The Red Woman's Husband leaned over me like Prince Charming about to bestow the kiss that would make everything all right again. His mouth hovered an inch above mine. The memory of how Seth's body had dried, died, was too vivid. I must have rushed to get the pen in position just above his heart. He pulled back a fraction of an inch, eyes questioning. I hit the button, and the blade took him through the heart.
His eyes flew wide, all that turquoise fire fading, leaving his eyes human looking. "What have you done?"
"You're just another kind of vampire. I kill vampires."
He rolled off the stone, fell to the floor. He held a hand out to Tlaloci. The priest rushed over to him. I didn't wait to see if there was a cure for the "god." I undid my left wrist and reached down for my ankles.
The Red Woman's Husband collapsed to his knees, and the priest collapsed with him. He was crying. "No, no, no." He pressed his hands around the hilt, trying to stop the blood from pouring out. His «god» fell into convulsions on the floor. He tried to hold his hands over the wound, to staunch the blood.
I got my ankles freed and rolled off to the other side of the stone. Call it a hunch, but I thought that Tlaloci would be upset with me.
He rose to his feet, bloodstained hands held out in front of him. I'd never seen anyone look so horrified, so desolate, as if I had destroyed his world. And maybe I had.
He never said a word, just drew the obsidian blade at his waist and stalked towards me. But the rock I'd been chained to was the size of a large dining room table, and I kept it between him and me. I kept the distance between us even, and he couldn't catch me. The gunfire was coming closer. He must have heard it, too, because he suddenly rolled over the stone to slash at me with the knife. I ran away from the stone, out into the open, which was what he wanted.
I turned and faced him. He came for me in a crouch, knife held loose but firm, as if he knew what he was doing. I'd left the blade in the vampire. I faced him hands out from my body, not sure what to do, except not get cut. I thought of one thing. I screamed, "Ramirez!"
Tlaloci rushed me, blade slashing. I turned, feeling the rush of air as the blade passed. There were screams from the stairs, the sounds of in-close fighting. Tlaloci slashed at me like a madman. All I could do was keep backing up, trying to stay out of reach. I was bleeding from both arms, and one cut on my upper chest, when I realized he'd backed me up by the altar.
I tripped over Paulina's body about the second I started looking for it, to avoid it. I went down on my side, her body trapped under my legs. I kicked out at him without looking to see where he was, anything to keep him at a distance.
He grabbed my ankle, pinning my leg against his body. We stared at each other, and I saw my death in his face. He tossed the knife one-handed so that the grip changed from slashing, to a downward stab. He had my left leg pinned, but my right leg was still on the floor. I braced my upper body with my arms, leaned my shoulders downward and drew back my right leg. I lined up his kneecap. Tlaloci started the downward stroke. I kicked the downward edge of his kneecap with everything I had. I saw the kneecap slide sideways, dislocated. His leg crumbled, he cried out in pain, but the blade kept coming.
Tlaloci's head exploded in a shower of brains, and bone. The pieces rained down on me, and the body fell to one side, obsidian blade scrapping along the stone floor as the hand convulsed around the hilt.
I stared across the cave and saw Olaf standing at the foot of the stone steps.
He was still standing in his shooting stance, one-handed, gun still pointed at where the priest had been standing. He blinked, and I watched the concentration leave his face, watched something close to human spill across his face. He started walking towards me, gun at his side. The other hand held a knife, bloody to the hilt.
I was wiping Tlaloci's brains off my face when Olaf came to stand in front of me. "I never thought I'd say this, but damn I'm glad to see you."
He actually smiled. "I saved your life."
That made me smile. "I know."
Ramirez came down the stairs with what looked like a SWAT team in full battle gear behind him. They spilled out to either side, nasty-looking guns pointed at every inch of the cavern. Ramirez just stood there, gun in hand, looking for something to shoot. National Guardsmen in flame-thrower gear came next, nozzle of the flame-thrower pointed up at the ceiling.
Olaf cleaned his knife on his pants, sheathed it, and offered me a hand. The hand was stained red, but I took it. His skin was sticky with blood, but I squeezed his hand and let him pull me to my feet.
Bernardo came into the room with more cops behind him. His cast was red with blood, the blade sticking out of it so dark with blood, it looked black. He said, "You're alive."
I nodded. "Thanks to Olaf."
He gave a small pressure to my hand, then let me go.
"I was late again," Ramirez said.
I shook my head. "Does it matter who saves the day, as long as it gets saved?"
The other cops were starting to relax as they realized there was no one to shoot.
"Is this all?" one of the black-decked cops asked.
I looked back at the far tunnel. "There's a Quetzalcoatl down that tunnel."
"A what?"
"A … dragon."
Even through the battle gear you could see them all exchange glances.
"Monster, if you like the word better, but it's still down there."
They got into ranks and went past me to the tunnel at a crouched run. They hesitated at the tunnel entrance, then slipped through one at a time. For once I let them go. I'd done my part for one night. Besides, they were a hell of a lot better armed than I was. One of them ordered Ramirez and some of the other more civvie looking policemen to escort the civilians to the surface.
Ramirez came to stand in front of me. "You're bleeding." He touched the cut on my arm.
I turned so he could see some of the other cuts. "Pick one."
Bernardo and the other cops that had been ordered to stay behind came to look at the two dead men. "Where's this Red Woman's Husband that the little creep kept talking about?" one of the cops asked.
I pointed at the body with the blade sticking out of its chest.
Two of the cops went to stand over the body. "He doesn't look much like a god."
"He was a vampire," I said.
That got everyone's attention. "What did you say?" Ramirez asked.
"Let's concentrate on the important details here, hoys. We need to make sure that body doesn't get back up. Trust me. He is one powerful son of a bitch. We want him to stay dead."
A cop kicked the body, which rolled limply as only the true dead move, "Looks dead to me."
Watching the body roll limply made me jump, as if I expected him to sit up and say, just kidding, I'm not really dead. The body stayed still, but it hadn't done my nerves any good.
"We need to take the head and cut out his heart. Then we burn them separately and scatter the ashes over different bodies of water. Then we burn the body to ash, and scatter it over a third body of water."
"You've got to be kidding," one of the cops said.
"The flayed ones just fell down and stopped moving," Ramirez said. "Did you do that?"
"Probably when I put the knife through his heart."
"Bullets hadn't worked on any of them until the flayed ones fell down, then the bullets killed everything."
"She did that?" the cop asked. "She made our bullets work?"
"Yes," Ramirez said, and probably he was right. Probably it had been me. Regardless, I wasn't going to raise any doubts. I wanted them to listen to me. I wanted to make sure that the 'god' stayed dead.
"How exactly do we chop off the head?" the same cop asked.
Olaf went to the chest that the men had gotten their weapons out of and lifted a large flat club with bits of obsidian embedded in it. He holstered his gun and walked to the body.