by Ben Stevens
“Oh, yes,” Don Luis gloated. “To say that I became obsessed with my god is an understatement, my dear. For the last sixty years, I have sent my agents into the lands of Mexico-That-Was. To hunt down any clue that might help me to understand what I had become. After many long decades, the search paid off.”
“What? What did you find?” Maya asked, pressing herself closer to him, gazing longingly into his eyes. “I want to know everything!”
“Come, let me show you.”
“Behold, the evidence,” Don Luis said, gesturing to a large book, propped open with care in an ornate wrought-iron easel that adorned his bedroom’s largest oak table.
Maya slowly approached the book. Even from across the room, she could make out faded illuminations, the kind she had not seen firsthand in well over a thousand years.
“Written and illustrated proof that our maker has been with us for some time,” Don Luis said from behind her, hanging back.
The book looked heavy. Heavy and old. As she came to it, she cautiously extended two fingers and brushed their tips across the rough and crackled edges of the painted and time-stained pages. Handwritten text in the patient style of calligraphers past filled the majority of both pages currently on display. The ink appeared to be made with actual silver and gold, as it was radiant, too radiant for its age. She recognized the language instantly, although the nuances of the dialect were older than Don Luis Fernando ten times over.
Spanish. Old Spanish.
Besides the ancient text, the top half of the right page was filled by an illustration, illuminated in the way of countless religious frescos and manuscripts.
When Maya leaned in and studied the depiction closer, she gasped.
“Stunning, isn’t it?” Don Luis asked softly, his approaching footfalls punctuating the space between Maya’s accelerated breaths. “The iconographers captured its likeness perfectly.”
On the open page, a hand-drawn simulacrum of the Demon Urchin stared at Maya with open, fanged sucker-mouths at the end of its multitude of tentacles.
“H-how?” Maya asked, honestly puzzled. She had existed on Earth for millennia and hadn’t seen a single interstellar being walk, or slither, on its surface since the first imprisonment of her late husband, Enki.
Having reached her side, Don Luis gestured to the book. “This,” he began, “is the Codex Sitis Autem Sanguis. Compiled by religious brothers in my country’s first Dominican monastery. Its founders, the very calligraphers and iconographers that wrote this book, were among some of the first priests brought to the new world at the request of Cortez, a man I admire, a man who knew how to achieve his goals. A kindred spirit.”
Maya looked into Don Luis’s eyes and could see that he was telling the truth. And why should she doubt him? The proof was staring her in the face. She turned back to the book and allowed her gaze to loiter on the icon. There was no mistaking it; it was the urchin. Her gazed drifted over the calligraphy. Words jumped out at her: blood, fire, devil, Lucifer, sunlight. She shivered.
“The conquistadors of Spain came to this new world in search of gold. Instead, they found the devil himself.”
“So it has been here since before the Storm. Before the Drops,” Maya stated, more of a proclamation than a question.
“We aren’t actually sure. It may be that it merely visited somehow.”
Maya spun on him and studied him, her face begging the unspoken question.
“See here?” he said, and stepped in closer, reaching past her and carefully flipping the thick, stiff pages of the Codex one at a time. “Ah, yes, right here.” He pointed to a long passage of handwriting, the only illustrations the decorative frame around the letters and a crucifix on the bottom of the second page.
“The brothers tell here of having met with Juan de Zumárraga, the first Bishop of my country, and his Franciscans. They discuss here their knowledge of the demon’s weakness. See?” Don Luis ran his finger across the strings of letters.
“They accompanied the soldiers and Cortez himself to the devil’s lair, prepared to do battle with fire ‘with God on our side,’ they say. But when they arrived, the beast disappeared before their eyes, never to be seen again. They report strange colors in the sky, and what can only be an earthquake. ‘The land itself shook with the wrath of the Lord, crumbling stone, and toppling trees. The earth broke open and swallowed the unwary. The heavens parted, and we beheld the glory of our Lord, flashes of relámpago, lightning, and a host of angels filled the night sky. When we arrived at the lair of Lucifer, we watched in disbelief as he faded from our eyes, surrounded by flashing cubes. God himself had done the work for us, blessed be his name, Jesu Christo, nuestro Dios.”
