Ragamuffin (25 page)

He sat in the back of the car, posture stiff, as it drove toward the center of Tenochtitlanome. A crowd milled around the central pyramid, and Xippilli followed Ahexotl as he pushed through the crowd to stand at the base of the pyramid. The tiny steps stretched up, hundreds of feet into the air.

The small figures at the apex of the pyramid moved around with deadly certainty, pulling roped victims forward to lay on the stone altar.

Xippilli looked down at the dark stone as the jade-hilted knife stabbed downward and someone screamed. He looked back up to see the priest, blood-soaked hair dark against his skin, hold the red heart up to the orange early-morning sun.

The priest’s acolytes threw the body off the pyramid. As limp as a doll it rolled, limbs flailing, all the way down the steps to land before the crowd.

They erupted in cheers, and Xippilli looked at the body. A young girl.

Ahexotl grabbed his shoulder. “They’re saying the sacrifice has been well received and that the gods are coming out of their machine. Come with me.”

They cut their way around the pyramid toward the square where the alien flying machine sat. Xippilli walked, staring up at the upswept wings and curved lines that seemed to blend into the great hull of the machine, a seed-like pod with legs that splayed out on the cobblestones.

Pipiltin milled about near the shade of one of the wings. Sullen moderate and smug old-order priests ringed the edge of the square, but the pipiltin were the ones who approached the strange craft.

“The wonderful thing about all this,” Ahexotl said as they moved past the ring of priests toward a collection of shaded divans, “is that you, me, and the pipiltin know that our gods are just creatures. More advanced, perhaps, as we once were before the cataclysm that left us in the ashes of our forefathers, but just creatures.”

“You see good things in the oddest places,” Xippilli said.

“The gods cannot read our minds, and we can bargain with them,” Ahexotl said.

“What makes you think we can bargain with them?”

Ahexotl waved his hand at the great machine. “They’re here in Tenochtitlanome, are they not? They must need something from us, or they wouldn’t be speaking with us.”

“You have a point.” Xippilli paused as a pair of Jaguar scouts stopped him.

“I’m sorry Xippilli. You must remain here. I will be using you in these days ahead, but the pipiltin, they only tolerate you.” Ahexotl looked apologetic.

Xippilli nodded. Another pair of scouts set up a stool for him, gave him a cup of sweetened fruit juice, then stood on either side of him as Ahexotl continued on.

Their new masters stirred from inside the shadows of the divans, grublike skin visible from the distance. They were surrounded by the pipiltin. Ahexotl joined them, and Xippilli watched the crowd readjust to Ahexotl’s presence.

The meeting lasted a mere fifteen minutes, then Ahexotl strode back out.

“I kept you on for this very reason,” Ahexotl said, smiling, and Xippilli suddenly felt like a rodent under the gaze of a jungle cat. He had no illusions that Ahexotl would dispose of him if he did not serve some function in the man’s calculations.

“And that is?”

“The gods want Capitol City next. They will use us as the front line in the occupation.” Ahexotl brushed past the stool. Xippilli hopped off to follow him.

“We are their chaff?” Xippilli asked.

“They are searching for one thing: any ancients that might be alive still from the days when our world used to be connected to the other worlds. They were most insistent.” Ahexotl had a spring in his step. “They have to be captured and brought to them alive.”

“That seems to excite you.” Xippilli struggled to keep up.

“They need something, they are not omnipotent, and they will be
giving
us Capitol City in exchange for what they want.” Ahexotl, his eyes gleaming, looked at Xippilli. “And we have the first tool, a piece of leverage to use to gain all that, don’t we? Jerome deBrun. You have him in a safe location, correct?”

Xippilli stopped with him at the steam car. The driver had spotted them and begun warming it up; the boiler hissed as Ahexotl opened the door. “Yes, I do.”

“They want these people alive, Xippilli. That doesn’t offend your sensibilities, does it?”

Xippilli stared at the dirt underneath the car. “No, no, it doesn’t. But I view my promises as ironclad, and even in a situation like this, breaking a promise I made to protect the son of a close friend is hard to do.”

