Busted Flush

Simone’s eyes weren’t much smaller than Toad Man’s. Her hair stuck out as if her head had played octagon for a death-match between a weed whacker and a quart jar of mousse. She looked like a kitten fished out of a washing machine. Only more viscous.

She opened her mouth. She closed her mouth. Sounds came from her nose, along with bubbles of toad mouth slime. She squeezed her eyes tight shut. “Eww,” she said.

There was a pop! and Buford stood beside them in all his Florida cracker glory.

“Thanks,” John rasped. His throat felt as if he’d gargled battery acid. “Wasn’t nothing,” Buford said. “My uncle Rayford always said to help a lady when I could.”

From his right John heard a noise like a sheet ripping, times a hundred. He looked around in time to see a machine-gun burst tear into one of his Croats. The guy’s body bucked. He rolled on his back and stared up at a sky whose painful blue was stained with gray smoke.

A quarter mile behind them more Nigerian AFVs rolled out of the scrub. Fire flashed from their guns. “Okay,” John said. “This officially sucks. White ’em out, Simone!”

Snowblind shook her head. Her face had gone pale as her namesake. “Can’t. Too far!”

John sucked in a deep breath and almost choked on fumes and stench. He had mostly been ignoring Sekhmet’s increasingly furious yammer in his brain and blood. It hadn’t been hard: he had things on his mind. But now was the time to hear her. Now was the time to give her what she clamored for.

He let go and exploded in a flash and boom like a shell going off.

Gun flames reached for the huge golden lioness like hungry tongues as she raced toward the line of machines. Lion laughter rippled through her body as she effortlessly eluded their foolish fire. Did they think so easily to stay the wrath of a Living God?

She struck the lead Scorpion tank like a lightning bolt. She leapt to the turret. Her jaws crunched its metal as her rear claws raked the tank’s hull, the way she’d gut a Cape buffalo. The vehicle’s armor was aluminum treated to steel hardness. It yielded like butter to her fangs and talons.

She expected that once she was among the flocks the other vehicles wouldn’t dare fire for fear of hitting their own. She reckoned without the power of panic. With a clang and a bang a main-gun round from a neighboring tank struck the Scorpion she was savaging.

She sent a burst of flame toward the other tank. It was too far to do damage but would confuse and terrify the gunners. She pounced as the machine she had eviscerated exploded.

When she breathed fire the tank’s commander ducked down his turret, slamming the hatch above him. She hooked claws into the hatch and tore it away. Then she blew fire within.

The hideous screams of commander and gunner were drowned as 76mm shells racked inside the turret cooked off. The Destroyer had already turned and leapt onto her next victim. Joyously she rampaged among the Nigerians, tearing and burning. She was vaguely aware of PPA armored vehicles shooting at their enemies with seeming disregard for whether they hit her or not. She paid them no heed.

She was crouched on a Warrior’s front deck, worrying its long gun in her jaws like a bone when something smashed into her right side. Hurtling weight drove her off the personnel carrier. She landed hard on her back with the weight crushing down on her. Teeth plunged into her shoulder.

Squalling outrage, she kicked with her rear legs. Her new opponent bellowed in pain as she threw it away from her.

She rolled to her feet. Her right shoulder bled. It meant nothing. It was nothing, next to the punishment she would inflict in return.

Eight meters away her enemy faced her. A huge, hairy beast whose muscle-mountainous body narrowed to a pointed snout. A naked pink tail lashed behind it. It reminded the lion-goddess of nothing so much as a gigantic rat.

She drew breath and sent it forth in flame.

The rat wasn’t expecting that. Yellow fire briefly obscured it. It rolled away, shrieking. Unfortunately distance had attenuated the blast. Sekhmet had done no more than singe the beast. It jumped back on its four legs with a score of smoke-tentacles waving from muzzle and shoulders.

The Destroyer was already flying at it. The rat-monster reared back to grapple her with what more closely resembled arms than an animal’s forelimbs. She struck.

Over and over the two monsters rolled, snarling, clawing, and snapping. Their blood dyed the sand pink. To the Destroyer’s fury the rat-thing’s bristles and thick hide resisted her talons and fangs better than Nigerian armor plate had. She felt chisel-like teeth and claws dig deep into her own golden-glowing skin.

But she was Sekhmet the Destroyer. A Living God was not to be defeated by an outsized rodent. With the strength of righteous rage she snapped her jaws. Her opponent squealed. By the luck of the Gods of the Nile she had bitten its neck.