Curses!

hotel in the evening. They were not only assigned to guard Gideon, but also to keep an eye on things in general, which they did quite unobtrusively. Abe had tried to put the uniformed one to work—as long as you're standing around with nothing to do'—but was politely turned down.

As quietly efficient as they seemed to be, they failed to prevent the next phase of the Curse of Tlaloc from coming to pass. This time Gideon did not bear the brunt of it alone.

At any time from 10:00 p.m. the following Monday night to 4:00 a.m. in the morning, according to their stories on Tuesday, every member of the staff was seized with acute attacks of diarrhea, some of which continued well into the morning. Several, including Julie and Abe, suffered intermittent cramps, and all were weakened and made uncomfortable, so much so that Abe called off the day's work.

It was noon before the crew began to straggle out to join their pale and weakened fellows in sipping tentatively at cups of soup or tea on the veranda, and in talking about this latest evidence of the gods’ displeasure.

For, of course, that was what Emma claimed it was, and if she didn't have her audience convinced, at least she had them passive and very nearly inert. Gideon, whose sturdy constitution had kept him from suffering too much, had gone downstairs to get a pot of manzanilla tea to bring up to Julie, who hadn't been so lucky, and while he was waiting at the bar for it he was able to overhear Emma holding forth.

They were seated at the large table the group had more or less permanently appropriated as their own, and Emma seemed to be at the summing-up of her discourse. Nearby a jowly Mexican whom Gideon knew for one of Marmolejo's men sleepily cleaned his teeth with a toothpick and stared placidly at nothing.

'Obviously,” Emma was telling the crew earnestly, “the curse is unfolding phase by phase, exactly as predicted.'

It was a measure of their suffering that no one took issue with her. Even Worthy, who would surely have risen to the challenge a day earlier, sat in opaque silence, looking as if he'd been pickled in brine for a week. Harvey, as wan and lusterless as a ghost, stared distrustfully into his soup. And Leo, with all the muscle tonus of a banana slug, slumped in his chair, focusing all his concentration on getting his cup to his lips. Preston, who would hardly have taken issue in any case, sprawled with his eyes pressed closed and misery grooved on his handsome, pallid forehead.

Emma, who didn't look any better than the rest of them, continued: “First, the bloodsucking kinkajou was going to come, and it did. Second—'

But, ill as he was, this was too much for Worthy after all. “Oh, for God's sake,” he said sourly, “everybody knows that was nothing but a joke. Are you suggesting the gods hung that placard around the poor creature's neck?'

Harvey took heart from him. “And anyway,” he croaked, to set things straight, “it wasn't a kinkajou, it was a coatimundi. Julie said so.'

'That's right,” said Worthy. “Or don't your all-knowing gods know the difference?'

'What matters is the projection of idea-constructions into our collective consciousness,” Emma replied with calm inscrutability. “The fabric of the physical reality is nothing. You have to take it as it comes, Harvey.” Apparently she had decided that Worthy was beyond help. “If you analyze everything, you just run into the Heisenberg principle.'

Naturally enough, this silenced her critics, and she was allowed to go on.” Second—well, you all know what happened to Dr. Oliver. Third, Tucumbalam was going to turn our entrails to fire—'

'Urk,” Harvey said softly, and lay his forehead on the table.

'—turn our entrails to fire and bloody flux—'

At this Worthy shuddered, grew even grayer, and stood up. “Excuse me,” he said, and turned to leave, his arms clamped to his sides. Sweat glistened on his scant beard.

Leo pushed open his eyes and tried to grin. “Hey, Worthy, how's it feel to have turista like everyone else for a change?'

Worthy stopped to turn and stare at Leo. “All things considered,” he said soberly, “constipation is much to be preferred.” He broke into a constrained little jog toward his cottage.

Emma went resolutely on. “And now we're up to the fourth phase. ‘Fourth, the one called Xecotcavach—’”

Leo interrupted, shoving himself almost upright in his chair and looking thoroughly out of humor for once. “Emma, what is all this bullshit? Why don't you just burn some tofu or something to satisfy the gods, if you know so much about it? What do you want us to do, get out of here and go home, or what?'

Emma glowered at him. “No, I don't think we have to do that yet. They don't really want to harm us, they want to teach us.” Her tongue darted over her lips. A dull flush stained her face, spreading upward from her throat into her cheeks. “You'll be interested to know that I think I've established a high-level flow of bio-psychic energy with a personage who calls himself Huluc-Canab. But,” she added modestly, “I can't be sure yet. Maybe it's only a past-life regression.'

'Hey, Emma, what are you, you a channeler or something?'

The speaker was Stan Ard, who had been sitting unnoticed by Gideon at an adjoining table, a beer at his elbow and his notebook balanced on a heavy thigh.

'I don't care for the word channeling,' Emma said, preening at the sight of Ard's slowly moving ballpoint pen, “but, yes, I admit I've had some success at receiving mind-construct energy from personality entities on the other side of the physical-reality void.'

'Whoa,” said Ard, laughing and looking up from the notebook. “Personality which?'

'Personality entities that don't meet our definition of material actuality,” Emma explained helpfully. “I visualize them as—'

'Su te, senor,' said the female bartender to Gideon.

'Gracias,' he said and signed the chit.

She smiled. “Manzanilla tea is very good for what ails you,” she said in English.