My Life From Hell (The Blooming Goddess #3)

The Cabin in the Woods (Part 1)

Even though nowadays Zeus and Hades hated me enough to trump their loathing for each other, their cooperation was tentative at best. As evidenced by how the two minion clumps now kept to their own halves of the sky.

I surveyed them with a grim smile.

Olympian Photokia filled the right half. Seven-foot-tall, muscly dudes, they had gold thunderbolt tattoos that snaked over their bald heads. Super cool, yet bad news for me, were their freaky gold glowing eyes that shot lightning.

You know the thing about lightning strikes? You don't build up immunity. Get hit a million times and that million and first is still going to hurt like a mother. I speak from experience.

These Gold Crushers, as I called them, currently shared the sky with Pyrosim. These Underworld Infernorators resembled the guy from that painting "The Scream" except covered in flame, floating off the ground, and with arms that extended into long tentacles to shoot fire.

My anger blanketed me in an itchy warmth.

"Kill you now or kill you on the equinox," I called out to them, rubbing the back of my neck to relieve the irritation. "Same same."

I felt Persephone smirk at me. Yeah, that's right. My goddess essence smirked at me and I could feel it. No wonder I was a tad concerned for my mental well-being?

Where's your peace and love now? she taunted.

I hated her. So. Much. Which was probably why I'd turned her into my inner monologue of negativity. I squeezed my eyes tight and shook my head, hoping to clear it. All that did was give the minions some kind of cue to rush me en masse.

Most families yelled at their kids when they got mad. Mine sent hit squads. Greek gods: putting the "diss" in dysfunctional.

Lightening struck. Fire flew. The world around me turned to gold and red. This had become a startlingly normal scenario over the past few months. Amazing what a girl can get used to.

I knocked away a Gold Crusher and an Infernorator with a one-two thwack of my light vines. Very grateful that my light packed a punch.

Most of the Pyrosim were content to focus their attention on the trees around me, transforming them into a river of flaming torches. Each arboreal destruction hit me in the gut like a fist. I was Goddess of Spring, and that made the trees kinda like my babies.

I knew that taking the minions out one-on-one wasn't enough. More trees were burning and a small squadron of Photokia had landed on the ground with a hard thud to ring me in. I had to amp up my power level to deal with this attack.

Firing single blasts from my eyes and palms wouldn't put a dent in this mob, so stage three goddess power it was. I shot a full-body shockwave of green light that took out all the minions at once. I hated doing that unless absolutely necessary because it severely depleted me. I'd need large doses of sunlight to recharge and, well, I hadn't really seen the sun in a while.

Minions gone, I surveyed the carnage around me in the fading light. I scratched at my smoking arms, staring at the blazing devastation and feeling more queasy guilt about the impact my existence had on Earth.

I couldn't put out the flames. But I could warn the goddess in the cabin to get out.

As I spun to raise the alarm, something doused me in water. Feeling like one of the animals Noah rejected, I panicked and tried to swim my way through the deluge.

Just as suddenly as the flow had started, it stopped. My cap gone, I flung my wet ringlets out of my face, wiped my eyes uselessly with my soaked sleeve, and did a double-take.

Standing before me was a vision of 1950s pin-up beauty. She was maybe 5'6", looked about my age, with round cheeks, full lips, and straight dark brown hair that fell to her waist.

She sported a large yellow rose over her left ear, the color brilliant against her light brown skin. The rose's blood red tips matched the large garnet ring she wore on her right middle finger. Her short sleeved, button-down shirt of the same red was tucked into her black pencil skirt. Her legs, about a million miles long in her red knee-high boots, were completely tattooed, as were her arms, which right now held some kind of thick, black fire hose aimed directly at me.

I raised my hands as if in surrender. "Normally, I make a better first impression."

She arched an eyebrow. Doubt flickered in her large dark eyes.

"A not-quite-as-bad one?" I amended.

She huffed in annoyance as, with a flutter of her fingers, the hose promptly rolled itself up into a neat coil and nestled against the base of a quaint well, set off to the side of her cabin.

The goddess turned and strode back to her home, heels clicking on the green flagstones that led up to her front door. Her hips sashayed according to their own special laws of gravity.

Careful you don't dislocate something, honey. With a quick look around to make sure the fire was truly out, I hurried after her like a wet dog. "Love your place," I said, trying to redeem myself.

I really did. It was the cutest, gingerbread-colored log cabin imaginable. Like if I was a wicked witch who ate kids and wanted to sucker them in, this would be my impossibly adorable HQ.

The logs were thick and smooth. The roof pitched steeply down the sides, tiled in a light red metal. Red shutters framed the four windows—two upstairs, two down—along the front of the house. To the right of the windows, ten wide-planked steps led up to a red front door, with a circular window inset in the top.

Pin-up chick ignored my compliment, stepped through her front door, and shut it firmly behind her.

Festos was right. The goddess was a tad touchy. If there was some kind of Yelp page for goddesses, I was so slamming her customer service.

I stomped up the porch and banged on the front door, thinking that Festos better be correct about her tattoos providing clarity, otherwise this was just a giant waste of time.

I pounded on the door again, fully expecting arrows to shoot out and impale me. Surprisingly, the goddess opened it.

"Enough, already." With a wave of her hand, she motioned me inside.