“Incredible,” Maya said, not sure what else to say. Her mind was aflood with questions, however, questions that she couldn’t ask without revealing to her host that she was older than he and possessed a deeper understanding of the world’s history than a traveling troubadour ought to.
“Do you think it could happen again?” she asked, genuinely wanting to know.
“Perhaps. But I certainly hope not. Without me to protect it, my fate would be uncertain. And I, my bride-to-be, am in no hurry to die.”
“Man, I am starving!” Carbine said, rubbing his belly to emphasize his spoken lament. “What I wouldn’t give to be down there in Ratt’s place and get me some real tacos.”
“We still have three tubes of ration paste left, bud,” Jon reminded him.
“Oh. Boy. Ration paste. My favorite,” Carbine said in a monotone voice and went about digging the tube out of his ruck.
“Jon? Boys?” a voice in Jon’s ear called.
When Jon heard Maya speak his name into the necklace radio, he nearly fell down the mountain, first springing upright, then stumbling over the rocks that jutted out of the earth like speed bumps, and finally crashing down onto the boulder upon which the railgun sat.
“What’s gotten into you?” Carbine asked. “You hungry too?”
“It’s Maya! She’s back!” Jon shouted as he wiggled down next to the mounted rifle and scope. He wished more than anything that he could answer Maya, tell her how good it was to know she was all right. But he could not, so he settled for allowing tears of joyful relief to fall down his face. He struggled to maintain his vision through bleary eyes that searched through the railgun's scope for the visual counterpart to Maya’s heavenly voice.
He had to see her to know that he was not just having auditory hallucinations.
There she was, with Lucy and Ratt, all three of them back in the room together, without a hair on their heads harmed, except for Ratt, who looked like he had been through the wringer. He laugh-cried as all the stress and anxiety of the past evening washed out of him in strong, emotional waves.
“I am so sorry for forgetting the necklace earlier. You guys must have been pretty worried,” Maya said.
“It’s okay. I’m just glad you’re all right,” Jon replied, knowing that she couldn’t hear him.
“Well, I don’t know if you saw me or not, but I know you didn’t hear what happened, so I’m going to give you my report anyway. Listen up, guys, ‘cause we have some serious news for you.”
Jon listened to Maya’s recounting of the night’s events as dawn’s fingers began to reach out over the landscape, probing the darkness like a fumbling but insistent lover.
Jon listened as Maya related the story of her pampering in the bath—some of which Jon was already embarrassingly familiar with—and her dinner with Don Luis and Sofia, Sofia’s hostility toward her, and her walk with Don Luis into the evening air.
She told Jon of Don Luis’s vision for a civilized society of vampire masters and human cattle who were cared for and protected in exchange for a blood tax and their lawful obedience. It boggled Jon’s mind that the system not only worked, but worked so well.
It would seem at a glance that none of the humans who dwelt inside the protective wall of New Puebla considered themselves slaves or captives. Like the cows
of Don Luis’s parable, the humans had seemingly grown one hundred percent dependent on their masters. They not only gave up their blood and their freedom willingly, but they also went so far as to police each other in the name of and for the sake of the vampires.
It was also clear that the humans outnumbered the vampires twenty to one, yet every morning, as today, the vampires slept soundly in their crypt-like homes, safe and sound, with peace of mind. Despite the fact that their dwellings were neither secret nor hidden, the notion that the humans might turn against the vampires and murder them in their sleep was not even dreamed of.
Or so it seemed.
“Truth is, guys,” Maya explained, “as distasteful as it may seem to us at first, to have monsters ruling over humans, the system works. I was convinced for a bit that the best thing for us to do, at least for now—that is, until we recover the Anvil—was to leave these people to live in peace. I thought that if we were to try and take out the vampires and free them, it would only expose these simple people to other threats, the obvious being things from the Drops that aren’t as accommodating.”
