Beautiful Sacrifice

obvious that she knew less than Lina did about what was happening.
    “I thought your reluctance to come to me,” Carlos said, “to learn, meant Kawa’il was angry with me because I didn’t have the proper tools to communicate with him through ceremony and ritual. But when I tried to send the sacred artifacts to myself in Houston, they were seized at the border. Soon after, the place of worship that I had built for Kawa’il was desecrated by ignorant American police.”
    Lina wanted to scream at Carlos to shut up, that she didn’t want to know just how crazy he was.
    Hunter touched her back lightly, reminding her that Carlos’s words weren’t the only reality in the room.
    “I took my most holy objects and went to a new place, a place already dedicated to death,” Carlos said. “There I sought Kawa’il in blood and smoke, but the tools I used to cut, to bleed, to worship, were inferior. Yet by Kawa’il’s grace it was enough. His sacred objects came back to me. They were beautiful, powerful. I gave glad sacrifice to my generous god and came home to Quintana Roo.”
    That’s one way of looking at it, Hunter thought sardonically. My view of reality is different. Snakeman twists LeRoy to steal the artifacts from ICE’s evidence warehouse, good old LeRoy loses his heart to Kawa’il, and Carlos beats feet back to Mexico. Nothing holy about it.
    “But still you didn’t come to me,” Carlos said to Lina. “Still Kawa’il tested me.”
    Air moved like a dry river through the open window. Without looking away from her, Carlos coughed and held out one hand. Water Bat gave him a glass of cold water with translucent green lime slices floating beneath ice. The wind swelled again, bringing the smell of lightning and the malaise of a storm that would not break.
    “You’re thirsty,” Hunter said very softly in English to Lina. “Hold out your hand for a drink.”
    Before he finished, she was asking for water. Apparently the same thought had occurred to her—a broken glass could be a weapon.
    Two Shark brought Lina a glass of liquid. He and Water Bat withdrew, watching everyone in the room equally.
    Despite the dryness in her throat, Lina’s stomach knotted at the thought of swallowing anything, even water. She sipped anyway. The liquid coolness and the fragrant kiss of lime made her feel better. When she took another small drink, Carlos began talking again.
    “When my men failed to bring you to Quintana Roo, I knew that somehow I had continued to displease Kawa’il.” Carlos swallowed water, sucked on a stray piece of ice, and watched Lina with leashed anticipation, waiting for her to understand.
    She fought for control by counting the tiny beads of condensation that formed on the outside of her crystal glass. The taste of lime went metallic in her mouth.
    “I came here, to Tulum, to Kawa’il’s land, his people,” Carlos said when Lina stayed silent. “I studied the twenty panels of Kawa’il’s instructions.”
    “The codex,” Lina said despite herself. “ You have it.”
    Carlos kept talking. “I realized I must have misinterpreted one of the panels. I sacrificed my blood until I knew the ecstasy within the soul of agony. Each time I used the sacred stingray spine, pulled the knotted twine, breathed the sacred copal smoke, I came closer to knowing Kawa’il. With his wisdom, his guidance, I learned until the god found me worthy.” Ice crunched between strong teeth. “Kawa’il brought you to me. Who am I to refuse the gift of Death himself?”
    For Lina, reality narrowed to the jagged chunk of limestone sitting on the coffee table. The stone’s edges looked chewed, signature of having been chain-sawed off its anchor wall in some unknown ruin. The stone face with its empty eyes stared at the world serenely, eyes relaxed and easy, mouth open, with just the hint of a broad tongue touching the lower lip.
    No one had taken a piece of the fruit heaped like flowers around the limestone face that ruled the coffee table.
    She watched the stone, half expecting it to comment on what was happening in the room. That would be no less crazy than Carlos, calmly waiting, standing on a small rug that looked like a pool of turquoise water lapping around his feet.
    Bare. His feet were bare. Strong. Clean. His toenails gleamed from a recent pedicure.
    Lina swallowed laughter she was afraid to release. She knew there would be no end to it until she was as mad as her cousin.
    The warmth of Hunter’s hand