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Oaxaca Nights
Disclaimer: Characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: the Series are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, the WB, and UPN.
Part III
In Cordelia’s admittedly limited experience, these issues of supernatural ickiness pretty much always started out with a wizard, a demon, and/or a prophecy; the particulars and combinations might vary, but the basic ingredients tended to remain drearily constant. Sure enough, the story Luz told contained two of the three. Cordelia frankly zoned out through part of the recitation — it had been a long night already, and the earnest types (talking about you, Giles!) always thought every date and detail were of earth-shaking importance — but she caught the basic thrust of the narrative. Six or eight hundred years ago, some Aztec-Toltec-Olmec (whatever) shaman or high priest had got the genius idea to turbo-charge his power by channeling some mid-grade demon or other. (Luz told Cordelia the thing’s name, but to her it just sounded like somebody gargling.) Hadn’t worked out for the shaman — Duh! — but the ceremonial death-mask utilized in the attempt continued to hold the demon’s essence captive. Every hundred years or so, the mask persuaded some sucker to put it on, possessed the wearer and destroyed his/her soul in the process, and raised merry hell for a few decades before the body burned out or some band of champions defeated the embodied demon and hid the mask away again. (Because, naturally, it couldn’t be destroyed. Hey, champions, ever try burying it in concrete?)
Since shortly after Cortez’s arrival in the New World, the Byzantine Sisterhood had been the champions who appointed themselves to the task. A few days ago, some major screw-up had occurred (Luz glossed over that part), the mask had gone walkabout, and the Sisterhood had been scrambling to play catch-up ever since. Cordelia, too little and too late, had been the lucky beneficiary of their efforts.
Once she figured she’d got the essential scoop, Cordelia said, “Here’s a thought.” She held up the arm with the bracelet. “How about we get this thing off me, and then you and your ninjette sorority can deal with Big Ugly-Pants while I go back to lounging poolside?”
Luz shook her head. “Once the mal de ojo has been locked on the Slumberer’s chosen vessel, only death can remove it. Your situation is somewhat different, in that you wear it without the mask, but …” She stopped, frowned. “Your situation is different,” she repeated. “Hmm. Perhaps. Perhaps. Let us see.” She reached out to take hold of the bracelet, probing it with firm, cautious fingers. Cordelia held her breath … but then Luz sat back with a sigh. “No, it is sealed, as I first thought.” She frowned again. “Only —”
“What?” Cordelia insisted. “What now?”
Luz examined the bracelet again, this time leaning close to use eyes as well as touch, though how much detail she could make out by moonlight was a matter very much open to question. “This artifact is not the one we have known,” she finally announced.
“What?” Cordelia demanded. “What? God, you mean I’ve been marked by some other demon?”
“No, no.” Luz waved it away. “According to our histories, the mal de ojo was formed and consecrated to … to limit the Slumberer, to unfocus it, so that no longer would the mask alone be enough to impose possession. The effect of the sigils, and the invocations worked into them, are such that the mal de ojo now functions as both lock AND key.” She sighed. “If I must guess, I would say that the demon had a duplicate made and hidden during a previous incursion, to offer an alternative escape from captivity.”
“And Spike somehow got his sticky hands on Sleep King’s spare key.” Cordelia groaned. “Is there no limit to the pain in my life?”
“Spike?” Luz asked. “This is the creature my sisters occupied while I sped you away?”
“Huh? No, that was Boone.” (And had she maybe been better off with Boone than with this humorless holy warrior?) “Spike … he may not be as tough as Boone — maybe — but he’s about five times as nasty. I’ve even heard he killed two Slayers.”
“Ah.” Luz nodded. “The Bloody One, killer of the legendary Xin Rong. And you say he is part of this affair?”
“Oh, yeah.” Cordelia held up her arm. “He’s the one who stuck the Bangle From Hell on me, and hauled me out into the boonies. Of such joy is my life made.”
“Indeed. The Bloody One, the scarred giant, the Slumberer —” Luz regarded Cordelia doubtfully. “You seem to attract … extreme events.”
Cordelia huffed impatience. “Tell me about it!”
Since there apparently was to be no pre-emptive removal of the bracelet, Luz set to drilling Cordelia in the ritual that, once they were in the demon’s presence, would break its mystical hold on her and promptly return it to sleepy-bye. Far more involved than the background information Luz had provided, it paradoxically posed no difficulty for Cordelia. Time in the Library with Giles and Willow had inured her to ‘weird, gross, and insane’, and the elements themselves — timing, motions, proper chants — weren’t too much more complex than the cheer-routines she had done at football and basketball games.
