Jim Butcher - Changes

“I need to challenge more people to duels,” Thomas said in agreement.

“Men are pigs,” Murphy said.

“Amen,” said Molly.

Lea gave me a prim look and said, “I’ve not sacrificed a holy virgin in ages.”

“Completely unprofessional,” muttered Martin.

“Ixnay,” I said quietly, laying a hand on Mouse’s shoulders. “All of you. Follow me. And don’t look edible.”

And, following the priestess with her lamp, we entered the city of Chichén Itzá.

Chichén Itzá smelled like blood.

You never mistake blood for anything else, not even if you’ve never smelled it before. We’ve all tasted it—if nowhere else, when we lose our baby teeth. We all know the taste, and as a corollary, we all know the smell.

The main pyramid is known as El Castillo by most of the folk who go there today—literally, “the castle.” As we walked up out of the gallery of pillars, it loomed above us, an enormous mound of cut stone, every bit as large and imposing as the European fortifications for which it was named. It was a ziggurat-style pyramid, made all of square blocks. Levels piled one on top of another as it rose up to the temple at its summit—and every level of the pyramid was lined with a different form of guard.

At the base of the pyramid, and therefore most numerous, were the jaguar warriors we had already seen. They were all men, all appealing, all layered with the lean, swift muscle of a panther. They all wore jaguar skins. Many of them bore traditional weapons. Many more wore swords, some of them of modern make, the best of which were superior in every physical sense to the weapons manufactured in the past. Most of them also carried a Kalashnikov—again, the most modern versions of the weapons, made of steel and polymer, the finest of which were also readily superior to the weapons of earlier manufacture.

The next level up were all women, garbed in ritual clothing as Alamaya had been, but covered in tattoos, much as the jaguar warriors were. They, too, had that same subtle edge to them that suggested greater-than-mortal capability.

Hell’s bells. If the numbers were the same on every side of the pyramid, and I had no reason to believe that they were not, then I was looking at nearly a thousand of the jaguar warriors and priestesses. I am a dangerous man—but no one man is that dangerous. I was abruptly glad that we hadn’t tried a rope-a-dope or a forward charge. We’d have been swamped by sheer numbers, almost regardless of the plan.

Numbers matter.

That fact sucks, but that makes it no less true. No matter how just your cause, if you’re outnumbered two to one by a comparable force, you’re gonna have to be real creative to pull out a victory. Ask the Germans who fought on either front of World War II. German tankers would often complain that they would take out ten Allied tanks for every tank they lost—but the Allies always seemed to have tank number eleven ready to go.

I was looking at an impossible numerical disadvantage, and I did not at all like the way it felt to realize that truth.

And I was only on the second tier of the pyramid.

Vampires occupied the next several levels. None of them were in their monstrous form, but they didn’t have to be. They weren’t going all out on their disguises, and the all-black coloration of their eyes proclaimed their inhumanity with eloquence. Among the vampires, gender seemed to have no particular recognition. Two more levels were filled with fully vampire jaguar warriors, male and female alike, and the next two with vampire priests and priestesses. Above them came what I presumed to be the Red Court’s version of the nobility—individual vampires, male and female, who clearly stood with their own retinues. They tended to wear more and more gold and have fewer and fewer tattoos the higher up the pyramid they went.

Just before the top level were thirteen lone figures, and from what I could see they were taller than most mortals, seven feet or more in height. Each was dressed in a different form of traditional garb, and each had his own signature mask. My Mayan mythology was a bit rusty, but White Council intelligence reports said that the Lords of Outer Dark had posed as gods to the ancient Mayans, each with his own separate identity. What they didn’t say was that either they had been a great deal more than that, or that collecting worshipers had made them more than merely ancient vampires.

I saw them and my knees shook. I couldn’t stop it.

And a light shone in the temple at the top of the pyramid.

The smell of blood came from the temple.

It wasn’t hard to puzzle out. It ran down the steps that led up the pyramid, a trickling stream of red that had washed down the temple steps and onto the earth beyond—which was torn up as if someone had cruised through the bloodied earth with a rototiller and torn it to shreds. The blood slaves, I was willing to bet. My imagination provided me with a picture of that insane mob tearing at the earth, swallowing bloody gob-bets of it, fighting with one another over the freshest mud—until yours truly showed up and kicked off the party.

I looked left and right as we walked across the open courtyard. The cattle car Susan had told us about was still guarded, by a contingent of men in matching khakis and tactical vests—a private security company of some kind. Mercenaries. There were a load of security bozos around, several hundred at least, stationed here and there in soldierly blocks of fifty men.

Without pausing, Alamaya trod across the courtyard and began up the steps, moving with deliberate, reverent strides. I followed her, and everyone else present came with me. I got hostile stares all the way up, from both sides. I ignored them, as if they weren’t worth my notice. Alamaya’s calves were a lot more interesting anyway.

We reached the level below the temple and Alamaya turned to me. “My lord will speak to only one, Wizard Dresden. Please ask your retainers to wait here.”

Here. Right next to the Lords of Outer Night, the expired godlings. If I made a mistake, and if this went bad, it was going to go really bad, really fast. The people who had been willing to risk everything to help me would be the first to suffer because of it. For a moment, I thought about cutting a deal. Send them away. Let me face the Red Court alone. I had enough lives on my conscience already.

But then I heard a soft, soft sound from the level above: a child weeping.

Maggie.

It was far too sad and innocent a sound to be the death knell for my friends—but that might be exactly what it was.

“Stay here,” I said quietly. “I don’t think this is going to turn into a John Woo film for a couple of minutes, at least. Murph, take the lead until I get back. Sanya, back her.”

She arched an eyebrow at me, but nodded. Sanya shifted his position by a couple of feet, to stand slightly behind her and at her right hand.

I moved slowly up the last few steps to the temple.

It was a simple, elegant thing: an almost cubic building atop the pyramid, with a single opening the size of a fairly standard doorway on each side. Alamaya went in first, her eyes downcast. The moment she was in the door, she took a step to one side and knelt, her eyes on the ground, as if she were worthy to move no farther forward.

I took a slow breath and stepped past her, to face the king of the Red Court.

He was kinda little.

He stood with his back to me, his hands raised over his head, murmuring in what I presumed to be ancient Mayan or something. He was five-two, five-three, well muscled, but certainly nothing like imposing. He was dressed in a kind of skirt-kilt thing, naked from the waist up and the kneecap down. His hair was black and long, hanging to the top of his shoulder blades. He gripped a bloodied knife in his hand, and lowered it slowly, delicately.