The Gods of Color

by Gunnar Sinclaire

  “It’s fixed!” the president exulted. “My Protean Phenotype System must be online again. I can feel it working! You tried to deprive me of it these past weeks because you’re bitter and hateful. But you see, Herbert, Divine Color’s proximity to earth must have reenergized your device. I’m right and you’re wrong, ha! It is coming to save us tonight!”

  “The only thing that’s coming tonight for you—for all of you—is death. Raw, boundless, permanent death. But I really must be going—I have an Aztec sacrifice to attend. Oh, and please give your god my pleasant regards. But tell me, who will play the part of Divine Color? Will it be you, Terry? Will you spray paint yourself rainbow then leap around your bunker, throwing toys to the little children?”

  “Alien blasphemer, you . . .” Swan’s execration was cut short as Hommler dematerialized from the projector.

  Then, there was a rolling explosion overhead. The ceiling rumbled, and plaster drifted again in flakes that collected on Swan’s bald head.

  “I’m afraid the House of Color’s been turned to rubble,” Scott said, brushing the flakes from Swan’s pate.

  “Where is our air force? We need an air force to repel the bombers!” The president seethed.

  “Terry, we learned a year ago that most Americans are incapable of piloting aircraft, remember? And the few who were once coordinated and skilled enough seem to have devolved to a more normative level.”

  “Well, what about some sort of retaliatory weapon? Let’s fire our nuclear warheads at the Muslims and Aztecs and hope for the best.”

  “Hommler’s got the launch codes,” Scott reported bleakly.

  Swan’s eyes revolved around the room, but didn’t seem to relay its content to his mind. The sable irises drifted, borne along by an undercurrent of madness.

  “What need do we have of vengeance weapons,” Swan half whispered, “when our polychromatic savior is poised at the threshold of our atmosphere?” He shot up a finger. The children gripped each other, as the man they called uncle spun on his heel in a full revolution. “Children, up with you, and begin your decorating. The wedding commences at five sharp! This is the night of our rebirth, don’t you understand? This is the night we welcome the Rainbow Regent to our planet. This is our new beginning! Our new beginning!”

  Chapter 47

  When they came for her, Marisela was halfway through her rosary. It was alternating white and red, the colors of martyrdom, and had been given to her by Hommler shortly after arriving at the castle. She had hidden it all this time from her torturer, turning to it when the moon milked through the iron-barred grille that was her only window. Her stinging body would lean against the stone, but her eyes would escape into the night, into the cold and free air. And her fingers would journey the large and small beads, lips intoning the prayers she had learned as a child.

  She trembled as the rusted iron door banged against the wall, and her arms bristled in anticipation of being wrenched, as was his style. Throughout the day, she had rehearsed in her mind her last moments in this world. Should she beg for pity or scratch out as many eyes as she could? Should she feign slumber, exhaust her parched throat in a last scream, or beg for a postponement? After all, Mictlan had not been secretive with regard to the progress of her father’s armies—they were now within miles.

  Sure enough, the priest squeezed her wrist and tore the rosary from her hand. With a snarl, he rent the cord that bound the beads with his teeth, and the icon deconstructed in a clatter of red and white rolling balls. He arced the crucifix between the window bars, then spat in her face.

  “That god will not help you,” he said. “Did your ancestors speak Nahuatl or Aramaic? Eh?” His fingers plumbed the brittle hairs of her scalp, then seized a generous sampling, jerking back her head. “Knowledge of our gods is implanted in our blood. You are not Middle Eastern, you are Mesoamerican. Soon, you will know our gods and no others.” For an instant Marisela looked into the eyes of her captor. His face was painted black, and his lip plug was ceremonial gold. But then her vision was swimming with saliva as a fresh expectoration caught her off guard. That’s when she began to scream.

  As she stumbled into the hall, free hand held protectively over her heart, she saw five other priests. Their skin was painted black like Mictlan’s, and their bodies abounded with feathers and piercings. Standing among them, eyes giddy and juvenile, was Hommler. He peppered his hands together at the sight of the girl, fangs hanging gruesomely over his bottom lip.

  “I feared she’d try suicide,” said the vampire. “As your ancestors well knew—a lifeless victim is nugatory to the gods.”

