Changes (35 page)

I wanted them to see what I could do.

The second vampire fell as easily as the first, as did the third, and only then did I say quietly, “One bullet apiece, Martin.”

Martin’s silenced pistol coughed three times, and the slightly glowing forms of the ice-enclosed vampires shattered into several dozen pieces each, falling to the ground where the luminous energy of Winter began to bleed slowly away, along with the ice-riddled flesh.

They got the point. The vampires stopped advancing. The jungle became still.

“Fire and ice,” murmured the Leanansidhe. “Excellent, my godson. Anyone can play with an element. Few can manipulate opposites with such ease.”

“Sort of the idea,” I said. “Back me up.”

“Of course,” Lea said.

I stepped forward and slightly apart from the others and lifted my hands. “Arianna!” I shouted, and my voice boomed as though I’d been holding a microphone and using speakers the size of refrigerators. It was something of a surprise, and I looked over my shoulder to see my godmother smiling calmly.

“Arianna!” I called again. “You were too great a coward to accept my challenge when I gave it to you in Edinburgh! Now I am here, in the heart of the power of the Red King! Do you still fear to face me, coward?”

“What?” Thomas muttered under his breath.

“This is not an assault,” Sanya added, disapproval in his voice.

I ignored them. I was the one with the big voice. “You see what I have done to your rabble!” I called. “How many more must die before you come out from behind them, Duchess? I am come to kill you and claim my child! Stand forth, or I swear to you, upon the power in my body and mind, that I will lay waste to your strong place. Before I die, I will make you pay the price for every drop of blood—and when I die, my death curse will scatter the power of this place to the winds!

“Arianna!” I bellowed, and I could not stop the hatred from making my voice sharply edged with scorn and spite. “How many loyal servants of the Red King must die tonight? How many Lords of Outer Night will taste mortality before the sun rises? You have only begun to know the power I bring with me this night. For though I die, I swear to you this:
I will not fall alone
.”

I indulged in a little bit of melodrama at that point: I brought forth soulfire—enough to sheath my body in silver light—as my oath rolled out over the land, through the ruins, and bounced from tree to tree. It cast a harsh light that the nearest surviving vampires cringed away from.

For a long moment, there was no sound.

Then the drums and the occasional clash of the gong stopped.

A conch shell horn, the sound unmistakable, blew three high, sweet notes.

The effect was immediate. The vampires surrounding us all retreated until they were out of sight. Then a drumbeat began again, this time from a single drummer.

“What’s happening?” Thomas asked.

“The Red King’s agents spent the past couple of days trying to kill me or make sure I showed up here only as a vampire,” I said quietly. “I’m pretty sure it’s because the king didn’t want the duchess pulling off her bloodline curse against me. Which means that there’s a power play going on inside the Red Court.”

“Your explanation isn’t one,” Thomas replied.

“Now that I
am
here,” I said, “I’m betting that the Red King is going to be willing to attempt other means of undercutting the duchess.”

“You don’t even know he’s here.”

“Of course he is,” I said. “There’s a sizable force here, as large as any we’ve ever seen take the field during the war.”

“What if it isn’t his army? What if he’s not here to run it?” Thomas asked.

“History suggests that kings who don’t exercise direct control over their armies don’t tend to remain kings for very long. Which must be, ultimately, what this is all about—diminishing Arianna’s power.”

“And talking to you does that how?”

“The Code Duello,” I said. “The Red Court signed the Accords. For what Arianna has done, I have the right to challenge her. If I kill her, I get rid of the Red King’s problem for him.”

“Suppose he isn’t interested in chatting?” Thomas said. “Suppose they’re pulling back because he just convinced someone to drop a cruise missile on top of us?”

“Then we’ll get blown up,” I said. “Which is better than we’d get if we had to tangle with them here and now, I expect.”

“Okay,” Thomas said. “Just so we have that clear.”

“Pansy,” Murphy sneered.

Thomas leered at her. “You make my stamen tingle when you talk like that, Sergeant.”

“Quiet,” Sanya murmured. “Something is coming.”

A soft lamp carried by a slender figure in a white garment came toward us down the long row of columns.