Ahexotl grabbed his shoulder. “Your loyalty is why I trust you, Xippilli. Not many here struggle to remain true to their word. So I tell you this, deliver Jerome to me. Deliver his father to me. I’ll make you the ruler of Capitol City, you know it best of all the people here, and I know what you promise me will stand, so I can trust you over in Capitol City more than any of the pipiltin back there.”

“Capitol City?” Xippilli looked up. “In charge how?”

“Deliver me the men the gods want and I will not bother you there. Sacrifice thousands, or none, I don’t care. Just keep my goods coming, keep the order, and you will rule that city for as long as you wish.”

Xippilli held on to the door of the car. If this was indeed the age of the Teotl, they could do nothing against them, could they? What better way to protect Capitol City and the people he loved that lived there? As a powerful ruler for the rapidly rising Ahexotl, he could protect many who would otherwise have their hearts cut out.

“Don’t delay your answer to this offer too long,” Ahexotl said, “or I’ll find someone else to do it.”

Xippilli grabbed his arm. “The others would kill the very people the gods want,” he growled. Then with a deep breath, he said, “I’ll do it.”

He had to.

Ahexotl grinned. “Where are they?”

Xippilli swalled the acid at the back of his throat and told Ahexotl where to find Jerome and the delegates who lived with him.

J
erome nailed the edge of plank across the window of his room. The morning light filtered through cracks between the wood. No one had returned for them. All night had passed in nervous silence.

Screaming and shouting came from down the street. Jerome peeked out through a tiny crack to see two priests pull a seven-year-old girl away from her mother. One of them clubbed a man down as he struggled to hold on to the girl.

Her foot slipped out of his fist. With one last kick the priests walked off down the street with the kicking girl.

Jerome dropped the hammer and ran down the stairs, across the foyer, toward the main door.

He grabbed the edge of the massive dresser they’d shoved up against the door, but Bruce held him back. “Ain’t nothing you can do.”

“That a child they taking,” Jerome shouted, straining to get free. The bush warriors pushed him down into a chair.

“I know.” Bruce let him go. “We all know. Now hush, we don’t want them hearing no foreign voice out of here.”

Jerome walked over and looked through the shutters. The mother held her husband’s bloodied head in her lap.

“You think maybe we should run for jungle?” Jerome asked. He’d assumed Xippilli’s men would already have arrived to take them away and that they had only needed to last the night with some caution.

“It light now. This place crawling with warrior-priest,” Bruce said. “Got to wait until dark again.”

“They got to know we sitting here,” Jerome muttered.

“Mainly diplomat and Xippilli, and some people around this house. It go take a little while.”

Jerome walked a circle. “We go tonight, make we way through the jungle and back over the Wicked Highs.”

“The Wicked Highs going through storm season,” one of the other men pointed out.

“Crossing the mountains never easy.” Jerome had lived in their shadow most of his life. People died on the slopes more often than not. “Pack warm. Get all the food in this house pack up as well, we go need it.”

A suicidal trek. Weeks of jungle, and they couldn’t stop at villages or use the roads.

“Heard. Better moving than sitting still here.”

Someone rapped at the door and shouted at them.

“What do they want?” Jerome asked. He didn’t understand Nahuatl. “Who’s out there?”

“For we open the door now.” Bruce walked up and looked through the crack. “A whole bunch of Azteca with guns out there. A couple priest them. I don’t see Xippilli anywhere. Open the door?”

Jerome shook his head. “I think we all know better.”

Guns were taken out. Bruce took a hunting knife out and handed it to Jerome. He hefted it in his hand. “Think we should run for it?”

Bruce looked at him. “They like locusts out there.”

“I don’t want die in this house,” Jerome said. “We run for it if they break in.”

“We by your side.”

Jerome shook his head. “Don’t stick with me. Scatter.” He raised his voice. “You ain’t here for protecting me. We need get word back to Nanagada, hear? Scatter fast if they break in. Find a way to get the message back, somehow, anyhow.”

Bruce stood still, saying nothing.

The Azteca on the other side kept shouting, then stopped. They’d given up on asking for what they wanted.

A bullet splintered the main door. Two mongoose-men walked to either side of the doorway.

“Come on.” Bruce walked up the stairway to join the other mongoose-man perched along the railing, aiming down at the door and able to see throughout most of the house.

More commotion outside, then a thick chunk of log punched through the door. No one inside moved.

“Jerome,” Bruce said. “Get up here, now.”

