The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

have prepared him for the carnage he now saw. He’d never had any doubt that releasing the monsters into the city was wrong. But seeing what they had done to one another made him shudder to think of the havoc they would have wrought on humans. The death toll would have been terrifying.
    The American immortal pressed his back against the side of the Administration Building and focused on his breathing. On the plus side, he realized, when they killed one another, they left one less creature for him or Black Hawk to deal with.
    He smelled the rich and familiar brine of the sea just as he heard claws scratching on the stones. He risked a quick glance around the corner. Through the billowing fog, he could see the Karkinos making its way up the incline toward the Warden’s House, using its huge claws—chelipeds, Billy reminded himself—to pull itself forward.
    And sitting on the back of the giant crab was Quetzalcoatl’s dog-headed twin brother. Xolotl was hammering on the crab’s head with his bony hand, kicking with his backwards feet, trying to make it go faster. But he was kicking with his toes rather than his heels, and it had absolutely no effect on the crab through its armored carapace.
    Billy started to twirl the lasso above his head. Black Hawk had told him to be careful—Black Hawk
always
told him to be careful—but the immortal had also said that if he saw a chance he should take it. And here was a chance. Billy eyed the makeshift lasso, wondering if it was long enough and deciding that even if it wasn’t, he was going to make the throw.
    Six feet away, Black Hawk slipped into position. He could just about make out Billy through the shifting bands of mist. He saw the fog curl in a circle as Billy started to twirl the lasso. All the outlaw had to do was to hook a leg and pull. If the Karkinos was off balance, he should be able to pull its legs out from under it. Then, while it floundered and scrambled to get back on its feet, Black Hawk was going to jump onto its back and hammer the spearhead into its body. He wasn’t sure whether his attack would have any effect, but it would certainly irritate the monster and maybe give those in the ruined house a few more minutes to awaken the Old Spider. He wasn’t as convinced as they were about the spider, though. In a battle between a spider and crab, he was betting on the hard-shelled big-pincered crab over the soft hairy spider.
    Black Hawk watched Billy move and immediately knew something was wrong. “Please, Billy, don’t do anything stupid,” he begged under his breath.
    Billy stepped right out in front of the giant crab.
    “Something like that,” Black Hawk muttered. Scrambling to his feet, all pretense at concealment forgotten, he ran toward his friend, tomahawk in one hand, spear in the other.
    Billy the Kid twirled the makeshift lasso, the leather whipping and snapping in the air, and stepped closer to the giant crab.
    “The leg, Billy! Catch the leg! Pull the leg!”
    But Black Hawk knew Billy was not going to catch the leg.
    The Karkinos’s eyes were fixed dead ahead, and Billy was only five foot eight. The crab was so tall that it hadn’t seen him. Black Hawk spotted Xolotl on top of the crab at the precise moment the skeletal Elder discovered Billy below.
    “Oh, Billy,” Black Hawk said in despair.
    Xolotl pounded on the crab’s head, trying to make it look down, but one of its forelegs slipped sideways and it crashed forward at an angle onto the ground, leaving its enormous eyes and gaping jaws directly in front of Billy. The immortal ignored the monster in his face. He was concentrating on the Elder on its back. Twirling the rope one final time, he released it.
    “He shoots . . .,” Billy called.
    The lasso dropped directly on top of Xolotl, slipping over the dog head and tangling in his bony ribs.
    “He scores!”
    Billy dug the heels of his boots into the earth and tugged hard. With a yelp, the Elder sailed off the top of the Karkinos.
    The huge crab caught a glimpse of movement, and its enormous right claw rose, opened and closed in a snap around the Elder and caught him in midair. It would have snapped a normal human in half, but it had caught the Elder around the waist, where there was no flesh, only bones, which fit neatly into the space between the crab’s claws.
    Enraged, Xolotl shrieked, demanding to be let down. He hammered and kicked at the creature, and the Karkinos opened its claw. The Elder crashed to the ground in a