Beneath his feathered headdress and black zigzag paint, Rez's expression firmed. "I'm with you. How many others do you need?"
Time telescoped, and JT felt the terrible weight of his decision. "Everyone." And even that might not be enough. But the village's fate would be decided one way or the other today. By the end of this equinox, they would all be free . . . or they would all be dead.
"Hurry," he urged as Rez started snapping out orders, sending the older children to collect the younger ones in a sturdy central building, which would be guarded by the few warriors they would leave behind. The rest would follow JT as soon as they had loaded up on ammo.
Hang on, Natalie, he whispered deep in his soul. We're coming.
He just hoped to hell they weren't already too late.
Natalie's heart hammered as she crouched behind a broken pillar as a pair of new camazotz passed way too close for comfort, headed into the forest. When they were gone, she exhaled shallowly and thanked the gods that the newborns' perceptions were as weak as their bodies. She had gotten lucky so far. She only prayed her luck would hold.
Slipping from concealment, she headed for the central tunnel, shivering as she entered and the temperature plummeted. Stalactites dripped down from the tunnel's ceiling, and a snail trail of water ran along one side, glistening in the pools of sunlight that were let in by a series of natural skylights created by fallen-in sections.
The ribbon of golden energy connecting her to the skull beckoned her onward, but she hesitated, looking back over her shoulder at the bright blue sky of a jarringly beautiful spring day.
"Damn it, JT," she whispered. She would've given anything to have his solid, centered presence by her side. But he hadn't come after her. She was on her own.
The tunnel went from dark to light and back again as she passed beneath the ragged openings, then mostly dark as it angled downward. She didn't dare use her flashlight, but there was light once more up ahead. She fixed on it, kept moving toward it, feeling her way along the slippery stone track, which grew treacherous as the incline increased.
Breathing through her mouth to avoid as much of the stench as possible, she paused when she reached a sharp bend in the tunnel. Moving carefully and staying low, she peered around the corner. And caught her breath, stomach knotting. Oh, sweet Christ.
Beyond the corner, the tunnel dead-ended in a roughly rectangular cavern, which was open to the sky, with stalactites spearing down from the ceiling, dripping into pools of stagnant, slimy water. The opening was crisscrossed with vines and branches, turning the sunlight green and dank. In one corner, several reddish, glistening things hung in the shadows. Bodies, she thought, her stomach knotting with horror. But she fixed her attention on the chamber's sole occupant: a huge black-furred camazotz.
It faced the far wall, where a tall panel of carved hieroglyphs rippled fluidly with strange energy.
The creature's fully intact wings were tucked tightly around its back, and it wore two heavy stone yokes, one around its throat and another that hung low on its hips, protecting its genitals.
Oily brown energy hung around it, moving from the camazotz to the pulsing wall and back. As she watched, a shadow moved on the other side of the swirling panel, and then the ripples parted and a stringy, skinny camazotz fell through. It landed wetly and struggled up with red hatred burning in its eyes as it glared around the cave.
Holy shit. Natalie swallowed a surge of fear that threatened to lock her in place. This was it.
This was the source, the hell mouth. More, as the big camazotz turned to shove the newborn aside, she caught a flash of yellow hanging on a cord around its neck.
The crystal skull!
She was moving before she was aware of having made the decision, lunging across the chamber and unloading the pump-action into the newborn as she came. Black ichor splashed and the creature flew backward. She didn't waste time finishing it off, but kept going, firing the rest of her jade-loaded shells into the bigger demon's abdomen, knocking it away from the wall.
With surprise on her side, she got inside the huge camazotz's guard. As it roared and swung at her, she dodged, grabbed the skull, and used her knife to cut it free from beneath the stone collar that protected the creature's neck.
The camazotz shrieked and raked at her with teeth and claws, but the moment she had the skull clutched tightly in her hand, strange heat detonated inside her and the shimmering gold energy was suddenly inside her. It poured into her, filled her up, made her feel faster and stronger, like a trained fighter rather than her usual small, scrappy self.
Pivoting beneath the creature's next attack, she ducked, got the knife up, and carved a long furrow in its wing membrane. When the camazotz jerked back, screaming in pain, she spun and bolted for the tunnel.
Thud. Two more of the creatures dropped straight into her path, their intact wings spread wide.
Their eyes burned like coals and their mouths split in three-pronged shrieks. Fear slashed through the golden glow of magic as she spun, skidded on ichor, and went down. She rolled and scrambled up, but more wings boomed, more demons hurtled down from up above, darkening the chamber as they blocked out the light.
