Rise of the Blood (26 page)

His eye kept closing, and it looked like it took more effort each time to reopen it, like the medicine was dragging him down into sleep. I wanted that for him, the freedom from pain, but he squeezed my hand to hold me there as he sensed me start to pull back to leave him in peace.

“Come with me,” he said, finally letting his eye shut and stay that way. “Not your fight either. I’m not sure…” He trailed off, and for a second I thought he was finished. Then his lips moved again, though his eyes stayed shut. “Not sure you’re helping the situation. Not sure things aren’t worse.” My heart stopped beating. I wondered if it was the medicine talking. Or confusion from the pain. But deep down I knew. He meant every word. I knew it, because he was voicing my very own doubts. Only, he was my touchstone.
He
was supposed to believe. And he’d cracked under the pressure.

I was so torn up and tangled up in my own pain that it took me a second to realize he wasn’t quite finished. “If this is…your path…can’t walk it with you.”

His hand went slack in mine, and I checked to see that he was still breathing. He was, and I struggled to feel something at that, but I’d gone numb with the stopping of my heart. I didn’t know what to process first—that he blamed me as I blamed myself or that it sounded like he was cutting me free.

Because that’s what he was saying. I couldn’t turn my back on the fight that had begun. I
couldn’t
. My responsibility was here. Now. With my friends and family and this mess I hadn’t started but had been sucked into nonetheless. His responsibility, his job, his
identity
was back in L.A. with the people he’d vowed to protect and serve. And because of me—I’d said it myself—because of
me
right now he couldn’t even do that. All he could do was hurt and heal. He couldn’t stay and I couldn’t go. After all I’d put him through, that felt like a betrayal. Yet I couldn’t see any other path.

I walked out of there like I was walking the Green Mile, already dead inside.

The tears didn’t start until I was in the limo Uncle Hector had sent to collect me, and then they wouldn’t stop.

Viggo looked at me in the rearview mirror and asked, “The man, he’s going to be okay?”

I wiped the tears out of my eyes. “Eventually. Nothing skin grafts and time away from me can’t cure.”

He looked sad, like he could read between the lines. “Back to the hotel?”

I thought about asking him to go by way of a liquor store, but I needed my wits about me.

“Yes,” I said finally. “Thank you.”

“It’ll be okay,” he told me.

I wished he had the power of prophecy.

I was too emotionally exhausted to fear the hairpin turns on the way back up to the hotel…or maybe I was getting used to them. Exposure therapy.

Like before, we had to stop short of the actual parking lot that looked like an explosion site. I thanked Viggo and raced out, ready to find the others and plot away my sorrows. Nick had pulled away from me. I didn’t think it was just his painkiller talking. My touchstone was gone. That voice that told me
not
to do the crazy things I usually did anyway had given up on me. But more than that…I hadn’t said as much, not even to myself, but the truth was that when Nick and I finally got through the bantering and dancing our way around our relationship, I thought we’d…settle down sounded too tame. Be together forever sounded too romancy. But somewhere in there lay the truth about what was slipping away from me.

The lobby of the hotel was all but deserted when I entered. One lone receptionist was holding down the check-in desk. I realized I didn’t know where to go. The banquet hall would be a crime scene, although what crime the police could prosecute I could only imagine. I headed for the elevators while I pulled my phone out to call Apollo, feeling stupidly guilty as I did it, even though this was hardly a social call. Anyway, I wasn’t sure I
had
a relationship anymore to worry about. The thought didn’t cause me anything but pain.

I was
not
going to cry again. Big girls don’t cry. I’d heard it in a song once. The wisdom of Fergie.

I heard a phone play out the first few bars of “Black Magic Woman” in the elevator coming into the lobby and knew I didn’t have to look any further for Apollo. I’d found him. He accepted the call just as the doors opened, and then dropped his hand to his side at the sight of me.

“What happened?” he asked immediately, stepping toward me. I took a step back. “Are you okay?”

I looked at the hand reaching out toward me, the phoneless one, and he stopped. “I’m fine,” I said. “I’m not the one hurt.”

“Then what was all that I sensed?”

