Her blood addiction.
That dark stain on her soul refused to be washed away.
Lucero was in her astral form, much like her physical body. Naked skin covered with runic scars, shaved head. Once beautiful, now hideous.
She stopped pacing at the center of the blood-blackened earth. It was a tiny island of silence amid a sea of song. Beautiful music on an arching outcropping of stone.
The ground under Lucero's scarred feet was soaked with sticky, thick fluid that drenched her skin up to her ankles. Everything around her held the iron stench of the freshly dead.
A smooth, lifeless hand touched her leg with an almost erotic sensation, and she shuddered as she looked down at the grinning wound beneath the dead girl's throat. So young, thought Lucero. So much life unlived.
Lucero was drawn by a dark fascination. She knelt by the young girl and touched her fingers to the gaping wound, which still pulsed with the last quaver of life. This was the freshest victim, and her body radiated heat.
Lucero watched in detached, morbid fascination as her own fingers touched inside the viscous slash on the girl's neck. She felt slick warmth, and drew her hand back almost against her will, her fingers rising to her lips. Fingers covered in what was left of the child's blood.
A thrill of ecstasy shimmered through her as she smelled the iron tang, as she felt the dwindling life energy in the child's blood. Lucero could resist no longer and she plunged her fingers into her mouth, sucking greedily at the metal-tasting liquid that covered them. A hunger consumed her, and she found her fingers dipping again into the wound, found herself licking desperately at the blood that spilled down her hand.
As if in response, the music outside the small, dark shell rose to a crescendo so beautiful, so painful that Lucero stopped herself so that she could listen. The song spoke to her like the voice of goodness, revealing the horror of what she had been doing. It choked the hunger out of her.
Lucero stood, quickly, not risking a look down at the scatter of dead bodies that stretched around her. She was not alone in the circle of the dead. Senor Oscuro, her master, was with her, working feverishly. His blood-drenched blade flashed across throat after throat as the sweat streamed down his forehead and cheeks to drip into his dark beard.
Power radiated from his black eyes. His raven hair reflected the red glow of the blood power he drew from the victims he summoned from the physical world. Transporting them here by magic before making a sacrifice of their life energy.
Lucero watched as Oscuro approached and pulled the young girl's body up by the feet. He dragged her to the furthest edge of the circle, positioning the girl's head so that the blind, lifeless eyes looked outward, guarding the perimeter.
Lucero stood, numb. In her heart, she longed for the searing beautiful pain of the music. The purity that let her forget about the dark blotch on her soul, the cancer of her addiction.
Oscuro returned to the center of the circle, and called to her. "Lucero?" His soft voice seemed to ooze over her flesh, making it crawl. Yet part of her was comforted by the sheer evil she felt there. Hearing his voice made her corrupted soul feel more at ease.
She stepped forward, until she could smell the stench of blood and sweat that poured off the bearded man. "Yes, Master," Lucero said, with head bowed.
He touched a blood-smeared hand to her cheek. The feeling brought revulsion, even as the smell of the blood woke her hunger again, tearing at her mind, her sanity. "I must return to the physical world now," he said, tracing blood along both her cheeks, then her forehead, and lastly to her lips.
He seemed to be tempting her deliberately. She strained not to open her mouth, to lap at the fluid that stained his fingertips. "Yes, Master," she whispered, and slowly licked her bottom lip.
"The Gestalt has weakened to the point of collapse. The Locus is only partially active and it can only help them sustain me in this metaplanar location for so long. Now is the time for the test. I believe that I have done enough of the work to keep you here, but you must concentrate. You must keep the link open."
Lucero nodded.
"Be strong, child. Our work is nearly complete. Soon we will have reached the tip of the outcropping. And when we do, we will feel the power of the tzitzitmine. They will help us finish the bridge and bring our allies across." His voice grew forceful. "Ah, that will be a glorious day. Our allies from across the Chasm will help us rule the world."
With that, he vanished. Traveling back to the physical world.
Lucero longed to be with him. Her master. She knew where he went in the physical world. He would appear in his body, high inside the step-pyramid teocalli in San Marcos. The temple's rock surface would be radiating warmth from the day's heat. The night hanging still and hot.
In Lucero's memory, the old amusement park tower stabbed up into the sky directly across from the teocalli, like a stiletto dipped in black blood. And below that was the spring-fed lake; it glowed a blue-green from the submerged floodlights. In the center of the lights was the Locus, a sharply chiseled stone of obsidian black.
Power emanated from the Locus. Even partially active, its force was palpable and crisp.
Lucero longed to tap into the stone's strength. An untainted magic that brought her hope that she might wield the mana again. That she might be as she once was, a manipulator of life energy. A mage.
If only I had another chance, she thought. / would not accept the taint. The addiction to blood magic. The desperate need that stains my soul.
Now, in the metaplanes, anchored on the bloody cracked rock in the middle of a black circle of corpses, Lucero collapsed. She stumbled and fell, landing on the first ring of bodies, her cheek resting on the childish breasts of an older girl. Her mouth just centimeters from a drying dollop of blood that rested on the girl's collarbone.
The music came again, roaring over the darkness. It punished her as it pleased her, its white heat purging all thoughts of evil from her mind. Oh, great spirits, she thought. If only it could go on forever.
The light cast garish shadows among the dead, its flickering making the young bodies seem to sway and dance in time to the music. To Lucero the shadows meant the piecemeal destruction of the light and the music-something so perfect, so painfully beautiful that she felt unworthy to be in its presence.
It's my fault, she cried silently. I've done this to you through my blood lust. Without me, you would be safe, whole.
Tears ran down her face. She cursed the darkness in her, and for the first time in her life, she prayed to something other than Quetzalcoatl, the great feathered one. She prayed now to the light. She prayed for it to kill her before Oscuro could use her to create more destruction.
Something happened in that moment. The pain of the song diminished, though the song itself grew louder. Her breathing eased. She gazed about in wonder. The dead were even more revolting than they had been a moment before, but the light… the light was glorious.
Her mind and heart rang with the beauty of it. It was still painful, but the pain had lessened to the point where she could think of other things besides her own delicious torment. She looked inwardly, and saw what she already knew to be true. The dark spot of her addiction was still there, perhaps it always would be, but it was different now.
The song was cleansing her soul. Turning her black heart to gray.
5
"Dhin," Ryan called to the far end of the alley. "Home the drone. Everything's chill."
Ryan watched as the sunlight flashed off the drone's carapace. The thing looked like a huge beetle, buzzing in the dirty air. Dhin guided it smoothly into a compartment in the trunk.
"Uh, Mercury?" The voice was deep southern molasses now. "You mind if I put my hands down? I'm not getting any younger, and I think all the blood is rushing to my heart. Be a tragedy if I keeled over before we had a chance to catch up."