by Lisa Smedman
I stared at Mama G’s killer, hoping that the hatred I felt wasn’t burning in my eyes. There was still a chance. The guards had radioed that I was on my way up and the case that I carried actually contained something—something Vargas wanted. He might not know that I was in league with the two who lay at his feet, injured or . . .
I struggled to breathe. If Rafael was dead, I could do nothing for him now. If he was still alive, I was the only one who could save him.
It was all up to me. And I was scared drekless.
23
I tried not to look at Rafael and Fede, but it was impossible. And then I realized that, had I really been a MedíCarro attendant, I would naturally be wondering why my fellow paramedics were down and whether they were in need of medical attention.
“What happened to them?” I asked. “Are they hurt?”
“They came to the teocalli empty-handed,” Vargas answered. His voice had a slightly nasal tone to it—something I hadn’t expected in a portly priest. “Is your case empty, also?”
“No. It’s full. I’m to deliver it to Domingo Vargas. Is that you?”
“What took you so long?”
“I was . .. delayed.” I swallowed. Maybe he really was buying this. “The physician had trouble with his monofilament blade.” Slowly, carefully, I began to close the distance between us. I held the case out, as if presenting it to him. My hands began to sweat and I hoped I wouldn’t drop the perfume bottle—that its nozzle would be pointing in the right direction when I made my move.
“That’s close enough.” Vargas held up a hand, motioning for me to stop. At this distance, the sickly sweet smell of the rotting suit of flesh that he wore nearly overwhelmed me. I wondered if I was close enough to hit him with the spray—I’d tested the accuracy of the adapted nozzle and it was approximately one meter. Slightly more than one meter lay between us. I slid my thumb onto the nozzle, preparing to depress it. . .
Then I noticed the hand that hung from the wrist of Vargas’ costume. As it turned slowly, I saw the tattoo on the back of it—a horse on motorcycle wheels, the logo of the Houston Mustangs. It was the hand of the AFL member who had guided us into Aztlan—José’s hand. José’s flesh that Vargas wore.
If José had been playing at double agent, working for both the Azzie government and the AFL at once, his game had ended. The Azzies’ final payment to him had been death. But perhaps he had been innocent of malice. Perhaps he had been exactly what he’d seemed—an AFL member who’d had the misfortune to get captured at the border. The border patrol might have forced information about Rafael and me out of him under torture or by magical spell—and then turned him over to Vargas for vengeance after learning that the people he’s smuggled in were targeting a member of the priesthood.
It really didn’t matter, either way. José was dead. I wished his spirit peace.
Seeing the tattoo confirmed my guess that Vargas had known that Rafael and I were in Tenochtitlán, and that he had sent the blood spirit against us. And that probably meant that he knew who I was, and was just playing games with me. I had to move—now.
“Here!” I shouted. “You wanted the head. Take it!”
I heaved the organ-transfer case at Vargas as hard as I could. At the same time I jumped forward, jamming my thumb down on the nozzle and thrusting the perfume bottle at his face. A thin stream of gamma scopolamine and DMSO shot toward Vargas . . .
And splashed against an invisible barrier. Drek! He was ready for me—ready and waiting with some sort of barrier spell in place. I’d expected one that could stop bullets after what Águila had told me about the Azzie soldiers, but not one that could stop molecules of liquid. I tried to jam my hand through the magical barrier, but my fist smashed into something that felt like a metal wall. My fingers went numb and I dropped the perfume bottle. I cursed, scrambling for it. The drug was the only weapon I had.
A bolt of electricity streaked toward me, striking me on the shoulder. Liquid fire seared through my chest and down into my legs as the spell hit, and flashes of light danced before my eyes. My legs buckled under me and it was all I could do to prevent myself from sprawling prone on the floor. My arms trembled as I fought to hold myself up. I heard Vargas chanting . . .
And then an invisible wall of force fell onto me, slamming me into the ground. The breath was knocked out of my body and my nose flared with pain. A dull ache spread through my chest. The cut in my chin had torn open again, and my blood smeared the stone beneath me.
