“Not just old gods,” Hera said, and every word she uttered was tense beyond anything I’d heard from her thus far. “Not even just THE old gods.” She hunkered down slightly, into a stance I could only think of as defensive. “What you’re looking at here is nothing less than the ministers of Omega. The powers behind the throne.”
“Well, they certainly do look like the suction behind the toilet.” Still, no one laughed. I looked at them with new eyes, understanding now the nervous fear that crackled from Bjorn and even Gavrikov, the sort of tense discomfort that came from knowing that I was horribly overmatched, that they had ill intent for me and I didn’t know what it was.
“She’s coming with us,” Hephaestus said in a low, gravelly voice, his scarred face surveying us. “Move aside, Hera, and we can make this quick.”
Hera gave me a look that was indecipherable, inscrutable, and I realized she was weighing things in her mind. Why would a woman who had lived for thousands of years throw her life away, outnumbered three to one in a meta battle with old gods? She was frozen, and her look ticked from each of the Ministers, one by one.
“You’re coming with us anyway,” Hephaestus said to me, and his lips stayed even. I would have expected a smile, but maybe his face was too scarred to allow for it. “There’s no need for any of you to die in the course of this.” He gave me a solid look, that white, sightless eye almost glowing as he looked at me. “We will kill them if you make us—Hera, your brother, even that Irishman. Right here, while you watch.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “And not give it any more thought than you’d put aside for snuffing out Erich Winter. Come with us, and we’ll spare them all.”
I should have felt angry, furious, but there was nothing within, just a gaping void. This wasn’t the first time I’d had others used as hostages against me. Zack was empty of suggestion, as was Bastian. Whatever, Kappler said. Gavrikov and Bjorn were quaking in their metaphorical boots.
Go with them, Gavrikov said.
You do not want to cross them, Bjorn said. They are not to be trifled with.
“You’re afraid,” I said out loud, loud enough that everyone could hear me.
“Damned right I am,” Breandan answered into the shocked silence. “There’s like … twelve of them! And I’m not that much of a fighter.”
“Were you talking to me?” Hephaestus said. That blind eye kept on me, staring.
“No,” I said. “Mind your own damned business. I’m trying to have a conversation here.”
You should be afraid, Bjorn said. They can destroy you, right here. Right now.
“You know, it’s funny,” I said and no one spoke. “I should be afraid, staring all of you down.” I looked from Aphrodite, smiling a benevolent smile like a pageant queen, to Eris, who had yet to look up from her phone, over to Heimdall, who almost faded into the white background, then back to Hephaestus, his marred flesh like a beacon turning my gaze back to him. “But I’m not.”
I wasn’t lying to them. For some reason I couldn’t define, I was steely calm.
And then it got defined for me. Real fast.
Kill them, Wolfe said. Kill them all.
Chapter 29
I ran at Hephaestus without thought, came at him low, at high speed, before any of them had a chance to react to my suicidal maneuver. I suspected he was fast; he was one of the old gods, after all. Old being the operative word.
Me, I was young.
I streaked in under his guard, kicked his legs out from under him in a slide, kneed him in the guts and was atop him before he had a chance to do anything but throw up his arms ineffectually. I straightened my index finger and drove it hard into his remaining eye, spearing him right in the pupil. He let out a scream and I kicked him hard in the groin before rolling off of him in the direction of one of his suited flunkies.
I grabbed the man by the lapels and yanked him hard toward me. His arms pinwheeled as he fought to recover his balance. I flung him on, speeding him up as he passed and sending him like a projectile into two of his fellow men in black. They wouldn’t stay down for long, but I didn’t need forever.
I moved with fluid grace, a thousand hours of practice in a basement, in a training room, in the field, all coming together with the thousands of years of experience of a heinous beast who lived in my head and had nothing but a thirst for blood. I feinted my way toward Aphrodite, who looked at me wide-eyed, as though the thought of an actual fight had never occurred to her. The way she made a defensive move told me otherwise, but I didn’t care. She was a princess, living a life of a woman of privilege, treated like a queen and pandered to for thousands of years.