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“I’m all done, thanks. I can help you wash those.”

They made short work of the dishes with Dewey downing another breadstick as he worked.

“I’ll leave these out in case we get hungry again,” he said as Paige refilled her glass with more soda.

“You mean in case you get hungry,” Paige said, shooting the dragon an amused glance.

“That’s likely. But you’re welcome to eat the food you bought.” He stuck his bluish-pink tongue out at her before he settled on the floor, walked to his chaise, and climbed up, using the stack of books as a ladder.

“Okay,” Paige said as she set her glass down. “Where should I begin?”

Dewey tore a few pages from his notepad and stuffed them into a book, waving it in the air. “Here are my notes, some of which I told you, some of which are new. Start here while I begin outlining the history of any known locations.”

“Thanks,” Paige said, leaning forward to accept the proffered book.

She winced as her muscles stretched, pulling at the wound on her back. With a grimace, she settled back into her chair and pulled open the book to read the information about the object they sought.

Paige skimmed over the summary in Dewey’s crisp and precise handwriting. It detailed most of what he’d told her regarding the mirror’s usage. It included information about the mirror’s legendary creation. Believed to have come from the ancient Mayans, it contained a drop of a demon’s blood. The demon, named Xibalcan, had unique blood. If a drop spilled to the ground, a duplicate version of the demon would appear on that spot.

A drop of Xibalcan’s blood had been carefully collected in a vial of magical mercury and added to the mirror. The book recounted the tale of the man who had crept into the underworld to retrieve the blood. Descending into a portal in the jungle and passing from this realm into the underworld, the man spent two decades missing.

After a four-month vigil at the portal, his family and friends long gave him up for dead. He returned to his village two decades later, battered and bruised, but alive. And carrying the vial of mercury. Perfectly preserved inside it was a drop of the demon’s blood.

He recounted a fantastical tale, claiming to have been gone for only fourteen days in which he’d fought all manner of demons and underworld creatures. It had taken him four days to fight his way to the sleeping demon. And, after retrieving the drop of blood, he’d been imprisoned by him for six days. He’d won his freedom from the demon in the dice game of Dudo.

Angered, the demon chased him from his cave and called the forces of the underworld to prevent him from escaping without breaking his promise to allow him his freedom. The man claimed to have slain many beasts on his four-day trek back to Earth.

He emerged, finding the entrance to the volcano unattended. After a day’s walk, he’d strode into town wearing the skin of a snake. Its mouth expanded to cover his head, fangs stretching from his forehead to beyond his chin. The tail of the beast trailed behind him by six feet. He claimed he had slain the beast in an epic battle at the mouth of the exit to the underworld.

His story quickly spread through the village and to neighboring villages. Many believed his tale a hallucination or outright lie. Some speculated he had abandoned his family, leaving his wife to raise their three small children alone and taking on another wife in another village.

The man claimed this to be a lie. Still, the rumors persisted. Naysayers explained his claims away. However, one oddity could not be explained. When the man, named Horatio, entered the volcano, he had jet-black hair. No older than thirty, his skin was devoid of most wrinkles and signs of age.

When he returned to his village twenty years later, his image had not changed except for a scar on his cheek and one lock of gray hair at his right temple. He claimed the demon had shaved a year off of his life during an escape attempt, leaving the gray swatch as a reminder of his gaffe. The scar, he said, came from the beast whose skin he wore. During the battle, the snake slithered on top of him, crushing him under his weight. His venomous fang had grazed his cheek, leaving a lasting scar from the poison.

His wife, nearly fifty years of age upon his return, had long since turned gray in the hair and wrinkled in the skin. Even his oldest child appeared more aged than he.

Elders from neighboring villages traveled to see the youthful fifty-year-old, all of them amazed at his appearance. Word traveled of his adventure. And of the bounty he carried upon his return.

The elders of his village secreted it away immediately. Only two months after his return, enemies raided the village in search of the precious item.

The village burned as they searched from house to house, killing those who offered resistance. Until they met with one man. Horatio.

He wore the snake’s skin, slithering through the raiders and killing them one by one. With only one man left, he carved an H into the man’s chest and warned him to spread the word. If anyone harmed his village again, they would pay.

Despite the warning, it would not be the last attack his village suffered. Fortune seekers would continue to come for the special item. Horatio fended off raid after raid, growing tired after months of defending his village.

“The attacks will not stop,” he warned his fellow villagers in the orange glow of a barn fire set by one of the raiders. “We must take bold action!”

The villagers whispered among themselves, but the elders met in secret. With the village’s smithy, they forged a mirror. Encased in cold, blackened metal shaped like a snake, it stood as tall as a man. In its heart, the blood encased in mercury.

The elders protected it with an incantation and the requirement for an offering of magical mercury to unlock the blood’s power.

When the next raiding party rode into the village, their torches burning brightly and their swords drawn, a surprise awaited them.

Horatio stood in the village’s center, the snakeskin on his back. But he did not stand alone. Twenty Horatios stood behind him.

The clones slaughtered the raiding party, leaving only one man alive. He carried the tale throughout the region, a warning to anyone who attempted to steal the magical blood.