“All humanity is like me to a degree, my girl, as I am like all of humanity—for I am just a human. But no, you are no vampiress.”
She exhaled heavily, staggered, and braced herself on the coffin lid.
“I intend to mine your good friend Teo for information on the pagan movement ascendant in Aztlan. Do you think I’ll be successful?”
“He’s not my friend. I hate him!” She railed with such fury that she nearly stumbled again.
“I know,” purred Hommler. “Caballero told me of the mole. But do you think I can trust him? I need an accurate snapshot of Aztec polytheism. Theoretically, what better a way than to glean it from one of your priests. But this one, this Teo fellow, is two-faced and tainted. I don’t think I’ll put stock in anything he says that isn’t uttered under torture. Would you like to see him tortured, Marisela?” He brushed his long fingernails across her cheek.
She folded her arms, and her face was confused. Her lips pursed, and her face turned toward the flagstones beneath her feet.
“No,” she said finally. “I don’t think I’d like to see anyone or anything tortured.”
“What an unhealthy view. If you want to survive here, you had better learn to alter it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I will annihilate the Aztec armies your father sends to free you,” said Hommler, clenching his fist. “Then, I will stab westward to—what are you Aztecs so fond of saying—‘liberate’—Aztlan from his inept rule. But honestly, I’m captivated by many of the elements of your present regime—in particular your embrace of polytheism. I want a total and faithful reinstitution of fifteenth century Aztec paganism—gore and all. I want a file of captives, by the day, stretching into the sunset, awaiting their turn for sacrifice to Huitzilopochtli atop the Temple Mayor.”
“No!”
“Oh, yes!” snapped the vampire, his fangs clicking against his bottom teeth excitedly. “Huitzilopochtli is one of the seminal blood gods. He must and will be revivified, to take his seat at the right hand of Tiamat. And, as my conquering gray armies spread across the world, the other blood gods of this earth will be roused from their slumber. Thanatos—Kali—the Seven—they and their brothers and sisters will join hands in a pantheon of blood, blasphemy, and glory. And I,” he laid hand to heart, “will be their greatest devotee. Countess Bathory, famed vampiress of the Carpathians, reclined in bathtubs of virgin blood. But I, my dear, will swim in vast oceans of it! I will captain vessels atop its waves!” The vampire was shaking, teeth chattering, eyes nailed to the girl’s dual puncture wounds and the caked black blood surrounding them. “But you see,” he breathed, “I need someone to lead my reformed state of Aztlan once it’s brought back to the fold. If you let me teach you—let me groom you for murder—let me tease out of you the latent thirst for blood that lingers in all humanity—that leader could be you.”
She buried her face in her hands, moaning incoherently. As her chin touched her chest, she felt the gold crucifix that had offended Mictlan. With a cry she ripped it from its thin chain and shoved it within inches of Hommler’s eyes.
After a moment of scrutiny he wailed and spun away, his face retreating to the folds of his cape. He cocooned himself in the black cloth, shivering, and Marisela stepped forward.
“Let me go—in the name of Jesus—let me go or I’ll kill you with this!” For the first time since she had brained Ishtarotha with a nine millimeter round, she felt hope.
“I’ll do anything you say—just put that cross away!” he stammered behind the cloak.
“Not until I’m outside.”
“All right—all right, Marisela. You’ve clearly done your homework—my kind have cowed before that icon for centuries. Such a wonderful legitimization of Christianity, is it not?” He peeked his eyes above the cloth, and glared into her own. Then he pulled the cape lower, revealing a toothy smile. “But you forget—or perhaps you never knew—we were secularized by a female author in the 1970s.” With a twirl he emerged from his cape and bounded for the girl. She pressed the cross into his forehead as he drove her back against the wall. The beautiful corners of scarlet rock pushed into her head and cut the back of her scalp, and his laughter was heavy in her ears. “That same author did her damndest to homosexualize us as well—and by and large she succeeded—but she didn’t get me. Her books taught me that the pen of one individual can tear asunder a thousand years of myth. Change perceptions. Change beliefs. Invert worlds. Vampirism was predicated on centuries of oral and written sediment—most of which were contributed by Christianity. Yet she blew away those layers like sand from her palm. I too will blow away millennia of Western culture and religion and reformulate a culture and religion to my own liking. She used her pen; I’m using technology.”
