The Demigod Diaries (The Heroes of Olympus)(44)

Claymore didn’t care. He reached into Black’s pocket and plucked out the keys for his truck—and Black didn’t even notice.

Just when Claymore thought he was in the clear, he heard Lamia’s rasping voice: “You really do take me for a fool, don’t you?”

She was right behind him…but how was that possible? He’d gauged her regeneration time at around one or two minutes. There was no way she should have been able to follow him so quickly.

He didn’t have time to react. As soon as he turned, she clamped her lizard claws around his neck and his gun clattered to the floor.

“I have walked this world for thousands of years!” she hissed, her deep green eyes staring into him. “You are a mortal! Blind! I was like you, once. I thought I was above the gods. I was the daughter of Hecate, goddess of magic. Zeus himself fell in love with me! I considered myself his equal! But then what did the gods do to me?”

Her hand closed tighter around his throat, and Claymore gasped for air. “Hera slaughtered my children right in front of my eyes! She…! That woman…!”

A tear fell down her scaly face, but Claymore didn’t care in the slightest about this creature’s sob story. He drove his knee into her chest with as much force as he could muster and heard the satisfying crack of her ribs breaking.

Lamia fell backward. Hopefully, her ribs would take time to regenerate. She hunched over, wheezing, as if it were too painful for her to stand.

“I have already invoked the Temple of Fire,” she said. “It is an incantation that destroys your sanctuary—whatever you most place your faith in. I may not be able to make you feel my pain, but I can still take away all that is precious to you! I can take away all of it in the wave of a hand!”

Suddenly the temperature in the café spiked. It felt like a sauna in which the heat kept building.

The tables were the first thing to catch, then the chairs, and then…

Claymore made a mad dash for Black, who was still happily polishing coffee cups.

“Incantare: Stulti Carcer!” Lamia shrieked.

Suddenly Claymore’s legs felt like lead. He tried to force himself to move, but he couldn’t. He was glued in place.

Flames began to creep up Black’s apron. Soon his entire body was lit on fire. The worst part was that he didn’t even notice what was happening to him.

Claymore cried out to him, but it was no use. He had to watch as his only real friend in Keeseville was consumed by flames in front of his eyes.

“Gods can do this!” Lamia cried. “They can erase everything that you hold dear in a second, and so shall I!” She turned to his laptop. “I’ll destroy that, too—your latest work!”

She gestured at his computer as the flames rolled toward it across the bar. The plastic cover began melting. “Just try to save it, Claymore!” she taunted. “If you go and beat out the flames now, it might not be too late.”

She flexed her hand and Claymore could suddenly feel his feet.

“Go, child of man,” she hissed. “Save what is most precious to you. You will fail! Just like I—”

Lamia didn’t have time to finish before Claymore’s fist slammed into her face.

She crashed against a table. Claymore came down at her with another punch, his hand now coated with black sand. “How can you just stand there and talk like that after you’ve taken a man’s life?” he cried.

She reached up at him with her clawed hands, but Claymore slapped them away. He overturned the table and she toppled to the floor.

“You killed him!” he shouted. “Burly had nothing to do with any of this, and you killed him! I don’t care what kind of monster you are! By the time I’m done with you you’re going to wish that Hera had killed you!”

She opened her mouth. “Incantare: Stu—!”

Claymore kicked her in the jaw, and the lower half of her face dissolved into sand.

The flames were getting harsher now. The acrid smoke burned in Claymore’s lungs, but he didn’t care. He kicked and punched Lamia into a pile of sand as she tried to regenerate, again and again.

Still…he knew he couldn’t keep this up. He couldn’t let his rage be the end of him. That’s what Lamia wanted. She’d be fine regardless of anything he did to her, but he wasn’t invulnerable—the smoke alone was making it hard to breathe. He had to get out of here. Otherwise, the pile of sand underneath his feet would have the last laugh.

It would take at least one minute for her to re-form, he guessed, just enough time for him to disappear.

He looked down at the swirling mass of powder, wondering if it could hear him. “By the time I see you next, I’ll know how to kill you. Your death is inevitable. Once you grow legs again, I suggest you run.”

He picked up his gun from the floor and fired into the pile of sand—one last shot for Burly Black.

It still wasn’t enough. Justice had to be served, and if his hunch was right, he knew exactly the person to do it.

When the police discovered that he’d taken Black’s truck, would they blame him for the fire? Would they accuse him of Black’s murder?

A real monster was after him, but Claymore might be pegged as an enemy of the law. If the situation were different he would have found such irony funny; but not now, not when Black was dead.

Surely Black would have approved of Claymore taking his truck.…Claymore floored it, driving as fast as he possibly could without getting in an accident.