Beautiful Sacrifice

and red, took their places at cardinal points around the reclining Chacmool. The stone face looked alive in the torchlight, with the faintest smile of satisfaction or amusement. Most of all, the face looked expectant.
    Carlos turned toward her. The long, exquisite feathers in his headdress quivered delicately with each breath of wind, yet they had been strong enough not to break during the walk from the temple to the cenote.
    Still looking at Lina, Carlos held his left hand out from his side. Immediately a bone scepter with obsidian blades set like rows of black teeth was brought to him, resting on a piece of jaguar skin. His hand clenched around the scepter until his flesh ran with blood.
    The expression on his face didn’t change.
    “It took me many years to understand the sacrifices Kawa’il required to make me worthy,” Carlos said. “The disappointments, the blood, even my manhood. But agony… that I learned to accept most of all. It is Kawa’il’s gift.”
    Lina watched in a combination of fascination and horror as Carlos lifted the rod high, so that everyone could see the glistening of fresh blood running down his arm. A sigh of agreement, almost release, went through the gathered crowd.
    Slowly, fist clenching to increase the blood flow, Carlos turned in a circle, showing everyone his willingness to give his own blood. Lina expected him to pull off his loincloth and reveal his bloody penis, too, but apparently that wasn’t part of the ceremony.
    She let out a breath of thanks for small favors. She had seen more than enough of her cousin’s body in the temple. His eyes were still wild with pain, his body still riding the high of agony.
    Carlos completed his circle and placed the sacred scepter back on the skin.
    “You may choose to put yourself upon the altar,” he said to Lina in English, “or my men will carry you respectfully and bind you in place.”
    Don’t want to bruise the sacrifice, she thought with bleak humor.
    But the sacrifice sure wanted to bruise them.
    “I choose not to be bound,” she said through her teeth. Can’t run if I’m tied to the damn altar.
    Carlos closed his eyes and tilted his head toward her in something very close to reverence. “You please Kawa’il greatly. You are worthy in every way.”
    Fire swept over Lina, a kind of anger she had never feltbefore. Thanks so much for complimenting me on being scared stupid. I can’t wait for the moment when I kick your useless balls into the new age.
    “To the altar,” Carlos said in English to Lina. “Go alone, that all may know your willingness. Lie down on your back, with your arms above your head and your feet touching Chacmool’s thighs.”
    Lina didn’t argue. The sooner she got Carlos close to the altar, the sooner she would have him within striking distance of her feet.
    I will escape.
    I have to.
    She took a step toward the grinning stone and climbed unaided into the Chacmool’s deadly embrace.
    Carlos sank to his knees. A group of men closed around him, hiding him. When they stepped back and he stood again, he was wearing the obsidian mask.
    It transformed him into something terrifying.
    From beneath his elaborately embroidered wrappings, Carlos withdrew what looked like a box. Lina realized she was looking at the Codex of Kawa’il. Blood from his cut hand seeped into the cover of the codex, adding to other dark stains. Carefully, reverently, he unfolded a panel and began to read.
    “The four Bacabs shall don the faces of the gods and their clothes so that the Four Corners shall hold for the sacred night.”
    “And the blood of the offering blood shall be primeval,” chanted the Bacabs.
    “The sacred copal smoke shall lift and the sacred light of Venus shall inhale it into the darkness.”
    “And the offering shall be a personage.”
    “The sky shall be manifest in incandescence and the earth shall tremble with the grinding of the Great Wheel’s final turn.”
    “And the offering shall be precious. ”
    “He who tends the ah mun, the green shoot of maize with its roots in the underworld and frail tassels reaching to the heavens—”
    “And the offering shall be prepared.”
    “He who planted the kernel—”
    “And the offering shall be pliant.”
    “He who kept the covenant—”
    “And the offering shall be at peace .”
    “He who received the sacred truths of the gods—”
    “And the offering shall be perfect.”
    “He shall wield the sacred black knife.”
    “And the offering