  “Agreed.” Mictlan grunted, jerking the girl down the hall. “Much better to see terror in their eyes—the kicking and writhing, the torment.”

  “Oh, yes! But see that this ceremony doesn’t entail much pomp and dallying, because the Saracens will be here within a few hours—or sooner. I want to be deep within the catacombs before their arrival.”

  “I am sure your brave divisions will fend them off as long as needed.” The priest smiled. Marisela pulled hard at the detection of a slight lapse in pressure along her wrist. The priest latched his grip in time, however, and clawed her face with his nails for her efforts.

  Soon the party emerged in the lavish chapel of Tiamat, where Hommler had rallied his officers with promises of holy conquests for the past year. Now, the temple was an empty, gray gulf of stone and serried pews. The only sign of life was a stooped, gray elder, who swept a far corner with measured deliberation.

  Along the west wall, the dragon portrayed in titanic stained glass looked both spectactular and garish. Flames arabesqueing from its mouth glowed from the nearly perpendicular impact of a dropping sun’s rays. But those rays would soon die, and it would return, as it did nightly, to its more dignified look of a polished fossil. Far off, on a large dais winged by gargoyle statuary, was an imported rock altar. It swelled near the center, and was spattered with dark stains.

  “What is the name of the Aztec god that wears human skins?” chattered Hommler, face alight like a child’s before receiving presents. “Xipe . . . Xipe Totec!” he proclaimed triumphantly.

  “Yes . . . he is also called The Flayer,” Mictlan uttered coldly.

  “Ah . . . the Flayer . . . I want to honor him one day with a red-stained lith, and dance around its base in the flapping skins of my enemies.” The vampire stared up at the distant ceiling, and began to spin until his vision kaleidoscoped in stone and torches. “It will be gargantuan—a meteor culled from outer space and chummed with the offal of dissidents.” A bomb impacted some distant arm of the castle, and the floor trembled. Hommler fell to the ground, laughing giddily. “Whoop . . . on with the sacrifice, my friends. The Turks will be here soon. Where is Keedu, I wonder? He and the rest should be here by now.”

  “Perhaps they fled.” One of the priests snickered with a sharp glance.

  Hommler stared soberly at the priest, then at the rest of his company. “Highly unlikely,” he murmured. “Keedu has been my personal servant for years, he . . .”

  “Do you want to watch us sacrifice the girl, or not?” demanded Mictlan, shoving Marisela down the long aisle to the altar.

  She screamed wildly, and the vampire’s eyes riveted to her struggling form.

  “Six hundred years is nothing. Nothing!” Hommler slavered, rising to his feet and staggering after the train. “Tens of thousands of sacrificial cries . . . were heard six hundred years ago from the Aztec capital . . . are heard now.” His blue eyes were unblinking, processing every defiant kick and punch. But her efforts were overcome, and the altar soon was chafing her back. To him, her resistance was as beautiful as it was futile, the swell in the rock uplifting her rib cage, each malnourished limb restrained by a chanting zealot, but tensing and jerking all the same. Then the fifth priest sealed his hand around her throat, and forced her inclining head back to press against the rock altar.

  Mictlan approached the girl, and with a glower reached into a pouch
worn at the hip. He raised his fist over the girl’s tattered shirt, above her heart, and emptied his hand. Dried corn kernels spilled out onto her heaving chest, and she screamed until veins tunneled her temples, and her eyes were bloodshot.

  Then suddenly, Mictlan was at her side, his gold lip plug brushing her earlobe as he whispered in her ear. “Filthy whore, malicious witch, too long you have desecrated your ancestry—you are unfit to lead our people. I will cast your spirit from the planet, down to the tenebrous underworld governed by my patron god. See if your Jesus can save you then! Your body will be claimed by Chalchiuhtlicue, She of the Jade Skirt—I can feel her presence already. She wants your life, your blood in her veins. When I take your heart, she will take you.”

  The girl’s response was a hoarse scream, and the fifth priest’s hands gripped her head so it couldn’t twist and bang against the stone. Mictlan approached the side of the altar, knife raised. Marisela could feel her heart pounding with such vigor that it felt as if it would burst from her chest. She could watch the poised flint knife no longer, and snapped her eyes shut. Her vocal chords left her with nothing but whimpers as she felt Mictlan’s fingers close upon the corn kernels shuddering upon her chest. He gathered all but the errant stragglers that had fallen to the altar, then clenched his hand into a fist right above her heart.

