The Sacrifice Game

(103)

So, Jed asked from down in the bottom right side of my head, when did you know you wanted to come back to our little old twelfth b’aktun?

I knew before the sacrifice, I answered. Before you squealed out English on the mul.

I wasn’t hard to fool, was I?

No.

Are you my other?

No.

What did you see on 4 Ahau?

I’m not going to tell you.

I need to know.

Everybody always wants to know what’s going to happen, I thought back.

I just want to know, he kept saying, like a dying cricket in my head. I want to know whether this is it for everything or what.

I’m not going to tell you, I thought.

I could feel him squirm, but there was nothing he could do.

Manac zub, I thought. Come on. I need to get a grip on this time. Think. Think. And who is the steward of our captors?

Probably just Grgur.

The only reason you got back at all was that 2 Jeweled Skull let you.

When, you mean, when he told me -

When you said “Play ball s ” instead of “Play ball,” that’s when 2JS knew I was inside you, that I was going to take over. That’s a phrase that only I use.

No way.

Yes. He saw what was going to happen and that’s why he told you where the nacom was. You know how tough he was, he wouldn’t have done it for any other reason.

What about my whole life? Jed asked. Did you set up the date of my birth, and the fact that I was going to come back? Did you guys set up everything?

You’d have to ask One Ocelot’s daughter about that, I thought.

Jed just floated for a few scores of beats. I thought he’d drowned, but he came back.

I still want us to leave Marena alone, he thought. I don’t care what she did.

She’ll make a prestigious captive, I thought.

I won’t let you do it, Jed thought. Let the girl go. We have a let-the-girl-go clause.

I felt muscles tightening up and down my body, Jed trying to fire my motor nerves, but he just shivered like he was pushing hard against a wall. You’re pathetic, I thought. Give it up.

He tried to make me exhale and hold it, maybe choke and die, but I just drew in a slow stream of air until it filled my torso basin.

You’re helpless, I thought. Betrayal’s a strange thing. I’ve been there. I know.

I won’t, I’ll get back up again -

Now fall you still, I thought, now little cousin, seize:

Unique point of the lancet, penis tip,

Now starts the bleeding, now you be aspersed.

Shame wind swept over Jed. The nerves released. I felt my penis inflate.

He eats, he licks the white blood, snake-clot blood,

On the wooden haft, the stone haft, here it strengthens.

Automatically, Jed went into the begging formula:

“Accepted, singular ahau, I froth

The beaten mouth broth: here I take the shoots,

Four are his forces, four doors to his arbor,

O 4 Ahau alone, unique ahau.”

And, with that, Jed was officially my captive. All nine of his-well, around here and now, they call them “souls”-were my thralls. Forever.