LA DIOSA ➪ RICHIE GECKO

F I F T E E N. ↴| ✔

Richard grabs a stake and throws it at me. I give him a quick thanks but he just walks away. Who pissed in his cereal?

I go around and start stabbing some of them in the heart.

"So, this mistress, is that Santanico Pandemonium?" Seth asks, carving a stake.

"I don't know. Could be. I mean, she sure put the hurt on them bikers, squashed them like they were little cockroaches." Tanner says.

"Well, Professor, unlike you, my brother here has had a little field research on the subject." Seth says, looking to his brother. I really want to be anywhere else than here...having a conversation about his girlfriend. "So, how about it, Richie? Why don't you tell us all about your little dancing queen?" When Richard doesn't respond Seth asks again. "Who is she? You told me she led you here."

"She wanted me to set her free..." he trails off. "By killing her, I think."

"Good. The bitch deserves it."

"You killing her or her killing us?" I sass to him and he glares at me.

"I don't know. I could feel her inside my head, and she was pulling me close. And, yeah, I think it was to this place." he spits at me.

"What do they want?" Jacob asks. "Knowing that could help us figure a way out of here."

"Maybe us being here pissed them off." Kate says.

"Doubt it. You seen the signs outside? This entire club is designed to lure people in." Richie says, shaking his head.

"And keep them here." Scott butts in.

"What is this place?" I ask.

"Well, from the markings on these walls, I'd say this bar was built on top of a temple like the Spanish conquistadors did with Tenochtitlan."

"Okay, Indy-with-a-cock-gun, what kind of temple?" Seth asks.

"The kind where people come and make offerings to the vision serpent." Tanner tells us.

"Blood offerings?" I ask, looking at the mini cuts on the floor, full of blood and running directly to the same spot. A hole in the ground.

"f it's blood that they want... They're gonna want more soon." Kate says and I nod.

"She's right." Tanner says, tearing a poster down from the wall. "The glyphs are right here on the walls. Ugh, these ancient pre-Mayan cultures are amazing engineers! This isn't just a bar on a temple. This place is a giant people juicer."

"People juicer? For who?" I ask in fear.

"If this is a feeding under naturalistic conditions, then their nutritional autonomy might be hierarchical." Tanner says. What the fuck. I didn't get any of that.

"Okay. Okay. English, Professor, please." I roll my eyes.

"What I mean is, there's a pecking order." he explains. "One group ravages the herd and sends the prime cuts to the next group."

"Hookers feed the pimps, pimps feed the capos, capos feed the bosses. I get it." Seth says nodding. "What I don't get is how do we shut it down?"

"I don't know." Tanner says shrugging. "I do know who's on the menu, though."

"Seriously? You need a PHD to figure that out?" I sass him and he walks to me.

"You're one rude little bitch." Tanner sneers to me.

"What did you call her?" Richard asks, standing up.

"All right. Just relax. Everybody take it easy, okay?" Seth says, calming us down. "Now, look, I get that we're all a ragtag bunch of ramblers here. But my guess is tonight's not gonna have a Scooby-Doo ending. So whatever beefs we got, forget them, or else we're all gonna get juiced. Or worse off, end up like the Cisco kid did earlier." Nice speech dumbass.