The Big Meow

Helen threw a glance at Rhiow. He’s quick, she said silently. Aloud she said, “I’ve heard other reasons. Changes in the local climate, disease… But they were definitely into some behaviors that we’d think of as unhealthy.”

This, the Silent Man said, reaching out with his pencil to tap one of the dots Helen’s moving finger had left on the tablecloth, this is unhealthy. This is not the kind of thing that happens in L.A. And he frowned. But the Lady in Black did mention what’s his name…

“Tepeyollotl Night-Eater,” Rhiow said, “Lord of the Beasts of the Dark.” She could still hear the Whisperer’s distress at the mere sound of the name.

“Mesoamerican without a doubt,” Helen said. “I’m no expert, but the name sounds Azteca to me.”

Rhiow looked over at the Silent Man, feeling his growing unease and thinking how to continue along this line without freaking him out. The immediate association of cults with serial murder isn’t yet common in ehhif popular culture this early in the century, the Whisperer said in Rhiow’s ear. He may find this line of reasoning too bizarre to accept…

Nonetheless it seemed to Rhiow that the concept had to be broached. “We were talking about cults, back at the house,” she said. “Have you perhaps heard of any cult in this area that’s been trying to revive some aspect of the old Aztec rites?”

The Silent Man gave her an uneasy look. One that would take to killing people…as some kind of religious ceremony? he said. This many people?

“It’s not a very palatable idea, I’ll grant you,” Helen said. “It seems that many of the peoples of Central America enacted various forms of human sacrifice. In the beginning, at least some of them said they were trying to re-enact a sacrifice they thought the gods had originally made for them, in order to save the world. But it may have started as a development of what we call sympathetic magic. Take something personally associated with another human being – a lock of hair, a fingernail paring – and you can obtain various kinds of power over them. Take the concept a step further, by offering a divine being something profoundly important to you – your blood, your flesh – and you obtain a different kind of power over them. The gods are obliged to repay the favor by giving you something you want.”

The Silent Man frowned at the table, his expression quite still. “What one sacrifices personally is one matter,” Helen said. “Other cultures share similar concepts. But later on the Mesoamerican religions started to change. People less often offered their own blood…and much more often, someone else’s. In time the sacrifice became a way for populations to stay stable, for nations to dominate each other or dispose of captives of war. Later still a nasty inversion happened: wars were started to acquire enough captives to keep the sacrifices going. And the Aztecs were the people most enthusiastic about doing such things in large numbers.”

The Silent Man shook his head. But why would people do that now? What in the world would they hope to gain?

“Maybe nothing in this world,” Arhu said. “The Lady in Black hated everything she saw here. She thought that whatever she’d been doing had made her some friend outside of everything.” His tail was lashing now. “A friend who was going to put an end to it all.”

Urruah had for some while been sitting upright with his eyes half-closed, looking like an angry Egyptian statue, and saying about as much. Now he opened his eyes a bit more. “I’d prefer it too,” he said, “if all this was just down to some crazed psychotic ehhif with a deathwish that he’s projecting onto everyone around him.” He turned to look at the Silent Man. “But I don’t think we can afford to ignore any explanation, no matter how distasteful. Any one might be the right one, and we don’t dare blind ourselves to spare our tender sensibilities. There’s too much at stake.”

Their eyes locked. After a long moment, the Silent Man let out a breath, looked over at Helen again. There were two more? he said.

She nodded. “Here, and here,” she said, adding two more dots on either side of the skeletal map. One of them was much further north from Wilshire than any of the others. The other was much further along, past Hollywood proper and further into the mountains still. “Sixteen days ago,” Helen said. “An old homeless woman – the only woman in this new group – and a middle-aged man with a police record, a burglar. Both dumped, like the others, on waste ground.” She folded her hands on the tablecloth and sighed.

Everyone was quiet for a few moments, considering the map. “That missing head,” Hwaith said after a few moments. “I keep thinking about that. I mean, not that taking their hearts isn’t bad enough, but why the head too?” He flicked his ears sideways and forward again in bemusement.