The frog-statue closed its mouth, and visibly swallowed.
The Cornerstone was gone.
Without breaking stride, Marla reversed her cloak.
With his superior vision, B could see right away that it wasn’t Mutex anymore, that his genius had left his loci and successfully switched bodies with the ever-expanding Tlaltecuhtli at the exact moment that the Cornerstone fell into the monster’s open mouth. But Marla didn’t notice. She transformed into a beast, a jaguar of deep purple shadows, and in half a bound she’d crushed a dozen frogs underfoot, and in another leap she was on top of what had been Mutex.
B tried to imagine what Tlaltecuhtli must be experiencing—to have returned to consciousness after so long, to have felt burgeoning strength, and then to suddenly be confined in a small body, and, mere seconds later, to be torn to pieces by an enraged woman who’d just watched her only hope for ongoing life fall into a monster’s mouth.
The purple shadow-beast abruptly disappeared, replaced by Marla cloaked in white, crouching amid the remains of Mutex’s body. Small golden frogs jumped all around her, but she paid them no mind. Marla looked up at Tlaltecuhtli, who was now close to thirty feet high and spreading in every direction, crushing bushes and bridges and statues as he expanded. The bronze of the Buddha had changed to something closer to green flesh, and distinct limbs were forming, expanding out from the central mass. There was no sign yet of Mutex’s consciousness, but he was in there, B knew, and once the monster was fully formed, he would strike with zeal and calculation, as Mutex had in his smaller form. B could already see the vague outlines of the gargantuan monster he and Marla had seen after their visit to the Possible Witch. Marla backed away, staring up at the frog-monster, her face empty of emotion, but B could see that she knew, that she understood that Mutex’s mind still lived on. But he didn’t know what, if anything, she could do about it.
“I wish…” Cole said, looking down at the golden frogs that covered the ground between them and Marla. He clenched his hands into fists. “I wish I could do something.”
Rondeau gazed up at the frog-monster, and for once, he didn’t look bored at all. He looked terrified.
Ch’ang Hao was methodically stomping on the poison dart frogs and kicking their remains aside. He went to stand beside Marla, and the two of them studied the swelling frog-monster like surveyors looking over a bit of rocky landscape. Marla spoke to Ch’ang Hao—B couldn’t hear the words—and the snake god shook his head, grinding another frog under his foot as he did so.
After the alien intelligence receded, and Marla was no longer occupied by trying to figure out the best way to kill Ch’ang Hao for his earlier threats, she said, “I’m fucked.” She had to shout over the sounds coming from Tlaltecuhtli, the occasional moans and the constant low sounds of meat stretching.
“I see toes,” Ch’ang Hao said, his deep voice carrying easily over the noise. “And the beginning of fingers. There are mouths appearing on the elbows and knees. Once this creature assumes its form, it will begin killing. And once it kills, it will grow larger. That is the way of such gods.” He sounded completely indifferent, and she supposed he was—he didn’t care if humankind and all its works were destroyed. He likely hoped they would be.
“I can’t fight this thing,” Marla said. “I can’t attack it any more than I could attack the Golden Gate Bridge, any more than I could kill the moon. In a few more minutes, we’re going to get crushed just from the way this motherfucker is expanding. It’s Mutex in there, too. I just ripped apart the real Tlaltecuhtli. I saw it in its eyes. Poor thing was confused—didn’t understand what the hell was going on. I actually felt sorry for it.” She did now anyway—she hadn’t felt much of anything when she’d killed it, or for a little while afterward, until the cloak’s effect wore off.
“There are few humans who can claim to have killed a god,” Ch’ang Hao said. “Even by accident. You continue to accumulate distinctions.” The flatness of his tone did more to advertise his hatred for her than any amount of anger would have.
“I know your opinion of me isn’t as high as it could be,” Marla said. “I wish I could do something about that.” She backed away from the creature’s expanding girth, and Ch’ang Hao moved with her.
“I comprehend fully what you are, Marla. I understand the reasons behind your actions. But they earn you no love from me, and I will kill you, if I can. I am saddened at the prospect of this frog-monster killing you first.”