He looked at the burn on my cheek. “I think you met the guy I came to warn you about. If you put Bag Balm on that, it will feel better. Might even keep it from scarring. I was hoping to find you before he did, but making phone calls from”–he glanced at Kyle–“making phone calls to tell someone that an angry volcano god is going to attack her is hard enough when you know her well enough that you dohave her phone number. It also takes me time to come off a Seeinglike the one I had when you came to visit me. Took me a little longer to decide I had an obligation to find you and give you a little clearer warning. Getting here … well, for such as you and me, it wasn’t a big thing, but it took time, too.”
Don’t tell Kyle the lawyer that the man talking to us had just escaped from prison. I got the message, not that I needed it. Adam had told me before we came in that Kyle’s best defense was not to know that Laughingdog had escaped from prison.
“What do you know about this ‘angry volcano god’?” Adam asked slowly.
“Some. Not a lot, but hopefully enough that you can find out more. I got a lot of random information. Do either of you know what ‘El Teide’ means?”
Kyle frowned. “In reference to what?”
“To Guayota,” Laughingdog said.
“Coyote?” asked Zack.
“No. Guayota,” said Kyle. “Starts with a ‘g,’ and it’s the name of one of the gods of Tenerife.”
“Tenerife?” I asked.
“The Canary Islands?” asked Adam. “Tenerife is one of the bigger islands in the Canaries, right?”
I’m a history major, so once Adam jogged my memory, I pulled up a few random factoids–I am a magpie of history trivia. Spain had conquered the islands that were not far off the coast of Africa over the course of a century, just in time for them to be used as supply ports for Columbus and most of the Spanish explorers of the New World.
I knew a couple of other very random things. First, at the behest of the King of Spain, Canary Islanders had settled what became San Antonio, Texas, and set up the first official government in Texas. Second, the original natives of the islands hadn’t been of African phenotype. That and the local island story that there was a mysterious island among the Canaries that disappeared and reappeared had been used to fuel all sorts of Atlantis rumors.
None of what I knew appeared to be useful in the present situation, so I kept my mouth shut.
“That’s right,” Kyle said. “My folks used to vacation there every year–still do for all I know. I haven’t talked to them much since … well, since. Anyway–” He spoke quickly, to get the attention off events that were still painful. Kyle seldom spoke about his family, who had disowned him when he’d told them he was gay. “There was this old woman at my parents’ favorite hotel who watched kids so that the adults could go play. The native Canarians who worked at the hotel swore she was a witch–there are a lot of witches on the Canary Islands. Before I met Warren, I pretty much dismissed all of that as superstition, but now … anyway, the story of Guayota was one of her favorites. One hellish vacation, I heard it five times in three days.” He frowned. “She’s the only one I heard it from, so you should check it out somewhere else. I’m pretty sure she made parts of it up.”
“Keep going,” I told him. “We’ll consult Wikipedia and the library later. Promise.”
“It would be nice,” Laughingdog said with feeling, “to hear something to put what I know in context. It might even help me make some of the odd things more useful. Please, tell us this story about Guayota.”
“Okay,” Kyle said. “Okay. I’ll tell you what I know.” He leaned forward, and I don’t know how he did it, but with a bit of body language and a little warble in his voice, he called to mind a little old lady. I’d always thought that he’d had some drama training at some point. “There is a huge old volcano on Tenerife called El Teide. It’s the tallest peak in Spain and one of the tallest volcanos in the world. The old people who once lived on the island called it Echeyde, which means either ‘hell’ or ‘the gates of hell’ depending upon the person you ask. Guayota lived in El Teide, either guarding the door, ruling there, or both. Only the old ones could tell you for certain, and they are gone long, long ago.”
His voice softened as he talked, and he pulled an accent out of his memory and added it to the story. The chair arm I sat on was uncomfortable, so I slid off it onto the floor. The floor was better, especially when I set my back against the chair and leaned my head against the arm. I’d gotten the post‑danger jitters over with while we waited for the Cantrip agents to figure out that Adam wasn’t going to talk until he was good and ready. Now I was just tired. The nap in the car had made it worse, and my eyelids fought to close.
“Now Guayota was, like the Greek Titans, a violent and impetuous creature of great power. He roamed the mountain in the shape of a great, black, hairy dog with red eyes, and tragedy befell any who met him in his runs because he would eat them up. One bite for children, two for mothers, or three for big warriors who came to fight him.”
Hairy? I thought about it. Maybe the way his skin had seemed to drip and crack could be described as hairy, or maybe he had another form, too.
“Charming story to tell children,” said Laughingdog.
“I thought so, too,” agreed Kyle cheerfully in his own voice, then there was a little pause as he remembered that Laughingdog didn’t deserve a cheerful reply. He continued in a more guarded tone. “My littlest sister had nightmares. And when my parents arranged a sightseeing tour up the side of the old volcano, they couldn’t figure out why she wouldn’t go.”
Kyle recloaked himself in the persona of the old woman, and continued, “Guayota was terrifying, but he was also lonesome. Every day, he would look up and see Magec, the sun, running her path in the sky. He thought her beautiful and wondrous and him so lonely and miserable on that mountain. So that old Guayota, he plotted to take her for his own.”
Hadn’t Guayota made some reference to the sun when he was talking about Christy? I tried to visualize Kyle’s story, to put Flores in the place of Guayota, but all I could see was a wizened old witch with a roomful of kids that she was scaring. Witches feed off other people’s pain; I wondered if they could feed off terror as well.
“So one day, he jumped, the old devil, he jumped out of the top of El Teide and captured her for himself. Loud she cried and hard she fought, but she was no match for old Guayota. She could not burn him with her fierceness, for though she was the fire of day, he was born in the fire of the earth, which is more ferocious even than the sun. Nor could she blind him with her bright beauty because his eyes were used to the molten rock of his home. And when she got too bright for his eyes, the old dog, he just closed his eyes and used his ears and his nose, which were as sharp as any shepherd’s dog’s and more so.
“He took her down to his home and caged her inside the volcano. For weeks, the sky was dark, and smoke filled the air. It was then that Guayota’s children were born, while he held Magec in his caves. They are the tibicenas, fierce, hairy black dogs that emerged from the mountain in those days when Guayota held Magec his prisoner. The only light that shone on Tenerife was Magec’s light, escaping here and there from the caves in the old volcano, and the light of the tibicenas’ eyes.
“But the people of the island were frightened that they had no sun. They called and prayed to Achamán, he who created the world. Achamán listened to the cries of the people and came down to the volcano to rescue Magec. Guayota fought mightily because he did not want to give up Magec. The volcano spewed fire and rock, and many died as the two gods battled. At last, knowing that he could not win, Guayota called up the fires of the earth to swallow the island and Magec, so that if he could not have her, neither could anyone else.
“Achamán took Guayota and stuffed him in the volcano, stopping the fire and smoke and rescuing the people of the island. He freed Magec and sent her racing in the sky once more, fierce and bright as she should be. But she is always watchful when she flies over the top of El Teide, lest old Guayota catch her once again.”