Rise of the Blood (23 page)

Tina was gazing up into Jason’s face, looking like she’d just won the lottery when my precog kicked into high gear. I looked around at every face, including the face of the mountain above us, searching out the danger. But my vision jerked suddenly as a tremor started up the mountain, radiating down the side. Rocks began to cascade down, knocking larger rocks loose and starting a shearing. The stones sounded like gunfire as they struck, broke apart and ricocheted down the mountain toward us.

“Back to the limos!” Andre yelled to be heard above it.

No one needed to be told. Already, Tina clutched Jason’s hand and was running blindly away from the Tholos, back toward the road. I lurched for Nick just as the whip end of the tremor hit us like an explosion, sending me skyrocketing into him. He rocked with the impact of my body blow but managed to keep us upright…until the ground bucked beneath us again, harder this time, like the earth was a bed sheet being snapped out of its orderly folds. Nick and I were knocked apart. I fell hard, striking my butt bone in a spine-numbing impact with the ground.

I lay momentarily stunned, until something began to rise from the ground before me and true fear kicked me in the gut—a monstrous snake with fangs the size of steak knives. The head was triangular, which somewhere in the back of my jibbering mind I knew meant that it was poisonous. Its yellow-green eyes gleamed with intelligence and malice.

Around us was chaos. There were screams and running feet. Someone clutched clumsily at my shoulders, and I looked up into Tina’s terrified face, but she had eyes only for the snake—hence the clumsiness—and when it darted its head at her, fangs fully extended, she shrieked and ran. I didn’t blame her. I gave her props for coming back for me at all.

The upheaval of the snake’s eruption from the earth upset one of the huge stones atop a Tholos column and it came crashing down. I shouted a warning to anyone still in its path and covered my head, as if that would do any good against a two-ton stone, but for one brief shining moment luck was with me. It missed, falling onto the stone platform in an explosion of sharp projectile fragments. The snake’s head whipped around at the crash, and I seized the moment to roll away toward Nick.

He reached for me too, a “What the hell!” coming out of his mouth, but I presumed it was rhetorical, because even if I had the answer, I didn’t have the breath to offer it.

Gunfire started up around us, and Nick pulled my head down to the ground, covering me with his body to protect me from doing anything stupid like trying to get into the line of fire. I’d forgotten about the police officers and their weapons, but I blessed them now.

I squirmed enough in Nick’s grip to be able to see what was going on…and to be very, very afraid. The snake barely rocked with the impact of the bullets. Instead of recoiling, he sprang at one of the officers and bit down hard before the man could even cry out. I flinched my eyes shut as the officer's blood spurted and his gun fell to the ground. 

Within me, deep within as if it had burrowed there, an alien part of me reveled, glad to see the serpent rise again. The Pythian serpent resurrected? Rhea’s avatar that Apollo had fought for control of the sanctuary back in his glory days? Would Apollo have the power now to do it all over again? I couldn’t imagine it. The thing was bigger than a football field—not end-to-end, but circled like a boundary line. It was twice as thick as a person, too thick to wrap arms around and too deadly.

The other officers fell back toward their cruiser, emptying their clips into the creature, who spat their compatriot to the side and went after the next.

We
had
to do something.

Suddenly, an arrow lodged in the roof of the serpent’s mouth, catching it in mid-strike. It seemed to shriek as it spasmed in pain, looking around for the source of its torment.

I did the same, and found Althea and Junessa poised by our limo, its trunk open, making it clear from whence their weapons had come. They closed on the serpent in unison, as if they’d been hunting together forever, stopping to fire arrows, advancing again as they reached for another. 

The other limo was on the move, carrying everyone who’d piled in to safety. But as it made the turn to head back down the road, a door was suddenly flung open and Apollo bailed out, flying past the hands trying to grab him back inside.

I pushed at Nick, desperate to get up and join the fight, but before I could do a thing, the serpent launched itself at the new moving target, its tale lashing into Nick and I, sending us rolling over the ground, skinning arms and legs, tearing up my bridesmaid’s gown something fierce. It blew past the officers still standing, slamming its oversized body right over them to get to Apollo and the girls.