It proved to be a woman dressed in an outfit almost exactly like Susan’s. She was tall, young, and lovely, with the dark red-brown skin of the native Maya, with their long features and dark eyes. Three others accompanied her—men, and obviously warriors all, wearing the skins of jaguars over their shoulders and otherwise clad only in loincloths and heavy tattoos. Two of them carried swords made of wood and sharpened chips of obsidian. The other carried a drum that rolled off a steady beat.

I thought there was something familiar about the features of the three men, but then I realized that they weren’t personally familiar to me. It was the subtle tension of their bodies, the hints of power that hung about them like a very faint perfume.

They reminded me quite strongly of Susan and Martin. Half vampires. Presumably just as dangerous as Susan and Martin, if not more so.

The jaguar warriors all came to a halt about twenty feet away, but the drum kept rolling and the girl kept walking, one step for each beat. When she reached me, she unfastened her feathered cloak and let it fall to the ground. Then, with the twist of a piece of leather at each shoulder, the shift slid down her body into a puddle of soft white around her feet. She was naked beneath, except for a band of leather around her hips, from which hung an obsidian-bladed knife. She knelt down in a slow, graceful motion, a portrait in supplication, then took up the knife and offered its handle to me.

“I am Priestess Alamaya, servant of the Great Lord Kukulcan,” she murmured, her voice honeyed, her expression serene. “He bids you and your retainers be welcome to this, his country seat, Wizard Dresden, and offers you the blood of my life as proof of his welcome and his compliance with the Accords.” She lowered her eyes and turned her head to the right to bare her throat, the carotid artery, while still holding forth the blade. “Do with me as you will. I am a gift to you from the Great Lord.”

“Oh, how thoughtful,” the Leanansidhe murmured. “You hardly ever meet anyone that polite, these days. May I?”

“No,” I said, and tried to keep the edge of irritation out of my voice. I took the knife from the girl’s hands and slid it into my sash, and let it rest next to the cloth sack I had made from a knotted inside-out Rolling Stones T-shirt. The shirt had been in my gym bag of contraband ever since it had been a gym bag of clean clothes for when I went to the gym. I had pressed the shirt (
bah-dump-bump, ching
) into service when I realized the one other thing I couldn’t do without during this confrontation. It was tied to my grey cloth sash.

Then I took the young woman’s arm and lifted her to her feet, sensing no particular aura of power around her. She was mortal, evidently a servant of the vampires.

She drew in a short breath as she felt my hand circle her wrist and rose swiftly, so that I didn’t have to expend any effort lifting her. “Should you wish to defile me in that way, lord, it is also well within your rights as guest.” Her dark eyes were very direct, very willing. “My body is yours, as is my blood.”

“More than a century,” Murphy muttered, “and we’ve gone from ‘like a fish needs a bicycle’ to this.”

I cleared my throat and gave Murphy a look. Then I turned to the girl and said, “I have no doubt about your lord’s integrity, Priestess Alamaya. Please convey us to his seat, that I may speak with him.”

At my words, the girl fell to her knees again and brushed her long, dark hair across my feet. “I thank you for my life, wizard, that I may continue to serve my lord,” she said. Then she rose again and made an imperious gesture to one of the jaguar warriors. The man immediately recovered her clothing and assisted her in dressing again. The feather cloak slid over her shoulders once more, and though I knew the thing had to be heavy, she bore it without strain. “This way, lord, if you please.”

“Love this job,” Sanya murmured. “Just
love
it.”

“I need to challenge more people to duels,” Thomas said in agreement.

“Men are pigs,” Murphy said.

“Amen,” said Molly.

Lea gave me a prim look and said, “I’ve not sacrificed a holy virgin in ages.”

“Completely unprofessional,” muttered Martin.

“Ixnay,” I said quietly, laying a hand on Mouse’s shoulders. “All of you. Follow me. And don’t look edible.”

And, following the priestess with her lamp, we entered the city of Chichén Itzá.

43

Chichén Itzá smelled like blood.

You never mistake blood for anything else, not even if you’ve never smelled it before. We’ve all tasted it—if nowhere else, when we lose our baby teeth. We all know the taste, and as a corollary, we all know the smell.

