9. Medusa

T he last time I faced off with trained warriors was when Perseus showed up to chop off my head. I had no idea what I was doing because I’d pledged myself to Athena, not Artemis. Athena taught us battle strategy to advise but not actually how to throw down in a fight. That was Artemis and the Amazons.

I pretty much got my ass kicked and the only reason I survived was Athena. I thought she kept me alive to fuck with me, but she’d been helping me the whole time. Perseus got a head that looked like mine that turned things to stone and there was the added bonus that any demigod that came after him didn’t try to up their hero quest by trying to cut off my head again.

Then, I met my god friends, and they realized I wasn’t dead. Hephaestus made me weapons and Dionysus and Persephone taught me to brawl. I’d just never actually thrown down before. I always ran because if my glasses broke, then I’d kill people.

This was the first time I’d truly be able to fight, and I was actually okay with my gaze now that I could turn it on and off. I had a choice if I wanted to turn people to stone or not. I was actually the asset this time.

Cas hissed to all of us that we were vastly outnumbered, so we were going to use our resources. I was a shit fury because I hadn’t had enough practice, but we had the OG furies with us. Cas’s plan made sense.

We portalled in with me in front and I wasn’t afraid. I was terrified when I was facing down Perseus’s sword back then. All my god friends couldn’t find this place again until we destroyed the sigil. But we were strong, even without them. I had my pack, and I had my sisters.

The angels were milling about in a big open area because, apparently, they’d have to go single file to solitary. They sent some ahead, and the rest were guarding the entrance. We had Benji. Benji took it upon himself to go after Saul and Hannibal. He could get them out and somewhere the angels couldn’t get to them. It was up to us to stop the rest of them.

“Hello, boys,” I said, channeling my inner Jezebel.

They turned to look at us. A lot of them were looking at me. Good. That was what I wanted. I unleashed my snakes and turned my gaze to lethal. Angels weren’t quite as holy as they wanted mortals to think. Several of them cursed, and a few used the Lord’s name in vain.

That was right before they got turned to stone. The ones that didn’t realized they’d have to keep their eyes closed with me here. They couldn’t open them unless they took me out. But we planned for that. Alecto grabbed my left hand and Megaera grabbed my right. I knew Tisiphone was right there with me. Cas and Pax put their hands on my shoulder to show support.

“Fury beats angel,” Alecto said.

We clearly weren’t dealing with stupid beings that were full of righteousness. They knew who I was, and they clearly knew three furies could fuck them up. If we were dealing with the same angels that attacked Kat’s village, then they’d maybe evolved a bit because they didn’t assume just because they were angels that they’d be protected from my sisters.

Ugh. There were several crashes from solitary and these angels were a little too evolved for my liking. When they felt fury magic invading their minds, their wings snapped out, and they just punched their way through the ceiling. They flew off.

“Well, the three furies are the only people in this group who can produce wings and go after them. They got enough of our magic to have some pretty gnarly nightmares.”

Benji poofed into the room next. I hoped he had good news, but based on the look on his face, he didn’t.

“The angels did a lot of research. They know how to banish gods, but they can do this glowy thing to get rid of me, too. It’s hard to conjure the right amount of light to banish me when I’m shifted, but they can naturally produce that kind of light.”

“First things first,” I said.

We could talk about what went wrong and regroup later. We could still use this to our advantage. I grabbed what was available and destroyed the blood sigil so the rest of my friends could join us.

We wanted the angels. This might not have gone down like we expected and they could do a lot of damage with Hannibal and Saul, but I already knew how we could spin this.