Hommler laughed giddily, tried to speak, then laughed again.
“Father, I hate to ruin this for you, but Summers never plunged his wood into a vampire. He saved it for little boys.”
The muscles in Andrade’s face went slack. Then his lips tried to articulate a ‘no,’ and his good eye shifted erratically left to right.
“Did he fail to discuss his pederasty in the preface?” The vampire’s teeth were huge and mesmerizing.
“I . . . I don’t believe you.” Andrade denied weakly.
“I’d suggest you research it on your own, but you’ll never get the opportunity, I’m afraid. You were foolish to confine yourself to the past to solve your problems in the present. You approached me with a hammer and stake—you should have fired rounds through me instead. To be effective in this world, you must pay heed to past, present, and future. Disregard this triumvirate, and you are sure to fail.” He tossed the book to the side of his throne. “And what’s this?” Hommler eyed the front fold of the pamphlet. It depicted an old photograph of the Parthenon. “Fellowship of Caucasian Peoples?” He read aloud, then unfolded it and scanned its contents. “Devoted to the preservation and perpetuation of the Caucasian race and its distinct genetic code. Hmmf. To secure a future for white children. Such tripe! To win back our European homeland from the Muslim hordes. Good luck!” He tried to laugh, looked away, then scrutinized the pamphlet again. His forehead was lined, and his eyes were serious. “Any contact information? Perhaps I’ll become a member.” He joked, but his voice was edged with something that Andrade labeled as fear.
Hommler saw the priest’s eye twinkle, and the vampire knew his unease was divulged. So he smiled as broadly as he could, and flipped the brochure over. “Shall I call their hotline?” He mocked, then bit his tongue with an errant fang. “What manner of organization is this?” demanded the vampire. “They sent you to kill me, didn’t they? Didn’t they?”
“I will never divulge anything to you, you nose-run of Lucifer. Cow before this, and scamper back to your hell hole!” Andrade produced a gold crucifix from beneath his surplice, and shoved it toward Hommler’s face.
Mictlan gagged, and raised his dagger. But his arm was arrested by the hand of the vampire.
“Disempower it with apathy, my friend. Strike it and you are its prey,” Hommler murmured, and the Aztec stepped down.
“Cow, cow before the blessedness of the Lord!” Andrade said, and coughed with the exertion.
Hommler smiled, and closed his hand, delicately, around the crucifix. He then withdrew it from the priest’s limp grasp and cradled it to his chest.
“Father, can there exist blasphemy in reverence?” he asked gently.
Andrade’s good eye blinked incredulously.
The vampire smiled, then raised the icon to his lips. He kissed the base, just beneath Jesus’ feet.
“Oh God, creator of evil and good,” Hommler intoned, voice devoid of sarcasm, “cow this zealot with your darkness.” He then raised the crucifix, and held it inches from the priest’s functioning eye. “Harbinger of sorrow, murderer of children, master of diluvian horrors, lover of conquest, lord of Zion—reveal to this misguided soul your true form—your duality in one—Old and New—evil and good.”
Andrade’s heart began to skip, and his head swam. His breath came in wheezes. A fireball guttered from a brazier as a stack of bodies collapsed in ash, and sweat streamed from the old man’s head.
“Stop . . . stop your desecration,” begged the priest. “Give me my cross!” He swiped clumsily.
“Back! Back!” Commanded the vampire, brandishing the icon with locked arm. “Hateful, isn’t it, Father? Because if your childish monotheism is correct, I’m created as much by God as you. Do you really think I had a choice in life? I was born thirsting for blood—delighting in pain—dreaming of murder. His evil lies within me just as His goodness lies within you. And while you may invoke the cross in the name of God’s goodness against a creature of evil, I invoke the cross in the name of God’s evil against a creature of goodness!”
Andrade gasped for air—the braziers appeared to be floating on the ceiling. Hommler and the Aztec were upside down, jeering. He blinked, but could not regain equilibrium, and his heart beat faster. A long, ornate sword was in Hommler’s hand, and Andrade pawed at it ineffectually to keep it away.
