, but they obviously needed human magic to sustain their power.

A tall willowy man with a grasshopper mask entered, walking toward the twins slowly, like he was approaching some almighty throne.

"Do you see?" Bird said to us, brandishing his arm in front of him.

A part of me wanted to tell them I was the Storm Runner, to wipe those smug looks off their perfectly chiseled faces, but I couldn't.

"A conduit of pure magic," Bird said, and there was a tremor in his voice.

With each second his pallor was getting grayer, and his skin was so translucent I could see the veins underneath.

"Did you really think your pathetic magic could keep me out?" Ah-Puch said to the twins. "Your little sand castle isn't as strong as you imagined."
Jordan's jaw tightened as he looked around at the broken pieces of their illusory world.

"Your lies are such bitter little things. And to think I was locked away, unable to refute them. Hardly justice, wouldn't you agree, Zane?"

"Why...why would Jordan and Bird lie?"
"To establish their fame, their notoriety," Puke said in a commanding tone. "To ensure that no other godborns would ever challenge them."

"Lie about defeating me, inspire humans to ignore the gods, instill enough fear in the gods to make them create the Sacred Oath. That way you'd never have any competition."

The twins used their popularity among humans as leverage in a deal with the gods.

'Jordan and Bird' promised to go on a PR tour, encouraging humans to revere the gods again, to restore balance.

"He's no human," he said slowly, like he wanted to savor the shock that registered on Bird's face.

I could see his mental gears clicking into place, but not before Ah-Puch started to laugh. I mean a giant, uproarious laugh that shook the stone walls and could've registered a ten on the Richter scale.

"The magic runs deep, and you aren't brave enough to withstand that kind of pain."

With a shrug, Jazz said sheepishly, "I snooped. Sorry, but it was an emergency."

Brooks snatched the map from him and unfurled it.

I'm here to expedite your journey to the Old World.

Unless you have some secret up your sleeve, you badgering me in my dreams isn't exactly helping.

Whitish foam curdled on the water's surface.

"Looks like a tunnel." I leaned over the railing. We were surrounded by rusted, corroded metal walls. "Or the hull of a wrecked ship."

"Looks like a tunnel." I leaned over the railing. We were surrounded by rusted, corroded metal walls. "Or the hull of a wrecked ship."

"How does a cane open an ancient gateway?" I asked flippantly, hoping Jazz might hear how crazy it sounded.

Jazz raised the raft to his mouth and started blowing. Fortunately, a giant's lungs are big enough to inflate a four-person dinghy in fifteen seconds.

The albino fish-monsters began to glow beneath the dark water, casting a putrid yellow light through the tunnel.

So I'd found the first soft spot (Puke's overconfidence, his underestimation of me) and I'd landed a blow.

Two small moons inched across the sky in perfect synchronicity.