“I had thought this would require more time,” Luz observed when Cordelia had repeated the “unloaded” form of the ritual four times without error. “Very well: you are properly prepared. Now we must go to where the Slumberer waits.”
Cordelia’s skirt had a belt: not really solid enough for martial service, but sufficient to secure the sheathed dagger when she tucked it in. “Yeah, straight into the demon’s lair, ’cause that’s absolutely where I’ve always wanted to hang out for fun.” Cordelia stopped, cocked her head to one side. “Wait — you’re saying you know where Big Creepy hangs his hat?”
Luz smiled, the first such expression Cordelia had seen on the woman. “No … but you do.”
* * *
More walking.
Back in Sunnydale — for that matter, anywhere in California — Cordelia would have long since called a halt, found a phone, and pulled Buffy and the rest of the gang in on this horrendous mess. Out in the Mexican countryside, however, she had no such recourse; and, as her companion had pointed out, trying to go away from peril didn’t work too well when the peril was locked around your wrist.
And pulling at you. Luz had been right: finding Slumber Putz was as simple as turning Cordelia loose and seeing which direction her poor, mangled feet would take her.
“We cannot stop,” Luz insisted. “We must press on.”
“I’m dying here,” Cordelia moaned, sinking to the ground. She pulled off her shoes and did her best to massage her abused insteps. “Have mercy, Iron Maiden. Have you ever tried to hike through the back of beyond in a pair of grossly mutilated Danicas? My agony is not for human words to describe.” She looked up at the other woman. “Besides, if my role in all this is so utterly vital, you don’t want me arriving for the showdown all crippled, do you?”
Luz shook her head. “You … have fought beside the Slayer, you say?”
“Not so much fighting as fashion consulting and social mentoring.” More massage, more pain, more stoic forbearance under torture. “Look, I know my life is on the line here, okay? I’ll do what I have to. But I’m the one here who didn’t go to Shadow Warrior boot camp, so you’ve got to cut me some slack.” She replaced her shoes, biting back a whimper, and stood again with a deep wince. “Lead on, Brunhilde. Oh, wait, it’s me who has to lead, isn’t it?”
“You do not travel well,” Luz observed flatly when they started off again. “I hope that, when we reach our destination, your fortitude proves to be of higher caliber.”
“Put me in the spotlight, and I’ll deliver the goods, don’t worry,” Cordelia assured her. (Yeah, I’ll take care of all the worrying here.) “As for us getting there, that works out so much better if my feet are still attached when we arrive.”
They moved through the moonlit night together: Luz silent, stolid, tireless, Cordelia none of the preceding. She had long since lost track of time, but not so much as to keep from marveling at how recently she had been totally crushed by boredom. Boy, what she’d pay now for a tall, cold glass of Bored …
What was Buffy doing, wherever she was right now? (Probably holed up in some dockside bar, blubbering in her beer. Okay, fine, you killed your one true love … but, newsflash, he was a vampire, and he was evil, and he really really wanted to torture you to death. Get over it and get on with your life.) Or Willow? (Nothing too thrill-seeking for the Shy Nerd. No doubt she was wowing the instructors out at Space Camp or something … unless she was one of the instructors.) Or Xander —?
Okay, don’t think about Xander.
God, she missed Xander.
Would this hellish night never end?
Luz broke through Cordelia’s reverie as they passed through yet another open area dotted by scrubby brush and started up yet another low hill. “I believe I may know our destination.” Cordelia paused, turning to look at her, and the other woman went on. “Close to here are the remnants of a Mixtec ceremonial center, not well known outside this area. That is where the course you have been following seems to lead us. If the Slumberer wished to seek a familiar place, this would be one such.”
“Seriously?” Cordelia said. “We’ve been headed for a lost city, and you didn’t think to mention that?”
“Not lost,” Luz corrected. “Simply not talked about. The local landowners know about it, but have no use for it and no desire to see their property overrun by archeologists. And not a city: some pyramids, covered in vegetation and difficult to recognize, and a ball court. The entirety stretches out over several acres, and you might not be able even to tell that you were in a place that had been man-made. Still, it is a location of some historical importance, and perhaps of power as well.”
“Uh-huh,” Cordelia said. “Look, they’re not set up for virgin sacrifices, are they? Because the whole virginity thing, a lot of that depends on how you interpret —”
“You may rest if you wish,” Luz went on, apparently without having noticed her companion’s interjection. “If we are so close as I believe, it is time that I prepare.”
