Chapter 5 Xolotl
Xolotl
I paid no attention to the things Whitney stuffed into her makeshift saddle bags.
Why would I? I’m not a human. I don’t need any of the stuff she needs.
But the things she pulls out as we move, even when we’re moving fast, surprise me.
She pulls out bottles and drinks things from them, almost dropping one and crying out when it slips from her hands and spills all over my right side.
She unwraps crinkly packages and consumes things from inside those packages as well.
I’m not sure I’d ever paid as much attention to the things humans must do to live. They seem to need to eat quite often.
Once, she makes me stop so she can slink away and crouch behind a bush, as if I can’t hear and smell both her urine and her excrement.
Humans are filthy creatures with all their fueling and waste creation, but Whitney’s extremely fussy about it.
My other generals simply took care of things, no shame or shyness about it.
They can’t control their weak little bodies in any case, so why should it matter if I hear or know that about them?
I should have paid a little more attention to her in that store.
Then it might not have come as such a surprise when she stabs me in the shoulder. The pain’s relatively minor, but the shock hits me fairly hard. In the more than six thousand years of my existence, never once has one of my own generals actually caused me harm.
Until this little beast.
Weapons directed at me are always immediately absorbed.
My body doesn’t sustain damage from attacks, except from other immortals, so I’m entirely taken by surprise.
Then again, she’s the first of my champions to be upset about their selection.
Perhaps all of my champions had the capacity to harm me, and I just never knew.
I think about shaking her off and stomping on her, but then I might have to stop again to try and nurse her back to health. I can’t simply gallop along while she pokes holes in me, and after the first stab, she dislodges the long knife she secreted in her bag and plunges it in my back again.
It’s all very frustrating.
I finally decide to rear back, knock her to the ground, and stomp one hoof right next to her head. Then I scream, my spittle flying all over her shocked face.
Why’s she surprised? She thought I’d tolerate being poked? Really?
“What do you want from me?” I realize as she stands up that she’s crying again.
She waves her hands around. “You’re dragging me along with you, and even out here in the desert, we pass people, in houses, doing nothing wrong, and you kill them, for no reason.
Why make me go with you on this horrible reign of destruction? ”
I shift, so I can yank the stupid thing she stabbed me with out of my back. It’s hard to reach, and I find myself spinning around in a half-circle before I can finally grab the handle. My blood drips onto the sand below us, hissing as it strikes.
“Of course you just pull it out like it’s barely an irritation.” She shakes her head. “But how messed up would I have to be not to even try to stop you anymore?”
“You tried plenty at first, and none of those efforts worked either.” I think about knocking her around a little to try and uncover some sense.
“Your attempts are all meaningless. You can’t stop me, but if you work with me, I can increase your power tenfold.
Twentyfold, even.” I step closer. “You could share my power instead of battering yourself against it uselessly. Killing’s fun, but convincing and inspiring humans to kill one another is even better. ”
Her mouth dangles open.
“You clearly don’t understand why I exist, which is my mistake.” I sigh. “I’ve never picked the wrong person for my human champion before, but—”
“Is that what I am?” Her shoulders slump. “Why’d you even pick me?”
“You fired on me with that new and improved gun, and then you threw the depleted weapon at me. You were fierce and strong and so very angry.” I smile at the memory. “I thought that if I could redirect that dark, angry energy, you’d help me achieve balance for humanity.”
“You keep talking about balance,” she says. “But I fail to see how killing lots of people balances anything.”
“In your world, without me, while I was sleeping, when do people die?” I resume walking toward the sunset, refusing to let her delay me further. Reno beckons.
“People are born, and barring accidents, illnesses, or injury, they live a long, full life, and then they die when they’re old.”
“How old?” I arch one eyebrow.
“A hundred,” she says. “Sometimes if they eat badly or don’t exercise, younger. Like sixty or seventy.”
I nod slowly. “The world has changed since my last period of wakefulness.” I pause. “And how often do infants die? Babies, I mean.”
“Any deaths for babies are too often,” she says slowly. “But not much.”
“A shame,” I say.
She glares at me.
Interesting. “You didn’t specify which babies. Good or bad, cute or ugly. Rich or poor.” I have to ask. “Do you think that all babies should live?”
“Yes.” She nods. “You must be the actual devil. Who else would think that babies should die?”
“If all babies live, why would people appreciate and love the ones they have?”
She blinks.
I don’t slow down, walking faster, and I notice she’s keeping up. As the sun sets, I will talk to her, and then when she needs rest, I’ll make her ride again. Perhaps I’ll even get through to her in some small measure.
“People appreciate babies because they’re their beloved children.”
“So in your time, everyone loves their offspring?”
“Well, no. I guess not, but they should.”
“Are any babies abused or neglected? Ignored? Mistreated?”
“Sometimes,” she admits.
“And is everyone in your time healthy and strong, respecting their bodies and their minds? Creating for themselves a meaningful life?”
“No,” she says. “But they could do those things, if they chose to.”
“Why would anyone not choose that?” I can’t help my smile.
