With one last grunt of effort, her eyes scrunched tight, sweat pouring from her brows, horses and pythons and chariots whirling around, she ripped her left hand free with a long howl.
She hit the ground hard with her knees, unable to even brace her fall with her hands for fear she’d drive the spikes further back into her flesh. The velocity of the drop took the wind right out of her, but she was still capable of rolling.
She tucked her knees and turned toward the bed, where Khristos lay half under it, unconscious. Using her feet, she backed up against the crumbling wall for leverage and shoved him directly under the bed.
Nina’s yowl of anguish had Quinn fighting to stand. As she rose, using the heels of her hands and the bed to do so, she saw the battle waging before her and felt a moment’s helpless panic. So deep in her soul, so dark, she winced at the black talons scraping her insides.
How could she help? Her hands were torn to shreds, her knees so bruised she almost couldn’t stand up, and she had nothing but gumption on her side.
And as if the whirling dervish of Greek mythology come to life wasn’t enough—flying serpents took to the ceiling, their wings creating such a whoosh of wind it almost knocked her over.
One went directly for Marty’s head, his webbed wings slashing the air, his tongue flicking debris out of his path.
Quinn grabbed the nearest thing she saw, her nightstand lamp, and hurled it upward, blood dripping from her open wounds and into her eyes. “Marty! Loooook out!”
Marty reacted by rolling her head then shaking out her arms and shifting into her werewolf form.
Oh God, oh God, oh God! Quinn had only heard from Ingrid about Marty’s ability to shift, and after what had happened to Quinn, she had mostly believed.
But to see it, to see her bones melt and reshape themselves, to see hair sprout from her body like some sort of weird time lapse video, was amazing and frightening, rooting Quinn to the spot.
But the serpent kept flying straight for Marty. “Marty!” she screamed, hoarse and raw, her throat on fire.
Wanda knocked Marty out of the way, steamrolling her to the ground as Nina round-housed the python woman, landing a punch square on her head. Nina’s fangs flashed, her arms landing punch after punch, the motion so rapid it left Quinn dizzy.
But from the corner of her eye, Quinn saw Carl at what was once the bedroom door, now a gaping hole, his gait slow, his eyes wide in his pale, greenish-tinted face.
Oh God! Carl was too slow, too awkward to move quickly enough to get out of harm’s way. “Carl! Run, Carl! Ruuuunnnnn!” she screeched into the latest tornado-like wind.
But Carl kept moving forward, kept fighting the force of the air pushing him back. She fastened her eyes on him, forgetting the sharp stabs of pain in her knees, as she jumped up onto the bed, bouncing with her weight.
“Carl—get out!” she warned again, her head down to avoid being blown off the soft surface.
All at once, as though someone had sucked the air from the room, everything appeared to slow. Carl’s determination was clear on his face, but his eyes were no longer fixed to hers. They were on something behind her.
She whirled around to see a cyclops running toward her, grizzled and thick-skinned, his eyeball rolling—his horn aimed directly at her chest.
Carl raised his hands high in the air, the effort clear from the grunt of pain his stiff joints must have caused, and he was holding something in them—something she had no time to identify as he head-butted her out of the way and brought his hands downward with a scratchy, uneven yell.
The cyclops screeched, arching his short neck, spewing his anger and going straight for poor Carl, charging him with so much fury it stole the very breath from her lungs.
But Carl just stood there, and as the mattress sank beneath her feet, she began to topple over, helpless to right herself.
Until, with a booming, “Nooooooo!” someone hard and heavy rammed into her, in turn hurling her into Carl.
They fell on the floor in a tangle of limbs and grunts of pain, her battered body thunking to the ground.
Khristos. It was Khristos! He reached for them both, his head bleeding, his body covering them, protecting them from falling debris.
“Enooough!”
Yet another voice, male and rumbling, ripped through the space, stopping everything on a dime. Concrete blocks hung in the air, particles of her shredded comforter and pillows floated motionless.
“Eris! What have you done?” the voice boomed, bouncing and thunderous.
What was it with these people and the disembodied-voice fixation? It was damn jarring.
“Eris, explain yourself. Now!”
Oh, shut up.
Eris? Like, the Eris, Eris? The Goddess of Strife and Discord?
Talk about living up to your myth.
Khristos rolled from her, grunting as he did, pulling himself to his feet and reaching for her, scooping her up in his arms to tuck her tight to his chest.
That was when she saw Carl.