Crystal Rain (21 page)
Authors: Tobias S. Buckell
John had not returned yet, so Oaxyctl washed his hands, threw away the slightly bloodied shirt, and put on his spare shirt. Then he wrapped the ends of a length of rope around his hands slowly, as if he had weights attached to his fingers, and planted himself just by the door.
He took several deep breaths.
Several minutes of waiting later, a hard knock on the door rattled it in its hinges. DeBrun wouldn’t knock, Oaxyctl thought. He unwrapped the rope from his hands and slid it between the limp bed mattress and the boards underneath.
Three men stood at the door when he cracked it open.
The silver-dreadlocked man in front, a handkerchief held over his mouth, coughed. He folded the piece of cloth back up and put it in his breast pocket.
“Where is John?” he asked. “John deBrun?”
“He isn’t here,” Oaxyctl said. “I can take a message for you.”
“No, that’s okay.” The man’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe we can just wait for him?”
“There isn’t much space in here,” Oaxyctl mumbled. His throat constricted, he could barely breathe.
“That’s okay. I could come in alone.”
One of the two men behind him put out an arm. “Haidan …”
Haidan.
The
mongoose-general. Oaxyctl looked at the two mongoose-men. He didn’t stand a chance. His world crumbled. The atlatl was too far away, the odds against him. The mongoose-men sized him up as well. Their rifles lay cradled in the crooks of their elbows.
The
mongoose-general. Oaxyctl looked at the two mongoose-men. He didn’t stand a chance. His world crumbled. The atlatl was too far away, the odds against him. The mongoose-men sized him up as well. Their rifles lay cradled in the crooks of their elbows.
“Yes, why don’t we all squeeze in,” Oaxyctl said.
Everyone hesitated a moment. Then Haidan walked in and the two mongoose-men followed. Oaxyctl closed the door behind them.
Haidan smiled. “So here we all are. And who are you?”
Oaxyctl didn’t reply. He raised the corner of his shirtsleeve and showed the tattoo. The two guards nodded, but Haidan’s eyes remained neutral. Feeling another slight seed of guilt for again abusing this brothership of the mongoose-men, Oaxyctl walked into the washroom, calm. He turned on the light and closed the door behind him.
Inside the cupboard lay his tools, the ones he’d just now unpacked from the canvas bag. Serums, scalpels, knives, Oaxyctl packed them all tightly into a small leather bag. Then he sat on the privy and took more deep breaths.
He might have to kill all these men to get John. He might die trying. They might just leave. Or not. But his god had given him a quest, and that was to get the codes to the
Ma Wi Jung.
This he had to do, any way possible.
Ma Wi Jung.
This he had to do, any way possible.
Oaxyctl was nervous. If he did die, he would have failed the god …
To go to your death is a release, he whispered to himself. To meet your gods is an honor. To give your body to the earth is your destiny.
At least, that is what they say. Oaxyctl was more worried
about the things the gods could do to him while still alive, and
would
do, if he failed.
about the things the gods could do to him while still alive, and
would
do, if he failed.
The door outside creaked open, muffled from Oaxyctl’s position inside the bathroom.
“John,” the mongoose-general said.
“Haidan?” Oaxyctl heard John reply.
Oaxyctl took one final deep breath and opened the door.
All eyes fastened on him for a second. John put down a paper bag of groceries. A wad of celery stalks tied with blue string stuck out of the top and leaned over.
“What’s going on?”
Haidan walked over. “We need you, John.”
John sat on the bed. The boards underneath it creaked and settled. The two mongoose-men moved back to stand by the sides of the door. “I’m not flying to the northlands. I’m staying to fight.”
Oaxyctl sat down at the small table.
“It most likely you go die,” Haidan said. “Eventually. You ain’t that good a fighter, you only got one hand.”
“Then I will die,” John said.
“Come, man,” Haidan hissed. “You ain’t one to give up. You a fighter. I know this. I seen you push through the jungle before.”
John shook his head. “That was a different time.”
“You scared?”
“Scared?” John raised his hook and looked at the light playing off it. “No. Tired, lost. My family is dead. And I left them there.” He hit his chest with the side of the curved steel. “Haidan … there’s nothing left for me.”
Haidan sat on the bed next to John. The boards protested as the cheap bed pushed down. Oaxyctl held his hands steady over the table, but every muscle in his body tensed.
