Blood Sport

by Lisa Smedman

  “Who the frag are you?” he asked.

  “MedíCarro,” I answered, equally tersely. “Your customer suffered a ... setback. But he wants you to know that the flight to Izamal is still on, Paulo.” I glanced out the porthole in the door just aft of the cabin and managed to catch a glimpse of the ork guard, who was picking up her weapon and jacking her smartlink back into it. “Now get us the frag out of here, before that guard turns this VTOL into Swiss cheese.”

  My knowledge of both Vargas’ destination and the pilot’s own name seemed to convince the rigger that I was legit. “I scan that,” he said. His cybereyes stared past me as he devoted his full attention to piloting his plane. The engines roared into a full-throttle whine and the rotors whirled into a blur. With a jolt, we left the landing pad behind—just as the ork guard opened fire with her rifle. Then the VTOL banked steeply left and I was thrown against the door. My knees trembled with the strain of standing as the floor of the plane seemed to rush up at me, and by the time I had recovered enough to look out the porthole again, the Temple of the Sun and ollamaliztli ball court lay far below us. The lights of Tenochtitlán disappeared into the reddish-brown smudge of its smog.

  I had a new worry now—that the Azzies would have been sufficiently disturbed by the apparent kidnapping of one of their priests to come after us in hot pursuit. I was fairly confident that they wouldn’t blow us out of the sky—the ork guard had gotten a good enough look at Vargas to realize that he was still alive. But I couldn’t begin to imagine the resources they might bring to bear to force us down. And the VTOL pilot owed us no loyalty. He was simply a civilian doing a job. If the Azzies ordered him to land, he’d obey, regardless of what Vargas’ previous instructions to him had been.

  I didn’t get a chance to ponder my worries further than this, however. As I made my way back to where Fede and Rafael were sitting, I saw that Vargas was starting to stir. The effects of the gamma scopolamine would linger for some time, but his facial muscles seemed to be loosening. Rafael had already tied Vargas’ outstretched hands and feet to the armrests of the seats next to him. When the last of the paralysis wore off, he’d be completely restrained. Now Rafael was just getting ready to thrust a gag into Vargas’ mouth. But even as he wadded up the cloth, the priest began to croak out words in a faint voice. My heart leapt, thinking that he was casting a spell. But then my cyberear picked up the faint whisper of his voice:

  “I didn’t . . . kill . . . your Mama Grande,” he croaked. “But I know . . . who . . . did.”

  24

  Rafael paused, the gag still in his hands. I strode down the aisle, determined to shove the wadded-up cloth into Vargas’ mouth myself if I had to.

  “Don’t listen to him, Raf. It’s a trick. If you let him talk, he’ll try to cast a spell.”

  The priest strained to lift his head so that he could look at me. “No . .. trick,” he whispered. “Information in exchange ... for my life.”

  Rafael’s eyes narrowed, but he seemed to want to hear what the priest was going to say. I had to admit that I was equally curious. Due to the gamma scopolamine, Vargas just might be telling the truth. I sat down in a seat next to him and leaned back, favoring my cracked rib. It still felt as if my chest was on fire.

  One of Rafael’s huge hands closed around Vargas’ neck. The priest’s double chins squeezed out through Rafael’s fingers.

  “If you utter one word of a spell,” Rafael rumbled, “it will be the last word you ever speak. Comprende!"

  Vargas still couldn’t nod. He spoke instead. “Sí. ” His jaw and tongue, at least, seemed to be loosening up. His words were clearer now. Some batches of gamma scopolamine have that effect—someone recovering from it might regain control over one hand or another extremity such as a foot, but be unable to move anything else for an hour. Maybe that was why the drug had been for sale on the black market in Aztlan. I just hoped that the “truth serum” side effect really was working.

  I asked the first question: “The cultists Dolores Clemente and Gabriel Montoya—the missionaries. Did you send them to Seattle to use a mind probe spell on Rosalita Ramirez?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “To find something that was . . . lost.”

  “The itzompan,” I said. My knowledge seemed to surprise Vargas. His obsidian-black eyes widened ever so slightly—and stayed that way, although they continued blinking.

  “And then you met with them at Charles Royer Station, found out what they’d learned, and killed them. And then killed Rosa Ramirez,” I said.

