Sky Key

by James Frey

  Hilal freezes. The voice. It belongs to . . . a woman.

  Hilal sees his adversary for the first time. She is fair-skinned, late 20s, pretty. She has sweeping dark eyebrows over brown eyes painted with black eyeliner, a perfect nose, boyish cheeks, a strong neck and jaw, and on her crimson lips a smile.

  She is very pretty.

  Both breathe heavily, her collarbones rising and falling at the edge of her sweatshirt. Her eyes dart down then up. Hilal looks. The other machete is between his legs, at his crotch, angled slightly. He understands immediately that she is not threatening to castrate him, but instead to nick his femoral artery. All it would take is a little swipe, and given what Hilal has just learned about this woman’s speed, he doesn’t dare move. Plus, he knows how sharp his machetes are.

  Hilal stares at her with his battered and mutilated face. With his red eye, and his blue one. Hideousness staring at beauty.

  She doesn’t flinch. “Ea send you?” she says, panting.

  It is such a ridiculous question. “What?” Hilal asks.

  “Did Ea send you? To kill me?” she clarifies.

  “Who are you?”

  “Answer my question, and maybe I’ll tell you.” She pushes the edge toward Hilal’s skin.

  “No, he did not send me.”

  “Need more than that, pal. Why’re you here?”

  “To find Ea.”

  “Why?”

  Hilal pauses. “To find the Corrupted One and kill him,” he says truthfully.

  A look of wonder passes over her face. But she still holds his life in her hands. “My God,” she says. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”

  “One of whom?”

  “The Endgamers. A member of one of the 12 ancient lines.”

  “How do you know that . . . ?” In spite of the circumstances, Hilal senses some form of kinship in this woman. “You are not Ea,” he states flatly.

  The woman suppresses a laugh. “No. Hell no. Let me guess,” she says, suddenly enthusiastic. “Nabataean? Sumerian? No. Aksumite.”

  Hilal is at a loss.

  “You’re with the Uncorrupted, aren’t you!” she blurts.

  A total loss. This woman, who has something to do with Ea but who is apparently not aligned with him at all, speaks to Hilal about things she simply cannot know.

  “I am confused,” Hilal admits.

  She lets the blade away from his leg a centimeter. “Truce?”

  Hilal gives her the slightest nod.

  “Nice to meet you, Confused,” the woman jokes. She lowers the machete to the ground. “Name’s Stella Vyctory. I’m Ea’s daughter—adopted, thank God. And if you really do want to kill the bastard, I can help. Because, my friend, that’s what I want too.”

  MACCABEE ADLAI, BAITSAKHAN

  34 Eichenallee, Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany

  Maccabee and Baitsakhan have moved to another Nabataean safe house in Berlin.

  It has been two days since Alice found them. Maccabee’s face is swollen. Left eye shut. Lower lip split. Nose busted. All the bones in his face are bruised.

  Baitsakhan’s hand works well, but his wrist, where the skin is taut over the metal and plastic of the mechanism, is very sore.

  They have barely spoken since settling into this latest refuge. It’s a nice house in a nice neighborhood with nice people walking the nice streets outside. Some cities have had trouble in the aftermath of the Abaddon news, but Berlin has not been one of them. The German government has decreed that every cultural institution be free, and has given each citizen a voucher for €5,000 to be used in any restaurant, beer garden, or shop, or in any other way desired. Gasoline and electricity are free. Train tickets to anywhere in Europe cost €1, making it easier for people to visit loved ones, or get to the countryside, or see the ocean or the mountains, maybe for the last time. There have been outdoor concerts in Berlin and a pop-up circus for children and even an overnight city-sanctioned love-in.

  Maccabee and Baitsakhan couldn’t care less about these developments. Instead they have been popping pain pills and trying to heal and cleaning guns and sharpening blades and studying the orb.

  Baitsakhan still hasn’t touched it, not after it burned him in Turkey. He hates that he can’t touch it. Hates it.

  They’ve decided that they’ll be well enough to move in two days. Maccabee has already chartered a jet. This safe house has $1,000,000 in cash and 757 ounces of gold. It has plenty of weaponry. All of this will go on the plane.

  They will take these things and they will move.

  Instead of letting another Player come for them, they will use the orb and go for the Players.

