“I truly regret this,” Quetzalcoatl said as he rose into the air. “I wish we could have settled things peacefully.”
“Don’t talk rot,” Tezcatlipoca replied. “You couldn’t be happier. Right now I can almost hear your conscience rubbing its hands with glee.”
Quetzalcoatl heaved a sigh and soared, Xipe Totec and Huitzilopochtli trailing in his wake. Within moments, the three were above the horizon, and then lost from sight.
“So,” said Tezcatlipoca, turning to Colonel Tlanextic. “I think that went as well as could be expected. Nice to see the old bastards again and get everything out in the open. There’s nothing like a family feud, is there? Gets the blood pumping, the heart racing. Makes one feel alive again.”
“What do you want from me, Your Imperial Holiness?”
“Well, of course we must break out the battle gear and set up our defences. This is what generations of Serpent Warriors have been training for. The drills, the dry runs, the endless manoeuvres — this is where it all finally comes good.”
“Yes, sir. Understood. I’ll get on it straight away.”
“With any luck we can have it all wrapped up and done within a day or so, I can still attend the Beijing conference as planned, and nobody will be much the wiser. Institute a media blackout throughout Anahuac, would you, colonel? Get the Jaguars to contact all journalists within the country, foreign and local. Embargo on all photography and filming within a twenty-mile radius of Tenochtitlan, not to mention interviewing. Standard penalties will be enforced for infringement. No reason need be given.”
“I’ll get on it right away, sir.”
“But before that, there is one other thing.”
“Sir?”
“Those three.” Mal, Aaronson, Reston. “They’ve gone from being an interesting diversion to loose ends, and I do so despise loose ends. They’ve seen too much. Now that they know who — what — I am, they’re only going to get in the way and be a bother. Two of them resent being deceived, I can tell, and the third despises me anyway. I can’t think of anything more imaginative to do with them, so kill them for me, would you? There’s a good fellow.”
Tezcatlipoca retrieved his mask and headed indoors.
TWENTY-FIVE
Same Day
Colonel Lanextic unshouldered, primed and levelled his lightning gun, all in one swift, practised movement.
“You heard him,” he said. “Let’s not make it difficult, eh? Just stand there in a row, all nice and tidy, like three erect pricks. It’ll be quick. You won’t feel a thing.”
“Colonel…” said Mal.
With a pained expression: “What?”
“Don’t. You don’t have to do this.”
“If the Great Speaker decrees that you’re to be killed, then you’re to be killed.”
“Why? We’re not going to be any sort of trouble. We’re on the same team as you. Me and Aaronson are, at any rate.”
“I know, and it’s a shame because I like you, Vaughn. You’re my kind of woman. And your swishy friend there seems all right too, for one of his sort. Under other circumstances I could see us sitting down together and getting blind roaring drunk and having a fucking good laugh. But orders are orders. You understand that. Especially when they come from a god, no less. So chin up, take your medicine, be a good servant of the Empire. And you…”
He swung towards Reston.
“Where d’you think you’re going? I saw. Sidling over towards those chairs. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to. Crafty little shit. You I’m saving until last. Those two are a chore. You, you bastard, are going to be a pleasure.”
“Colonel, I’m begging you,” said Mal.
“It’s no use, boss,” said Aaronson. “He’s not listening. It’s all that fat between his ears. Stops the sound getting in.”
“Ooh, meow,” sneered Tlanextic. “If I had feelings, they’d be hurt.”
“Is there a Mrs Tlanextic?” Aaronson asked.
“None of your business.”
“I’ll take that as a no. Doesn’t surprise me. You don’t strike me as the marrying kind. I’ll bet when anyone asks, you say you’re wedded to the job. Say being a Serpent doesn’t leave room in your life for anything else, wife included. But the truth is, you don’t actually like women. Pretend to, but deep down, though you’d never admit it, your tendencies go the other way. I can tell. I’ve met your sort before.”
“Oh do shut up.”
“The gruffer they are, the more macho they act, the more they’re kidding themselves. Then there’s all your talk about pricks and arseholes…”
“I have an l-gun here, remember? Pointing right at you.”
“And you do so love your big gun, don’t you? Compensating much?”
“Right, that does it. I was going to shoot her first, out of respect. Order of seniority and all that. But you, faggot, just lost the few extra seconds of life you were going to have.”
“Bring it on, closet case.”
Tlanextic took careful aim at Aaronson. But while Aaronson had been taunting the Serpent Warrior and providing a distraction, Reston had made the most of it and begun inching sideways again. Now he sprang, hurling himself towards the nearest cluster of chairs. He snatched one up. It was a well-made wooden thing, solid but not too heavy.
He spun towards Tlanextic. Tlanextic turned to face him, a fraction too late. Reston flung the chair. It sailed straight at Tlanextic, hitting him and the gun. Tlanextic staggered backwards, colliding with a parasol and toppling it; the parasol collapsed as it fell, closing like an anemone around Tlanextic, and he fell too, engulfed in billows of canvas.
“Hurry!” Reston yelled. “Let’s go!”
He sprinted for the edge of the terrace. Mal was rooted to the spot, unsure what to do. Her understanding was that you should stand and take your punishment, not flee from it. That was the Jaguar way. Though she had pleaded with Tlanextic and tried to talk him round, she had done so in the knowledge that it was futile. All she had in fact been trying to do was buy time for herself, a few precious moments in which to make sense of the gross, arbitrary injustice about to befall her. It was galling to think that, for once, she had done nothing wrong, just happened to have been witness to something she wasn’t supposed to see. How did that warrant her death?
“Boss,” said Aaronson. He gripped her arm, and the physical contact broke the spell she was under. “We have to get out of here.”
Tlanextic was fighting his way out of the fallen parasol, struggling to emerge like a chick from an egg. He was swearing his head off.
“Do you want to die for no good reason?” Aaronson urged.
No, Mal decided. No she did not.
She set off with Aaronson towards the parapet. Reston had already clambered up onto it and was surveying the drop to the next tier of the palace.
“Great thing about ziggurats,” he said. “Makes for a handy escape route, if you haven’t got an abseiling rope on you.”
He propelled himself off. Mal glanced over the edge. It wasn’t more than twelve feet to the terrace. She stepped up onto the parapet, as did Aaronson.
“Stay put, English fuckers!” roared Tlanextic. He had finally extricated himself from the parasol and was rising to his feet.