Cordelia complied gratefully, but watched as Luz knelt, eyes closed and lips moving silently in some chant or prayer … and, yes, the woman crossed herself, so it must be prayer. At the end, Luz opened a pouch on her belt, dipped in two fingers, and used them to draw on her forehead (in some dark pigment or thick powder, and clearly by feel and familiarity) a stylized bird with upswept wings and an open, curved beak. At last, finished, she stood again.
“War paint?” Cordelia offered.
Luz shook her head. “All of us who choose this life assume a personal symbol when we enter active service. The red phoenix is mine.” She shrugged. “Our brother Knights affix theirs permanently, but they are … extreme. We in the Sisterhood prefer a method that allows us, as need arises, to intermingle with mundane society without attracting undue notice.”
“Right,” Cordelia answered. She pushed herself upright, resting her weight on tottery legs. “So, like I said, war paint.”
They went on. The tug from the bracelet became … not stronger, exactly, the compulsion was no more insistent, but it was more there somehow, real if not definable in terms of strict perception, like when people across the room weren’t even looking your way but you knew, from the tone of words you couldn’t make out, that they were talking about you.
Or, in this case, to you.
“I think we’re close,” Cordelia said to Luz. “I mean, really close.”
“Then, as I thought, it is to be the ancient ceremonial court.” Luz drew two short swords from shoulder-slung sheaths. “I will do what I can to protect you, but you know what you must —”
“Change of plans, ladies,” came the words, oh God that voice, and Spike stepped from the shadows beneath a stand of trees, smiling with lazy satisfaction. He now wore the long leather coat that had been described as his trademark gear, and if he had in fact been tossed off a cliff, he wasn’t showing any obvious damage from it. “You, now, luv, I appreciate you deliverin’ the morsel, but I’ll be takin’ over escort duty —”
Luz went at him in instant driving attack, twin swords flashing: focused, powerful, lethal, and futile. Cordelia had never seen Spike fight, but she’d watched a few times as Buffy slugged it out with Evil-Angel, so she knew what a vampire at that level — one capable of holding his own against a Slayer, and don’t forget, Spike had won two such confrontations — could bring to a fight. Spike moved ahead of each strike as if carrying his part in a familiar dance, sometimes fading outside the arc of a swing and sometimes slapping the naked blades aside with his own hands. He was enjoying himself, damn him! Then the dance ended, Spike lured Luz into overextending on a swing and glided inside her guard, catching both arms and twisting them violently out in opposite directions. Luz cried out, Cordelia heard the crack of bone, and the swords fell to the ground.
“No!” Cordelia blurted, horror-struck. She didn’t even like the woman, particularly, but this … and what she knew was coming next …
“Be right with you, luv,” Spike said to her, grinning out of demon-face. “Bit o’ strife warms the blood right up, so —” He took hold of Luz’s head, bent her neck, leaned in …
“No.”
It was the difference in her tone that stopped him, and he looked up. Cordelia held the dagger Luz had given her for the ritual. Held it in both hands, point turned toward her to rest between her breasts and angled slightly inward to the left. “No,” she said a third time. “Not this. You kill her, you lose me, too, I swear.”
Spike peered toward her. The distortion of a vampire’s real face made it difficult to read expressions, but Cordelia had the sense of wary plus intrigued. “Well, now,” he said slowly. “Offin’ yourself, that doesn’t really strike me as your style. And for a stranger? … Sorry, don’t buy it.You’re bluffin’ here.”
“You need me for something,” she said to him, stony-voiced. “And I won’t live through whatever it is, I know that much by your reputation. I can’t stop you, but I can hurt you … by this. If you think this is a bluff, then try and call it, you’ll find out fast enough.”
He continued to study her, and the grin came creeping back. “Shove a blade into your own heart? You don’t have the stones. You won’t do it.”
He was right: she wouldn’t. Killing herself, especially in such a direct and bloody and painful fashion … no, that just wasn’t in her.
She couldn’t do it — but, by God, she could sell it.
Cordelia steadied her hands on the hilt of the dagger, her eyes never leaving Spike’s, and let herself settle into the role. Her face sunk in sorrow (she didn’t want to die, she didn’t, but she would, to avenge an ally and to honor a sacred vow!), and her lips moved in one of the prayers her family’s housekeeper had sometimes recited to satisfy her curiosity: Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for me, a sinner, now and at the hour of my death. Finding the commitment, the resolution, the conviction.
