“The room without windows?” Hawke repeated. “What does that mean?”
The Texan got up and strolled across to the stone object in the corner, tracing his fingers around its rim with tender affection.
“Isn’t it magnificent? This is a genuine cuauhxicalli — an altar stone used by the ancients to safeguard the hearts of those lucky enough to be sacrificed to the gods. This one was discovered by me on one of my own explorations in the Lacandon Jungle. It is of particular importance to me because its motif is centred on eagles. It is my belief this stone was used during sacrifices to Huitzilopochtli, the god of war, sun and sacrifice.”
Wade stared at the stone unblinking, once again tracing his forefinger around its smooth outer edge as he stepped silently around it. Lost in another world, he circled the ancient object several times before stopping and glancing back up at them. “And this over here is of course part of the actual sacrifice stone, where the honoured victims would be held down while the priests opened their bodies and extracted their hearts.”
The aroma of the cigar smoke drifted over to Lea and she coughed in revulsion.
“Does it upset you?” Wade said sarcastically.
“Sure it does, you whack-job. You’re talking about tearing people’s hearts out. If that’s not barbaric I don’t know what is.”
“The modern world has made us weak. The Aztecs were warriors who weren’t frightened of submitting to the gods. Take the Great Temple at Tenochtitlán. When they held the inauguration of the Great Temple, the Aztec ruler Ahuizotl ordered the sacrifice of over four thousand people. It lasted for days… can you imagine being there to witness such magnificence? They say the blood ran like a river down the steps of the temple. Glorious.”
“Glorious?” Hawke said. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I’ve never told anyone this before,” Wade said solemnly, “but my mother was Mexican… a Nahua from Puebla. It is through her mother than I am directly descended from Aztec nobility.”
“Fascinating,” Hawke said.
“But it is fascinating! To be part of all this… The Aztec story of creation is one of rebirth. Everything about Aztec religious culture revolves around this concept. We sacrifice people in order to ensure rebirth and this is at the heart of the Five Suns legend.”
“You’re talking about the Aztec creation myth?” Hawke said.
“No,” Wade said sourly. “I’m talking about the Aztec creation story. It’s no myth. You must understand that Huitzilopochtli must be nourished every day with human blood. There is no other way to appease him, and if he is angered by a failure to give him this nourishment he will destroy us all.”
“You make me sick,” Lea said, her voice barely a whisper.
“The Jaguars destroyed the first sun, the hurricanes annihilated the second sun, fire from the sky took the third sun away and the fourth sun was extinguished by floodwater. The fifth sun shall be burned by an even fiercer sun and the people turned to ash…this is the Aztec Prophecy… a new world shall be born from the ashes of the old… the sixth sun shall devour the sky and a new dawn will rise over mankind and only then will the gods be sated.”
“You’re just as insane and barbaric as the Aztecs!”
“And you think you’re any better?” Wade sneered. “Let me tell you a story. I was raised on the wrong side of the tracks up in East Texas. Life was real tough for me and my mom… don’t ask about my dad because I never even knew the bastard. I worked harder than you can imagine escaping from poverty. When I was still no more than a kid I started up Wadesoft Systems.”
“Everyone in the world knows this,” Hawke said.
“Maybe. We specialized in very high-performance computing technology, both hardware and software. It was tough, but I made it. I was the original rags to riches story. I was worth three billion dollars before I was thirty, but then I lost everything in the crash… by 2012 it was all over. I was forced into a Chapter 11… totally bankrupt and my carcass was picked clean by all the other tech guys. Some of those assholes had been my friends, or so they said. Yet when the time was right they stripped everything I had left and acquired whatever assets they could get their filthy cheatin’ hands on.”
Lea scowled at him. “Shit happens, Wade. Get over it.”
“My dreams were crushed by what I call the American Nightmare. Now those bastards are gonna pay for humiliating me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“They took everything from me, and now I’ll take everything from them. It’s going to be beautiful. The ultimate human sacrifice to our suns…”
Hawke frowned with confusion. “What do you mean… Suns?”
Wade laughed out loud and slapped his knee. “When I say suns I mean suns, boy!” he repeated, looking at Hawke like he was an idiot. “Just how many suns do you think we have in our solar system?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“Last time I looked we had one sun, crackerjack,” Lea said, straining at the yachting rope binding her hands behind her back.
“Well ain’t that cute? Cute — but dead wrong, baby, because our solar system is binary. We have two suns. We might have only just worked it out, but the ancient Aztecs always knew this was the case. They were infinitely wiser than us — we’ve lost so much ancient knowledge now ’cause we’re always looking down into our little screens… The Aztecs described these two suns very clearly — the sun of the day — the young, fresh sun, and then there was the ancient, black sun. The Black Sun story is central to Mesoamerican Underworld mythology.”
“Sounds like you need a nice lie down,” Lea said.
If Wade heard her, he didn’t show it. “The Aztecs called them the Day Sun and the Black Sun, and yet today modern science would describe them as the Sun, or Sol to be more precise, and Gliese 229, a red dwarf around nineteen light years away. That is what makes our solar system a binary one. I know it’s hard for you to get your lil’ pinheads around it, but yeah, it’s true — we have two suns. The red dwarf is completely unobservable without modern, high-powered telescopes of course, which makes me ask the question: how did the Aztecs know of its existence?”
“Do enlighten us.”
“You’re too ignorant to understand.”
“Try me,” Lea said.
“I deal in dreams,” Wade said, drifting away again. “That is why I intend on reviving such a wonderful ancient cult…”
Hawke glanced at the clock. 11:58. “And I deal in reality, Wade. You and your men are nothing more than common terrorists.”
Wade chuckled as he looked at them. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? You tryin’ to threaten me, boy? Trussed up like a Christmas turkey?” He kicked Hawke in the stomach and roared with laughter as the Englishman doubled over, gasping for air.
“Anyway, it hardly matters now. It’s all over. The bastards who gutted me are about to find out what happens when you screw with the ancient gods. Long before your unwanted presence arrived at my plantation, my little Hummingbird flew up into the sky. She’s long gone now, and can’t be stopped. It’s over… a done deal.”
“If your little hummingbird means the bomb, we know all about it.”
Wade looked at Lea sharply. “You know squat.”
“I know you’re a maniac with a cult who wants to sacrifice people to ancient gods, and that’s not crazy at all. Did I miss anything out?”
“You know nothing about me, you little bitch.”
“Hey!” Hawke shouted. “Watch your mouth.”
“Or what, Limey?”
“You’ll find out, Tex.”