From where I lay, I could see Rafael. His eyes fluttered, as if he were reviving from whatever had knocked him down. And his fingers were beginning to twitch. A wave of relief washed through me. But it was short-lived. Unless a miracle happened, I was still very much at the priest’s mercy.
Vargas stood over me, his dark eyes gleaming in triumph. He adjusted the jaguar-skin cape on his shoulders with a vain shrug. “You came to Tenochtitlán to try to capture or kill me,” he said, laughter overlying his nasal voice. “I expected your attack to be clumsy. But I didn’t expect that, at the same time, you would be delivering into my hands the one thing that I most desire.”
Vargas knelt down beside me and held his hands over me, cupping them together. I watched in horror as the blood that flowed from my chin stretched into a thin stream that trickled upward into his hands. I felt a part of my strength going with it. He lifted his hands to his lips, as if about to drink deeply of my soul.
Somehow, I found the strength to speak. “How do you know ... the case contains ... the head? I may have . . . emptied it.”
Doubt flickered in his eyes. Then they became as hard as obsidian once more.
“Very clever,” he said sarcastically. “You’ve earned yourself a few more seconds of life.”
He stood, letting blood fall from his hands, then took two quick steps to where the organ-transfer case lay and set it upright. Popping the clasps that held the lid, he opened it. I could hear the scrunch of plastic as he pulled back the protective gel pack to reveal the head that lay beneath it. And as I heard that heaven-sent sound, I prayed that Vargas had wanted to keep his magical abilities honed and pure, that he hadn’t ever had any cyberware implanted in his body. Like a toxin filtration system, for example . . .
“What—?”
Vargas’ cry of surprise and alarm told me all I needed to know. My hold-out weapon had worked! When I’d paused at the bottom of the stairs that led to the teocalli, I had cracked the lid of the organ-transfer case and poured half of the contents of the perfume bottle inside. The lining of the case was soaked with gamma scopolamine—which had mixed with the blood that was smeared on the gel pack and thus become invisible. Vargas had touched it as he tore open the plastic lining to see if the head was really inside . . .
And then was hit—hard—by the drug.
Vargas tried to stand, but fell to his knees. He lifted an arm, and a glow of magical energy formed around his hand, then fizzled out with a loud pop! as he fell over onto his side. His eyes still glared at me, though, with all of the menace of a jungle cat that was unable to strike.
I rose to my knees, still shaking, and wiped the blood from my chin. I was familiar with gamma scopolamine—it had been developed by Ares Arms and used by security forces such as the one I’d worked for briefly after leaving the Star. I knew that Vargas should be immobilized for up to an hour. I scrambled over to where Rafael lay.
He groaned and tried to sit up. His entire body trembled with the strain, even with all the power of his ork blood. Slowly, with difficulty, he reached over and peeled the surgical glove from his hand, then flung it away. Then he wrapped his heavy arms around me, crushing me against him.
“Leni,” he gasped in a tight voice. “I’m glad ... I thought ... I love you. I’d be all fragged up if you . . .”
“Shh,” I told him. At the same time, I tried not to smile. One of the side effects of gamma scopolamine is that it is also a “truth serum.” I’d known that Rafael cared about me, but love? I’d tease him
about it later, when he was able to defend himself.
Rafael seemed to be regaining control over his muscles. He fought to bring a shaking hand up to his eye and swiped clumsily at it. Was he actually crying?
“Frag it,” he said. “I nearly got him. I came this close.” He held a thick thumb and forefinger a centimeter apart. Then he looked over my shoulder. “How’s Fede? Is he . . .”
I climbed to my feet, crossed to where Fede lay, and touched two fingers to his throat. I breathed a sigh of thanks as I felt a pulse. “He’s alive.”
Rafael nodded. He stood above the priest, glaring down at him. Rafael’s hands still trembled slightly, but they had balled into fists and he seemed steadier on his feet with each passing moment. Once again, I marveled at his physical stamina. Anyone else would still have been paralyzed by the drug.
