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“That is the Inquisition’s name for us,”she snapped.
I wanted to point out to her that she wasn’t Aztec, either, but I wasn’t sure just how offensive that would be. Don’t get me wrong—I didn’t give two shits whether Benavente found anything I said offensive. But I was worried about opening my mouth and saying something inadvertently racist that might offend Taavi.
Who was probably infinitely more qualified to comment on indigenous Mexican practices than this lady, if the information Doc and Kurtz had turned up was even remotely correct. First of all, her maiden name was Comeau, which I was pretty fucking sure was French. Second, she’d gone to Catholic school, which, okay, sure, I wasn’t Catholic anymore, either, and my ass had been baptized, but I wasn’t the one running around throwing shade at the Inquisition.
“And what are your rituals?” Doc asked, intervening before I could tell her exactly what I thought of her.
Benavente glared at him, now, too. Equal opportunity hatred, I suppose, not that it got her any bonus points with me.
“You would not understand,”was her snobbish response.
“Fucking try us,” I snapped.
Well, so much for me not opening my big asshole mouth. Benavente didn’t think much of my comment, either, if the fury she shot in my direction was any indication. I wasn’t particularly heartbroken that the homicidal bitch didn’t like me.
“We offer sacrifice toMictlantecuhtlito make ourselves worthy of thechicuacetonatiuh.”
Taavi shifted, his back against my side. “The god of death,” he whispered.
“Why the dogs?” I asked her.
She looked at me as though I were a bug and she had a nice, thick-heeled boot on. She also didn’t sound happy about the fact that Ward was forcing her to answer.“They carry our prayers toMictlantecuhtlithat our sacrifices have been worthy.”
Her babbling matched what the email had hinted at, but a long-dead woman wasn’t the source of the email. But what she said also lined up with what little I’d learned about Xoloitzcuintli dogs when I’d been trying to ID Taavi.
“So whyshifters?” I asked, then. “Your—” I cleared my throat pointedly “—ancestors weren’t sacrificing shifters, they were ripping the hearts out of humans.”
That earned me another furious glare.“We lost our way. The gods sent this sickness to mark their sacrifices.Mictlantecuhtlimarked them himself.”
Great. So she and her little cohort of cultists were fucking unhinged enough to believe that the Arcanavirus pandemic was the gods marking ritual sacrifice victims. “So who the fuck kills the vampires?” I muttered.
Taavi elbowed me in the ribs.
Fortunately, Benavente either didn’t hear me or chose to ignore me. Or Ward didn’t feel like making her answer my question.
I did kind of want to know, though.
If this cult believed that canid shifters had been marked by their dog-headed death god, then what were the other Nids supposed to be sacrificed to? What wasIsupposed to be sacrificed to?
And how many similar groups were there?
And what the everloving fuck did any of this have to do with the Ordo?
But Ward got to that one ahead of me.
“What is this Culhua’s relationship to the Antiquus Ordo Arcanum?” he asked.
She bared her teeth again, focused back on Ward. The narrowing of his eyes told me that she was trying to fight him. The fact that he wasn’t even breaking a sweat told me she was going to lose.
“They—believe themselves—superior.”
“And you don’t?” I muttered under my breath. Beside me, Taavi let out a huff through his nose that I was pretty sure was his way of telling me to shut up. I shut up.
“And you believe they are wrong?” was the question Ward asked. It really was a lot classier of a way of making the same point.
“They are warlocks,”she all but spat. At a warlock. Clearly she wasn’t the smartest apple in the barrel.
Ward didn’t say anything, although both eyebrows went up. Taavi’s elbow suggested I should continue shutting up, so I did.
