Diana heard that electrical whine begin again as the weapon repowered—but this time the soldier was aiming toward the temple. Her mind registered Jason trying to herd partygoers to shelter, her ears plucking the steady command of his voice from the chaos. She couldn’t see Alia, but she had to be behind the temple with Theo.
Diana knew she wouldn’t reach the gunman in time to stop him from firing. She looked down at the tiles fitted together on the floor. She needed reinforcements. Maybe they could be her army. She took a running leap toward the soldier and came down hard, foot and fist connecting with the ground at the same time. The tiles lifted in a rippling wave, and the man with the pulse gun screamed as the floor heaved beneath his feet. He toppled.
Diana sprang toward him, seized the weapon from his arms, and snapped it in two. He skittered backward in a crouch, his eyes wide and terrified.
He drew his sidearm and fired, but her mind had registered his intention in the shift of his shoulders. Her wrists were already moving to deflect the bullets, bracelets clanging like finger cymbals in some bloody dance. One of the bullets pinged off her right wrist and struck his thigh. He yelped. She grabbed him by his collar.
“What are you?” he gasped.
A hundred answers came to mind, but she opted for the easiest one. “A tourist.”
She tossed him into the reflecting pool.
Diana wrenched two more slate slabs from the edge of the pool, stepped back, and hurled them at the snipers on the balcony. It was a bit like trying to knock down ceramic targets with her Amazon sisters. Except these targets grunted or whimpered instead of exploding into pieces.
The other soldiers around her were recovering, getting to their feet. Diana raced toward Nim and grabbed her under one arm.
Nim squeaked but thankfully didn’t fight her. Diana wasn’t sure how much she’d seen, how much any of them had seen of what she could do—what she hadn’t even known she could do—but she couldn’t think about that now.
Again, she heard weapons being cocked. This time she was ready for the gunfire that would follow. She dove to the floor, protecting Nim’s body from the fall, and rolled until they were at the back of the temple. Alia grabbed hold of Nim and hugged her tight as they both sobbed and another round of gunfire erupted through the air.
“You made it,” said Jason on a grateful gasp. He squeezed out a couple of shots from behind the additional cover he’d constructed from a stack of tables, and Diana saw that he’d managed to get a fair number of guests behind the temple. Some were still crowded against the room’s exits, trying to push through the doors, but at least snipers were no longer picking them off.
Diana and the others crouched in a knot against the temple wall. They didn’t have much time. She could see the fear in their faces as Alia held tight to Nim and Theo. Jason’s eyes were bright, his jaw clenched. Only he looked ready for a fight.
“They’re going to blow the temple,” Diana said as loudly as she dared over the roar of gunfire.
“The helicopter—” Alia began.
Jason shook his head. “It was on the roof.” The men had rappelled down from above. The roof must be compromised.
The gunfire stopped.
In the eerie silence, Diana could hear the soldiers’ murmurs and shouts. They were speaking a language different from Alia and Jason’s, but Diana understood it. German, she realized, and they kept repeating the same word: Entzünderin. Igniter. They might have been talking about the bombs, but Diana had a feeling they were referring to Alia.
“They’re setting explosives,” she said.
Nim’s eyes were dazed. “They’re going to blow up the museum?”
Theo gave his head a sharp shake. “What is all this? What do they want?”
“We’ll explain when we’re out of here,” said Jason.
“If we get out of here,” said Alia. “There’s no helicopter—”
Jason’s brow furrowed. “What if I can get the jet here?”
“Where would it land?” said Theo. “You can’t put that on the roof. We need a runway.”
“The Great Lawn,” offered Nim.
“It’s a long sprint to the park,” said Alia.
Jason bobbed his chin toward the blocked doors. “First we have to get out of this room.”
“You’ll get out,” said Diana. “I’ll make sure you do.”
Jason jabbed at his phone and spoke rapidly into it.
Diana had no idea how feasible a landing was, but she had to believe there was a way out of this, not just for Alia but for the people who had put on their best finery and come here to drink and dance tonight. She could sense their mortal lives flickering, fleeting as the shine of fireflies under glass.
“Ben’s coming,” said Jason. “We need to get to the park.”
Thank all the gods. They had a chance. But the only way out was the wall of shattered windows to their left, and it was far too exposed. Diana couldn’t be a shield for everyone, and all it would take was a single stray bullet, the right moment, the right angle. She couldn’t let that happen. They needed cover. A lot of it. She touched her hand to the temple stone and wondered if she was strong enough to do what she was imagining.
“I can give you enough cover to make a break for the glass wall. I’ll meet you below.”
Alia gripped her arm, her eyes bright with fear. “You’re not coming?”
“They’re barricading the rest of the guests in. I won’t leave innocent people here to die.”
“Diana—”
“Stay with Jason; he’ll keep you safe.”
“They’re too well armed,” said Theo. “You won’t make it.”
“Stay low. When I give the signal, you bolt for the closest corner of the window wall.”
“How will we know—” Alia said.
“Trust me, you’ll know. This temple is coming down, and you need to be on the other side of it when it does.”
Jason offered her his gun. “At least take this.”
She lifted a brow. She was not afraid of these men, only of the harm they might do others, and she would not resort to playing with their ugly toys. “I’m going to choose to ignore this insult, Jason Keralis. Now go.”
As soon as they were moving, Diana wedged her shoulder against the wall of the temple. She thrust her weight against the ancient stones, her battered muscles straining, feeling every aching spot where a bullet had struck. She dug her feet into the slate floor, reaching for strength that seemed just out of her grasp. What if she’d reached the limits of her might and she couldn’t protect them? No. She refused that thought. She sucked in a breath and doubled her effort, grunting with the strain, the threads of her dress popping.
“I am never wearing anything without straps again,” she growled.
Something in the temple creaked. Diana whispered a quick prayer to the goddesses, begging that they would seek Isis’s forgiveness on her behalf, and pushed. The stone beneath her palms shuddered.
“Now!” she shouted.
The temple collapsed with a thunderous roar, sending a huge plume of dust into the air. She drove her legs forward, and the wide heap of stone groaned as it slid into place, blocking off the northwest corner of the window wall—the perfect barricade to keep the soldiers at bay as Alia and the others escaped.
But now the party guests were shouting and running, crowding up against the sealed doorways. She needed a battering ram. Her eyes lit on one of the fallen pillars of the temple. It was huge and unevenly weighted, the stone rough beneath her palms, but she managed to balance the column in her arms. She didn’t know what the soldiers had erected to keep the exit doors shut, but she was going through.
“Move or be crushed!” she commanded as she launched herself toward the exit, surprised by the authority that rang through her voice. Well, she thought, all those years listening to Tek give orders ought to be good for something.
It seemed to work because the crowd scrambled to get clear.
She tightened her grip and drove the pillar into the doors. They gave way with a terrible crash, scattering the wall of sandbags the men had erected behind them. Diana’s momentum carried her into the hallway, past stunned men in body armor. She released the pillar, and it slammed into the wall.