Prophecy of the Undead (21 page)

The body, aged for so long, didn’t take long to be consumed entirely. Once there was nothing left but ashes and bones, Apolinar led Casimiro and Yuri in looking for large boulders. They brought stones over to the ashes and smashed what was left of the bones into pieces. Then Casimiro found unburned rags. They swept the ashes and bone fragments into piles and wrapped them in the rags.

César shook himself and moved while they collected the ashes so he helped with that part of the ritual. They each took a bundle and wearily made their way up and out of the tomb, through the temple, then out into the fresh, humid night air. The moon was no longer plagued by clouds. By its new position they knew it was very near to morning.

“We need to dump these into the sea to be sure he can never return,” Apolinar said gravely. “I don’t think that either César or Keisha has the strength to fly that far before daylight.”

“César can lead the way back to his home and I will get Keisha there safely. Will you have enough time?” Yuri looked from one to the other.

Nodding at each other, Apolinar and Casimiro took the bundles from Yuri and César. They shot up into the night.

Yuri waved for César to lead the way, and grabbed Keisha’s hand to help her to focus on her new skill. They flew slowly back to the estate. Once there they were greeted by servants eager to donate blood to their exhausted master and his guests before they retired for the day.

As she began to lose consciousness, Keisha asked, “Will he be able to haunt me from the grave?”

Yuri shook his head. “I don’t think so. Apolinar seemed quite certain that as long as we followed through on all of his directions, the details would ensure he is truly gone. He was beheaded, burned, crushed, and then dispersed into the sea. I think he’s gone now.”

Keisha yawned. “Do you think they will make it back before light?”

Yuri shrugged. “Possibly. If need be, they are eminently capable of finding a dark place to spend the day. One can rest while the other watches...they are both old enough to do that.”

“I hope this is the last time you will have to save my li...” Keisha was out.

Yuri pulled her closer into his arms and sighed deeply.

“I hope so too but I’m afraid this isn’t the end of our troubles. Hopefully we have a break until 2021.”

He closed his eyes and eased into the blackness of sleep.

Chapter Twenty

The next night Keisha woke up to find that Yuri was gone. She saw a note next to the bed:

Keisha my love,

I’m upstairs talking with César.

We are waiting for Apolinar and Casimiro to return.

Join us when you awaken.

She found clean clothing in the closet, marveling at the bright colors of the dresses, skirts, and blouses in there. She hummed to herself as she enjoyed the feel of the hot spray of water on her body as she showered. She dressed herself in bright oranges and yellows, and then smiled at her reflection in the mirror.

Look at you, girl! Hounded out of a job, hunted by madmen, shot and left to die, resurrected by a vampire who is over a hundred years old, taught how to mind-fuck people for their blood which somehow isn’t gross to me anymore, taught to fly, haunted by a five-thousand-year-old Mayan mummy vampire who enjoyed making me a prisoner in my own mind. And yet the madmen and the Mayan mummy are dead and I’m still here, thanks to a vampire who loves me, and his friends. And I look damn good in these colors—if I must say so myself.

Keisha stuck her tongue out at her reflection. Then she made her way up in the elevator to join the men in the sitting room.

* * * *

She found Yuri talking animatedly with Apolinar and Casimiro. César was telling a servant to bring them more blood. When Yuri saw her he jumped up, but since Apolinar was closer to her, he rose up to hug her first.

“Most beautiful and wonderful Keisha. How do you feel this evening?”

She blushed as his effusive comments, smiling as she replied, “Great. I had a good day’s sleep in a comfortable bed, and a long hot shower. Then I found these gorgeous clothes...”

César rejoined them so she spoke to him, “It’s alright that I’m wearing this, right? My clothing from last night was covered in dirt and blood.”