As Jon related to Carbine what Maya had told him, Carbine and Jon were both quick to judge the human citizens harshly for their willingness to give up and become domesticated slaves of a blood-tax farm. Jon was puzzled and felt ashamed for the people in the valley below, but when Carbine gave voice to their shared incredulity, Jon realized that he was in no position to criticize. Maya was right; it would be immoral of them to impose freedom on these people.
Although the exact details of the circumstances differed, had not he and other citizens of Home been guilty of the same craven, unquestionable submissiveness to Accoba Warbak? So much so that they had no longer been aware that they had even submitted? It had become a gestalt, an institution. Complete obedience to the state and compliance with its draconian pogrom against the Displaced had been the law of the land for generations.
Were those who willingly gave up their blood to the rulers and accepted their lower standard of living as a law of nature any more shameful and cowardly than those who’d believed without question the orders from their State? Were the citizens of New Puebla any different from those who’d never questioned the rule not to read? Who’d never questioned the State, and stood by as “illegal aliens” were slaughtered? Who were even complicit in the terrifying witch hunts conducted by the Ministry of Social Purity against the neighbors and children of Home who had been born with the ability to shape Strange, or had dared to read a book?
No, Jon himself had been just as guilty of lying down as the people of New Puebla. They thought that this was just how things were. Jon hadn’t realized the nature of his transgressions either. He had believed every lie ever told by the State, until someone had opened his eyes, freed him, and shown him the truth. And, considering the protection these people gained in exchange for the paltry price of blood that would refresh itself, he realized that he would make the same choices as the citizens of New Puebla. At least with the vampires present, New Puebla stood a fighting chance should the Harvesters ever happen this way.
“But what does she mean by at first?” Carbine asked. Curious, Jon shrugged and went back to listening to the goddess’s report.
Maya now related to Jon and Carbine what Ratt had seen while he’d wandered the city on his own. Ratt had witnessed something horrible that put everything else and their possible courses of action into perspective.
“You see?” Maya went on. “After spending the whole night with Don Luis, even after seeing the urchin demon, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the lesser of two evils was to just try and get out of here during the day, slipping away from Don Luis Fernando, and leaving the sleeping dogs to lie. I hate the idea of allowing such a demonic entity to exist, but everything actually seemed to be fairly decent here, by post-Storm standards. Then, after Ratt came stumbling back in, and Lucy returned, and they told me what transpired, what they had each experienced, I realized that things may not be as they appear.
“They killed a human baby, Jon. For sport. And its mother. They made Ratt watch. There is evil here. It may be slow and hard to see, but it’s here. Last night, Lucy encountered a poor family who had their father taken from them. The oldest child of this family told Lucy that no one is allowed to leave the city, that they are viewed as property, possessions. He also told her that he and many others are wanting to form some kind of resistance, but don’t know where to start. Later this morning, Lucy went among the people, after the vampires had gone to sleep, and she collected many, many tales of people going missing. Especially anyone that can shape Strange. Sound familiar? They don’t go missing so frequently as to lower the population noticeably, but enough to keep the population right where it is. Everyone here pays in blood, but some more than others.”
Jon listened, but in the back of his mind, he was dreaming of revolution, freedom, liberty, revenge, and a spark of an idea began to form in his mind. Something that had happened to them out in the desert a week ago. He wasn’t one hundred percent positive that his hunch was correct, but he quickly became willing to bet on it.
The brew of revolution was a heady one, and as his mind sipped on it, the sips turned to gulps, and before Maya had finished her tale, he was drunk on it.
Reeling, possessed, riveted. What Ratt had seen and experienced made their path clear. The people, the human people of New Puebla, had to be freed. It was Jon’s duty to open the eyes and minds of the unconscious slaves who suffered, sometimes in a subtle way and sometimes overtly at the hands of blood-drinking monsters who killed mothers and babies for sport.
