Blood Sport Page 19

  As Rafael bartered for the Jaguar team mascot—allowing himself to get ripped off in his haste of purchase a gift for Teresa—I watched with bemusement as the object of his affections gave him a sidelong look, then slunk away into the crowd. I grinned as she raised a hand to me and mouthed a silent adios, anticipating how slotted off Rafael would be. I figured that he deserved it—he’d pestered her all the way here, then had refused to let her make her own way home.

  His bartering complete, Rafael handed the vendor a fistful of coins and then turned to present the stuffed jaguar to Teresa. “Where did she go?” he asked. In that moment, he looked so genuinely crestfallen that I felt sorry for him—and regretted my vindictiveness.

  “Let her go, Raf,” I said gently. “Teresa’s not interested in you. She . . .”

  That was odd. When I’d waved goodbye to her, Teresa had been making her way through the crowd, her small travel bag balanced on one shoulder to keep it out of the way. Now the bag—with its distinctive pink-and-white stripes—lay unattended on the base of one of the statues that dotted the plaza. I couldn’t imagine that she had just left it there—in Aztlan, despite the heavy policía presence, it was prudent to keep one hand on your credstick at all times. I scanned the crowd but couldn’t see Teresa anywhere.

  Then I spotted her. She was near the edge of the plaza, walking away with a man who kept one arm possessively around her shoulders. He was tall and whip-thin, with a scraggly beard. Ropy muscles showed under the yellow tank top he wore. For a moment, I thought he must be Teresa’s brother or some other male relative—but something about the way he was guiding her along didn’t scan. Teresa moved with halting, jerky steps like one of the cyberzombies we’d seen earlier. The man with his arm around her jostled her this way and that, as if directing her movements.

  Rafael saw where I was staring. He let out a low rumble that sounded amazingly like a growl and squeezed the jaguar doll in his fist. “Drek,” he said in a menacing tone. “I stop to buy her a present and she sneaks off with another . . .”

  Then his mouth fell open and his face paled. “Leni, look,” he said in a choked whisper. “The guy’s arm. Do you see his shoulder?”

  I couldn’t be certain, but thought I saw a familiar circular scar. “A cultist?” I asked incredulously. “What’s a cultist doing with Teresa?”

  “I don’t know,” Rafael gritted. “But I’m sure as drek going to find out.”

  He immediately began muscling his way through the crowd, cutting a swath with his shoulders and elbows through protesting revelers. I followed in his wake, trotting to keep up. I eased a hand inside my jacket and wrapped it around the Savalette Guardian. The big gun was slippery in my grip—my hands were sweating. The cultists may not have murdered Mama G, but they had set in motion a chain of events that led to her death. And now they had turned their attention to another innocent...

  Before we could reach Teresa, they skinny bearded man guided her to a panel van. She stepped into it—apparently willingly, but I could see her stagger and nearly bump her head, as if she were sleepwalking. Then the skinny man slammed the door shut after her, climbed in through the driver’s door, and started the engine. The van pulled away, its blaring horn parting the crowd. It found a relatively clear side street and quickly picked up speed, leaving Rafael and I sucking exhaust as we at last burst out of the crowded plaza.

  “We’ve got to follow them, Raf!” I shouted. I looked wildly around us, but this was real life—not the cop trids where a parked car is conveniently waiting for the hero, key-stick in the slot. Then I spotted a scooter parked on the sidewalk. Rafael saw it at the same time and we ran over to it—only to curse in disappointment. Its keyslot was empty.

  I guess Rafael didn’t notice. He leaped onto the scooter and immediately began leaping up and down on the kick-start lever, cranking it for all it was worth. If the circumstances hadn’t been so tragic, I might have laughed—the big ork in his biker’s leather jacket looked comical in the extreme, frantically trying to start a scooter that was way too small and too brightly colored to ever be ridden by a would-be combat biker. But then the scooter sputtered into life.

  “All right, Raf!” I shouted, slapping him on the back. “Let’s go!”

