Serpent Mound_a Nia Rivers Adventure by Jasmine Walt & Ines Johnson

Author:Jasmine Walt & Ines Johnson [Walt, Jasmine & Johnson, Ines]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dynamo Press
Published: 2017-11-16T16:00:00+00:00

14

The fronds and brush and vines of the jungle rushed past me as I ran. My legs pumped faster than my heartbeats. I ran so fast that I outpaced my thoughts, leaving them behind me in the dust at my heels. My emotions lightened the faster I went, and my feelings went into the wind.

The past could not catch up to me. It was a glacier that melted slowly over time, with small chunks breaking off and splashing down in the recesses of my mind. Sometimes what broke off and rose to the surface was a little too heavy, nearly pulling me under. But not today. Today, I ran from it all.

I ran so fast I saw spots. Two of the Balam ran alongside me. It was the two males who had accosted me in Holmul.

It wasn’t that I could recognize them now. Though I had noted that their coats were more orange than yellow, where the dozen other male twins were lighter and darker shades. I recognized them because I’d watched these two shift and I’d taken off running alongside them.

The three of us were after a deer that ran free in the restricted areas of the park. The antlered animal shot across my line of sight. It was fast and its movements were focused as it ran for its life. But it was on its own, and there were three supernatural predators on its tracks.

Like I’d said before, jaguars in nature lived solitary lives unless mating or caring for young. But Balam weren’t born alone and they weren’t fertile. All they had were each other. Their twin was their constant companion in this life.

The word jaguar came from the Native American word yaguar, which meant “he who kills with one leap.” And that’s what the twin males did. One of the Balam leaped into the air on his powerful thighs. He caught the deer by the head and then chomped down to make the kill.

I heard the crunch of bones. It didn’t turn my stomach. It made me bloodthirsty.

There wasn’t much for me to do as the two Balam worked together until the deer was motionless. Then they hauled their kill back to the house. I turned, looking for my own personal prey to hunt.

Most of the Balam were in the water. Fishing was a serious pastime for both natural jaguars and their supernatural cousins. Their speed and stealth made them natural hunters on land as well as in water. I watched as a shifter dipped its short tail into the water like a fishing line. This wasn’t a maneuver created by the shifters; natural jaguars did this technique as well.

I had nothing for a fish to grab onto, so I turned to smaller mammals. I headed away from the water and back into the dense foliage.

The forest was filled with predators and prey. But only here in Central and South America did jaguars still roam free. They’d mostly gone extinct in North America in the 1900s. You could still find some in Arizona, but they were all natural animals, not Balam.

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