Certain Dark Things(59)
She pounced on the guards from above, dispatched them in a minute, and then dosed the vampires with UV light. They shrieked and shrieked, but she bound them tight and injected them with allicin. They quieted down after that, and she continued cutting them with ease. She chopped off the boys’ heads. It was messy work, although the boys were small—just teenagers—and that helped. The concubine was considerably older and pregnant. Atl stabbed her in the womb twelve times. The woman pleaded for mercy, but Atl grabbed one of the guns that the guards had been carrying and blew off most of the vampire’s head.
She convulsed for a long time before dying. Atl watched the whole performance, impassive. She’d never killed a vampire before and had only harmed a couple of humans one other time, at a club. But it felt natural and she knew she’d behaved the way she was supposed to. She felt as though she’d regained what she’d lost. Dishonor. Honor.
She told Izel what she’d done right away.
“They’ll come for us,” her sister said. “They’ll come for both of us. How could you?”
“The family wanted it. Mazatl and Nahui and the others, they told me so,” Atl said.
It was true. She hadn’t lied when she said her cousins and aunts desired revenge. They had expressed deep reservations toward Izel. Cousin Nahui had even told Atl, point-blank, that leading required certain skills and Izel might not have them. Mazatl had brought up their parentage, reminding everyone that Izel and Atl were the offspring of a weak man who had let the family down.
Atl ought to have spoken in her sister’s favor, assuaging any fears, but instead the cries stoked her anger. Someone, they said, had to take decisive action for this terrible crime, which had not only left them in shame, but marked them as vulnerable and incapable of controlling their territory as well.
Your name is Atl, her cousin Nahui had told her. Why are you not the ātl tlachinolli, the water that scorches the earth? Instead you behave like a gentle stream that laps the ankles, licking Izel’s feet.
If Atl didn’t push back the family was going to fall apart at the seams: the cihuātlahtoāni could be repudiated. Atl was not going to be branded with such a seal, her lineage shamed and shamed again.
“Let them come,” Atl told her sister.
They did. They rammed their trucks through the doors of their home and walked through the property with flamethrowers in hand. She watched from her window, saw the tongues of fire sweep across the patio and heard the shrieks of her cousins, her people.
“Hide,” her sister ordered. “Hide, Atl! Hide!”
And then, when she ought to have grabbed a knife or a rifle or anything she damn could, when she ought to have been the warrior her bloodline dictated, she ran. She rushed down the back stairs, toward the kitchen, opened the lid of one of the flat-top refrigerators where they stored food supplies for their human servants, and slid in, closing the door behind her.
The sounds were muffled by the metal and plastic walls of the refrigerator, like when one swims underwater.
Small spaces.
Atl lay there, waiting. When she finally dared to push the lid open she chuckled, thinking that if anyone was watching her it would be a great parody of a vampire film. Instead of pushing open the door of a coffin, she was pushing the lid of a refrigerator.
But no one was there to watch her.
The house was quiet. She walked slowly through the hallways, stepping over broken glass, coming upon mutilated corpses. Several had been partially burned. She recognized Izel by the bracelet on her arm. The rest was a black lump with a vaguely human shape, mouth open in an eternal scream.
Atl slid down against a wall, resting her hands upon her knees. While she lay there, Cualli came bounding out of the house. She thought she was imagining it, but no. It was her dog. She hugged it, burying her face against the Doberman’s neck.
She stepped out of the compound into the cool desert night, Cualli at her heels. She walked around and stumbled over a tortoise. She looked down at it. The sight greatly amused her and she thought Izel would have known what species this was.
She watched it walk away from her, slowly tracing its steps across the desert, though the desert was strange that night. The sand was red beneath her feet, and the moon had disappeared. She coughed, and this black, disgusting substance oozed from her mouth and she knelt upon the sand, a river of black bile and blood streaming out, and she tried to stop it but it would not stop. It. Just. Did not. Stop.
Someone touched her shoulder and she stood up, opening her eyes …
… and she was no longer in the desert. She was crouching on the floor.
Atl tried to slow down her breathing.
Gray cement walls and there was a metal door … no, a mesh wall with a door. Across from her she saw a dog. Not Cualli, but a mutt. She was in a cell, just like the dog across from her was in a cell.
“You’re awake. Jesus, I’m so glad you’re awake.”
Atl blinked and turned her head. It was Domingo touching her shoulder, Domingo crouching next to her. He smiled.
“I’m … yeah … where am I?” she asked. “I was hurt.”
“My friend, Quinto, he patched you up.”
Atl glanced at her arm and saw the bandage. She remembered the darts. If she was awake it meant they’d taken them out, though much of the damage had already been done. She’d had a noxious substance pumping through her system and her body was still struggling to come to grips with it.