The main pyramid is known as El Castillo by most of the folk who go there today—literally, “the castle.” As we walked up out of the gallery of pillars, it loomed above us, an enormous mound of cut stone, every bit as large and imposing as the European fortifications for which it was named. It was a ziggurat-style pyramid, made all of square blocks. Levels piled one on top of another as it rose up to the temple at its summit—and every level of the pyramid was lined with a different form of guard.

At the base of the pyramid, and therefore most numerous, were the jaguar warriors we had already seen. They were all men, all appealing, all layered with the lean, swift muscle of a panther. They all wore jaguar skins. Many of them bore traditional weapons. Many more wore swords, some of them of modern make, the best of which were superior in every physical sense to the weapons manufactured in the past. Most of them also carried a Kalashnikov—again, the most modern versions of the weapons, made of steel and polymer, the finest of which were also readily superior to the weapons of earlier manufacture.

The next level up were all women, garbed in ritual clothing as Alamaya had been, but covered in tattoos, much as the jaguar warriors were. They, too, had that same subtle edge to them that suggested greater-than-mortal capability.

Hell’s bells. If the numbers were the same on every side of the pyramid, and I had no reason to believe that they were not, then I was looking at nearly a thousand of the jaguar warriors and priestesses. I am a dangerous man—but no one man is
that
dangerous. I was abruptly glad that we hadn’t tried a rope-a-dope or a forward charge. We’d have been swamped by sheer numbers, almost regardless of the plan.

Numbers matter.

That fact sucks, but that makes it no less true. No matter how just your cause, if you’re outnumbered two to one by a comparable force, you’re gonna have to be real creative to pull out a victory. Ask the Germans who fought on either front of World War II. German tankers would often complain that they would take out ten Allied tanks for every tank they lost—but the Allies always seemed to have tank number eleven ready to go.

I was looking at an impossible numerical disadvantage, and I did not at all like the way it felt to realize that truth.

And I was only on the second tier of the pyramid.

Vampires occupied the next several levels. None of them were in their monstrous form, but they didn’t have to be. They weren’t going all out on their disguises, and the all-black coloration of their eyes proclaimed their inhumanity with eloquence. Among the vampires, gender seemed to have no particular recognition. Two more levels were filled with fully vampire jaguar warriors, male and female alike, and the next two with vampire priests and priestesses. Above them came what I presumed to be the Red Court’s version of the nobility—individual vampires, male and female, who clearly stood with their own retinues. They tended to wear more and more gold and have fewer and fewer tattoos the higher up the pyramid they went.

Just before the top level were thirteen lone figures, and from what I could see they were taller than most mortals, seven feet or more in height. Each was dressed in a different form of traditional garb, and each had his own signature mask. My Mayan mythology was a bit rusty, but White Council intelligence reports said that the Lords of Outer Dark had posed as gods to the ancient Mayans, each with his own separate identity. What they didn’t say was that either they had been a great deal more than that, or that collecting worshipers had
made
them more than merely ancient vampires.

I saw them and my knees shook. I couldn’t stop it.

And a light shone in the temple at the top of the pyramid.

The smell of blood came from the temple.

It wasn’t hard to puzzle out. It ran down the steps that led up the pyramid, a trickling stream of red that had washed down the temple steps and onto the earth beyond—which was torn up as if someone had cruised through the bloodied earth with a rototiller and torn it to shreds. The blood slaves, I was willing to bet. My imagination provided me with a picture of that insane mob tearing at the earth, swallowing bloody gob-bets of it, fighting with one another over the freshest mud—until yours truly showed up and kicked off the party.

I looked left and right as we walked across the open courtyard. The cattle car Susan had told us about was still guarded, by a contingent of men in matching khakis and tactical vests—a private security company of some kind. Mercenaries. There were a load of security bozos around, several hundred at least, stationed here and there in soldierly blocks of fifty men.

Without pausing, Alamaya trod across the courtyard and began up the steps, moving with deliberate, reverent strides. I followed her, and everyone else present came with me. I got hostile stares all the way up, from both sides. I ignored them, as if they weren’t worth my notice. Alamaya’s calves were a lot more interesting anyway.

