Zen and the Art of Ritualistic Bloodletting
It was the downtime that was the hardest.
Tony did not want to stop moving. He did not want to come back to this place, to regroup and recharge. He wanted to destroy the next point, and the one after that. He wanted to bash his way into that eight-pointed inner seal and start taking those out as well. He wanted to free his trapped brothers and sisters and punch the fake Ursula LaRoi in the face and kick her father in his undead vampire balls.
He sat down in the corner and closed his eyes, forcing himself to calm down. He took the blood-red eagle's feather from around his neck and rolled it soothingly between his hands. Adrenaline never left him easily; it could take mere moments to fire him up in a fight and hours to cool down afterward. This ritual had become for him a sort of meditation, a way to let go of the blinding fury, to diffuse that heat when there was no other outlet.
The chant started as a low hum emanating from deep in his throat, and worked its way to equally low syllables, meaningless in and of themselves. As he chanted, he opened his eyes and watched as the shaft of the feather in his hands became an obsidian blade, a slice of midnight true enough to mar a child of the Sun. With an almost serene savagery he plunged the blade into his right arm just above the elbow, drew it down in a slow arc across his forearm. The pain was releasing, and as the blood welled he dragged the feather through it, quenching its thirst and his own at the same time.
He closed his eyes again, still chanting, as his mind traveled back to the events of the day, finally able to look from a much cooler perspective. It wasn't a matter of them not holding any cards anymore. Far from it, in fact -- with the new information they'd gotten from Ariel and Tezcatlipoca, the problem now was they had more cards than they knew what to do with. The two seals. The Centzon Huitznauhtin. Seshat's armband and amulet. The handful of his sibling Scions -- they couldn't be the last, could they? -- about to be used as the next round of sacrifices, if they hadn't been already.
The fact that the inner seal was already complete, and Huitzilopochtli already trapped inside.
Evan didn't want to split up the group, but this shit was urgent and they were running out of time. Tony turned the feather-blade in his hand and drew a second arc down the other side of his arm, mirror-image to the first. He mopped the blood with the feather again; it seemed to drink in a great deal more than such a thing should. If they weren't going to divide their forces, then they had to pick the most important target and hit it as hard as they could.
That inner seal, that was what they needed to concentrate on. If they could take out even just one of the eight points, then none of the rest would matter. But if that seal was already active, they were sure to be guarded a hell of a lot better than the inactive ones they'd destroyed thus far. Probably by the Centzon Huitznauhtin -- only one if they were lucky, and the enemy was very stupid. And here, Tony was at a loss. They had gone up against one of those monsters and barely been able to touch it, much less defeat it. All of their combined strength, and they might as well have been flies buzzing around its head.
Tony's teeth clenched as he remembered his own inadequacy. He took a deep breath and a moment to resume his numbing, monotone chant. After another moment he drew the blood-laden feather in a "T" across his forehead and down the bridge of his nose, painting his own seal to keep the blood still in his veins from boiling over.
The fact was, the Centzon Huitznauhtin had been defeated, once -- all four hundred of them -- by his own father. Huitzilopochtli had vanquished them all when they were just the Southerners, and had thrown their corpses up into the sky where they became the stars. With his reed shield, serpent torch, and spears tipped with eagle's down. If they could somehow manage to get their hands on such godly relics.... If the enemy already had his father, then they surely must have his tools and weapons, too. Going after them would be a fool's task.
He did it by being a God, dumbass.
Tony licked blood as it dripped down his face, savoring its sweet, sharply metallic taste. So they were minor godlings in a war much bigger than them -- they didn't have to defeat all four hundred, just however many were guarding that one point. The rest would all be taken care of as Huitzilopochtli freed himself.... Tony hoped. Power backlash and all that shit he could only guess at. Who knew what would actually happen? If the Hummingbird of the Left had lost enough of his power to be sealed in the first place, he might not have the strength to escape at all. The whole damn thing might backfire and do the work of the second seal on its own, killing or corrupting whatever's left inside it. There was no way to tell.
Why had this fallen to them, anyway? The fate of the universe, left in the hands of children. Aside from Tezcatlipoca, none of the Atzlánti had lifted a finger, and even the Lord of the Smoking Mirror had only acted because he was next on the chopping block. Where were the rest of them? Where were the other Pantheons, for that matter? If the shit went down successfully here in Austin, it would go down everywhere else right quick, of that there could be no mistake.
Tony's blood burned with a radiant, encouraging heat, the inexorable warrior in him rising up to meet such impossible odds head-on. Whatever the reason, it was up to them. Five Scions against the end of the world.
Bring it, bitches.