Blood Hunt

by Lucienne Diver

  But this was mainstream news…on a major network. Millions would see and maybe believe. Sure, the network was allowing the reverend to intro the footage and its possible implications and could easily disclaim, “Views expressed by our guests do not necessarily reflect the views of this station” or some such, but…

  He was continuing, “And now war has come to our very streets and a strange winged woman has been spotted in our skies.”

  I gasped as a new video segment played. Crystal clear. No lashing wind and rain. No grainy traffic camera. It showed me, wings flared, sweeping low and then climbing higher into the sky. Luckily, it didn’t show my face. Whoever had taken the video was above and behind me, but…from the vantage and from the fact that I wore my red carpet gown, I realized it had to be the nurse who’d seen me jump out of the hospital window who’d taken the video. She must have run to the window to try to stop me or to follow my fall and seen me take wing. I could hardly blame her for whipping out her cell phone camera. But to send the footage to Reverend Smith…

  “From the wings, she is no angel,” the reverend continued. “A demon, perhaps, sent from Hell to fight for dominion over earth, her dress the color of blood. Or perhaps one of the locusts Revelation warns of, who wear the faces of man. ‘Their hair was like women’s hair, their teeth were like lions’ teeth’,” he quoted.

  Susie, I thought, had had enough. She tried to take the microphone back to ask a question or put an end to the segment, but the reverend wrapped his hand around hers and held it in place.

  “‘They have tails and stings, like those of scorpion’,” he continued, eyes burning into the camera. I expected froth to start forming at his mouth, “‘and it is with their tails that they have the power to hurt men for five months. They have a king ruling over them, who is the angel in charge of the abyss. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon; in Greek the name is Apollyon, meaning “The Destroyer”.’”

  We all looked at Apollo.

  “The Destroyer?” I asked, sotto voiced.

  “Locust?” he responded, raising a brow.

  “Touché.”

  It would have been funny, except that it wasn’t. It was far too easy to see signs and portents in what had been going on these past few months. I couldn’t imagine the Reverend Smith was the only one. In fact, the description of these End Time locusts—and surely there was an alternate translation—sounded eerily like Namtar, the god of all plague demons. He’d been human-esque with bulging muscles, covered in leonine fur with backbent legs much like a lion rampant. He’d sported a scorpion’s tail complete with deadly stinger. If I’d met him fully versed in two-thousand-year-old prophecies, I might have been half convinced myself that the End Times were upon us. Hell, I’d thrown around the word apocalypse at the time and… No, surely not.

  “Oh, Hades’s flaming phallus!” I said. “Now everyone and their brother will be watching the skies. I’ll be lucky if some gun nut doesn’t blow me out of the air, thinking I’m a demon or something.”

  “Actually, I believe the locusts are sort of like the old Biblical plagues, sent to torment the unfaithful. So, in a way, you’re like a hand of god,” Eros said helpfully.

  “Great,” I answered wryly. “I’m absolutely certain everyone in L.A. will appreciate that distinction.”

  Reverend Smith had gone on to talk about some kind of meeting to pray for our city’s salvation. Susie just barely let him get the details out before reclaiming the microphone.

  I shot a glance at Apollo, who nodded solemnly at me. He’d felt it too. There was something here. Some danger or…

  My eyes shot wide open and my heart started pounding double-time. Damn and double-damn—the number of times I’d heard it, you’d think I’d get it instinctively by now. Belief fueled reality. If enough people believed, truly believed in the reverend’s fear-mongering…believed we were in the Biblical End Times… It could affect how this all played out. At best, some would certainly prepare for the rapture. At worst…well, I wasn’t sure Set could cause greater chaos than crashing some other god’s homecoming bash. But would he come masquerading as the guest of honor or crashing the party like a jilted ex at a wedding?

  Either way, my gut said clearly we’d come upon this for a reason. Maybe chaos, like every other force in the universe, had an equal but opposite reaction, like fate…or The Fates. Just in case, I closed my eyes and said a tiny prayer of thanks to Clotho.

  “If Set escapes, Reverend Smith’s prayer meeting is where he’s going to go,” I said aloud. There was no room in my mind for doubt.

  “Then we have to make sure he doesn’t,” Neith said, kindly not pointing out that this was what she’d been trying to orchestrate before I shushed everyone.

  “Great,” I said. “I’ll track, you trap. Now, who do we use as bait?”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I was very afraid that Neith might become my hero. Her plan for luring the Rolands was, I thought, nothing short of brilliant. Not that I admitted it in so many words.

  Since the misadventure had all started with Ian and Richie’s trip to Egypt and their larcenous fascination with Egyptian antiquities, and since we had Isis and Osiris right to hand, Neith proposed to plant a wonderful story. A decade or so ago, the LACMA—Los Angeles County Museum of Art—had hosted the famed King Tut Exhibit that had traveled the world. It wouldn’t be a stretch for Yiayia to suggest on her blog that key members of the Egyptian pantheon might be consulting “in person” that very day—because it had long passed midnight and slid into the early hours of the morning—on a new exhibit on Egyptian mythology and magic. She could even drop a hint that they might be presenting certain special artifacts that couldn’t be trusted to travel any other way. Yiayia never mentioned names, but posting beside the story a picture of a classic fresco of the green god or of Isis with the sun disk and horned headdress would be hint enough.

