The Bloodgate Warrior Read online

  His laughter rolled through me like a rumbling purr. “Don’t look at my body, then.”

  I glanced down at his arms locked about me, and they gleamed like rubies and emeralds. I ran my hands over his forearms, tracing the whirls of color. “Beautiful.” I’d never imagined such a glorious creature.

  “You have returned me to my full power, noyollotl. I can wear my true form thanks to your sacrifice.”

  Green rolling hills passed beneath us. Brilliant blue sky stretched around us without a single cloud. A gleaming sun drew my gaze, burning at the peak of a tall obsidian pyramid. For months, this was where he’d taken me in dreams, until I’d finally opened the gate and brought this magnificent warrior through to my world.

  He landed on the peak and the mighty pyramid trembled at his strength. Lifting me high above him, he let out a roar that thundered through the sky. “My sacrifice!”

  Cheers echoed all around us, great whoops and shouts carrying from what seemed like miles away. They went on and on, male and female, rising in a crashing crescendo. The sun blazed so brightly that I couldn’t see, the clamor so loud I couldn’t hear. My senses were reduced to one thing only.

  Técun.

  He shouted, “My heart!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  February 21, 1524 Xicoténcatl Tecubalsi

  Translated into Spanish by Leonor de Alvarado y Xiotenega Tecubalsi

  Translated by Carla Guzmán Gonzales, 1970

  It is done.

  The Red Sun met the Quetzal in the Valley of Olintepeque on the grasslands of El Pinal. Though Técun Úman led thousands of his finest warriors against a few hundred white invaders, their superior weapons spelled the end for the K’iche’ empire. After mighty Tenochtitlán fell, how could we expect anything else but defeat? The warriors stood firm and strong while as many people as possible fled, scattered before the four winds, though none stood as tall as Técun Úman.

  He bought our people’s lives with his blood.

  Mighty wings rent the air. Talons scored the earth. Dust clouded the valley as thick as smoke, and when it cleared, the Quetzal lay bleeding on the ground.

  The Red Sun’s famous spear pierced Técun’s breast.

  I could not use my magic to destroy the demon who stole my heart. Yet I can use my magic to protect the great warrior who is destined to destroy that demon. A god walked in the flesh for one purpose—to save us all—and I failed him.

  I failed us all. Curse my weak and foolish heart.

  Thus I bind my entire line to him in service, so one day a daughter or granddaughter of mine may right this injustice.

  Great Feathered Serpent, I beg you, take my last willing sacrifice and use it in your appointed time to save this world I damned. Wipe out this scourge upon your people. Cleanse the earth of evil.

  Forgive me for loving the man I was sent to destroy.

  * * *

  I stirred, trying to pry open my eyes, but my eyelids were as heavy as an iron portcullis. I tried to lift my head, but instead, it flopped helplessly to the side. A big, warm palm caught my cheek and gently shifted me back. Smooth, hot skin pressed against my face and I inhaled his scent. So good.

  “Cassie,” he whispered, his breath stirring my hair. “Are you well?”

  “Mmmmm.”

  He chuckled, his chest rumbling against me. “I regret that we cannot linger here in comfort, but the release of that much power has certainly alerted the demon that we’re here. He might arrive at any time.”

  Técun might as well have dumped a bucket of icy water on my head. I jerked up so hard I almost cracked his nose. I was still on the altar, but at least now I was upright. He’d transformed back into the Mayan priest. “Are you strong enough to face him?”

  “I was always strong enough to face him.”

  Only to die again. A flood of tears threatened, so I pushed up to my feet. I swayed, dizzy and weak. I wondered how much blood I’d lost. I glanced at my forearms but only white marks remained where his talons had scored my skin. He’d healed me.

  He steadied me, holding my hips. “What will be, will be, but you have given me a chance that I never had before. The last time I walked this earth, I was the hero doomed to sacrifice my life as a demonstration of how a warrior should stand no matter the odds. This time, the odds will be on my side. I have the spear that killed me, yet more, I have you.”

  Bracing my hands on his shoulders, I stared into his eyes. I squeezed that heavy ridge of muscle so hard my fingers cramped. “If you die and leave me, I’m going to open that gate to your world so I can kick your ass.”

