The Lord of Near and Nigh: Shifter MC Novel (Pureblood Predator MC Book 2) (25 page)

But it has gathered to witness history.

An emperor being crowned.

The crowd jeers and hollers. Young soldiers dressed in army fatigues glance nervously at one another. Row after row of tanks and military vehicles have the crowd hemmed in.
 

Trapped.

I remain in the shadows, watching. Waiting.

A pyramid of poles several stories tall has been erected in the center of the
zocalo
, and inside the space formed by the poles a man is playing a wooden flute and dancing while a crowd of admirers showers him with fresh flowers. He’s a handsome youth, well-built and strong-jawed. His face has been painted in yellow and black bands. He wears an elaborate crown of parrot feathers that shine crimson and verdant blue and lush green. Shell and bone bells hang from the youth’s wrists and ankles, tinkling as he dances through the falling flowers and swirling clouds of blue-grey copal smoke. His right foot is bandaged and painted black, as if it were missing.
 

Tamara told me the youth has spent a year impersonating a dead god.
 

Tezcatlipoca. Lord of Near and Nigh. The Night Stalker.

Me.

I dismiss my animal. My bones shift and crack and soon I’m here in my human form, clutching my deer’s foot in one hand and the Smoking Mirror in the other. This is my least powerful form. It’s becoming more and more difficult to sustain this weak mask of skin and bone when I have the beautiful spotted animal prowling in me.
 

A huge bank of construction lights flash on, bathing the seething crowd in harsh white light. The crowd boos. Some throw stones and molotov cocktails at the National Palace. Soldiers respond by firing hissing yellow gas canisters into the crowd. There’s a quick popping noise as rubber bullets fly.

Screams and more jeering and now a rabid energy pulses through the crowd.
 

Some flee. Others, emboldened by their fury, rage and lash out.

They are blind and weak. All of them.
 

Army helicopters fly low, their beating blades thumping over the crowd, sending an unnatural wind rippling across the
zocalo
. A group within the crowd, maybe a thousand strong, breaks from the rest and charges the front steps of the Palace.
 

Soldiers lined up in front of the building raise their rifles.
 

More explosive popping.
 

The steps of the National Palace drip red with blood and still the crowd advances, overwhelming the soldiers and flinging molotov cocktails at the Palace’s caged windows and then they’re at the door, beating on the heavy wood, demanding entrance, demanding to be heard—
 

The sound of the helicopter blades swirling overhead reminds me of the day I was freed from the Cloud Temple.
 

The moment I came to be.
 

The painted youth beneath the pyramid poles dances madly, flinging himself from one side of the pyramid to the other. His eyes are mostly closed, but when he opens them I see they’re wide and empty. The youth lifts a mescal bottle to his lips and drinks heavily, then snatches one of the many naked women around him and begins kissing and pressing into her, their weak Skin bodies slick with sweat—

The crowd separates into three seething groups. The first is intent on storming the government buildings. The second gathers around the dancing youth. Somewhere deep in their minds these ones sense the power of this ceremony. Maybe they even remember how it ends. The third group of Skins, the ones dressed mostly in suits and sweaters and nice dresses, races for the roads leading away from the
zocalo
.

Fight or flight.

The third group of Skins panics. They trample over one another in their haste to escape, driven insane by the survival instinct pounding through them. They approach the line of tanks and army vehicles like a cresting wave—

The painted youth is fucking the woman in the center of the pyramid. He has her on all fours, taking her from behind, his painted face twisted with lust and drunkenness while the Skins press close around him, and now the other women in the pyramid realize something is wrong, perhaps this wasn’t such a fine way to celebrate the end of the world—

The heavy wooden doors of the National Palace’s balcony fly open at the same moment the tanks and army vehicles open fire on the crowd seeking escape. Bullets plough into the crowd. Skins fall like wheat flattened in hurricane wind, and now I’m running, dropping my claws and fangs, cutting through anyone who stands in my way, racing toward the man emerging onto the balcony, a man who intends to usurp my rule as Emperor of the Age of Discord, a man I’ve prayed to my Night Lord to offer, a man who spends his evenings fucking my bloodmate—

The spotlights turn from the crowd to illuminate the man on the balcony.
 

