Fire & Flood (Mythverse #1)

Book 2 Chapter 30

30

When you wake up first thing in the morning aware that you’re going to murder things, it makes you puke. Actually, it’s also the sound of Tina puking that makes me puke. Unfortunately, she’s using the bathroom so I have to run to the window, and accidentally spatter a bird-shifter looking for breakfast, who shifts back into human from the shock.

“Sorry,” I call, wiping my mouth before I shut the window.

“Tina?” I knock timidly on the bathroom door. A puking vampire must be approached with caution. “You okay in there?”

A grudging, “I’m fine,” is all I get from her. She gives no indication of how much longer she’s going to be in there. I practically run down the hall to Cassie’s room, barely knocking before I barge in to use her bathroom. When I pop back out, I see that she’s pulling on a battle pack.

“Whoa, Cassie. What are you doing?”

She pulls her hair up into a ponytail. “I’m coming with you,” she says.

There’s no way Cassie is up for this. She still isn’t fully recovered from what she witnessed when we rescued her from the stronghold, let alone ready to actively participate in…in…whatever it is this raid is supposed to be.

“No, you’re not,” I tell her. “There’s no way Merilee would agree to this.”

“I gave my mom the slip,” she admits. “I love her but since I’ve been back all she’s done is smother me.”

“Can you blame her? You were freaking kidnapped.”

“I know…I just need this.” She shrugs. “She’s hasn’t been herself since I returned. First she was worried about the monsters trying to take me again. But then the gods told Mom they’re now more worried about the monsters taking her. Apparently, the monsters believed Mom was an old crone. Obviously they got some bad intel from someone. Anyway, now they know she’s young and won’t be dying anytime soon. It’s likely if they try again, they’ll go straight for her. So the gods are keeping Mom under lock and key, and she’s a nervous wreck. Themis is trying to distract her with some project about an old prophecy. That’s helping. And today she found something that got her all excited. I figured it was a good chance to slip away, so I told her I needed a change of clothes.”

“Your clothes are magic. They change automatically.” Merilee must be deep in research to let Cassie out of her sight with such a lame excuse.

I sigh. “Are you sure you want to do this?” I ask her.

“Absolutely.” She says it with more steel then I’ve seen in her since she’s been back.

“You’ll have to get approval, and I may have used up all my leverage getting Greg on the team.”

“Already done. Maddox says I need to toughen up,” Cassie tells me. “And Nico says nothing gets you past your first murder like the second one.”

“Of course he does. Look, Cassie—”

“No! You look, Edie!” My friend suddenly whirls on me, anger in her eyes. “You know I’ve been through every discipline cycle at the Academy. And I’ve failed every one. The assassin track is my last shot, and I can’t succeed if I’m…if I’m…”

She holds out one hand to illustrate. She’s shaking like a leaf in the wind. I take it, cradling it in my own.

“And what if you do succeed?” I ask. “What if you go out there and kill a bunch of monsters? You won’t be yourself anymore.”

“No,” she takes her hand back. “But maybe I’ll be useful.”

We walk to the portal in silence, Cassie beside me, her eyes on the ground.

It’s early morning, so I don’t see Val right away when he emerges from the mist. But I do see Larissa. It’s hard to miss her when she materializes right in front of me, grabbing me in a freaky strong vampire hug.

“Aren’t you so excited?” she asks me, eyes alight. “Today I go on my first mission for Mount Olympus Academy!”

“Yes, it’s…” My eyes go to Val, a bright blush creeping up my face as I struggle to free myself from the arms of his fiancée.

“I’m so glad I am with you, Edie,” Larissa says, keeping her hand on my arm as we walk to the portal together. “You were one of my first friends here.”

Behind us, there’s a stifled giggle.

I turn to see Greg in bat form flitting around behind us. Nico was against Jordan and Greg joining the team but I fought for them. Jordan was a shoo in, even if Nico doesn’t like him. He’s one of the best spies in the school. Greg was not about to be left behind and I said that if he wasn’t going than neither was I. That settled the matter.

“Hey Edie, I bet you never thought you’d be besties with a vamp, huh?” Greg squeaks at me.

“Shut up,” I mutter at him, then jerk in surprise when something brushes past my leg. It’s Jordan, blitzing through the morning on his panther legs, absolutely ecstatic to be able to shift again.

“You guys! Check me out!” He actually rolls onto his back in front of me, showing off the fully glory of his belly and his…

“Seriously, dude?” I ask.

“Sorry.” He snaps back into human form. “I’m very excited.”

“Obviously,” I say.

“Shifting into panther form is my second favorite thing to do,” he says. “The first being…”

“We get it,” I tell him.

“s*x,” Greg adds. “He was going to say sex.”

I roll my eyes and answer Cassie’s questioning stare. “They’re not saying anything important. If they do, I’ll translate,” I promise.

“Good to see everyone,” Maddox’s voice cuts through the morning. She must have already thrown a key through, because the portal is glowing. She stands in front of it, lit from behind, terrifying as all holy Hades. Nico joins her, his face set on what I can only call “murder mode.”

Beside me, Cassie stiffens.

“Are they all here?” Maddox asks Nico, and he surveys his team. Without meaning to, I stand a little straighter as his eyes pass over me, Larissa, Val, Cassie, Greg, Jordan, Hepa, and a handful of other students.

“All present, and ready for action,” Nico says.

