"That's impossible," Máax yelled over the noise.
"Oh no. Not impossible! Worst of all, pigs are finally gonna fly! It won't be pretty. Have you ever seen one crap?" The screeching siren stopped. "Ah! That's better. So what was I saying? Oh yeah. We're screwed."
"Cimil, please tell me this is a joke."
"Okay. I made up the part about the pigs, but not the rest. So now do you see why I had to lock everyone up?"
Máax grumbled several unhappy thoughts in the key of F-effing, eff, eff, eff, and effing hell. "If the gods should be locked up to prevent this war, then why are you allowing me to remain free?" Máax asked.
Here came the hard part. She needed to convince Máax to once again break the sacred law banning time travel. It was expressly prohibited, not to mention difficult and extremely risky. However, Máax had already broken the rule a thousand times, landing him in hot water. Not that he cared. Bad boy alert! Sure, he'd had a perfectly good reason for each offense, but that didn't mean there weren't consequences. The last time he'd been caught, he'd been banished, stripped of his powers, and left without a human shell. Yep … powerless and invisible for ten thousand years. Again, not that he cared.
'Cause bad boys rule!
That said, he'd broken the law once again (so, so bad!) to save his sister, Ixtab (so, so thoughtful!), and if they managed to stop the apocalypse, he'd be tried again. This time, he'd be entombed for eternity. So, so sad. On the other hand, he was going down anyway, so …
Cimil cleared her throat. "I had another vision. I believe it's the precise moment in time where everything could be put back on course."
"Do you truly expect me to believe that?" Máax scoffed.
Yes! No. Maybe? "Okay. Technically, you'd be a baboon's ass. A stinky one at that."
Máax's laugh was laced with sinister arrogance and just a smidgen of "you fucking amuse me."
"Let us pretend for a moment that I believed you," he said. "Then why do I have the feeling you're going to ask me to do something unlawful?"
Cimil clapped. "Ding, ding, ding! I need you to go back a few teeny tiny decades, to 1993, find a certain chicky-boo, and make sure she doesn't croak prematurely."
"Why?"
Oh. There was no good way to explain it so she'd have to make something up. Hmmm … what story would make him believe? She tapped the side of her mouth.
"You are getting ready to lie. Aren't you?" Máax asked.
Dammit! She sucked at lying. "Yes. But only so you'll do what I want."
"Try telling the truth, Cimil," Máax growled.
But I suck at that, too.
Okay. Deep breath. Sell the story. Be the story.
Right.
"At some point in the future, the woman will act as a neutral party and defuse the tension between us. If she dies, no neutral party. And what's a party without Switzerland? They make awesome cheese. Minky loves eating the holes."
"I'm not going to risk my ass to save some woman simply because we had a little earthquake."
"I'm telling you, Máax, it's the apocalypse. And … make that two earthquakes," Cimil said cheerfully just as the ground rumbled like a ravenous, subterranean beast. Once again, sirens blasted through the prison.
"I don't give a shit!" Máax bellowed over the noise. "I refuse to do any more of your bidding. It always leads to trouble."
True. Máax had, in fact, been doing a lot of bidding for her lately, but he had to attempt this one final task. Not only did her latest vision reveal that saving the woman was their last chance to put things back on course and avoid the apocalypse, but it was also Máax's one shot at happiness. Why? Well, that was something he'd soon find out.
Okay, time for a new tactic. Speak to his extreme horniness. Poor guy is 70K and has never been kissed. Kind of like Drew Barrymore, but seven feet tall. And invisible. And naked. And a dude. Okay. Nothing like Drew Barrymore. Dammit, I can't hear myself think!
"Roberto!" Cimil yelled. "Have someone turn that crap off, or I'll start turning vampires into insects! And they won't be cool ones, either! I'm talking pill bugs!"
Roberto signaled one of his men to the caged guard booth to address the noise, which he did by punching the communication console.
"Thank you, baby." She blew a kiss to Roberto. "Máax, I'm telling the truth. You must go back and save this beautiful, smokin' hot, young woman so she can fulfill her destiny. She needs you. You. You are the only one who can pull this off. So I'm asking, please save her? And hurry up with the answer because Roberto is about to bust a triple-stitch zipper if I don't give him his Cimi-treat."
Roberto crossed his arms and nodded with a pissed-off expression. "She hasn't put out in months. I am so aroused that even you look enticing, Máax."
Cimil burst with laughter. Roberto had made a joke. Not so easy for a five-thousand-year-old ex-pharaoh vampire. "Good one, honey. I'd high-five you, but that would be hard to do through the glass."
"Perhaps we can have sex instead," Roberto stated dryly.
"Through the glass?" she asked. That would be even more difficult, but if he was game to try, then so was she.
"I am able to open your cell, Cimil," Roberto clarified.
"Not so kinky, but okay." She winked. "Just as soon as Máax makes up that empty head of his." Cimil held out both palms, mimicking a scale. "Save hot chick and humanity? Or be a sucky coward, and let us all die. Hmmm … decisions, decisions."
"Precisely how does the pathetic mortal woman die, and how do I save her?" he asked.
Pathetic? Emotionally, he was a pre-Cretaceous amoeba compared to the woman. "Have no clue and ummm … no clue."
"Why not? And why the fuck not?"
"They're called visions," she whispered, "not detailed instruction manuals to thwarting apocalyptic events." Of course, even if she did know, she would never tell. Kinda ruins the challenge. But not like Máax could resist helping his brethren, or anyone for that matter. Helping others was his Achilles' heel. Throw a little danger, risk, and rule breaking in there, and he was happier than an evil vampire with an ice-cream truck.
Máax chuckled like a chump. "Fuck it. I don't have anything better to do."
Ha! Knew it! Sucka!
"I assume you have another tablet?" he asked. "I will need two in order to travel there and back." She knew Máax already possessed one tablet, which he'd snagged from that Spanish vampire slash incubus, Antonio, whom their sister Ixtab had hooked up with. As for the other he required, Cimil had a couple stashed away for this very occasion. The tablets were the size of small headstones, a few inches thick, and made of black jade-a rare material mined from caverns beneath the River of Tlaloc, a powerful river of energy that flowed between the human world and the deity realm. In short, a group of evil Mayan priests, known as the Maaskab, had discovered the supernatural material ages ago and learned to manipulate energy with it, mostly dark energy. It did all sorts of wonderful things such as blunt or neutralize a deity's power or open portals to just about anywhere on Earth at any point in time.
Oh! I should go visit the dinosaurs again!
Really? Did you not learn your lesson last time? Poor, poor dinosaurs. All your fault …
Don't cry. Don't cry.
And clearing throat … "Of course I have a tablet! Roberto's men will give it to you. Oh! And Máax?"
Get ready for one hell of a ride, my dear brother. The SS Ashli is about to disembark, and this voyage is going to make your bad boy, overbloated deity ego whimper like a sissy.
"Yes, Cimil?" Máax rumbled.
"Whatever you do, do not, and I repeat, do not, take the woman from her time. Do you understand? The woman must remain where she is and be allowed to age the old-fashioned way. No exceptions."
"Do I want to ask why?" he asked.
"No, you do not, but I will tell you anyway. I'm in a gracious mood." She took a deep, happy breath. "In order for events to play out precisely and stop us from going to war, the woman must remain where she is in 1993. Alive. Any shortcuts or additional changes to the past would create a different outcome."
"Not following."