Rise of the Blood (7 page)

Yiayia and her—friend? boyfriend? passing acquaintance?—Fergus joined us at the bar, mercifully cutting off my line of sight to Jesus and my brother and the moment they seemed to be having. At least there wasn’t any sappy music playing. Or a dance floor, though the sun was cooperatively starting to set…the mood. It wasn’t the fact that they were both men that bothered me. I didn’t give a damn about that. It was the fact that either one by himself was a handful. Together, it would be like kerosene poured on a chemical fire.

Maybe I was upset because they were both mine in totally different ways, so they couldn’t possibly become each other’s, but I was pretty sure my concern was more noble than that. Spiro was the king of hook-ups and heartbreaks. Not only didn’t I want to see Jesus hurt, I didn’t want to live through the diva-sized meltdown should Spiro stomp all over his heart. And he would, unless he’d changed a helluva lot since I’d last seen him.

“Fair warning, Lenny Rialto is on his way up,” Yiayia said next to my ear. “I’m sure you will both be on your best behavior, yes?”

“I will if he will,” I answered her, not looking forward to the meeting, despite my casual response. Really, none of the problems had been my fault. If Spiro had just kept it in his pants…or not lied to me about where he was going and who he was meeting so that I hadn’t been so all-fired curious to find out. Or if he’d been
any
good at discretion. Yet, as good as Spiro was at causing trouble, he was equally good at smoothing it over and staying on good terms with his former lovers, hence the fact that he was still in and
I
was out.

“If he will what?” Nick asked.

“And
this
must be your young man!” Yiayia gushed before I could answer him. She grabbed Nick by both shoulders and leaned in for a kiss on each cheek.

Nick looked slightly stunned as she pulled back. I could tell only because I was watching for it. His policeman poker face shuttered his expression almost instantly.

“And this must be yours,” he said to Yiayia, holding a hand out to Fergus.

Fergus gripped his offered hand in a meaty fist and used it to pull Nick in for a chest bump sort of man hug, thumping him on the back before releasing him.

“Nick, eh?” he said, voice gruff. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” Although it came out,
I’ve ’eard a lot aboot ewe
. “If you’re ordering, I’ll have an Oban, straight up.”

“Make that two,” Yiayia said, smiling up at Fergus, an odd twinkle in her eye. I didn’t like it one bit.

“Lorelei,” a voice boomed from off to the side.

We all turned, except Nick, who stepped up to place our order. I thought I might recognize the voice calling out for Yiayia, but it had been so long…

Sure enough, Uncle Hector steered toward Yiayia like a ferry to a dock, their meeting inevitable. He was smaller than I remembered him. Or maybe I’d grown. The last time I’d seen him I’d been just a child. But he was no less powerfully present. He looked, in fact, like the Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man Alive”—incredibly tan, his silver hair and dark eyes contrasting nicely, and his teeth whiter than white, showing in a smile that invited everyone in range to smile with him. Or better yet, laugh, even though he hadn’t yet told the joke that sparked in his eyes.

He held his hands out to Yiayia and froze for a moment as she took them. Suddenly I felt extraneous, just like with Jesus and Spiro. Fergus cleared his throat, and Uncle Hector swept us all with his overpowering attention, as if the pause had never taken place.

“And my favorite niece!” he said to me, drawing his hands back from Yiayia to hug me and kiss both of my cheeks before putting me back from him at arms’ length. “Stunning!” he proclaimed me. The old liar. “Why, you are every bit as beautiful as I knew you would be.”

He treated Nick and Fergus to handshakes—no cheek kissing or chest bumping—and turned back to Yiayia. “And you, Lorelei, you haven’t changed a bit.”

She fixed him with a dubious look. “In what? Twenty years? Fifteen? When was it you last saw me?”

“It seems like yesterday, and yet it’s been far too long.”

Nick rescued us then, turning from the bar with our drinks in hand and passing them around. He asked what Uncle Hector would have, but he held up a flask all his own and wrapped an arm around Nick to move him away from the bar as he would have tried to pay.

“The whole thing’s on me,” he said proudly. “Have to impress the investors, you know.”

“Investors?” I asked, pings of curiosity driving away the jet lag that was starting to tug at me.