  His lips quirked but he nodded solemnly. “I understand, Cassandra Gonzales. Challenge has been declared.”

  “Challenge.” As sharp and painful as a knife, the voice came from everywhere, echoing in the temple.

  In a heartbeat, Técun was on his feet, tucking me behind him. He scanned the area, turning slowly, searching for the source.

  “Fool. Last time I killed the great warrior Técun. This time, you allow me to kill Great Feathered Serpent in all your glory. You will never rise again, Kukulkan. I shall bathe in your holy blood before you can proclaim your Return.”

  To me, Técun whispered, “He cannot enter until I allow it. We’re safe for the moment. Dress, Cassie, and let us prepare for the battle.”

  There were so many things I wanted to say. I wanted to clutch him and beg him not to fight. I wanted to slam my fists into that powerful chest and scream at him not to even think about leaving me. I wanted to bury my face against him and sob. But I did none of those things. If the worst happened and he was forced to return to his world, I didn’t want him to remember me sniveling like a baby.

  No, I wanted him to remember me bound on his altar, begging him to take me.

  I reached up to cup his cheek and smoothed my thumb over his lips. “I love you, Técun Úman K’iq’ab, Kukulkan, Great Feathered Serpent and whatever other name you’ve been known as.”

  “And you are my heart, Cassandra Gonzales. Nothing will keep me from you, not even my death on this earth.”

  * * *

  Dressed as a Maya warrior again, Técun raised the spearhead high above his head. Magic poured out of him to form a solid obsidian shaft nearly as long as he was tall. I hoped the glassy substance was more durable than it looked.

  Light spun living rainbows around him, proclaiming his power. Didn’t creatures of the night fear the light of day? If so, surely the magical light would be a powerful weapon against a demon zombie conquistador that had died over five hundred years ago.

  Pointing the spear outside, Técun swept his hand in a cutting arc. The sweet, pure light sank back inside him, leaving us exposed to the waiting night. Darkness waited, thick and foul like oil upon a dark pool of water.

  “Come forth, Alvarado, and let us end this once and for all.”

  “We need room to fight, warrior.” Alvarado’s voice made me wince. There was an underlying sharpness in the tone, like nails grating on a chalkboard. My teeth ached and I couldn’t help but shiver. “Come down from your mountaintop to the plaza below and bring your woman. She’ll be the prize for the winner.”

  After Natalie, I could only too easily imagine what the demon would do with his prize, and it certainly wouldn’t involve hot sex on a pyramid. Thinking of her made my throat swell shut with tears. I have to get her back. Somehow. I can’t let her life end this way.

  “We shall save her.” Técun drew me against him. I entwined my arm with his, clutching the inside of his biceps in a death grip. “Once I kill Alvarado, we’ll locate her body and I’ll restore her heart and spirit. You’ve given me enough power to accomplish the impossible.”

  “I have your friend here,” Alvarado crooned. “Come down, human, and save her. I hope you brought her heart.”

  Even though I wanted to run screaming in the opposite direction, we walked down the mighty steps as regally as any king and queen in Técun’s day. Heat rolled from him, warming my body and dancin
g along my skin. Light spilled down the pyramid as we came down to the plaza, illuminating the creature that waited for us.

  Dented and corroded armor still covered Alvarado’s body, although it hung awkwardly on his skeletal figure. Pasty white skin sagged over bones and his eyes blazed like red coals. In his hands, he gripped a pitted and corroded sword that would probably cause me to die from infection if I scratched my finger on the ugly blade.

  At first glance, he looked like the other zombie that had attacked at the hotel, a dusty corpse that would quickly be returned to his grave with a flick of Técun’s wrist. But where the other conquistador zombie shambled with very little independent thought, Alvarado’s eyes gleamed with smug awareness. He’d manipulated us exactly as he’d wanted. Now he was on the verge of stealing a god’s power. Worse, though, was the dark aura of power roiling about him. Shadow cloaked him, a thick swirling mass that darkened his lower body. Where Técun gleamed with golden-green light, Alvarado oozed a darkness of death and destruction that smelled like a wet, rank swamp hiding a whole city of slaughtered bodies.

