Лорел Гамильтон - Obsidian Butterfly

"Do you still refuse?"

"Yes, my dark goddess, I still refuse."

"When you raped these women long ago, did you dream of the price you would pay?"

"No, my dark goddess, I did not."

"You didn't believe in our gods, did you?"

"No, my dark goddess, I did not."

"You thought your white Christ could save you, didn't you?"

"Yes, my dark goddess, I did."

"You were wrong."

His head hunched between his shoulders as if he were trying to draw into himself like a turtle. The metaphor was funny. The gesture was not. "Yes, my dark goddess, I was wrong."

She gave another nod, and the women began to whip him in a blur that made the whips gleam silver like lightning in their hands. Blood ran in streamers down his back, but he never cried out, never asked for mercy.

I must have made some movement, because Edward stepped close to me, not grabbing my arm, but touching it. I met his eyes, and he gave the barest shake of his head. I wouldn't really risk our lives for a vampire I didn't know, really I wouldn't, but I didn't like it.

Olaf made a small sound. He was watching it with glowing eyes like a child at Christmas who comes down to find that he'd gotten exactly what he wanted. He'd put up the gun, his big hands clasped in front of him, clasped so hard they were mottled, and a fine tremor ran up his arms. I might not like it, but Olaf did.

I glanced at Edward, sort of nodding to the big man. Edward gave the barest of nods. He saw it, too, but he was ignoring it. I tried. I caught Bernardo's eyes. He was staring at the big man, a look very close to fear on his face. He turned and concentrated on the stairs, turning his back on everything in the room. I'd have liked to join him, but I couldn't turn away. It wasn't just macho crap, you know. If Edward could stand to watch it, then so could I. Though there was a little of that. Mostly it was if Diego could endure it, I could watch it. If I wasn't going to stop it then I had to at least watch. To do nothing to help him and to turn away would have been too much cowardice for me to swallow. I'd have choked on it. The best I could do was try to watch other things around him. The way the women's arms went up and down like machines, as if they would never tire.

The five guards stood impassive, but the vamp that walked at Itzpapalotl's right side watched it with half-parted lips, eyes intent as if afraid to miss even the smallest movement. He was almost as old as the goddess herself, seven, eight hundred years, and for five hundred of those years he'd been watching this particular show, and he still enjoyed it. I knew in that moment that I never wanted to make an enemy of the creatures in this room. I never wanted to be at their mercy. Because they had none.

The other two Spanish survivors had moved back to stand against the far wall, as far from the show as they could get. The one with salt and pepper hair stared at the ground as if there was something of great interest there. The starved one on his leash had curled into a fetal position, as if he were trying to disappear altogether.

The women turned Diego's back into bloody ribbons. A red pool formed at his feet. He curled his upper body over his legs until he was like a little hull of pain. Blood began to drip down his shoulders to form a second puddle in front of him. He was weaving, even that low to the ground, as if he might pass out. I hoped he passed out soon.

I finally did take a step forward, and Edward grabbed my arm. "No," he said.

"You feel pity for him," Itzpapalotl said.

"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 sum "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, arms trapped under his body, his weight resting on his legs. He was unconscious, but the body didn't fall over. It was propped up by its own weight.

Olaf was making a high-pitched hiss under his breath, fast and faster. If the circumstances had been different, I'd have said he was working up to an orgasm. If that was what he was doing, I so didn't want to know. I ignored him, or did my best to.