I hear a slight murmur from Cassie, something I can’t pin down.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” Maddox’s face tightens a little when she spots Val and Larissa in the crowd. She lifts her nose like she just got a whiff of some rotten scent. Her dislike of vampires sticks, even when going into the monsters’ den.

“Students and soldiers,” she continues. “Today we strike back! Remnants of the cell that attacked the Academy, tortured my son, and kidn*pped one of our own beloved seers have amassed in the ruins of an old stone circle. Our intelligence tells me that Falcus himself is there.”

I remember Mavis telling me about Falcus—he’s the one who killed Darcy!

“We will have the element of surprise on our side,” Maddox continues. “But make no mistake—that cannot be our only weapon. You must fight with all that you have—teeth, claws, magic—and fire.” Her gaze lands on me. What she said at dinner the other night echoes in my head.

You are with us, or you are our enemy. And death comes to my enemies.

I nod, unable to break eye contact. Maddox gives us all one last hard stare, then passes through the light. Nico follows, and there’s practically a rush after that, everyone is so excited to get to killing after Maddox’s speech.

I’m rushed along, pushed through the portal by the flow of students—and into instant pandemonium.

Whether they knew we were coming, or Maddox didn’t manage to kill the portal guard quick enough—which I doubt—I don’t have time to debate. There’s a scimitar coming straight for my head, wielded by a wild-eyed gorgon. I manage to avoid eye contact—she could turn me to stone—as I shift.

I come into my dragon form with a fiery roar. My talons take off her head with one swipe.

With a powerful surge of my wings, I take to the air, surveying the situation.

The stone circle is at the top of a hill that gently slopes down into a grassy glen. There’s a forest to the west and a valley, but most of the small force of monsters is at the portal. They try to kill our students before they can make it through.

Jordan is dashing between giant standing stones, snagging monsters by the ankles and dragging them out into the light of torches that Hepa is setting around the perimeter. Once all the torches are up, they’ll create a magical barrier to keep the monsters from going through our portal. I watch as Hepa sticks another one into the ground and then lights it with her hands. A minotaur makes a run at her, but Jordan deflects it just in time, getting rolled for his trouble—literally by the minotaur, and an eye-roll from Hepa after he yells at her.

“I saved you! I’m your hero! You gotta love me now!”

Even though she probably can’t understand all he’s saying in shifter form, the tone probably got the thought across.

Val and Larissa are side by side, leaping as one while monsters scatter. Greg is airborne, too, shouting out positions to fellow shifters below.

But there’s an organized counterattack going on that Greg doesn’t see, flanking him from the west. I swoop down, blasting a protective wall of fire between my friends and the oncoming monsters.

“Gods dammit, Edie!” Nico yells at me, fist in the air. “Stop defending us. We can handle ourselves. Go on the offensive!”

I reel to the east, pretending I didn’t hear him. I know he wants me to fry all our enemies, not just use my fire to protect Academy soldiers. But I’ve still got blood on my hands from the last time, and it doesn’t sit well with my conscience.

I’m not the only one airborne. I share the sky with my fellow winged shifters, but also harpies and a few monsters that ride a pegasus. One rider is a minotaur…is that Falcus? He swings a mighty axe as he rides toward the stone circle.

I spy a few shadows slipping into the tree line, a couple of wood nymphs going for the comfort of the trees. I grab them in my claws, giving them a toss into the air. I don’t see where they land, and don’t know if they fell far enough to be injured. I didn’t crush them, couldn’t bring myself to do it after feeling their frightened squirming in my claws.

There’s a yell below, and I turn to see that one of Hepa’s torches has been overturned. A harpy grabs it, launching it at Greg as he flaps around her. But Hepa spelled the fire to only burn monsters, and when Greg wrenches it from her hands and drops it onto her head, the harpy goes up in flames.

Just like Ocypete did.

No, I can’t think about that right now. Even Mavis admitted that these monsters—the ones led by Falcus—were bloodthirsty, bent on harming the gods at any costs, even if it meant taking students down to get to them.

An ear-splitting war cry comes from below and I look down to see Falcus standing in the middle of the stone circle, his pegasus mount dead on the ground. He wields a b****y axe. Maddox paces around him. Beside him crouches a female manticore, a squirming bundle in her arms.

Gods no, not…I land with a crash, sending my fellow students scattering. Quickly, I switch back into human form. Falcus can’t be distracted from Maddox, who is taking jabs at him with a long spear, but the female manticore looks up at me, eyes wide.

It’s her. It’s the mother from the desert stronghold where we rescued Cassie, the one whose baby Cassie delivered. And that means…

I remember her eyes, the crying baby, the way she looked at me as she begged me to spare the minotaur I had just run down—the father of her baby. Falcus.

“No,” I say aloud. “No. No. No!”

Maybe Maddox and Nico were right all along. Maybe I should have killed Falcus then, and his wife and child too. Then we wouldn’t be here, standing in a ring of fire and stone in the black of night, watching a murderous circus play out.

All around me, students are injured. Jordan is l*****g a deep gash on his paw, and Greg has shifted into human form, one arm at an impossible angle. There’s a vampire leaking black blood from her side as she lies on the ground, while Hepa, calm yet urgent, says incantations over her.

I can’t help but tally the monster count, too. A headless gorgon—my kill, I remember. The battered body of a chimera, fur matted with blood. The charred body of the harpy and the broken manticore, hanging lifeless from the top of a stone pillar. Nymphs, giant scorpions, centaurs.

All lie dead on the battlefield.