Marcus makes new friends in Acapulco: sly Miguel, who constantly plays pranks on the girls in their class; shy little Roberto, with huge glasses and a thirst for Japanese manga; Silvia, who plays soccer almost as well as Olivia did; Luisa, who he can tell anything too; and Diego.
He knows long summer days in the barrio, and swimming with his friends at the canal. He plays video games at Roberto's house, pours over textbooks at Silvia's. The day he turns thirteen, he walks out on his aunts' back yard patio, and sees a jaguar out in the field, turquoise earrings flashing. Two days later his mother meets Gregorio Florez, a police officer who always works at night.
On this day, Marcus is avoiding the house. Gregorio is there, the man his mother says he should now call father. His mother and Gregorio have been married two months, but it is still strange to have another person in the house, invading his space; to see a strange man kissing his mother on the mouth, touching her hips. Gregorio was a good man, patient with tools and machines and children. But Marcus wasn't a kid anymore, and it was weird.
Marcus races his bike up the Costa del Sol with Diego, turning left towards the Plaza. It's been two years since they moved to Acapulco, and the jaguar has appeared twice more. Once, the jaguar rested on top of a park jungle gym. The second time was late at night, at a bus station. Marcus was getting on, and he looked out the window, and the jaguar was over the body of a homeless man, chops bloody, gorging on his stomach. After a particularly horrendous rip, the cat pulled out his heart. Nobody else saw it, and Marcus didn't say anything, but when he got home his clothes were drenched in sweat, and he couldn't sleep. He lay in bed all night, staring at the ceiling, and almost, almost told his mother.
That was a couple months ago. Now he careens down the road, racing with Miguel, Diego, Roberto, Silvia, and Luisa. He's thought when they moved it would be hard, but he made friends easily. It's around three, and they are racing the last days of summer, before schools starts.
They've been told at least a dozen times to avoid the reservoir, but it's hot, and the long canoes off to one side beckon. They clamber into the boats and hoist them off the dirt and into the water, leaping in and paddling. They laugh and splash each other, swimming to each other's boat and attempting to turn them over.
This is the time Marcus looks over at Diego, his curly hair wet, eyes bright and laughing, and a feeling hits so strong that he sinks to the bottom when the others overturn their canoe. It's what has him shakily swimming to shore, where they've left towels and bags, and watch from a distance. He waves and tells the others he's alright, just tired.
On shore he notices something in the water that shouldn't be there; a huge, mostly submerged form, like a log, except their aren't any trees within a hundred feet of the reservoir. His heart jumps and he leaps to his feet.
"You guys! Get out of the water!"
Miguel laughs and tips Diego into the reservoir with a splash. The two girls shriek as Diego swims towards their canoe and starts rocking it back and forth. They don't listen to him, and they don't notice the thing moving steadily towards them.
"You guys! There's a crocodile in the water!"
They finally notice when Miguel throws his paddle at the girls' canoe.The wood whaps! against the surface of the water before being snatched and cracked in two by a long toothy jaws. Luisa screams, and Diego scrambles out of the water into the boat with Miguel and Roberto.
The girls still have their paddles and skim to shore, running over to where Marcus stands once they hit the beach. Marcus shouts and gestures at the guys to come his direction, but they have only one paddle, and he can tell they won't be able to make it. Roberto is panicking, and in a moment they're all rocked overboard.
Marcus is screaming, the girls are screaming, they can see thrashing in the water and a huge scaly tail that lashes up and down. Roberto is swimming to shore, Diego close behind, but Miguel is nowhere in sight.
The jaguar is sitting there, right next to Marcus, but no one else can see him. <I can save your friend's life> he observes. <Both of their lives>
A moment later Diego disappears from the surface, dragged down in a swirl of water.
"Do it!" Marcus screams, "Save them!"
<In the beginning of the first world, when Cipactli ruled beneath the water, we fished it from the deep by using my foot as bate. From its body we scrolled the land.> The jaguar gestured with his missing paw. <What would you sacrifice?>
Time stands still, blacks out like the rusty edges of a mirror. Marcus feels very calm, like the eye of Hurucán. He thoughts skitter on glass. "If you were not here, the crocodile would not be here."
The jaguar laughs, a sound like falling rocks in his mind, its mouth gaping open. <Perhaps. You must learn. Who would you sacrifice?>
"Of my friends?" Marcus choked out. "I- I can't."
Roberto finally reaches the shore, gasping out breath, crying.
<Sacrifice is a great honor, cub.> The creature sounded irritated. <Death is but an instrument of the Gods, Life a transient state. Life and death are teotl, equal and opposite. Neither is greater than the other.>
"Fine, then." Marcus ran out into the water, diving in when it was deep enough. If sacrifice is a great honor, jaguar father, he thought, take me instead.
He heard a roar from the shore, and abruptly he was sitting up in bed, sheets slick and drops flying from his hair into chilly night. <You will have to choose, and soon, cub> he heard the jaguar's growl in his mind. He ran to the phone and called them, Miguel, Diego. They remember swimming the day before, but no crocodile. Miguel bumped his head on the side of the boat, and Diego scraped himself dragging him to shore, but that was it.
5 days later, Roberto drowned in the canal.
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