canopy and between the trees, down to an area Stuart thought he recognised, even in the darkness. The gods’ inverted ziggurat lay belowground here.
“This is where we part company,” Quetzalcoatl announced as they touched down. “You two may carry on to wherever you wish.”
Stuart detected a hidden current in the Plumed Serpent’s voice, a note of invitation.
“Or,” Stuart said, “we can come in with you. Maybe as allies?”
“Yes,” said Quetzalcoatl, casually, as if it hadn’t occurred to him. “If that’s what you’d like.”
“Why?” said Vaughn.
“Why?” The god mused. “Good question. Let me see. Could it be that, as humans, you might have a vested interest in the future of earth? It is, after all, your planet. Your home. And could it be that I would value having the two of you fighting at my side? I saw how well the two of you fared against that gunship, how you prevailed in the teeth of overwhelming odds, the teamwork you showed…”
“Teamwork?” Stuart and Vaughn exclaimed in unison.
“Not to mention your evident resourcefulness — purloining those suits of armour and adapting to their use so swiftly.”
“Let me get this straight,” said Vaughn. “You’re recruiting us?”
“Asking if you’d care to help out, yes,” Quetzalcoatl replied. “The struggle is as much yours as ours.”
“But you don’t need us, surely.”
“Two more assets in the theatre of conflict? Two more arrows in my quiver? Why ever not?”
“We’re not gods.”
“No, but you’re humans and therefore ought to be as keen to fight for your destiny as we are, if not far more so. But if the idea doesn’t appeal…”
At a gesture from Quetzalcoatl, the opening in the undergrowth appeared, just as Stuart remembered it. A pillar of light shone up from below, and through the rectangular hatch the tiers of the upside-down ziggurat could be glimpsed, shelving away deep into the ground.
“Bloody hell,” was Vaughn’s only comment.
Quetzalcoatl made to go down the steps. “I’m glad to have made your acquaintance, both of you. I know now for certain that humankind is worth fighting for and preserving, and indeed worth dying for. Perhaps, if nothing else, you could wish me luck?”
“No,” said Stuart. “Wait.”
Quetzalcoatl halted at the lip of the staircase. Didn’t look round.
“What the hell, I’m in.”
“Reston…” said Vaughn.
“He’s right, Vaughn. This is about us. Our future. It would be wrong not to get involved.”
“Are you nuts?”
“So you keep assuring me. But listen. This is the fight I began as the Conquistador, against the Empire. The same campaign, only taken to the highest level. It’d be a shame to have come so far and not go all the way. Might as well see it through to the end.” He added, “It’s not as if I’ve got much else to do with my life.”
“Don’t,” she said as he moved towards the hole. “Don’t go down in there with him.”
“Why the sudden show of concern?”
“It’s not concern. It’s just… If you do, I’m going to have to go too, you bastard.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“Yes I fucking am, because A, there’s no way I’m going to let you hog all the glory, and B, I’m still itching to have a crack at that wanker Tlanextic.”
“Both of which are sound justifications,” said Stuart. “And is there by any chance a C?”
“Yeah. You’re an idiot, and idiots need other idiots to watch their backs.”
THIRTY-ONE
Same Day
They sat in the refectory. Mal was famished. She hadn’t eaten since — when was it? Last night? Must be, judging by how her stomach was growling. There was food on the tables, and more kept arriving, courtesy of two goddesses, Coatlicue and Quetzalpetatl, who waltzed out from the kitchen to deposit dish after steaming dish on the tables. Both of them were beautiful in different but equally bountiful ways, the matriarch goddess statuesque and imperious, Quetzalcoatl’s sister voluptuous and long-legged. Mal couldn’t help envying their figures and their height, and supposed that that was what you were meant to do with goddesses of a certain kind. They had to be what a woman aspired to be and a man desired to have, otherwise what was the point of them?
Mostly, however, she concentrated on the grub, because it was superb and her belly badly needed filling.
More than once she caught Reston eyeing up Quetzalpetatl’s rear view as the younger goddess sashayed out of the room. She found this unreasonably annoying.
“Out of your league, mate,” she commented. “Way out.”
“That wasn’t why I was looking at her.”
“Oh, I know exactly why you were looking at her and exactly which part of her you were looking at and all.”
“Well, maybe a little. But the question I was actually asking myself was, if she was my sister, would I sleep with her?”
“That’s terrible.”
“Just idle speculation.”
“No, what I mean is, you’re trying to shift the blame for everything onto her, aren’t you? It was all Quetzalpetatl’s fault because she’s so sexy. That’s such a man thing to do. Like blaming a rape victim for dressing provocatively. ‘She was asking for it.’”
“As I understand it, Quetzalpetatl and Quetzalcoatl were equal partners in crime — if incest is a crime.”
“A moral one, if not a legal one.”
“Anyway, the real culprit’s Tezcatlipoca, surely. He’s at the root of this whole sorry saga.”
“Does it matter?” Mal said impatiently. “We’re having dinner served to us by gods. I for one am just going to soak that fact up for the time being. The rest’s immaterial.” She tore off a sliver of cornmeal pancake and used it to scoop up a generous blob of chocolate-infused guacamole. It was delicious. The one word she didn’t want to use to describe the taste — but she couldn’t think of a better — was divine.
Reston looked down at himself. He was in borrowed clothing, as was she. The outfits hung baggily off both of them, several sizes too large. God garb, furnished by Quetzalcoatl.
“It’s weird,” he said. “I didn’t have that Serpent armour on for long, but now I feel almost naked without it.”
Mal nodded. “Who has it, again?”
“Quetzalcoatl said he was taking it to Toci. She’s their resident science queen.”
“To soup it up.”
“And make it look less like Serpent hardware so as we don’t take friendly fire by mistake.”
“Why not just give us new kit instead? They must have spare suits of armour lying around.”
“Nothing that would fit us, or haven’t you noticed? I’m six foot and I’m a shrimp compared to them. Which makes you — ”
“Steady.”
“I was going to say perfectly proportioned, for a human.”
“No, you were going to say even shrimpier.”
“Hello! Hello!”
This fruity cry accompanied the arrival in the refectory of a woman, or was it a man? He or she strode straight up to the table and enfolded Mal and Reston in a double embrace, drawing them in towards a chest that was both muscular and soft. “You again,” he or she said to Reston. “And this time you’ve brought your other half.
