Page 31 of The King

Jamming their razor-edged claws into the caustic concrete and steel created by Pandora O’Baoill, pieces of cement, sand, and rock ricocheted and bounced off all sides of the massive cylinder until they landed with a quiet thud on the pads of their feet.

Head snapping to the right and then the left, Casamiro consented,“It’s your call. Make it a good one.”

Turning to the west, he’d taken one confident step when Bridgette’s voice shot through the hall. “Fuck you, too! And don’t call me Bitch! It just pisses me right off.”

9

PRESENT DAY

“Talk about all hell breaking loose,”Eden spat.“Your chest already looks like a Christmas tree. Did you have to taunt the crazy humans with automatic weapons and laser sights, too?”

“Kill them all!” Pandora’s deep, roaring bellow echoed through the room.

“Yeah, well fuck you, too,” Ettie shouted in return, more irritated than she could ever remember being and pretty much over the whole being kidnapped and held against her will thing.

Diving to the floor, she whooshed across the highly polished tile on her stomach toward Greer, who was quickly becoming all Basilisk - all the time. Sliding like she was stealing home and hating that Gabby had gotten her addicted to baseball, the Demi-Goddess grabbed what was left of the Serpent Queen's Shifting foot and pulled her down onto the floor with her.

"Stop!" Greer wailed, jerking her leg and pulling at her foot, trying to get Ettie to let go.

"No! You stop! I'm trying to save your snakey ass," the Demi-Goddess yelled her retort. "Of course, as soon as we get off this crazy ride, I'm gonna kick your snakey ass, too!"

"So, trying to help you wake up and not letting this bitch kill you slowly is only gonna get my ass kicked?"

"The hell you say," Ettie spat. "You shoved just as much shit in my veins as everyone else."

"No, hell, I did not," the Basilisk spat in return, "I only ever gave you saline."

"Well, shit, I didn't know. How about we hash this out when crazy assholes aren't trying to kill us."

Letting Eden propel them towards the gaping hole that used to be the door, Ettie threw her free hand over her head and used her hips to zig and zag while bullets flew from every direction, peppering the tile, walls, and ceiling with a reverberatingbing, ping, ding-bing-bing.

“Thank the Goddess, they’re all shitty shots,"Eden growled, the concentration it took to only not scoot two females across the floor but also hold back Ettie's Shift evident in her tone.

“You can say that again,”the Demi-Goddess yelled.“My booty was not made to be Swiss cheese.”

“And neither was mine,”Greer’s snarl shot through their collective consciousness."Now, let go of me! You know I didn't try to kill you! I need to find my brother!"

“No way, Jos…!”

Damn near running into two giant, muscular, beefy soldiers standing side by side with their feet together, Ettie was ready to be the bowling ball and go for a spare when an incredibly bright and unbelievably strong ray of light shot from behind her. Flying over her shoulder and touching the tile mere inches in front of her chin, she had no option but to lift her head and see what new, fresh hell was coming her way.

Thankfully, it was anything but horrific. Actually, it was pretty damn incredible.

The breath froze in her lungs, and the beat of her heart stuttered as the image of her father, the one and only Celtic God of the Sun, Lugh, appeared in a kaleidoscope of yellows and golds. Tall, with broad shoulders and a magnificent head of curly golden hair, he was dressed in Celestial Bronze armor, with his deadly spear clutched expertly in his right hand.

His piercing cerulean gaze glowed with the luster of the sun as it bore directly into Ettie’s mind and soul.“The Powers That Be command that I do not intervene in person, but I can and will help you indirectly, my daughter.”With a wave of his left hand, a swell of Divine Mysticism emanated in every direction. Blanketing everyone in the well-fortified and completely destroyed Isolation room, his miraculous bright Light landed on all those trying to end her life – including Pandora. Coming to a stop, Ettie got to her feet and spun towards her father as Lugh's voice reverberated in the airwaves.

“Gun an còrr!”

With the single phrase, spoken in the language of the Celtic Pantheon still vibrating in every direction, every monitor and machine in the small galley-like room beeped in a high-pitched, rhythmic tone that reminded Ettie of her Auntie Ruby, a Red-Tailed Hawk Shifter, if she were surrounded by twenty of her closest – and loudest – friends and they were gossiping about the latest couple to redecorate – but that wasn’t the best part.

What was truly fascinating and absolutely fantastic was that every soldier that had burst into the room and tried to fill her full of lead, all the orderlies who'd followed as backup with their tasers and tranquilizer guns, and especially Pandora O'Baoill, the part Basilisk, part Yowie, all maniacal doctor, were frozen in time. Unable to move anything but their eyes, everyone but the leader of the psychos, a descent of the madman Tariq, looked scared shitless.

Eyes as wide as they would go, their hearts beating faster than a mile a second, they couldn't move and couldn't see who had immobilized them. And the best part was, all the bullets they'd tried to get into Ettie and Greer were floating, motionless, in the space between them.

Turning slowly, the tips of the ammunition went from pointing at Ettie to aimed at the foreheads of the soldiers, orderlies, and especially Pandora. Despite being held by Lugh's Magic, the three men at the point of the formation shook with terror, and the embarrassed orderly from the elevator had urine soaking one of the legs of his scrubs.

Unable to stop her smart-ass comment, Ettie sarcastically snorted, "See? Pandora told you I was a Demi-Goddess. But she forgot to mention that I might just be a daddy's girl."

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