“You know about the film, yes? A romance, and it opens at a wedding! We have a wedding, the film has a budget, and
voila
! We kill two birds with one stone.” Before I could ask any of my million questions, he exclaimed, “Ah, here’s one of our investors now!”

We turned to follow his gaze—straight into the smiling face of Hermes.
Of course
. I’d been wondering what he was up to at the party. Apparently, he’d been up to helping bring Apollo to Greece and partially financing his new film. But what motivated him—mischief or patriotism? It was hard to believe that he’d invest for completely unselfish reasons. Setting a blockbuster film among Greece’s impressive sites would certainly stimulate tourism and help the floundering economy, but I doubted he was free of ulterior motives. There had to be something in this for Hermes. Were the financial rewards enough? Or did he have something more mischievous in mind, perhaps tapping Christie for a role in the movie, to cozy up to her or to make her indebted to him. Gods thought like that—sacrifice, tribute, tithes. Debts.

“Surprised?” Hermes asked, seeing the look on my face. Before I could respond, he turned to glad-hand my uncle. “Hector, it’s good to see you.”

They did the whole hail-fellow-well-met greeting, shaking hands, pulling in for a chest bump, kissing on both cheeks. And yes, it was a lot of physical contact for a country where the forecast generally called for hot and sweaty with a better than even chance of deodorant fail. But the nice breeze blowing across the terrace made the heat bearable. Truthfully, it was a gorgeous night and, unlike in L.A., you could actually see some of the stars that had appeared in the sky as the sun went down.

“Where are the man and woman of the hour?” I asked, realizing I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Tina and her fiancé.

“Apollo and Serena?” Hermes asked. “Probably still,”
cough
, “freshening up.”

“I meant the bride and groom,” I said wryly, refusing to let him tweak me.

“Oh,” Uncle Hector answered, “they’ve gone on ahead to Delphi to meet with the set designers and dressers. It all has to be perfect for the big day, you know.”

Apparently, that was Serena’s cue to stumble into the party and collapse into Uncle Hector’s arms, her face drained of color, eyes rolling like a spooked horse.

Chapter Six

“Two things a man will always catch—a cold and a swooning woman.”

—Yiayia’s words of wisdom

Uncle Hector was trying to revive her when my phone rang. I pulled it out of my cleavage—there’d been no place else to put it in this dress, and I’d forgotten a cute little evening bag—and answered it.

Apollo
.

“Tori, I need you. Not like it sounds. I need you down here. Now. Room 527.”

“Does this have anything to do with Serena in a dead faint?”

“Just get here. You’ll see.”

“Okay, we’re on the way.”

“No!” he said, an edge of…panic?…to his voice. “Just you.”

I looked at Armani, who was listening in.

“Go. I’ll try and get the full story here,” he said, looking toward Apollo’s leading lady.

I quirked an eyebrow. “Okay, but if you have to do mouth to mouth on her, you’re not allowed to enjoy it.”

His lips twitched. “Deal.”

I went. The number of times Apollo had come when I’d called, the least I could do was return the favor. Plus, the curiosity was killing me.

I raced to the stairs and down them, nearly flattening a man on his way up, who pressed himself against the wall to avoid a collision. I hit the fifth floor at a dead run. Of course, 527 was all the way at the end. And
of course
I didn’t have a single weapon on me. I kicked off the strappy sandals that would only twist my ankle in a fight and held one like a bludgeon, wedge heel out, ready to brain anyone who jumped at me.

The door was open, and I threw my other heel at it to knock it farther inward and see if it prompted any attack. The shoe hit with a thump, bouncing the door back into the inner wall and revealing an empty room. The clothes Apollo had worn earlier were thrown across the desk, which meant either he’d changed or—

“Tori?” he called.

The voice came from the bathroom, the one place I couldn’t see into from the doorway, because
that
door was firmly shut.

“Yeah,” I called back. “You decent?”

“Funny you should ask…” He didn’t sound like it was funny ha ha. “Would you close the door to the hallway and come in here a second. There’s something I need to show you.”

I stared at the bathroom door in disbelief. “Uh huh, I’ve heard that one before.”

“This is serious.”