We reached the level below the temple and Alamaya turned to me. “My lord will speak to only one, Wizard Dresden. Please ask your retainers to wait here.”

Here. Right next to the Lords of Outer Night, the expired godlings. If I made a mistake, and if this went bad, it was going to go really bad, really fast. The people who had been willing to risk everything to help me would be the first to suffer because of it. For a moment, I thought about cutting a deal. Send them away. Let me face the Red Court alone. I had enough lives on my conscience already.

But then I heard a soft, soft sound from the level above: a child weeping.

Maggie.

It was far too sad and innocent a sound to be the death knell for my friends—but that might be exactly what it was.

“Stay here,” I said quietly. “I don’t think this is going to turn into a John Woo film for a couple of minutes, at least. Murph, take the lead until I get back. Sanya, back her.”

She arched an eyebrow at me, but nodded. Sanya shifted his position by a couple of feet, to stand slightly behind her and at her right hand.

I moved slowly up the last few steps to the temple.

It was a simple, elegant thing: an almost cubic building atop the pyramid, with a single opening the size of a fairly standard doorway on each side. Alamaya went in first, her eyes downcast. The moment she was in the door, she took a step to one side and knelt, her eyes on the ground, as if she were worthy to move no farther forward.

I took a slow breath and stepped past her, to face the king of the Red Court.

He was kinda little.

He stood with his back to me, his hands raised over his head, murmuring in what I presumed to be ancient Mayan or something. He was five-two, five-three, well muscled, but certainly nothing like imposing. He was dressed in a kind of skirt-kilt thing, naked from the waist up and the kneecap down. His hair was black and long, hanging to the top of his shoulder blades. He gripped a bloodied knife in his hand, and lowered it slowly, delicately.

It was only then that I noticed the woman on the altar, bound hand and foot, her eyes wide and hopeless, fixed on that black knife as if she could not look away.

My hands clenched into fists. I wasn’t here to fight, I reminded myself. I wasn’t here to fight.

But I wasn’t here to stand around and let something like this happen, either. And I’ve never had a clear head when it comes to protecting women. Murphy says it makes me a Neanderthal.

She may be right, but I didn’t seize a bone and jump the guy. I just cleared my throat really, really obnoxiously, and said, “Hey.”

The knife paused.

Then the Red King lowered it and turned to face me. And I was forcibly reminded that nuclear warheads come in relatively small packages. He made absolutely no threatening gesture. He didn’t even glare.

He didn’t need to.

The pressure of his eyes was like nothing I had ever felt before—empty darkness that struck at me like a physical blow, that made me feel as if I had to physically lean away from him to keep from being drawn forward into that vacuum and lost to the void. I was suddenly reminded that I was alone, that I had none of my tools, that I was involved in matters way over my head, and that my outfit looked ridiculous.

And all of it was simply his physical presence. It was far too huge for the little body it came in, too large to be contained by the stone of this temple, a kind of psychic body heat that loomed so large that only a fool would not be instantly aware of how generally insignificant he was in the greater scheme of the universe. I felt my resolve being eroded, even as I stood there, and I clenched my jaw and looked away.

The Red King chuckled. He said something. Alamaya answered him, then rose and came to kneel down at his feet, facing me.

The slave on the altar remained in place, crying quietly.

I could hear another, smaller voice coming from behind the altar. Holy crap. I couldn’t have cut this one much closer. I focused on my daughter’s voice for a moment, small and sweet—and suddenly I didn’t feel nearly so small. I just felt angry.

The Red King spoke.

Alamaya listened and then said, “You do not speak the true tongue of the ages, wizard, so my lord will use this slave to ensure that understanding exists between us.”

“Radical,” I said. “Wicked cool.”

Alamaya eyed me for a moment. Then she said something to the Red King, apparently conveying the fact that I had obnoxiously used phrasing that was difficult to translate.

He narrowed his eyes.

I mimicked his expression. I didn’t know if he got it, but he sure didn’t like it.

He said something in a short, curt tone.

