Лорел Гамильтон - Obsidian Butterfly

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.

"Shit, that's one of those damn things they used on us," the cop said.

"Nicely ironic to use it on their god, don't you think?" Bernardo asked.

Olaf knelt beside the body.

"Hey, we didn't say you could do that," the cop said.

Olaf looked at Ramirez. "What do you say, Ramirez?"

"I say we do whatever Anita says."

Olaf whirled the club as if getting the feel for it. It also made the cops back up. He looked at me. "I'll take the head."

I pulled the knife out of Tlaloci's hand. He wasn't going to be needing it anymore. "I'll take the heart." I walked toward him, blade in hand. The cops kept backing away from us.

I stood over the vampire. Olaf knelt on the other side, looking up at me. "If I'd let you get killed, Edward would have thought I failed."

"Edward's alive then?"

"Yes."

A tightness left my shoulders that I hadn't even realized was there. "Thank God."

"I don't fail," Olaf said.

"I believe you," I said.

We stared at each other, and there was still something in his eyes that I couldn't read or understand, a step beyond whatever I'd become. I stared into his dark eyes and knew that here was a monster, not as powerful as the one that lay on the ground, but just as deadly in the right circumstances. And I owed him my life.

"You take the head first."

"Why?"

"I'm afraid if I take the knife out while the body's still intact that he'll sit up and start breathing again."

Olaf raised eyebrows at me. "You are not joking me?"

"I never joke about vampires," I said.

He gave me another long look. "You would have made a good man."

I took the compliment because that's what it was, maybe the best compliment he'd ever given a woman.

"Thank you," I said.

The SWAT team came back out of the far tunnel. "There's nothing down there. It's empty."

"Then it got away," I said. I looked at the body still lying there. "Take the head. I want out of this damn cave."