  Bombs were pounding in greater profusion—or was it a goliath pounding at the castle’s reinforced front double doors? The moat bridged, the portcullis twisted aside like tinfoil, Turks driving—one-two-three-push—a ram into the barred wood. It was a door they could have pulverized with one shell, but why abandon fifteenth century tradition? The vampire detected a cadence to the slams, which seemed to confirm his imaginings. He wrung his hands as he scurried around the altar, obsessed with finding the best possible angle to witness the taking of the heart, all the while shooting glances over his shoulder at the chapel doors.

  The priests chanted deeply in Nahuatl, and Marisela stared wide-eyed toward the ceiling, lips slightly parted.

  “Momiquilia . . . cihuapilti! Momiquilia . . . cihuapilti! Momiquilia . . . cihuapilti!” the head priest bellowed, then whisked down his knife toward her heart. Hommler leapt forward, his hands on the shoulders of the priests, his mouth open and drooling for blood. But the plunging flint sheathed in Mictlan’s fist. His fingers were cut to the bone, and the priest’s blood welled up over the dagger’s hilt, turning the corn kernels a sticky scarlet.

  With a grunt he withdrew the dagger, and raised up his bloody fist with its bounty of kernels. “Yollotli!” He proclaimed, then relaxed his fingers. The corn pattered down onto the girl’s unscathed chest. Still in torpor, her eyes were unblinking as Mictlan’s brown, bloodied hand closed over her face. “Chalchiuhtlicue . . .” His intonation was a tentative drum beat. “Chalchiuhtlicue . . .” Now it was a peremptory beckon. “Chalchiuhtlicue!” An exultant war cry finished the tri-colon crescendo, and his hand left the girl’s face and seized the throat of the vampire. “You are as my beloved son,” he declared. “You are a devoted servant to the gods. Your blood will please them more than all others. It will grease the cogs of the universe so that the sun may continue to rise and set. You will do this as an honor to them.”

  “No!” Hommler gasped. His right hand drew a plasma pistol and blazed a hole through the face of a priest before the four others could disarm him.

  “But you wish to honor the blood gods!” Mictlan reasoned. “What better a way than to give them your heart?”

  “I will honor them with the blood of others!” The vampire spat, tangled in the rippling thews of the priests. “You said you would sacrifice the girl! You are a liar, Mictlan—a filthy Aztec liar!”

  “I do not lie,” swore the priest. “I sacrificed Marisela—she is dead. Her body is now governed by Chalchiuhtlicue, She of the Jade Skirt.”

  “Bull shit, you stupid primitive! Your corn surrogate for her heart means nothing—she’ll awaken and go skipping back to her father!”

  “Will she?” posed Mictlan, his filed teeth more wicked than the vampire’s.

  “Yes, now tell your followers to unhand me! I refuse to offer myself to your gods.”

  “But you are merely a child,” reasoned the high priest with a tilt of his head. “You do not know the ways of the world. I became your father when I captured you in your throne room. You have been my prisoner ever since. A father knows best—a child does not. You will be sacrificed.”

  “You . . . you . . .” Hommler groped for a curse but found only the crack of Mictlan’s fist against his jaw. His mind snapped in brilliant light, and his chin dutifully sank to his sternum.

  “Prepare him,” ordered Mictlan.

  Hommler’s cloak was torn off, and he stood, half-conscious, shivering in his briefs. His fangs gnashed ineffectually and out of range from his captors. As the four priests restrained him, Mictlan uttered benedictions over Hommler’s body while knifing small incisions with flint until the white, hairless chest was awash in red. “You fool, you can’t sacrifice me,” muttered the vampire. “You’re one priest short for a proper sacrifice.”

  There was alarm in Mictlan’s quick glance down to his fallen comrade.

  “Perhaps I can offer my assistance. For I was a priest, once,” came a voice that emanated near the girl.

  The old, stooped man had abandoned his sweeping. He had drifted out of the dark recesses of the chapel and up the stairs to Marisela, and she was cradled in his protective arms. Her eyes were open and blankly fixed, but she clung to the gnarled hands that enfolded her.

