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The goddess laughed. There was the Paralumen I knew.
“Heel. Stay.”
Loki cried out, brought even lower by the crushing weight of Paralumen’s arcane commands.
“I pretended to submit to your will. I needed a closer look at how an entity of your stature operates. It took me long enough to assess your strengths and weaknesses. If you only knew what it took for me to tolerate your hideous personality.”
Loki winced in pain, then chuckled hoarsely under his breath.
“Funny. Everyone says that’s my best trait. The only redeemable thing about me, to be sure.”
A trickster god through and through, still making his stupid jokes through his grievous injury.
“The most important thing I learned,” the goddess continued, “is that your ego is the only thing greater than your deific power. It is hubris, in the end, that has brought you low.”
She pulled the glowing hairpin out of the elaborate nest of ornaments in her hair. A load-bearing accessory, apparently, because her hair fell about her shoulders and down her back in a black cascade.
“Did you think that this trinket was enough to control me?”
“You imbued it with your magic,” he said, “and then I imbued it with mine. I thought — ”
“You thought wrong. I am stronger than you think. I have always been in full control of my faculties.” She closed her hand into a fist, crushing the ornament into useless, glittering dust. “You underestimated me, you old gods and your arrogance. The new gods will not make the same mistakes.”
A shiver ran down my spine. The others — who were they? Where were they? She wanted Loki out of the picture, to seize his plan and build a pantheon of her own.
Paralumen stepped forward on bare feet, the tips of her fingers glowing with arcane fire. Loki could not resist when she placed her hand on his head, when she sank her fingers through his skull. He cried out in agony, saliva dribbling down the side of his mouth as he convulsed.
I didn’t think my feelings on both our enemies could flipflop so quickly in one night. Loki was a grade A asshole in his own right, but Paralumen was literally picking his brains. My fragmentation was nothing compared to this. Everyone on my side of the hall hesitated. To see what else would happen? In hopes that one god would take out the other?
Loki thrashed, flailed one last time, then went limp. Paralumen retrieved her hand, her fingers no longer bathed in light.
“Admittedly, the trickster god is far too powerful for me to control. I have not taken over his mind, but I have taken something.”
Loki groaned as he clutched at his skull. Bloodless, no wounds, no signs of penetration.
“How much?” he said through gritted teeth. “How much of my power have you taken from me?”
A sneer curved the corner of Paralumen’s lips, her eyes shining brilliant white.
“Enough,” she whispered through a radiant smile, divine light spilling from her mouth.
A great crack split the air. The walls of the feasting hall buckled and splintered, as if under siege from catapults, from massive battering rams. The ground trembled. I swayed and stumbled, only avoiding a fall because of Morrow’s support.
Paralumen hovered off the ground to avoid the quaking. Nowhere to run, unless she was planning to rip her way out of this dimension, too. Her eyes flitted around her, searching the walls for answers. She was distracted. Good.
“Now!” I shouted.
Houston’s revolvers unleashed a hail of bullets. Angelica followed with a storm of razor-sharp feathers. Xtra Xtra thrust her arm forward, a globe of blinding energy erupting from her hand.
Morrow gestured and chanted, his voice like the rasp of glowing coals turning in a brazier. Not just a plain fireball, but something bigger, something stronger, like the blast of wind. A blazing bulb of flame spun in the palm of his hand, blossoming fuller and brighter as he gathered his magic. Holy shit. I knew he talked about burning down the warehouse, but this was something else.
I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them wide, fighting the pounding in my skull. One last spell. I could do this. I held my hand out, copying his gestures. The magic ripped through my body like molten metal, so much power threatening to split my skin at the seams. I gasped as sweat beaded along my forehead.
How had Paralumen handled the influx of a god’s power? I felt like a cup about to overflow, or more appropriately, a jar about to shatter. I clenched my teeth and copied Morrow’s magic anyway. Now or never. We unleashed our fireballs at once, our concentrated power launching them with the speed and size of actual cannonballs.
Flames roared, feathers whistled, and bullets zinged.
Paralumen bared her teeth, fingers curled as a force field gleamed around her. Despite my exhaustion, my lips curled into a smile. Good luck handling all our magic.