The girls
? Women. Huntresses. Right now our best hope.

The belt radios of the downed officers all came to life at once, and I didn’t know the code coming through, but I recognized the address involved. Something was happening back at the hotel.

What in the holy hells was going on?

I rose up and dove after the snake with no real plan but to end things. Thinking only to launch myself on top of it, distract it long enough to keep it from eating Apollo and to allow Althea and Junessa to finish him off. I landed on top of the tail. Beneath me, bands of muscles worked, terrifying in their power, but the snake didn’t so much as swivel at my extra weight. The tail
did
flick, and I couldn’t find a handhold on the smooth scales. I went flying. My vision went cloudy with a chance of blackout.

Someone called out and suddenly, instead of going dark, the world lit up like from a massive lightning strike, only there was no electricity in the air, and when I blinked the now gold-limned clouds away, I saw that it was as though a beam had shot straight from the sun, a laser-like solar flare targeted on the serpent’s face. The smell of ozone and burning flesh filled the air. The snake made an indescribable noise, thrashing and coiling back on itself like a spring that had bounced back, trying to escape the burning light.

The beam seemed to follow it, and the snake’s tongue darted out, started to smoke, and flicked back. Blindly, it sprang again, striking in Apollo’s direction, but it didn’t come even close.

“Now, aim for the eyes!” Apollo shouted.

Arrows arced through the air, striking the serpent again and again. Left eye, right. Everything about it screamed in pain, its contortions like the desperate throes of a worm that’s been hooked, and I actually felt sorry for the creature. If I was right, it was following Rhea’s compulsion, no less than I had the other night. It was blameless. It didn’t deserve this.

“Stop!” I ordered, before I knew it was coming out of my mouth. “Just stop. He’s retreating.”

And he was—drawing back and back. I’d never seen a snake move that way before. It was spastic and terrible to see, but the arrows halted and the world went back to its former lighting, which now seemed impossibly dim, maybe because I’d burned out some rods or cones or whatever in my eyes.

Momentarily, silence reigned, as we all watched to be sure the monster didn’t renew the attack, and then one of the downed officers said, “What the
hell
was that?”

Another rolled over, struggling to his feet. “We called it in. I don’t know why help isn’t here yet.”

“I’m not sure we’re getting our backup,” said the first. “There’s some kind of disturbance back in town.”

“Damn.” The second officer plucked the radio from his belt and started talking into it as he squatted beside his two compatriots—the one the serpent had attacked and the other who hadn’t gotten up after he’d been crushed when the snake went for Apollo. The one who’d been bitten was swollen up around the face, his skin the color of a bruise. It didn’t look like he was breathing. The other groaned when his fellow officer put a hand to his neck to check his pulse.

“Ribs,” the hurt officer gasped, face contorted with pain.

“ETA on the ambulance is less than five,” the other officer assured him, but he exchanged a worried glance with the other cop still standing.

If there were broken ribs, and if one of them had punctured a lung…

“Don’t move,” the officer said, as if the downed officer had seemed at all inclined. Then he looked around at all of us…all of us still there—minus the director, film crew, Andre, Serena and most of the bridesmaids and groomsmen who’d gone in the other limo. “None of you go anywhere. We’re going to need to take statements.”

“But the hotel,” Tina cried. “I heard—”

“We’ve already got officers on the scene,” the first cop said. “Nothing you can do there but get in the way.”

“Hell with
that
,” I said. “Who’s with me?”

Our limo still waited, and I raced toward it, not bothering to see who might be following. I could guess at some. As for others…well, the cop was right. They’d only be in the way. But stopping them would take time I wasn’t sure we had, and anyway, they had the right to make their own decisions and do what they could. It wasn’t like I could guarantee their safety anywhere; that was clear enough.

I hit the car and yanked open the driver’s side door. Our driver Viggo was still there, but looked to be in some serious shock. “Move over,” I ordered him. He didn’t have to be told twice. I don’t know if he’d heard from across the way and knew we’d been ordered by the police to stick around, but it didn’t seem to matter to him as long as someone else took control. Doors opened all around us as I quickly adjusted the seat and mirrors. Nick, Apollo, Althea and Junessa piled in, Tina and Jason tumbling quickly after.