  I clambered onto the back, perching on the wire basket that hung out over the rear fender. We roared away—the tiny 200cc engine screaming in agony as the scooter popped a wheelie under our combined weight. A trail of blue smoke snaked out after us as we chased the van down the side street.

  I didn’t really have time to wonder how Rafael had managed to start the scooter without a key. He hadn’t jimmied any electronics or even touched the keyslot—he’d seemed to get it going by sheer willpower alone. Instead I concentrated on keeping the van in sight. Although most of the crowd was behind us in the plaza, knots of celebrating campesinos staggered through the streets, singing and laughing as children with glitter eggs darted in and out. Even without these obstacles, the scooter was simply too slow to catch up to the larger vehicle. Before much longer the van had pulled out of the town and was rattling its way down a dusty road that led off into the desert. We’d lost our cover.

  “Hang back, Raf,” I shouted over his shoulder. “We’re not going to catch up to the van, and if we’re not careful, the cultists are going to see us following them.”

  In answer, Rafael leaned over the front of the scooter and slammed his fist down onto the top of its headlight. Metal buckled and glass sprayed onto the road as the headlight suddenly went out.

  “They won’t see us now,” he gritted.

  The scooter’s taillight was burned out, so we were plunged into complete darkness. The van’s headlights painted the dirt road ahead of it a dusky yellow, but we had to navigate by guess and feel. Somehow Rafael avoided the worst of the potholes, seeming to instinctively sense the road ahead. I had to admire his skill—maybe he did have a chance at becoming a combat biker, after all.

  The road led out into scrub land, well away from any town. Despite Rafael’s efforts, we were falling farther and farther behind. Eventually the van disappeared over the crest of a rise. By the time we’d topped the rise ourselves, the van was nowhere to be seen. It had disappeared into a region that was dotted with low hills. I wondered if its driver had spotted us, despite our precautions, and had turned his own headlights off.

  I tapped Rafael’s shoulder and motioned for him to stop, then climbed down from my uncomfortable perch on the back of the scooter. I used the amplification system in my cyberear, filtering out the noise of the sputtering scooter engine, and turned in a slow circle, listening for the sound of the van. Nothing. But then I stopped. Had that been a scream, off in the distance where the hills were clustered more thickly together? The sound had cut off abruptly—as if the breath had suddenly left the screamer’s body. I winced, imagining the worst.

  I looked back at Rafael, who was peering out across the surrounding country with a worried frown on his face. His large hands were wrapped around the scooter’s hand grips so tightly they were trembling—although maybe it was just the vibration of the engine that was causing them to shake.

  “Frag!” he cursed in a pained whisper. “Where did they go, Leni?”

  I pointed toward the hills that were dimly illuminated by the thin strip of moon that had risen as we rode. “I heard a—noise—just now,” I told Rafael. “From that direction, behind a hill.” I squinted, saw the boxy shapes of the “hill” I’d just pointed to. “From those ruins,” I corrected myself. “It wouldn’t surprise me if the van is parked among them.”

  Rafael flexed his wrist, revving the scooter’s engine. Its high whine cut the still night air. “Let’s go then.”

  “They’ll hear us coming,” I told him. “I think we should cut the engine and roll as far as we can down this grade. If we go on foot from there, we’ll have a better chance at surprising them and . . . rescuing Teresa.”

  Even as I outlined the plan, I fretted that it might already be too late. I ha
dn’t been able to tell if the scream came from a male or female throat, but it hadn’t sounded good. I decided not to dash Rafael’s hopes just yet. We should at least try to rescue Teresa—it was what I’d sworn to always do, after my last case with the Star. Keep trying, no matter what, no matter how hopeless things might seem.

  I had an inkling that Teresa no longer needed our help. And I was right. But my grim conclusion as to why was completely wrong. Aztlan held yet another surprise for us .. .

  17

  I heard the sound of chanting voices, just ahead. We paused in the shadow of a pile of tumbled masonry near the top of the ruined building we had been climbing. I motioned for Rafael to keep still while I listened with my cyberear. While several voices kept up a low, droning chant, one rose above the rest.

