December 25, 2029
The sun was sinking over the plains as a truck calmly crossed the desert toward the border. Behind it, two pickup trucks followed at a discreet distance. After a few hours of slow traffic, the truck reached the checkpoint.
The border guard lifted his sunglasses, glancing at the logo painted on the side —
Carnes Mario
— then at the driver, a thin Latino man wearing a red cap.
“Well,
amigo
, what brings you back to Mexico?”
“Back?” the driver repeated.
The guard dogs sniffed around the vehicle, uneasy.
“Smells like blood,” the guard muttered.
“It’s meat truck,” the driver replied in broken English.
The pickups rolled closer through another lane, their windows dark as obsidian.
“Is it gonna take long?” the driver asked. “It’s Christmas.”
“Routine, you know how it is,” said the guard, giving the truck’s side a few taps.
“You gonna pay for that paint job or what?” the driver shot back, annoyed.
The guard grinned. He noticed the co-driver asleep under a beige poncho, dark glasses covering his eyes, still as a corpse.
A dull thud echoed from inside the truck. The guard’s hand went to his weapon.
“Must be… something loose,” the driver stammered.
“You don’t know?”
“I just drive, señor.”
The guard signaled to his partners, but one of the pickups rolled down its window. A man inside looked at him calmly.
“Let them pass,” the man said in English.
The guard hesitated — until the man handed him a small card. His face went pale. Without a word, he stepped aside.
The truck drove on.
“A little help would’ve been nice,” the driver muttered in Spanish.
“I don’t speak English,” the co-driver replied, sitting up.
“Then why the hell are you here?”
A white Ford Lobo appeared behind them, kicking up dust, a mounted machine gun gleaming in the back. They drove for several more kilometers, far beyond the reach of the law. The driver gave a signal and brought the truck to a sudden stop.
“Why’re we stopping? We there yet?” asked the co-driver as the other man stepped out without answering.
“No, still a few clicks left.”
“Then what? It’s almost dark,” he added, climbing out too.
“Relax,
novato
. We’ve got till midnight,” the driver shouted from the other side of the vehicle. “Just checking the cargo.”
They walked to the rear of the truck. The modified pickup stayed in front, watching for any unwanted eyes. Behind them, both escort vehicles opened their doors, and eight men climbed out — some in suits, all armed to the teeth, showing off their toys. The ones in back carried military-grade M4 rifles; the drivers casually drew their Glocks.
“Nice,” the co-driver muttered, hiding his hands beneath his poncho as he watched.
The driver knocked on the door in a specific rhythm. Seconds passed. On the other side, a latch clicked open.
The door creaked slowly. The first thing to appear was the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun. A watchful face peered out from the shadows, then, after a quick assessment, fully opened the door.
The co-driver frowned. Inside, a cluster of trembling bodies huddled together — naked, thin, eyes hollow. Men and women, all young. Their pale skin clung to bone.
“How many in the load?” the driver asked.
“Twenty-six men, twenty-eight women.”
“Weren’t only fifty required?”
“Brought a few extras. Better safe than sorry, right?”
“They meet the criteria?” he asked, glancing over them. “Virgins? No scars, no deformities?”
“Yes, all boxes checked,” the man said matter-of-factly, scanning the group. “Forty-eight hours without food — thin enough to look like
gringa
models. All born on the requested dates.”
The driver looked toward the men behind him. They nodded coldly.
“And that noise?” he asked, pulling a cigarette from his pocket. “You almost got us flagged.”
“Oh, yeah, about that…” one of the men replied, stepping back into the container.
A few seconds of silence passed. Then a sharp, desperate scream rang out from inside.
The man reappeared, dragging a young woman by the hair, and threw her out of the truck. She hit the ground hard in front of the driver.
She had black hair and pale skin, almost flawless. A filthy blanket clung weakly to her trembling body, barely covering her. The copilot glanced sideways; the calm expression he had worn until now cracked. He clenched his jaw but kept pretending indifference. The other man jumped down from the container.
“This brat’s been a nuisance since she got on,” he said, rolling up his sleeve to show fresh bite marks on his arm. “She even bit me.”
The driver crouched and grabbed the girl by the chin. She whimpered in pain. He blew a puff of smoke right into her face. She turned away, grimacing in disgust.
“Damn… how old is she?”
