“Taaaakkkke,” the creature hisses.
My eyes fly open. I gape at the huge head swaying above me, razor-tipped fangs only a foot from my face, a pink, slippery gullet pulsing behind them.
Have I cheated death again? Hades must be allergic to me.
My heart hammering, dizzy from spiraling, I hesitate only a second before reaching up and grabbing a curved fang in each hand. They come loose with a soft, sucking pop.
Stunned by the magnitude of the gift, I start stammering my gratitude, but the Oracle whips the water into a frenzy, circling so fast that its huge body becomes a blur. The foaming ocean surges, roaring in my ears and pelting my skin. Water crashes over me, muffling my scream as the funnel drags me deeper into its narrow abyss. My stomach heaves again seconds before the world goes airless and black, and the whirlpool sucks me under.
I land hard on my hands and knees, hacking briny water out of the back of my throat. The ocean is gone. The storm raging in my ears is replaced by the jarring, metallic clang of battle. Soaked through, I stare at the venomous fangs heavy in each fist. I’m alive!
Adrenaline hits me like a lightning bolt and snaps me into action. I stand, face Otis’s cage, and then smash through the fiery prison with one punch. My skin blisters to the elbow in a flash of searing pain before healing as my body claims the magic again.
Otis stares at me, wide-eyed, his mouth gaping.
“And this is for Eleni!” I plunge a fang into Otis’s heart.
His face turns ashen. “You’re worse than the rest of us.” His voice is a death croak. “That makes two.”
My eyes narrow. Kill or be killed. Wouldn’t Mother be proud?
The light drains from his eyes. Green eyes. Fisan eyes.
I pull the fang from his chest. It comes free with another soft, sucking pop as he slumps to the ground.
I plunge into the battle, and a rhythm takes me, a rhythm driven by Poseidon, his Oracle, and the fangs. Strike, duck, whirl, kick, lunge, roll. Strike!
Beta Sinta and the others fight their way toward me. Sometimes, in the heat of battle, it’s hard to distinguish friend from foe. I have no trouble with that today. Beta Sinta reaches me, and the moment we end up back to back, I don’t worry about what’s coming from my blind side anymore.
I lunge forward, slicing a fang across a Fisan’s chest. Flynn’s ax whistles over my head while I’m still ducked down, and there’s a spray of blood. I straighten and keep fighting, using the fangs like daggers. They’re sharp and poisonous, but I don’t have much reach, and both my enemies and their swords come alarmingly close.
Someone hammers a kick into the side of my knee, and I gasp, buckling. From the ground, I see Carver and Kato furiously working their way through a tangle of men. Beta Sinta snarls something and gets in front of an enormous Fisan who springs at me from the left. He blocks a bone-jarring hit that would have cleaved me in two, but the blow is hard enough to knock Beta Sinta’s sword from his hands.
His eyes widen. Mine do, too.
The Fisan’s face twists in triumph. I pivot on my hip and whip a fang up, throwing it like a knife. It sticks in his eye. Before the man falls, Beta Sinta grabs the fang from the Fisan’s face and then backhands it into the chest of an enemy I didn’t even see coming at me from behind.
He just saved me. Twice.
“Get up!” Beta Sinta snaps.
I lurch to my feet, my knee aching. Our backs touch again, and we circle, each with a fang gripped tightly in one fist. But it’s over. Flynn rips his ax from a crushed chest. Carver wipes his sword clean on someone’s blue tunic. There’s no one left to kill. Between Beta Sinta’s men and us, we’ve won. They’re all dead. Fisans lie at our feet, and I’m slippery with their blood.
I blink and recognize some of the dead.
I blink again and try to forget them.
Kill or be killed.
The fangs melt from our hands with a barely audible hiss, fading into nothingness. Poseidon’s power seeps from me as well, leaving me limp and drained. Panting, I double over, bracing my hands on my thighs.
Kato groans and slumps against Carver, his face turning pallid now that the blood rush of battle is draining from it. Flynn’s left arm is broken and needs to be set. Beta Sinta is dripping blood, but it’s not gushing from anywhere vital, and a lot of it isn’t even his.
I catch my breath, letting it sink in that I haven’t lost anyone. I’m amazed—and far too relieved for my own good.
I stagger upright. “That was fun.”
Sort of.
Not really.
They look at me like I’m a lunatic.