“What are you waiting for?” Tina asked as she slammed the door behind them. “Go!”

I
went
, wishing I’d stolen a police car so that I could have peeled out with lights and sirens clearing our way, but whether it was the quakes or whatever that kept people off this part of the road, we had almost a straight shot down the mountain. Well, straight but for the crazy switchbacks. Luckily, adrenaline or ambrosia had my reflexes reacting better than ever and I didn’t have anything left over for panic.

Our driver felt differently, based on the way he kept trying to stomp on an imaginary passenger’s side brake. He crossed himself and started muttering a prayer as I took another corner in a way that a roller coaster car might have envied.

“Tori, what the hell?” Tina asked from the back seat.

“What the hell, what?” I asked back. We weren’t far from the hotel. I’d had plenty of interrogation practice with Armani. I could avoid a direct answer for far longer than our drive.

“The
snake
,” she said. “And
you girls
—” She turned on Althea and Junessa “—
bows and arrows.
How the
hell
—”

Hell was getting a lot of credit here.

“I thought maybe that was part of the movie,” I said. “I missed the rehearsal, remember.”

She looked confused for a second, as though working through whether I might actually have a valid point.

“No,” she gasped, still shell-shocked. “No way. Phone,” she said, holding a hand out to the car at large, waiting for someone to hand her one. Apollo obliged, and immediately she was dialing. “Uncle Hector?” she asked, voice sharp. Then, even more sharply, “Uncle Hector!”

There were screams coming from the phone, and we all heard him yell, “Stay back,” before the call ended.

Tina looked terrified.

“I’m, uh, I’m sure everything’s fine,” Jason said, convincing no one. “The cops said police are already there.”

She gave him an “
are you crazy?”
look as we pulled up in front of the hotel…but not into the parking lot. We couldn’t. Something had destroyed it. The center had been blasted out like something had exploded up out of it. Chunks of asphalt lay like volcanic rock in the road, denting car hoods, piercing windshields.

Tina was out of the car before anyone could protest, dodging the worst of the damage in a mad dash toward the reception, toward everyone we loved who wasn’t already with us. Jason took off after her.

I cursed and did the same, vaulting the debris and trying to catch them. There was a sick, sharp feeling in the pit of my stomach about what we’d find inside, but as it turned out, I’d had no idea. None.

I caught up to Tina, who followed the path of destruction toward the banquet hall. As we burst inside, I didn’t know what to process first. Tables were overturned and wedding guests were hiding behind them, using them as oversized shields. That was the upside. The down was that the center of the room was taken up not by one giant snake, but three—two of them in human form.
Zeus
and
Poseidon
…both larger than life, grown as much as they could with the high ceilings and facing (and facing and facing…) off with more heads than I could even process at first. Not the hydra. That serpent had only nine heads, one of them immortal.
This
beast had dozens, maybe a hundred, a seething mass of dragon-like heads on neck stalks bent to fit the room, all deadly as hell and spitting fire. I’d been so distracted by the heads that I only just now noticed the legs—far too many of them. So, not a serpent then. More like a militant millipede.

“Typhoeus,” Apollo said behind me, voice hushed in awe.

“You
know
him?” I hissed back, not wanting any of those heads to swivel our way.

Flames shot toward Zeus and Poseidon, and suddenly water burst forth from the sprinklers in the ceiling and wedding guests shrieked anew. The central combatants didn’t seem to notice. Except for Poseidon, who was doing something…grabbing the moisture out of the air as quickly as it fell around them and using it to create Super-Soaker blasts back at the spitting heads. Where fire met water, the dragon-thing hissed, and the air grew thick with steam. In seconds no one would be able to see to fight.

“I know
of
him,” Apollo said. “Gaea sent Typhoeus after Zeus during the rise of the titans. Zeus won.”

“How?” I asked, still trying to wrap my head around what I was seeing.