there was neither sign nor mention of any guards. Was this one out on privy business?
The swish of rubber tires on rain-slick pavement made me step back further into the shadows. A land steamer, long, low, and as black as the polished jet in Lady Death’s necklace, pulled up to the entrance to Death Master’s temple. Steam hissed from the beneath the hood as the door swung open. A door too wide and low. Four heavily cloaked and hooded figures emerged silently; the first three as a group, followed after a moment by the fourth.
The three were human, in spite of their elaborate guise and stiff-legged walk. The fourth was not. It was fluid where the others were stiff, strutting where they were jerky, and completely natural where they were studied. It leaned forward and picked its feet high under the muffling cloak. The portal to the temple swung open and the four vanished silently inside.
So. Whatever this was, it was important enough to bring out a huetlacoatl in addition to the Speakers. I knew virtually nothing about huetlacoatl clans, but I did know they weren’t noted for family feeling.
Clearly it wasn’t sentiment that had brought this one along with its human servants. This was looking more and more interesting.
Within minutes the portal opened again and the cloaked figures emerged, a human in the lead, then Lord Huetlacoatl; and then the others, carrying a wrapped bundle between them. The huetlacoatl entered the land steamer first, followed by the burden bearers and the third man. As the door silently closed, the land steamer belched once and then swished off into the night.
I turned and headed back toward the dock area, but not to the Hummingbird’s Palace. The night was young enough. The storm clouds were clearing to reveal the dull, starless night sky over the blackened waters of the bay. The colossal statue of the Storm Goddess on the quay smiled at me with chipped teeth and weathered lips. The city of Atlnahuac provided other avenues to explore.
The Serpent’s Court was no Hummingbird’s Palace. It was garishly modern where the Palace was determinedly antique. Tinny modern music coming out of a beat up horned machine grated the nerves and set the mood. Its clientele was way down the scale as well, but Uncle Tlaloc’s word carried weight here and some of the clients might prove useful.
I paused in the entrance alcove and shook the rain off my hat as the blast of the air conditioning chilled me in my rain-soaked cloak. I scanned the room for a useful face.
There weren’t many possibilities. The watchmen from the evening shift had finished their drinks and had gone home long ago, and the night shift would not end until dawn. The other patrons, criminals, whores, and hangers-on, couldn’t help me. The only one who looked likely was Sevenrain, sitting by himself in the corner. Not my first choice, but he would do.
Sevenrain was well into his fourth decade, with lines on his face, scars cutting through the tattoos on his arms and chest, and the burly, slightly bloated build of a man who likes corn beer too much and exercise too little. A sneer formed on his face as I crossed the room.
“Well, young lordling,” he said just a little too loudly as I approached. “You honor us with your presence.”
I gave it back to him with a condescending nod. “The honor is mine entirely, oh estimable hound of men,”
I lisped in a parody of a noble accent. “Allow me a small token of my appreciation by purchasing your next pot of beer.”
He glared at me as I sat down next to him, trying to decide if the game was worth continuing. He apparently remembered what had happened the last time he had pursued it-or who I still worked for-and decided it wasn’t.
“What in the Nine Hells do you want?” he growled.
“Just a few minutes conversation, and perhaps a chance to show my gratitude afterward.” Sevenrain knew damn well whose gratitude might be shown; and so, probably, did everyone else in the bar who was at all interested. But better not to mention such things.
I shifted my stool so no one else could see my lips move. “There was a killing today down in the warehouse district.”
“Quetzalcoatl’s dick! Do you expect me to remember every miserable person who gets his throat slit in my precinct?”
“I didn’t say it was a person.” I said softly.
His face froze. “Yeah,” he mumbled. “There was one of those.”
“Where exactly?”
His eyes darted left and right, but his lips hardly moved at all. “Behind the warehouses off the English Docks. Between the third and fourth one.”
“Time?”
“Found it an hour before dawn. Not one of our people, a sailor looking for a place to puke.” His face split in a mirthless grin. “Puked his fucking guts out when he saw.”
“Any leads?”
A longer pause this time. “No. No one saw anything. No one heard anything. Nothing at the scene but that-and a big puddle of sailor puke.”
I nodded. “You’ll send word if you learn anything more?”
“I’ll see it reaches the right ears.” Meaning he wasn’t going to take a chance on me cutting him out of Uncle’s generosity.
I nodded and rose, flipping a coin down onto the table so that the silver rang loudly on the stone top.
“For your refreshment, my good man,” I lisped and swaggered out to the metaphorical sound of grinding teeth behind me.
The night was heavy with the Storm Goddess’ moist, salty breath. I could feel more than the usual number of disease spirits floating in the air. My sweat soaked my bed. I threw off the blanket. Sleep was impossible on nights like this.
My eyes caught something. I strained to see it in the darkness. There was a figure at the door, walking toward the foot of my bed.
I wanted to run. I wanted to reach for the sword by my pillow. But I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even breathe.
The figure knelt at the foot of my bed. It picked up the box I kept there. When it opened the box, a cold, green light was released that lit up its skinless face.
Skinless, not fleshless. The eyes, muscles, and other meat of the body were still present. It was a flayed man. Of course, there was only one flayed man of great significance in my life.
I looked into the lidless eyes, and recognized them. The color of watery chocolate.
“Smoke?”
I couldn’t tell if he was smiling. He didn’t have lips.
“I’ve come to visit my skin,” he said. “A night like this can be cold to one without skin.”
“How sweet.”
His teeth glistened in the green light. “I also came to remind you that your life grew in my death as corn grows in the death of the Corn God.”
“My life. How marvelous.”
“And to remind you that you could be the one who walks at night without his skin.”
He snapped the box shut. The light was gone. I was alone.
Shaking, I crawled to the foot of the bed. I could barely see in the moonlight from the window, but I could feel that the layer of grime on the box had not been disturbed. No one had touched the box.
Smoke was not here. It was a dream.
I had only looked into the box at Smoke’s skin once, when Uncle Tlaloc gave it to me after he had saved what was left of my life. I haven’t been able to make myself open it and look at the dried and neatly folded, tattooed skin since.
“The thing you desire most,” Uncle had said when he presented me the box with his own hands. And he was right-then. Then I desired nothing more than Smoke’s slow, painful death for leading me into shame and abandoning me to save himself. But like most of Uncle Tlaloc’s gifts, this one had two edges, and a point keener than obsidian. By killing my enemy in such a fashion, he cut me off from any possibility of return to my former life. By presenting the skin to me, he tied me inexorably to the deed. And he reminded me, oh so subtly, who held the power of life and death in English Town.
