Itzcamazotz was furious.

  Three gods of similar rank blocked his path, cutting off his pursuit of Mort just as his grasp had been about to close around the fleeing man. They had appeared without warning—cowards who had hidden themselves as he had, lurking in dark crevices overlooked by the light.

  Two were gods of water. One was of fire.

  Greater gods, all of them, and all convinced they could take advantage of his weakened state.

  They stood before him with crossed arms, unmoving no matter what he said. Their calm refusal grated on him far more than open hostility ever could.

  “This is our territory,” the bird god said mockingly, circling high above them. “The land ahead is claimed by our people. You may not pass, bat.”

  Its divine gaze locked onto him, heavy and unyielding.

  Itzcamazotz bared his fangs. He wanted to avoid a fight—every clash would further drain his power—but Mort was far too important to his plans to abandon. If he had to, he would raze these gods’ people to the ground.

  “Give me the human who has entered your lands,” Itzcamazotz demanded, forcing diplomacy through clenched teeth. “He is mine to judge.”

  The three gods looked at one another.

  Then they laughed.

  Without a word, the fire god flicked a small sphere of divinity toward him. It was not meant to harm—only to probe, to measure the depth of Itzcamazotz’s remaining power.

  He scoffed and swatted the orb aside, sending it back toward the monkey god’s face.

  Before it could strike, a long tongue snapped through the air, plucking the orb away with imperceptible speed. The toad god swallowed it whole.

  The four paused.

  Predators, all of them—waiting for the smallest opening.

  Suddenly, the bird god’s divinity surged.

  The air around Itzcamazotz solidified as he tried to retreat, pressure crashing down on him. He shrieked as a blur of motion nearly struck him—a tongue whipping past his body as he flared with power in response.

  Miasma erupted from him, swallowing his form entirely.

  Where the bat god had been, a swarm burst forth—flying, crawling, and leaping insects spilling into the plains ahead, surging toward the direction Mort had fled.

  Laughter echoed above.

  The bird god mocked him from the sky, summoning laughing gulls into a frenzied dive. They tore through the swarm, beaks snapping. The toad god croaked in disdain, calling forth a knot of massive toads whose tongues lashed out in blinding succession, snapping insects from the air.

  The monkey god cackled, hurling more orbs of divinity into the swarm while his troop descended from the trees. Hands, feet, and tails snatched and crushed the crawling insects, feasting gleefully.

  Itzcamazotz cursed.

  He veered sharply away from the open plains, plunging toward the thick jungle canopy before the three could do real damage. Already he could feel his power bleeding away faster than he could replenish it. His bat wings beat furiously as he fled.

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  “Don’t force me to act!” he roared through divinity, the jungle blurring past as the gods closed in from separate directions.

  “Wouldn’t you act anyway?” the bird god called down, its glowing gaze never leaving him.

  The toad god landed ahead of him in a thunderous leap. “Don’t corrupt gods always hunger for more blood?”

  “You stink of rot and slaughter,” the monkey god shouted, swinging effortlessly through the trees. “Little bat thinks he can threaten us?”

  Divine fire flicked toward Itzcamazotz from every angle—wings, back, furry tail—harassment without pause.

  The chase was far from over.

  Itzcamazotz smiled wickedly from within the belly of a bird.

  The gods had chased only a split fragment of him—a costly deception, but one he would demand recompense for. The vitality-soaked plains below would serve that purpose well.

  Once he found a suitable hollow, he forced his way free.

  The bird flesh puppet convulsed and burst apart in a wet explosion, dissolving into a mist of blood and feathers. Liberated from the failing body, Itzcamazotz plunged into the hole below and immediately set to work.

  Divinity bled from him like a noxious gas, condensing into glowing pictograms that drifted and spun through the cramped space. They pressed themselves into the soft mud, hardening it into a firm, ritual-ready shell. Below him, the thin river stalled as a sphere of warped divinity expanded outward, forcing the water to hesitate and bend around his presence.

  The pictograms shifted, recalibrating his corruption and cloaking him from the surrounding land. Hidden, he continued with grim patience.

  This ritual would take time.

  If he were discovered now, he would lose the last of his physical body—a cost he could ill afford.

  The symbols twisted again, reshaping themselves as he formed an embryo of corruption: a wobbling mass of tar that pulsed with malignant intent. It quivered, alive with wrongness.

  A single drop of his blood fell and merged with it.

  The black seed turned crimson.

  A tiny face tore its way to the surface and shrieked.

  Itzcamazotz crooned softly as he caressed the newborn Camazotz, feeding it power until it grew to the length of his finger. Then his awareness stretched outward, locating the fugitive Mort somewhere across the plains.

  His insects had already spread, seeding corruption into every living thing they touched.

  His own divinity, however, had dwindled to little more than flickering motes. He hacked up tar that howled as it splashed into the river and drifted away downstream. His split body had been obliterated by the pursuing gods, leaving him hollowed and ragged.

  Scowling, he made his choice.

  With a final, violent exertion—and the last of his foul divinity—Itzcamazotz hurled the tiny Camazotz toward Mort’s position.

  Then he let go.

  His body collapsed, surrendering to the current as the river carried what remained of him deep into the earth, where he would sink into a long, bitter slumber.

  The hunt, at least, would continue.