The other Serpents were too startled to respond instantly. Members of the hieratic caste just weren’t prone to using violence, and especially not with such brisk, brutal efficiency. By the time they had their l-guns out, Stuart and Vaughn had the drop on them. Their guns were charged up and ready; the Serpents’ weren’t even primed.
“Choice,” Stuart told them. “Try to stop us leaving, and die. Let us go, and live.”
To emphasise the point, he pressed the barrel of his l-gun to the nape of Captain Ueman’s neck, between his helmet and his tunic collar. Vaughn, meanwhile, covered the other Serpents with her gun.
“Rush them, men,” Ueman said. “Your lives don’t matter and neither does mine. These are the fugitives we were told to look out for. You outnumber them. They can kill two of you at most before you reach them. One of you, if they shoot me first.”
There was logic in this, to a Serpent Warrior. Ueman’s men primed their guns and trained them on Stuart and Vaughn. Vaughn swung her gun this way and that. “Who wants it? None of you, not really. So back the fuck off.” But the Serpents weren’t deterred. They began to move in, and Stuart began to beat a retreat towards the still opening gate. Vaughn went with him, continuing to warn the Serpents off.
They were at the threshold of the gate, inches from making good their getaway, when a half-dozen armoured figures dropped from the sky.
Stuart’s first thought was that it had begun. Quetzalcoatl and the rest of the gods were had launched their invasion.
Then he realised that these suits of armour, although similar to the ones the gods had worn, were squarer, sharper, sleeker in many respects. They lacked wings like the ones he had seen on Itzpapalotl and Huitzilopochtli. Instead, they had sets of fins along the forearms and calves to lend them control and stability in flight. They were emblazoned with a snake emblem on the torso, and the helmets were also snakelike, the faceplates protruding to a pointed, reptilian tip and featuring bulging, yellow-tinted eyes. All of the suits were uniformly bright green, the green of a mamba’s skin, except for one which bore additional flashes of gold along the arms and around the collar.
The armoured Serpent Warriors — it was the only thing they could be — landed in a semicircle. The new arrivals’ l-guns were throbbing with charge and, moreover, bigger than the ones the two fugitives were carrying.
One of them — the gold flashes marked him out as the senior officer — put a hand to his helmet. The faceplate vanished, exactly as Stuart had seen the doors at the gods’ underground lair do. Beneath lay the less than amiable features of Colonel Tlanextic.
“That’s as far as you go,” he said.
“Shit,” said Vaughn.
“Thought you might try and pull a stunt like this,” Tlanextic said. “Impersonating priests — that’s a bit of a low trick. But going for the gate, the most obvious exit route… Sensible, I suppose, but still so predictable.”
“I had my suspicions about them, sir,” said Captain Ueman. “Honestly I did. Something didn’t seem quite right. No tattoos, for one thing, but I thought maybe some of these foreign priests don’t go in for them.”
“No excuses, captain. You screwed this one like I screwed your mother last night. I’d discipline you on the spot, but under the circumstances we’re going to need every warm body we’ve got. So if you survive the shitstorm that’s coming, you’ll be executed afterwards. Understand?”
“Yes, sir. Absolutely, sir.”
“Up off your knees then, you useless little fuckstain. Take your unit and go to the bunkers and get armoured up like us. You” — to one of the Serpent guards — “shut that gate. And you” — to Stuart and Vaughn — “you come back this way, the pair of you, so we can get a clear shot. And, naturally, you’ll be putting down those l-guns. I can tell you for free, they won’t do you a gnat’s fart of good. Not against this stuff we’re wearing.”
Stuart decided to put that to the test and unleashed the charge from his l-gun. The bolt struck Tlanextic full on. He didn’t even stagger. The plasma slithered around the armour in a network of crackling ripples which dissipated to nothingness. Tlanextic guffawed. Stuart might as well have chucked a bucket of lukewarm water over him, for all the effect he’d had.
“Impact-dispersant outer layer,” the colonel said. “It can withstand just about anything that’s thrown at it. Don’t ask me how the fuck it works. Redistributes the force along microscopic substructures or some such, I’m told. It does work, that’s the main thing. Resists heat, kinetic momentum, everything. As you’ve seen. Again. The l-guns. Down.”
There was no alternative. Stuart laid his lightning gun on the ground. Vaughn reluctantly relinquished hers too.
“Good. Now, over there. Against the wall.” Tlanextic jerked his gun, and Stuart and Vaughn shuffled in the direction indicated.
The armoured Serpents lined up, firing-squad-fashion.
“Any last requests?” Tlanextic asked.
“Yeah. Go fuck yourself,” said Stuart.
Tlanextic shrugged, in as much as the restrictions of the armour allowed him to. “Who wouldn’t, if they could? What about you, missy?”
Vaughn stared daggers at him. “I’m going to kill you for what you did to Aaronson. I swear it. With my bare hands, if need be.”
“Maybe. In another world, another life. Is that it? All done now? Big-dick shows of bravado over? Men. Take aim.”
The l-guns came up to shoulder height. Stuart stared down a half-dozen barrels, each with a bore the diameter of a drainpipe.
“This is top fucking gear we’ve got here,” Tlanextic said. “The very best. Aztechnology the Great Speaker has been sitting on for centuries, keeping back for this moment. Finally we get to use it, and I’m the commanding officer!”
“Bully for you,” said Stuart.
“Just letting you know, you should feel honoured. I mean, these l-guns — you’re going to be their first official victims. One of them alone’ll reduce you to a skidmark. So many at once? You won’t even be cinders. You’ll be floating atoms.”
“Are you going to do this or what?” said Vaughn.
“Patience. Allow me to enjoy the anticipation.”
“Or is the idea to bore us to death first with your jabbering? Because if so, it’s working. I’m already halfway into a coma.”
“Oh, so brave, Inspector Vaughn.”
“ Chief Inspector, if you don’t mind.”
“Sorry, yes, of course. I forgot. So this is the famous British pluck that kept the Empire at bay for all those years, isn’t it? The never-say-die spirit. Standing tall even when it’s futile.”
“Seriously. I’m close to passing out. The world’s going grey.”
Stuart, in spite of everything, had to laugh. “Vaughn, if you only knew how sexy I’m finding you right now.”
“And you can put a sock in it and all,” she said.
“I mean it. I’m so turned on. If there weren’t all these men in tin-can suits pointing guns at us, I’d be moving in for a snog.”
“And you don’t think you’d be getting a knee in the nads in return?”
“Honestly? No.”
“Dream on, loser. Just because we’re about to die together, doesn’t mean we were destined to live together.”
“Who’s talking about living together? I value my independence. A grand affair, on the other hand…”
Vaughn made a disgusted face. “I’m feeling a little ill.”
“So am I,” said Tlanextic. “And puking in one of these suits is not advisable. Let’s put everyone the fuck out of their misery. On my mark. Three.”
Stuart braced himself. Oblivion. Obliteration. He was terrified, but resigned. At least there would be peace. He’d no longer be tortured by memories of the wife he had lost, the son he would never see again.
“Two.”
Sofia. Jake.
He felt a hand creep into his. It was damp and trembling. He grasped it firmly.