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Oh, you cheatin’ bitch.

Rook schooled himself hard, a

nd drawled: “Hate to tell you, Moon-lady, but — if you’re lookin’ in Chess’s direction, you may not have exactly struck pay-dirt. ’Cause he just ain’t much of a one for beddin’ women, full stop.”

“Oh, all men burn to return to their mother’s womb, little king — even your wild boy. Desire has nothing to do with it. The universe’s very spark will pull us together; I will mark him as my bridegroom and he will come, raving. Like you, he will be unable to help himself.”

“I don’t want him hurt,” Rook repeated, stubborn. “Or — to hurt him.”

“But if you had to, Reverend, to reap the greatest gain? For both of you?”

He didn’t answer — couldn’t.

“Aaaah,” she breathed once more, hungry as ever. “And that is the god-seed buried in you, husband — the deep-laid root of the calabash, poking its way between the rocks and blossoming with succulent fruit. Hun Hunaphu’s severed head, crying out amongst the bark and leaves to be born again, at any cost.”

Rook closed his eyes. And thought, helpless: The gods are chosen for their youth, their beauty. They live on blood and worship.

Chess could do that. He’d be happy with people fearing him, as always, and even happier with people having to love him, or the sun goes out.

(In the machine, one cog is as good as another.)

She whispered: “The king is priest, too — always. Did I not mention? And as his high priest, you would lose nothing. Nothing but blood, in its season.”

“I’d give him that anyways, gladly.”

“As you say.”

His heart beat on, a hammer on flint, drawing sparks.

“What’ll I have to do?” Asher Rook asked, at last — eyes kept firmly closed, so he wouldn’t have to see the pleasure in Dread Lady Ixchel-Adaluz’s awful, answering smile.

That tripping giggle, ringing out — icy, abyssal bells.

“You won’t enjoy it, little king,” she told him, softly — like that was any sort of news.

Rook sighed. And said: “Tell me anyway.”

BOOK THREE: JAGUAR CACTUS FRUIT

March 9, 1867

Month Two, Day Seven House

Moving from Arizona to Mexico City through Mictlan-Xibalba, along passages sacred to Xiuhtecuhtli, First Lord of the Night

Xiuhtecuhtli, the Old God, is also Huehueteotl, the gatekeeper of Mictlan-Xibalba’s tunnels. There he appears as an elderly man, bent over and carrying a brazier, or small stove, on his head.

But sometimes he is accompanied by another: either the Mayan god K’awil, “God K,” who is drawn with a sacrificial knife in his forehead and one leg replaced by a snake, or perhaps Tezcatlipoca — the Smoking Mirror — whose right foot is replaced by an obsidian mirror.

Tezcatlipoca is associated with hurricanes, the north, rulership, divination, temptation, jaguars, sorcery, beauty, war. At times he is called Night Wind, Possessor of the Sky and Earth, and — most threateningly — We Are His Slaves.

Tezcatlipoca ruled the first world that ever existed, before it was destroyed by Quetzalcoatl. Quetzalcoatl created the second world, which Tezcatlipoca subsequently destroyed. Yet they worked together to create the fifth and present world, along with their “brothers” — Huitzilpochtli, god of war, and Xipe Totec, the god of maize. These four gods — Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli and Xipe Totec — are referred to respectively as the Black, the White, the Blue and the Red Tezcatlipoca.

In fact, some even believe that all other gods and goddesses are, ultimately, only aspects of Tezcatlipoca.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The morning the gang made Splitfoot Joe’s — there to wait for Reverend Rook to join them, just how he’d instructed — Ed Morrow woke up aching, long before everybody else, and crept off into the bushes to do his business. The needle of pain he felt still dug deep in the meat behind one eye wasn’t even one splinter as bad as when he’d got caught in the Rev’s wards, a mere week previous, but it did have that same very particular stink about it, nonetheless: a spiritual marking, same as Cain’s. A hex-bag hangover.