Alexander C. Irvine Read Free

murmured, “call your children back. I have done with them. They drown. They drown.”
    She flicked blood from her index finger onto the pattern of Sand. The wind changed direction and blew more fiercely, howling now out of the west, and Lupita huddled over the pot, protecting ii from the angry god. If the pattern was blown away before the banishment was complete, the mocihuaquetzqui would level the city. They could not cross water, but that would do her and the girl very little good.
    “They drown!” she shouted over the screaming wind. Another drop of blood fell onto the sand, and she took a deep breath against the wind that sucked the air from her lungs. The buzzing in her head grew angry and frantic and her eyes began to water, the tears freezing on her lined cheeks. Lupita gasped and, black spots dancing in her vision, blew the sand out of the pot.
    The pot glowed with sudden heat and the sand exploded upward, scouring the skin of her face and stinging in her eyes. She tottered upright and upended the pot, tossing its contents out into the alley. Through streaming tears she saw the second lid shatter on the ground. Where the embers fell, snowy dancers sprang up to stamp them out.
    The wind subsided. After a pause, the Old God’s held breath blew out, now just a normal December gust and swirl. Powdery snow covered the ashes and drifted over the dead fragments of clay. Wiping sand out of her eyes, Lupita stooped to pick up the catatonic child as she heard the clatter of a wagon approaching down the narrow alley.
    The wagon was painted canary yellow and festooned with brightly colored banners and flags that snapped in the blustery wind, advertising dentistry, puppet shows, and other things Lupita didn’t have the English to read. Its driver was a sober contrast, dressed entirely in formal black save for a battered rosebud at the left lapel of his woolen greatcoat. Muttonchop sideburns framed a round, heavy-boned face hidden from the nose up by a broad-brimmed hat that he held against the wind as he stepped down amid the broken pottery. He kicked at the fragments, covering first one eye and then the other as they skittered across the earth and packed snow. The two horses, tall spotted grays, tossed their heads and stamped, trying to back away from the spot where the ashes lay covered. A whistle set on the wagon’s buckboard keened a note that rose and fell with every gust.
    “I’ve got a thermometer in the back,” Wide Hat said. “Fourteen degrees below zero and falling. Fourteen below, and you’ve nearly burned the city.”
    “You should know better than to trust mercury tonight,” Lupita said.
    He shook his head, then looked at her, his eyes still shadowed. “Did you get the girl?”
    She tilted her head at the bundle in her arms.
    “And you’ve brought the Pathfinders running, too, I’ll wager. Trouble like that could be worth my life. It ought to be worth yours,” he said.
    Lupita kicked a shard of clay at the horses, a rough triangle with the drop of her blood still frozen to it. The animals whinnied and shivered, rearing into their yoke. “Try to flay me, Wide Hat, and we’ll see who wears the other’s skin.”
    Jane thrashed suddenly in Lupita’s grip, nearly wrenching herself free. Wide Hat watched intently, covering his right eye. After Jane relaxed again, he stepped forward. “Did it work?”
    Lupita held the girl out to him. “See for yourself.” He hesitated for just the barest moment before taking her and peeling the wool serape away from her seared skin. She wailed as the fabric tore away and Wide Hat clapped a hand roughly over her mouth. Jane quited and he squinted his left eye shut to give her burns a cursory glance, then nodded as he rewrapped her in the serape.
    “There’s one more thing you agreed to do, am I correct?”
    Lupita nodded, shivering again at the bite of the wind.
    “Good,” Wide Hat said. He tossed a leather purse at her feet. She scooped it up and was gone down