When you learn that the world is a better place without you in it—and you have the power to make things right—would you do it?
Teen tikbalang Gio del Mundo returns from his first adventure only to find his father dead—and his magic tailor’s chalk stolen.
The culprits? The Red Lotus—a deadly coven of witches hell-bent on wiping all tikbalangs from the face of the Earth.
To stop them, Gio must travel back to 1820 and reclaim the chalk before it’s used to erase his kind forever.
But when he uncovers a harrowing truth about his origins, Gio faces an impossible choice:
Let the past stand—and survive.
Or set things right—and vanish from existence.
FREE READ: CHAPTER 1 OF “GIO AND THE TAILOR’S CHALK”
“SOMETHING’S WRONG,” I MUTTER UNDER MY BREATH.
Beside me, my friends are chuckling, their faces still flushed with excitement over the victory we’ve just won against Vzu, the evil alien who wanted to obliterate Earth by using us as her weapons.
But my heart is thudding like a horse’s hooves clattering against concrete.
I look down and see that my feet have indeed transformed into hooves—which they do whenever I sense trouble.
Being part-tikbalang and part-human—and now, thanks to Vzu, part-alien—has given me tremendous powers, which I’m still exploring and getting used to.
Before Vzu, my legs were deformed, my left leg shorter than my right. My father and I have always told people I contracted polio as a child. But in reality, the deformation was a preparation for the time when I would be a full-blown Tikbalang on my fifteenth birthday: a monster with the face, hands, and feet of a horse and the body of a human every full moon.
But Vzu abducted me before my fifteenth birthday—along with four other kids my age—and experimented on us by infusing us with her essence.
It not only gave me new powers; it transformed me physically. Before, I could run fast. Now, I can run as fast as the wind, maybe ten times faster than that. I don’t have a tail. But my legs became perfect in shape and length, and I can change them at will or, instinctively, in times of danger—like now.
“Gio?” Issa asks, noticing my anxiety. The others—Zinag, Nimuel, and Arion—stop talking, sensing the mood.
“Something’s wrong,” I repeat. I sniff, my senses heightening as every step brings us closer to the gate of my humble house.
“I smell. . . blood!” I gasp, then I run forward, fast, leaving my friends behind.
I leap over the closed gate, running, and throw open the door, my heart galloping.
The scene that greets me makes my knees weak, and I fall to the floor as I let out a horrible scream.
There’s blood everywhere. On the walls, on the floor, on all the furniture.
And at the far end of the living room, two tikbalang bodies lay frighteningly still.
One is my Uncle Celso. The other is my father—his eyes and mouth open in wide horror.
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