Ren answered in kind by returning her thoughts. "He was reincarnated several times. His last incarnation was as a man named William Jessup Brady. Jess for short to most people. He, too, is Cherokee, and his mother named him Manee Ya Doy Ay." Which meant "sundown" in Cherokee. The quiet time between night and day when there's perfect balance between light and dark. Though that name certainly didn't fit with the exceptionally loud shotgun rounds he seemed to enjoy letting loose.
But who was she to judge?
Ren went on to the others. "You know Cabeza from your earlier attack. The blond with long hair and fangs is Urian, and the other is Sasha."
"Hi," she said, offering them a smile.
Moving to stand beside her, Ren folded his arms over his chest. "Just so you know, the reason Sasha lacks fangs as a human is that he's a lycanthrope."
Fascinating, and that knowledge made her realize something. The sun was shining....
She glanced up at the sun meaningfully. "Shouldn't you, Urian and Cabeza be bursting into flames or something?"
Cabeza looked up at the sky. "That's not the real sun."
Which brought up one interesting question. "Okay ... so where are we?"
He slid his gaze to Ren. "Xibalba." Could he have made that sound any more sanitizer?
Ren cursed as she gasped, then looked around the area with new sight. This was the Mayan hell?
Great. Leave it to her to get sucked into some prehistoric underworld. How many people could say that?
Sundown laughed at their reactions. "See now," he said to Kateri. "I had to have all that explained to me. I'm impressed you know the answer without asking. But then, that's why you got them letters after your name."
Ren ran his thumb down the side of his mouth. "They haven't really bothered us. Should I be concerned by that?"
"Well, there are nine levels here," Cabeza said. "This is level one. Mostly made up of phantoms and ghosts, and lower-class demons, it's not so bad. But there are twelve Lords of Xibalba. They're the ones we don't want to run into. Especially not Ixtab."
"Ixtab?" Sundown asked.
"A suicide goddess," Urian answered.
Cabeza looked impressed. "You know our pantheon?"
Urian glanced around their small group with a wry grin. "As the oldest one here ... yeah. I've been to a lot of places over the centuries, hunting food. Mayans were always one of my favorite menu choices."
"Why?" Sasha asked with a puzzled frown.
"They had a suicide goddess, Scooby. You showed up as a demon, claiming you came from Xibalba, and they were eager to give up blood and their souls to you. Mayans viewed life as nothing more than a gateway to death. They had a whole different point of view about it all that we milked. Plus the blond hair really helps when they have a whole prophecy about a white foreign snake demon. Whether they called us Waxaklahun Ubah Kan or Kukulkan, they were eager to give us their throats. Damn shame their cities collapsed."
"Probably cause you overfed," Sundown mumbled. "Where the hell was the Dark-Hunters?"
Urian winked at him. "Very few and very far between in Mesoamerica, which was another reason we loved it here."
Sasha shook his head. "Nice dissertation on Daimon mind-set. I can't believe we share common genes. Damn, Uri, you guys were cold and you give my people a bad name."
Urian's glare could melt ice. "Cold is having your own grandfather condemn you to die horribly on your twenty-seventh birthday over something you had no knowledge of or participation in. Hell, I was a baby living in Greece when the Atlantean queen bitch had Apollo's mistress slaughtered."
"Bitter much?" Cabeza asked.
The malevolent glare went to him next. "How'd you get to be a Dark-Hunter again?"
Cabeza laughed evilly. "I not only own the bitter card, I play it every chance I get. It serves me better than my people thinking you were my direct ancestor."
Kateri wasn't sure she caught that correctly. "You're related to the Mayan gods?"
"It's why I'm named Kukulkan. Unfortunately, though, the genes were watered down so much by the time they got to me, all the powers that came with the bloodline had been lost." He turned an irritated grimace toward Urian. "Probably 'cause someone sucked it all out of us. Oh for the days when I could stake you."