Chapter 7

A human unlike any I had ever seen stood before me. Height did nothing for the intimidation factor of the short albino man, who stood at a whopping five feet. Yet, intimidating the man was. He had a turquoise mask grafted onto the flesh of his face with jagged hooks, which did nothing to hide his yellow pointed maw of a mouth. His half leer, half snarl made him look more animal than person.

The more I looked at him, the stranger it got. Hooks, bone piercings, stretched ears, and ritual scarring barely concealed under strange animal furs spoke of a harsh life I couldn’t fathom. He looked like a South American headhunter extra from a horror movie. We couldn’t have had more different stories.

I, at a loss for words, just went with the polite response.

“Hello,” I said.

Apparently, that was the wrong fucking answer, because the body modified creeper screamed something incomprehensible and slashed a black bladed dagger across my open greeting hand. Stinging pain tore across my palm, but more than that it pissed me off.

Before the savage followed up on his attack, I sprang at him with a snarl of hate. Using a Thai thrust kick I’d learned from a Muay Thai class in college, my foot heel slammed into his chest. Because of my legs being much longer than his, combined with my enhanced strength, the maneuver sent the crazed bastard rolling backward down the street as if a car had hit him.

Blood and skin left a trail of carnage from my feet to the man’s resting place.

After the savage lay silently on the ground, twitching for a few moments, I realized I might have killed him outright.

“What the fuck,” I said slowly, staring down at the carnage in shock.

Sourly, I approached the barely moving figure. I’m a murder, thanks for that, you dick.

I tried to be polite, and that got me cut. My sympathy had evaporated.

I cautiously rolled the man over with my boot, then stepped back to observe the damage. Immediately, my eyes took in the unfortunate lunatic caved-in chest. How he was alive and still struggling to breathe was a mystery. From his ripped open skin, I watched his gore coated lungs fruitlessly taking in gasps of air. Blood gushed out from the wounds where hooks and bones got caught on the pavement and ripped open on the merry, bloody slide I’d sent him on.

“Hey, don’t you look at me like that. You did this.” I chastised the mortally injured savage, matching his hateful, dying stare. Seeing that my argument fell on deaf ears, I rolled the roadkill back onto his stomach with a nudge. I didn’t need to see the carnage for another second.

The Scroll appeared:

[Tlacotin Defeated + 5% Legacy]

“Did you just seriously reward me for this? What is wrong with you!?” I asked.

The Scroll vanished.

Is murder what the Scroll wants me to do? Or are these blessings a punishment for murdering? I see it both ways.

A quick check of the man revealed nothing useful. The savage carried nothing but the dagger he had used to attack me with, and it broke when I sent him tumbling.

On a more positive note, while I searched the Tlacotin, my enhanced smell caught a whiff of his dead flesh. And I was very thankful that the man smelled like a cow patty.

Thank God, I really don’t want to be a cannibal on top of everything else.

“So, if you are out here with nothing but a dagger and have no food, you must live nearby. Or maybe you have supplies stashed away… or you are part of a larger group.” I deduced out loud. “I guess the obvious thing is something dumped here like I was.”

I sighed. My chance of getting answers just died.

“Well, buddy, I can’t just leave you here on the street. It might attract the wrong sort, and well, you are a human. I hope. So, you deserve at least some respect.” I said.

Trying not to get blood on my hands I lifted the corpse by its ankles and walked it over to a nearby dumpster. I saw no way to give the man a burial in an urban environment, but at least the dumpster might work as a kind of coffin.

After I tossed the corpse in the trash, I said a prayer, “Dear Lord, please forgive me for accidentally killing this man and take my obviously troubled soul into your light. Amen.”

Unlike before, Scroll did not appear. I didn’t care, I earnestly meant what I said. Whatever this place was doing to me scared me to the core of my being.

A loud noise interrupted the funerary proceedings. It sounded like a drunk ska band blowing a few horns off key. I spun toward the street and quickly exited the alley, looking for the sound.

The Hornblower made my jaw open in amazement, letting my tongue roll out like a slinky. What I expected to see was a bunch of the Tlacotin, and some idiots blowing primitive horns, signaling, “HEY! He’s over here!”

What I got was an enormous green and yellow bullfrog the size of a small horse. Well, almost. This new monstrosity had the head, and more important teeth, of a crocodile. Hateful yellow eyes stared at me from its evil reptilian face. Along its long dragon-like legs were mouths with extra teeth on each of its joints, as if to say it needed even more teeth.

“HRRROOOOOONNNNKKK” it bellowed again.

I am not a proud man. Without a second’s hesitation, I turned and ran.

Even with my enhanced strength, I made it about three yards.

A shadow sailed over me, barely noticeable in the dark gloom of the street, and it was only because of my above average reflexes that the creature missed smashing into me. The Frogodile crashed heavily onto the pavement where I had been, cracking it in all directions and sending a cloud of debris into the air.

I recovered before it did and evaded a second attack from the beast, its jaws snapping near my right ear. Before it pulled back to try again, I swung down at the snout of the creature with the monkey wrench with all my might. The blow was glancing because the angle was bad, but my enhanced strength (and strikes) still ensured that it hurt. Blood sprayed from the monster's nose, and at least several teeth flew out of its lengthy snout.