“Of course.
Mi casa es su casa
...these are not just words, and they include what is in it. Those clothes have been worn by other women before you but never have they looked as lovely as they do right now. With your beautiful brown skin you must continue to choose oranges and yellows. They highlight your light brown hair and your unusual green eyes.” He smiled. “In fact, the flowers hide their faces with embarrassment now that your color and beauty have put them to shame.”

Casimiro grinned as he rose also, He gave Keisha a quick embrace, saying in a low voice, “It’s their way, Keisha. Hispanic men can’t use enough superlatives when they find something pleasing. I think you look nice and I’m glad you feel well tonight.”

Yuri cleared his throat. “Ahem. I don’t mind being last in line but isn’t it my turn to hug Keisha?”

There was a chuckle of low male laughter that echoed around the room as Yuri took Keisha in a passionate embrace. He kissed her hard on the mouth and whispering in her ear, “My body responds to you. I have to hold you for a minute or two until I can get it under better control.”

Keisha giggled as his erection twitched against her thigh. She made a big deal out of returning his kiss before she turned to the face the other men. She walked in front of Yuri and pulled him behind her, his groin hidden by her voluminous skirts. They sat down together on the loveseat.

César poured blood into five glasses which he now passed to each one of them. Following his lead, they all raised them into the air in a toast.

“To good friends, who in requesting favors, return favors.”

Apolinar raised an eyebrow, but they all drank to the toast. Apolinar leaned forward to ask, “How so,
amigo
?”

César grinned broadly. “If I had known you planned to destroy the Mayan, instead of inviting him to visit us again, I’d have brought an army with us...or at least not been so hesitant to lead you to him.”

“Oh, that. I had no idea that it was possible to kill him; but then, I hadn’t seen him for over five-hundred years. He was not quite so mummy-like the last time I saw him. He still regularly drank blood and while looking inhuman, he didn’t look so dried-up and dead. Since I had no idea that my plan would work, sharing it with someone who so recently shared blood with him didn’t seem like a good idea. I didn’t want him to read your mind. I hoped to confuse him with how out-of-touch he was with humanity today.”

“How were you able to stand up to speak to him when you’ve shared blood with him?” Yuri leaned forward. “I’ve never even met him before yet he was able to keep me on my knees. How did he control me and not you?”

“Ah, I told him the answer...but that was when you snuck over to the knives so you must not have heard. His power depended on fear and I no longer feared him or what he could do to me. I take my power now from the love I share with my beloved.” He smiled at Casimiro, who tilted his glass to his lover and smiled back.

“I drew all of my considerable power and used the inner resources of my love to save the man I love.”

“He said he was going to let you both participate in the ceremony...he wasn’t going to kill you,” Yuri said.

“No, you are right. We would have been part of the ceremony. Then we would have made blood sacrifices to the gods. I have done that too many times: with obsidian blades, with ropes filled with thorns, and using them on various sensitive body parts including my tongue and penis. While nothing that could kill us, it would never-the-less be extremely painful and unpleasant...”

César nodded vigorously. “Like I said, a split-open penis can heal but it hurts like hell and takes forever be whole enough for you to feel like a man again.”

Yuri and Casimiro both winced, sharing his painful memories.

“How did you know how to confuse him?” Keisha asked.

Apolinar smiled and bowed to her.

“Ah, lovely and most intelligent Keisha, I think that part is from you.”

She wrinkled her brow in confusion. “How? I wasn’t even able to keep myself from mumbling Mayan words I don’t understand.”

Casimiro nodded as comprehension dawned on him. “I see now. I wondered how you were able to be so uncharacteristically analytical and realize he was afraid of being irrelevant. Thinking so practically is not one of your strong suits...at least not until now.”