  “No. I met with them, but did not kill them. I used a spell to replace their memories with false ones so they would not remember what they had learned from her. Someone else killed them and made it look as if I had done it. But the killer forgot one thing.”

  “And that was ...” I prompted.

  Vargas’ eyes slid to the side. He seemed to be staring at his hand. Rafael tightened his grip on the priest’s neck, perhaps thinking that Vargas was trying to gesture and cast a spell. The priest’s eyes became pleading as his face purpled.

  “Raf,” I said. “Loosen your grip.”

  Vargas sucked in a deep, ragged breath. “Whoever flayed the bodies left the hands behind. A priest of Xipe Totec would have taken them.”

  I stared at the empty sacks of flesh that hung from the wrists of the portly priest’s costume. Drek! How had I missed that? I must have been losing my edge. What Vargas was saying slotted into place. If he had been working with the cultists, it wasn’t logical to kill two of their members and leave so obvious a signature behind. A memory-erasing spell would have been much more subtle—and smart.

  “Who killed them?” I asked.

  “One of Tito Guzman’s acolytes.”

  “Guzman?” I asked. After a moment I placed the name. “The priest who died in the VTOL explosion?”

  “Yes.”

  Then I realized how Guzman fit into the picture. Caco had said that Guzman was one of the four bacabs who officiated at the Temple of the Sun. Vargas was also one of those four bacabs, and would have worked closely with Guzman. Had all four of the temple’s bacabs been working in league with the cultists—only to turn against one another later? Maybe Vargas had refused to share the location of the itzompan with his fellow priests, prompting them to take steps to gather that information themselves.

  The priest who Teresa had killed on top of the teocalli—whom I now knew was also a bacab of the Temple of the Sun—had summoned a blood spirit in an unsuccessful effort to learn where the itzompan lay. But Guzman had questioned a better source: the missionaries. And judging by the fact that he’d died a short time later, he must have gotten some answers from them.

  I made the most logical assumption and stated it aloud. “You arranged Guzman’s death, didn’t you?”

  Vargas clamped his lips together, trying not to speak. Then the drug got the better of him. “Yes.”

  Fede sat forward in his seat. He was looking a little less shaky now, and was completely engrossed in what Vargas was saying. “Amazing,” he said, glancing up at me. “Vargas and Guzman were two of the most powerful sacerdotes in the Temple of the Sun. Imagine—one bacab killing another.” His voice dripped with sarcasm, as if Azzie priests were known to betray one another frequently. Then I remembered his bias. Vargas—or other priests who followed the Path of the Sun—had been responsible for the death of Fede’s teammate and close friend. But from what I’d seen and heard so far, Fede’s impression of the Azzie priesthood was bang on.

  “Who gives a frag about the cultists?” Rafael said angrily. He shook Vargas like a rat, thumping the back of the priest’s head against the carpeted aisle. “I want to know one thing. Who killed my Mama Grande?”

  Vargas’ eyes burned with hatred as he stared up at Rafael, but the drug compelled him to answer. “It was the white bacab,” he gasped. “Guillermo Acosta, priest of Quetzalcóatl, also sent one of his acolytes to Seattle. Like Guzman, he knew I had sent the cultists
there—only Guzman did not know the name of their intended target. Acosta dug deeper and learned your grandmother’s name and address. But the man he sent to question her used cruder means to try and make her talk. I can only guess that he must have become frustrated and—”

  “Frustrated?” Rafael slammed the priest’s head against the floor, then jammed the wadded-up cloth fiercely into Vargas’ mouth. He looked up at me, his expression sour. “He’s not the only one who’s frustrated. I don’t want to hear any more of this drek. I say we grease this fragger, right now!”

  Lost in thought, I didn’t answer. Mentally, I ticked off what we had learned. Vargas served the god Xipe Totec, Guzman was a priest of Huitzilopochtli, and the bacab who’d summoned the blood spirit on the teocalli served Tezcatlipoca. Now Vargas was fingering a priest of Quetzalcóatl. It looked as though my guess had been correct. All four bacabs had been working with the cultists, at one point in time. But only one of them had killed Mama Grande.

  All this time, we’d been chasing after the wrong priest.