“Some people can’t choose,” she says. “They’re sick.”
“Define sick.”
She kicks a rock, and then she winces. “Well, there are lots of ways to be sick. Some people are sick physically. They could have cancer or a bad heart. They could eat too much sugar, or their pancreas can stop working right.”
“Because of their own excesses.”
“It’s not that simple,” she says. “Sometimes, many times, their bodies just don’t work right.”
“Ah, but you’re intentionally misunderstanding me.” I fold my arms. “I think it’s far simpler than you admit.”
“Huh?”
I stare at her, stopping my movement briefly to make sure she’s paying attention.
“You’re focused on the quantity of life.
My job, the reason for my existence is that death balances life.
I exist to shorten the quantity of life and thereby improve its value and ensure that people appreciate what they have. ”
“Are you saying you murder people so the humans who live are happier for not dying?” She snorts. “That would be like hitting three kids in the face so that the three kids I don’t punch are grateful.”
I shrug.
“But you’ve killed everyone you passed,” she says. “So that’s clearly not an efficient way to do it.”
“I’m just trying to get some attention,” I say. “The finesse in the balancing comes later.”
“Attention?” She’s frowning again.
I resume my walking. “How many people live on this continent now?”
“Do you mean our country, the United States? Or the entire American continent?”
I shrug.
“A few hundred million,” she says. “Maybe a billion if you mean the Americas. Not sure.”
I’m staggered by those figures. It’s more than ten times the number of people who lived in my portion of the world when I went to sleep, if she’s correct. “Things are worse than I feared.”
“Worse?”
“You believe me to be a devil,” I say. “But I’m doing what I was created to do, and the souls who pass through me go to a place better than this. And, if I attract the attention of the leaders of this time and start a war, many of the people who die will be dark souls.”
She blinks. “But you’re—you want to eliminate badness?”
I shrug. “Not per se. Right now, your people may be healthy in body for the most part, but I imagine they aren’t healthy of the mind.” I arch one eyebrow.
“What do you mean?”
“When people are all safe, when life is assured, they lose sight of what matters. Do they not?”
She’s frowning again.
“Are your billion people all happy with their long, safe lives?”
Her frown lines grow. “Many of them suffer from what we call mental illness.” She turns to look up at me. “I propose a deal.”
“I’m not bargaining,” I say. “I told you that.”
“This is different,” she says. “You want to convince me to help you. I think before you can do that, you need to learn a little bit about humanity and how it has changed. If you let me teach you, I’ll listen to you as well. Maybe I’ll even become the champion you want.”
Instead of stabbing me in the back. It might be worth some cooperation if she could join my cause. “What are you proposing?”
“We’ll reach Reno soon, at the rate you’re traveling.
I’ve been watching mile markers, and you move close to thirty miles per hour.
It’s not car fast, but it’s impressive.” She inhales and then she sighs.
“But you’ve been killing everyone around us, and it seems you destroy tech by being close to it.
If you truly want to attract attention, that’s not a good way to do it.
You may be killing people, but you’re also eliminating their ability to tell anyone about it. ”
I don’t like that.
“Can you suppress those things? If you want human leaders to find us, you’d be better off grabbing their attention in Reno.”
“Suppress what things?”
“Whatever you’ve been doing that’s destroying the internet and technology, first of all.
But massacring everyone means there’s no one to pass on word of what you’ve done or where you’re headed.
I propose that you stop doing all that for three days.
” She smiles. “In the grand scheme of things, do three days really matter?”
“I suppose not.”
“If you let me show you the current state of humans, and if you learn about our time and the way we live, and if you still think we need you to restore the balance, I’ll agree to be your champion.”
“And you’ll train for that now,” I say. “Three days for me and three days for you.” I lift my eyebrows.
“You’ll learn to use the powers I can grant you, and you’ll learn about the balance we strive to reach, and I will listen to your confused ramblings about humanity, and then in three days, you’ll join me. That’s what you propose?”
Her eyes flash admirably. “No, I’m saying you will learn what I have to teach about how we live and what we want.”
“Isn’t that what I said?”
Whitney groans.
It makes me smile. “I listen to your confused ramblings and suppress my innate magic, and you learn to use yours. Then in three days, I return to my purpose with you at my side.”
“Or I win you over, and you stop slaughtering innocent people.”
“Sure, except there’s no chance that will happen.”
She holds out her hand. “Do we have a deal?”
I look at it. “Yes.” Then I slowly take her hand and shake it. I dislike how much I like touching her. I yank my hand back quickly. But when I shift into a horse and she climbs on my back, I don’t hate it.
It’s very frustrating to suppress my natural abilities, and it’s vexing in the extreme to stop killing the people who pass us in cars. Leaving those living in tiny shelters alive also bothers me, but I keep my side of our bargain.
Mostly.
If she hasn’t come around over the next three days, I’ll be forced to do something I never wanted to do.
I’ll have to ask my brothers to intervene.
Killing Whitney may put me back to sleep, but with their help, I can be reawakened almost immediately.
I just don’t like the idea of telling them that I’ve made a mistake or asking for their help.