  The orb shows An in Tokyo. Shows Aisling moving fast—no doubt on a plane—over northern Canada, presumably on her way to Asia. Shows Hilal in Las Vegas. Shows Shari in the eastern Himalayas. And it shows Jago and Sarah in Juliaca, Peru.

  “Tlaloc and Alopay,” Maccabee says as he stares into the orb. “The only other Players Playing together.”

  “And the holders of Earth Key,” Baitsakhan says as he runs a stone across his wavy Mongolian dagger.

  Maccabee shakes his head.

  “Not for long, brother.”

  “Not for long.”

  Time to go to Peru.

  JAGO TLALOC, SARAH ALOPAY

  Inca Manco Cápac International Airport, Juliaca, Peru

  The Cessna pulls to a stop in a private corner of the airport. “We’re here,” Jago says to Sarah. Jago points his chin out his window. “And there’s Papi. Guitarrero Tlaloc.”

  Sarah leans on his lap to look outside. Guitarrero is taller than Jago and much heavier. He’s dressed like a rancher, brown cowboy hat and snakeskin boots and bolo tie, and rests the butt of a Kalashnikov on his hip. Next to him is a white Chevy Suburban, a red talon painted on its hood.

  “Looks like a lot of bluster,” Sarah says.

  “It isn’t.”

  She lifts her face to Jago’s and gives him a long kiss. “I’m still not happy you brought me here, but I am happy I’m still with you.” He smiles. “C’mon, let’s go meet your papi.”

  Renzo lowers the stairway and they exit the plane. The air outside is cool, thinner than what Sarah’s used to. Juliaca sits on the Collao Plateau, 12,549 feet above sea level, ocher hills and stark Andean peaks ringing the city in the near distance.

  Guitarrero hugs Jago, kisses his left cheek, his right, his left, his right. Makes the cross, holds his hand to the sky, claps Jago on the shoulder. He hugs Renzo. Says something in a language Sarah doesn’t understand. The two older men laugh at some private joke. He turns to Sarah.

  “What do I say to you?” he asks in English.

  “How about ‘Nice to meet you,’ Papi,” Jago says. He takes Sarah’s hand. Guitarrero shrugs. Smiles. It’s infectious. Sarah smiles too. She does not trust this man, or Renzo. She trusts Jago, though. Or, at least, she did before he brought her to Mexico. Now there are cracks forming in that trust. Sarah wants very badly to believe that Jago is acting in her best interest, that he’s right that she’s just too messed up to make her own decisions.

  Jago squeezes her hand reassuringly.

  So she keeps on smiling.

  She has to.

  They unload the plane—Jago takes Earth Key from the compartment, slips it into a zippered pocket—and climb into the Suburban. They skip passport control and drive a short distance to a chain-link fence. A plainclothes guard hits a button. The gate opens, and the Suburban moves through. The guard waves. Guitarrero flips him off good-naturedly.

  “Had to pay him one thousand American dollars for that,” Guitarrero says in Spanish. Sarah follows along. She’s not fluent, but she manages. “Me! Guitarrero Tlaloc, ruler of this city. Can you believe it?”

  “No, Papi, I can’t,” Jago answers from the front seat, the Kalashnikov across his lap.

  Guitarrero drops the Spanish and speaks for nearly a minute in the strange language. His tone is exasperated and punctuated with bursts of disb
elieving laughter. The only words Sarah catches that she’s heard before are “Aucapoma Huayna.” A name.

  Jago understands everything perfectly and has no response. Renzo answers instead. His response is short.

  “Sí, sí, sí,” Guitarrero says.

  Jago is still silent.

  “What’re you talking about?” Sarah asks in passable Spanish, unhappy that they’re hiding something from her.

  Jago looks over his shoulder, rolls his eyes. “Papi says his protection revenue is down eighty-five percent since the meteor, which we call El Punta del Diablo. The city’s gone to shit, apparently. All that’s left are criminals, opportunists, priests, the desperately poor, and a small contingent of the army—who we’ve paid off for decades, so they’re with us.”

  “That’s good,” Sarah offers.

  “Yes, except criminals don’t pay protection fees to other criminals,” Guitarrero says. “Good thing we saved for a rainy day!”

  Sarah has a sinking feeling that Guitarrero’s lecture had nothing to do with protection revenue. Why would they use their secret language if the topic were so immaterial to Endgame? Why would Renzo, who’s been in Iraq for the last 10 years, give a damn? What does Aucapoma Huayna, the revered Olmec elder, have to do with anything?

