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Maya and the Lord of Shadows

Rena Barron
Chapters (34)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-One
  24. Twenty-Two
  25. Twenty-Three
  26. Twenty-Four
  27. Twenty-Five
  28. Twenty-Six
  29. Twenty-Seven
  30. Twenty-Eight
  31. Twenty-Nine
  32. Acknowledgments
  33. About the Author
  34. About the Publisher

Cover

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Dedication

To the dreamers and storytellers

who never stop believing.

This book is for you

. . . and for my little boy.

One

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IS THAT ALL YOU GOT?

ZERAN KNOCKED ME on my butt for the third time in a row. I growled while he stood there grinning like he’d won already. He was enjoying beating me way too much. Not saying that I had an ego or anything, but if I did, it would seriously be (a) bruised, (b) smashed, (c) deflated, or (d) all of the above. Definitely d plus enough humiliation to last me the rest of the school year. It didn’t help that most of the godlings at Jackson Middle were on the sidelines or the bleachers watching our match, along with several other matches happening at once. The gym was enchanted so that sparring partners and their magic stayed in their designated space.

After two close calls with the Lord of Shadows, the orisha council had decided that we should be ready when the veil between our world and the Dark finally failed. Now that Ogun, the orisha of iron and war, was teaching us how to defend ourselves, I didn’t have to go to math tutoring anymore. Nor did I have to endure watching Gail Galanis doodle on her paper after solving an equation in record time while I struggled to remember the order of operations.

I glared at Zeran. “Lucky shot.”

“Face it, Maya,” he said, flashing his pearly white teeth. “I’m better than you.”

I pushed myself up from the gym floor. “Keep telling yourself that.”

I will admit this much: he did have more training. Before Zeran switched sides, he had been a part of the Lord of Shadows’ army of darkbringers. He—the Lord of Shadows, not Zeran—had commanded that even kids prepare for an all-out war against the human world. Like me, Zeran didn’t believe that darkbringers and humans should be fighting. But the Lord of Shadows wanted revenge ever since my father and the other orishas imprisoned him in the Dark. And he wasn’t the kind of supreme evil overlord who changed his mind or backed down. Ever.

So what if Zeran had more training? I was good with my staff—better than good. I spent hours practicing with Papa in our backyard before Ogun gave up his disguise as Jackson Middle’s crossing guard and started self-defense classes after school. I glanced longingly at the staff propped against the gym wall. The god symbols carved in the black wood pulsed faintly. Have you lost your mind, Maya? the staff seemed to say. We’re a team. You need me!