Obsidian Butterfly - Laurell K. Hamilton [271]
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, nozzles of the flame-throwers 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, boys. 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