Heart hammering, she ducked a claw swipe and rammed the butt end of the shotgun into a gaping three-cornered mouth. Then, breath sobbing in her lungs, she chucked the empty gun, pulled her autopistol—her last real weapon—and started blasting away, trying to drive the creatures back.
But the pistol lacked the knockdown power of the shotgun. The creatures kept coming, then fell back, parting to let their giant leader through. His burning-coalleyes were locked on her, on the skull. The stench enfolded her, bringing panic.
Heart hammering, she backed up, slammed into the wall, and couldn't go any farther.
Oh, shit. Oh, shit-shit-shit. Terror poured through her. She was done. She was dead. She was—
"Natalie, down!" The shout paralyzed her for a second, but then her body took over and she threw herself on the slimy floor as a hail of gunfire cut through the space where she had been.
Black liquid sprayed and the big camazotz reeled back, mouth splitting in a shriek of pain that soared above her hearing, then was drowned out as dozens of other weapons opened fire in a deafening salvo.
She scrambled partway up, watching in gape-jawed shock as the past came alive and Mayan men and women wearing bright ceremonial tunics and headdresses, their faces daubed with war paint, poured into the chamber. But rather than stone clubs and wooden spears, they were armed with grenade launchers, shotguns, and knives. Moving with almost military precision, they formed two lines. The warriors in the front line mowed down the camazotz and advanced, while the second line went to work with their knives, cutting the bat-demons and banishing them to oily smoke.
And in the center of it all was JT. Wearing his hunting clothes, bandoliers, and a snarl of feral rage, he fought the huge camazotz knife against claw, trying to get past the stone yokes that protected its throat and genitals.
Her heart surged. He had come back for her. He was fighting for her, going to war for her. But he had lost his guns, and none of the other warriors had a clean shot.
And as she watched in horror, she saw his footing start to slip.
JT! Jamming the skull into her pocket, she bolted for the combatants. She wouldn't let him down.
"Natalie, no!" he shouted. "Stay back!"
She ignored him and went in high with her knife, aiming for the tied sinew that held the collar in place. She slashed through it and then, as the creature shrieked and spun, she went for the ties on the hip yoke. And missed.
"Natalie!" His voice was anguished, the demon's rage palpable as it lunged for her.
A blur caught it from the side as JT rammed into the much larger creature, somehow managing to drive it aside and take it down. Roaring, he plunged his knife into its exposed throat, ripping through skin, tendon, and vessels with one convulsive slash.
The camazotz leader arched and writhed, flailing with its now-ragged wings as JT cut through the hip ties and hacked the thing's dick off with a grisly sawing motion.
For a second nothing happened. Then the camazotz disappeared.
The belch of foul, oily smoke dissipated quickly, leaving JT and Natalie together in a small oasis of calm, while around them the villagers mopped up the last of the creatures.
His eyes fixed on her, dark with emotion. His mouth silently shaped her name.
Relief hammered through her, alongside a hard, hot flush of victory. "JT!" She flung herself at him, wrapped herself around him, and burrowed in tightly when his arms came up to band around her. "You came back for me," she said against his neck, then pulled away to look into his eyes. "I guess you are into me, after all."
"I love you." He said it without pretense or preamble. It was stark. It was the truth.
She hadn't been braced for it, hadn't been expecting it, and the shock left her gaping.
His expression clouded. "I know I'm a bad bet. I'm barely civilized on a good day, and I'm more used to keeping secrets than telling the truth. But I'll work on it, I swear. You said once that you were falling for me. If you'll give me another chance, I'll —"
She cut him off with a kiss. It started soft, as a way to shut him up, but quickly gained heat and depth, becoming a grinding grapple of relief and the mad, powerful joy that thrilled through her like liquid gold as she pulled away. "I'm not falling for you anymore. I already fell." She met his eyes, saw the truth there, the solidity that anchored her restlessness. "I love you, too."
His face blanked and then flushed; his eyes glowed with love. "Natalie, I—"
"Chan camazotz! " Rez shouted.
They jolted apart and spun, dropping into defensive crouches, knives at the ready.
But there was no way to defend against what they saw. Not with knives. Maybe not even with jade-tips.
A huge shadow darkened the glittering swirl of the hell mouth. A harsh rattle gathered, stringing the air tight as the swirls thickened and took on form and substance, going from shadow to a deep, fiery orange that froze Natalie to her marrow.
Her stomach dropped. She didn't know what was about to come through, but every instinct she had ever possessed, ever relied on, said that if it got through, they were all dead. "Christ."