Marisela struggled against him as she felt his slender nose brush her neck.
“Oh, God help me. Please . . . please . . .please,” she begged.
“Girl,” he laughed, “know this. Humanity populates its fantasy worlds with demons, witches, and vampires because there is a need to reify evil. We perceive those fictitious entities as ‘other,’ and as a foil to the alleged goodness of ourselves. But there can be no evil greater than man. I’m living fucking proof of that. The vampire is not a supernatural entity—it is man himself—a trope, if you will.”
His breath was hot in her ear, and a fang nicked her temple.
“So don’t insult me with your imbecilic recourse to the cross again. Vampires aren’t ‘undead.’ They’re here among us—they’re the poor bastards born with a craving for blood. They’re as human as you are. The mythic powers and weaknesses you attribute to us are no more than the superstitions of a provincial and twisted religion. And that bit of acting you just saw will be the only time you see one of us shrink from a cross. So savor it in your fantasies because it’s all you’ll get.”
He tore the crucifix from her hand, and she screamed.
“Don’t do anything to it! Don’t desecrate it—it’s mine! Give it back.”
Hommler laughed richly, and this time, when his fingers caressed her cheek she recoiled instantly, tripped, and fell.
“Do you think I intend to trample it under foot?” He cradled the icon gingerly. “Perhaps expectorate upon it?” His eyes were polished azure. “My girl, you will learn many lessons at my castle. Here is the first of many. If I were to spit on this crucifix—what would it reveal about me? What emotion would I be feeling?”
She stared back numbly.
“You were supposed to respond with ‘hatred,’” he scolded. “Make sure you’re more conversational in the future or I may just drain you on the spot and leave your white corpse where it falls as a decorative piece. Now, tell me the answer to my question.”
“Hatred,” she said quickly.
“Precisely.” He nodded. “But I do my utmost to restrict my desire to hate. I’m careful to limit my feeling to ‘controlled dislike.’ And that is because, when you hate something, you are in its thrall. It elicits blind reaction from you. It has power over you. By spitting on the cross, I would have validated its emblem as a force antipodal to my own. You, I’m confident, would call that force ‘goodness.’ And I absolutely loathe dualisms, my dear.
“Of course,” he continued, “I don’t always practice what I preach. I succumb to hatred quite frequently, unfortunately, because I am a mere . . .” He looked inquisitively at the girl. “Fill in the blank or face repercussions.”
“Mortal.”
“Yes,” he approached to where she was sprawled in the corner and patted her head, “I am just a human. As are my vampiric kinsmen across the world. So here,” he dropped the cross in her lap, “keep your cross; I will provide you with a new chain—this time a thick box-link so it won’t break. And when you wear your cross, your faith will erode. Because everyday you will be reminded of the impotency of your deity.”
She seized the cross in her fist and breathed heavily. Sweat poured from her brow, and her eyes were glazed.
&
nbsp; “Satisfy my curiosity—why did you think a cross would have power over me? It’s such an anachronistic theory—I’ve never seen that response before. I’ve read about it, but I’ve never seen it employed.”
“My priest told me the cross wards off evil. And I’ve read Dracula—it worked there,” she murmured despondently.
“Ah, of course.” He clicked his nails on the rhodochrosite. “Christianity still is a force in Hispanic countries, though even that is changing. And Stoker offers precedent for effective use of the cross to repel undead. Too bad for you I’m not undead.” Hommler smirked. “You see, the majority of Aliens living in America now are godless wretches. Stripping them of their religion, by the way, was easier than I had imagined. And with elimination of Christianity came elimination of the Christian mythos. That’s why it wouldn’t even occur to an Alien to brandish a cross in my face. The whites relinquished their religion the quickest—they were the easiest to subdue in every case. That’s why they make such prime candidates for Americanization.”
