by Lisa Smedman
I had to stop when I saw the look on Rafael’s face. “Teresa,” he said in a choked voice, barely able to get the word out. “We’ve got to . . .”
“We’ll try,” I answered, laying a hand on my friend’s arm. I glanced out the window once more. “Gods willing, we’ll get there in time to warn them.”
25
The flight to Izamal took a little over three hours. During the journey, I filled Fede in on where we were going and why. Rafael spent much of the trip pacing the aisle, fretting that we wouldn’t reach Teresa and the Cristeros in time to warn them of the impending attack. For all we knew, the Azzies were storming into the church, even now.
For perhaps the dozenth time, Rafael stabbed at the telecom that was built into the wall at the front of the passenger cabin, trying to reach Teresa’s employers. But there was no answer. All he got was the automatic message system. And that was odd. In a household that size, someone should have been answering the telecom, if only a maid or servant. What was happening in Izamal?
Our pilot was completely occupied in flying the plane, and so we didn’t have to deal with any questions from him. But I wondered what we were going to do with the dead priest. We couldn’t very well toss his body out of a door—the VTOL was zipping along through the night skies at nearly three hundred fifty klicks per hour and we were likely to get sucked out along with the corpse. Besides, there was no way we could open an emergency exit without the rigger becoming alerted to the fact. He was jacked into the plane and would feel any change in its status immediately.
Fede came up with part of the solution. He’d been rummaging in the compartments at the front of the cabin after Rafael opened them to use the telecom, and found a fully stocked bar. He held up a bottle of synthscotch and a first aid kit.
“That’s a good idea,” Rafael said. “I could use a drink.”
“Or a tranq patch,” I said sarcastically. My friend’s anxious pacing was getting on my nerves.
But Fede shook his head. “The priest chartered this plane and made arrangements for it to land in Izamal, no? Someone is probably expecting to meet him when we land. If he is dead, so are we. But if he is merely drunk . . .”
Rafael caught on. “So we douse him with liquor—”
Fede completed the thought. “And use the spray skin in this first aid kit to hide the hole in the back of his head. We leave him propped up in a seat—”
“Not good enough,” I said. “Izamal is under curfew and there’s an Azzie military operation going down tonight. There’s no way we’d be allowed to move around freely on our own. But Vargas obviously expected to be able to do so. He needed to reach the Sanctuary of the Virgin before dawn. He must have made arrangements to get there. If he were alive, he’d be our ticket through town. But he’s dead. And that means that one of us has got to play the part of the priest. One of us has to . . .”
I glanced at the corpse in its putrid, flayed-skin costume. Just thinking of the crusted blood that lined it and its foul smell made my skin itch and my stomach churn. But it was a foregone conclusion who would have to wear it. Being female, I’d never be able to pass as Vargas, and although the priest was on the heavy side, Rafael was simply too big and broad across the shoulders.
“I see,” Fede said. “I’ll wear it.”
“Thank you,” I said. “If there was any other way . . .”
“Está bien,” Fede answered. But I could see that it would take everything he had to psych himself into pulling the obscene costume on.
It was nearly midnight by the time the VTOL touched down. When it did, a “drunk” MedíCarro attendant sat slumped in one of the rear seats, and an uncomfortable-looking Fede wore the flayed skin costume of Xipe Totec. We’d used some of the synthetic spray skin from the first aid kit to create loops of flesh under Fede’s ears to hold the priest’s ear plugs, and had hung the golden pectoral around his neck. The former ollamaliztli player now was wearing a fortune in gold. We used more spray skin to smooth out some of the scars on his face, then painted it with bands of red using cinnamon-flavored mints from a cupboard that held snacks.
Rafael and I had each pulled on the complementary plastic overcoats we found in a closet at the front of the cabin—they were part of the airline’s executive service package for passengers who might have to deplane on a rain-swept landing pad. Hopefully, with the uniform-style pants and shirts underneath—but with the MedíCarro patches covered—we’d be able to play the part of bodyguards to the priest.