  They’re lying to me.

  The Suburban reaches the edge of the airport grounds and is joined by two more cars: in front is a large late-model Toyota pickup with a .50-caliber machine gun swivel-mounted in the bed, one man on it, two more men guarding the gunner with M4s. They’re surrounded on three sides by blast plates, and the machine gun has an angled steel shield straddling its barrel. All the men wear armor.

  Behind the Suburban is a black Tahoe. Both vehicles also have the large red eagle claw stenciled on their hoods.

  “Hold on,” Guitarrero says in Spanish as the convoy accelerates.

  The cars stay in tight formation as they whip through the outskirts of Juliaca, careening toward the western edge of the city. Tendrils of smoke rise above the low-lying brick and concrete buildings in more than a dozen places. Jago points to the one marking the meteor impact, which still smolders.

  “Some whoreson torched the water-treatment plant two days ago,” Guitarrero says, turning the wheel this way and that to avoid potholes and stray dogs. The men in the pickup fire warning shots, clearing the way. They pass a derelict soccer pitch, drive through an abandoned residential neighborhood, pass into a commercial district with bullet-riddled buildings and smashed-out windows. One bodega is surrounded by sandbags, an elderly man out front, smoking a long cigar, a pistol on his hip. They pass an ornate, Spanish Mission–style church, people milling all around, on their knees, talking, eating, even laughing, the priests in long white robes taking impromptu confessions, handing out bottles of water and kind words, no signs of strife, an island of calm in a sea of turmoil. They pass into a bad neighborhood, low houses arranged like building blocks, flat tin roofs, mongrels pacing barren front yards, armed men and boys everywhere, yelling at their convoy, shaking fists, throwing rocks.

  “The Cielos moved in after you left for the Calling,” Guitarrero says. Jago explains that the Cielos are a longtime rival to the Tlalocs. They came from Nuestra Señora de la Paz in Bolivia, on the other side of Lake Titicaca. “They know nothing of Endgame,” Guitarrero yells over the roar of the engine, “and haven’t been much more than a nuisance over the years, but even though they lack the power to contend with us, they’ve gone all out since the announcement of Abaddon, taking neighborhoods block by block. For the time being we’ve let them gain a foothold. Endgame is too important to be dicking around with turf battles. We need to be prepared for the Event.”

  More shots from the men in the pickup. All three Tlaloc vehicles accelerate. Jago whoops and hollers. Guitarrero jams the gas, pulls up right behind the pickup. Gunfire. The thump of the .50-cal firing shots into buildings. They don’t slow down. Instead they go faster. They take return fire from small arms. Rounds bounce off them in bright orange sparks like little fireworks. One explodes right next to Sarah’s face.

  Bulletproof.

  She doesn’t flinch.

  The ride is exhilarating.

  But then they reach the edge of the dusty Cielo-controlled slum, and Sarah catches sight of a woman in dark jeans and a yellow Nike T-shirt. A baby in her arms. The mother wraps her arms over the baby’s head, turning away from the street, seeking refuge.

  Both are crying.

  This madness is the result of Abaddon.

  The result of Endgame.

  Sarah fights a sudden bout of nausea.

  The gunfire pitters away in the background. They drive another 4.15 miles. The vehicles slow. Stop at a checkpoint manned by men in fatigues. Their two Humvees are painted with the red talon. Sarah is envious of the order and control that the Tlalocs exert over their turf. Her line has been subtler, more content with living in the shadows, ready to act but on a much smaller scale.

  This is something else.

  The Olmecs are ready for war.

  An officer with silver captain’s bars on his baseball cap approaches the Suburban. Guitarrero rolls down his window and speaks to him in Spanish. Captain Juan Papan. He leans into the car to shake Jago’s hand, nods at Renzo, steals a glance at Sarah. The officer’s face is expressionless.

  Captain Papan returns to his post, and the convoy snakes up a winding paved road in the brown foothills southwest of the city. Guards are posted every hundred meters or so. Sarah counts five armored Humvees and two pieces of field artillery. The only trees Sarah sees in this barren land are those that surround a smattering of large private mansions, all now being used as military quarters. Every vehicle, every sleeve of every uniform, is adorned with red talons.

