Rise of the Blood

by Lucienne Diver

  “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.”

  I thought about that. I didn’t know what I’d seen in her eyes. With the gods begetting here, there and everywhere, it was likely that half the people on Earth had some kind of ancient blood running through their veins. I myself had the gorgon glare, but I couldn’t turn men to stone…or wood. Still, I could hardly condemn Serena for her ancestry. And I suspected the fact that I hadn’t trusted her on sight was more about jealousy than precognition. Jealousy I had no right to feel.

  “Okay then, maybe not Serena. Then who?”

  “Anyone with transformation power. All the major players have it—Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hera. Plus, it’s a particular talent of the water divinities, given that water has no fixed form.”

  “So the list of suspects reads like the Olympian family tree?”

  “More or less.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. He wasn’t going to like this next part one bit. “I’m going to have to bring Armani in on this. I can’t leave him in the dark on the investigation. This is too big for one person, even if that one person is me.”

&n
bsp; “Well, that ought to make his day.”

  Oddly enough, it didn’t. I was going to wait to tell Nick about Apollo’s, uh, condition, until after maybe a few beers and some mellowing. Introducing him to my crazy family and the thought of another man’s priapic state on top of our harrowing travels seemed like cruel and unusual punishment to me.

  But Nick hardly needed his cop skills to realize that there was a story behind a traumatized Serena collapsing in front of him. He pulled me aside the second I reappeared on the terrace.

  “What is going on?” he demanded.

  Hesitating wouldn’t make the news any more palatable. “Apollo’s turning into a tree,” I said, as no-nonsense as I could make it.

  “Say what?”

  “She didn’t tell you?”

  “She hasn’t said anything. Her eyelids have fluttered and she’s moaned once or twice. I’m fairly certain she’s milking the attention for all it’s worth.”

  I felt girlfriendly relief at the disgust in his voice.

  “Nick,” I said, voice dead serious so that he’d know I wasn’t joking. “Apollo’s being transformed…into a tree.”

  Nick let his head hit the wall behind him. “You mean we take our first romantic trip together—to a wedding, no less, and not only does my competition come along, but you’ve taken his case?”

  “Um—”

  “Let me guess, the suspect list consists of everyone he’s pissed off in the last several centuries? You might want to add me to that list.”

  Well, that had gone better than I’d expected. “Um.” I wasn’t normally at a loss for words, but here I had absolutely no idea what to say.

  Nick rolled his eyes. “You’re sure that ‘tree’ won’t be a good look for him? It might be the role he was born to play.”

  “Nick—”

  “Never mind.” He turned on a dime and took off toward the doors back into the hotel.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “To the room. I haven’t slept in, like, twenty-four hours. I can’t even process this right now. If I don’t hit the sheets, I might hit something else.” I had to trust that he didn’t mean me.

  I stood frozen in place, afraid that if I didn’t go after him, it would seem like I’d chosen Apollo’s needs over his. Afraid that if I did, Apollo, who was already hardheaded enough, might continue to petrify until there was no getting through to him at all. My stomach ate itself up with the fear that I was about to lose one or the other somehow. But only one would be lost to a fate worse than death. That decided me. Tomorrow or the day after or the day after that I could make things up to Nick. But I didn’t know how much time Apollo had or how long it would take me to track down the culprit.

  As the evening wore on and jet lag dragged at my heels, it was evident that I was a failure. I’d spent the evening ignoring the fact that I was several stories up, shaking hands with Uncle Hector’s investors, chatting up nearly forgotten cousins, and avoiding Lenny Rialto. I recruited Christie, with her actress’s eye for body language, and Jesus, with his critical eye for everything else, into helping me look for anyone suspicious. Of course, I had the ulterior motive of trying to distract both from their dates from hell. But by the end of the night, I had to admit defeat on all counts. We hadn’t noticed anything strange—at least, no stranger than normal when it came to my family, who set a pretty high bar—and both Christie and Jesus had gravitated back to their fatal attractions.

  Tomorrow I’d find a way to talk to Serena and to quietly quiz my fellow guests on the trek to Mount Parnassus. For now, I was done in. My heels felt like medieval torture devices, my dress had grown itchy, and all I really wanted were sweats, a tank top and blissful oblivion.

  I got two out of three.

  Chapter Seven

  When I got back to the room, Nick was already asleep. Passed out was more like it—a rumbling snore going as he sprawled over more than his fair share of the bed. On top of the sheets, of course, so that it was impossible for me to slide underneath. On top of all that, he was wearing boxers, by which I knew how upset he was. If I’d been forgiven, he’d be pleasantly naked. On some level, I’d known that wouldn’t be the case or I wouldn’t have been thinking about a tank and sweats, my comfort clothes.

  I sighed and gathered up my stuff so I could change in the bathroom for minimal disturbance. Then I did my best to contort myself around him. When it was clear that wasn’t going to work, I lay down and shimmied back against him, lifting the arm that was hugging my pillow to place it over my waist instead. But even in sleep, Nick turned from me, rolling over to face the wall and leave me my entire side of the bed, cold and lonely.

