There were gasps from the crowd, screams, voices raised in praise or prayer. I couldn’t tell. It was all one big roar. I couldn’t distinguish anything but the feeling buzzing in my head. Shock and horror. Apollo? He was here somewhere, I could sense it.
I called out to him mentally, stupidly, because he couldn’t hear my words, only feelings. Right now my overarching feeling—because I refused to acknowledge fear, even though Neith, now linked to the god of chaos, stood before me armed to the teeth—was bafflement, particularly at the fear and awe rolling in from the audience in waves, so thick as to be tangible.
Actors always talked about the energy of a room. This was the first time I’d ever felt it. But why? Neith looked like an avenging angel, which might explain the awe, but I just looked like…me. I didn’t even have my wings out, let alone any other aspects that might be considered beastly. Maybe they recognized me from the reverend’s little film clips, but that still didn’t explain…
In an instant, Neith was upon me, no longer wielding her sword for show but with deadly intent. I leapt back, out of the way, and something flapped behind me. Shocked, I whipped my head around, trying to see what was going on, what new threat might have snuck up, and caught sight of shadow wings. Not mine. And something else…a tail? A barbed tail, like a devil or…a scorpion. Like one of the locusts the reverend had described.
The lightbulb was just going off in my head when Neith’s sword came down again and I dove to the ground, rolling and rolling as she slashed down a breath away from me. And again.
The Chaos Field. Ian must have activated his amulet again, and just like with the heroes and villains on Hollywood Boulevard, I’d become the thing I was meant to represent, the beast everyone expected to see. Did that mean my tail was real? For now, at least?
I burst up out of my crouch as Neith closed on me, swinging again, and I called forth my real wings, not counting on the representations. I flapped furiously, needing to gain height, the relief of enough time and space to test out what I had at my disposal.
But I wasn’t fast enough. Her sword caught me in the calf, laying it open, burning as though it really was made of holy fire. I swiped at the sky with my tail, surprised when it lashed forward at my command. I wondered if it really came with the stinging venom as described or whether that would be going too far. I couldn’t count on it. I flapped hard, leading Neith on a chase from one side of the stage to the other as I reached down to my bleeding leg, nearly screamed at the pain as I slid my hand through the wound, covering it with blood. I arched my tail to bring the stinger in close and then coated it with the blood.
And then more blood burst out to join it as an arrow flew out of nowhere to pierce one of my wings. I arched back in pain and looked around wildly for where the danger was coming from now, and saw Anat coming out of the wings, bow in hand.
The crowd roared, cheered to see the side of “good” so easily defeating “evil”. And there was some kind of disruption out in the audience as well. I didn’t know if it was more of Ian’s chaos field or Apollo and any back-up he’d brought racing to action, but I hoped to hold out long enough to find out.
Astarte was coming from the wings as well, a spear or lance or some stick-like weapon with a sharp pointy end aimed my way.
Reverend Smith was chanting something or maybe narrating the whole thing for those in the cheap seats. I didn’t think anyone could hear him over all the commotion, but if it kept him from attacking me too, I was all for it.
I flew at Neith as Astarte let her weapon fly, hoping to avoid it and if not take Neith down then at least engage so closely with her the others wouldn’t risk firing at me. She blocked with her shield, swinging her sword wide to try to catch me on the back as I went hurtling into her, but my momentum was such that it brought us both crashing to the ground.
Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw others leap onto the stage—believers trying to pry me from their angel of light or reinforcements for me. I had Neith on the ground, pinned beneath her own shield as my weight pressed down on her. I had no idea what to do now. I’d slathered my tail in blood, but I didn’t really want to turn her to stone. She wasn’t herself. She was an ally. But still, I couldn’t have her trying to kill me.
Action and chaos swirled all about us, but no one was pulling me away, by which I knew help had arrived and was keeping the faithful at bay. Neith herself, though, was doing her best to buck me off, snarling and spitting like a wild animal.
The entire stage shook beneath us, and at first I thought it was trembling from the weight of the believers storming the stage, but nearly as instantly, the fear of every La La Landian awoke in full force… Quake!
Either I jerked or the force of the shaking shifted me just enough that Neith could throw me aside, striking me on the temple with the sharp side of her shield as she rolled free. The pain was nothing next to the fear.
The reverend’s voice rose above the quake, and I thought I heard him assuring everyone that this was one of the signs, one of the seals opening. “And in that hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell; seven thousand people were killed in the earthquake, and the rest were terrified and gave glory to the God of heaven.”
That was supposed to comfort people? I wondered.
My precog was kicking up like crazy. Crazier than it had ever gone before. My head spun not with the shaking or the cut to my temple, but with the warning klaxons jittering my very brain to the point where I thought it might turn to jelly.
This was no natural quake. No Biblical seal ripping open. But Reverend Smith had one thing right—this was in no way natural. This was Set, having gorged on the chaos and the force of the communal belief, finally breaking free.
This was a second coming, but not the one the reverend had foretold.
Before people could even get to their feet, they were crawling over each other to get wherever they perceived as safe…or maybe, to offer a less cynical approach, to take those last moments on earth to try to get out to rescue their loved ones. Others took cover under seats or stayed rooted in place, praying for the rapture. But some…most…swarmed toward the stage and the beacon of light offered by Neith.