Assault rifles pop and blaze.
 

Bullets whip by my ears, but I no longer care.
 

My vision is framed in blood.
 

I leap through the crowd and every time I land my missing foot cracks the concrete and sends a shudder though the earth, and soon these shudders build until the entire
zocalo
bucks and heaves, the earthquake making the wooden pole pyramid shudder and shake. Even the National Palace, that old edifice of mortar and stone, begins to crack from the force of my footsteps.

The painted youth in the pyramid raises his head to the sky and laughs. He’s spent a year having his every need attended to. A year of living like a god.
 

And now that year is over.
 

He is mine.

Glaring spotlights illuminate the man on the balcony. It’s Carlos Collazo, ringed by a half-dozen of his most loyal Stricken associates. No doubt he’s promised them bountiful fiefdoms in his new empire.

Carlos pauses at the edge of the balcony and raises his right hand.
 

He’s holding something.
 

The former President Manuel Ortiz’s severed head stares out over the crowd.
 

Carlos Collazo raises his left hand.
 

The army stops firing.

Silence descends on the doomed.
 

Carlos stands on the balcony and surveys his new kingdom. His flat, stumpy face beams with pride and power-lust. Then, slowly, he summons his animal: the lower half of his face lengthens into a pointed snout. His ugly eyes narrow and his forehead slopes back and grey-white fur springs up along his arms.

The Skins closest to the National Palace shriek and fling their hands over their eyes.
 

The half-dozen Stricken surrounding Carlos lean over the balcony, lift heavy rifles onto the rail and fire into the crowd. They’re also unleashing their animals: skinless goat heads with antlers and horns. Insects with curving fangs. Bird-creatures with razor beaks.
 

Carlos “The Jackal” Collazo is announcing himself to the world.

Staking his claim.

This death is a celebration.
 

Chaos erupts as terrified Skins bolt in all directions. Tanks fire mortars into the crowd. The earth quakes and great chasms open behind me as I run. Flames leap from the chasms and burn along the ground, unstoppable, and somehow the flame and destruction and death feel familiar, they remind me of something that happened long ago, during a great war that lasted for centuries, wild animal armies crashing against one another, their blood staining the ground red and black, and from that One War my kind was born—

The painted youth dancing beneath the pyramid is too far gone to notice the violent coup. He whirls against the naked women around him, grinning madly under the Blood Moon—

Carlos screams something from the balcony and flings the former president’s head into the crowd.

A mortar explodes beside me, tossing me through the air.
 

I land hard, my ears ringing, the smell of smoke and death heavy in my nose.
 

A huge section of the National Palace crumbles.
 

Giant stone blocks cascade into the crowd.

I leap to my feet and sprint for the pole pyramid.
 

Stricken loyal to Collazo storm into the crowd from the alleys and side-streets of the
zocalo
.

They fall upon their prey, biting and shredding and tearing.
 

I loose a thunderous roar as I race into the wooden pyramid. The painted youth sees me and freezes, and from the look in his eyes I can tell he didn’t believe any of this was real. He didn’t believe an ancient god of myth and legend had been reborn, and that he would live as that god for a year, then be offered in his name.

He thought it was all a good time. A fucking laugh.

But now he believes.

The women around the painted youth fall to their knees.

The youth looks at my fangs and claws and jet-black fur, then moans and crumples to his knees, weak prey offering itself to powerful predator.
 

I slip the sharpened obsidian disk from the Smoking Mirror pendant as mortars explode around me and the Stricken armies advance.
 

I pause, gently place a single claw against the youth’s forehead, then push him flat on his back and stand over him.
 