“John.” Haidan pulled out the stained handkerchief from his breast pocket and held it out. “If anyone go die here, it go be me. You and I know I been sick ever since you pull me out that swamp in Hope’s Loss and this here damn cough had start.” Haidan dropped the rust-colored cloth to the ground. “I need someone who ain’t go give up now. I need someone strong. I need you to go all the way north for
me. I know you can lead men. I had talk to sailors who you lead back to the city. You the man for this. I know it.”
me. I know you can lead men. I had talk to sailors who you lead back to the city. You the man for this. I know it.”
Haidan stood up, and Oaxyctl let out a held breath.
“John,” Haidan said. “You want revenge? You want to make Azteca pay?”
Oaxyctl scratched at his left index fingertip.
“Them bastard kill you family, they kill Shanta,” Haidan continued. “They kill we friend in Brungstun. You want blood, I go give you blood, man:
Ma Wi Jung.”
Ma Wi Jung.”
Oaxyctl jumped in place, startled. Those words. Did these people know about his god’s quest?
“Leave him.” Oaxyctl’s voice broke. “He’s been through enough.”
“Why you test me?” Haidan asked, turning around. “You mongoose, true, but I don’t know you, and you tattoo new. Don’t cross me.”
John stood up between them. Oaxyctl kept his hands still on the table’s rough wooden surface. If he shoved hard enough, he could feel a splinter poke into his palm. The pain helped center him.
“Give him slack,” John said.
Haidan coughed. Blood flecked his lips. He wiped at it with the back of his forearm.
“Fine. Listen, John, I could get you the greatest revenge. You want bust the Azteca back? Then you go north. You go north and you find something, something from we old-father time, and you use it to smite the Azteca. That is true revenge. I can give you this.”
John’s back slumped forward. “Tell me more.” It was an act of surrender, Oaxyctl realized.
“By steamship, with you the captain.”
“With some ragtag crew? Made of fishermen, right? I did that once before.” John paused, and everyone in the room hung on every movement of his back, his shifting feet, a sniff. “Maybe. If I captain the boat.”
Haidan nodded. “Then I say you the captain.”
“Who are the officers?”
“People I go choose.”
“Good people? I’ll need some mongoose-men who’ll follow my orders.”
“If you agree to go, I give up my best mongoose-man,” Haidan said.
John looked around the room. Then he looked at Oaxyctl. “Will you come aboard with me?”
Oaxyctl pushed the palm of his hand farther into the splintered piece of wood. “What do I know of boats?”
“I will teach you,” John said.
Haidan said, “I want this expedition launch within the week, before any spy in town realize what happening and try to stop it, and well before Azteca arrive at the city wall. I want momentum, I want it now.”
Oaxyctl pulled his hand up from the table, the splinter breaking off inside his hand. “I will pack my things.” Even to himself he sounded distant.
Gods, what a disaster.
Ma Wi Jung.
What else could he do but follow them there? The group assembled outside the door of the small apartment, John with his single bag of groceries, and nothing else to his name, and Oaxyctl with his atlatl and bundle of spears, a small bag in his left hand.
What else could he do but follow them there? The group assembled outside the door of the small apartment, John with his single bag of groceries, and nothing else to his name, and Oaxyctl with his atlatl and bundle of spears, a small bag in his left hand.
On his way out, Oaxyctl ground the bloodied handkerchief Edward had dropped onto the dirty concrete floor with the heel of his ragged boot.
Born under the sign of Ocelotl, he said to himself.
Certainly.
For several minutes Pepper stood and listened to the water. He heard the creature come up, expelling air, watching them as the boys moved their boats around, drawing attention to themselves. Pepper motioned Adamu closer and got back in the boat.
The water remained calm for a maddeningly long time. Tiny waves lapped against the pillars. The city pipes trickled. emptying water out nearby.
Right there. Pepper saw the dimmest of shapes beneath the water by Tito’s boat. Pepper pointed, and Tito picked up a spear from inside the boat. Like a tiny harpoonist the boy balanced on the side of the boat and slung it.
The shape darted underneath, and Tito’s boat splintered. Water splashed out from the inside, and the kids leapt into the water.
“Stay close to the submarine,” Pepper warned, not wanting Adamu to row them away.
The floor underneath erupted, and Pepper stepped back. Gray skin pushed through the floor planks, and a smooth, skeletal face turned his way. Adamu bent over the oars, his back to the creature, and shivered.
Eyelids blinked at the pair of shotguns Pepper had pointed at it.
Treo, in the front of the boat, screamed. One snap of the razor-sharp claws later and Treo’s throat erupted blood.
Adamu turned around, the beginning of a scream on his lips. Pepper shoved him aside with an elbow and smashed the guns against the Teotl.
The claws turned his way.
