I rushed outside. Claire and Talbot followed close behind.
There were no stars out and only a sliver of a moon shone in the night sky. “Do we have time to get the wards back up?” Talbot whispered.
I shook my head and pointed to the tall weeds growing in between the buildings. Something was moving through them.
Hecate’s group came quietly, but the rippling weeds alerted me. I sent up a bit of magical light, which signaled to the rest of the group that we had company. I watched the tall weeds in the center of the square sway as our enemies approached.
Talbot was the first one to join me.
“They’re here,” I said.
She sent the flesh eaters in first. They emerged from the tall grass, their mouths foaming, and screeched. As I had suspected, they were hungry, maybe starving. There weren’t as many as I’d feared. With hunger and surprise on her side, she didn’t need many. Our motley crew was braced for whatever was coming, thanks to Emmett.
The leader sniffed the air and caught the scent of the rotting flesh we’d put in the pit. He broke into a run, stopping occasionally to sniff the air. Another one, a female, let out a sound like she had a bellyful of gravel and trotted after him. Two dozen of their friends followed them into the pit.
“They’ll try to climb out eventually,” Talbot said.
“Already thought of that,” I said. “Watch.” The trap sprung. A warded silver net covered the top of the pit. The flesh eaters were trapped, but they didn’t seem to notice. The sound of frenzied eating arose from the pit.
We waited, but no one else appeared. A blob moved across the sky. As it drew closer, I made out the harpies. They swooped in low, heading straight for Naomi.
“Watch out!” I cried. I threw a ball of red flame at Fleet Foot. She screamed and then the smell of burning harpy filled the air. It smelled a little like rotisserie chicken, if the chicken had been left out in the sun. Still burning, she dropped out of the sky and landed with a thud. One down, two to go.
Swift Wing headed straight for me, her talons spread wide, her mouth open in a horrible screech.
Talbot still held a bucket of entrails. “She’s hungry,” I said. “Maybe the rotting meat will distract her long enough.”
“Long enough for what?” Rebecca asked.
“This.” The harpy was within arm’s reach. I took my athame and aimed for the heart. She fell with a thump. Her sisters screamed in anger, but I sent a bolt of magic their way. They exploded. Guts rained down, but we managed to avoid them.
The harpies were dead.
“What now?” Talbot asked.
Naomi asked, “Did it work?”
Before I could answer either question, the ground shook with the force of a giant’s steps. Shock held me motionless as an enormous one-eyed man advanced. Hecate had a Cyclops on her side.
There were only hollow sockets where his eyes would normally be. His chest was bare, but he wore what looked like pajama bottoms. His one eye was located where his belly button would normally be.
“It’s Femus,” Ambrose said. “The last Cyclops. I thought he left this world long ago.” His face was lit by wonder.
I gave him a tap on the shoulder. “Quit fan-boying and tell us how to defeat him.”
“He can’t see us,” Talbot said. It was a false hope. Talbot was looking in the wrong place. The Cyclops’s enormous eye had already latched onto us.
“His one eye is in his belly,” I replied.
The giant was slow-moving, but each footstep created pockets of devastation. A second wave of flesh eaters ran with the giant, managing to avoid getting squashed. About a hundred demons joined the fray.
Dark shapes moved all around us, making it hard for us to see who was friend and who was foe.
“Illuminate,” I said. The air around us glowed, lighting up the night sky enough so we could see. The demons shielded their eyes.
I took the opportunity to stab one of them with my athame.
It was impossible to watch out for my loved ones in the heat of the battle, but I tried. I wasn’t the only one.
As I fought, I grappled with the idea of the traitor in our midst. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that we’d had two visitors only hours before we were attacked.
Talbot was in the middle of the fray. His eyes went silverlight and he sent spell after spell at the demons, but he kept a close eye on Naomi.
Rebecca and Claire lobbed balls of the silver-and-salt mixture. I scanned the area, but there was no sign of Hecate. Naomi helped when she could, but her duties as Fate kept her busy.
Hecate had been confident enough that the B team would be able to defeat us. I expected to see some of the minor gods fighting on the other side, but none appeared. Either they were still withdrawn from the mortal world or they weren’t taking sides. I hoped it was the latter. Even Boreas, who’d helped break Hecate out of Parsi Enterprises, was sitting this battle out.
Wren and Naomi rolled on the ground. Wren finally gained the upper hand and hit her sister in the face with a rock. Wren wrapped her hands around Naomi’s neck and squeezed. I raced toward them, but Rebecca got there first. She grabbed Wren by her dark red hair and pulled. Clumps of hair fell, but Wren refused to let go. Rebecca bent Wren’s neck back as far as it would go and she finally released Naomi to face Rebecca.
Rebecca smashed her forehead into Wren’s. There was a crack as their heads collided. Wren dropped, probably unconscious. Rebecca kicked her body aside to get to Naomi.
The ground shook. I couldn’t stop to see if Naomi was okay. I pivoted. The Cyclops was lumbering toward Talbot, whose attention was on Naomi. He had his back to the giant and didn’t seem to realize the danger.
“Hey, ugly,” I shouted, but the Cyclops continued to advance. I tried again. I gave him a hotfoot he wouldn’t forget. He turned and ran toward me.
He knocked me to the ground. My head was ringing. I put up a hand, but before I could get the first word of the spell out, he was on me. He twisted my arm until I heard a crack.
It dangled there, useless, but I managed to send a white-hot fireball at the Cyclops. It hit his belly and his eye began to burn. The sound of a screaming Cyclops filled the air.
Hecate entered the battle, riding on the back of her three-headed dog, Cerberus.
Hecate was on my other side. She let out a war cry and brandished an axe as big as she was. She missed the first time she swung, but the second time, she hit flesh.
There was a scream that echoed in my mind until I realized it was me screaming. There was the crunch of bone and I shut my eyes against the pain. When I opened them again, there was nothing but a wall of red.
When my vision cleared, I looked over, numb with shock, to see a flesh eater munching on my severed left arm like it was turkey drumstick at the state fair. Hecate had hacked it off, just above the elbow.
The flesh eater gave me a bloody grin and waved at me with my own arm. Rage overrode the intense pain. I drew a raggedy breath and then another. My right hand started to tingle and a small fireball formed in my palm.
He stopped grinning when I sent it his way. He couldn’t dodge it. The fireball glowed white as it enveloped his body and turned him to ash within seconds.
“That’s for taking my arm,” I said. His comrades were still there. We were outnumbered by the sheer number of flesh eaters, trolls, and demons in Hecate’s army.
There was a strange numbness all over my body. I couldn’t look away. There was an emptiness where my left arm used to be. The stump was at an odd angle and blood spurted from the torn arteries. I’d die of shock and blood loss if I didn’t do something soon. As I felt my life draining away, I threw another fireball, this one bigger and glowing white, right into the center of Hecate’s army.
The last thing I heard was the sound of Hecate’s laugh rising above the chaos.
Then I died. Again.