Page 52
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.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52 (Reading here)
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86