Merv the peacock was bloody and listing to one side, but he stood between the roadrunner and the hens like an iridescent blue wall. Grandma Billy cursed.
The roadrunner danced from side to side, striking out at the peacock’s head. Merv was just a fraction too slow and staggered sideways. Selena sucked in her breath to yell.
The bantam rooster came out of nowhere and hit the roadrunner from behind like a very small tornado. Snake-Eater’s minion spun, trying to lash out, but this enemy was much more agile and armed with spurs. Feathers flew.
Outmatched, the roadrunner jumped high in the air and came down running, with the bantam in hot pursuit. The roadrunner leapt onto the wall surrounding the yard, paused for a heartbeat—then exploded.
Grandma Billy lowered her shotgun. Selena hadn’t even seen her pick it up. The bantam flapped a few times, outraged, then stalked over to his hens.
“Bastard,” Grandma said, almost conversationally. She put the gun up and went to Merv. “Ah, hell.”
The gallant peacock had collapsed into a heap of ragged blue. Grandma Billy knelt down and stroked his side. “He did a number on you, didn’t he?” she murmured. “But you did good. You saved the ladies.”
Selena bit down on her knuckle, tears springing to eyes. Another casualty of her own foolishness and Snake-Eater’s malice.
“Right,” said Grandma Billy. She sat back, sighed deeply, then hefted the peacock’s body in her arms. His long neck dangled lifelessly over her wrist. “First we’re gonna bury Merv. Then we’re gonna get Father Aguirre, and then I aim to fuck up Snake-Eater’s shit but good.”
Chapter 17
“A noble cause,” Father Aguirre said an hour later, when Selena and Grandma Billy had finished recounting their story. “Obviously I’ll help any way I can.”
They were seated around the table in the rectory, with Copper dozing underneath. Sunlight streamed through the window and it was all so normal that it felt impossible to believe that the horrors of the morning had actually happened. If not for the raw red patch across Selena’s palms, from the shovel they’d used to dig a peacock-sized grave, she would have thought she’d dreamed the whole thing.
But I didn’t dream it. It all happened. Snake-Eater attacked the little squash god and killed Merv and he’s not going to stop.She rubbed her thumb across the sore spot. “I’m going to have to leave, aren’t I?”
“Eh?” Grandma Billy looked over at her. “Leave? Why?”
“So that more people don’t get hurt.” There was a lump in her throat at the thought, and yet a strange relief, as if the world had snapped back into a more recognizable pattern. Of course she didn’t get to stay. She’d always known it was impossible, hadn’t she?
“Snake-Eater’s mad at me, not at you,” she tried to explain. “If I leave, he’ll probably go away.”
“Hell with that,” said Grandma Billy. “You don’t gotta leave unless you want to. Tell her, Father.”
Father Aguirre raised a mild eyebrow. “Do youwantto leave? I know you’ve been saying this was a temporary stay. And all this ...” Hisgesture somehow took in the desert and roadrunners and their gods. “All this is a lot to deal with.”
Selena bit her lip. Now that it seemed like she couldn’t stay, all her wavering had fallen away. Shedidn’twant to leave Quartz Creek. She wanted to stay here as long as she could.
She pictured the pitifully small grave they’d dug for Merv and knew that time had come to an end.
“I wish I could. I don’t want to go back.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, willing the tears back. “Father, can you ... could you ...” It was the hardest thing she’d ever done, harder than facing the fetches outside the windows, harder than leaving her old life behind her. “Can you take Copper?”
“What?” She could hear the surprise in his voice, even if her eyes were closed.
“I’ll have to go to a shelter, I think,” she said to the backs of her eyelids. “And they don’t let you have dogs. I can’t do that to her.”
“To hell with all of this,” said Grandma Billy savagely. Her fist thumped on the table, accompanied by a jangle of bracelets. “I’m not gonna seemyfriend and Amelia’skindriven out of her home by that nasty, jumped-up little road bird. We’re gonna find Snake-Eater and tear his ass-feathers out, that’s what we’re gonna do.”
Selena opened her eyes in time to see Father Aguirre’s lips twitch. “I might not have phrased it quite like that,” he said, “but I agree with the sentiment.”
Selena gulped. “I don’t want you to get hurt, Grandma.”
“Feh. Bigger things than him have tried.”
“But ...” Selena racked her brain, trying to think of a script that would make them understand. “I don’t ...I can’t ...”
“I’ve had about enough of thisI can’tnonsense,” said Grandma Billy sharply. “I swear to God, you and Amelia both. You’d think there wasn’t a scrap of spine between you.”
Selena gaped at her, not used to Grandma Billy’s sharpness being turned on her. “But—”
