Certain Dark Things(15)

“I’ll bet it’s different,” he said, smiling goofily, his crooked teeth showing.

“No, it’s not just the blood.”

“Then what?”

“It’s a bond. You’d be my tlapalēhuiāni.” She moved closer to him, brushing his hand. “Bloodletting was very important to the Aztecs, did you know that?”

“No.”

He probably didn’t know Aztecs from Mayans. None of the gods, none of the mythology, none of the names she’d learned since childhood. There had been vampires in America before the Aztecs rose to power, and they had interacted with humans, of course. But the Tlahuelpocmimi had blended so seamlessly into Aztec culture it was difficult to determine who had influenced whom, whether the emphasis on blood and sacrifice had come from exposure to the vampires or whether the vampires had gravitated toward this tribe because it meshed with their worldviews.

“Sacrifice is always important,” Atl continued. “The codices show noblemen and-women piercing their tongues, lips, and genitals. Drawing blood with bits of bone and maguey thorns, because we offer ourselves to the universe and to others. We can only pay our debts with blood. The ultimate gift is always blood.”

Domingo looked justifiably intimidated as she spoke, but she noticed the spark in his eyes, the hunger lurking there.

“People aren’t very good to you, are they?”

“Not all the time,” he muttered.

“The blood rituals are part of a reciprocal relationship. Do you know what “reciprocal” means?”

He shook his head.

“It’s when two people owe each other.”

A murky simplification, Izel would have said. The bond with the tlapalēhuiāni was powerful. The transference of blood was symbolic, but it also served to create a mental connection. A Tlāhuihpochtli could not command a human—tales of vampires hypnotizing their victims had their basis in the Necros—but the vampire and the human, after coming in contact with each other’s blood, could share memories and even a crude form of telepathy. Atl’s kin called this the xiuhtlahtōlli, the precious speech. Since the word “xiuh,” precious, was associated with turquoise, the tlapalēhuiāni wore pendants or bracelets made with this stone to indicate their high-ranking status.

And just as the turquoise was precious, so was the human a vampire picked as its tlapalēhuiāni, and picking one was a delicate, painstaking task: it did no good to choose a weak or unsuitable candidate. After all, this would be the human who would protect, represent, and assist the vampire for decades to come.

Which is why Izel would have cautioned Atl against selecting a boy she hardly knew.

But Izel was nothing but ash; she was bits of blackened bones.

“I can take care of you. If you’ll take care of me. If you’ll be loyal,” Atl said, shoving her misgivings away.

“I can be loyal.”

“Give me your blood and I’ll give you mine.”

“And then we’ll be friends?”

Atl grabbed his arm, pulling up his jacket to reveal his wrist. To his credit, Domingo barely flinched as she shifted and pressed her mouth against his skin. His blood was very sweet. Clean and fresh, like drinking from a spring.

She drank greedily, enjoying each drop. It might have only been better if she’d had a chance to down a few glasses of tequila. Booze and blood. She’d had them aplenty, before things went to hell. Now … now blood and blood alone would have to do. But it wasn’t so bad, was it? For a fugitive she was doing quite well. She’d be fine. She’d survive.

Domingo closed his eyes and muttered something. She felt his body collapsing against hers, nothing but an old rag doll. His heart fluttered in his chest, like a scared bird. She let him slide down onto the floor and knelt down next to him. Atl slashed her wrist with one of her nails.

She stared at the line against her wrist, the rich, dark blood. This was more than a pact; it was a true connection. Once she gave him this, she could not take it away. There should have been a selection process, a ceremony, the burning of copal. She was going at it wrong and she was too young to have a tlapalēhuiāni. The Aztecs did not consider a warrior a man until he had captured his first prisoner of war. Her people did not think a warrior was a woman until she had made an honorable kill or pleased the gods with her deeds. Youths had no business with a tlapalēhuiāni.

Fuck it.

Atl pressed her wrist against Domingo’s mouth.

“Be mine,” she said.

He did not swallow the blood at first. But it was easy to force him to do it. She pressed her wrist against his mouth with such vehemence that he’d either swallow or choke. The boy did swallow, slowly.

“Yollo. Tonal. Nahual,” she said. “The three principles. The flesh of the body. The spirit of the body. The animal brother.”

The boy shivered violently. She held him as a mother might hold her child, his head pressed against her shoulder, her chin resting on his head. Cualli stared at her and whined.





CHAPTER

6

Nick ignored the gnawing hunger as much as he could, he really did. Vampires had markedly different appetites. Nick’s subspecies ate food along with blood. In fact, his kind was quite voracious. He had a predilection for junk food. Twinkies, chips, soda, popcorn. They helped keep him mellow and staved off the hunger. Nick ate a lot during a single day, gobbling tortilla chips, going through three bags of cheese doodles, and downing two bottles of vodka. He put it off for as long as he could, then finally walked to the kitchen, dragging his feet the whole way.