The youth is paralyzed with fear, but he’s mumbling something I can’t understand, a prayer to his dead Skin god perhaps.
 

“Do you offer yourself to me?” I whisper. “Do you offer yourself to the Lord of Near and Nigh?”

The youth’s lips tremble as he tries to speak, but no sound emerges.
 

Then he closes his eyes and simply nods his head.
 

Yes.

I lift the smokey black mirror and plunge it through the youth’s ribcage and rip out his beating heart.
 

The offering’s eyes widen as his last breath escapes him, and from somewhere behind me a jackal howls in fury.

Carlos. He sees me now.
 

Understands I have arrived to challenge his ascension ceremony.

The offering’s heart thumps twice in my hand.
 

Ba-thump. Ba-thump.
 

The earth shudders, then slowly quiets.

The Stricken in the crowd freeze in their tracks. A thousand pairs of eyes look to me.
 

I haven’t spoken a word and yet they hear me.
 

No, they
scent
me.
 

My power. My impending rule.
 

My priests emerge from the crowd, each wearing bright yellow and black robes, and settle on their knees beside me. I lift the offering’s heart to my lips and feed, then pass it to the First Priest.

The priest lifts her cowl.
 

Tamara my bloodmate flashes her lioness fangs in a beautiful smile.

“My Lord,” Tamara says, lowering her gaze respectfully. “O Night Wind, accept this waste. Accept this imperfect one. I who am deaf and mute. I who am—”
 

A mortar explodes nearby, interrupting my bloodmate.
 

Carlos is directing his army to fire at us.

Tamara meets my eyes, feeds on the offering’s heart, then passes it to the next priest.

The priest lifts the cowl. It’s a half-formed wolf with crystal fangs.
 

A man named Connor Lerrick.

Connor says the sacred prayer, eats from the Skin’s heart, then passes it to his sister, Star.
 

Star’s gold-speckled green eyes dance in the red-orange firelight as she feeds.

My nerves tingle and race. A new power floods through me.
 

I lift my trembling hands and study them.
 

“Do you feel it, Night Lord?” Tamara asks. “Every offering makes you stronger.”

“Then I demand many more,” I say. “I demand a mountain of flesh.”
 

Connor smiles. “The Faithful will ring your pyramid, praying to offer themselves in your name.”

My hands swirl into black smoke.
 

“Go then,” Star says. “You are the Enemy of Both Sides. The Lord of Near and Nigh. Claim your place as Emperor of Discord.”

I rise to my feet as Carlos Collazo and his loyal crew leap off the balcony of the National Palace. Carlos screams at the Stricken soldiers on the ground, commanding them to murder me. But the Stricken remain still. They sense a blood challenge to decide will rule this empire as supreme alpha.
 

Carlos shrieks in fury and races at me.
 

I scent his black heart beating strong in his chest.

“O Lord of Near and Nigh,” I whisper.

Carlos and his men run at me, a pack of half-men half-animals thirsty for my blood.

I pick up the wooden flute beside the murdered offering, press it my lips and blow. A long, mournful sound, the sound of souls escaping to Mictlan, whistles from the flute.
 

The earth shakes. More chasms open in the ground, spewing rivers of molten stone. The lava races across the
zocalo
, smashes into the government buildings, melts their pillars and foundations. The buildings groan and crack and shatter, then collapse, sending billowing dust clouds into the sky.

Carlos slows.
 

His men do the same.

I blow the flute again. My features rapidly shift from man to leopard to swirling black smoke. Heavy clouds build in the sky, blocking the Blood Moon. Black and red lightning arcs from the clouds and across the entire valley, and where the lightning lands entire neighborhoods burst into flame.

I’m on the hunt now, skulking through a twilight jungle, closing in on my prey.
 

Red lightning flashes again and again, making the scene of chaos and destruction glow an eerie crimson.
 

I lift my head and roar.

“The Night Stalker is reborn,” Tamara shouts at Carlos. “Fall on your knees and submit to our new Lord!”