“Do you know, Father, how Pope Urban died in 2052? Sultan Mehmed III, just a young man at the time, strode up to the Pontiff while he sat on his throne and ran him through. But you know this story—I can see the fear in your eyes. And you remind me of Urban. Both of you personify your faith—weak, effete, old, and dying. Your congregations have dwindled to a handful of doddering, senile fools who only attend your services because they fear death. Your Hebraism, your Hellenism, your notions of sin and guilt—they’re already a memory.”
“No . . . no . . . no,” protested the Father, his good eye reflecting the twin conflagrations.
“Yes.” Hommler’s shoulders undulated as if molting to a new, more vibrant dermis. “And surely you must also be aware of the apology the Pope offered before his execution. Before he was shish-ka-bobbed, he begged the Sultan for forgiveness. Forgiveness for the Crusades. Forgiveness for Christian righteousness. Forgiveness for not being more servile to the Muslims. And though I’m hardly an authority on the subject, I believe it’s safe to say that when the blade pierced him, he died without honor.”
“No!” screeched the old man, clawing at his wounded eye and gnashing his teeth.
“Shhhhh.” The vampire exhaled, a finger to his lips. “It will all be over soon, Father. I actually pity you. You see, your puerile notions of eschatology have imprisoned you in a living hell. Leave it to Christian fools to impute the world’s evils to the ‘sins’ of man! Why not turn the tables, and impute the world’s evils to God? Better yet, why not free yourself from your morbid prison altogether, and discover the wisdom of truth—of polytheism? But let’s have it—abase yourself like your late Pontiff. Apologize for everything that you are. Apologize for your culture. Apologize for your faith. Come on, now, let’s here it!”
“Go . . . go to hell,” sputtered the priest, his sight vertiginous, his ravaged cornea an excruciating flame. “I have fought you bastards for . . . thirty years now.” His head hung to a side, and saliva pooled between his teeth and sagging lip. “I’d rather spit in your face than apologize.” He attempted to do just that, but the spittle ran down his chin and on to his surplice.
Hommler chuckled. “So be it. Now where do you want the steel? Through your heart, just as you intended to drive your stake through mine? Or through your mouth, to stop your proselytizing and self-righteousness in the afterlife?” The blade alternated between Andrade’s chest and grit teeth. “Tell me more about this Confederation of whites. Surely they sent you to murder me! Tell me, or I’ll kill you!”
Mictlan grinned hideously, tapped the point of the sword, and pointed toward the priest’s mouth to indicate his preferred entry.
“I’ll never tell you anything! You can torture me like a Templar—burn out my other eye, lift me on the strapado, stretch me on the rack, drill my rotten teeth. Do what you will to my flesh—you cannot harm my soul.” The priest defied.
“Fine.” Hommler sheathed his sword. “I believe you, and I’m feeling generous. That’s why I’m going to bless you with a new religion, Father. See how you’ll hold out then. I will discover your affiliations and motivations, and perhaps acquire a companion with whom to discuss theology. Have you ever heard of the dragon goddess Tiamat?”
Chapter 36
Rosa stood in the doorframe. The bottoms of her eyelids resembled the concentric lines of a severed redwood. Each line marked the passing of a sleepless, pain-ridden night. Her grief had reached a level beyond quantification, up into a boundless numbness. She watched her husband attempt to study a large map. But his eyes were as lined as her own, and finally, his head collapsed in his hands.
He must not have noted he
r presence, because his chest heaved, and he began to cry. Groggily, Rosa noticed torn out magazine portraits of Alfonzo de Caballero and Herbert Hommler hanging on the wall. They were suspended by a knife piercing each forehead. “I wish.” Her lips formed the words but no sound generated from her dry throat.
“I’m coming with you,” she said the sentence three times before her voice was audible. “I’m coming with you tomorrow at the head of the army.”
When Guerrero raised his face from his hands, it was red, teary, and saturnine.
“Get out of here.” He choked. “I don’t want you to see me like this.” His black hair was sweaty and plastered around his eyes, and his back shuddered.
