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I gestured at the laptop, and Taavi tapped on the keyboard again with the fingers of his left hand.
“Sixth. Sixth Sun,” he clarified.
“So what does that messagemean?” Raj asked.
Taavi looked up at me, his expression uncertain and a little scared. “Some Aztecs believed that if they didn’t offer enough sacrifice to the gods, the world would end in cataclysm. Earthquakes, specifically. Except it sounds here like this group believes something like the opposite? That if they make enough sacrifices, they willcausethe end of the world, although why they want that, I don’t know.” He shook his head with a frown. “That’s not something I’ve ever heard of before, though.”
While I was aware that there were plenty of wacko cultists who wanted to bring about the end of the world, this was the first time I’d had to deal with them personally. I could have lived without the experience.
“So does that mean they’re going to kill someone? Or that they already did?” Raj asked Taavi, ignoring the whole bit about the apocalypse.
“Possibly both?” Taavi answered, his voice somber, but uncertain. “Since the likelihood that the world is actually about to end in a day and a half is fairly low. This is… Like a corrupt version of the cult of Xolotl.”
“There’s a cult to the dog-god?”
“There’s a cult for every god,” Taavi replied. “Xolotl was the god of fire and lightning, the twin of Quetzalcóatl, and the god of sickness. I don’t know the precise rituals, but in order to create the fifth world, he sacrificed the other gods.”
“Well, that sounds fucking ducky,” I muttered. “I’m sure a cult dedicated to that guy is real great.”
“Many cults required sacrifice,” Taavi replied diplomatically. “Although some more than others.” Then I saw him frown, and he leaned forward to look more closely at the email. “Interesting.”
“What?” Raj and I both said it at the same time.
“The email address. Xipe Totec.”
The front of the email was a string of letters I’d taken as gibberish, but now that Taavi said them, I realized it was a name. Or I assumed it was, at least.
“What’s that?” Raj asked.
“Xipe Totec is the Aztec god of renewal,” Taavi answered.
“That seems… pleasant enough,” I observed.
Taavi shot me a look that said it really wasn’t. “Except that it translates roughly to ‘The Flayed God,’” he replied, his expression a slight grimace.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Raj muttered on the phone.
I agreed. “Jesus fucking Christ, please, no. I’ve had e-fucking-nough flayed anything to last a couple goddamn lifetimes.”
“It—” Taavi stopped, sucking on his lower lip.
I knew what he’d been about to say. “Suggests that our victims at the museum were probably flayed before their flesh was removed?” I said, my tone grim.
Taavi nodded.
“Oh, bloody hell,” Raj groaned.
* * *
Raj hadsomeone working on trying to find out whatever we could about the person behind the Xipe Totec email, and there wasn’t much more I could do about it besides call Ward to warn him that somebody from the cult had probably made the connection between what was happening at the museum and Beyond the Veil. He didn’t answer at first, so I left a message.
Taavi was in the shower when Ward called back, and I tucked the phone against my shoulder as I kneaded thebolillodough.
“So this Xipe person is what? Warning us?”
“No fucking clue,” I replied. “My guess? They want us to know that it isn’t over. That it’s still happening.”
“So… whose side are they on, here?” Ward asked.
