Itzpapalotl looked at me, and there was a challenge in her face, a look that demanded an answer. "Do you still feel pity for him?"

I nodded. "Yes, but I understand hate, and revenge is one of my best things."

"Then you see the justice here."

I opened my mouth, Edward's hand tightened on my arm, until it was painful. He forced me to think before I answered. I'd have been careful, but he didn't know that.

"He did a terrible, unforgivable thing. They should have their revenge." In my head I added, though five hundred years of torment seemed a bit much. I killed people when they deserved it, anything beyond that was up to God. I just didn't think I was up to making decisions that would last five hundred years.

Edward eased up on my arm and started to let go of me, when she said, "So you agree with our punishment?" His hand locked back onto my arm, if anything tighter than before.

I glared up at him, hissing under my breath, "You're bruising me."

He let me go, slowly, reluctantly, but the look in his eyes was warning enough. Don't get us killed. I'd try not to. "I would never presume to question the decision of a god." Which was true. If I ever met a god, I wouldn't question their decision. The fact that I didn't believe in any god with a little «g» was beside the point. It wasn't a lie, and it sounded perfect for the situation. When you're prefabricating as fast as you can, it doesn't get better than that.

She smiled, and she was suddenly young and beautiful like a sudden glimpse of the young woman she must have been once. It was almost more of a shock than the rest. I'd expected a lot of things, but not Itzpapalotl to have retained even a shred of her humanity.

"I am very pleased," she said, and she looked it. I'd pleased the goddess, made her smile. Be still my heart.

She must have made some sign because the whipping continued. They beat him until the white of his spine showed through in places where the flesh had worn completely away. A human would have died long before they got that far, or even a shapeshifter, but the vampire was as alive as when they started. He had collapsed into a little ball, his forehead on the floor, arms trapped under his body, his weight resting on his legs. He was unconscious, but the body didn't fall over. It was propped up by its own weight.

Olaf was making a high-pitched hiss under his breath, fast and faster. If the circumstances had been different, I'd have said he was working up to an orgasm. If that was what he was doing, I so didn't want to know. I ignored him, or did my best to.

The werejaguar stood there through it all, nude, body going limp, the cut long healed as he watched the vampire's body torn apart. He watched it with a neutral face, but occasionally when a blow was particularly vicious, or when the first hint of bone showed through, he winced, gaze sliding away, as if he didn't want to watch but was afraid to actually turn his head away.

"Enough." That one word, and the whips stopped, drooping like wilted flowers. The silver balls had all turned crimson, and blood dripped from the end of the whips in slow spatters. The women's faces had never changed, as if the faces were just masks, and what lay underneath was inhuman and held all the emotions that the masks could not show. As if the monstrousness inside was more human than the human shells they wore.

The four women walked in a line to a small stone basin in the far comer. They dipped each whip into the water in turn, then ran their hands over each lash almost lovingly.

Olaf tried twice to speak, had to clear his throat, and finally said, "Do you use saddle soap and mink oil on the leather?"

The four women turned as one toward him. Then they all looked at Itzpapalotl. She answered for them. "You sound knowledgeable about such things."

"Not as knowledgeable as they are," he said, and he sounded impressed, like a Cellist seeing Yo-Yo Ma perform for the first time.

"They have had centuries to perfect their craft."

"Do they use their craft just on the bodies of the men who hurt them?" he asked.

"Not always," she said.

"Can they speak?" he asked. He was watching them as if they were something precious and lovely.

"They have taken a vow of silence until the last of their tormentors is dead."

I had to ask. "Are they executing them periodically?"

"No," she said.

I frowned, and the question must have shown on my face.

"We do not execute them. We merely harm them, and if they die of their injuries, then so be it. If they survive, then they live to see another night."

"So you're not going to give Diego any medical attention?" I asked.

Edward's hand had never let go of me during the torture as if he truly didn't trust me not to do something heroic and suicidal. His hand dug into me again, and I'd had my fill. "Let me the fuck go, now, or we are going to have a disagreement … Ted." I wasn't feeling good about watching Diego bleed. I was feeling worse because it hadn't bothered me as much as I thought it should have. I'd have helped him if I could have, as long as it wasn't suicide He was a stranger and a vampire. I wasn't risking our lives for him, and that was that. Had there been a time when I would have risked us all, even for a strange vampire? I just didn't know anymore.

"Diego has survived far worse than this. He is the strongest of all of them. We broke all the others before they died. They did everything we asked them in the end. Except Diego, and still he fights us." She shook her head, as a dismissing it all. "But we must show you how it is to be done properly. Chualtalocal, show them how the sacrifice is to be embraced."

The vamp that stood at her right hand stepped forward. He walked around the fallen Diego as if he were a pile of trash to be avoided, and left for someone else to clean up. He faced the werejaguar as Diego had faced him, but things had changed. Seth had been all pumped up from having his ears sucked when he first stripped, hard and eager to please. Now he was just naked, and his eyes kept going to the bloody mess that Diego had become as if he was wondering when his turn was coming.

"Make your offering, my cat," she said.

Seth was looking from Diego's body to the vampire in front of me. "My holy mistress, I am willing, you know I am, but I … I seem to be," he swallowed hard enough that I heard it even over the still faint ringing in my ears "I seem to be …»

"Make your sacrifice, Seth, or suffer my wrath."

The four sisters weird had hung their cat o' nine tails on small hooks in the wall, all in a row like a sadomasochistic version of the seven dwarves with their identical possessions. They glided back towards us all, like sharks scenting blood in the water.

Seth seemed to know they were there. He actually grabbed himself and started trying to get some attention going, but his eyes were flicking wildly through the room as if looking for an escape. He was making the effort, but nothing was happening.

Edward wasn't holding onto my arm anymore, maybe that was it, or maybe I'd just had enough for one night. "You've scared him shitless. It's hard to get it up when you're scared."

She and Chualtalocal looked at me, and their black eyes held nearly identical expressions, not that I chanced looking into the eyes long, but it was still there, disdain. How dare I interfere?

Edward made as if to grab me again. I held up a hand to him. "Don't touch me."

He let his hand fall back, but his eyes were not happy with me. Fine, I wasn't happy with anyone right now.

"And are you offering to help him overcome his fear?" Itzpapalotl asked. The look on her face said plainly that she didn't expect me to offer.

"Sure," I said.

I don't know who looked the most surprised, but I think it was Edward, though Bernardo was a close second from the doorway. Olaf just watched me like a fox watching a rabbit through the fence, who's just spotted a hole big enough to crawl through. I ignored him. It was probably best to always ignore Olaf, if possible. Ignore him or kill him. That was my vote.