  A strange, lumpy garland hung around his neck, partially obscured by the shadows. I couldn’t figure out what it was. I very likely didn’t want to know. But I couldn’t stop straining my eyes, trying to make it out. Other than hurting Natalie, what else had Alvarado been up to while waiting for us to spring his trap?

  “With your help, pretty one, I’ll be restored to my full glory, just as you’ve restored him.”

  I forced myself to let loose of Técun. He wouldn’t be able to fight with a woman clinging to his arm. “I’ll do nothing for you.”

  The shadows wavered enough that I saw Natalie.

  She lay at Alvarado’s feet, her eyes open but staring sightlessly. Dead. Her skin was pale, her clothes torn and bloody, and her chest…

  I had to avert my gaze from the broken cavity. Bile rose in my throat, but I swallowed it down, determined not to show such weakness. My ears roared and my face felt too tight, cold and pale. I was afraid I’d pass out.

  Blindly, I threw out my hand and gripped the stone statue at the bottom of the stairs, holding on for dear life rather than sink to the ground. I concentrated on breathing, in and out, slowing down the frantic pounding of my heart. Once the locomotive quit roaring in my ears, my first instinct was to run to Natalie and drag her away to safety.

  “Wait,” Técun warned in my head. “He’s surely placed spells on her body to entrap you. Only attempt to save her after I send him back into Xibalba.”

  Alvarado chuckled and licked his fingers as though he could physically taste my heartache and suffering in the air. He’d deliberately hidden her to maximize the effect, relishing the moment I would see how still and dead she lay. “I’m afraid your little friend is beyond your help. She walks in Xibalba now, forever trapped until she’s reunited with her heart. Soon enough I’ll bring hell here to share with you all.”

  “Xibalba has no power here, demon.” Técun’s voice echoed off the pyramid and the other buildings. “This time, you’ll never return to this earth again.”

  “Demon!” Alvarado pretended shocked offense. “Surely you know the difference between your gods of death and a simple man sworn to obey his Church and his king. If I deserved punishment for my sins, surely it wasn’t an eternity trapped with the likes of One Death and his minions Pus and Plague.”

  “You were a plague upon my people. If you suffered plague in your afterlife, I count that as justice.”

  “My afterlife was stolen from me.” Alvarado hissed with anger and the shadows coiled about him like slithering cobras. “Your people cursed me to everlasting punishment beneath pagan gods of filth and disease. Did you think it so terrible when I hung your friends? When they were burned at the stake? When we struck down women and children to cleanse the countryside of rebellion and strife? That is nothing to what I shall do now! One Death thought me a sniveling white man he could pin beneath his boot but he soon learned the mettle of Don Pedro de Alvarado y Contreras. Every living creature shall feel my wrath, starting with you! I will feed you my steel and leave you gutted and helpless on the ground while I drink your woman’s blood and feast on her flesh. You can’t hide her from me, great warrior. I feel the magic in her blood. She’s the key that will unchain me from Xibalba for all time.”

  Dread and terror churned in my stomach and my knees clanked together so hard I could barely stand. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know his own daughter cursed him.

  Técun hefted the infamous spear. “How will you complete the Salto de Alvarado without your favorite weapon? I believe the advantage is mine this time.”

  The demon lunged, snapping his teeth like he wanted to eat a hunk out of Técun. Unruffled, Técun caught the blade on his spear and shoved the demon aside. Still hissing, Alvarado struck again, a constant snap and lunge so fast that I couldn’t follow the moves. The shadows slithered out like thick tentacles, with enough weight and substance to strike Técun and knock him stumbling to the side. He slammed the spear into the thick coiling mass but the tentacles merely dissolved and reformed, slithering out to try to wrap around his throat. His light drove them back, smoking and curling away as if in pain, only for them to creep back and try to strangle Técun again.

  Alvarado might have been dead hundreds of years, but he was lightning quick and didn’t seem to tire. Neither did Técun. His great body glistened in the greenish lights still dancing about him. The harder he fought, the more he glowed. My eyes ached from squinting, trying to focus on the pair despite the glare.

