“Get out of my way!” I yelled as I drew close to the front doors. The mob jerked as a unit, and a small opening appeared. I ran through it and slammed a shoulder into the doors. I’d meant only to push them open, but instead I shattered the glass. People screamed and I kept moving, limbs flailing as images of Yaya and Tad being hurt filled my mind. Maybe I couldn’t fight, but I could distract the Bull Boys and give my family time to get away. That had to be worth something.

Through the candy aisle, pop and chips, and cooking department I raced. I paused in the cooking aisle and grabbed my weapons of choice, then was off again, running toward the sounds of battle and the show of thunder and lightning in the corner of the giant box store.

I skidded to a stop as lightning danced at my feet. “I’m on your side!”

“Sorry, I’m out of practice!”

“Yaya?”

It wasn’t Zeus throwing lightning bolts, but my yaya. She held a thin rod out in front of her, and wherever she pointed, lightning flung out in wild arcs. Blue and red, green and yellow, the colors were anything but natural. But they kept the bad guys at bay, and that was enough for me.

Between her and me, though, was a bigger problem than the lightning. The Bull Boys had increased in numbers. At least three times as many as had met me at my house now ranged out through the different aisles.

Not one of them looked at me; their focus was all on Yaya. One of Achilles’s minions held a net out in front of him. “Let’s tag and bag the old lady, boys, and the snake will come to us.”

A trap indeed, Ernie was right about that much at least.

“Hey, you ding-dongs. Why don’t you try me on for size?” I yelled, brandishing my weapons at them.

The big bull, the one who’d fallen through my stairs, turned slowly and glared at me. His face was scratched up, and a few wooden splinters were clearly visible under his skin. I cringed. That had to hurt.

“You.”

“Yes.” I waved him toward me. “Me. Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” I grinned as I said it. That was one line I’d always wanted to use but had never been big enough to say.

He bellowed and rushed me with his head down, anger making him stupid. Even with my lack of fighting skills I could see it was a brash, foolish move. I sidestepped him easily and brought the thick cast iron frying pan down on the back of his head with everything I had.

The boom of metal on skull and the crack of bone echoed through the suddenly silent store. My arm shuddered from the impact, and it rippled all the way up to my shoulder.

He went down, the ground crumpling under his body. Waves of cheap linoleum rolled out around him like a mini-earthquake.

“Oh, now that was a good hit. You should use a frying pan more often, I think.” Ernie situated himself on the top of the rafters. “Damn, girlfriend, I think you killed him.”

I stumbled back from the body at my feet. “No. I didn’t kill him. I didn’t hit him that hard . . .” I lifted my eyes to see all the Bull Boys staring at me with open mouths. At my feet their leader lay lifeless, without a single twitch or heave of his chest.

“I didn’t mean to,” I said. Not that my protesting did me any good.

“She killed him, get her!”

As a herd, they rushed me.

I had a choice. Fight them off, likely killing more of them, or stand there and let them take me to Achilles, who would surely kill me and maybe my yaya and Tad too.

While the choice might have seemed obvious, I didn’t react to the raging herd until the last second, my past and present warring within me for dominance.

The first two Bull Boys in the lead swung their overlong swords straight at my head.

A strangled squawk burst out of me and I fell to the floor, the whoosh of the weapons whistling through the air where I’d stood only a second before. Right under my nose was their leader I’d killed. Blood trickled from the cracks in his skull, drawing my eyes, holding me in place as I stared at the damage I’d done.

“Move!” Ernie yelled, and I rolled to the left, right into the base of one of the stacks of goods, hitting it hard. The stack wobbled and tipped backward with a groan. Plastic jugs of bright-blue windshield washer fluid hit the floor, creating a near-instant lake that smelled vaguely of soap. I leapt to my feet and whipped around, frying pan in one hand and rolling pin in the other. My arms shook and my mouth was dry as a brownie made without enough buttermilk.

“To your right!” Yaya said, and I spun, but not fast enough. A head wrapped in horns slammed into my ribs and sent me flying through the air. I arced over the electronics section high enough that I could see the cashier crouched down behind the register as I passed. The cashier with the white-blond locks, chiseled jaw, and store manager’s name tag.

I hit the ground hard, rolling across the slick floor and stopping only when my skin finally stuck to the linoleum. I sat up, my legs too wobbly to actually stand. “Zeus, why aren’t you fighting?”

“Can’t. It’s against the rules. No fighting of the gods and goddesses. There’s too much damage when we duel.”

I glared up at the rafters and the flutter of white and pink. “Ernie, we are not friends anymore, you bat-winged liar!”

“I wasn’t lying!” He swung down right in my face, his eyes pleading. “I was only telling you what I got from the hotline.”

He moved sideways when I waved at him, forcing him out of my way. The Bull Boys had split up, most of them coming my way. But three had stayed with Yaya. There was a flicker of movement as the bull in front of Yaya swung a fist, catching her in the jaw. She fell backward, boneless.