BooksBarbecue
Back Maya and the Lord of Shadows Save as PDF
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

“Maybe Auntie Tyana is here to recruit the other magical creatures,” Eleni suggested. “The ones who don’t want to stay hidden.”

“What do you mean, hidden?” Zeran asked, frowning. “Why should they hide?”

“It’s not like in the Dark,” Eleni explained. “The celestials forbid the magical creatures from interacting with the rest of the human world. It’s too dangerous. Most of them were not happy about that. If I recall, some were sympathetic to the Lord of Shadows.”

I almost asked who could be sympathetic to someone as awful as him, but Tyana Nulan was, and so were a lot of darkbringers. I thought about the elokos who had an appetite for human flesh and the werehyenas that had attacked Frankie and me last summer.

There were other magical creatures—the adze, vampiric fireflies, who preferred the blood of children. Chupacabra, haints, nyuvwira, goblins, and dozens of others. Most humans thought that these magical beings were myth and legend, but they very much were real. And some of them had very nasty reputations. They got a kick out of terrorizing people. I shuddered at the idea of Captain Nulan recruiting them to fight for the Lord of Shadows. “We have a sleeper army on this side of the veil who are sick of the celestials’ rules,” I mumbled under my breath. “That’s bad business.”

No one said anything as we crossed the gateway. What was there to say? We’d stopped Captain Nulan and foiled her plan, but I couldn’t shake the nagging thought that the Lord of Shadows was already leagues ahead of us and we were busy playing catch-up. He was the cat, and he’d already set his deadly mousetrap.

Four

image

THE FIRST CELESTIAL

WHEN WE STEPPED out of the gateway into the community center basement, the fluorescent lights crackled to life over our heads, revealing dust-covered boxes and old equipment. A pinball machine sat in a row with several treadmills, half-deflated lifesavers, and a stack of CPR mannequins.

Frankie sneezed, and I wrinkled my nose at the moldy smell lingering on the cold draft. At least it was much better than the garbage dump. Eli’s teeth chattered, but his ghosts were oblivious to the chilly basement. They held an unconscious Captain Nulan in their arms.

Eleni pulled Zeran aside as her fairy dust spread around them, alighting on their skin and clothes. They both glowed softly until her magic faded and, thankfully, with it, the muck and smell from rolling around in garbage soup.

Captain Nulan twitched in her sleep, and we all went still. None of us wanted to deal with the aftermath of her waking up. I wasn’t convinced that Eli’s ghosts and Frankie’s net would hold her for long. “Let’s get her up to the gods’ realm on the double,” I whispered.

“Time to go ghost mode,” Eli said as he disappeared with his ghosts and Nulan.