She walked stiffly across the room, and stroked his neck.
“Honey, I’m coming with you.” The word of affection came out clinically.
He shook his head, and his arm curled around her lower back.
“I told you, you and Antonio are flying to Canada tomorrow.”
She jerked away from him and stared at the state of Maine on the map until her eyes grew too watery to focus.
“I’m coming with you to save my little girl,” she protested, and touched the needle stabbing the map near Bangor.
“You’re not coming with me, Rosa,” he said more firmly, the circles under his eyes expanding as his face animated. “And you aren’t staying here, either. This whole place might be overrun by the Mexican army once I leave with our forces. Canada’s the only safe place right now.”
“That’s right, and don’t you dare leave any divisions behind. We’ll need all the help we can to save Marisela.” Then she saw two rectangles drawn on the southern California border. “Manual, you promised!” Her nails dug into her palms.
“Rosa, if I don’t leave a force behind to defend Aztlan where the hell will our supplies come from? We’ll be cut off like Napoleon in Russia.”
“You bastard!” she screamed, her body quivering. “You and your militarism and conquests and toy soldiers. Well now you’ve lost everything! You’ve fucking lost everything! I hate you! What kind of man are you—you can’t even protect your own daughter!”
An image flashed through Rosa’s mind—it was a replay of the video clip the vampire had sent them. Her daughter was surrounded by leering fiends, and the arch-fiend himself was bending over her neck to drink her blood. Her mind deadened to black, and she collapsed into a chair.
***
Hommler drew an iron key from his robe, and inserted it in the bolt.
“I could have opted for retinal scans, voice recognition, or just about any manner of bio-detection.” The vampire grinned. “But then, a man’s castle wouldn’t be his castle without a few antiques here and there.”
“There is always a place for the past in the present,” agreed the high priest, fingers drifting to his jade lip plug.
The door creaked open to reveal a tiny cell wrought of stone. In the far corner a straw pallet was unfurled on the floor. Marisela was curled up tight upon it in slumber, her body shivering at regular intervals. Near the door, there was an empty bookcase and a torch burning weakly in a sconce. Above it all was a framed woodcutting. Hommler moved nearer to the art, until his torch clearly revealed the figures vivified by carver’s knife. It was a medieval town square, bustling with people and animals.
“One of my favorites,” whispered the vampire, and he motioned the Aztec to draw near.
Mictlan cocked his head and drew in his brow. There were people, to be sure, but they were carved on all fours. A litany of farm animals rode imperiously upon their backs, eyebrows raised, snouts, beaks, and jaws aloof.
“It’s the world turned upside down, my friend. And you are ‘my friend’—no one has saved my life before. I owe you, within reason, whatever you wish.”
“I will think about it.” Mictlan’s teeth were pearls of war. “So is that what you desire, Hommler, a world where pigs ride our backs as if we were beasts of burden?”
The vampire exhaled, and a snicker was suppressed. “Not particularly. I’m fascinated with theories of inversion, though.”
“Inversion?”
“Yes. It has been a niche motif within European literature, art, religion, and history for millennia. Don’t trouble your mind—I doubt you Mesoamericans are familiar with it.”
“We are not.” He frowned. Then his eyes settled on the girl, and narrowed.
“She still sleeps.”
“I will lash her awake,” the priest said, and held out his hand.
From his robes, Hommler produced a sinister weapon. It consisted of nine, thin braids conjoined in a baton.
“The cat might not be your best choice—a leather whip or birch rod might pain her more,” offered the vampire, handing over the weapon.
“They would.” The Aztec snarled. “But with greater pain comes a greater chance of unconsciousness. And I want this to last. Do not worry—I will revisit your torture chamber for different implements soon.”
Hommler stepped back from his companion and eyed him, chin nestled between thumb and index finger. It was the same look he gave seconds ago while marveling his art.
“By the gods I’m lucky to have discovered you, Mictlan. Together, we’ll drench this world in blood.”
But the priest’s lean, wiry frame was already in motion. The “cat” expanded behind him in ninefold wrath, scarcely cleared the tall ceiling overhead, then smote the girl’s back and neck.