It might come at a steep cost, and the burden of self-responsibility was a heavy one, but the people of New Puebla would have to learn how to defend themselves from the chaos, without serving darkness.
The vampires all needed to die.
And Jon believed he knew exactly how to do that now.
15
Miller rapped his thick metal fingers on the table over and over again.
“Hey,” Candice said, waving her hand in front of Miller’s thousand-yard stare. “Can you please stop that? You’re making me nervous.”
“Huh? Oh, sorry,” Miller said, stopping his subconscious finger-drumming and pulling his hand back from the table. He flashed Candice an unenthusiastic, wry half-smile and looked around the council chambers. Nearly everyone who was supposed to be here had arrived and was going about the business of giving and receiving greeting pleasantries, organizing papers in front of their seats, and dodging aides that were making sure the council members wouldn’t want for coffee, tea, or water.
“Almost everyone is here,” Candice said. Miller shifted his eyes to her. She had followed his gaze across the room and read his mind correctly. They should have started by now, a fact that only added to the palpable anxiety Miller wrestled with.
“Yeah…” he mumbled, rubbing his chin. “Everyone except To-Kan.”
Another long minute passed. Miller watched the present council members settle into their seats and make small talk with their neighbors as they waited. Despite the assurances he had given everyone, most notably and recently Candice, Miller began to wonder if he was making a mistake in trusting the fate of the New Republic to such a diverse and rag-tag group of people.
Nah, man. That’s just the old Army training talking. We want, no, need people up in here. Not jus’ soldiers.
“Are you trying to rub the stubble out? They make these things called razors, you know.”
Miller found Candice staring at him again, a plea written on her freckled face.
“Huh? Oh. Sorry. Again,” Miller said and took his hand from his face, where his chin-rubbing had replaced his finger-drumming and had almost reached neurotic levels. “I’m just nervous. Something didn’t sit right in my craw, ya know? And To-Kan being late is killing me. I want to get this show on the road.”
“I know, I know. But don’t worry. Everything’s going to be just fine.” Candice smiled and patted the
big man’s hand. “Hey, speak of the devil!” she said and together with Miller turned to the set of double doors as they opened, revealing councilwoman To-Kan with a child in tow.
“What the—?” Miller asked out loud, but quietly enough that only he and Candice heard it.
Regardless, To-Kan seemed to know exactly what was on Miller’s mind, and probably everyone else’s as well and rushed to explain herself before she was barraged with a volley of questions.
“My apologies to the council,” To-Kan began. Her breathing was labored and her wrinkled face slightly red. Suddenly, Miller felt a twang of guilt for being upset at the senior woman’s tardiness.
“Councilwoman To-Kan,” Miller said loudly, hushing the murmuring room as he stood up and leaned on the table. “You know you have nothing but our respect, but the chambers are not the place for a child.”
The child in question was Wyntr, the foreign girl who had come to Home and who knew the resting place of the Morning Star, the very place Maya and Jon and the others had set out for weeks ago. The place where they hoped to find the Anvil, the secret weapon of the gods that would enable them to defeat the Harvesters and maybe even stop the Drops.
Wyntr had appeared in the Shanty and on the Underground’s radar at the exact same time she appeared on that of the Ministry of Social Purity. Captured and imprisoned, Maya had allowed herself to be arrested so she could get close to the girl, betting everything on guardians she hadn’t even met yet.
The plan had worked even better than expected, as Maya had discovered the secret truth behind the Chairman’s Purge. That knowledge had given her and the Underground just enough of a head start that they were able to not only stop the enslavement of every man, woman, and child in Home, but also defeat and overthrow Warbak.
And now here they were, struggling to form, let alone maintain, some semblance of order.
“I know, General Miller. I apologize. The babysitter did not show. I tried to find another, but, well, it’s a sensitive matter, trust, and the girl… You know what I mean,” To-Kan explained.
