Page 101 of A Subtle Scar
The woman began circling for a second attack. I looked at the arm I’d grabbed her with and watched in shock as the blood welled up from the cuts, four near parallel marks, filling rapidly with red.
The other women, looking like the furies human myths created, lined up to stand shoulder to shoulder. The chanting grew in volume, and I felt power, an ocean of chaotic power well up from the god coin as if that disc were the puncture in a balloon that was about to burst.
Fighting these magic-enhanced women wouldn’t work. Their eyes, a moment ago just unseeing, rolled back in their heads, and then changed colors, changed texture. They turned a coppery metallic hue, just like the disc, and when those eyes solidified, I knew thatsomethingwas using those humans to look at me, and it—whatever it was—was not human at all.
I didn’t think there was any saving them now, so there was no need to try carefully blocking the next attack. But their fingers elongated even as that copper gaze held my own, and the skin at the base of my feathers stood on end.
I could use only a drip of my magic, not enough to get to the god coin and stop whatever it was it was doing.
Even if I didn’t hold back in a fight with these seven, I was not so sure I would be able to win. I had to get out…only scraping from the fissure we had entered through had me realize that wasn’t going to happen either. The people we had so carefully left alive were back with more weapons, human cutlery like cleavers and knives. Some of them had found stained surgical masks. Pathetic fools.
One of the furies growled. The skull-clad chanted louder, almost screamed the words now.
My mouth twisted in a sour grin. I was the real fool, wasn’t I? I should have made Hermes take me as well, shouldn’t have hung back to maybe stop this spell, whatever it was.
But now, I was here, seven magically enhanced creatures and tons of bedrock between me and the two I loved.
“You better take good care of our boyfriend for me, you pompous teleporting ass,” I mumbled. The words were nearly lost in the chanting.
I readied myself. If they wanted a god’s blood, they would not get it without a fight.
Blood seeped through my fingers from my stomach wound and ran down from the cuts in my arm, mocking my resolve.
Hermes, love him for me, let your love make you better,I thought.
They charged.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Wearrivedinthefailing potato field. I cursed, looked to the Dragon Mother. She was slinging Chandler’s arm around her shoulder. He shouldn’t be here, but Tiamat wouldn’t allow any harm to come to him, I was sure of that.
“I didn’t think it would push me back that far” I said, lifted the coil of garden hose higher on my shoulder, and ran for the bunker door. “We need to get to Ronny.”
I felt Tiamat’s magic follow along, but now, I could feel a different magic as well, like that unseen power that kept two magnets with the same polarity from touching. The power pushed against us, and it had most certainly succeeded with keeping my teleportation from getting us closer.
“For once, I’d like wings,” I said.
“I…I’m not sure I remember the way,” I heard Chandler say when we reached the submarine bunker door that still stood open, which at least meant we could get inside.
“I do,” I said, ran in—and cursed.
“What?” Tiamat asked.
I grabbed the wheel of the inner door harder, and this was either a bad joke or a cheap horror movie because it would not budge.
“Fucking humans!”
Tiamat looked over my shoulder, grabbed me by the same, and shoved Chandler at me, though she did it in a gentle way. I wrapped him in my arms, stroked his hair. It soothed me, at least a little.
“He’s human, make sure none of the rubble hits him,” Tiamat instructed.
“R-rubble?” Chandler asked.
“Yes, Dragon Mother,” I said and pressed his head to my chest. “Close your eyes, baby. Close them tight.”
Tiamat turned. Her transformations were always quick, but this one was urgent, I could tell by how her scales never fully coalesced. She became dragon just long enough to break the inner door down with her tail, then went right back to her human form.
“Head down, baby,” I said and lifted Chandler in a fireman’s carry.