I hadn’t really thought it wasn’t. Apollo wasn’t a practical joker, and if he wanted a woman in his bed…or bath…he certainly didn’t have to resort to trickery. It was just that the thought of what I might find…what would make a god call for my help…maybe I wasn’t
that
curious.

“Okay.” I closed the outer door and put my hand to the bathroom door handle. “Ready or not, here I come.”

I twisted the handle and the door swung inward. No inner alarms blared. My heart didn’t race, and my palms didn’t sweat. At least, not until I stepped in and saw Apollo, only half dry from the shower, holding a towel around his hips.
Holding it there
. Not snugging it shut.

Not only did my heart race then, but my mouth went dry. Not so my panties…no, I wasn’t going there. Suffice it to say there was a reason there were so many statues of Apollo and why he’d left such a string of tragic loves behind him.

“That what you want to show me?” I asked, nodding at the towel.

“It’s not what you think,” he said.

“
Really
,” I asked dryly.

He opened the towel.

He was right. It wasn’t what I thought. Or rather, it was
exactly
what I thought, just in a brand new, never-before-seen form.

I stared.

“If only you’d shown so much interest before I, uh, got wood. Literally.”

Because yes, it looked more like the limb of a tree than, well, a certain body part that shall remain penis. And at the moment, it appeared petrified.

With effort, I made myself look away, up to his face. “Okay, two questions to start. No, three. When did this happen, how did this happen and what does this have to do with Serena looking like she’d seen a…
you
?”

“Serena snuck up on me in the shower. As you know, we’d agreed to pretend to a relationship to take the heat off you and help promote the new film. I guess she decided some method acting was in order.”

Well, you couldn’t really blame a girl for trying.

“And the when?”

“Right about the time she appeared. When I spotted her, she had this…
look
on her face and something didn’t feel right. When I looked down to kind of check on things—” He swept his hand down over his petrified parts.

“Okay, I got it. You can put that thing away now.” His eyes sparkled just for a second, like the literal woody was almost worth my discomfort, and I couldn’t resist adding, “Though before we see about changing you back, maybe you want to sprinkle a little Miracle Grow down there.”

He froze with the towel only halfway around his hips. “I don’t really think I need the help, do you?”

Unwillingly, my gaze was drawn back to the part in question. “No, that might be too much of a good thing,” I choked out.

“I could demonstrate,” he said, waggling his brows at me.

“Down boy. I’d be worried about splinters. Anyway, how can you be so calm about this and how on Earth do you think can I help?”

“Remember how you once told me you’d save me back someday? Well, I’m calling it in.”

“So you want me to find out who’s doing this to you and get them to reverse it?”

“That’s the idea.”

“What about Serena?”

“What about her?” he asked.

I gave him a
get real
look. “Well, this all started with her walking in on you. Do you think that’s a coincidence?”

“Well, I
did
. I mean, as far as I know, she’s human. She doesn’t have the power to pull off something like this. And why would she?”

“You tell me, loverboy. Did you do anything to piss her off? And while we’re at it, I’m not sure she’s entirely human. I saw her eyes glow on the plane.”

“Glow, seriously?”

“Seriously. Gah, I can’t talk to you when you’re…like that. Get some clothes on and we’ll figure this out.”

He grinned, but moved toward the door, and I backed out to let him pass. The sooner his petrified parts were covered up, the sooner I could think straight. Theoretically.

He grabbed a pair of pants that had been folded over a chair. His towel slipped as he started to step into them and I quickly averted my eyes.

“So, Serena,” I said, pretending interest in the artwork on the walls. “How much do you know about her?”

“Just the official bio, but those are usually more fiction than not. She’s a California girl, born and bred. Discovered at a cattle call for Myron Landau’s last film. Instant celebrity. Nothing mysterious about her.”

“Uh huh.”

“Not to sound arrogant, but why would she want to hurt me when that would derail the film? This is a big role for her.”

“Could you be replaced?”

“No, don’t worry about my ego. I’m just fine,” he said, buttoning a shirt over his massive chest…not that I was looking. “Yes, in theory I could be replaced. In practice, no one worth their salt is available on such short notice. She’d be shooting her own career in the foot.”