Broken Knights (Gifted Academy #4) - Michelle Hercules Page 0,88
carrying and then collapse to the ground. Their hearts will give out in a minute or so. I save Artex for last. He aims a shotgun in my direction and fires, but in my dark smoke form, the lightning-glass bullet simply goes through me without causing any damage.
But before he has the chance to reload, I become corporeal again and hammer into him, sending him backward. He loses the gun, crashing against a tree nearby. I leap forward, landing right in front of him.
"Hello, Artex. Miss me?"
“Get away from me, you freak.”
“I warned you if you tried to harm Daisy, you would feel my wrath. Well, I’m here keeping my word.”
“I’m not afraid of death.”
“Oh, you will be.”
I get into his head, knowing exactly what he fears the most. It seems the hippie fanatic is afraid of dogs. Shadows slither from my wrists, taking the shape of two hellhounds by my side. Artex’s eyes turn round as he attempts to get back up, but he can’t get traction on the ground to lift his body. My creations growl, ready to attack, which results in Artex soiling himself.
“No, no. Stay away from me,” he begs.
My lips split into a grin. “Sic, boys.”
Snarling, they pounce, disappearing inside the man. But to Artex, those monsters are tearing him apart for real. He thrashes on the ground, trying to protect his body from the vicious attack that’s only happening in his mind.
“That was absolutely brilliant, brother. Very creative.” Eris stops next to me.
“Come on. We have a mountain to blow up.”
“And how do you plan to do that? As far as I can tell, you’ve only inherited the shadows from Daddy, not his ability to control storms or fire.”
“I can make those fanatics do it themselves. They must have explosives around.”
She rubs her chin as if in deep thought. “That would take too long, and honestly, I bore easily. I can help you speed up the process.”
“In exchange for what?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know yet. I’ll think of something.”
“Yeah, like I’m going to fall for that BS. You either help me without asking for anything in return or you can simply leave. I don’t care either way.”
“You’re feistier than I expected.”
“Don’t tell me you never spied on me.”
She waves her hand dismissively. “Yeah, a few times, only to see if you had finally figured out you were a demigod.”
Artex’s shrieks cease, and then he goes utterly still. I had already forgotten about him. His eyes remain wide open but are now unseeing. Good riddance.
I head to the forest, and it’s only when I’m halfway down the path that I remember I could have zapped to the mountain. I suppose it’ll take a while to get used to my new reality. Eris seems fine to tag along in this manner. Damn. This whole situation is surreal. Not too long ago, I thought I was a freak, a weakling because I needed magical bracelets to contain my powers. And now I’m strolling through the woods with a god next to me.
The moment of self-awareness lasts just a minute before I hear commotion ahead. By the tone and words used, my guess is that more hired soldiers are coming up ahead.
“How did you end up here?” Eris asks.
“Well, we had to go somewhere to hide from Chaos. This was the only option presented to us at the time. You have the uncanny ability to simply disappear at the worst times.”
“I had no choice. Chaos was on my case, trying to suck me back to his island. That’s something you have to be careful about. If he pulls you there, it’s a bitch to get out.”
“He already did that once,” I grumble.
The forest is thinning out, so I mask my presence simply because I want to observe those motherfuckers first before I nuke them all. There is a group of mercenaries armed with assault weapons overseeing the mine workers, who are mostly members of the church. A woman comes out of the cave, pushing a barrow filled to the top with lightning-glass rough stones. She looks familiar. It takes me a second to recognize her as the person who was in charge of getting our accommodations more comfortable. Ophelia Sparks was her name. She doesn’t look happy now.
“You’re too slow,” the mercenary says. “Our team is expecting a delivery by the end of the day.”
“We’re doing the best we can, but most of these people aren’t strong enough to work for countless hours. We didn’t sign up to