Obsidian Butterfly - Laurell K. Hamilton [262]
“I’m so glad you agree. It will make what has to happen much easier.”
Didn’t like the sound of that. Maybe flattery wasn’t the way to go. I’d try something more normal for me—sarcasm—and see if that led us away from the topic of my impending doom. “I don’t owe you any loyalty. I am not one of your followers.”
“Only because you do not understand,” he said, and those smiling eyes gazed down at me with a look of almost perfect peace.
“That’s what Jim Jones said just before he gave every one the Kool-Aid.”
“I do not know this name, Jim Jones.” Then he turned his head to one side, and it reminded me of Itzpapalotl when she listened to voices I could not hear. Now I realized that it might just be a way to access other people’s memories. “Ah, I know who he is now.” He looked down at me with those calm, beatific eyes. “But I am no madman. I am a god.”
He was getting distracted, as if it mattered to him for me to believe he was a god. If he had to convince me that he was divine before he killed me, then I was safe. He could kill me, but he’d never convince me he was a god.
He frowned. “You do not believe me.” He sounded surprised again. And I realized that for all his power, he seemed young. The ages raged through the eyes on his arms as though you could see back through to the beginning of creation, but he, himself, seemed young. Or maybe he just wasn’t used to people who didn’t drop down and worship him. If that’s all you’d known in your entire existence, then anyone not worshipping you might be a shock.
“I am a god,” he repeated, and his voice had that condescending tone again.
“Whatever you say.” But I made sure my doubt showed in my voice.
The frown deepened, and again I was reminded forcibly of a pouting child. A spoiled, pouting child. “You must believe that I am a god. I am the Red Woman’s Husband. I am the body that will be revenged on those that destroyed my people.”
“You mean the Spanish Conquistadors?”
“Yes,” he said.
“There aren’t a lot of conquistadors in New Mexico,” I said.
“Their blood still runs in the veins of their children’s children’s children.”
“No offense, but you didn’t get those turquoise blue eyes from anyone local.”
He frowned again, and little lines formed between his eyes. If he kept talking to me, he was going to get frown lines. “I am a god created by my people’s tears. I am the power that is left of the Aztecs, and I am the Spaniard’s magic made flesh. We will use their own power to destroy them.”
“Isn’t it a little late to destroy them? About five hundred years too late.”
“Gods do not reckon time as men do.”
I believed that he believed what he was saying, but I also thought he was rationalizing. He’d have kicked the Spaniards’ butts five hundred years ago if he’d been able to do it.
Maybe it showed on my face because he said, “I was a new god then, and I did not have the strength to defeat our enemies, so the Quetzalcoatl brought me here to wait until I grew strong enough for our purpose. I am ready to lead my army forward now.”
“So you’re saying that it took five hundred years for you to go from being a wee little god to a big bad god, the way soup needs to simmer for a really long time before it’s soup?”
He laughed. “You think very strangely. I am sad that you will be dead soon. I would make you the first of my concubines, and the mother of gods, for children born of you would be great sorcerers, but sadly, I have need of your life.”
We were back to killing me, and I didn’t want to be there. His ego seemed pretty fragile for a deity. I’d see how fragile. “The offer doesn’t sound very appealing, no offense.”
He smiled down at me, fingers trailing along my arm. “That we will take your life is not an offer. It is a fact.”
I gave him my best innocent eyes. “I thought you were offering to make me your concubine, the mother of gods?”
He frowned at me harder. “I did not offer you a chance to be my concubine.”
“Oh,” I said. “Sorry. I misunderstood you.”
His fingers were still touching my arm, but they were still now, as if he’d forgotten he was touching me.