Age of Aztec a-4

by James Lovegrove

  “What happened to you out there?” Mal waved to indicate the world beyond the cell’s humidity-blotched walls — the land, the rainforest.

  “I’m touched by the concern,” Reston said, coming back to himself. “I didn’t think I mattered to you so much.”

  “I’m curious, that’s all. Necalli here says there’s this phenomenon called bewilderness, a delirium people can lapse into in the forest, a kind of fugue state. Is that it? Is that why you’ve come over all weird and spacey?”

  “No. I couldn’t really explain it if I wanted to.”

  “Why not try?”

  Reston deliberated. “I think,” he said eventually, “that the world is a lot stranger and more complex than any of us suspects. I think there are truths we’ve forgotten or been forbidden from remembering. I think you and I, inspector, locked in our own little struggle, our own little battle of wits and wills, just have no conception of the bigger picture around us. We’re fleas. No, ants. We’re ants. Tiny, insignificant, anonymous, scurrying about on our missions and errands, oblivious to the fact that there are giants among us. They can control us, stamp on us, manipulate us, squash us without even trying. We’re nothing to them except objects of curiosity and sometimes distant affection. Am I making any sense?”

  “None whatsoever,” said Mal.

  “But keep going with the deep philosophical stuff,” said Aaronson archly. “It’s really enlightening. I can feel my brain expanding. Wow.”

  “I’m wasting my breath,” Reston said. “You can’t know unless you’ve experienced it for yourself. Seen them in action.”

  “Them?” said Mal. “Who’s them? Your Xibalba chums?”

  “Oh no, not them.” Reston looked pained. “No, they learned the same lesson I’ve learned but, sadly, the hard way.”

  There was only one inference Mal could draw. “They’re dead?”

  “All of them. Wiped out, like crumbs off a tablecloth. It’s not even like they had a chance. They might as well have not been there.”

  Necalli leapt in. “You’re saying a whole band of separatists has been eliminated? Well, that’s marvellous. I need details. Is there some kind of proof? Where are the bodies?”

  “No bodies.” Reston gave a hollow laugh. “Only dust. Proof? I suppose you could go looking for a dirty great hole that’s been blasted somewhere in the forest. I couldn’t begin to tell you where, but get an aircraft up there, go scouting around, you’re sure to find it.”

  “And what was responsible for this ‘dirty great hole’?”

  “A disc. Blown to smithereens. I watched it go up. I was there, right in the middle of it. Right in the middle of the explosion, and I just stood, wasn’t touched, safe as houses.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Aaronson.

  “Hmm,” said Necalli, thinking. “Now that might account for it.”

  “For what?” said Mal.

  “We got multiple reports yesterday — some sort of loud bang to the north of here, early in the morning. Like a single clap of thunder, only there were no storms in the region yesterday. People heard it in locations as much as fifty miles apart. We just assumed it was coincidence. Hunters in the forest, perhaps. A distant gunshot here, another one there, each fired at approximately the same time. Separate instances giving the false impression of being the same one. But if Reston’s telling the truth, it seems it could have been a single major event after all. A disc, you say? Whose disc?”

  “Theirs,” said Reston. “Xibalba’s.”

  “And why were they in possession of an aerodisc? What were they proposing to do with it?”

  Before Reston could reply, there was a commotion in the corridor outside. Marching feet tramped briskly. Leather creaked and weaponry clattered. Then a brusque voice rang out.

  “I’m looking for Stuart Reston. Which cell is he in?”

  Next moment, a Serpent Warrior appeared in the doorway. He glanced in officiously. Two more Serpents came to a halt behind him.

  “That him?” said the first, nodding at Reston. “Certainly looks like an Englishman to me.”

  “Who are you?” Necalli challenged.

  “Who does it fucking look like I am?” came the sharp retort. “I’m a Serpent Warrior, I’m personally answerable to the Great Speaker, and whoever you are and whatever post you hold in this pissant little police station of yours, I outrank you by at least one thousand. So shut up and answer my question.”

  Mal could see Aaronson bracing himself to ask how someone was supposed to shut up and answer a question. A swift kick to the shin silenced him before he could speak. Now was not the moment for smart-arsery. There were few people who genuinely looked as if they shouldn’t be messed with, and this Serpent was one.