Damn and double damn, I’d forgotten our weird, unwanted bond that meant he’d had a front-row seat for the breakup. But he could sense emotions, not read minds. He might guess, but he couldn’t know anything I didn’t tell him for certain. And I wasn’t about to tell him. He’d been wanting me to break up with Nick since we’d met. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing it was done or appearing pathetic because Nick had been the one to end it.

“Zeus is a douchebag, so what else is new? But I think I talked some sense into him and Poseidon both. I don’t think they can fight Rhea without us.”

“Without Zeus and his idiot priests, we wouldn’t have to fight her at all.”

“Where is everybody?” I asked, before he could whip out any more questions of his own.

“Strategizing,” he said, “in the bridal suite.”

“Oh, Tina must love that.”

“She volunteered it. She’s pissed that ‘that bitch goddess’ ruined her wedding. We had to fill her in. Pretty hard to keep her in the dark after everything.”

I felt oddly pleased. If she knew the full story, she’d have to know that none of this was my fault. Oh sure, Rhea would never have awakened if Zeus and Poseidon hadn’t come after me and Apollo and bolloxed up the whole thing, but I hadn’t put them up to the vengeance. As far as incurring their wrath to begin with…what was I supposed to have done? Let them drop L.A. into the ocean? Maybe some day she and I could sit down over a pint and I could tell her about my heroic adventures where I wasn’t possessed by a mother goddess.

“Lead the way,” I told him.

Inside the elevator I stood as far away from him as humanly possible—toward the front while he stood in the back—but I could feel his gaze on me. He hadn’t bought my explanation for the emotional turmoil for even a second.

I was out of the elevator the instant the doors opened, but then I had to wait for Apollo to catch up.

He led me to a room at the end of a long hallway. I could hear even before we reached the door that we were in the right place. There were a lot of voices talking over each other. I would have thought “party” if I didn’t know better.

Apollo knocked, and the voices hushed. It was Hermes who answered the knock, looking from me to Apollo with sharp eyes that seemed to catch everything and guess the rest.

“Come in,” he said soberly. I didn’t know he could do sober. It made the whole situation seem that much more dire.

Hermes stepped aside, and we entered. Everyone stared at me as if I might go on the offensive again. I couldn’t blame them.

“What’s the news about your young man,” Yiayia asked from across the room. Fergus, I was shocked to see, was still at her side, singed but whole. Christie was conspicuously absent.

“He’s burned and hurting, but he’s going to be okay.”

“Zeus and Poseidon?” Hermes asked.

“Healing. Not all fired up to join us, but I don’t see that they have much choice. I’d guess it’s a matter of time.” I looked around the room. “What have you come up with so far?”

Everyone stirred uncomfortably, swapping glances, meeting each others’ gazes, but not mine…until I got to Althea. She looked me right in the eyes and said, “We can’t tell you. It’s like talking to the enemy. Tori, I’m sorry.”

I felt it like a blow to the chest. Nick didn’t want me. Now neither did they. And I couldn’t convince them they were wrong when I was sure they were right. But I also couldn’t stay sidelined. There was a battle brewing of epic proportions, and I knew with that sixth sense I had that I was part of things. I had to be.

I swallowed down my first response and reconsidered my second. “
Fine
,” I said. It came out tight but strong. “I understand. A quick suggestion. Yiayia’s been keeping track of who’s been doing what with whom and where for at least a decade. If you’re looking to recruit allies, I’d start there.”

“Anipsi—” Yiayia began, stepping forward as if she’d embrace me and make it all better. I held up a hand to stop her. It was the only way I could stay strong.

“Let me just ask—who’s going to approach Hades? With or without Zeus and Poseidon, we’ll need him on our side.”

No one spoke.

“Fine,” I said again. “I’ll go. I’m expendable and he knows me.”

He didn’t
like
me. The last few times we’d met he’d actually tried to kill me. But he knew me. Maybe he’d marvel at my audacity in approaching him long enough to listen.

There was something wrong with my vision again, and I fumbled for the doorknob. A strong hand, warm like someone had been soaking up the sun, came down on top of mine and twisted the knob for me. I didn’t thank him. It felt too much like he was coming to the rescue of some kind of damsel in distress, and that wasn’t me.