Rafael lifted one foot, drew it back—then kicked as hard as he could at Vargas’ lower back. The priest was unable to move or retreat from the kidney kick, but made a small, squealing noise in response.
“I know one fragger who isn't going to be alive, soon.” Rafael walked around to the front of Vargas, then lifted his foot again. “But first I’m going to make him pay for what he did to my Mama Grande.”
His heel slammed down into the priest’s groin. The squeal of pain was louder this time.
“Why did you have to kill her, you bastard!”
Another kick—this one to Vargas’ face. Despite the rigidity of his muscles, the priest’s head was forced back by the blow. Slowly, the paralyzed muscles pulled it back into place. Blood flowed from Vargas’ smashed nose.
“You heartless, drek-eating Azzie fragger!” Rafael’s voice had risen to a shout.
I just stood and held my arms against my chest, watching. It felt as though I’d cracked a rib when I hit the floor—the pain under my right breast was excruciating. But that wasn’t the only reason I held back. Something in me was at war with itself. Ever since we’d come to Aztlan, I’d been kidding myself, telling myself that Vargas was just another criminal, secretly hoping that there was still a chance I could gather enough evidence that somehow he would be brought to justice—diplomatic immunity be damned. I hadn’t allowed myself to consider any other options seriously—not even cashing in on the bounty offered in Dunkelzahn’s will. I just kept telling myself I’d make sure Vargas got what was coming to him. But now, as I watched Rafael kicking the priest, I felt exultation—a fierce anger that had no place in someone who prided herself on staying on the right side of the law. I wanted this fragger dead as much as Rafael did.
And that scared me. When I’d gunned down the cultists to prevent them from conducting their bloody sacrifices on top of the pyramid, it had been like firing a weapon at a criminal in the line of duty. I’d been protecting innocent people. But this was something different. It didn’t matter that it was personal.
Did it?
I was saved any further soul-searching by the sounds of people moving toward us. I heard loud, jubilant voices and numerous footsteps growing ever louder as a crowd of people approached. It was probably the ollamaliztli players, coming to make their victory sacrifices in the temple.
“Rafael!” I called. “Quiet! People are coming. Lots of them. We’ve got to move!”
Rafael stood over Vargas, panting with exertion. His eyes were wild, his hair loose from its usual pony tail. For a moment, I didn’t think he’d heard me—that he would continue shouting and kicking and would give us away. But then he grunted.
“Fine. I’ll finish this fragger later.” He stooped, picked up the priest, and slung him over one shoulder. Wrinkling his nose at the stench of the skin the priest wore, he used his other arm to lift a groaning Fede to his feet. “Which way?”
I did a quick scan of the map I’d uploaded to my memory. The staircase behind us led back to the first-aid rooms, but that meant dealing with the Azzie security guards below—who probably knew who we were, since they had radioed Vargas that I was on the way up. And we had no guarantee that a MedíCarro emergency vehicle would be there for us to use. The landing pad on the roof of the temple—and the private VTOL that Vargas had chartered—seemed the better option.
By the speed with which the voices and footsteps were approaching, we had only a few seconds left to make our escape. Even the muscular Rafael wouldn’t be able to carry both Vargas and Fede at once, and so I grabbed one of Fede’s arms and wrapped it around my shoulder, while Rafael took his other arm. Fede was still groggy, but seemed able to shuffle one foot in front of the other. Together, Rafael and I would get him out.
I glanced at the organ-transfer case that lay on the floor.
The plastic packing was open and the severed head was turned so that one eye stared dully out at us. For a moment, I contemplated taking the thing along with us. If the prophecy about the end of the world and the dawning of a new age was true, we’d be doing the world a favor by making sure that the head was somewhere the cultists couldn’t reach it. But with Vargas out of the picture, I didn’t see how the cultists could gain access to it. And if we stuck with the chartered VTOL’s flight plan and flew to Izamal, we’d be carrying the head closer to the itzompan. It seemed more prudent to leave it here. The head might even serve as a distraction that would allow us extra time to escape. Besides, it seemed the respectful thing to do. Let the Jaguar captain be buried in his entirety.