  “I meant,” said Necalli, with tremendous self-restraint, “please identify yourself.” He added, “Sir,” almost having to cough the word out.

  The Serpent Warrior entered the cell, ducking his snake-head helmet under the door lintel. “Not that I’m under any obligation to tell you, but my name is Colonel Tlanextic. The salient part of that sentence is ‘Colonel.’ As in, ‘Fuck you, I’m a fucking colonel.’”

  He thrust his face close to Necalli’s, who, to his credit, didn’t bat an eyelid and didn’t back away.

  “You need to justify why you’ve come barging in like this, Colonel Tlanextic,” Necalli said. “What are you after?”

  “Again, it’s not your place to ask.”

  “It is. This is my station and I’m the duty officer.”

  “No,” said Tlanextic, “what you are is a nobody in a nowhere town who’s talking to someone to whom you’re about as important as a smear of dog shit on the sole of his boot. Your lips are moving, but all I can hear coming out is a sound like a fart, and not even a loud one, just one of those hissy, squeaky ones that you sneak out between your arse cheeks on the bus and the passenger sitting beside you doesn’t even notice because it’s one of those farts that doesn’t even have the decency to stink, it’s not a manly fart, it’s an effeminate fart, a five-year-old girl’s fart. I can stand here and you can tell me whatever the hell you like about yourself and I won’t pay a blind bit of attention because, have I mentioned this already? I. Am. A. Fucking. Serpent. Warrior. Colonel.”

  “All right,” Necalli said, “you’ve made your point.”

  Tlanextic turned to his two colleagues. “Lieutenants? Either of you hear anything?” They shrugged, their faces deadpan but their eyes smirking. “Because I know I didn’t. Nope, definitely didn’t hear a thing. Perhaps a cockroach just scuttled past, I’m not sure.”

  Necalli sighed. “Just tell me what you want.”

  Tlanextic feigned a look of apology. “No, sorry, still getting nothing. Could be I’m going deaf. However, in the event that someone of the lowly stature of an earthworm’s sphincter is talking to me, what I want is that Englishman over there, and I’m taking him. Where, why, or what fucking for, is none of your business. All you have to do is hand him over, say, ‘You’re welcome,’ and then say, ‘Is there anything else I can do for you, Colonel Tlanextic?’ At which point I’ll say, ‘No,’ and then I’ll say, ‘Oh wait. There is one thing. You can shove your head right up your own rectum.’ And you’ll reply, ‘Of course, sir, and how far up would you like it to go? Colon? Ileum? Duodenum?’ And I’ll say, ‘I honestly don’t mind, as long as you’re wearing that stupid pointy-eared pussycat helmet while you’re doing it.’”

  Necalli seemed to be visibly swelling up, as though outrage was a physical force inside him, an increase in air pressure. Mal watched him struggle to contain it. Necalli understood, as she did, that men like Tlanextic could not be argued with or resisted. They could only be endured.

  “Have him, then,” he said, with a pathetic, hapless gesture in Reston’s direction.

  “Yes, your permission wasn’t required,” said Tlanextic. “It wasn’t even being sought. Boys?”

  The two Serpent lieutenants elbowed their way into the cell, forcing Mal, Aaronson
and Necalli to huddle up against the far wall. One of them unclipped a stun gun from his belt. He flipped a switch, the stun gun whined, and before Reston could move or resist he placed it against his neck and depressed the trigger. There was a sharp crackle of electricity, and Reston’s entire body went slack. The two lieutenants hoisted his limp form between them and dragged him out into the corridor by the armpits.

  “You’re too kind,” Tlanextic said to Necalli, then saluted him with sneering condescension and followed his men out.

  It was seeing Reston actually being removed from her sight that spurred Mal to action. Up until then she’d understood what was going on, but been unable to process it. All at once she grasped that her quarry was being taken from her. Once again. For a third fucking time.

  That was an insult that could not be borne. An affront too far. Nobody deserved to have Stuart Reston except her. Not even a high-and-mighty Serpent. Reston belonged to her by every moral right there was. Her future, her career, her self-respect, everything hinged on her carting the Conquistador back to London and depositing him at the commissioner’s feet. Colonel Tlanextic, overbearing megabastard though he was, was not depriving her of what was probably her one and only shot at redemption.