“Why were they the easiest to subdue?” She surprised herself by speaking out, but her voice was a whisper.
“Well, quite simply, because they were so used to being treated like excrement. For a century they had tolerated the racist employment policies utilized by federal and state governments. They had cherished the admission policies at universities that gave preference to every race but their own. They had watched, gleefully, as they became demographic minorities. In all aspects, they had ceded hand over fist the power their ancestors had accumulated. History offers few examples of a race so thirsty for its own annihilation.”
“Oh.” She frowned.
“So, I could have done with them whatever I wanted. I could have marched them off a cliff like lemmings. I could have convinced them to twirl around in circles all day wearing piss-soaked diapers. And the fools would have obeyed. Convincing them that their Christian faith was discriminatory and insensitive was cake. They stopped attending Christian churches on their own accord—any legislation on the issue would have been superfluous. And to this day I’m still amazed by their eagerness to self-regulate and implement my desires.” He fathomed a red mineral in his gaze with an eyebrow high. “By the gods, girl,” he said wistfully, “how lovely they are when they sparkle.” She noted, with a chill, that he was now staring into her eyes.
Chapter 34
Rick’s arm had gone numb. Slowly, he withdrew it from under Cathy’s head and replaced it with a pillow. He wished he could sleep as soundly as his wife; she didn’t know yet about the Aztec armies massing along the western frontier. It was all over the news, but she had spent most of the evening with Blake, who was sick with tonsillitis.
George and Hans were optimistic, but Rick was more skeptical. Those armies were well trained and lethal—they could bring liberation or death. Or, they could bring a transient liberation only to institute a new, oppressive regime. George had an auspicious meeting with the Aztec president—and two of a promised ten crates had already arrived brimming with automatic weapons and ammunition. But a conqueror could be fickle or have poor control of his troops. And the U.S. Army, gray, inept, and under funded, surely would be vanquished. If the Aztecs sliced effortlessly through the grays and didn’t need U.S. Alien help, he wondered, would they still try to woo U.S. Aliens with arms and promises of liberation? George had attempted to reach Guerrero many times today on the contact number he had been given while at the fights in Aztlan. No one had answered.
Rick passed through moonbeam shafting through a skylight, and slumped into a chair by a window. From here, even amid the darkness, he could survey the new classrooms he and some of the other members were erecting. Granted, his engineering strengths resided primarily in environmental compliance. But he also had a general understanding of architecture and structural theory appreciated by those on the project.
He laughed silently—Swan’s regime had simply disregarded all federal environmental regulatory statutes. The government wasn’t interested in protecting the environment anymore. None of the grays seemed to care about anything but their skin color and identity. For every company incorporated or doing business in America, a mandatory three hours a day were required to be spent on promoting diversity. When Swan first assumed power, these hours at most companies were spent theorizing how best to eliminate white employees from the workforce. However, as the demographics of the companies hued to gray, these hours were spent pondering how best to Americanize or eliminate every non-gray employee.
Careful not to make noise, Rick grabbed two silver teardrops off the table and slid one into each ear. He threw on a jacket, slipped out of the room, tip-toed down the steps, and was out the door and into the night. His pace was brisk, and soon he broke into a jog—an electric guitar lasering through his ears along with the voice of a singer lamenting a lost girlfriend. Rick found hard rock to be very escapist, which, lately, was just what he needed. Yesterday Hans had told him there was going to be a heavy metal concert in a few weeks. Rick had never been to a hard rock concert, but was very excited to attend.
