Days of the Dead.pdf - Upgrade Systems

frantically for cover and clearly wondering at what point they should jettison their dignity and dive for it;
there was also a priest, fat and unshaven, cowering next to the half-open door at the end of the room,
bleating "Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" and roundly ignored by all. Beside Don Prospero stood a slen­der
middle-aged gentleman clothed, like the mad Don, in the short embroidered velvet jacket and
close-fitting trousers of a Mexican grandee, saying in the deep, beautiful voice January had first heard,
"Prospero, you know that the law forbids..."
This was evidently precisely the wrong thing to say, be­cause Don Prospero said, "The law? The law?"
and settled the rifle close against his shoulder to fire. "What has the law to do with-"
"Father, you cannot have your vaqueros open fire on the guardia civil!" Consuela pushed past
January and strode to Don Prospero's side, slapping the rifle-barrel up ward from beneath, which,
January thought, showed far more experience with such threats than if she'd tried to wrest the weapon
from him.
"And why not, girl?" Don Prospero's mustaches seemed to point like fangs, but he didn't re-aim the
weapon. Hannibal, who stood almost directly behind Capitán Ylario in the line of fire, shut his eyes in
what ap­peared to be brief silent prayer.
"Because those vaqueros of yours have no more idea of aim than armed pigs, and the guardia civil are
worse, and they would surely hit the Señora in the serpent petticoat there." Consuela gestured to the
Italian marble fireplace di­rectly beside Hannibal's shoulder, upon whose mantel-shelf stood an image, a
horrifying demon adorned with a neck­lace of skulls and, as Consuela had said, a skirt modeled to
resemble writhing snakes.
"Capitán Ylario." She walked over to the prim little man, who, January now saw, was younger than he
had at first guessed, stiff-backed and rather white around the lips beneath his small, neat mustache: he,
like January and Hannibal, had seen that Don Prospero really was going to shoot. "You have no idea
how full my heart is with joy and gratitude that there is so little crime in the streets of Mexico City that
you can be spared to spend all of a day riding out here and hiding in an arroyo, waiting for my father to
leave the hacienda, so that you can arrest a single malefactor. . . ."
"Do you mean the man who murdered your brother, Señora?" Ylario's voice was cold. "A crime for
which any natural woman would have long since wreaked her own vengeance..."
"You obviously never met Fernando," remarked Hannibal.
"I sing in operas, Capitán, but I don't live in them," Consuela replied. "Were I a natural woman, I would
have married a muleteer when I was fourteen and have had eight children by this time and do nothing with
my days but make tortillas for them. Now, Señor Enero here"-she strode back, caught January by the
sleeve, and dragged him over to the mantel, apparently oblivious to the amount of armament still primed
and ready on all sides-"has been given a mandate from the British minister to look into this matter of my
brother's death...."
"What would it matter if we blew that whore to pieces, eh?" demanded Don Prospero suddenly,
showing signs of bringing the rifle up to his shoulder again. "She is minor­- petty-without power!
Coatlique-bah! Let her be shat­tered into a thousand fragments! You're a slut in any case," he added,
apparently addressing the image now rather than his daughter, striding over to the mantelpiece to shake
his finger up at the grimacing demon face. "I never believed that story of yours about becoming pregnant
from a wreath of feathers, my girl. You women always make excuses, eh? Danae, eh, that claimed the
King of the Gods made her pregnant through a shower of golden coins....”