Obsidian Butterfly - Laurell K. Hamilton [267]
I actually looked up at him then, getting a brief glimpse of his face, leaning so close below mine, the startling glimpse of his blue-green eyes in that dark face. I looked back to the wall. “What do you mean?”
“My heart does not beat.”
I tried to feel his heart then, tried to sense the pulse of his life through the warm flesh of his chest. Concentrating on it slowed my own heart. You aren’t always aware of a man’s heart beating against your body, but when they’re lying chest to chest, you usually feel it. But his chest pressed quiet above mine. I moved my free hand slowly toward him. He raised up, supporting himself with his hands, so I could press my hand against his chest.
His skin was warm and smooth, almost perfect, but nothing beat under my hand. Either he had no heart, or it wasn’t beating.
“I am only a body. The Red Woman does not live in me. My heart is not a fit sacrifice without her touch.”
That made me look back at him. I looked into his peaceful eyes. “Sacrifice? You’re going to sacrifice yourself?”
His eyes stayed gentle and hopeful. “I will be a sacrifice to the creator gods. They need to feed on the blood of a god as they did at the beginning of time.”
I tried to read something in that peaceful handsome face. Some doubt, fear, anything I could understand.
“You’re going to let your priest cut you up?”
“Yes, but I will be reborn.”
“You’re sure of that?” I said.
“My heart will be strong enough to beat outside my body, and when it is placed back within me, the old gods will return from the exile that your white Christ has cast them into.” His face, more than his words, said that he did believe it.
I’d read enough of the conquest of Mexico by the Spanish to doubt that Christ had much to do with it, no matter how many things had been done in His name. “Don’t blame Jesus Christ for what the Spanish did to your people. Our god gave us free choice, and that means we can choose evil. I believe that that’s what happened to the men who conquered your people.”
He looked down at me, and he was puzzled again. “You believe that. I can tell you believe that.”
“With all my heart,” I said. “No pun intended.”
He sat up, sitting across my waist. “Most of the people I have taken as offerings did not believe in much of anything. The ones who did believe, did not believe in your white Christ.” He touched my face. “But you do.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“How can you believe in a god that would allow you to be brought to this place and sacrificed to a foreign god?”
“If you only believe when it’s easy, you don’t really believe,” I said.
“Is it not ironic that you, a follower of the god that destroyed us, will be what allows me to come into my power. When I have taken your essence, I will be strong enough to make the precious liquid, and I will be free of this place at last.”
“What do you mean, take my essence?” I’d stopped being afraid because we’d just been talking so long, or maybe I just can’t sustain fear for that long. Eventually, if you don’t kill me or hurt me, I stop being afraid.
“I will but kiss you and you will become as light and dry as the aged maize. You will feed me as the corn feeds men.” He began to lie down beside me on my right side, near my free hand.
I was suddenly scared again. I hoped I was wrong, but I was pretty sure I’d already seen what he meant to do to me at the Obsidian Butterfly. “You mean you’ll suck the life out of me and I’ll end up looking like a dried mummy.”
He stroked a finger down my cheek, his eyes sad now, regretful. “It will hurt a great deal, and I am sorry for that, but even your pain will go to strengthen me.” He leaned his face towards mine. I had a free hand and a knife in my pocket, but if I went for it too soon and failed, I was out of options. Where the hell was Ramirez?
“You’re going to torture me. Great,” I said.
He drew back from me, just a little. “It is not torture. It is the way all my priests waited for my waking.”
“Who brought your priests back?” I asked.
“I wakened Tlaloci, but I was weak and I had no more blood to give the others.