I didn’t have time to savor the hit, because a mouth on the Frogodile’s foreleg elbow opened and a spiked tongue embedded itself into my arm like a burr. I was so surprised by the attack that I almost lost my balance trying to retreat from it. Unfortunately, the spiked appendage was much stronger than it looked, allowing the creature to yank its foreleg and pull me toward the main mouth.

Primordial jaws came rushing toward me again. Instead of resisting, I used the momentum of the creature’s leg pull to dive under the monster but lost my monkey wrench on impact. Between my tearing dive and mad scrambling, the tongue connected to my left bicep ripped painfully off, leaving blood and a foul-smelling liquid leaking down my arm.

The monster shifted its bulk and tried to collapse on top of me, but I caught on to its tactic. Rolling under the beast with a panicked yelp, I barely avoided being crushed. The creature lay on its stomach in front of me, so I ripped my rusty kitchen knife from my belt, then launched myself onto the monster’s back, yelling an incomprehensible war cry.

It was difficult to maintain a grip on its scaly back, my fingers and knees sliding off its rain coated scales even while the monster sat unmoving. Only constant and furious stabbing into its thick hide kept me on top of the creature but did little else. Despite having more than enough strength to penetrate its armor, the hide on its back was thicker than the length of the knife, rendering the attacks useless.

Underneath me, the beast stood back up. I took a chance, standing up with it. The rugged hiking boots I’d found at the pizzeria almost seemed designed for traction on the creature and I used them to work my way up to its bouncing head.

Whatever else I might say about the monster, it wasn’t completely stupid. Sensing my ascent, it made a quick whipping to the side motion, almost tossing me off it and costing me my footing. Only by slamming the knife into its back with both hands was I able to hang on. My panicked stab had the unfortunate byproduct of burying the knife so deep into its scales that I couldn’t pull it back out.

I held on to the knife two handed while the creature bucked like a rodeo bull. Each thrash sent my body bouncing along its awful, ridged back in a flare of pain. The crushing motion pushed out all the air I didn’t need out of my lungs. Somehow, I positioned my feet to take my weight, landing hard enough into the frog-things back to make my knees creak. Squatting down made riding it much easier. Unlike a horse, the Frogodile was far from broken in. But it had enough of my antics and ended our dance by rolling over.

I need the monkey wrench, it’s the only thing that can hurt it. I thought.

As the monster turned, I took my chance and ran up its side. At the last moment, before it completed its rotation, I threw myself off its shoulder. The creature snapped forward, even from its back, just barely catching my foot. For a terrifying moment, I felt its mouth closed around my foot, but either the power of my jump, or the strength of its jaws freed me from the boot it ensnared.

Ha! Fuck you!

The creature, unaware that I had escaped, thrashed in a headless frenzy, the way I assumed its instincts demanded.

Ignored for the moment, I got up from the pavement and scrambled toward the monkey wrench. Once I had it in hand, I rushed back to the monster with an aggressive uneven one boot limp.

Now you are gonna pay! I had enough of this shit.

The Frogodile, still lying on its back, swallowed my boot when it realized something was wrong. It turned its evil eyes toward me, just in time to see the monkey wrench coming down at its head. Plate, skull, and an eyeball cracked open under the force of the strike, causing the beast to let out a nauseating croak.

I ignored its pain and continued my two-handed assault with the monkey wrench, pummeling it over and over until we were both covered in its brains and blood. Almost in hysterics from the event, I kept striking the creature until my vision got blurry.

When it finally stopped moving, I dropped the monkey wrench and fell to my knees, too tired to cry.

[Elder Cipactli defeated +35% Legacy]

I looked at the scroll, but only for a second. Something was wrong; my movements were feeling sluggish, and it wasn’t just fatigue. Slowly, I pulled off the workman’s jacket to examine the wound that the spiked tongue left on my bicep. Black blood and a foul-smelling odor leaked from the thorny holes in my arm.

It has poisoned me. Or venomed. Whatever it’s called. I realized.

A loud horn, like the one the Cipactli made, echoed from another part of the city. I staggered to my feet, picked up the blood slick monkey wrench with my unwounded arm, and headed for the firehouse.

Two whistles, the kind that men make, picked up in answer to the croaking and they sounded much nearer.

I was leaking blood along the pavement as I stumbled and knew it wouldn’t be hard for a pursuit to find me.

What can I do?

There was no way I could hide for very long, and fighting was also out of the question. In fact, I wasn’t sure that I would even be conscious for much longer. Knowing that my time was running out, I sat on the back of an old, rusted fire truck and tried to calm my beating heart.

Okay, okay, think.

In my backpack, there were some cleaning supplies and bug spray. I wondered if that might make some half-assed bomb, but then discarded the idea. Even if I could pull some MacGyver shit off, I did not know how many enemies there were. No, I would need a miracle.

Miracle? Or magic?

The Barghest. I’d forgotten about it, but the truth was it was my only play. Summoning it would take a couple of minutes, so I began chanting the sounds buried in my mind.

Words of power began leaking out of my mouth, sounding incomprehensible and alien to my own ears. Either my venom strangled consciousness, or the spell I muttered conjured dark shadows that stole away my vision. My mouth got heavy and dry. Weakness spread through my body, and I shuddered and slid to my knees.

I couldn’t tell if I finished the ritual or not when I passed out.