  “We call and bind you, Nezahualpilli, with this offering of chalchiuatl. Let this precious water slake your thirst and feed your ravenous hunger. Let it give you strength and help you to manifest before us here tonight. Let it wash you with its energy and sustain you . . .”

  I gave Rafael the thumbs-up signal, and together we raised our heads above the rubble to take a look. I heard Rafael’s sharp intake of breath as he took in the scene that lay before us.

  On top of a ruined pyramid a short distance away stood a group of seven men and three women, dressed in modern clothing but wearing tall feather headdresses that splayed out above their heads like the fanned tails of peacocks. They were grouped in a loose half-circle around a statue—a carved humanoid figure that reclined on its back, balancing a stone bowl on its belly. One of the men—the one whose voice could be heard above the rest—held something above the statue. His back was to us, however, and I couldn’t see what it was. A long cape, stitched together from thousands of feathers, covered his back and shoulders.

  The skinny fellow in the yellow tank top who had guided Teresa from the plaza was nowhere in sight, but I thought I saw the boxy shape of his van parked around the far side of the pyramid. I guessed that these were all cultists, although their arms were covered, making it impossible to tell whether they bore the cult’s brand.

  The building on which the cultists stood was an ancient stepped pyramid—a teocalli whose sides had crumbled somewhat, blurring and softening the structure’s stacked-box shape into more of a rounded mound. The area around the statue on the upper level had been cleared of debris, however, and the rooms that lay behind this area appeared to be intact. Doorways on either side of the area where the cultists stood led into the interior of the building—dark and sinister, like the sockets of an empty skull.

  The entire scene was lit by a roadside emergency flare that flickered near the base of the statue. It threw out a sputtering, garish red light, painting everything the color of blood.

  Just above the cultists’ heads, a whirlpool of what looked like water turned slowly, every now and then brushing against the tips of their headdresses. One spiraling tendril extended down to the bowl on the statue’s belly like an umbilical cord. A low moaning sound issued from the swirling whirlpool—a sound like the combination of a man groaning in pain and water gurgling in a deep well. The sound was eerie and chilling—it sent shivers coursing through my body, giving me goose bumps and making the hair on the back of my arms rise. I guessed that this was some form of ritual magic—but I couldn’t imagine what its purpose might be.

  The man closest to the statue shifted to the other side of it, so that he was facing in our direction. I saw that he had painted his face black, and that his hands and forearms were also a dark color. A glossy black oval decorated one forearm like a miniature shield. He held what I guessed was a wet sponge. Liquid dripped from it onto the statue below, filling the bowl.

  “Accept this precious water that falls upon the chac mool like life-giving rain,” he said, squeezing the sponge so that a fresh trickle of liquid fell from it. “Drink deeply of it, Nezahualpilli, and appear before us now.”

  His invocation finished, the man dropped the sponge onto a pile near his feet. He motioned to two of the cultists, who entered one of the darkened, rectangular doorways in the upper level of the teocalli. They emerged a moment later, their hands on the shoulders of a slender youth who walked between them. I gasped, thinking at first that this might be Teresa. But it was a young boy, dressed in ragged jeans and sandals and a dirty T-shirt that was too small for him. He looked like the street kid we’d encountered in Tenochtitlán—one of the innumerable SINless gutterpunks you find in any big city.

  The boy didn’t display any of the jerky motions I’d seen in Teresa as she left the plaza, and so I assumed him to be one of the cultists—a participant, rather than a prisoner. I frowned, puzzled, as four of the adults around him took hold of his wrists and ankles and hoisted him into the air, spread-eagled. Was this some sort of initiation rite? Were they going to ritually wash him clean before accepting him into the cult?

