The Aztec Prophecy

CHAPTER NINE

Hawke leaped back from the arc of the weapon and it ripped through the air an inch from his stomach. Up close the weapon looked even more lethal, and he could see for the first time that the sides of the macuahuitl were covered in savage little fragments of the volcanic obsidian. One mistake and they would rip through his flesh like a hot knife through butter.

Mendoza’s goon snatched up a tepoztli in his other hand — a bronze axe similar to a tomahawk — and charged at Hawke with both weapons raised.

“By the way, Joe!” Lea shouted. “Those things you’re screwing with can cut a horse’s head off in one blow.”

He stared over his shoulder at her for a second. “Yeah… thanks for that.”

The goon thrust the macuahuitl at Hawke’s chest. The lethal weapon whistled as its savage blades cut through the dehumidified air of the exhibition room, missing the Englishman’s throat by an inch. But it gave Hawke the chance he was looking for.

Before the goon could retract the blade Hawke brought his weapon up and blocked the advance with a hard beat parry, forcing the other man’s macuahuitl downward and giving him just enough time to launch a counter-attack. He brought his weapon up hard with a view to slashing open the man’s stomach but his opponent was too quick and executed a perfect forward recovery, pulling his back leg up into the en garde position. A second later and he was now making a renewed attack on Hawke, but the former SBS man was ready.

Hawke stepped aside, dodging the new attack and responded with a devastating patinando lunge, striking the macuahuitl hard at his chest. The Mexican tried to dodge the attack but was too slow and Hawke’s macuahuitl ripped across his face and tore a deep gouge across his cheek and over the bridge of his nose.

The goon dropped the tepoztli and screamed out in agony as the blood pumped from his face, but Hawke showed no mercy, padding forward and swinging the macuahuitl a second time, tearing a shallow groove across his stomach and opening the flesh along the slash mark. More blood poured from the man’s stomach and he screamed again in renewed pain as he staggered backwards, trying to beat back the searing spasms of pain and keep a grip on his weapon.

The man took a breath and after realizing the wound on his stomach wasn’t lethal, he took a fresh grip on his macuahuitl and returned to the fight, padding toward Hawke, his eyes full of bitter hatred and blood.

Hawke slashed his macuahuitl at him, but the Mexican was so full of adrenalin and hate that he was faster than ever and he responded with a brutal downward cut which tore through Hawke’s jacket and gouged a chunk of flesh from the front of his shoulder.

Hawke recoiled as the pain of the attack coursed through him. He felt the wild throbbing in his shoulder as blood seeped from the wound and ran down his forearm.

The man saw he had wounded his prey and gave a grim smile as he tossed the macuahuitl from one hand to the other. Hawke saw he was enjoying the fight and had used the wounds he had inflicted on him to power himself up for more.

Mendoza watched his man with merciless contempt as Hawke swung his weapon over his head and ran toward him. “Fight him, you coward!” he screamed as the goon tried to defend himself with trembling hands.

But it was too late for him.

Hawke swung the savage, close-contact weapon at the man and struck him across the flank of his torso, slashing through his flesh with the razor-sharp obsidian blades embedded in the hardwood edge of the macuahuitl.

The man screamed in agony as the volcanic glass ripped into his epidermis and shredded through the deeper subcutaneous tissue. The notorious weapon had gouged a terrific slash-mark through the muscle wall of his body. He fell to his knees and blood gushed out over his hands as he tried to stop the pain.

Hawke spun around and clubbed the man’s head with the base of the macuahuitl’s handle, knocking him into an unconscious heap on the smooth tiled floor of the museum.

“Any more for any more?” Hawke said, staring at Mendoza. “I think I’m really getting the hang of it.”

He tossed it from one hand to the other to underline the point and took a step closer to Mendoza.

The Mexican cartel lord looked at his comrade who was now unconscious and bleeding out on the floor. “He deserved to die,” he said. “But I will not share the same fate.” He snatched up another macuahuitl from among the shattered glass on the floor and tested its weight and movement in his hands.

Hawke moved forward. “Prepare to join your friend, you little shit!”

Mendoza laughed. “You seem so confident, Englishman — but you should know that I am a follower of what we call la verdadera destreza, or the true art, a form of Iberian fencing brought to Mexico by the Spanish.”

“Sounds a bit girly…” Hawke mumbled, never taking his eyes off the approaching man. “This thing isn’t a rapier, fuckwit, so let’s see how you go with it.”

Mendoza padded forward and plunged the macuahuitl forward at Hawke.

Hawke recoiled just in time, the obsidian shards at the tip of the weapon close enough to tear a slash in the front of his jacket. He regained his balance and took up a defensive position as Mendoza lunged at him once again, this time slicing the blades down in a savage draw cut and nicking Hawke’s shoulder again. He staggered back, the pain from the second slash-wound burning wildly. “You’ll have to do better than that, Mendoza.”

But without warning Mendoza took a step back and glanced at his watch. “I’m so sorry, but I must go. Perhaps I can kill you later?”

“Eh?”

Mendoza dropped the sword and fled the room with the canvas bag. Seconds later a chopper descended outside the exhibition room and began blasting the hell out of the windows with a chain gun.

Mendoza was outside now, and pulled himself into the chopper, which spun around ninety degrees as it ascended into the sky above Russell Square. Looping his arm through the grab-handle at the side of the door, Mendoza laughed as one of his men loosed a volley of submachine gunfire at the anti-terror police as they tried to advance on them.

Now, sprayed with lead and blasted back by the powerful downdraft of the chopper’s mighty rotors, the police broke ranks and dispersed to the cover of some nearby ash trees. Above them all, Mendoza’s helicopter vanished into the low cloud.

“We lost them!” Maria said.

“No” Hawke said. “I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean?”

“Earlier on when they first saw the artefact, Mendoza said ‘all we need now is the manuscript’ — something about a codex and then some words I didn’t recognize. They weren’t in Spanish.”

“Wait!” Ryan said, his face lighting up at the memory. “He said Yoalli Ehécatl! I understood those words but not the Spanish. They’re another word for the Codex Borgia.”

“The what?” Maria asked.

“It’s an Aztec manuscript currently held in the Vatican Library.”

“Damn it all!” Hawke said, but Lea was already on the phone.

A second later she ended the call. “The jet’s at London City, fuelled and ready to go.”