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“So then isn’t it just…notAztec?”
“The handle has Quetzalcóatl on it,” he replied.
I took the phone back and looked at it again.
“Fuck.” I was annoyed at myself for not paying more attention to both the knife’s design and to the fact that nobody in the right fucking mind just buries a broken shell in the dirt above some dog bo—
“Oh,fuck me.”
“What?”
“Dog bones.”
“What about them?”
“Zo—Xol—” I couldn’t fucking remember it.
“Xolotl?” he asked, sounding surprised.
“Yeah, that.”
“You—” He paused, and I could see him working out the same thing that had just occurred to me. What I didn’t see on his face was the thrill of fear that had spiked through my chest at the thought that some sacrificial dick-bag had killed a dog with a ritual Aztec knife, and that they might very well have gone to the trouble of finding a Xoloitzcuintli to do it.
Because I really liked a Xoloitzcuintli, and Taavi probably wasn’t naturally suspicious.
“Interesting,” was Taavi’s next comment.
“Not the word I’d choose,” I told him, being—I thought—shockingly diplomatic for me.
His lips twitched again. “Most people aren’t that… conversant with Aztec religious ritual,” he replied.
“This was a creepy cult.”
“But a neo-Aztec one? In Virginia?”
He had a point.
“I honestly wasn’t really paying attention to that part,” I admitted. “We weren’t expecting to get something recent. And definitely didn’t expect to have to dig up the fucking raspberry bushes.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Raspberries don’t have some sort of ritual significance, do they?”
He laughed. “Not to my people,” he answered. “I can’t speak for what you European-descended people believe.”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re stupid colonizers, I get it.” I rolled my eyes. It was like Taavi was channeling Elliot… so maybe they weren’t entirely different.
He grinned at me, then lifted his beer in a toast.
I laughed. “Colonizers invented beer, you know.”
“Mezcal is better.”
“The hell it is.”
* * *
He was still livingin that shitty little apartment where I’d left him six months ago, although I suppose if you were going to try to save up money, it probably helped with that. I told myself not to be judgy. At least I managed to keep my fucking mouth shut.
We’d had a good time at dinner, I thought. At least until we got back to the car, and I had to go and be a fucking dumbass again.
Someday, I’ll figure out what the fuck is wrong with me.