Another hit from the heavy log and the door caved inward. Feathered Jaguar warriors clambered over the dresser. Jerome stood still and stared at them.

“Cut them down!” Bruce shouted, and the mongoose-men fired. Six Jaguar scouts lurched forward and screamed, their blood staining the wooden planks of the floor. One of them pulled himself forward, one hand holding his own guts in while bleeding out, the other hand reaching for a dropped rifle.

Jerome aimed his rifle at the man’s head, hands shaking.

The Jaguar scout paused, looked back at him, and Jerome closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. The rifle bucked, the acrid smell of gunshot wafted up, and Jerome flicked up and looked at the mess of brains and blood and shivered.

He wanted to throw up, but Bruce ran down the stairs and pulled him up. “Don’t make it so hard for we to protect you now.”

More screaming Jaguar scouts tried to force through the door.

Jerome’s heart pounded at triple speed as Bruce pushed him back into his own room. “Hey, I said we was going to run.”

“Jerome, you done well, but we can’t run. And we orders was to stay with you and protect you. We surrounded. Look out the window.”

They grimly guarded the door. Jerome looked out at the street below. Azteca filled the street, fifty of them.

He was going to die here.

“They coming up.” The mongoose-men downstairs had stopped firing. The stairs flexed as Jaguar scouts pounded up them, then the crack of rifles from the last two mongoose-men stopped them.

Jerome slowly reloaded his rifle and loosened the knife, each gun crack making him jump slightly.

“Hold the door,” Bruce said, and stepped into the room with Jerome. He shut the door and flipped the wooden cradle of Jerome’s bed up to shove it against the door’s handle.

“Bruce—”

“Shut up and get ready.”

Jerome stepped back and stood by the window.

The Azteca outside shouted in Nahuatl again, and Jerome looked at Bruce. “What they say?”

“They say they don’t want kill you. If you surrender, you go live as a prisoner.”

Jerome shook his head. “So they can sacrifice all of we later? No.”

Bruce shouted back, and the downstairs door burst open, two Jaguar warriors pushing through. Jerome shot the first one in the head.

Gunsmoke filled the room. Jerome recocked the hammer and fired at the second man and missed.

Damn. He cocked and fired again, gun jerking, and hit the man in the shoulder, but he kept coming. Bruce stepped in front and knifed the warrior, but another Jaguar warrior pushing through fired. Bruce fell.

“Bruce!” Jerome shouted as. He pulled the gun up to aim at the warrior-priest that leapt into the air at him with a net, then stopped. His hair swayed, his mask slipped, and he gurgled. The priest hung in the air, a long speartip sticking through his chest.

The priest moved aside to reveal a tall man in a long trench coat and dreads. Jerome couldn’t believe it.

“Pepper?”

Pepper tossed the priest aside. His coat dripped blood, as did his dreads. Dirt smeared his brown face, and he looked around the room. “A last stand, Jerome? I was expecting you to run for the forest.”

“What you doing here?” Jerome walked forward to the door as Pepper moved over to the window to peer out at their surroundings.

“Saving your ass. I promised John I’d keep an eye on you. Bad timing to promise that, don’t you think?”

Jerome could see a trail of bodies on the stairs. He hadn’t even heard the slaughter Pepper had perpetrated. “What now?”

“Well, we’re surrounded,” Pepper said. “So let’s move quickly.” Pepper stepped backed to the doorframe, a shotgun poking out of the trench coat. He fired it, twice, then reloaded.

“Down the hall to the window.” Pepper shoved Jerome toward it and covered him like a shield as he fired again down at the entryway to the building.

At the end Pepper smashed the wooden shutters out with a fist. Jerome looked down at the street. “What now?”

“Jump.”

“That’s cobblestone.”

Pepper fired the shotgun again. “You want to wait for them to come back up the stairs?”

Jerome clambered out onto the sill and took a deep breath. He lowered himself by his hands awkwardly, then let go. He hit the stones with a jarring thump that knocked the breath out of him.

A stone-cracking thump behind him. Pepper landed on his feet, shotgun in each hand aimed down each side of the road. “Move.”

They turned the corner, and Pepper stopped. Twenty Azteca with rifles clustered around a car. Pepper pushed Jerome behind him.