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 store before B could protest. He returned a moment later carrying two cans of hairspray and a handful of cheap, translucent lighters.
“Planning to do your hair and smoke some cigarettes?” B said when Rondeau jumped back in.
“Nah,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about Mutex and his menagerie. He’s got frogs, yeah, they get all the hype, but he’s also got hummingbirds, and those little bastards are all but unkillable. I Cursed a couple of them, and that killed them, but I was thinking about what happened when I Cursed them—they burst into flame. And Hamil told us that the hummingbirds were warriors for the sun god. So I’m thinking, blades don’t kill them, beating the shit out of them doesn’t kill them, but maybe…”
“Fire,” B said. “Got it. And the hairspray and lighters are the classic ingredients for a homemade B-movie flamethrower that’s as likely to explode in your face as anything else.”
“You see?” Rondeau said. “Maybe I’m going to be indispensable to the fate of the world after all.”
Moments later they reached the park. Rondeau double-parked just inside the gate—it was easy to do that, B reflected, when you didn’t have to worry about getting a parking ticket—and started running flat-out in the direction of the Tea Garden.
B hurried after him. Rondeau didn’t strike him as the running type. He seemed better suited to sauntering, strolling, or possibly swaggering. Since he was running, B figured it was a good idea for him to run, too, even if he did feel a little ridiculous with Marla’s cloak flapping out behind him.
“Marlita!”
Marla turned, and there beyond the half-open gate was Rondeau, grinning, running, and carrying (rather improbably) a couple of aerosol cans. B was behind him, puffing as he ran.
“Rondeau,” she said. “Rondeau! Why aren’t you dead?”
“B played the cavalry,” he said, and winked. “Because I’m so crucial to the fate of the world, you know.”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” she said. “Is the Celestial dead?”
“No,” Ch’ang Hao and Rondeau said, simultaneously.
B approached Marla, looking sidelong at the wall of birds. He unhooked her cloak and handed it over. “I didn’t even get blood on it,” he said. “I, ah, dealt with things another way.”
“You’ll have to tell me about that, if we survive the afternoon,” she said, wrapping the cloak around her shoulders. “Right now we’ve got a wall of birds between us and our target, Tlaltecuhtli is stirring, and I think Cole was just about to tell me some more bad news.”
“Cole?” Rondeau said. “I wondered who the old guy was. Nice to meet you. You’re shit at following people discreetly, though, I gotta say.”