Niccolo Machiavelli sat in the passenger seat of the stripped-down army surplus jeep, clutching the bar welded onto the dashboard in a white-knuckled grip. Billy sat in the back and whooped delightedly with each bump and dip on the unpaved road. Black Hawk drove the narrow country lanes at high speed, foot pushed hard to the floor, a ferocious grin on his face.
“I think,” Machiavelli said, shouting to be heard over the noise of the engine, “I think that your master would probably prefer us alive so he can kill us himself. He might be irritated if you do the job for him. Slow down.”
“This isn’t fast,” Black Hawk said. The jeep lurched forward, engine howling as all four wheels left the ground. “Now, this is fast.”
“I’ll be sick,” Machiavelli promised, “and when I am, I’m going to be sick in your direction. Yours too,” he added, looking back over his shoulder at Billy the Kid.
Black Hawk reluctantly eased his foot off the accelerator.
“I’ve not lived through more than five hundred years of Europe’s most turbulent history only to die in a car crash.”
“Black Hawk could drive these roads wearing a blindfold,” Billy said.
“I’m sure he could, though why he would want to do something like that is beyond me.”
“Have you never done something purely for the thrill of it?” Black Hawk asked.
“No,” Machiavelli said. “Not for a long time.”
Black Hawk looked shocked. “But that seems like such a waste of immortality. I pity you,” he added.
“You pity me?”
“You are not living, you are surviving.”
Niccolo Machiavelli stared at the Native American immortal for a long time before he finally nodded and looked away. “You may be right,” he murmured.
The house was set back off the road.
At first glance it looked like a small, ordinary timber cottage, similar to so many others scattered across the United States. It was only when one approached closer that the truth was revealed: the house was enormous, much of it built into the side of the hill behind it.
Machiavelli felt his skin prickle and crawl the moment the car turned off the rough track onto a narrow rutted drive: the telltale signs of warding spells. There was old magic here, ancient eldritch power. He caught glimpses of arcane symbols cut into trees, spirals daubed on rocks, stick figures carved into fence posts. The track cut straight across a field of grass that grew as high as the car doors. The blades rasped and hissed against the metal, sounding like a thousand warning whispers. The Italian caught flickers of movement all around him, and glimpses of snakes, toads, and quick, scurrying lizards. A gangling misshapen scarecrow dominated the field on the left-hand side of the track. Its head was a huge gnarled dried pumpkin that had been carved in a round-eyed face with a protruding tongue.
The grassy field stopped abruptly, as if a line had been drawn in the earth, and the rest of the approach to the house was across perfectly flat land. Machiavelli nodded his approval: nothing could get through the field without setting off countless alarms or being attacked by a poisonous lurking guardian. Getting close to the house undetected would be impossible. An enormous lynx, bigger than any he had ever seen before, lay on the ground before the open front door, regarding the car impassively, only the tiny movements of its black-tufted ears betraying that it was real and not a carving.
Black Hawk pulled the jeep up in front of the house, but kept the engine running and made no move to climb out. “End of the road,” he said without a trace of a smile.
Niccolo climbed out gratefully and started to brush the dirt and grit off his expensive handmade suit, then gave up. The suit was ruined. He had a closetful of identical suits in his home in Paris, but he doubted he’d ever get a chance to wear them again.
Looking around, he breathed in the warm grassy air. Whenever he thought about dying-which he did with remarkable regularity-he imagined it would take place in a European city, Paris perhaps, maybe even Rome or his beloved Florence. He’d never thought he was going to end his days in California. However, he wasn’t dead yet, and he wasn’t going down without a fight.
As soon as Billy leapt out of the jeep, Black Hawk put it in gear and skidded away, showering him and Machiavelli in stones and grit, enveloping them in a cloud of dust. Billy grinned. “I knew he was going to do that.”
“You seem remarkably cheerful for someone who may be about to die,” Machiavelli said.
“I’ve seen men go to their deaths laughing, I’ve seen others wail and cry. They all died in the end, but those who were laughing seemed to have an easier time of it.”
“Do you expect to die here today?”
Billy laughed. “Dying’s not something I ever think about,” Billy said. “But no, I don’t think it’s going to happen today. We haven’t done anything wrong.”
The Italian immortal nodded but said nothing.
“Mr. Machiavelli doesn’t think I have the authority to remove his immortality. He’s incorrect.” The man who stepped out of the house was short and slender, his skin the color of brightly polished copper, his face bisected by an enormous hawklike nose and dominated by a full white beard that reached to his chest. His eyes were solid black with no whites showing. He was dressed simply in white linen trousers and shirt and his feet were bare. He smiled, revealing that every one of his teeth had been filed to razor-sharp points. “I am Quetzalcoatl the Feathered Serpent.”
“It is an honor to meet you, Lord Quez… Quet… Quaza…,” Machiavelli began.
“Oh, call me Kukulkan, everyone else does,” the Elder said, and headed back into the house. Machiavelli blinked in surprise: a long serpent’s tail, bright with multicolored feathers, trailed behind the Elder.
Billy caught Machiavelli by the arm. “Whatever you do,” he whispered urgently, “don’t mention the tail.”