She was there. She was set. She was the Martyr, ready to die for her beliefs. She let it settle into the core of herself, and then to Spike she said, “Your call, ass-wipe. Play or fold, it’s up to you.”
He continued to watch her, eyes steady. Luz was unmoving in the iron clutch of his hands, her eyes wide and face drawn in pain, but silent. Cordelia held her position, and her inward focus, making herself believe. The seconds stretched out —
“All right,” Spike said. He shifted his grip on Luz, stepped back from the woman, and snapped his fist in a short, brutal blow against her temple. Luz dropped bonelessly, and Spike turned again to Cordelia, his face melting back into the lying human mask. “So, she’ll live, ’less somethin’ else comes along to eat her.” He made an after-you-milady gesture. “I think you know the way, right?”
Cordelia didn’t move. “How can I know you’ll keep your word?” she asked.
He snorted at that. “Kept it to your Slayer, didn’t I? Blindsided Angel, carted Dru out o’ that nuthouse while Pint-Size threw down with the big ponce, an’ left the country straight bloody off, just like I promised.” His expression clouded. “Headed for Rio, we were lookin’ to munch down on some Carnaval dancers, till …”
“Till what?” Cordelia asked.
He looked to her, his face sealed. “You’ll see,” he said, and again gestured ahead.
They started off together, Cordelia still holding the dagger in place. After a minute, she said, “How did you find us?”
“Knew where you were comin’, didn’t I?” he scoffed. “ ’Sides, I could hear you bleatin’ about your feet a mile away. Dozy cow.”
“Why can’t you speak English?” she complained. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“Try ‘silly bitch’. Bet you’ve heard that one often enough.” He stopped, peering tensely through the darkness ahead. “Wait, what’s that?”
“What?” Cordelia stepped up next to him, trying to make out whatever had alerted him. “I don’t —” And just that quickly, he had caught her hands, pulled them out away from her body, and plucked the dagger from her grasp.
“There,” he said smugly. “Can’t let you go threatenin’ mischief with this little business, can we?” He inspected the dagger briefly, thrust it into the belt of his jeans. “Come ahead, then. Almost the end o’ the road for you.”
Crap, Cordelia thought. She didn’t try to hide her dismay; if he believed he had actually thwarted her, fine, that would help if she ever had to bluff him again (she should live so long!), but even aside from the suicide bluff, he had just forestalled the last remote possibility of her carrying out the ritual Luz had taught her. Besides, she hated to be outmaneuvered. Dominated. Minimized. She shook her head, set her mouth in a hard line, and continued to walk toward the call that still pulsed subtly through her.
Oh, yeah. Gonna die now. Is this fun, or what?
She had been right, they had been close, within ten minutes she began to see the light ahead. Whether or not Luz had been right about the ceremonial court, she couldn’t tell; as they came to the source of the light, Cordelia could see a cleared space, and some indistinct shapes that could have been overgrown pyramids or just low hills, but no further details could be made out. The light itself was the most interesting feature. Rather than the flaring torches that seemed to be de rigueur for the Sunnydale cheesy-villain crowd, someone had set up a pair of Coleman lanterns to illuminate the scene. And, revealed in the steady bright glow of the lamps —
When Luz had spoken of the Slumberer, Cordelia had formed a vague mental picture of some hulking bogeyman. She knew better, naturally — the mask was what mattered, the demon was contained in the mask — but still she had continued unconsciously to think of the mask on the big, shambling shape of her imagined demon. She had not expected the Slumberer to appear as a slender woman in a flowing red silk dress, of old-fashioned style but flamboyant cut and rich, vibrant hue. Dark hair fell to her shoulders behind the mask … and the mask itself (MesoAmerican Primitive, all elongated eyes and twisted mouth) seemed to be made of some mosaic of small stones.
“Here you are, then,” Spike announced as the two of them approached the masked woman. “Sunnydale prom princess, locked up ’n’ delivered as promised. So we’re square, right? You jump to her, an’ I take Dru an’ hare off to Rio. Right?”