“She’s young—barely eighteen, if that. One of the last we captured. Her parents were trouble, so we had to kill them,” the man replied, flipping through a filthy notebook filled with notes. “Maybe that’s why she’s so agitated.”
“They’re getting younger every time…” the driver muttered, forcing her to stand. He looked her over from head to toe with the sick attention of a butcher studying which cut of meat to take first.
The girl shut her eyes in disgust and fury.
“They lose their virginity younger, get piercings, tattoos—whatever,” the man explained, his tone cold and clinical. “They stop being eligible for sacrifice.”
The copilot stood in silence, fighting the nausea rising in his throat.
Stick to the plan,
he told himself.
“Still… this one’s not bad at all,” the driver said, letting his hand slide down her figure. The girl recoiled, but he grabbed her again, tighter this time. “It’d be a waste to kill her. Maybe I should take her inside, have a little fun. What do you say, novato?” He gave the copilot a mocking glance.
“Don’t you think it’s… inappropriate to do that with the cargo?” the copilot replied, forcing his voice to stay neutral. “You know the bosses are strict about those things.”
“Didn’t you hear me? We’ve got extras. We can play with a few. I doubt our lord Quetzalcóatl will mind…”
The copilot stiffened. For a second, his expression betrayed real disgust. The driver noticed.
“Still…”
“Do what you want,” the driver grunted, dragging the girl again as she kicked and screamed. A disturbing image crossed the copilot’s mind—her face flickered, shifting into another he knew all too well. Fragmented memories, buried deep. He frowned, trying to ground himself just as the driver finished. “But don’t interrupt me.”
The men from the trucks started climbing back in. The one with the notebook returned to the cargo hold. The girl’s screams filled the air, her tears cutting through the grime on her face as she tried to break free.
The driver drew a knife. The young woman collapsed, gasping.
“She’ll be trouble if we run into anyone. Maybe I should just cut out her tongue…”
The copilot exhaled, his voice dripping with disdain.
“Why do I always end up halfway through the road…” he muttered.
“What did you say?” the driver asked, half-turning.
But it was already too late.
In the blink of an eye, everything froze. The copilot pulled his hand from beneath the poncho—holding an enormous weapon made of dark wood, its edges lined with gleaming obsidian shards: a
macuahuitl
, nearly two meters long. There was no way such a thing could have been hidden under his clothes.
With a single swing, the driver was split clean in half.
His body exploded in a rain of blood and entrails that splattered across the truck, soaking the girl, who barely managed to shield herself with her arms.
The man inside the container turned sharply at the sound. He raised his shotgun as fast as he could, but not fast enough. The copilot spun and, in one sweeping arc, both flesh and metal were cleaved through. The container walls shuddered, scarred with deep cuts, as the man’s torso fell like an empty sack.
“¡Puta madre!” one of the men by the trucks shouted.
In an instant, every gun turned toward the copilot. He stood motionless, expression calm and detached, and drove the macuahuitl into the ground. Then he whispered something—words in a dialect no one could recognize.
A storm of bullets poured down on him. The barrage hammered against the weapon, but none broke through, even though it looked like plain wood. Some bullets struck the obsidian blades, sparking violently on impact. The weapon was so massive it shielded his entire body; stray shots hit the truck behind him, drawing muffled screams drowned by gunfire. Still, the copilot remained composed.
Then, the shooting stopped. Out of ammo, the gunmen scrambled to reload their M4s—but when they looked up, the copilot was no longer on the ground.
He was in the air. Floating above them.
Had he jumped several meters while carrying that thing? Impossible. Inhuman. A chill ran down their spines as they saw his figure descending—eyes half-closed, serene, as if it took no effort at all.
And then, as if swinging a simple branch, the macuahuitl came down.
One man’s head was split in two. Before touching the ground, he decapitated the next with a single motion. A burst of Glock fire struck him, but he deflected it effortlessly—and with two more precise swings, the truck and the men beside it were reduced to fragments of flesh and steel.
From the truck behind, the surviving gunmen opened fire again. The copilot raised his hand.
The air grew dense. The pressure shifted in an instant. Bullets froze mid-flight, suspended in the air, trembling faintly. Then, he formed a gun with his fingers and “fired.”
The bullets spun around and shot back with surgical precision, striking multiple vital points on the traffickers.
The last man, hit in the shoulder, clung to the truck’s door, gasping.
