Better late than never.
“Please,” I say as a monster grabs me from behind. I pull its arm toward my mouth. “Do whatever you can.”
As I sink my fangs into to the beastie’s wrist, the oracle walks off into the crowd. Magically, no one touches her. It’s like she’s invisible—or wearing an invisible force field.
Then I’m too busy fighting monsters to watch her progress.
CHAPTER 33
GREER
When the woman in billowing robes shows up, Gretchen looks like she wants to throttle her—and I’m relieved that, for once, I’m not the one on the receiving end of that look. But then Gretchen goes back to fighting and the woman walks off into the crowd.
I’m busy trying to get my bite in on an onocentaur, but I keep my eye on the woman. There is something mystical about her, magical. I’m drawn to her, wanting to follow her when I know I should be fighting at my sisters’ sides.
I gasp. The voice in my head—the woman gliding through the battle—is the oracle.
I should have guessed. Who else would be able to maintain that connection? Who else would know so much about the situation, about me and my sisters, and be able to help us figure out what we had to do?
Who else would have remained so mysteriously anonymous?
I watch as she reaches the edge, the line between our people and the hypnotized human army they are trying to hold back without causing any harm. Lifting her hands out to her sides, she shouts something at them, and then, in a flash, all the humans stop.
For a second, I’m afraid she killed them all, they’re so still—Gretchen will be furious. But then, gradually, they start moving, shaking their heads and looking around, confused.
Coming out of their hypnosis.
The ordinary humans breaking free of the monster-induced trance don’t see the beasts in their true form. They see them as other humans, fighting and clawing at each other like alley cats. They must think they’ve landed in the middle of the biggest brawl San Francisco’s ever seen. Suddenly realizing that there’s an epic fistfight going on around them—one they don’t know how they wound up trapped in the middle of—most of them turn and run. A few scream. The rest back slowly away.
Then the humans are gone, and it’s just us against gods and monsters.
Though we have more gods on our side, the monsters outnumber us by a factor of ten, with more emerging—and reemerging—from the abyss every second. Unless something changes, we might be fighting a losing battle.
I don’t like to lose.
I turn back to the door, determined to find a way to turn the tide, just in time to see Gretchen’s little monkey friend leaping through.
“Sillus here!” he shouts as he lands on the ground near her feet. “Bring help.”
Behind him, our friends from the abyss follow—the golden maiden, the oceanid who led us to Mount Olympus, the big onyx guards, the unicorn, and dozens more.
Behind them, a ragged group steps through the door. In the lead is the gaunt man from the dungeons of Olympus, that prisoner Gretchen spoke with when we were looking for the gorgons.
He and Gretchen exchange nods, and I think I understand. We freed them, and that has earned us their loyalty. They will fight by our sides.
Most of the newcomers are immediately drawn into the battle, turning to face the continual stream of monsters pouring through the open door. I’m shocked to see my friendly school janitor—the big fuzzy spider— stand side by side with the golden maiden.
“Harold?”
“Miss Greer,” he replies with a smile before turning to wrap four of his legs around the neck of a one-eyed giant.
“We have others still inside,” the golden maiden says. “They are holding back the horde within.”
Gretchen pats her on the back.
Now I notice that the continual stream of monsters flowing through the open door has slowed to a trickle. My sisters and I are biting as many as we can, sending them home, while our family and friends use our envenomed weapons to do the same. The numbers are nearly balanced now, and we are holding our ground. But we are not gaining on them.
If things continue as they are, the battle will be a draw.
“Ssstop!”
A woman’s voice echoes over the crowd.
Everyone turns to stare at her—and I mean
Though she is dark haired and unexceptional, I recognize her. She’s the woman who led the hypnotized humans into the gym at my tea the other day—the same woman who confronted me on the street before that.
“Mrs. Knightly,” Gretchen spits.
“You may call me that, Missss Sharpe,” she hisses, a knowing smirk on her face. “But the time for falsssities has passed. I prefer my true name.”
“What’s that?” Gretchen asks.
The woman’s mouth spreads in a dark smile. “I am Nyx.”
The goddess of night?
She flicks a bored glance at me. In a graceful movement, she rolls her shoulders, and her entire body shimmers. Like fog burning off in the afternoon sun, her ordinary-looking appearance fades away, leaving a shadowy woman with inky black hair cloaked in a shroud of equally black smoke. Her ivory-pale skin gleams like moonlight.
There is an aura of malice around her.
“You’re behind this, aren’t you?” I ask, stepping to Gretchen’s side.
Nyx turns to me. “I told you I would sssee you on the battlefield.”
She did? When? Oh my sugar, the creepy text messages. She sent them.
Shivers race down my spine. “Why?” I demand. “Why have you done all this?”
Nyx shrugs as if it’s no big deal. “My children,” she says, “deserve to walk in the sssun, more than the humans who claim this realm.”
Grace moves to Gretchen’s other side, and we three face our primary foe.
“Your children?” Grace asks.
“Creatures you call monssster,” Nyx replies. “Cursssed by Olympusss, sentenced to a life in the dark. What kind of mother would I be if I allowed that injustice to ssstand?”
As we confront Nyx, the battle continues to rage around us. Our friends and family are sending the monsters back into the abyss, using the weapons dipped in our venom. Though some creatures are still managing to break through the defense on the abyss side of the door, we are reducing their numbers. Even a casual glance tells me that our side is gaining.
“Your children will have to pass through us,” I say, straightening my spine, “just like everyone else.”
“Look around,” Gretchen says. “We are winning the battle.”
“Stand down, cousin,” a deep male voice says from behind us. “Retreat, before your children are destroyed.”
The look of pure fury on Nyx’s face could melt hardened steel. I glance over my shoulder to see a man—tall,