  She propelled herself out of the cell, barging Necalli and Aaronson aside. In the corridor she grabbed hold of Tlanextic just below the armlet that bore the five-circles symbol denoting his rank. He stopped in his tracks but didn’t deign to turn.

  “Whoever’s hand that is, they’d better remove it by the count of three,” he said, “or be prepared to lose it. One. Two.”

  “Give him back.”

  “Three.”

  He swung round. Mal let go. “Colonel, please. I’ve come five and a half thousand miles for that man. I know this isn’t my jurisdiction, but he’s a British citizen, a British criminal, and I’m a British Jaguar. He’s mine.”

  Slowly, patiently, Tlanextic said, “Listen, dear. That was a very brave thing you just did, grabbing me. Well done. You should be proud of yourself. Not many would have had the nerve. But let’s leave it there, eh? You do not want to take this any further. Quit while you’re ahead.”

  “No,” Mal said, terrified by her own boldness. “Give him back. He’s not yours to take.”

  A flicker of amusement passed across Tlanextic’s face. Then his eyes hardened, his mouth twisted, and next thing Mal knew, something struck her with sledgehammer force and she was down on the floor, her ears ringing, pain lancing down her jaw and up through her skull.

  Tlanextic shook out his fist. “By all the Four, that girl’s got a hard head.” He peered down at Mal as she squirmed and groaned. Then he about-turned and motioned to his lieutenants to carry on. They resumed dragging Reston towards the staircase.

  “Wait,” said a thick, unsteady voice behind them.

  Tlanextic looked back to see Mal rising to her feet. She was using the wall for support. Her legs seemed barely able to function.

  “What?” he said, exasperated. “You want me to deck you again?”

  “By the power vested in me by His Very Holiness the High Priest of Great Britain,” she said, “I demand that you hand Stuart Reston over.”

  “Hold on, men,” Tlanextic said to his lieutenants. “This won’t take a second. Listen, Miss British Jaguar.” He crossed back over to Mal. “Maybe your Nahuatl isn’t what it ought to be, so I’ll keep this as simple as I can. Me Serpent Warrior, you not. Get it? Me very big man round these parts, you silly little white policewoman with funny accent. Me told what to do by Great Speaker himself. In pecking order, me up here.” He raised a hand level with his eyes. “You down here.” He lowered the hand to his crotch. “In more ways than one.”

  “With all due respect, colonel,” said Mal, “go screw yourself.”

  There was a gasp from behind her — Aaronson. At the same moment, Tlanextic punched her again, this time in the solar plexus. It was a mighty wallop, carrying all his weight behind it, and Mal collapsed to her knees, winded and in agony. She fought for breath. The world wavered darkly around her. As if from a great distance, his voice booming and echoing, she heard Tlanextic say, “All right. You’ve made your point. Enough’s enough. Next time, it’ll be my macuahitl rather than my fist. This is over.”

  She fought the tide of blackness that was threatening to engulf her. Do not pass out, do not pass out. She clutched the wall, hauling herself upright inch by trembling inch. Bile burned in the back of her throat and she felt close to throwing up. Aaronson was desperately urging her, “No, boss, don’t. It’s not worth it. Stay down.” Even Necalli, who hardly knew her, was offering the same advice.

  “Is that…” she said hoarsely to Tlanextic. “Is that… all you’ve got… you big pussy?”

  Aaronson clawed his face in anguish.

  Tlanextic’s expression turned to one of pure spite and fury. He snatched the stun gun off the belt of his junior officer and sprang at Mal with the device humming in his hand. He touched it to her chest — her left breast, to be exact — and pain like she’d never known before coursed through her. Her whole body seemed all of a sudden not to belong to her. It was a convulsing, juddering bag of meat that she just happened to be connected with. She felt her bladder let go and warm wetness spreading between her legs. She heard sounds coming out of her throat that she didn’t think any human being could make. Tlanextic kept the stun gun pressed to her, his thumb hard on the trigger. His eyes were alive with sadistic pleasure.

