Obsidian Butterfly - Laurell K. Hamilton [263]
“Yeah,” I said.
“Is it your virtue you are protecting?”
“No, it’s just your particular offer doesn’t appeal to me.”
He was really having trouble with the concept that I didn’t find him attractive. He ran his fingers down my bare arm in a tickling brush. I just lay there and looked at him. I was giving him some of the best eye contact I’d given anyone this trip because if I looked anywhere else, I kept seeing severed body parts wiggling on their own. Hard to be tough as nails when you wanted to start screaming. He touched my face, and I let him this time. His fingers traced my face, delicately, gently. His eyes no longer looked peaceful. No, definitely disturbed.
He leaned into me as if he’d kiss me, and the eyelashes on his arms fluttered in butterfly kisses along my body. I gave a little shriek.
He drew back. “What is wrong?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Severed eyelids fluttering against my skin, intestines that writhe like snakes around your waist, the necklace of tongues trying to lick me. Pick one.”
“But that should not matter,” he said. “You should see me as beautiful, desirable.”
I did the best shrug I could with my hands chained higher than my shoulders.
“Sorry, but I just can’t get past what you’re wearing.”
“Tlaloci,” he said.
The man in shorts came forward, and dropped to one knee before him. “Yes, my lord.”
“Why does she not see me as wonderful?”
“Apparently, the aura of your godhood does not work on her.”
“Why not?” And there was anger now in his voice, in that once peaceful face.
“I do not know, my lord.”
“You said she could replace Nicky Baco. You said she was a nauhuli as he was. You said she had been touched by my magic, and it was the scent of my magic that drew the Quetzalcoatl to her. But she lies under the touch of my hands and does not feel for me. That is not possible if my magic clings to her.”
I thought, what if it’s not his magic, but I didn’t say it out loud. What if it was Itzpapalotl’s? The being standing in front of me had nearly killed me from a distance. He’d roared over my mind and taken me, and I hadn’t been able to stop him. Now, he was touching me, and evidently trying things on me, and it wasn’t working. The only thing that had changed was Itzpapalotl’s power filling me for awhile. Had that made the difference?
Tlaloci stood, head still bowed. “There must be powerful magic at work here, my lord. First Nicky Baco is lost to us, and now this one is closed to your vision.”
“She must be open to my power or she cannot be the perfect sacrifice,” Red Woman’s Husband said.
“I know, my lord.”
“You are the magician, Tlaloci. How can I undo this magic?”
The magician put some serious thought into it. Several minutes passed while he thought. I just lay there trying not to draw their attention back to me. Finally, Tlaloci looked up. “To believe in your vision, she must believe in you.”
“How do I convince her to believe that I am a god if she cannot feel my power?”
It was a good question, and I waited patiently for Tlaloci to answer it. The longer he thought about it, the more delay time I was getting. Ramirez was coming. I had to believe that because my options were limited unless I could figure out a way to get them to untie me.
I could feel the pen still in my pocket with its hidden blade. I was armed, if I could get my hands free, and if steel could hurt him. Of course, there were the four helpers, and Tlaloci, and a small army of flayed ones. So even if the god could die, I’d have to do something about everyone else. They’d probably be pissed if I killed their god. I just wasn’t sure how to get out of this one.
If Ramirez didn’t arrive with the cavalry, I was in deep shit. Edward wasn’t out there looking for me this time. For the first time since I came to, I wondered if Edward was alive. Please, God, let him be alive. But alive or not, Edward was out of the rescuing game for tonight. I admitted I needed help on this one, and the only hope I could count on was Ramirez and the police. He’d been late in the hospital.