  Finally getting in close enough to get a hand on the demon, Técun grappled with the twisty, snarling creature. Black snakes whipped out, coiling about his neck and arms, shrieking in pain yet trying to throttle him. He wrapped his big hand around the corpse’s throat, ignoring his wild flailing. “By all my power I wield on this earth, I name you a scourge upon this land, Pedro de Alvarado. Return to the bowels of Xibalba!”

  Técun shoved the ancient bloodstained spear into Alvarado’s throat. The demon went still in his grip, but not limp. Smoking from contact with Técun’s gleaming light, the black shadows still clung to him, wrapping him closer and tighter in their coils. No blood fountained from the wound, for no blood, no life, remained in Alvarado’s body.

  It took me a moment to realize the horrible sound coming from his throat was laughter.

  “Oh, great warrior, how foolish you must feel at this moment.”

  Grimly, Técun squeezed the demon’s throat, trying to silence him. He shook Alvarado like a rag doll, but the demon continued to laugh. He wasn’t affected at all by the spear that Técun had been so sure was the answer to his ultimate victory. Encumbered by the snaking tentacles, he tried to jerk away, but it was too late.

  Alvarado slammed his sword into Técun’s chest.

  I screamed so shrilly my ears ached. “No!”

  Blistering cold burned inside my chest. Pain banded my ribs, my breathing labored, as though my blood was frozen in my veins. I could only imagine Técun’s pain.

  The sword protruded from his back.

  He staggered backward enough to pull his body off the blade. Tangled in the coiled shadows, he kept his feet, but his beautiful green glow faltered.

  I sagged against the stairway, the stone snake digging into my cheek. This couldn’t happen. Not to him. He was too powerful. He had the spear…

  “Don’t you remember, great warrior?” Shaking his head, Alvarado sounded like a kindly grandfather. “I suppose you must not have noticed whose spear took your life in the melee. I was close, yes, but when you beheaded my horse, it fell on my leg. I couldn’t quite reach you.

  “It was my very good friend Argueta who managed to skewer you. His family secretly treasures the true spear that bears your blood. I might have made that spear famous in La Noche Triste, but alas, it cannot kill me. Not now, not ever.”

  Withdrawing the coiling shadows, he kicked Técun in the chest, and my legendary warrior stumbled backward t
o fall heavily on his back. Trying to leverage himself back up, he rolled onto his side and managed to climb up to his knees.

  I didn’t have a weapon, but my blood thundered in my veins and his quetzal dug claws into my ribs, tearing at me like it wanted to fly free of my body. I strained with him, trying to send him my strength and the magic he swore I had. I held my breath, willing him to get back to his feet. With a mighty heave, he pushed upward, only to stagger and fall back to his hands and knees.

  I threw my head back and screamed. So unfair, so wrong, to let such a foul creature live while Técun lay bleeding on the ground. Again!

  The demon turned its red eyes on me. “Now your heart is mine, warrior.”

  With a mighty roar, Técun surged to his feet. Blood gushed from the wound, but he picked the demon up and slung him over his head. Alvarado crashed into a column, crumbling ancient stone to the plaza. “Run, Cassie!”

  “I’m not leaving you!”

  “Find the Rojases. They’ll get you to safety. I can do what must be done, but only if I know you’re safe. Go, noyollotl!”

  I swiped furious tears from my cheeks. Even wounded with his light dimmed to barely nothing, he stood tall and strong to protect me, shifting to keep between me and the downed demon. No wonder Guatemala had made him their national hero. With a worthless spear in his hand, he still stood between me and our enemy.

  My shoulders slumped with misery. “You can’t win.”

  “No,” he agreed. The gentle love in his voice made me cry harder. “Not this time. Yet I shall stand firm until you’re free of this place. Be safe, noyollotl, and dream me once more.”

  “I’ll go back to Utatlán and open the gate.”

  “Absolutely not. You must leave Guatemala immediately and never return. Not even the Gatekeepers will be able to keep the portals safe for long. I’ll stop Alvarado, but I can’t break the curse that allowed him to return. If you come back to this soil, your magic will stir him to life too.”

  He stepped closer and pressed his knife into my hand. “My magic lives in your eyes, Cassandra Gonzales. My quetzal breathes on your skin, while I live on in your heart.”