Dru? Drusilla? Oh, hell. Spike was bad enough (more than), but back in the Library it had been repeatedly emphasized that Drusilla was crazy: not just evil, but unpredictable, with psychic forewarning thrown in as an additional wild card. Of course, if Drusilla was possessed by the mask, she wouldn’t be a separate player in this horrendous nightmare, but that was small comfort indeed …
“Do not seek to rush me, half-breed.” The voice that came through the mask was cold, deep, sepulchral. “This vessel is unsuitable, but we have been bound too firmly for over-hasty separation. I felt your undead seer through the ‘trinket’ you gave her as a gift, and called her to me, and found her wanting; you are fortunate that another such was to be found so close at hand, otherwise the process of transfer would be more lengthy, and — for your beloved — perhaps terminally taxing.”
Normally, in panic situations, Cordelia was all about the panic. Now, however, she found her mind unnaturally sharpened, fastening on each detail and leaping to understanding. So that was how the mask had ‘escaped’ this time: it had fastened on Drusilla somehow, and she had taken it out of whatever security the Sisterhood maintained. On the other hand, ‘another such’? Cordelia wasn’t a vampire, so that must mean …
“Uh, excuse me?” She raised her hand. “Not a seer, here. High school junior, senior in another month. Dramatic arts major.”
The cold eyes behind the mask turned on her, and her objection was flicked away with a sharp gesture. “You are a seer, or will be; on the wheel of time, the distinction does not signify. What matters is that you were there, I could feel you, and you are a suitable vessel.” A moment, and the next comment was almost sulky. “This one … resists.”
Oh. Right. Luz had said the mask possessed the wearer’s body and destroyed the soul; if the body held a consciousness not connected to a soul, no surprise if that made for a bad mix. “Look, I really think you’ve got the wrong girl here,” Cordelia protested. “You want a Child of Destiny, I know buckets of ’em, but me? I’m a social gladiator. Seriously —”
“Bind her,” the mask said to Spike, and on the instant the vampire had seized her and flung her to the ground, pulling her arms behind her back, oh God this was it, why hadn’t she simply refused to come to this dismal hellhole —
Cordelia could not have said what happened next; face-down, she couldn’t see, and the impact had driven her breath out so that she was still half-stunned. Suddenly, though, there was noise: lots of noise, lots of different types. Spike’s snarl and the thud of fists on flesh, an unidentifiable thwip-thwip-thwip, the crash of stone breaking, a scream of rage from the female-vamp-embodied Slumberer, and over it all Luz’s voice shouting, “Clara, Sancti, Paz, Quiana! Aquí, aquí!”
Cordelia rolled over, fought her way to her knees, looked around her with dazed eyes. The biggest and most attention-grabbing event in view was Spike, Spike slugging it out with Boone, panther against grizzly, quickness and sheer ferocity hurling itself against pure, massive, irresistible strength. To one side, the Slumberer was being attacked from all sides by the familiar swarm of ninja-ish women. Arrows feathered Drusilla’s body, but either the archers had missed Drusilla’s heart or the mask rendered it impervious to ordinary weapons, because the demon struck out with vampiric speed and viciousness (though not a lot of control, apparently it had been some time between bodies). Cordelia pushed upright, staggering, and Boone slammed Spike down onto a stone table with such force that the broad surface cracked and broke. Whip-quick, Spike was up again and launching himself straight back at Boone, this time abandoning fisticuffs and driving straight for the throat, tearing at the thick neck with the jagged teeth of the fully-revealed vampire. Something was spinning at Cordelia’s feet, she looked down, the dagger had been knocked from Spike’s belt and she snatched it up, little good it would do her against this bunch but at least she wasn’t completely defenseless now …
Luz, Cordelia saw Luz: one arm cradled in a rough sling, a short-sword in the other hand, still shouting orders to her sisters. The Slumberer saw her, too, and went for her. She tried to strike back and retreat at the same time, clearly she was far from full strength, she stumbled and went down backward and the demon was on her, batting away other members of the Sisterhood and reaching for its chosen target.
And Cordelia was striding forward. “Hey!” she shouted. “Hey, you! Jason-wannabe, Freak-Face, Slumber Putz, I’m talking to you!”
The battle actually paused for a moment as the various combatants stared at the shrieking lunatic who had just interjected herself into the proceedings. “Silence, vessel —” the possessed Drusilla began ominously.
“Cram it, Morning Breath!” Cordelia drew herself up wrathfully in front of the scarlet-gowned figure. “You and everybody else here have made this night a living hell for me, and as of this moment I am done. You want me? Here I am!”
And, in the moment while the demon was still too nonplussed to react, Cordelia drove the dagger into Drusilla’s body, striking straight to the heart.
