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Hao sniffed. “Frogs. No. I have nothing to fear from frogs. My kind eat them.”
Marla pushed on the gate. It was locked. She pressed her hand against the wood,
concentrated, and was rewarded a moment later with the snap of a lock and latch giving
way on the other side. She pushed open the gate, just wide enough to admit her, and
looked inside.
The Tea Garden was beautiful, and cultivated enough that it didn’t discomfort Marla the
way nature usually did. There were pebbled paths, graceful bridges, running water,
creeks, and statuary, all visible from where Marla stood. There was also a dead tourist in
khaki shorts lying in one of the pathways, but that only detracted slightly from the
beauty. She beckoned Cole and Ch’ang Hao, then slipped inside.
The atmosphere inside the gate struck her instantly—heavy, electric, crackling, roiling.
There was deep magic happening here, or about to happen. Cole sensed it, too. “There’s
more to this than raising a god,” he said. “That’s the weight in the air, but I smell
something else, another spell. Mutex is trying to do something more.”
Before he could elaborate, the hummingbirds came. Perhaps Mutex had seen them and
sent the birds, or perhaps the birds acted autonomously. They descended from the sky
and hung before Marla and her allies, forming a ruby fence eight feet high, their bodies
and invisibly thrumming wings fitted as neatly together as if they were an Escher print
of interlocking birds. Marla tried to move around them, but the birds moved with her,
staying in front of her, keeping her from moving forward. “Flank them,” she said, and
Cole and Ch’ang Hao moved off to either side.
More hummingbirds descended, and now they arrayed themselves in a semicircle,
hemming in Marla, Cole, and Ch’ang Hao.
“Birds,” Hao said contemptuously, and struck them with his fist.
He gasped and pulled his hand back, eyes wide. His knuckles were torn, leaking a
yellowish substance. Snake god’s blood.
“They’re not just birds,” Marla said. “They’re the spirits of dead warriors, and they’re
the next best thing to indestructible. Rondeau managed to kill some, by Cursing at them,
but I don’t know how we can.” She shook her head. “We’ve got to get around them.”
The birds hung before her, a multitude of tiny black eyes fixed on her face.
“Marla,” Cole said, and when she looked at him, she was deeply unnerved to see naked
fear in his expression. “I’ve figured out what the other spell is. I know what else Mutex
is trying to do.”
Beyond the nearly opaque wall of hummingbirds, something gave a throaty roar.
“Hold up,” Rondeau said. “Gas station. Give me a minute.” He pulled into the lot and
parked the car at an inconsiderate angle across two spaces, and ran into the convenience