Hungry Ghosts (Eric Carter #3)(60)

“Come on,” she says, grabbing my hand and pulling me along with her. We run as fast as we can.

“You don’t think that killed it?” I say.

“I know it didn’t. I’ve tried that before. Makes it nice and pissed off, though.”

“That’s a plus how?”

“It isn’t.”

The Ahuizotl roars behind us. I can hear it running. I’m afraid to look back, but I know that if I don’t do something it’s just going to keep coming.

I pull the Browning and turn around to face it, knife in one hand, gun in the other. I get off two shots that hit center mass and do fuck-all to slow it down. Twenty feet away from me it leaps. I lift Mictlantecuhtli’s blade high as it comes down on top of me. A part of my mind is trying to figure out how big it is. Too big for a jaguar. Too small for a tiger. Though once you get past really fucking big, it’s pretty much a moot point.

The rest of me only knows that it’s really fucking heavy and fast and it feels like being hit with a truck. Its weight bears down on me, and I slam into the ground.

Its roar turns into a scream as the blade punches through its abdomen. Hot blood sprays me from its opened gut. I push the blade down, ripping through more of its flesh. It rolls away, slashing its claws against my side, shredding my jacket and striking sparks when they hit the stone.

I try to get up but the wind’s been knocked out of me. I can’t move. It’s then that I realize I don’t have the knife or the Browning anymore. The blade stuck in the Ahuizotl’s belly when it rolled off me, flinging it into the dirt a good ten feet away. I don’t see the gun anywhere.

I use the same levitation spell to grab the knife, but I twist the magic a bit to pull it to me. It zips toward me, but before I can get hold of it the grasping hand at the end of the Ahuizotl’s tail wraps around my neck and jerks me up off the ground. It brings me close, looks at me with bright, green eyes, its face twisted into a scowl of pure hatred.

“Liar,” it screams. “Welcher, cheater, grifter. What do you have to say?” It loosens its grip enough that I can take a breath.

“I’d say somebody bought you some of that word-a-day toilet paper.” My voice comes out in a strained croak.

“Quetzalcoatl is waiting. Why have you not fulfilled your bargain? Why does Mictlan not burn?”

It takes a second for me to realize it’s not speaking English but I can understand it just fine. Nahuatl? Good bet. I had something similar with Mictlantecuhtli last year, but I couldn’t tell because all I heard was English. The Ahuizotl looks like a badly dubbed Kung Fu flick.

“You do get that you’re gonna go up like everything else here, right?”

It tightens its grip around my neck. “As was promised me, yes. Mictlan burns, and I am released.”

“So he did send you. I told him I had things to do first.”

“I have been waiting for five hundred years to be free of this hole.” It loops its tail around my neck a couple of times and squeezes tighter. I can feel trapped blood pounding inside my skull. The edges of my vision fade to gray. You’d think with all this turning to stone crap I’d be immune to strangulation. But no. I claw at its tail, try to loosen its grip. It’s no use.

“If you will not free me with the release of death then I will free you and feast on your carcass. I will crunch your bones between my teeth and lap up your blood. You are no good to me if you will not fulfill your end of the bargain.”

I would really like to tell it that I’d be happy to keep up my end of the bargain, but that I’ll have to be alive to do it. But its grip is too tight and I can’t get a whisper out, much less a full sentence.

“You want to be free?” Tabitha says behind it. “I’ll free you.” It whips its head around to face her as she steps in close, slashing Mictlantecuhtli’s blade hard through its throat. The knife tears a massive gash that opens up all the way to its spine.

Arterial blood fountains out of its neck like a busted hydrant. It tries to slash at her, but its already dying and she easily blocks each strike with the knife, slicing into the hands, lopping off fingers.

It recoils from the pain, but Tabitha keeps up her attack. She steps in close, reaching up into the massive gash in its throat and yanking its tongue out through the hole. On one hand, Jesus fucking Christ. On the other, she just pulled off a pretty flawless Colombian Necktie.

The Ahuizotl knocks her aside, scrabbles at its throat with its lacerated hands. The tail loosens around my neck and I fall to the ground. The Ahuizotl tips over, a thick, wet sound coming from its ravaged throat. Tabitha rushes it again, slashing with the knife. It tries in vain to ward off Tabitha’s attack. When it finally stops moving Tabitha doesn’t seem to notice. She keeps slashing at it with the knife like a crazed butcher. I pull myself free of the tail, wait until her strikes slow and finally stop.

She stands next to the Ahuizotl’s corpse, her breath coming in hitching gasps. She wipes blood out of her eyes. We’re both drenched in it.

I come up to her and before I realize what’s happening, she has the Browning pointed at my head.

“Tabitha—”

“You are going to tell me about Quetzalcoatl and this burning down Mictlan bullshit right the fuck now,” she says. “Or I will goddamn shoot you.”

“You think I didn’t put a spell in that cuff you’re wearing to keep you from killing me?”