“Tlatacoami!” he bellowed, face ruddy brown like blood-tinged muddy water.
She awoke with a look of pain and startlement on her face, and after a second lashing, quickly scrambled into a corner. By the time the third lashing fell, she had raised the straw mat like a shield, and was screaming at her highest, most unsettling pitch. Hommler plugged his ears and frowned as the subsequent impacts deflected off the mat.
Through gaps in the straw, Marisela saw the Aztec approach her. It was the man from her nightmares, who, no doubt, would have dined on her flesh at her own dinner table just months ago. Now he was blustering toward her, piercings a jangle, snorts escaping from his nostrils. He seized the straw mat two handed and ripped it from her grasp.
“Tlatacoami!” he roared again, and clawed her face with his fingernails. He then kicked her repeatedly in the face and ribs, spat upon her liberally, and punched her in the eye. A knife was suddenly in his right hand.
“Help me!” she cried, and reached out to the vampire. “He’s going to kill me! Help me!” She lurched forward, and her nails scratched across the flagstones as Mictlan pulled her back. As she fought to her feet he seized her throat with his left hand and throttled her head against the stone wall. Her resistance deadened, and he traced his blade along the top of her forearm until red droplets welled up.
“Drink!” he commanded Hommler. “Drink from this filthy whore. She is disdained by the gods, loathed by the Hummingbird.”
“I don’t know what she did to deserve their hatred.” The vampire panted. “But I am feeling rather hungry.” He accepted the bloody arm and sucked the wound with relish. “This reminds me of the old days, with my little Goth clan of aspiring revenants.” His eyes were far away, and his mouth was smeared with blood. “The fangs we possessed then were more for decorative purposes and didn’t penetrate skin well. So we’d use razor blades to make the incisions—or knives sometimes,” he jerked his head toward the flint blade, “and lick and suck our sustenance from each other from the witching hour till dawn.”
“So even as a youth you worshipped the blood gods,” approved Mictlan. “They must hold you in highest regard. Surely there is no mortal on this earth they value more, for who else has honored them more than you?”
“No one, I should think.” Hommler cleaned his mouth with his sleeve.
Three days later, Marisela was escorted into her captor’s throne room. Her face was contused in hues of yellow and purple, and her left ear looked shrunken and squeezed, like the knotted inflation hole on a child’s balloon. Her pretty lo
ng hair had been shorn off, and a front tooth was chipped. She moved as if navigating a dreamscape, and her eyes were large and wandering.
“You’ve been begging the guards to see me. Why?” The vampire rested his jaw on a hoary fist, and observed her coldly.
“I . . . I noticed that your weren’t calling me for my lessons like you used to.” Her fingers interlaced and wove nervously. “And I came to beg you to stop Mictlan from . . . hurting me . . . he’s going to kill me one of these times . . . I know it.”
Hommler smiled, and the girl half expected to see a forked tongue dart from his lips.
“My plans have changed for you, Marisela; I apologize. You see, the priest is going to sacrifice you twenty-six days from now. Apparently, this thirty-day ordeal will culminate in some kind of grand spectacle. So don’t worry—he’ll assure you’re alive for that. Procuring a conscious and sentient victim was one of the cornerstones of Aztec sacrifice. It’s one of the reasons Aztec soldiers suffered such a disadvantage against the Spanish—they tried to capture their victims unscathed to make for a better oblation to Huitzilopotchli.”
The vampire watched her throat gulp, how the muscles in her thin neck were taxed by the simple flag of terror.
“But . . . don’t you want me around . . . to teach me?”
Hommler frowned at her emaciating body, the flat chest, the swollen face, and the short hair.
“By the gods, you look unappetizing.” He shook his head. “I certainly don’t lust for you. And I’ll bet your blood is weak and vapid, too. Why aren’t you eating?”
“He takes my food.” A solitary tear left a crystalline path down her cheek. “He says I have to fast to prepare for the day.”
“And now you know what day that is—it’s not your birthday.” He cackled, and petted the white skulls at his fingertips.
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