My Life From Hell (The Blooming Goddess #3)

Picking Fights With Gods (Part 1)

Fire arced across my body. I stiffened and opened my mouth in a full-on scream. The vision was back, but this time I was able to remind myself that I was safe with Jennifer in her studio. That was something.

Even though I'd never done more than stand still in the vision, this time, I felt compelled to move.

I stepped forward and recoiled as my boot heel hit a toffee-like substance. But broiling. I jerked my foot back and looked down.

The ground was an ocean of molten lava. I stood on the safety of a low, flat rock surrounded by roiling land. I watched in morbid fascination as the surface of the lava cooled slightly, hardened, then broke apart again.

The twin smells of sulphur and burning wood assaulted my nostrils. I threw an arm over my nose to block it out.

As I lifted my eyes from the lava, I realized that the smoke had cleared. For the first time ever, I saw that I was in a garden. Although it wasn't winning any awards. Everything was dead.

Blackened. Twisted.

The ground bubbled ominously in fiery swirls, its dull crackling roar the only sound in this eerie place.

Off to one side was the only living thing. And by living, I mean barely.

It was a pomegranate tree.

Seeing the sickly tree, its branches drooping, leaves scattering to the ground, fruit shriveling and leeched of color, made me wonder. Was the reason that I was all alone not because everyone on Earth had died?

But that I had?

There was the sound of mocking laughter. Deep and rumbling, it rolled across the land like thunder. I wanted to plead with whoever it was to stop but could see no one. Then, as suddenly as it had started, the laughter stopped. A dim chant grew louder and louder until I could make out the words.

"Instrument of our destruction. Instrument of our destruction."

Terror clawed at my throat. I spun, desperate to run, desperate to get away, but lava pressed in on all sides.

It was just a vision. It couldn't hurt me. I clung to this thought.

A blare of trumpets drowned out the chanting. Impossibly, I heard John Lennon start to croon that all I needed was love.

Nice thought, but I still wanted out.

I tried to wrench my feet free. But I was stuck fast.

The laughter was back, and it now drowned out the singing as the lava grew in force and rage to lick around my feet.

I realized there was nowhere to go.

I bolted up, disoriented by the light, until Jennifer's wide-eyed stare, and the buzz of the tattoo machine in her hand reminded me where I was.

My skin was flushed and prickly. I had to get out of there. I scrambled off the table and ran, easily outdistancing the sound of her footsteps coming after me.

"Sophie? Hey! Hold up!"

I ignored her. I flew out her front door, leapt off the porch and, clutching my pendent before me like a cross before a vampire, ran straight into the nearest tree, thinking of Festos' place back in Seattle.

I stumbled onto his street with my next step. Racing across the dark road, I ignored the cold damp air that seeped into the borrowed sweater and jeans I still wore. While the area was lively enough during the day, all the businesses in neighboring warehouses were now closed for the night. Alone out here, my imagination zoomed into nightmare overdrive. Fog seemed to press in on me, held at bay only by a couple of not-bright-enough-for-my-liking street lamps.

Although my hands shook like mini-earthquakes, I managed to unbolt the locks on the building's front door and hurry inside. I slammed the door behind me, slumping back against it in relief. Adrenaline still flooded my system. My chest heaved, and I stuffed my hands into my armpits to quell the trembling.

Goosebumps covered my entire body even though the building temperature was warm. It wasn't so much hearing the "instrument of our destruction" chant that was getting to me right now. My friend Cassie, who was a descendent of the original Oracle Cassandra had prophesied that months ago.

I'd chosen to ignore the prophecy. Since they were not guarantees and my alternative was to give up before I'd begun, it had seemed like the right decision. Plus, all the gods I'd met believed Kai and I were the ones who could take on Zeus and Hades, and have a chance of winning.

But after that vision?

I'd just been faced with, at the very least, my own death. More likely, I'd been stranded out there with a pretty solid confirmation that everyone else was also going to die, without me knowing how to stop it. Maybe I was naive or just plain stupid but, until now, I had mostly believed that Kai and I would win. That Hades and Zeus would be defeated, taking Demeter along with them, and leaving humans—me included—to live out long, happy, lives.

A sharp splinter of doom lodged itself in my heart. No matter how I looked at things, I couldn't see a happily-ever-after in all this.

I. Was. Freaked.