  I lay there for a long time, listening to him snore, willing him to wake. But my powers didn’t run that way. Eventually, his snore quieted to a dull roar, and I dropped off to sleep lulled by the sound.

  There was no telling how long it lasted before something woke me up. Nick’s body was blocking my view of the alarm clock. He hadn’t moved one iota, so he hadn’t been the trigger for my sudden wake-up.

  I let my eyes adjust to the darkness of the room. Nothing seemed changed. No grim reaper stood over me, slashing down with the bladed weapon of doom as had happened once before. I still had nightmares about that.

  Slowly, quietly, I got up, leaving Nick sleeping as I canvassed the room. It didn’t take me long to see what was out of place—a piece of paper slipped under the door.

  That’s weird, I thought. There shouldn’t be a bill. My understanding was that Uncle Hector was taking care of all this. I could always straighten it out with the front desk in the morning. But when I picked it up, I saw it wasn’t a bill at all. It was a warning.

  You’re next.

  I unlatched the safety bar on our door, turned the lock and eased the door open to check the hallway, even knowing the messenger would be long gone. As expected, the hallway was deserted. Quiet. Dark but for some low night-lighting recessed along the ceiling.

  But there was enough illumination to spot a door opening halfway down the hall and Jesus emerging—wearing the clothes he’d had on earlier, minus the tie that dangled from his hand rather than his neck. His shirt collar was open two whole buttons and there was only one conclusion. I ducked back into the room before he could see me see him do the walk of shame. I could guess whose room he’d been coming from; I knew for a fact it wasn’t his. I also knew I didn’t want to know even this much. I wanted mental floss for the sudden vision I had of Spiro and Jesus together. A new manifestation of my psychic abilities? I sure hoped not. On second thought, mental floss was too mild. I was thinking maybe frontal lobotomy. Sadly, I lacked the proper tools.

  I crumpled the warning note in my hand and curled back up to Nick, wishing for a big old goblet of oblivion from the River Lethe, the river of forgetfulness. Unfortunately, Hades had a monopoly on that, and he wasn’t exactly my biggest fan. At least he was no longer trying to kill or control me.

  Unless he was behind the threat. Somehow I doubted it though. It was more his style to maim first, gloat later. Which meant I was back to my original enemies: Zeus and Poseidon. If they (or an agent for them, since I hadn’t yet been struck by lightning or another freak storm) were behind the note, what was the purpose? To keep us unsettled until they could deliver their coup de grace? Was their agent behind Apollo’s petrification as well?

  I laid there wide-eyed for most of the night, pondering this and other mysteries of the universe. Not so easy with Nick beside me, snoring like he’d swallowed an active buzzsaw.

  I’d been sure I wouldn’t sleep at all, so I was doubly surprised the next morning when Nick woke me getting out of bed. He disappeared into the bathroom without so much as looking my way.

  A wake-up call came five seconds later, while I was still debating what to do about Nick and about to settle on the cheap ploy of getting naked and striking a provocative pose to ensnare him when he emerged from the bathroom.

  A woman’s voice told me in unaccented Engli
sh that Uncle Hector had arranged for a complimentary breakfast buffet to run from nine until eleven, after which our transportation would be leaving for Delphi. A quick glance at the clock showed that it was eight thirty. Plenty of time to eat and get ready.

  In the bathroom, I heard the shower start up and gave up on the idea of a provocative pose. I hesitated to sneak up on Nick in the shower after what Serena had walked in on with Apollo, but I figured no guts, no glory. So I dropped my tank and sweats into a heap on the bed and headed naked for the bathroom, only to find the door locked.

  I steamed.

  What if I’d desperately needed the facilities? Not that we were yet at that point in our relationship where I’d do anything with him in the same room, even behind a curtain with water running to drown out the noise. Still, I liked to have my options open.

  I studied the closed door. It was meant for privacy, not security. I could jimmy it with a credit card. But should I?

  Yeah, as if self control was really an option.

  I got my wallet, grabbed a credit card to some store I’d shopped in maybe once or twice and went at it.

  The door popped open quicker than it took me to lick my lips, and I dropped the card on the counter, took a step toward the shower and flicked aside the curtain.

  Nick whirled like I’d goosed him. His eyes went wide, and there was a razor in his hand, held like a weapon, which would have been a lot more effective if it hadn’t been the plastic traveling kind.

  “Tori, you scared the hell out of me!” he said, not happily.

  I ignored his tone. “You have room in there for me?”

  “The door was locked,” he pointed out.

  “So it was.”

  And that was when he realized I was naked. I could see it when the cranky started to ebb from his face and something else took its place. He looked over as much of me as the curtain didn’t conceal and suddenly there was more of him to lather.

  “Well, I suppose it would be nice to have someone to wash my back,” he said. The blue of his eyes deepened and he stepped back to make room for me.

  “Just your back?” I asked, raking my gaze over him. Nick was unbelievably gorgeous at the best of times—thick dark hair falling over his brow, amazing jawline, broad shoulders, narrow waist, washboard abs—the stuff of romance covers. But wet and naked, his hair slicked back so that I could really see those expressive blue eyes…