He couldn’t avoid them, but embraced them, firing the shotgun and throwing it aside to grab the creature’s head and head-butt it. It tried to retreat back into the water, but Pepper hung on, ripping at its eyes with his fingers.
Three more shots later, Pepper managed to get the net around it. He was losing blood as fast as it was losing ichor, clear ooze making it slippery to drag the creature out of the boat up onto its own submarine.
Pepper threw it down the hatch, dizzied and burning hot with combat fever. He stopped a second to grab his trench coat before the rowboat sank, leaving the kids treading water or scrambling up onto the submarine. Then he followed the Teotl down.
He slid a knife out from his ankle strap and regarded the Teotl in front of him. Its legs were finlike around the shins and calves, but it still had feet. The hands were deadly.
Now the screaming could begin, Pepper thought.
He took the knife and made a few selective cuts, then pulled the claws free.
The wailing deafened him.
And that was the beginning.
Pepper could hardly understand the creature’s language. He could hardly understand its physiology. Only with that understanding would he torture something, so he could tell if that thing was lying to him.
It took time, many hours, but eventually Pepper understood the creature enough to make it cry, and then confess. It managed the spies in Capitol City. It told them what to destroy and when. And it was also hunting for John deBrun.
It thought John was alive and well, and in the city.
They knew about John. They knew about
Ma Wi Jung
. It had tortured the dead Loa to find out that John was on a mission to go to the northlands on a steamship.
Ma Wi Jung
. It had tortured the dead Loa to find out that John was on a mission to go to the northlands on a steamship.
There were Azteca warships at sea north of the city. They were ready to stop the journey north and capture John. In case John used an airship, saboteurs waited with bombs to destroy the airship.
This had been well worth the danger.
Pepper finally moved the submarine next to the sewers so that Adamu and his “posse” didn’t have to hang off it. When he climbed out of the hatch five hours later, he stank of Teotl ichor, and one of the boys gagged and threw up when saw Pepper.
He was covered in his own blood, ribbons of shredded flesh, and bits of Teotl. Pepper, wearing the trench coat again, pulled it closer around him, ignoring the pain of cloth rubbing exposed wounds.
Adamu and Tito dragged Treo’s body out of the water into the sewer and looked back up at Pepper with tired eyes.
He squatted next to the tiny body. Treo couldn’t have been more than seven. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry. That how it is for you kind,” Adamu said. “You ain’t the one that find him last year, tie up and … bloody, left to die on a street up above.” Adamu looked up at the stone overhead. “So now you give us more gold and escape in that submarine, right? I wonder why. I hear the Azteca coming. You go make a quick escape or what?” Adamu’s
lips curled with distaste. Pepper said nothing. “That how it is, right?” Adamu sniffed. “You didn’t shoot that thing, you wanted it alive. The price of one boy, some boy you know nothing about, acceptable. You just like anyone else, we nothing to you.”
lips curled with distaste. Pepper said nothing. “That how it is, right?” Adamu sniffed. “You didn’t shoot that thing, you wanted it alive. The price of one boy, some boy you know nothing about, acceptable. You just like anyone else, we nothing to you.”
Pepper took a small bundle of cloth from under his trench coat and threw it to Adamu. “It’s all gold. Melt it down before anyone sees what it all is, or they will ask questions and take it from you.”
Adamu opened it. A crown with a panther. Jade hammered into anklets, and wristbands. All Azteca. He looked back at Pepper. “How you get all this? Who you is really?”
“The Azteca a scary night story, right?” Pepper asked.
Adamu nodded.
“Well, I am the Azteca’s scary story. I have been that for a long, long time. They marching toward Capitol City. They will be here soon.” Pepper winked. “Take the gold. I don’t need it anymore. But don’t waste it.”
Adamu swallowed.
“I’m sorry for everything.” Pepper walked back onto the submarine. When he crawled into the hatch, he paused and looked back at Adamu. “When the Azteca come, stay inside here, stay quiet, and don’t go topside. Anyone else coming down here doesn’t understand the tides, or the sewers. They’ll drown, you’ll be safe. Use the gold to get as much food and stores as you can this week.”
Adamu quivered as Pepper stepped farther down. “Just leave us, please,” Adamu said to Pepper’s face, all that was visible now.
Pepper climbed down and did so.
That was almost all the gold. And no matter how much he would have given them, he knew, it wasn’t enough. It was never enough.
He looked down at the Teotl. Time to dump the body, clean the submarine, and hide it somewhere. Then go get cleaned up. Eight hours of recovery and as much as he could eat to get the repair processes in his body working overtime.
After that, find John. Who was alive and here, it seemed.
But first, a brief bit of rest.
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