Inca Kings

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

“Your first step. Your first initiation,” Dantanion purred, his voice soft and liquid, like honey poured over a spoon. “Anything new may be abhorrent. To open the eyes, we need persuasive stimulation. To open the heart, we need compelling emotion. But to open the mind, do you know what we need?”

He paused, but continued quickly, not expecting to be interrupted.

“A weighty shock,” he said. “Something sharp that cuts deep. Something that changes our outlook on what we see and know. So here, this is for all of you.”

Hayden watched as two men came forward and offered the four new recruits a paper cup. Half filled with a clear liquid it was clearly yet another rite of passage. Hayden saw no choice, trapped and surrounded as she was. Fay took the cup and tipped it back without blinking. One of the men asked what was in it.

“A cushion,” Dantanion said.

Hayden thought, what the hell, and threw it back. Experience was everything, right? Especially in a life that had largely been led hopping from one major case to another. A warmth drifted through her system, dulling her senses and taking the edge off.

A cushion.

But a cushion for what?

She saw at least half the people leave the caves then, and wondered if Dantanion might be conducting a raid on one of the villages tonight. Fear for her friends broke the rising inner miasma for a few seconds, but then the blurriness returned. The stuff was better than three quick shots of neat rum, and was that a fox’s tail now growing out of Dantanion’s head?

Crap. This is not good.

Feeling vulnerable, she folded her arms and leaned back. Dantanion waited for another minute. “Tonight, you will first witness a small feasting. Then, later, in the darker watches, you will offer a part of yourself — to yourself. The fundamental ritual. And it must be completed on the first day. If this shocks you, ladies and gentlemen, just remember — you signed up for it.”

Hayden had signed nothing. Or had she? Truly, she couldn’t remember much past just now and the edges were all blurry. Probably best to just nod and get on with it. She watched dispassionately as Dantanion and two of his followers squatted down to show them how to move differently, how to bend their limbs for some kind of game. She had a feeling she’d seen it before, but couldn’t place the memory. The teaching stuck in her head though. A robed man was then brought forward, his hand placed on a square of stone like an altar sticking up through the floor, and a scalpel introduced to the hand.

Hayden felt a rush of fear, a hot panic, but shrugged indifferently. It was only a sliver of flesh, only a blade, and only a trickle of blood. The portable stove helped cook the flesh and then the man offered it up to Dantanion. In ritual mode, the leader smiled inscrutably, warming the whole room before generously taking the flesh and offering it to another. This man popped it into his mouth and chewed happily, swallowing it down after a minute.

Dantanion addressed the recruits. “When the cushion is removed you will find that your mind has changed,” he said. “The initiations have begun. Be ready for later tonight.”

Hayden allowed herself to sink onto a bed, watching Dantanion walk away and enjoying the experience. Should it worry her that if he grinned at her right now she’d chase after him like a faithful hound? Probably. But she couldn’t seem to care. The deceptive, illusory aspect that now constituted reality didn’t seem half bad.

It took some time, she didn’t know how much, but the effects of the drug started to wear off. Fay ended up beside her, sniffing and staring at the ceiling, mesmerized by the endlessly adjusting cameras.

“You okay?” Hayden asked.

“I’ve been better, and that’s saying something. My head hurts and my throat’s dry but I guess I’ll be okay.”

Minutes passed and then Hayden said, “Did I understand it right? They just ate some guy’s skin?”

Fay pulled a face. “And will make us do it too.”

Hayden laughed. “Yeah, they can try.”

A woman with short-cropped hair was passing, stopped and leaned down to fix Hayden with a worried stare. “I was forced to pass the fundamental ritual last night.” She hugged herself. “It’s bad, very bad, but easier than the alternative. Those that refused… they threw them from the cliffs.”

“Is that a bad joke? Are you kidding?” Fay blurted.

“No, no. They keep saying we signed up for it. Do you remember signing up? The whole thing’s a blur for me. And I sure don’t remember any flesh eating rituals in the friggin’ contract. Nor any cliff divin’.”

“Crossing barriers,” Fay said. “Overcoming taboos. I read the damn form three times and that’s what it said.”

“Well, they weren’t friggin jokin’. After two weeks of this shit my brain’s goin’ to be a jelly.”

Hayden listened, wondering if the woman hadn’t hit the proverbial nail on the head. Dantanion’s process had to be a concoction of drugs, brainwashing and enforcement. Vulnerable people were more susceptible. Those without homes craved families. Any family. In any case, the immediate future was incredibly clear.

She had just a few short hours to find out what she needed to know and get the hell out of there.