We hurried through the temple, climbing two flights of stone steps and always managing to keep just out of eyesight of the ACS guards who prowled the temple like roving jungle cats. They didn’t seem to be armed with anything other than maeauitls—but Mama G’s death had taught me how deadly a weapon an obsidian-studded wooden sword could be. And I was wary of any magical backup they might have. But by some miracle we managed to avoid both human and spirit patrols.
Fede’s recollection of the temple interior—and the map he had drawn for me—was most accurate. We emerged a minute or two later onto a floodlit rooftop where a number of VTOLs were parked. I spotted the one that Vargas had chartered immediately by the registration number on its tail. It was an Azzie-built knock-off of the Ares TR55, with a set of tilting rotor blades at the tip of each wing. They were turning with a gentle whine, and although I couldn’t see into the cabin, I assumed the pilot must be there. A door just aft of the cabin and forward of the wing was open, and a three-rung stepladder sat below it. The plane looked ready for immediate takeoff. I suspected that Vargas had told its pilot to keep the rotors warm. He had to be ready to flee the teocalli at a moment’s notice, should his highly unorthodox treatment of the team captain’s body be brought to light and questioned.
We hurried toward the charter VTOL, flashing our fake ID badges at the Azzie security guard who stepped out of the night to block our way. This one was a beefy ork female, armed with a modern assault rifle smartlinked into her wrist, rather than a macauitl—a rifle she looked both ready and willing to use.
“Medical emergency!” I called out, doing my best to appear unperturbed by the rifle that was aimed at my center of mass. “Bacab Domingo Vargas has been poisoned. We’ve got to get him to a medical facility, fast, and we’re commandeering this VTOL to do it.”
The guard shifted to block our way, a suspicious look in her eyes. But our uniforms seemed to be commanding her respect—so far. “Por favor, you must wait while I radio for—”
“Gods curse it, woman!” I shouted. “Do you want to be responsible for the death of a bacab of the Temple of the Sun? Let us by!”
Rafael tried to edge around the guard toward the VTOL. But the ork was no fool. She shifted the barrel of her weapon so that it pointed at him. Now it practically touched his broad chest. “Where’s your stabilization container and medkit?” she asked with a growl. “And what’s wrong with this man?”
She tipped her head in Fede’s direction. He had been walking under his own power since we reached the rooftop, but was still shaky on his feet. A nasty bruise was just beginning to bloom on one cheek and he wavere
d back and forth like a tranq junkie.
“He’s . . . We . . . The stretcher . . .” Rafael struggled, unable to lie due to the after-effects of the gamma scopolamine. In another moment, he’d blurt out the truth about who we were.
Fede’s knees suddenly buckled under him. He collapsed, dragging at my arm as he fell. I still don’t know whether he’d planned it, but it proved a beautiful distraction. Startled by the sudden movement, the guard swung around to bring her weapon to bear—then realized her mistake, but too late. Rafael’s fist connected solidly with her temple. She fell, rifle slipping from limp fingers as she collapsed. In one smooth motion Rafael yanked its smartlink cable free as it fell. Then he kicked the rifle across the rooftop and sprinted for the VTOL with Vargas bouncing on his shoulder. As I hauled Fede to his feet, Rafael tore open the door and tossed the paralyzed body of the priest inside. Then he helped me boost Fede into the plane.
We climbed inside and slammed the door shut after ourselves. Outside on the rooftop, the ork guard stopped blinking away stars and scrambled for her weapon on her hands and knees. Through the porthole in the closed door, I could see her mouth working, and prayed that the backup she was radioing for wouldn’t arrive before we could take off.
As Rafael settled Fede into one of the dozen plush seats that filled the back of the VTOL, I scrambled through a hatch into the cabin. The tiny compartment had no windows of any kind—all piloting and navigation was done cybernetically. The pilot was a crewcut human rigger in a padded bomber jacket. He was jacked into the VTOL by means of twin fiber optic cables that disappeared into chromed datajacks at either temple. He turned to look at me with two eyes that were obviously cyber. Instead of irises and pupils, the centers of each eye gleamed a dull red.