“My lord demands to know why you are here,” the priestess said.

“Tell him he fucking well knows why I’m here,” I said.

She stared at me in shock. She stammered several times as she translated for me. I don’t know if Ancient Mayan has a word for
bleep
or if she used it.

The Red King listened, his expression slipping from displeasure into careful neutrality. He stared at me for several moments before he spoke again.

“ ‘I was given a gift by she you know as Duchess Arianna,’ ” the girl translated. “ ‘Are you saying that the gift was wrongfully obtained?’ ”

“Yes,” I said, not looking away from him. “And you know it.” I shook my head. “I’m sick of dancing. Tell him that I’ll kill Arianna for him, take my daughter with me, and leave in peace. Tell him if he does that, it stops being personal. Otherwise, I’m prepared to fight.”

The girl translated, her face once more fearful. When she finished, the Red King burst out laughing. He leaned back against the altar, his mouth wide in a grin, his black eyes utterly unsettling. He spoke a few terse sentences.

“My lord says that he will throw one of your limbs from each door if you lift your hand against him.”

I snorted. “Yes. But I won’t even try to kill him.” I leaned forward, speaking to the Red King, not the girl, and showing him my teeth. “I’ll try to cripple him. Wound him. Weaken him. Ask him if he thinks the death curse of a wizard of the White Council can deal him a wound. Ask him how well he trusts the people on the nearest couple of levels of the pyramid. Ask him if he thinks that they’ll visit and send gifts when they realize he’s been hurt.”

Alamaya spoke in a fearful whisper, earning a sharp word of reproof and a command from the Red King. I guessed at the subject matter: “I don’t want to tell you this, my lord.” “Stupid slave, translate the way I damned well told you to do or I’ll break my foot off in your ass.”

Okay. Maybe not that last part.

Alamaya got on with her unpleasant job, and the words pushed the Red King into a rage. He gritted his teeth, and . . . things
moved
beneath his skin, shifting and rolling where nothing should have existed that could shift and roll.

I stared at him with one eyebrow lifted and that same wolf smile on my face, waiting for his reaction. He hadn’t been talked to like this in a long time, if ever. He might not have much of a coping mechanism for dealing with it. If he didn’t, I was going to die really horribly.

He did. He mastered himself, but I thought it was close—and it cost the woman on the altar her life.

He spun and slammed the obsidian knife into her right eye with such force that the blade broke off. She arched her body up as much as her restraints allowed and let out a short, choked scream of agony, throwing her head left and right—and then she sort of slowly relaxed into death. One leg kept twitching and moving.

The Red King ran two fingertips through the blood that was seeping from her eye socket. He slipped the fingers into his mouth and shuddered. Then he turned to face me, completely composed again.

I’d seen behavior like that before. It was the mark of an addict scoring a fix and full of contentment that he had a body full of booze or drugs or whatever, and therefore the illusion that he could handle emotional issues more capably.

That . . . explained a lot about how the Red Court had behaved during the war. Hell’s bells, their king was a junkie. No wonder they had performed so inconsistently—brilliant and aggressive one moment, capable of making insane and idiotic mistakes the next. It also explained why there was strife within the Court. If the mark of power was control of one’s blood thirst, indulging it only when and where one chose, and not with every random impulse, then anyone who knew about the Red King’s condition would
know
that he was weak, inconsistent, and irrational.

Hell’s bells. This guy wasn’t just a monster. He was also paranoid. He had to be, because he
knew
that his bloodlust would be seen as a sign that he should be overthrown. If it had been happening for very long, it would have driven him insane. Even for one of the Red Court, I mean.

And that must be what had happened. Arianna had somehow tumbled to the Red King’s weakness, and was building a power base aimed at deposing him. She’d be building her own power, personal, political, and social, inasmuch as the vampires had a psychotic, blood-spattered, ax-murdering version of a society. Dealing appropriately with one’s enemies was critical to maintaining standing in any society—and for the Red Court, the only two enemies were those who had been dealt with appropriately and those who were still alive. She literally had no choice but to take me down if she was to succeed. And a Pearl Harbor for the White Council wouldn’t hurt her any either, if she pulled it off.