There was a knock on the door.

"Thirty minutes!"

Mahadevi acknowledged the information, and appreciated the fact that whoever lowly stage assistant was sent to deliver the message was not impertinent enough to actually open the door. The Goddess was in her spacious dressing room, and she liked to be left alone for her rituals.

Thirty minutes till she had to go in front of the cameras once again and talk to some show host about her life as an actress (no one ever touched the goddess theme in the USA, they were weird like that). She was going to have an interpreter; she did speak English, but it was a matter of ceremony and pride.

Right now, she was sitting at her desk, surrounded by huge mirrors, with the image of the Goddess staring back at her. She liked to do her own make-up, she never trusted anyone else to do it perfectly. One hand was applying eyeshadow, another lipstick; two hands were arranging ornaments in her hair, and one was clipping on an earring. She was going to be done in fifteen minutes; that left her some time to sit quietly and prepare her mind for the stupidity of talk-show hosts.

Maybe she could meditate.

Of all the jobs to pick Mina got the one with the goddess. She smirked and snorted at that thought as she made her way toward the dressing rooms where the lady in question would be waiting. The pay was good or she wouldn't have taken the job. However this might very well have been her first time killing someone with such a pronounced god complex. Now maybe some of her other victims had had them too. None of them had been so blatant as this Chandi Lalita. She actually went about claiming to be a goddess. Heck the woman might actually believe it for all Mina knew. Whatever the case it would be a first in Mina's record and for all the time she'd been at this that was saying something.

Today the normal mission gear was exchanged for a sharp business suit and purse. After all, the stealth fighter look might have worked on a movie set but here on a talk show set? Mina wasn't about to take the chance. She'd donned a wig of pure black hair. Colored contact lenses altered her eyes to a deep blue. The suit was a grey pinstriped number with an emerald green shirt beneath it. Normally her gun would have been in the purse. However the client had insisted she not use a gun. Frankly she thought that absurd but Mina was quite capable of sending someone away without one.

She watched the dressing rooms from one vantage point or another before a helpful stage hand indicated exactly where her target was. Shortly after the assistant had gone on their merry way Mina shrouded herself in her power and headed for the door. It opened noiselessly as she got her first glimpse of her target. The multiple arms might be something of an issue but Mina would manage.

Make-up was applied, and the eight arms rested for a moment while the Goddess admired her own reflection and the glint of the earrings she just hung on her ears. Perfect. Then again, in her life, perfect was the norm.

The reflection revealed movement in the background as the door opened silently and an elegant, black-haired woman walked in. Mahadevi looked at her from the mirror.

"I know, thirty minutes" she said slowly "I do not talk to the press until after. No private interviews before the show. Please leave."

The nerve of that woman, and whoever let her in. American journalists could be so persistent...

Mina didn't hear what the woman in front of her said. She saw the woman's lips move in the mirror and read what she said from that but the sounds couldn't penetrate her powers. How arrogant. At least Mina had a right to be that smug. There was little point in lowering the field just to point out how wrong the woman was. She merely reached into her purse and withdrew a knife that slid open swiftly and silently. At a thought's discretion the field of silence was expanded to include the entire dressing room. It wouldn't do to alert the guards to her true reason for being here.

Without hesitating Mina sprung forward, knife ready to plunge into the other woman's flesh. It was time to earn her pay.

The woman did not answer. She did not leave either. The Goddess found that strange. Did she not understand what she was saying to her? Americans could be strange sometimes...

An even stranger silence stretched across the room. Almost unnatural. Mahadevi shifted in her seat, looking at the woman from the mirror, not giving her the satisfaction of turning around.

Not until she saw the knife.

The Goddess opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. The strange woman was using magic. Or some ability that she could not even name.

Eight hands moved at once, reaching behind her to block the stab of the knife and the Goddess finally spun around in her seat, trying to push and pull the woman off balance. She had not been trained in fighting. But against one woman, two hands, and one knife, the eight arms of the Goddess were definitely an advantage.