  Then the cultist with the painted hands reached under his cape and drew a dagger that had a dark obsidian blade. In the frozen instant that he raised it, I knew what was about to happen. But I was too shocked to react quickly enough. The dagger plunged down, slicing open the chest of the boy. The priest forced a hand into the wound, yanked, and pulled out the boy’s heart. With a quick stroke he severed the arteries leading to it, spraying those around him with blood, then turned and raised the heart above the statue, letting blood pour down into the bowl. He squeezed the heart like a sponge, causing blood to spurt out and spatter the statue like rain. Then he led the cultists in a chant.

  I heard Rafael retching beside me, and choked down my own bile. As a member of Lone Star, I’d seen the gruesome aftermath of murder before, and had been a witness to several shootings, a handful of them fatal. But I’d never seen anyone dispatched with such cold, cruel precision. I knew now that the leader’s hands were stained with blood—not painted—and that the objects I assumed were sponges were in fact human hearts. An entire pile of them. I’d just witnessed my first human sacrifice. I didn’t want to see another one.

  I glanced at Rafael and saw the same horror and revulsion that I felt displayed upon his face.

  “We’ve got to stop them,” he said in a choked whisper.

  I nodded grimly and raised the oversized pistol in my hand. “We will,” I vowed.

  “Do you think that Teresa . . .” Rafael couldn’t finish the question.

  “I don’t know,” I said. I looked back toward the teocalli. Two of the cultists were dragging the lifeless body of the teenager back into its interior. We had no way of knowing how many bodies the temple contained—or how many living captives had yet to fall under the knife. Was Teresa among them?

  The teenage boy must have been under the influence of a spell—or drugs. He hadn’t struggled or cried out, even as the dagger plunged into his chest. If all of the captives were similarly subdued, then whose scream had I heard earlier?

  The two cultists who’d dragged the body inside the teocalli still had not emerged. Rafael shifted anxiously beside me, Streetline Special in his hand. I whispered to him to stay chill. “Wait until they bring out their next captive,” I told him. “When I give the signal, take out as many as you can. Aim at those farthest from the captive—if it’s Teresa, you don’t want to gun her down by mistake.”

  Rafael grumbled a little at this one, but then nodded. He knew that I had the better weapon—and was a better shot. I braced the Savalette Guardian with both hands—the pistol was trembling in my grip—and sighted along it. And waited. And watched. And debated the morality of what we were about to do—then decided that murderers deserved to be punished. With lethal force, if necessary.

  The swirling pool of liquid—which I now knew was blood—boiled upward like a thunderhead. I was reminded, for a moment, of the whirlwind that Águila had conjured up. But then the base of the whirlpool parted, forming a fork that resembled legs. A knot at the top of it coalesced into what could pass for a head with swirling, empty eyes, and two tendrils spiraled down to form a
rms. The spirit—at least that’s what I assumed it to be—grew ever more solid and distinct. Now, in the lurid red light of the flare, I could see that it was a human figure, decked out in a cape and headdress like those who had summoned it, and with a face that was haughty and shadowed. I knew in my gut—without understanding why—that the thing was as ancient as it was evil. It let out a low moan that sent a shiver of ice through my very core.

  “Nezahualpilli!” the cultists cried as one. “Speaker of prophecies!” They raised their hands skyward in supplication and fell to their knees. Only their leader remained standing.

  “Nezahualpilli, you are summoned and bound,” the standing cultist intoned in a deep, authoritative voice. “You must prophesy for me. On what date will the Sun of Motion end? When will the new age begin?”

  I am a king—not a slave. You shall not speak to me this way.

  The voice boomed loud inside my head, echoing against my skull. I winced, and saw that Rafael was also shaking his head and blinking. So he could hear it too. Strangely, although the words were in an ancient language that was utterly foreign to me, I understood them as clearly as if they were “spoken” in English or Spanish.

  It had to be the voice of the spirit, projected telepathically into my mind, violently sweeping aside my own inner voice with its power and force. I cringed, wondering what the frag we’d gotten ourselves into. I figured we could handle the cultists—my Savalette Guardian could pump out rounds faster than they could cast spells, and we’d have surprise on our side—but bullets would have no effect at all on the spirit itself. I could only pray that the thing was too far away to read my thoughts.