  Eventually the stun gun’s charge ran out. The pain subsided, but Mal’s body still kept twitching spastically. Had she not been leaning against the wall, she would be sprawled in a heap on the floor by now. She tasted blood from where her teeth had clamped down involuntarily on her tongue. She could smell singed cotton and skin, and her own urine.

  The effort it took to lift her head was almost superhuman. Harder still was finding the muscular control necessary to peel back her lips in a grin.

  “I’ve used… vibrators… with more power… than that,” she gasped.

  Colonel Tlanextic stared at her in open disbelief. What does it take to put this woman down? How can anyone be so obstinate, so insanely stubborn?

  “Please, colonel,” Aaronson implored. “Don’t do anything more. She’s had enough. She didn’t mean to be disrespectful. She’s passionate about her job, that’s all. Takes it very seriously indeed. That’s no crime, eh? I mean, we’re all basically on the same side, aren’t we?”

  Tlanextic raised a hand: shut up. He peered closely and quizzically at Mal — her wan face, her striving-to-focus eyes — as though she were some kind of zoo animal he’d never seen before. He was trying with all his might to fathom her. Both Aaronson and Necalli fully expected that within the next few seconds he would draw his macuahitl and run her through.

  Instead, he laughed. It was a laugh that was utterly devoid of warmth, but it came from the belly and it went on and on.

  Tlanextic found her amusing.

  More than that, he grudgingly admired her. The laughter was congratulation.

  “Fuck me rigid,” he said. “You’ve got a serious hard-on for this man, haven’t you? What’s your name anyway?”

  “Vaughn,” Mal said feebly. “Chief Inspector Malinalli Vaughn of Scotland Yard.”

  “Well, Chief Inspector Malinalli Vaughn of Scotland Yard, I’ll tell you what. I like you, and you might even come in useful as a translator if Reston gets uncooperative and insists on using your own gibberish language again. You’ve just earned yourself the right to accompany us to Tenochtitlan. How about that?”

  Accompany them to Tenochtitlan? It wasn’t what Mal wanted. Not at all. But it was the best she was going to get, she knew, and it would keep Reston within her sight. The alternative? She didn’t think she had one.

  “Sounds… fine,” she said.

  “Good,” said Tlanextic. “You know, I could do with a dozen like you under my command. Men? Take note. You think you’re tough?” He wagged a finger at Mal. “
This bitch — this is tough.”

  “My sergeant comes too,” Mal added, gesturing vaguely in Aaronson’s direction.

  “Whatever. No skin off my nose. Long as you both keep up. Time’s wasting.” Tlanextic set off along the corridor at a firm and forthright pace.

  Mal, with Aaronson propping her up, followed.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Same Day

  They flew out over Lake Texcoco, skimming above the wavelets that turned the expanse of freshwater into a vast sheet of crepe paper. The Serpent disc was a small, short-range craft with a spartanly furnished interior, and Mal and Aaronson perched at the rear of the cabin on a narrow bench adjacent to the armoury and uniform lockers. With Colonel Tlanextic’s permission, Mal had helped herself to a spare pair of Serpent Warrior trousers which just about fit, changing out of her own soiled trousers and underwear while Aaronson acted as a human curtain, shielding her from sight of everyone else on board. Tlanextic hadn’t even been tempted to laugh when she’d made her request. To him it had seemed simply a practical solution to an unfortunate sartorial mishap.

  “Why are we doing this, boss?” Aaronson whispered. He nodded over at Reston, who was slumped inside the disc’s prisoner transport cage, wrists and ankles chained together. The one-time Conquistador looked despondent, utterly defeated. Cage and restraints seemed superfluous. Reston was going nowhere. “We’re never getting him back. Even if the Serpents let him live, there’ll be nothing left once they’ve finished with him. Nothing worth anything.”

  “If they kill him, at least we’ll get to see justice done,” Mal replied. “But as long as there’s a chance I can still bring him home, however slim it is and whatever condition he’s in, I’m going to keep hanging on for it.”

  “I swear, if you didn’t hate the bloke so much, anyone would think you were in love with him.”

  “Don’t be a twat.”

  “I’m just saying. It’s a thin line. You’ve been hounding him so hard. Cops and villains sometimes get this attachment for one another, don’t they? It’s a, whatchemacall… Symbiotic relationship. Mutual thing. Can’t live with each other, can’t live without.”