The demon’s scream was mirror-echoed by Spike’s howl of fury and horror. Drusilla’s body went taut, practically vibrating in its utter total rigidity, and the mask was vibrating, or else those were waves of heat or light or force radiating out of it. The stones of the mosaic glowed a piercing, almost living turquoise blue, the mask fell from Drusilla’s face —
— and, as it struck the ground, Cordelia yanked the dagger from the body of the vampiress and drove the blade through one of the empty eye-holes, hammering on the hilt with the heel of her palm until the devil-mask was nailed to the rocky earth beneath it.
For just a moment, there was silence.
Drusilla had fallen, too, but now she stirred where she lay. “Spike?” she called plaintively. “Spike, I hurt so dreadfully, it’s all elderberries inside —”
And, “Nobody move!” Spike shouted. Cordelia looked, now he had Luz, again, and in a grating voice he went on. “Back away from her, alla you, or I’ll rip this ’un’s head off ’n’ use the rest o’ you lot for ninepins!”
Cordelia obediently scooted back; the Sisterhood, trading glances with one another, complied more slowly but just as readily. Boone simply stood where he was (nowhere near Drusilla), watching the tableau with a genial smile; dark blood ran from his neck, but he didn’t show any effect from it. Dragging Luz along with him, Spike moved over next to Drusilla, nudged her with his foot. “Hoy, pet, you mobile here? ’Cause I’d say now’s good to scarper for the next border over.”
She lurched upright with a gracelessness that somehow struck Cordelia as unlike her, face set in a grimace. “He left such a horrid taste in my brain,” she whimpered. “An unconscionable impertinence, I’m all squidgy.” Her gaze fell on Cordelia, and in a steadier voice she said to her, “You know how awful it feels to be possessed.”
“I so do not,” Cordelia answered firmly.
Drusilla’s eyes flicked away from her in instant dismissal. “You shall. Spike, I don’t like this place.” She began to pluck arrows from her torso, as absently as if they were burrs stuck to her dress. “Let us away, away, away, to where the centipedes shine and the sea-king dandles the night-worn maidens …”
She started for the tree line, still babbling nonsense; holding Luz with one arm under her chin and the other hand against the back of her head (neck-breaking posture, Cordelia realized), Spike retreated to keep up with Drusilla, still watching them. At the trees he said, “Go your way, an’ I’m well quit o’ this bloody rubbish. Try to follow, I’ll strew body parts up ’n’ down the coastline.” Then, sending Luz at them with a hard shove, he vanished after Drusilla into the darkness.
While Luz was being helped up by her sisters, Cordelia looked to Boone. “Let me guess,” she said. “After all that fuss back in the forest, you and these girls did the old enemies-team-up routine. Cliché much?”
His smile was as imperturbable as ever. “It was a refreshing diversion, but after some, eh, impassioned negotiations, we found we could agree toward a common set of goals.” He pointed to a spot in front of Cordelia. “I’ll take that, if you don’t mind.”
She looked down. At her feet was the bracelet that had started this massive horror-show, and a glance confirmed that her wrist was now bare. “Skewer the demon, demonic accessory drops off,” she murmured. “Really, how hard was that to figure out?” She bent to pick up the bracelet, tossed it to him. “Take it and good riddance. If you happen to see any live volcanoes, feel free to drop that little item right in there.”
He nodded to her. “Vaya con Dios, señorita.”
Cordelia sighed. “I keep telling everybody, I don’t speak Spanish.”
His smile broadened. “You should learn,” he said. “You have the temperament for it.” Then he turned away, and moments later he, too, was gone.
That left only the Sisterhood. When Cordelia looked around, Luz was there facing her, her sisters arrayed around her. (One of the ‘sisters’, Cordelia noted with weird detachment, was a Nordic blonde, while another had distinctly Eurasian features.) “You did not use the ritual,” Luz said … but her voice held no condemnation, more of a You’re wearing lilac nail polish today tone.
Cordelia shrugged. Every part of her ached, smarted, or throbbed, but she kept her own voice matter-of-fact. “Hey: you want to play the scene, you have to know how to ad-lib.”
Luz nodded. “I had serious doubts, but your fortitude was … adequate, for this trial.” She smiled. “You did well. We owe you much.”
“Damn straight,” Cordelia shot back. “And I’m presenting the bill, as of this very moment.”
The dark eyebrows went up. “You wish us to pay you?” Luz asked, as if the thought was amusing.
“No.” Cordelia pointed down at her ten-times-thrice-abused feet. “I want you all to carry me. Starting right now.”
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