That's when I realized what they were eating.
“Is that a body?” I asked no one in particular. “Like a human body?”
“That's right,” the man who had greeted us said. “I'd offer you some, Godhunter, but it would be pointless. You'll be food yourself soon enough. We've been told that you have more power than three gods combined.”
“Well, you should at least introduce yourself before you try to eat me,” I said casually. “It's only polite.”
The man laughed as the others behind him giggled maniacally.
“I am Tau; the Personification of Evil,” the dark man said proudly. “It is nice to meet you at last, Godhunter. Meet and eat.”
“Huh.” I looked him over as my lions started to growl. “Yeah; I can see that. The personification thing. Although, you're not as impressive as Lucifer, and that man doesn't even use foul language.”
“I'm not worried about Lucifer,” he said smugly.
Hera started sobbing loudly until Athena told her to shut the Hades up.
“That's Zeus on the grill,” Triton called out to us. “They grabbed him and Hera first. He was already cooking when Athena and I got here. They've been eating him all night.”
“All night?” I asked as I looked over the corpse. “You've barely made a dent.”
“Well, he's a big man,” Tau said. “And we want to make sure we consume all of him. If we don't, we won't get all of his magic.”
“Another magic-stealer,” Hades said with a grim look at the rest of us. “We've just dealt with a soul-eater, and now we find you lot, thinking that you can take magic through eating flesh.”
“We don't just think it; we can. We have magic that allows us to do so,” Tau said confidently. “We've already consumed a few of our own to test the power, and it worked; we've grown stronger.”
“You ate your fellow gods?” Donnie made a disgusted face. “Chuuf, dude. You're all traitors and thieves.”
“Says the god who sent his son to our land to rob its wealth,” Mayup scoffed.
“The Earth is a shared territory,” Donnie said. “But I'm not going to get aggro with you about it; I'm just going to lay an epic smackdown on your cannibalistic asses.”
Donnie jumped forward, and Tau flat-palmed his face. The God of the Sea went flying backward into a tree. The tree trunk cracked when he hit, and Donnie fell into an ignoble heap. He got up and shook off the hit in seconds, but the blow had been enough to silence the rest of us... for a second.
And then the epic smackdown began.
My Intare burst into their lion forms—Kirill included—as Odin pulled his spear out of thin air and launched it into the middle of the Argentinians. It landed in Zeus' corpse and magic flared out; turning the body into a grenade. Argentinian gods went diving for cover.
Poseidon body-surfed a wave that he summoned from the moisture around him; striking down the smirking Tau with his trident before washing away the remnants of the body-bomb. Azrael leapt into the air and launched an aerial attack with his scythe; cutting the parrot head of its snake body. The body swayed to the ground and bled all over the freshly washed ground. Toby captured the other snake in a column of water while Re cleared a path for Hades and Persephone to get to the prisoners. As soon as Athena and Triton were free, they joined the fight. Hera, however, crumpled to the ground and started crying again.
Despite our strong start, the Argentinians were holding their own. They lashed out with more strength than they should have possessed, and I began to wonder if they'd told the truth and they really could take a god's magic by eating his flesh. If so, they were already fortified. At least they'd started with the weakest god. Zeus had only one piece of his magic left, thanks to me; his Oak.
The trees around us began to shake, and I mentally groaned. Maybe Zeus had made a good appetizer after all. The trees came to life around us; branches swinging and roots surging out of the ground to tightly bind us. I glanced around me in dismay as my friends fell beneath the onslaught of the forest itself.
Trees were no match against the might of gods—not even those creepy behemoths—but as soon as a god freed him or herself, another tangle of roots would take the place of the last. The forest seemed never-ending; shifting the advantage of numbers to our enemies' side.
I was slashing through thick roots and hacking back slapping branches when I heard Trevor howl. A shiver went down my spine and everything seemed to slow as my inner wolf lifted her head and responded. A howl burst out of my mouth, but it was lost in the cacophony of cries from the night creatures of the territory. Suddenly, a wave of predators—from giant cats to wolves to swooping birds—rushed in from all sides. They went straight to the gods who ruled their region and attacked them.
I glanced at Trevor and smiled at him. Trevor grinned back triumphantly and burst through the roots that held him hostage. He shifted into a full wolf and ran forward to lead the night creatures into the fray. But just as the trees were more an annoyance than harm to us, so were the beasts to the Argentinian Gods.
The snake with undulating horns swept forward and waved his antennae at the animals. The night creatures were hypnotized by the horns; cats curled up, wolves sat back on their haunches, and birds descended from the sky. As soon as they landed, the snake started chomping down bird after bird. Trevor howled—his black fur bristling—and turned the remaining beasts away from the