  I did worry that it might be too obvious a ploy, but then, I wasn’t sure the brothers could resist the lure either way. But…we had to plant hints elsewhere as well. If the only whisper of such an upcoming exhibit was on Yiayia’s blog, the deception would be as clear as day.

  Hermes, in his alter-ego as humor columnist Thom Foolery, had certain media contacts, but they were mostly on the other coast and mostly not of the right sort. Still, he was going to do what he could. Apollo had a few contacts of his own.

  I had the business card of a certain reporter who’d been waiting to hear from me. She might be willing to help, but I’d likely have to give her something in return. Like an exclusive. It seemed that my secret was already out anyway. Too late to worry that exposing myself would a) skyrocket me to instant unwanted fame, and b) lead to the discovery of others and further belief, which would fuel myth-hunters (downside) and potentially feed the gods themselves (upside, as far as they’d be concerned). In these days of cell phone and other cameras everywhere, discovery was probably only a matter of time anyway. That didn’t mean I wanted to bear the responsibility.

  Of course, there was a better than even chance the jig would be up before it ever came time for me to pay the piper. Chaos I could stake no claim to was already busting out all over, and Susie wasn’t stupid. If we planted the LACMA story with her, she was going to sense that’s where the action would be. If she could convince the network to send her with a cameraman…

  Not my problem. My job was to plant the story with her and with Yiayia. It was up to Neith to arrange things on the LACMA end. She really did have contacts with museums through her freelance insurance investigation gig.

  I just hoped that by the time all was said and done, the museum would still be standing. Although, with the Page Museum and their rampaging mastodons right next door, the danger was real one way or another. In fact, I was half surprised nothing in the LACMA had yet made the news. Weird modern art statuary grabbing at the unsuspecting smacked of something out of Beetlejuice. Perhaps not chaot
ic enough? Maybe the paintings or statuary would come alive to argue their own merits. Perhaps they already had and no one had realized it wasn’t a new form of interactive exhibit.

  For about half an hour, there was great sound and fury, everyone walking off to quiet corners to make their calls and then, suddenly, there was nothing to do but wait…for callbacks, for action, for dawn.

  “Okay, all,” Apollo said finally, “you don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here. Everyone should get a few hours of sleep, gird your loins, whatever.” He looked over at me, and I didn’t want to show the relief I was feeling, but between the earlier battles, their damage and my healing (still a work in progress), I was about to collapse, and I really didn’t want to do it in front of witnesses.

  Nick opened his mouth, maybe to protest again about whether he could make it home, but Neith stopped him. “Come with me,” she said.

  “But—”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t jump you,” she said quietly, probably for his ears only, but she had a voice better suited for battle commands than intimacy, and even her murmurs carried, “I know a warrior needs to save his strength for battle.”

  I couldn’t help but watch Nick’s face, and for the first time, I understood why the Fates might watch us mortals like others would watch daytime television.

  I wasn’t sure what expression he was trying to suppress, but his face went through contortions trying to rein it in. “Uh, okay,” he answered finally, “thanks.”

  I wondered about the sleeping arrangements. I’d been in Neith’s hotel room. There was only one bed, though being a junior suite, there was also a couch. I couldn’t remember whether it was big enough for a six-foot cop to stretch out on, but…I was sure they’d work it out, and I was just as certain that I didn’t want to know a thing about it.

  Nick flashed me a Help! look on the way out, which was totally gratuitous, because he and I both knew that he was a big boy and could take care of himself. If he was going along, it was because he wanted to. Or didn’t not want to. Or didn’t have any clue what he wanted but was willing to find out.

  Gah, my brain hurt. I needed sleep. And come to think of it, I also needed to pee…not necessarily in that order.

  We got everyone out, and I locked myself in the bathroom. By the time I was onto washing my hands and then face, I unlocked the door so that Apollo could get in alongside me. I secondarily debated going facedown in his bed without even brushing my teeth. I was that tired. Dragging a toothbrush around for thirty seconds in each quadrant as Yiayia had taught me, seemed like a monumental task. But in the end, programming won out, and while I might have skimped just a bit, I did end up with fresh breath and a lack of fuzzies on my teeth. All hail the great goddess Hygenia, who I’d just made up. At least, I thought I had. It sounded good though.

  I left Apollo behind performing his own routine, and was asleep the second after I slid between the sheets. Then I was awake again as his arm slid around me, and his hot body pressed up against me. I swear that Apollo ran a full degree hotter than the rest of us, probably the whole sun-god thing. It made him impossible to ignore. Even if I wasn’t suddenly aware of…oh! A shudder went through me, as I felt him hard against me. He tried to be good; I could feel it through our link. He meant just to cuddle up, breathe me in and let me sleep, but the fact that he couldn’t, the fact that just pressing up against me raised his…interest…that was about the sexiest thing I could imagine.

  Lazily, I started to turn toward him so that my body could have more access to his. There wasn’t much I could do turned away as I was.

