Taking the wheel, Remo met Chiun's quizzical gaze.
"They're off to fight the monster."
"What monster?"
"The one on the TV."
"But that monster is not real."
"You're talking about an army that's afraid to go into the forest after curfew because the bat god lives there."
"I fear no bats," sniffed Chiun.
"That's good," Remo said, gunning the engine, "because we're about to hit the jungle. Verapaz is out there, maybe dead, maybe alive."
"It does not matter."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because we are not paid by the slaying. If someone else has felled our victim, we will still be paid."
"Me, I like my work. And I still have a few frustrations to get out."
"Perhaps you suffer from ingrown cuticles," Chiun said aridly. "They can be very painful unless pointed in the proper direction."
"The proper direction of Verapaz is the only direction I care about right now," said Remo, chasing his own bouncing headlight beams.
Chapter 33
Rodrigo Lujan was worried. He was very worried.
The federal army no longer worried him. They had hurled their all into the teeth of the goddess Coatlicue.
And their all had been hurled back into their own teeth, breaking them.
Military barricades had been erected. No one dared man them, but the roads were blocked by all manner of obstacles.
Massed tanks. These had been trampled and crushed as if by great stone pistons.
Burning wood and fuel had been next. She strode through that unfazed. Not so fortunate were the indios who willingly followed her in the conflagration and were consumed.
The smell of their roasted flesh was that of roast suckling pig. Rodrigo veered closer, and spying a rigidly raised firecrackled arm, stopped and yanked on it.
The cooked black flesh slid off in his hands, exposing pinkish meat, but by struggling he succeeded in pulling the arm from its socket, carrying it away for later consumption.
Farther along, a great ditch had been dug and covered with thin wood and camouflaged to resemble in the darkness a patch of unpaved road.
One great foot touched the ruse, sensed its unnatural hollowness and responding, lurched over the snare and onward.
All obstacles were defeated. Coatlicue was prescient and indomitable. Everyone knew this. So the army had curtailed their futile operations and withdrawn totally. Coatlicue made wonderful progress until she reached the outskirts of Oaxaca.
The chilango army had all but ceded the old seat of the Zapotec nation to Coatlicue the invincible. Victory was assured.
That was not what concerned Rodrigo Lujan.
It was Coatlicue's voracious, all-consuming appetite.
The indios continued to pour out of the zinc-roofed huts and village hovels. They replenished the newly fallen.
The problem was those who fell, fell not to the enemy but to Coatlicue herself-now a crazy quilt of marbled flesh, stone and armor. She continued feeding. Her appetite was insatiable. It was said of the Aztecs that in the days before the Spanish came, they were sacrificing hearts to the sun at a ferocious rate, far more than were required to keep the universe continually in motion.
Rodrigo Lujan did not wish to become one of the sacrificed.
That was one reason he had commandeered a green Volkswagen taxicab. Should Coatlicue become blindly hungry, she could not take him into her immense body as long as he stayed behind the wheel.
He was following his goddess at a decorous pace when the brilliant notion birthed in his brain. He pressed the accelerator to the floor. The little bug pulled up and was pacing the striding deity that shook the earth that was already shaking.
"Coatlicue! I have the most brilliant idea!"
Coatlicue did not reply. That was good. Sometimes it was good not to be noticed. Also gratifying.
"Coatlicue, I know how you can ensure your survival."
The behemoth took another step and stopped, bringing the trailing clawed foot in line with the first.
The two reticulated serpent heads rolled down. One mouth parted, issuing a grating word. "Speak...."
"You must cease consuming your followers."
"This is contradictory. I grow larger and stronger by assimilating them."
"Yes. But now you are strong enough. For to grow stronger would make you a greater target to your enemies."
"I am greater in size, mass and volume than any bipedal meat machine. This equals survival."
"In the jungle it is said that the lowly mouse lives longer than the monkey. For the mouse's small size allows it to hide from predators who would otherwise eat the little mouse."
"I have attempted the survival strategy of feigning an inoperative state. This has failed. My new strategy appears to be working. My enemies have withdrawn because they fear my vast size."
"Yes. They fear you. But you are also striking fear into the hearts of your worshipers. This is not good."
"Previously you encouraged this survival tactic."
"I did. I do. But now it is different. You have all the vastness you require. And now you must emulate the survival tactics of the jungle guerrilleros. "
"That word does not match any in my memory banks. "