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A priest had plowed into me. I jumped up, kicked him, leaped over, and ran, racing Jalil for
the hammer.
The mass of priests charged at last. Too late!
The cushion. The hammer.
My fingers closed around the stunted handle of Thor's hammer.
The priests stopped. Stared. Babbled to one another in renewed confusion. That was okay, be-
cause the four of us were pretty lost, too.
"The Vikings," Jalil gasped, winded. "Show them the hammer."
I raced back to the edge of the platform. I held that hammer up in the air over my head. I
yelled at the top of my lungs, "Mjolnir! The hammer of Thor! Come on, you bunch of babies,
let's kick some Aztec butt!"
An excellent speech. A real cinematic moment.
Only I realized that the Vikings were no longer looking at me. They were looking behind me.
I felt the flesh on my back creep.
Slowly turned my head, slowly my eyes, all in slow motion, molasses. Towering over me. His
one remaining hand clutched a dripping red mass. Red stained his mouth and chin.
I spun, kicked my leg out, whipped around, and like a pro pitcher throwing out a runner, I let
fly with Mjolnir.
The hammer flew.
Huitzilopoctli just had time to look down before Trier's sledge hit him in the feathery loin-
cloth.
The hammer came sailing back toward me, but I was too gone to notice. It sailed past.
Huitzilopoctli grunted. He got a "now I'm going to kill you!" look on his blue-and-gold face.
Then, slowly, slowly, he crumpled. Like a guy who's standing on his bike pedals when the
chain breaks, be crumpled.
"Look out! Hell crush us!" April yelled. She jerked me aside.
David and Jalil ran. I ran. April ran.
Huitzilopoctli yelled out in agony.
He fell.
The Vikings roared to life.
The Aztecs moaned.
We were over that platform, around the side of the temple, and heading down the far side by
the time we heard Big H hit the steps.
"April?" I gasped.
"Yeah?"
"I am your slave for life."
CHAPTER XVII
No sleep, coming off battle, coining off an aborted escape, coming off that awful march up
the side of that hideous pyramid. We were exhausted. Beyond exhaustion.
We wandered, lost in the streets of the city of Huitzilopoctli for an hour before we located a
gate.
An hour during which time the sounds of combat and pillage and depredation grew louder,
then fainter, then louder again.
Mjolnir had woken the Vikings out of their slumber. They had no swords or axes, but a thou-
sand or more Vikings in the middle of a city is serious trouble anywhere. And they had
Mjolnir The breeze carried that cry to our ears. "Mjolnir! Mjolnir!" The Vikings historically
didn't draw sharp lines between killing soldiers and killing innocent civilians. I didn't care.
Anyone who wanted to eat me wasn't innocent.
I ran. We ran, footsore and exhausted. Out of the gate. Out of that evil, evil city.
"The beach," Jalil said. "Still our best bet. The Aztecs will be busy with the Vikings now. We
don't need anacondas and jaguars."
No one argued. We ran right back the way we'd come, away down across the battlefield. All
the dead and wounded had been removed. I considered the ham I'd eaten the night before,
No, don't think about that, Christopher. You're alive, so shut up.
Onto sand. The sea. The Viking longboats were charred, smoking hulks. Charcoal boats. The
Aztecs had burned them. Everything stank of drowned fires.
David cursed. "That's a crime."
"That's a crime? They burn some boats, that's what you object to in their behavior?"
"What it is is stupid," Jalil said. "All that wood. Even if they didn't know how to sail the boats,
they could have salvaged the wood,"
"Let's keep moving," April pressed.
We kept moving along the beach, down the longboat graveyard.
"Nice robe," I said.
April gave me a weary smile. "What, this old thing? Just something I threw on. And now I
think I'll just throw it off."
She whipped the robe off, twirled it into a ball, and threw it into a smoking hull. It began to
smolder.
April still had her backpack with most of our worldly possessions, A CD player and some
mostly bad music; a bottle of Advil; a book or two. "So, what's your story?" David asked her.
"Well, I was in the boat. Saw the Vikings all come running when Huitzilopoctli showed up. I
hid, but it didn't work. They found me. I thought they were going to kill me."
"Kind of was afraid they had," I admitted. "Or else .., never mind."
"Yeah, or else," April said darkly. "I think that was the plan. Only this priest showed up. He
asked me if I was a virgin."
"So naturally you lied?" I suggested. "I said, 'Absolutely. I'm even a vegetarian.'" I laughed.
The first laugh in what felt like a million years. David and Jalil smiled.
"Anyway." April shrugged. "The priest decided I'd look good in the temple. They don't get
many green-eyed redheads. So I was an official temple virgin," "Good gig."
"Uh-huh. Till the ceremony's over. Then I think the virgins become property of the priests,
who have their run and kill the girls in another sacrifice. That's what I understood, anyway."
"Sick, messed-up people," David said. "Nazis without the tanks."
Jalil was walking backward. "I don't see anyone following us."
"They're busy," David said. "The Vikings finally got it together. I guess the hammer did it."
"Where are we going?" I wondered.
"Away from that place back there," April spat. "I just hope she makes it out of there."
We all stopped dead. "She? Who?" Jalil snapped.
April looked surprised. "Senna." She must have noticed our spooked expressions. "Yeah, I
saw her. She showed me where to find the weapons I smuggled to you."
"Ha!" David yelled. "She was trying to help us."
I wasn't convinced. I knew what I'd seen. Or at least, I thought I did. But I kept my mouth
shut.
"We can't leave her back there," David said flatly.
"We have no choice," Jalil said.
April said nothing. She was not rushing to the rescue of her half sister.
"We can wait till it's calmed down a little, till the heat is off us. We can go back. Find her."
David nodded vigorously, trying to convince himself.
"You know what, David? On my big list of things that ain't happening, going back into New
Whatever is number one. It's higher than 'sticking needles in my own eyes.' Not happening."
"She saved our lives," David argued. He stepped closer, bristling, playing the tough guy.
"You're going to leave one of our own behind?" I laughed. "David, I've just thrown down with
Huitzilopoctli. You think you scare me?" "You're just scared, period." "Just scared? No. I'm
not just scared. See, that makes it sound like some plain old everyday emotion. I'm terrified.
Horrified. Overwhelmed with dread. I feel like my brain has been filled full of sewage and I'll
never, ever be able to get it clean, like this stuff will eat me alive in my dreams, like I'll never
see the world the same again. Scared? They want to eat us, you moron! They want to cut out
our hearts and they almost did, you fool! You want to save Senna, go for it, Batman. See you
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