“What the hell are you…? A demon?” he stammered, pressing his wound in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding.
“Oh… I don’t think you’re the right ones to be saying that kind of shit,” the copilot replied with disdain.
The man raised his weapon with a trembling hand—but before he could pull the trigger, the truck’s roof and his neck were sliced clean by the macuahuitl. His body dropped lifelessly. The copilot turned, but didn’t react in time to the gunshot from the last survivor.
The revolver’s thunder echoed through the air. The bullet struck him square in the forehead. His cap flew off, revealing messy black hair that fell below his eyes.
But there was no blood. The copilot stared back, his heterochromatic eyes—one green, one golden—fixed on his attacker. Unhurriedly, he ran his hand across his forehead and plucked out the bullet, now completely flattened. It fell to the ground with a faint
click.
“No way…” the man whispered, trembling from head to toe.
The copilot crouched down, met his gaze—and with effortless strength, gripped his head in one hand and tore it clean from his body. The motion was dry, almost mechanical. He sighed in irritation and let the head drop to the side. It rolled a few times, leaving a trail of blood across the dirt. The girl still trembled on the ground, struggling to process what she had just witnessed.
“Fortunately, it was a small caliber…” he muttered to himself, wiping his forehead in annoyance—without noticing the threat speeding straight toward him.
The modified truck skidded to a stop right in front of him, kicking up dust and gravel. The mounted turret screeched as it turned, locking onto the copilot’s chest.
The man behind the gun glared at him with fury—and a twisted smile.
He pulled the trigger.
The roar of bullets tore through the air. The copilot tried to react, but it was too late. Lead ripped into him mercilessly. Each projectile punched through his flesh like paper—some ricocheting off the asphalt, others piercing the truck behind him. The sound was deafening. The copilot let out a pained grunt. Then, silence. The machine gun smoked.
He remained standing—a collapsing figure. His body, now riddled with holes, dripped with a fluid that… wasn’t red.
The gunner frowned, confused. What flowed from those wounds wasn’t blood. It was gold.
It streamed like molten metal, thick and radiant, tracing liquid light across the asphalt.
“You’re a…” the gunner began, voice trembling, unable to finish. His hands shook uncontrollably. He couldn’t move the weapon anymore. Something deep in his mind begged him to look away.
The copilot raised a finger to his lips.
“Shh. You can’t say it out loud.”
From the torn remnants of his shirt hung a necklace. At its center, a solar symbol gleamed with supernatural brilliance. Then, as if time itself reversed, his wounds began to close—first the shallow ones, then the deep. In moments, there was no trace of damage.
Not even a scar.
Inside the truck, the driver screamed hysterically, ordering the gunner to keep firing. But the man couldn’t. Those words had left him frozen. Reverence. Divine terror.
The copilot opened his hand.
The ground beneath the truck began to quake, softening—liquefying as if the earth itself turned to mud. With a clenched fist, something enormous erupted from below: a long, sinuous creature with open jaws. It looked like a serpent, but plumes of feathers waved behind its skull.
The beast snapped onto the front of the vehicle and crushed it like cardboard, devouring the driver whose scream was swallowed by a supernatural roar. The creature vanished into mist, leaving behind only silence and trembling earth.
The rear half of the vehicle crashed down with a metallic thud, and the gunner was thrown through the air—straight toward the copilot.
He raised his weapon, lifting the macuahuitl like a spear.
The gunner didn’t even have time to scream. He was impaled mid-air. The obsidian blades tore through him mercilessly, shredding his organs until only a hollow wheeze escaped his throat. His body hung there for a moment before the copilot lowered the weapon, letting the corpse slide to the ground.
“Sometimes I forget how fragile mortals are,” the copilot said, brushing the dust from his clothes in annoyance.
“You should put that on a mug,” said a female voice behind him.
He rolled his eyes in exasperation.
“That way you won’t forget it,
mon seigneur
.”
Of all people, she was the last he wanted to see right now.
Sitting cross-legged atop the truck, an athletic woman watched him with amusement. She wore a skirt of metal plates that barely reached mid-thigh and a plated top that served as light armor. Her straight blonde hair fell to her shoulders, and her violet eyes glimmered with equal parts mockery and danger.
She smiled down at him.
“A pleasure to see you again, Lord Quetzalcóatl.”