  Fede interrupted my thoughts. “I agree with Rafael,” he said grimly. “Vargas should die. Even if he didn’t kill your Mama Grande, he’s killed plenty of others.” He flicked disdainfully at the balloonlike hand that hung from Vargas’ wrist, setting it rocking gently back and forth. It spun slowly, revealing the Houston Mustangs tattoo on the back of it.

  “Frag me!” Rafael exploded. “That’s José’s hand!” His face drained of color, and for a moment I thought he was going to be violently ill. Then his hand tightened, slowly and remorselessly, on Vargas’ throat.

  Fear returned to the priest’s eyes. He looked up at me pleadingly. But it was hard to feel sorry for someone who wore the stinking, flayed skin of a human being. Even so, I called Rafael to heel. But not out of pity.

  “Wait, Raf,” I said. “I want to ask him one more question.”

  Rafael shook his head and refused to look at me. His eyes were locked on Vargas’ face, watching him start to die by degrees. I still had several questions for the priest, but I knew of only one that would loosen Rafael’s grip. He was frustrated and wanted someone to pay—now—for Mama G’s death. Even if it was the wrong person.

  “I want to ask him about José,” I said. “I want to know if he betrayed us.”

  Rafael’s jaw clenched. Unclenched. “All right.” His hand loosened.

  This time, Vargas’ intake of breath shuddered even more than it had before. His breathing had developed a wheeze.

  “Was the man whose skin you’re wearing working for Aztechnology?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “You see?” Rafael asked. “José was a good chummer.”

  “He was an acolyte of the bacab of Quetzalcóatl.”

  “No!” Rafael said explosively.

  I thought I saw a gloating gleam in Vargas’ eyes as he saw the effect of his words on Rafael, but couldn’t be sure.

  “He’s on gamma scopolamine, Raf,” I said gently. “He must be telling the truth.”

  Rafael shook his head, still not willing to believe. “But why would José .. . What did he hope to . . .”

  “It follows a twisted kind of logic, Raf,” I said, thinking out loud. “José was probably working for both the AFL and the priest of Quetzalcóatl. If he was ever a member of the AFL at all, that is. The priest probably figured we’d be a thorn in the side of Vargas, and instructed him to get us into Aztlan. Later José fell into Vargas’ hands, and paid the price for being an acolyte of a rival bacab.

  “José knew how to play people,” I added. “Look at how fresh that tattoo is—he probably knew you were a combat biker fan and psyched you out by pretending to be one, too. He . . .”

  Rafael’s knobby forehead puckered into a frown. I thought he was going to rebut what I was saying, but instead he picked out the one fact that I’d missed.

  “José had to have been a member of the AFL,” he said. “He knew that Mama Grande liked snakes. Or else ...” He paused, lost in thought. “Or else he was someone who had been healed by her, who knew she was a snake shaman . . .”

  I stared at Rafael in amazement. For once, the big guy was really using his wetware. And now my own was starting to work, as well. I hadn’t questioned it at the time, when the feathered serpent Soñador had said that it was helping us because Rafael was the grandson of a woman who had healed it, long ago. But now the reasoning sounded thin.

  It was time to focus our sights on our true target—the man who had killed Mama G. I turned to Vargas. “Is Soñador the bacab of Quetzalcóatl?”

  “Who?”

  “He also goes by the name of Kukulcán.”

  “Who?”

  Either the drug was wearing off and Vargas had started to lie, or he really didn’t know. I tried another tack. “Is the bacab of Quetzalcóatl a feathered serpent?”

  Vargas looked genuinely confused. “The god Quetzalcóatl is the feathered serpent. His priest is metahuman.”

  “Describe him.”

  “He’s an elf. Tall, thin, with light skin. Dark hair and a mustache—”

  “No beard?” Rafael asked.

  “No.”

  Not it was my turn to frown. The description was close to that of Soñador in metahuman form—but not quite. Soñador appeared more human—although he did have the slight build of an elf. He had red hair been a dye job? Or had Soñador been using some sort of masking spell when he met with us?

  If Soñador was the bacab of Quetzalcóatl and in league with Vargas and the cultists, why had he given us Father Gustavo Silvio’s name? Did he think that Gus knew the location of the itzompan—and think that we might be able to sweet-talk this information out of him?

