Hungry Ghosts (Eric Carter #3)(59)
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“End of the line,” Tabitha says. Bright light shines through a cave opening and the road slopes up to meet it. We come out into another copse of madrones, more of the Cihuateteo. I can hear a quiet shift in the wood as branches bend toward us.
“Is that normal?” I say.
“Yes. They’re tasting the air,” Tabitha says. “Wondering if we’re a threat.” A moment later the branches shift back.
“Guess they like us.”
“More that they like me. I’ve been here before. They never really got along with Mictlantecuhtli.” I follow her through the grove.
“So what is Chicunamictlan, exactly?”
“It’s a city. Looks a lot like Tenochtitlan or Teotihuacan, but bigger. Stone carvings, jaguar sculptures. Homes, markets, ball courts for ōllamaliztli games. Lots of tzompantli. Skull racks never really go out of style. Then there’s the Bone Palace.”
“That doesn’t sound at all ominous.”
“It’s just a building, Eric. It’s not even made of bone. It’s where Santa Muerte holds court. She and Mictlantecuhtli used to use it for rituals, but that hasn’t happened in half a millennium. If she’s anywhere in the city she’ll be there.”
We push our way through the trees. Unlike when we were heading toward the Crystal Road entrance outside the mists, the trees aren’t hampering our way. They bend aside to open a path for us.
When we get out of the copse onto a boulder-strewn desert landscape, I can see what she means. Chicunamictlan glitters on the desert horizon with a skyline to rival New York. A sprawling metropolis of Mesoamerican architecture that never existed on Earth. Stone buildings the size of skyscrapers, carved from limestone and red, volcanic rock. Everything brightly painted in reds, greens and blues, a stark contrast to the dead, colorless ruins in the land of the living.
In the center of the city stands an immense pyramid that reaches toward the sky. When I met Santa Muerte in a slice of Mictlan that extended to L.A., she had the same thing sitting where Dodger Stadium should have been, only on a much smaller scale.
I whistle. “Big place.”
“And then some. There’s more underneath. Hard to pin down its size. It shares space with Xibalba.”
“The Mayan land of the dead?” Interesting. I always assumed that all these places were sequestered from each other, but with so much overlap in religions that kind of makes sense. “If the Spanish had gotten through to here—”
“They could have taken a hell of a lot more than Mexico.”
What would have happened if they had? If Mictlantecuhtli hadn’t gotten rid of Darius? If Quetzalcoatl hadn’t been kicked out? Belief’s a powerful weapon. Gods have rules, constraints. Humans, not so much. What could a bunch of zealots do in a place like this? Create a new Spanish pantheon? Elevate themselves to godhood? Would the Aztecs have even been remembered?
The more I learn, the more I think we shouldn’t be fucking with these things. Gods are bad, people are worse. “Does Santa Muerte always stay in the palace?”
“Not all the time, no. Sometimes she wanders the streets, but eventually she’ll be back. Once she hears you’re in the city she’ll come looking for—”
Tabitha falls face first into the ground. At first I think she’s tripped, but then she gets yanked back toward a boulder behind us, her hands scrabbling in the dirt. That’s when I see the hand grabbing her ankle and the long, ropy tail it’s attached to.
I jump after her, but the Ahuizotl is fast. Faster than me by a long shot. Shooting it with the Browning is out of the question. Even if I could get the gun out in time I honestly don’t think I’d hit it. Same with the pocket watch. Its time bending isn’t exactly precise. It’d be just as likely to kill Tabitha.
The only other thing I can think of is a spell. But ever since I opened the door to Mictlantecuhtli’s tomb his power’s been sitting there inside me itching to get out. And if I let it, I’m fucked.
The trick is to cast without touching that power. It’s so tightly tied up with my own at this point I don’t know if that’s possible. But if I don’t, who knows what the Ahuizotl will do to Tabitha.
I throw out a minor levitation spell that I hope is strong enough to help, but not so strong that it will tip me over the edge. I don’t have to use magic to stop the Ahuizotl, I just need to slow it down.
The tail pulls taut as my spell takes hold, grabbing it and yanking it toward me. I haven’t stopped running and the pause before it breaks free is just enough for me to get close in with the obsidian blade.
I slash at the tail, opening it along its length, hot blood spraying from the wound. The Ahuizotl lets loose a shriek, dropping Tabitha and jerking back its tail, the hand at its end spasming.
Tabitha scrambles to her feet as the Ahuizotl leaps to the top of the boulder it had been hiding behind. It lets loose a roar, showing fangs dripping with green pus. It looks a lot more dangerous up close than when I saw it at the entrance to the Crystal Road.
It occurs to me, as I’m standing there holding Mictlantecuhtli’s blade, that maybe I should have pulled out the Browning, instead. Blowing holes into it from a distance just seems like a better idea than trying to take it on with a glorified steak knife.
A ball of blue fire flies over my shoulder and slams into the Ahuizotl’s chest, throwing it off the boulder and setting it ablaze. Of course. Just because I can’t cast spells, doesn’t mean Tabitha can’t.