  “I thought you were tired,” he said, his voice husky.

  “So did I,” I answered, running my hand down his chest slowly, circling a nipple on the way down to stroke lower, over his hard, flat stomach, molding to his tight abs, teasing downward. “You’re not saving your strength for battle?” I asked him.

  He gazed down into my eyes, and the intensity of his feeling hit me through our link, turning my core molten. “Saving myself for you,” he said. “You scared the hell out of me tonight, and the thought that I might lose you…”

  “Not going to happen,” I told him. At that moment, I meant it. I felt invincible…unless he made me wait too long to come together, in which case I might spontaneously combust.

  He took my mouth then, devouring it. The hand on my hip slid over it as smooth as an air hockey puck on a working table. I giggled at the metaphor, knowing I had to be loopy, knowing I needed that sleep…but needing him more.

  His hand circled around to my backside, and he grabbed a good handful and pulled me into him, squashing my chest up against his as he raided my mouth. He shifted his weight to free his other hand to slide his fingers through my hair, nails raking gently against my scalp until he could cup the back of my head and hold me to him like he might never let me go. All the time, his cock pressed between us. The hand I’d been using to stroke him had gotten trapped when Apollo pulled me tight, but now I squirmed to put enough distance between us that I could slide it down and…

  My eyes rolled back into my head as my hand closed around his shaft—iron hard and yet as smooth as silk.

  He groaned into my mouth as I stroked him, one long stroke from base to tip. Then another.

  And then neither of us could wait. I was already wet and aching for him, he was already hot and ready, which made him sound like a pizza, but…

  I opened my legs, and he rolled me under him, raising himself to plunge inside…and then all metaphors and coherent thought went right out the window in the face of amazing, explosive sensation. He put his forehead to mine, eyes closed as he slid inside me the first time and the second, overwhelmed by the feeling. And then he pulled back to look deeply into my eyes. I stared back, gasping as he thrust into me again, feeling as though my soul had escaped on the exhale and he’d breathed it in.

  Something significant was flowing between us. Through our link, through our look. It felt… It felt…

  My body took over where words failed, exploding, fracturing, each shard a whole being’s worth of…everything. And when I came back together, it was though some of his shards had bonded with mine. Or vice versa. Or…

  We were more. Filled up. Replete. Not depleted. Not even a bit. I had no idea how the Spartans or any warrior could forego that.

  I felt like I could run marathons. Leap tall buildings in a single bound…

  Tomorrow.

  Tonight…my eyes had already started to close and all of my muscles to relax. Apollo let his forehead drop to mine again, and while we lay there contented, both our eyes shut because we were just too close, he whispered, “S’agapo.”

  My heart gave a hard knock and my eyes flew open. I pushed on his chest to give me enough distance to see his face, and he opened his eyes to stare down into mine.

  S’agapo…I love you.

  I kept pushing until Apollo rolled himself to the side and let me escape. Not far. I didn’t go far but I needed…a minute.

  I knew…I mean, I thought I knew how he felt about me. How I felt about him. But saying it, admitting it… If we said it there was no going back. If I internalized it and trusted it and things went wrong, it would… It felt so melodramatic to think “kill me”, and I’d never been melodramatic like that. Not even as a teenager, but… I realized even as I protested, logic flapping around like a bird in a steel cage trying to find the out, that it was already too late. I’d given him my heart. I had no control now of what became of it.

  It was what I’d always feared.

  “Tori,” Apollo said softly, hand to my shoulder turning me gently to face him. “Talk to me.”

  “I love you too,” I said, not able to look him in the eyes. “Dammit.”

  He froze for a second, and then his laugh shocked the hell out of me. I finally looked up to glare, which only made him laugh harder. “Not exactly how I imagined
it,” he said, his entire face lit up like I’d…okay, like I’d declared my love for him, but better. Bells and whistles and doves exploding into the sky. “But it’ll do.”

  “Good,” I said, cranky. “Now can I get some sleep?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, “can you?”

  I glared and rolled over, giving him my back. But my body still hummed from what he’d done to it and my soul still quaked. Worse, as soon as I let myself relax again, a smile crept over my face.

  He loved me. Damn, damn, damn.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Apollo, unsurprisingly, was up with the sun.

  He tried to get up without waking me, but my body was apparently on high alert. I jerked awake as soon as his weight shifted, looked over to see what was going on and groaned at the realization. I kept my eyes open only long enough to watch his naked form head for the bathroom, glorious in the light teasing through his sheer curtains. Then I grabbed his pillow, yanked it over my head and rolled with it into my favorite position.

  I must have fallen back to sleep, because the smell of bacon woke me up some time later.

  Bacon…

  I lay there a moment longer. The bed was so comfortable. And warm. And easy to face.

  Apollo not so much.

  But…bacon.

  I groaned again, even though there was no one to hear me, and reluctantly I tossed his pillow to the side and made myself get up. My body no longer ached. On the contrary, it felt alive, healthy, like I’d just gotten a B-12 shot and lived on a diet full of protein shakes and fruit smoothies with wheat grass kickers…or whatever the starlets-in-training were drinking this week.