  The road ends at a tall wrought-iron gate in the middle of a taller stone wall. Guards on top. Sarah counts 17. All armed. The gate opens. The Suburban continues up the private gravel drive.

  “My home,” Jago says proudly to Sarah in English.

  “I thought you grew up on the mean streets down there,” Sarah says, pointing with her thumb over her shoulder.

  Renzo chuckles.

  “He did,” Guitarrero says.

  “This is where we came to get away from it all,” Jago says. “Casa Isla Tranquila.”

  And that is exactly what it says on a little hand-painted sign just outside the car, a palm tree and a sliver of blue water framing the letters. Guitarrero spins the Suburban around a hairpin that’s been piled high on both sides with thick cement blocks—a last defense in case of a frontal assault—and they pull into a wide, round driveway. A bubbling stone fountain in the middle. Three more SUVs, another armed pickup, a Bentley touring sedan, and a classic 1970 ragtop Pontiac GTO painted yellow with a black 33 on the hood.

  “Crime pays, huh?” Sarah says.

  Guitarrero pulls to a stop and turns off the engine. “Sí, señorita.”

  They get out. Walking down the steps of the Tlalocs’ sprawling Spanish hacienda is a woman in a red-and-purple floral print dress, her dark wavy hair swept back, her feet bare. She has Jago’s hair, his chin, his easy manner. She smiles, as if all that’s happening in the world is happening on another planet.

  Jago holds out his arms and exclaims, “¡Hola, Mamá!”

  She hikes her dress above her knees and half runs to her son. Embraces him. Kisses him. Says how happy she is to see him alive, still Playing, still representing his line, keeping his people alive.

  “I will always do that, Mamá,” Jago says, accepting her affections graciously.

  “This is my mother, Sarah. Hayu Marca Tlaloc.”

  “This is the girl I’ve heard so much about?” Hayu Marca says sincerely in perfect English, as if Jago met Sarah on spring break and brought his American sweetheart home for a visit.

  “I didn’t know Jago told you about me.”

  “I spoke with Mamá while you were doing your marathon sleep session on the plane.”

  Hayu Marca
takes Sarah’s right hand with both of hers. Smiles at the Cahokian. “I might be concerned that another Player was in our midst, but Jago has vouched for you. And I can see in your eyes that you are good, Sarah Alopay of the 233rd.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Tlaloc,” Sarah says. “Renzo might disagree.”

  “I respect Renzo,” she says quietly. “But Jago is our Player. You have nothing to fear here.”

  Hayu Marca is lovely, and despite the fact that Sarah would much prefer to be at her own family’s compound, she believes her. Some of the suspicion she felt toward Guitarrero is soothed. Hayu Marca lets go of Sarah’s hand and gestures toward the house. “Why don’t you let me show you to your room while the boys unload? I’m sure you’re travel weary. I’ve already had some fruit and cheese brought up.”

  Sarah looks at Jago, her eyes asking if it’s okay.

  “Rest, Sarah,” Jago says. “I will too. I just want to talk to Papi about Aucapoma Huayna first.”

  “We’re flying her by helicopter so she doesn’t have to endure that gauntlet down in the city. She’ll be here soon enough,” Guitarrero says.

  “Good,” Jago says.

  Hayu Marca tugs at Sarah’s hand. “Come, Player.”

  Sarah shoulders her knapsack. The pistol and knife inside clunk against her spine. “All right.”

  “I’ll bring the rest of your stuff in a bit,” Jago says.

  Sarah looks to Hayu Marca. “Lead the way, then.”

  They enter the house, walk through a tastefully decorated entry, pass through a sitting room with tapestries and ancient-looking furniture, a huge fireplace at the far end. They enter an interior garden, the house rising around it on all sides. The garden is immaculate, but the flora is dormant for the winter. Guards patrol here and there inconspicuously.

  “This place is like a castle,” Sarah says.

  “I wish you could see it in summer. It’s beautiful.”

  “I’m sure.”

  They reach the far side of the garden, enter a wide carpeted hall with rooms along one side. Hayu Marca leads Sarah down the hall, talking about flowers and Jago and Lake Titicaca. She stops in front of an open door. Sarah peers in. There’s a canopy bed and bay windows looking out on the garden. There’s a table set with the promised fruit and cheese and an already-open bottle of sparkling water, a set of fresh towels on the bedspread.