He followed me out into the hall.

“You’re not going alone,” Apollo stated.

I whirled to confront him and found him way too close, but I refused to take a step back.

“You gonna stop me?”

“No, I’m going
with
you.”

“You’re needed here.”

“I will be when things heat up again. For now I need to be with you.”

“Why?”

“I sense it,” he said, his turquoise eyes burning like sunlight reflected off the Mediterranean.

“A vision?” I asked. “What do you see?”

“I see you coming into your own. I see you having a pivotal role to play, and I know you have to survive.”

Not
I know you
will
survive
, but
you have to
.

“What about you?
You
have to survive, to fight. At my side doesn’t seem a terribly safe place to be lately.”

“Well darn, because you know how I like things nice and safe. Crossword puzzles, warm milk, in bed by nine,” he smiled.

To my shock, I started to smile back.

“You realize that if I get you killed, your sister’s huntresses are going to have my hide.”

“At the very least,” he agreed. “So don’t get me killed.”

“Sir, yes, sir.” I clicked my heels together and saluted, and his smile got wider. “You think they’ll help us out with some weapons to aid us in not getting slaughtered?”

Chapter Eleven

It turned out that it was Apollo and not Yiayia who had the intel on nearby entrances to the Underworld. Apparently, we’d already been within spitting distance of the nearest one. A cult of the dead had operated around the Tholos tomb where the Pythian Serpent had attacked. It seemed logical, I guessed. A monument commemorating a military victory would probably also involve honoring the dead. If Hades’s influence had been particularly strong there, it made sense that this would be a link to his domain.

Outfitted with a bow and a brace of arrows (Apollo) and a huge hunting knife (me), we stood in front of the Tholos now. No guns allowed. Althea didn’t have any because, in her words, “they weren’t sporting.” Neither was my bridesmaid’s gown. I’d changed into something a lot more practical—jeans and a heather-gray long-sleeved tee and hiking boots.

Viggo and his limo would have been too conspicuous, a cab would have left a trail, so Apollo and I walked, counting on the dark to hide us from watchful eyes. Because the Tholos was still a crime scene, just like the Sanctuary at Delphi. Site by site, we were taking out tourist destinations and millennia of history, just what Uncle Hector and his movie had hoped to bolster. It had to stop.
We
had to stop it.

“Where do we start?” I asked.

There was crime scene tape blocking off the access path to the Tholos, but no police here or up at the sanctuary site. We’d spread them too thin. Those who weren’t wounded or dead were probably down at the hotel, where structural damage caused by Typhoeus kept the danger level high.

In answer, Apollo ducked the crime scene tape. I followed, trying to avoid flashbacks to the Pythian Serpent crunching down on the officer who didn’t make it, the monolithic stone tumbling from the top of the Tholos and nearly crashing down on our heads…

Apollo stopped at the edge of the crater caused by the serpent erupting from the earth and shined a flashlight down into the depths. I stepped up beside him and stared down into it. And down…and down. It was more an impression of depth than an actual visual, since the beam didn’t penetrate the whole length of the tunnel. Or maybe it was the way air seemed to be trapped in there, moaning to be free. It was eerie.

“What are you thinking?” I asked him.

“What do you think’s more likely,” he asked back, “That the serpent made all new tunnels coming after us or that he used existing pathways?”

The man was more than just a pretty face.

“Existing,” I answered.

“That’s what I thought.”

He put the butt of the flashlight in his mouth to have his hands free for disentangling our climbing gear—harnesses, ropes, carabiners, anchors that he’d borrowed from Spiro, who’d apparently planned on a little adventuring after the wedding. He’d given me a knowing look when I’d asked for it, as though climbing were code for something a lot more horizontal than vertical, but he relinquished it with the demand that he wanted it back in good working order. I heard the shower going in his room when I went by for the equipment, and figured that he was otherwise occupied for the time being anyway. I wondered if it was Jesus and instantly realized I didn’t want to know.

“Do you know how any of this works?” I asked, looking at the twisted-up ropes like I would a string of hopelessly tangled Christmas lights I’d never put up. With my fear of heights I hadn’t ever had the occasion to ascend or descend anything more challenging than stairs.