Apolinar smiled. “Guilty. I have always been slow to absorb new information. After all, I was born to a poor family and never even taught to read. I was an uneducated cabin boy when Xaman Ek changed me for his own uses. He taught me only what I needed to know to worship his gods, which I did by his side for two hundred years. Then when he said he was tired and needed to retire below the ground to rest and build his strength for the long wait for his gods to return, I headed for the New World through Mexico. The USA is a fabulous place, full of new and exciting ideas. I taught myself to read and absorbed all that I could, but my abilities were limited by my early ignorance. I have never been one to plan ahead of time or think clearly enough to analyze anything. When I shared blood with you my dear…” He blew a kiss to Keisha. “I got more from you than I originally realized. Perhaps more than you got from me.”

Keisha shook her head. “No, I learned how to accept love and to give it. I closed myself off for so many years to focus on my research. I lost touch with my own humanity. How ironic that it took the blood of a vampire to make me more human.”

César leaned forward. “How did you know what to say to get to him?”

Apolinar smiled at Yuri. “Remember when I told you that I didn’t remember meeting you? That at my age some memories need to be discarded in order to have the room to create new ones?”

Yuri nodded. “How much more so must that be for someone who was ten times your age?”

“Exactly. I’m over seven-hundred years old and I find huge holes in my memory—times I can’t remember what happened, nor do I care. I have my beloved to keep me in the here and now. Every second we spend together burns indelibly in my mind. Unimportant things are easily forgotten.

“I realized that with over five-thousand years of memories, there would be many more holes in his memory. Even he must have realized from listening to the goings-on of the mortals above him, that they far surpassed his limited intelligence. Their grasp of concepts involving the physical world and their attempts to understand the cosmos would be totally beyond his comprehension. He knew only what the gods told him and that he should await their return. The many years he spent underground told me that even he realized he was tired of being alive.”

“So, you knew the way to get him to fear your words was to convince him that he would be of no use to his gods when they return? That he failed and his long years of tortured life were wasted?”

Apolinar nodded at Keisha. “Yes. Fortunately it worked long enough for him to forget to concentrate his mind-power on keeping us all immobile. César did what he was expected to because of his recent blood-ties, as did Keisha, whom he literally scared out of her own mind again. In defying him by standing, Casimiro and I proved to him that his power held no sway over us. As I hoped, he forgot entirely about Yuri.”

Casimiro asked, “Who is Ixtab, the goddess you implied he should worship?”

“The goddess of suicide. If his gods were displeased with him, they would expect him to rectify that by killing himself in their honor. That probably occurred to him many times over the centuries. Hearing it said to him was frightening.”

Yuri frowned. “What scared him about the lowlands?”

“After the gods bade him and others to share the blood, they cautioned them against turning everyone into what we are, lest there be no one left to feed on. He told me the story to warn me, just before he left me to sleep underground. He said that in the south lowlands the people didn’t heed the words of their rulers, who perhaps weren’t strong enough to control them. They fed off of each other with no regard for keeping some mortal. They shared the blood with everyone, until all that was left to feed from were the animals of the fields. Our spores can exist on animal blood but they don’t get as much nourishment from it. It weakens the host. Eventually their entire culture collapsed.”

Keisha leaned forward. “Of course. When I was doing my research I read that a new theory suggests that it was a drought that must have destroyed that culture. Currently anthropologists are examining evidence and trying to figure out what caused their downfall. How funny is it that we know the answer, yet we can’t tell anyone?”

Yuri added dryly, “They wouldn’t believe us if we did.”

“How many other things don’t they believe? In my research I found legends of space ships which came from the stars, and introduced the Mayans to the concept of the Earth as a globe. No one who hadn’t seen it from outer space could possibly realize that back then. They also taught them the concept of zero, which even the Romans hadn’t mastered yet at that point. They had astronomical knowledge that is on display at the huge pyramid at Uxmal, the Governor’s Palace. The nunnery quadrant is decorated with symbols indicating astronomical correlations that today’s scientists are still trying to understand. Despite all of this proof, today’s people are still resistant to the idea of ancient space aliens who influenced the Mayan culture. So, only the gullible and the hucksters are talking about the end of the thirteenth Baktun as significant.”