When George ran, he called it his “roadwork,” and Rick had quickly adopted the expression. Men without real jobs had to convince themselves they were working in some fashion, he noted grimly, so the expression was a comfort. The cold Pennsylvania air felt pleasant—especially for a man who yearned for a small dose of pain. He wanted it for punishment. Punishment for what, he wasn’t quite sure—but he maximized his output along the country road. As he ran, the burning slowly flickered in his lungs, and he exulted in the feeling. No income. No bonus. No nice clothes for his wife. No new tennis shoes for his kid. Fuckin’ nothin’. Hell, Stewart paid for his son’s antibiotic. His fists pistoned as he gained velocity down the crest of a hill. All those nice things in life were reserved for people of Color. And as his form began to break down from exhaustion in full sprint, and the euphoric rush of endorphins hit an acme, a broad grin was on his face.
“Wait a minute—those people don’t have shit now either. See how they like it!” He laughed as he had seen Hans do—virile and insouciant, wide shoulders bobbing in rhythm, head slung back, stumbling to a halt. “Fuck the world,” he said. “Fuck the world.” More tough platitudes. But something was missing from his emulation of the youth’s mirth—authenticity. It was the same old story. He could talk cavalierly about the wretched state of the world and his likely death in battle. But within, he was horrified. Not for his own well being—but for that of Cathy and Blake. He wished he could be carefree like Stewart’s son. Then again, he hadn’t seen Hans laughing lately. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he had heard Hans’s “Viking laugh” as it was called around the farm. Well, figured Rick, it was probably because he was going to be a father in seven months.
As Rick turned and headed back for the house, his lips moved in prayer. He pleaded to God to keep his family safe—that was it. Not for luck in finding a job, new clothes, or any other material thing. It seemed, these days, that Jesus was parsimonious with His blessings, and Rick didn’t want to divide whatever shred he might be given.
***
The visitor was escorted by four guards through a grand, classical entrance hall. Full panoplies of armor, halberds poised, flanked each doorframe and the mouth of a wide-berthed stairwell. A mammoth chandelier, depending from a chain, lit the room just enough to read a book with difficulty. Along the walls were paintings at regular intervals, all dark and lurid. To the interest of the visitor, many of these paintings depicted nocturnal gatherings, bonfires, and, most peculiarly, men and women standing on their heads or dancing back-to-back. The party turned down a corridor illumined by torches set in sconces, through a towering library, then up a short flight of stone steps to an iron double door.
Hommler heard a fist on his throne room entrance, and clicked a button beneath his armrest. The portal slowly opened revealing four loyal servants, and amid them, the visitor.
“Welcome to Castle Vayvels,” the vampire un
crossed his legs and shouted imperiously. “My guards report that you’ve come to see me regarding the girl. Well, deliver your ultimatum so I can deride it, then ponder if I want to flash-fry your viscera and dine upon it this evening.”
A perverse grin animated the visitor’s bronze face, and he raised his empty hands.
“My only masters are the gods themselves.” His voice was like gravel. “I am not the emissary from Aztlan you think me. Far from it. I am a high priest of Aztlan, and have been banned from my country for what my peers call doctrinal radicalism.”
“An outcast?” Hommler sat up in his throne and eyed the visitor’s shaved, red-painted head with approval.
“Yes.”
Hommler laughed and tried to look away from the brown, piercing eyes. The man was dressed in period vestments consisting primarily of cloth dyed jade and black. Presumably, his coat or cloak had been checked after he had been admitted through the portcullis. Then again, he looked the type to walk through snows almost naked.
“Guerrero’s a fool to send an assassin with such a ruse. Do you really expect me to believe you?” But Hommler already did, and the guest knew it. There was too much conviction in the Aztec’s voice, too much purpose in his movements; the man exuded a dangerous piety. Now here, here was an Aztec priest! Hommler noted the filed teeth, ears stretched like jump rope, and face like a pin cushion. How different from Teo, the academic dandy, that prattled on about concepts and theories gleaned from dead print.
“Of course I expect you to believe me,” he said. “It is the will of gods for us to unite, and that is a hard will to reject.”
“Is it now?” Hommler’s pulse began to accelerate. “And, for what purpose are we to seek union?”
“So that we may faithfully resurrect the gods of my people. So that Huitzilopochtli may again govern the people of bronze. So that blood will splash on altars to assure the rise of future suns.”
The Gods of Color Page 36