The VTOL sank vertically to a stop at Izamal’s tiny civilian airport. As the rotors wound down and the engine noise faded to a soft hum, a holo of the pilot’s head and shoulders appeared above the telecom unit. “Has Mr. Vargas regained consciousness?” the holo head asked.
Fede was quick on the uptake. “I have,” he answered.
“Your ground transport is arriving now. Please exit through the door in the rear of the cabin.”
“Very good, Paulo,” Fede answered. “One more thing. One of my attendants will be returning to Tenochtitlán. Please add the return flight to my tab.”
“Destination?”
“The MedíCarro clinic on the Paseo de la Reforma.”
“Affirmative.”
The holo blinked out. I crossed my fingers. With luck, Domingo Vargas’ death wouldn’t be discovered for three hours—not until the VTOL touched down back in Tenochtitlán. I hoped that would give us enough time.
“Now or never,” I said.
Rafael and I exited first through the rear door, playing the part of cautious bodyguards making a sweep before their employer deplaned. Our pilot had extended folding steps from the VTOL to the tarmac and I descended these cautiously, one eye on the tiny ferrocrete-and-glass structure that was a hangar and control tower in one. Rafael motioned for the “priest” to stay in the plane as a military jeep approached. Its driver—an Azzie soldier in full combat gear with a heavy pistol holstered at his belt—stepped out of the armored jeep and opened the rear door. If the Azzies used the same rank insignia as our own UCAS forces, he was a lieutenant—a junior officer, but an officer nonetheless.
I beckoned Fede down the steps and onto the tarmac, and Rafael and I flanked him like bodyguards as he made his way to the jeep. The lieutenant gave Fede a crisp salute as we passed, then closed the door after us as we settled into the back of the jeep. Behind us, the VTOL’s rotors began to turn more swiftly and its engines rose to a sharp whine. The door through which we’d exited closed automatically, and the VTOL rose gracefully, disappearing into the night sky.
The lieutenant climbed behind the wheel and stared straight ahead, out through the bulletproof windshield. In the rear-view mirror, I could see him wrinkling his nose at the smell of the flayed skin that Fede wore. But he had enough savvy to keep his face neutral. “Where to, Bacab Vargas?” he asked.
“Head toward the Sanctuary of the Virgin,” Fede instructed. “I’ll give you further directions as we go.”
“Yes, sir.” The response was automatic. The lieutenant began to drive. Then he spoke again, articulating slowly and obviously choosing his words carefully.
“Bacab Vargas?”
“Yes?” Fede answered.
“Are you certain you want to drive to the church? We’re securing a perimeter around it, even now. I thought you had told us it was essential to keep a low profile to surprise the rebels. And that you did not wish to enter the church until just before dawn.”
My cyberear picked up Rafael’s quiet sigh of relief. So the attack was still to come. That meant Teresa and the other Cristeros were safe—for the moment.
Interesting. From what the lieutenant had just said, Vargas had been the one to order the attack on the Cristeros. I could only guess that he wanted the rebels cleared away so that he and the cultists could enter the church. But why not simply wait until the rebels had finished their meeting and gone? That would draw less attention.
Fede also picked up on the fact that Vargas must have been behind the upc
oming raid. “Call off the attack,” he said.
The lieutenant shook his head. “It is too late, Bacab Vargas. Troops are already being deployed by Major Moreno. This is a matter for the military now. And I am certain that the major would respectfully advise that you stay clear of the operation until it is over.”
Fede played the part of a pompous priest beautifully, responding to the driver in a sharp tone. “I did not say to drive to the church itself,” he snapped. “Merely to head in that direction. I will be passing the night at a nearby hacienda and going in just before dawn, as originally arranged. Major Moreno had best make sure that the church is clear by then.”
“Ah.” The lieutenant nodded briskly. “I see. Yes, bacab. I’m sure it will be.”
The rest of the ride passed in silence. Through the tiny, bulletproof windows of the armored jeep, I could see other military patrols passing by. The curfew was in effect—not a single civilian was on the streets. Most of the homes we passed were dark, their windows shuttered against the night.