  There was a residue of humanity in the old man’s bat-black eyes, and his purple lips whispered assurances and kindnesses to the girl. Beneath his robe, he still wore his old shirt and Roman collar. Mictlan’s grin and Hommler’s frown of horror were simultaneous.

  “Father!” welcomed Mictlan. “We are in need of your assistance. You see, we wish to perform a ritual that requires six priests and we have but five. Will you postpone your cleaning of this chapel and aid us? Will you be the sixth priest?”

  “Don’t do it!” Hommler frothed. “You are my pawn—I control you—you will not injure your lord and master.” The vampire looked longingly toward his robes that contained his electronic devices.

  “I will aid you in your sacrifice, but the Saracens have breached the front gates,” Andrade informed with a glance toward the main chapel doors. “The girl must reach safety.”

  “She is Jade Skirt,” said Mictlan. “She cannot be stopped now—no more than a flowing river can be stopped.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw that the girl had left the altar and was pawing through Hommler’s robes.

  “Regardless,” Andrade struggled to speak coherently in his gray state, “I know of a secret way out down to the coast, far from where the Saracens have landed.”

  “Excellent.” Mictlan walked over to the girl and placed a hand on her shoulder. “Farewell, Jade Skirt. Find our people and lead them to glory. Teach our folk to honor your godly brothers and sisters, and know that your husband, Tlaloc, awaits your return to paradise.” Then, he embraced her. She was cold and unreciprocating.

  “Go down to where I was sweeping, girl.” Andrade instructed with pointed finger. “There you will find a small closet where I keep my broom and cleaning supplies. At the back of the closet you will find a trap door—I keep it open, so you will see it immediately. Climb down the ladder therein, and follow the rock path to the sea, then . . .”

  But the girl was already making for the described exit.

  “Farewell, Chalchiuhtlicue.” Mictlan waived.

  The girl stopped, convulsed, and turned. Her eyes seeped tears, and she raised Hommler’s pistol at the high priest. The muzzle glowed blue and a second later there was a smoking hole in Mictlan’s abdomen. He wilted to the floor, consternation dominating his strong features. Then a second burst whizzed the air, gutting the vampire.

  “Atlaca—teuhtli!” she yelled vehemently, shaking her fist. And she sprinted for the cl
oset door.

  “You see, you savage . . .” Hommler chuckled between mouthfuls of blood that spilled over his lips. “She’s the same little . . . monotheistic bitch.”

  “No,” said Mictlan painfully. “She is Jade Skirt, after all. She is . . . wrathful.”

  “Oh, you fool . . . fool . . . fool,” Hommler repeated as the five priests heaved his body on to the altar. Corn kernels stuck to his exposed entrails, and Andrade stared blankly into his eyes, his grave-cold hand restraining the vampire’s throat. Mictlan struggled to his feet, then fumbled to the head of the altar. He raised his hands in invocation to Huitzilopotchli, and as he looked up, he choked on the blood in his throat.

  Sultan Mehmed III had anticipated heavy, fanatical resistance. But killing the infidel grays had proved as entertaining and leisurely as hunting game in the forests of Germany. He stroked his black beard and cocked his head. It appeared as if more entertainment were in store for him and his men. With a hand motion, he ordered his janissaries to file into the pews.

  “We must put an end to this primitive diabolism!” insisted his vizier, a tall, sallow faced man ever by his side. “It is loathed by Allah.”

  “No, Berkant, we needn’t. This diabolism will put an end to itself.” Mehmed stepped over splinters of wood from the obliterated chapel doors. “You see—the Indians intend to kill the vampire. I have seen this image before in their codices. A priest at each ankle, a priest at each wrist, one for the throat, and one to take the heart.”

  “But are we not in the vampire’s castle—has he lost control of his subjects?” asked Berkant.

  “Yes. If treachery runs deeply in pious men, think how it must course through the damned. Roll the video again—I want a live feed of this. Everyone in the world will be watching, so let us continue our use of English for the sake of the broadcast. It is the most widely understood language, after all.” The Sultan cleared his throat. “I battered down the dreaded vampire’s front gate, I searched his dark castle, and now I find him, face to face. This time, there will be no forest of impaled Turks to greet us. This time, there is no escape for him.”