scrambled back, but the tip raked me across the shins, leaving bright wellings of blood on both legs.
Frantically I dodged around a stone table. He struck at me over it and I flinched back, feeling the air stir as the maquahatl whistled past my face. The person on the table looked at me with dumb, pain-ridden eyes.
As Toltectecuhtli came around the table, I whipped my cloak off and threw it at his face, trying to blind him. While the cloak was still in the air I followed through with a lunging thrust. I missed but his reflexive return stroke didn’t-quite. The club came down on the point of my right shoulder and tore an ugly gaping wound that left my whole arm numb.
He saw what he had done to me and started forward in triumph, his club coming up for an overhand blow.
I tossed the sword to my left hand and parried. This time his eyes widened and he stepped back.
“Huitzilopochtli,” he whispered hoarsely. “Lord Left-Handed Hummingbird.”
I don’t know what was going on in that god-ridden, madness-fogged brain, but obviously I had triggered something. I pressed the advantage ruthlessly, striking left and right in my turn before he could recover his composure.
He parried, but more clumsily. Madness aside, fighting a left-handed swordsman is difficult for a right-handed. You have to do some things backward and very few nobles ever train in the art because left-handedness is considered unlucky. Uncle Tlaloc’s retainers are more practical about such things.
Then I remembered there was another difference between a maquahatl and a sword. I faked a downward slash at his belly, which brought his club up in a parry that made my blade slip off. Then instead of continuing with another slash, I brought the point up and lunged toward his belly with my hand low.
I felt a moment’s resistance as the point pierced the lizard-skin stomacher, then a slow, easy slide as I sliced into his bowels. The blow forced him back against the edge of the one of the tables and his eyes widened. I leaned into the sword, putting my weight behind it, forcing the point deeper into his belly and ripping up until it grated on the breastbone. His eyes widened, his mouth moved, but only blood came out to run down the beaten gold gorget of the god Quetzalcoatl. I eased the pressure and he slumped to the floor, my sword still in him.
I leaned back against the wall, my chest heaving. The cuts on my legs were bleeding profusely, my shoulder was still numb with pain, but there was more blood running down my right arm and that side of the chest. My left wrist was throbbing as if I had sprained it. All in all, I looked like the victim of a particularly inept sacrificial priest. But I was alive, and right now that felt better than being crowned Emperor Himself.
“Well done, young sir,” came an all-too-familiar voice from the doorway, “well done indeed.”
Foureagle came stumping into the room, accompanied by five or six hard-looking men. “I trust you have recovered the missing items.”
I gestured toward the still figures on the tables. “In there. One in each.”
The old man bent over the nearest table and examined its burden. “Ah, yes. Ingenious and even, perhaps, theologically sound-from Toltectecuhtli’s perspective, of course.”
“What will you do with them?” Not that I really cared.
“Why, return them to the huetlacoatls, of course. Oh, you mean the people? We will save them, if we can.” He gestured to the men behind him and they disappeared down the corridor.
“You look as if you could use some tending to yourself.” He laid his hands, oddly gentle, on my shoulder, testing the wound. “Yes, we must get that attended to. But not here. Can you walk? Ah, excellent. I am afraid this place will shortly suffer an unfortunate accident. A fire, I believe.” He looked around appraisingly, nodded, and stroked his chin. “Yes, I think a fire will do nicely.”
He half-supported me as he guided me toward the door. “But I do hope you will come and visit me.
After you have healed, of course. We have so much to discuss. Your future, for example, and perhaps some additional employment. Yes, I think we must discuss that, young sir.”
I thought about how I would explain working for the Emperor’s Shadow to Uncle Tlaloc. Then I thought about Uncle Tlaloc’s probable reaction. Then I thought about what Foureagle certainly would do to me if I refused. Turning of the cycle or not, my luck hadn’t changed.
With that thought, I let them guide me down the corridor and out into the piss-warm rain of night.
Patient Zero - Tananarive Due
September 19 The picture came! Veronica tapped on my glass and woke me up, and she held it up for me to see. It’s autographed and everything!For you, Veronica mouthed at me, and she smiled a really big smile. The autograph says, TO JAY-I’LL THROW A TOUCHDOWN FOR YOU. I couldn’t believe it.
Everybody is laughing at me because of the way I yelled and ran in circles around my room until I fell on the floor and scraped my elbow. The janitor, Lou, turned on the intercom box outside my door and said, “Kid, you gone crazier than usual? What you care about that picture for?”
Don’t they know Dan Marino is the greatest quarterback of all time? I taped the picture to the wall over my bed. On the rest of my wall I have maps of the United States, and the world, and the solar system. I can find Corsica on the map, and the Palau Islands, which most people have never heard of, and I know what order all the planets are in. But there’s nothing else on my wall like Dan Marino. That’s the best.
The other best thing I have is the cassette tape from that time the President called me on the telephone when I was six. He said, “Hi, is Jay there? This is the President of the United States.” He sounded just like on TV. My heart flipped, because it’s so weird to hear the President say your name. I couldn’t think of anything to say back. He asked me how I was feeling, and I said I was fine. That made him laugh, like he thought I was making a joke. Then his voice got real serious, and he said everyone was praying and thinking about me, and he hung up. When I listen to that tape now, I wish I had thought of something else to say. I used to think he might call me another time, but it only happened once, in the beginning. So I guess I’ll never have a chance to talk to the President again.
After Veronica gave me my picture of Marino, I asked her if she could get somebody to fix my TV so I can see the football games. All my TV can play is videos. Veronica said there aren’t any football games, and I started to get mad because I hate it when they lie. It’s September, I said, and there’s always football games in September. But Veronica told me the NFL people had a meeting and decided not to have football anymore, and maybe it would start again, but she wasn’t sure, because nobody except me was thinking about football. At first, after she said that, it kind of ruined the autograph, because it seemed like Dan Marino must be lying, too. But Veronica said he was most likely talking about throwing a touchdown for me in the future, and I felt better then.
This notebook is from Ms. Manigat, my tutor, who is Haitian. She said I should start writing down my thoughts and everything that happens to me. I said I don’t have any thoughts, but she said that was ridiculous. That is her favorite word, ridiculous.
Oh, I should say I’m ten today. If I were in a regular school, I would be in fifth grade like my brother was. I asked Ms. Manigat what grade I’m in, and she said I don’t have a grade. I read like I’m in seventh grade and I do math like I’m in fourth grade, she says. She says I don’t exactly fit anywhere, but I’m very smart. Ms. Manigat comes every day, except on weekends. She is my best friend, but I have to call her Ms. Manigat instead of using her
