Obsidian & Blood

TWENTY

The Missing Man

To his credit, Teomitl approached the procession silently enough, but Nezahual-tzin's guards, trooping after him with no stealth or subtlety, gave him away. The procession came to a swaying stop, the priests turning with angry looks on their faces, the magic of the Feathered Serpent gathering around them.

  Pezotic just ran. He must have known that we were after him, and that there was no easy escape.

  Teomitl sprinted after him. The guards stopped to argue with the priests, waving what I assumed was Nezahual-tzin's authority. In the time it took me to finish rushing down the stairs, I could see that it seemed to be working, or at least to be mollifying the priests. They had stopped looking threatening, and the trail of magic was back to its original state.

  Since matters appeared well in hand, I went after Teomitl.

  By the time I caught up to him he had Pezotic down in the dust of the Alley of the Dead, and was standing over him, his macuahitl sword resting on the other man's chest, the obsidian shards just cutting into the skin.

  'Acatl-tzin, there is your suspect.' He stood as rigid as a warrior before his commander.

  'Teomitl, I don't think this is necessary…'

  'He's a coward,' Teomitl said. 'He's shown this clearly enough. I'm not letting him escape.'

  I got my first good look at our missing councilman. Pezotic was a small, hunched man, with a face not unlike that of a rabbit, round and harmless, with soft features that made it hard to notice him at all. He wore the priests' green-and-red clothes uncomfortably and his hair was matted haphazardly with blood, not the regular offerings of a priest, but the panicked gesture of a man seeking to blend in.

  And he smelled of fear – reeked of it, from his shaking hands to the sallow tint of his skin, from his sunken eyes to the subdued, almost broken way he moved. Something, somewhere in the past, had touched him, pressed on him, and he had snapped like a bent twig.

  'I don't know what you want,' Pezotic said. 'But you don't have the right–'

  Teomitl pressed on the macuahitl sword, enough to draw blood. I could see it pulsing along the obsidian shards embedded in the blade, blazing like water in sunlight. 'We want to know what's going on,' he said. 'And don't lie. We know you ran away from the palace. We know you were frightened for your life. We know something happened.'

  Pezotic's eyes widened, and the fear grew stronger. I hadn't thought it was possible, but in the death sight, I could make out a yellow aura around him, exuded from his body like noxious sweat. 'You don't know anything,' he said.

  'People are dead,' I said, and saw him flinch, not in surprise, but because he was imagining what could have happened to him had he stayed behind. 'Three councilmen. Ocome, Echichilli. Manatzpa.' And Ceyaxochitl, but that was a wound I carried on my own, an event like a cold stone in my belly, but one that wouldn't affect him.

  'This has nothing to do with me,' Pezotic said. I wasn't surprised, not even disappointed. My opinion of him hadn't been high to start with.

  'Then why did you leave?'

  'I go where I wish.'

  'You're a councilman.' Teomitl shook his head. 'You don't.'

  Pezotic's lips stretched, in what might have been a smile if fear hadn't washed away every distinctive feature of his face. 'I approve new buildings in Tenochtitlan. I have no doubt they can find someone to replace me, Teomitl-tzin.'

  So he knew who Teomitl was, but hadn't admitted it beforehand. 'We're not here on petty errands of who does what and who replaces whom. What I want to know is who is summoning star-demons in the palace, before the whole council dies.'

  His lips moved, a smile again, but I'd never quite seen the like. Sick pleasure, and some kind of vindication, and… 'What do you know, Pezotic?'

  Teomitl's face shifted, became the harsh one of Jade Skirt again, as distant and uncaring as the goddess Herself. 'He knows exactly what's going on.'

  'I don't,' Pezotic said, far too quickly and smoothly to be the truth. 'I swear I don't – let me go, please.'

  I glanced behind us. Nezahual-tzin's guards were still arguing with the priests, but it was only a matter of time before they solved their mutual problems and turned their attention to us.

  I cast my stone in the darkness, then, hoping it would strike water instead of dry, sterile ground. 'The Emperor and Tizoc-tzin were onto something, weren't they? Some plan to make sure Tizoctzin got the full approval of the council.'

  His eyes moved away from me. 'You understand nothing, priest.'

  For some reason, it rankled that he couldn't even see who I was – to be sure, I attended Court only irregularly, and had never claimed to be indispensable. But still…

  'Show some respect,' Teomitl said. His eyes were green from end to end, the irises and pupils subsumed in the tide of Chalchiuhtlicue's magic. 'Acatl-tzin is High Priest for the Dead.'

  Unsurprisingly, it didn't seem to faze Pezotic. I looked again. The conversation between the guards and the priests appeared to be winding down. We were running out of time. Not that we'd had much to start with.

  Time to give up on subtlety. 'Fine,' I said. I pointed to the guards. 'Do you know who they belong to?'

  'Who you choose to ally yourself with is none of my concern.'

  'Oh, it's going to be. Do you know Nezahual-tzin?'