The jeep pulled up at a hacienda just down the block from the residence where Teresa worked. We climbed out and Fede dismissed the driver. We waited until the jeep pulled away—then immediately made for the hacienda of Teresa’s employers. Rafael knocked on the door that Teresa had answered during our last visit, but there was no response. The house was entirely dark, and my cyberear could detect no sounds of motion inside. It did, however, pick up the sound of an engine on a nearby street. Since the military controlled the streets, I concluded that a patrol was nearby—and approaching swiftly. Time to move.
“Let’s try the church,” I said. “We can get to it through the ‘back door’—the passage that leads to its sub-basement from the convent. If we’re lucky, the Azzies may not have secured it yet.”
They hadn’t. Under cover of darkness, we crept through the streets to the convent, then slipped inside through a door whose padlock and chain were just for show. I eased the creaking door shut behind us . . .
And as I turned around, was blinded by the glare of a heavy-duty halogen flashlight.
My cyberear caught the sharp intake of breath and the click of safeties being flicked. “Chingada!” a male voice whispered. “A sacerdote!”
Praying that Rafael and Fede had the good sense to remain still, I turned slowly, keeping my hands in sight. “Don’t shoot! We’re friends of Teresa Perales. We’ve come here to warn you to get out of the church. The military knows that the Cristeros are meeting here tonight. There isn’t any time to lose.”
“Prove that you are a friend,” a young voice answered, “or die.” The tone was melodramatic—he’d probably seen too many action trids.
“Bring Teresa here,” Rafael said. “She’ll vouch for us.”
I overheard a whispered consultation—two male voices. Then someone left the room. The other rebel kept us pinned in the light of his flash. By its backlight I could see the barrel of a rifle.
“Stay frosty,” I told Rafael and Fede. I was relieved to see that they took the advice to heart. Like me, they remained still, keeping their hands well away from their torsos.
After a few minutes I heard someone returning.
“Rafael! Lenora! What are you doing here? And who is—”
I recognized Teresa’s voice. “This is our friend Fede,” I explained. “The costume is authentic, but he’s only posing as a priest. He had to wear it to get us through the town after curfew. The streets are crawling with soldiers. They know the Cristeros are meeting here tonight. And they plan to attack. Soon. We’ve got to get you out of—”
A burst of automatic weapons fire outside drowned me out. It sounded like someone had opened up a block or two away with a heavy machine gun. The whumf of an exploding grenade split the silence that followed, and we all jumped as a spray of shrapnel pattered against the door behind me. The rebel who held the halogen flashlight had the sense to immediately dim its light to a faint glow. I hoped that the door was firmly shut, and that light hadn’t shone through its cracks and given us away.
“Frag it!” Rafael’s whisper seemed to echo in the dimly lit room. “That was close. We’d better rev it outta here.”
The two Cristeros guarding this entrance—a teenage elf in a black track suit and an older man whose bulk suggested he had some troll in his blood—looked at each other, then at Teresa.
“They’re friends!” she hissed urgently. “We can trust them.”
“Bueno,” the older man said. “Let’s go! Pronto!”
We hurried down the hall to a closet whose floor contained a trap door that led to the sub-basement. The teenage rebel descended through it with a clatter of feet on wooden steps and was followed by Teresa. But the older Cristero stood outside the closet, rifle at the ready, while Rafael, Fede, and I clambered down. I could see that he still didn’t trust us completely.
We wound our way through the rubble that lay heaped on the floor of what used to be the ollamaliztli ball court and made our way to a spot where roughly a dozen individuals were grouped around an old-fashioned electric lantern. I immediately recognized Father Gustavo Silvio among the rebels—he was hunkered over what looked like a map. A man in a straw cowboy hat and the clothing favored by campesinos sat cross-legged beside him, his back to us and his arms outstretched and fingers extended in a curious posture.
The rebels had set the lantern and map on the altar-like stone that was the itzompan itself. The lantern’s harsh white glow illuminated dozens of crates, piled in some places to the ceiling. Some of them had been opened. Inside, nested on foam padding, were a number of anti-vehicle and high-explosive rockets, as well as the collapsible launchers needed to fire them. Many of the rockets bore the Ares Arms logo.
