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Back Maya and the Lord of Shadows
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

Several other celestials landed next to Oya. Orunmila, the orisha of wisdom with a golden disc around his head. Okó, the hunter, who I’d read about in Oya’s comic books. Mama Wata, who had the biggest python I had ever seen wrapped around her neck. Then there were the other celestials. The big man, John Henry. Harriett Tubman, the celestial best known for helping to free people on the Underground Railroad. And many more celestials that I didn’t recognize.

“Enough chitchat and socializing,” Black Mamba said as he transformed into his natural state. “We’ve been waiting for our day to destroy the celestials for a long time.”

“Go.” Oya opened her arms wide, and her feet lifted from the ground. “We’ll take it from here.”

Under any other circumstance, it would’ve been a dream to fight side by side with the great Oya, but I had to find Eleni.

The adze were the first to rush at us, with the werehyenas close on their heels. Oya and the other orishas were a blur of bright light as they fought back the army. It was pure chaos.

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Eli said as his ghosts closed ranks around us.

We fought off attackers the entire two blocks before running into Papa’s veil. I pressed my hand against it, feeling the familiar hum, then I stepped back and slashed it with my staff. I’d torn a hole in the only thing keeping the Lord of Shadows at bay.

Twenty-Seven

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TRAPPED IN A MAZE

I STARED AT THE tear, almost in shock that it’d been that easy, but then again, Eleni and I were the only people with the magic to destroy Papa’s veils. That was why the Lord of Shadows needed us to bring down the one between the human and the Dark worlds.

Eli’s ghosts filed through the tear first, and we followed close behind. Once we were inside, I realized what we’d seen from the sky was only an illusion. We had stepped into a nightmare. Our neighborhood, the place where I’d spent my entire life, was little more than a shell. Even in the fading evening light, everything was gray—the streets, the buildings, the stop signs, the trees, the snow, the parked cars. The air smelled wet and moldy, like something slowly rotting. Black lightning etched across the sky.

“This is . . . not good,” Frankie remarked.

“At least the veil around the neighborhood is still up,” Zeran said optimistically.