BURN IN HADES Read Online Free PDF Page A

Bolon-Hunahpu was just way too sensitive. Cottontail had thicker skin than all the bark on Skullface’s trunk, but she was gone now and Bolon-Hunahpu was partially responsible.
    His stomach began to gurgle and squirm. Religious folk like his old friend Mr. Beckwourth failed to mention that at least one thing never died in the underworld: hunger. But satisfying one’s appetite didn’t exist either, and under the underworld’s tricky, manipulative hand, a spirit never simply starved to second death. That would have been a luxury.
    Within his first week as a member of the damned, Cross was lucky enough to have witnessed the monstrous sight of a soul’s insides turning on its spirit and eating its way out. Ever since then, he had eaten religiously. No matter what the predicament he found himself in, he fed his insides before they fed on him. He actually needed Bolon-Hunahpu’s help now more than ever.
    He stood and faced the tree. “Skullface—I mean Bolon-Hunahpu? You there? I didn’t mean what I said. Honest.”
    The skull emerged from the branches. “I heard the beast in your tummy.”
    “If I don’t eat right now, Squals will be my least worry.”
    “You refuse my calabash. And you refuse my friendship.”
    “I’ll be your friend. I am your friend. From now on, you and me, we’ll be like the Hatter and the Hare.”
    “I have come to know that you can be very cordial when you’re not angry. Sometimes you let your rage get the best of you. You have a tendency to allow your anger to dictate your decisions. It really hinders you from progress.”
    “Do you want me to burn, Skullface? More help. Less talk.”
    The skull rolled itself back into the branches once again.
    “Okay,” said Cross, sighing. “You’re right. I won’t yell at you again. I promise. And I’ll even consider having one of those calabashes.”

    With Bolon-Hunahpu’s help, Cross retrieved a new barbot. He dragged the bird by several of the many weed-covered houses that populated the kingdom of Xibalbá. They were all scattered about and separated by lanes and alleys of statues.
    An eerie silence pervaded the house of darkness as he passed; hail thumped and swirled about in the shivering house; and the clatter of wind-chime sounds twinkled inside the blade house. The jaguars must’ve been resting in their house. He couldn’t see inside because they were sealed in tightly. Skullface had mentioned that they were locked in their cage for their own protection. They were the last jaguars of the underworld, just like the giant bats were the last of their kind. The deities would someday return and retrieve them both.
    Through the bars and fencing of the dome shaped aviary, Cross spotted a couple of those bats flapping around in the dead trees. The only two houses he had never entered were the bat aviary and the jaguar cage for fear of the creatures that dwelled inside them, but he had explored all the other houses for useful objects. The blade house kept all the weapons.
    The Palace of the Lords dominated the kingdom, stretching across at least a mile and a half. Dead weeds attempted to strangle the palace, but its mighty stones burst through them like muscles on brawny man wearing a shirt that was too small.
    Beneath the vines were carved depictions he hadn’t noticed before in the couple of weeks he had been hiding out in Xibalbá. It was as if the vines had peeled themselves back to reveal the carvings of skulls and impaled heads to him specifically. They also showed him a carving of an ugly serpent just like the one decorating the ball court, but this one had faces etched into its body. The serpent led up the side of stone staircase and into the dark palace.
    In the cooking area of the palace, Cross sliced up the bird using the blade he had retrieved from the blade house. Good thing barbots didn’t have feathers. It would be time-consuming hell plucking a bird so big that it could eat a horse. And if he was going to remain among the