Enemies(79)

I’d been locked in a house my whole life, and when I was really bad, in a steel box that I’d beaten my way out of with my bare hands. Her jaw broke under the strongest punch I could throw, and while she was busy crying about that, I hit her again and shattered the bone above her eye. Then I tossed her into Bastet, sending both of them into a gift shop display that caused stuffed animals to go flying everywhere.

You can either be a princess or a badass, not both. It takes way too much time and effort to fit in either one of those boxes, and the choice of which my time would be spent on was made for me, long ago. I had no regrets about it, either, given the many kinds of hell that had been unleashed upon me since the day I broke out of the box. It hadn’t even been a year.

I came at Eris as she fumbled to put away her smartphone, as though saving it was worth the beating she was about to take. I knew that by now some of the flunkies I’d attacked would have to be coming back to themselves. Also, if Janus and his crew were going to come at me, I’d be dealing with them shortly. I’d gone left, wiping out their flank, and I’d still have to come back to the center and the right, deal with Heimdall and whatever else was left. For now, I listened, and heard only scuffling in the distance, nothing directly behind me, so I kept going for Eris. She was the last of them I’d have to deal with in this direction. If I was very fortunate, Janus would just stay out of it.

I heard lightning crackle behind me, and I knew that was a foolish notion. Part of me wanted to look back and see who he’d thrown in with, but it wasn’t going to do me a bit of good until I’d taken out Eris. Then I could make my way back through them without fear of getting attacked from behind.

“So, you’re Eris, huh?” I said as I kicked her in the knee. She was moving far too slow, a thousand years of being indulged having taken its toll on her too, I supposed. “You’re the Goddess of Chaos, aren’t you?” I punched her in the face and followed it with a knee to the guts that doubled her over. “You should appreciate this, then.” I spun her around and clasped my fingers to her throat, allowing me to choke her out and get a view of the battle that had been unfolding behind me. I didn’t really have the luxury of time to suffocate her or let my powers drain her dry, though, so I just squeezed her with all the strength in my fingers and crushed her larynx. “I do know how to create a bit of chaos, after all.”

And I had. Bast was in a fight with Reed, and I saw her pitched through the air and against the center tower. She managed to turn about and catch herself on the side of it with her feet then bounced nimbly down to land on the stairs. She sprang back into the fray at Reed and he blasted her with another gust.

Breandan was in a knock-down, drag-out fistfight with one of the suited thugs. He was bleeding from a cut beneath his eye, and he hammered the man with a blow to the midsection and caught a hard hit to the side of the head in return. Hera and Madigan had Heimdall double-teamed, but it looked to be going poorly for them, as he was moving faster than either and showed none of the hesitation that the other ministers had made obvious to me. He was a fighter and clearly in practice. Madigan’s lightning couldn’t even catch him, his reflexes good enough that he was dodging every strike she made at him.

Janus and Kat each had a black suit of their own occupied, going fist to fist with them. It appeared they were holding their own, but Karthik was dominating the last one, had him clearly on the ropes.

I let Eris slip out of my grasp to fall limply to the floor, and I knew where I was needed most by the whisper in my mind and my own tactical experience. I hit the black suit who was fighting with Breandan with a running clothesline to the back of the head as I passed and felt his neck break from the force of the blow. It hurt me. It hurt him a hell of a lot more.

“Thanks!” Breandan called out as I kept on, jumping into the air as I made for the fight between Madigan and Hera on one side and Heimdall on the other. He was taking them both at once, a flurry of fists being exchanged, up close and personal—and he was beating them both. Madigan looked like she’d been in a fight or two, but Hera was absolutely out of practice. Her punches were slow, and she was dodging at a vastly underwhelming pace. I watched her take a hit to the belly and then the jaw that sent her to her knees as Heimdall turned all his attention to Madigan. She lasted another five seconds and I saw her get staggered. She started to go to her knees when Heimdall blasted her with a kick that sent her body cracking and rolling twenty feet across the floor, limp. I didn’t know if she was dead or alive, but I suspected the former much more than the latter.