  I shook my head. Too many questions. I was starting to lose the data trail on this one. The most serious consideration was that we had no way of knowing whether Soñador—our ticket out of Aztlan—was our enemy or ally. No way of knowing whether we could trust him or any “AFL” members the feathered serpent might put us in touch with. Except. ..

  My eyes fell on the catheter that was implanted in Vargas’ throat. I suddenly remembered the catheter I’d seen implanted in the chest of the priest of Tezcatlipoca. If Soñador had a similar device, we’d nail him. The only trouble would be spotting it under the feathers of his dracoform or the clothes that covered his metahuman form.

  I thought back to the simsense chip case I’d found in the pocket of the priest of Tezcatlipoca. It looked as though all three of Vargas’ fellow bacabs had sent agents to Seattle—whichever one served the priest of Tezcatlipoca had found the dead missionaries long after they were murdered and removed the only part of the puzzle he could find—the simsense chip covers. Which explains why the blood that stained the floor of the missionaries’ rental car had a chance to partially dry before the cases were lifted out of its sticky embrace.

  I seemed to have all the pieces now, but I still couldn’t see the larger picture. I hoped that enough of the gamma scopolamine remained in Vargas’ system to give me the answers I needed.

  “The bacab of Tezcatlipoca called you ‘blood brother,’ ” I said. “Why?”

  Vargas’ eyes widened further. “Please,” he said. “Don’t make me—”

  “Tell her,” Rafael thumped the priest’s head against the aisle once more for emphasis.

  Vargas bit into his lip until it bled. But the drug proved stronger than his will. As if forced open by an unseen hand, his lips parted.

  “We are Gestalt,” he said in a voice that croaked like that of death itself. “The four of us worked together to awaken the ancient teocalli and—”

  My cyberear caught the explosion. It was small and muffled, a mere popping noise that was difficult to hear against the drone of the VTOL engines. Suddenly Vargas’ eyes rolled back and a trickle of red began to leak from the back of his head. Fede gasped and Rafael jerked his hand back, in the process inadvertently turning Vargas’ head to the side. A wisp of smoke escaped from a hole in the back of the priest’s skul
l. A small, steaming puddle of brains lay on the carpeted aisle of the VTOL.

  “Frag me,” Rafael said. “What happened?”

  I hadn’t seen it before, but I could guess. “Cranial bomb,” I said with a shudder. “Just a small one, so it wouldn’t frag up the priest’s magic. Looks like Aztechnology plays for keeps—and anticipates that its employees won’t always be loyal. Vargas must have used some phrase—some keyword that triggered the explosion. I guess that’s why he was so reluctant to talk.”

  “Whew,” Rafael stood and wiped his hands on his pants even though the miniature explosion hadn’t gotten any brains or blood on him.

  Fede just stared at the corpse. “He deserved it,” he said softly.

  The VTOL lurched as it hit a pocket of turbulence. With a musical ping! the fasten seat belts sign came on. A voice urged us in Spanish to take our seats.

  Rafael stared at me, one hand holding onto a seat back to keep himself steady. “Well, Leni. What now?”

  I glanced out a window. We had already left Tenochtitlán far behind. Below us, the lights of smaller cities were sliding by. If the Azzies were interested in forcing us to land, they would have taken some action by now. Wouldn’t they?

  I looked back and forth between Rafael and Fede.

  “Your part in this is done,” I told Fede. “You did what you agreed to do—got us into the teocalli and out again.” I pulled a credstick from my pocket and tossed it to him. “If you want to bug out when we land, that’s fine. But I should warn you—we may be landing in a war zone.”

  Fede caught the credstick, but shook his scarred head. “Gracias. I appreciate the payment. But I think I’ll stick with you. You’re my best chance at getting out of Aztlan.”

  I bit back my reply. Now that I could no longer be sure of Soñador, I wasn’t certain that there was a way out. For any of us.

  I turned to Rafael. “We’ll continue on to Izamal,” I answered. “I didn’t have a chance to tell you before, but there’s going to be an attack on the Sanctuary of the Virgin tonight—the church where the Cristeros are holding their meeting. The Azzies want to mop up the rebels once and for all. It seems that someone betrayed the Cristeros and . ..”