Other cases held gel-pack armored jackets, target designators, and thermographic vision goggles. I whistled softly to myself.
“Looks like the Cristeros are planning something big,” Rafael whispered. “I wonder where they got the nuyen for all this hardware.”
“I’ve heard rumors that the dragon Dunkelzahn left three million nuyen to the ‘provisional government’ of the Yucatán in its will,” I whispered back. “I wonder if some of that was used to purchase this.”
Rafael's attention was riveted on the group of rebels who had turned to see who was approaching. “Speaking of dragons ...”
My heart did a flip-flop as I recognized the pale white skin, red hair, and beard of Soñador in his metahuman form. At first I wondered what the feathered serpent was doing here. Then I realized that, if he was in league with the cultists and knew that the itzompan was in this subbasement, his rebel membership gave him the perfect excuse to come to the church on the night before Four Motion, the day on which the current era was supposed to end.
My only ace in the hole was that Soñador didn’t know that Vargas had blown his cover. I decided to play it cool. “Hello, Kukulcán,” I said.
The pale-skinned man smiled and nodded. In that same moment Gus, who had been busy rolling up the map, turned and spotted us.
“Leni! Rafael! What are—” His face fell as he saw the costume that Fede wore. Now that we were inside the church, Fede was happily stripping the putrid-smelling skin from his body. After peeling it back and tossing it aside in disgust, he stood in his underwear, scratching at his muscular chest and flicking away clumps of dried blood. He’d torn out the ear plugs and held them and the pectoral in one hand. I noticed that more than one of the Cristeros glanced at the gold greedily. So much for following Christ’s example of poverty.
“Anybody got soap and water?” Fede asked.
Just then I heard the sound of gunfire. It was muffled somewhat by the thick ceiling over our heads, but I hadn’t even needed my cyberear to hear it.
The man who sat cross-legged on the floor—whom I recognized now as Águila—began to flutter his fingers. He gave a sharp, piercing cry, then jerked out of his trance. “Soldiers in the church,” he said. “And in the convent.”
Knowing he was a sha
man, I guessed that he had been assensing astral space.
Soñador looked sharply at his aide. “Have they found the entrances?”
The other rebels looked warily around. One or two drew and readied handguns, while another crossed to the crates, pulled out a rocket launcher, and began grimly to assemble it.
“No. They seem to be intent on preventing people from getting into the church.”
“Our people?” Gus asked sharply.
“No. Others. Strangers. The soldiers are tearing off their shirts and inspecting their arms—then shooting them. I don’t know what it means.” He closed his eyes and his body slumped as he re-entered astral space.
I knew what the soldiers were doing—but I kept quiet.
They were searching for cultists—looking for the brands on their arms. It seemed that Vargas had ordered an attack on his own allies—he obviously had meant to betray the cultists and place the team captain’s severed head in the itzompan all on his own. And then when the ground was torn in two by earthquakes and the “demons of twilight” emerged, he would be the one to welcome them. Presumably, he thought he could handle any tzitzimine all by himself. Arrogant fragger.
I glanced at my watch. It was almost one a.m. Venus was set to rise in a little over four and a half hours.
And that made me think of something. If Soñador was a priest of Quetzalcóatl, he must have been waiting for Vargas to bring the head to Izamal And now that he’d seen Fede wearing the costume of Xipe Totec, he would know that we’d gotten to Vargas. He’d take out his vengeance on us . . .
Realizing that I didn’t have a single weapon on me, I suddenly felt naked. More exposed even than Fede, who stood beside me clad only in his underwear.
The gunfire above us intensified for a minute or two, then suddenly stopped. After a moment, I heard a single pistol shot.
Águila emerged again from his trance to update his report. “Something odd is happening,” he said in a tense voice. “A man has arrived in the company of a dozen armed guards. They’re not regular military—their uniforms look more like those of security guards. The man challenged the soldiers, and shot an officer who tried to impede him. Now he’s the one who’s giving the orders. He’s telling them to search the church and the convent for a way into the sub-basement. . .”