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“Yes,” I said.

“Diego was one of the strangers that came into our lands. He thought we were barbarians. We were things to be conquered, robbed, raped, slaughtered. Diego never saw us as people, did you, Diego?”

There was no answer this time. He wasn’t exactly unconscious but close enough that he was beyond words. “You didn’t think we were people, did you, Cristobal?”

I didn’t know who Cristobal was, but there was a high keening sound. It was the vampire on the leash. He unrolled from his tight fetal ball. The keening ended in that same awful laughter that I’d heard earlier. The laughter rose up and up until the vampire holding the leash jerked it tight, pulling him like you’d discipline a dog. I realized that the leash was a choke collar. Shit.

“Answer me, Cristobal.”

The vampire let up on the leash enough for the starved one to get a ragged breath. His voice, when it came, was strangely cultured, smooth and sane. “No, we did not think you were people, my dark goddess.” Then the ragged laughter came from those thin lips, and he huddled around himself again.

“They broke into our temple and raped our priestesses, our virgin priestesses, our nuns. Twelve of them raped these four priestesses. They did unspeakable, vile things to them, forced them with pain and threats of death to do whatever the men wanted them to do.”

The women’s faces never changed during the speech, as if it were about someone else. They had stopped whipping the man. They just stood there watching him bleed.

“I found them dying in the temple from what had been done to them. I offered them life. I offered them vengeance. I made them gods, and then we hunted down the strangers that had raped them, the ones that left them for dead. We took each of them, made them one of us, so their punishment would last forever. But my teyolloquanies were too strong for most of them. There were twelve of them once. Now only two remain.”

Itzpapalotl looked at me, and there was a challenge in her face, a look that demanded an answer. “Do you still feel pity for him?”

I nodded. “Yes, but I understand hate, and revenge is one of my best things.”

“Then you see the justice here.”

I opened my mouth. Edward’s hand tightened on my arm, until it was painful. He forced me to think before I answered. I’d have been careful, but he didn’t know that.

“He did a terrible, unforgivable thing. They should have their revenge.” In my head I added, though five hundred years of torment seemed a bit much. I killed people when they deserved it; anything beyond that was up to God. I just didn’t think I was up to making decisions that would last five hundred years.

Edward eased up on my arm and started to let go of me, when she said, “So you agree with our punishment?” His hand locked back onto my arm, if anything tighter than before.

I glared up at him, hissing under my breath, “You’re bruising me.”

He let me go, slowly, reluctantly, but the look in his eyes was warning enough. Don’t get us killed. I’d try not to. “I would never presume to question the decision of a god.” Which was true. If I ever met a god, I wouldn’t question their decision. The fact that I didn’t believe in any god with a little “g” was beside the point. It wasn’t a lie, and it sounded perfect for the situation. When you’re prefabricating as fast as you can, it doesn’t get better than that.

She smiled, and she was suddenly young and beautiful like a sudden glimpse of the young woman she must have been once. It was almost more of a shock than the rest. I’d expected a lot of things, but not Itzpapalotl to have retained even a shred of her humanity.

“I am very pleased,” she said, and she looked it. I’d pleased the goddess, made her smile. Be still my heart.

She must have made some sign because the whipping continued. They beat him until the white of his spine showed through in places where the flesh had worn completely away. A human would have died long before they got that far, or even a shapeshifter, but the vampire was as alive as when they started. He had collapsed into a little ball, his forehead on the floor,