I heard Apollo, his voice somehow rising above the screams of the panicked crowd. I looked out in that direction to see him rising to resume the fight, along with the others—Hermes and Sigyn, hopefully still on our side, Isis and Osiris, the latter holding a curved staff almost like a shepherd’s crook and using it to sweep people out of their way…
That was all I saw before a blow like an anvil dropped on my back and I twisted my head to see that Neith had come down on me, shield first, and that the metal center was digging painfully into my back. My wings tried futilely to flap, but they were stilled by the weight of the shield. I lashed with my tail, but it was caught under her and the folds of her gown.
The whole building quaked around us. A light from the catwalk that had been pointed at the stage broke free of its mooring and fell suddenly, swinging on its chord straight into a believer as he rushed the stage. I heard his skull crack and saw him start to topple before my vision was cut off by all the people who’d reached us…grabbing for their angel or preparing to strike blows against her opponent…me. I was kicked in the teeth. In the ribs. In the eye. Battered from behind. I couldn’t protect all of myself at once. I’d no sooner curl or lash one way than a blow would fall from another direction.
In the melee, my tail had come free, and I swung it about like a flail, as best I could, but I didn’t dare strike with the stinger. These were people. Manipulated, deluded and endangered, but people. I’d fought gods and titans, demons and hellhounds, but never before faced such fragile human fall-out.
I only had one good eye left, the other red-hazed and swollen almost shut from the kick it had taken, but I risked opening it to glare around. I was too low for anyone to meet my gaze, but still I tried. “Freeze!” I
yelled, imbuing it with everything I had. They thought I was powerful…they believed…maybe it would amplify my strength.
The set of legs before me started to fall, and at first I thought it had worked and the person had been caught off-balance, but as she dropped to the stage floor, I was able to see beyond her, straight to Eros where he stood on one of the theatre chairs, his bow still aimed.
“No!” I called. These were people. He couldn’t just shoot them.
He gave me a wink and drew another arrow from the quiver at his back.
Gold, I saw. I blew out a breath in relief. Gold was the color of love. I might have a new admirer, but the owner of the legs would get over it. She’d live.
The weight on my back started to lift as the believers got a hold of Neith, but then dropped again as the theatre shook, harder than ever, the violence seeming to start from above rather than below as though a giant hound had the roof of the Orpheum in its jaws and was shaking for all it was worth. Those around ducked or fell to the ground covering their heads against the new projectiles plummeting from the ceiling—lights, acoustic tiles, pieces of scaffolding.
And then the most dangerous thing yet—Set descending from the “heavens” of the theatre on a cloud just like the one on which we’d fought him. Only he no longer looked like the myths painted him—skin white as birch, hair red as blood, terrifying and unnatural. He looked as the reverend under his influence had primed the crowd to expect, as belief had painted him. He looked beatific. He looked like an angel or, more on point, like the Second Coming of the Christ himself.
We’d failed to kill Set while he was still imprisoned. What hope did we have now surrounded by true believers who would give their lives for his and who fed his power?
That was the whole thing, wasn’t it? We had to strike at the heart of the belief. Which meant first shutting down the chaos field that made us all look like angels and demons.
I struggled to my feet, momentarily ignored as all attention turned to Set. Anat, Astarte and Neith all closed in to guard him. Believers moved in to touch even the hem of his robe, which was what he’d appeared in, looking like the Western world’s sandy-haired, blue-eyed idealization of Jesus that appeared in about every picture I’d ever seen. Biblically, even touching the hem of Jesus’s robe would heal a man. What would Set’s touch do to his faithful? I shuddered to think.
While everyone moved toward him, I looked away. Into the wings, where the chaos field was guarded only by a sociopathic college boy fused with the disembodied soul of an ancient killer. Because things weren’t weird enough.
Like everyone else, Ian was fixated on Set. I leapt up into the air, but my wings, mashed by Neith’s shield, barely flapped, and I fell back to the stage with a thud. My attempt had caught Ian’s attention, though, and as I raced toward him through the thickness of the oncoming crowd, he lunged for the closest true believer and held her tightly against his body, producing a small, thin knife from somewhere and holding it to her neck. She struggled against it, registering nothing but her need to get to the vision in the center of the stage. Her blood instantly coated the blade, dripping down his hand.
I didn’t pause, knowing I couldn’t. The life of one versus the fate of the world…it shouldn’t have been any contest, but every step forward the knife pressed farther into her flesh and I felt her pain as though it was my own. I held on to the hope that Ian wouldn’t kill her, at least not right away, because then she’d be useless as a shield. Of course, I had no idea how much sanity was left inside not-Ian for logic to penetrate.
When I was nearly close enough to grab for him, Ian shifted the knife, holding it now more like an icepick that he was ready to plunge into the side of her neck. “That’s close enough,” he said.
“No,” I answered. “It really isn’t. Ian, what do you think’s going to happen here? Set doesn’t need you anymore. Already, you’ve been sidelined, waiting in the wings while Set gets all the real action.”
He laughed maniacally. “Is that your plan? You’re going to talk me to death? Give it up. Set needs worship. Human worship. And I am his conduit. You are nothing but in the way.”
Without warning, he stabbed the knife he held deep into the woman’s neck, and yanked it back out. As her blood fountained, he threw her at me and dashed away.
Instinctively, I caught her, lowering her to the ground and pressing my hand hard against her neck, even though I knew it was futile. With the pressure of the blood spray, he’d hit something vital, probably severed her jugular. She was going to bleed out in seconds, and Ian was getting away. I said a quick prayer over her, my hurried version of last rites, before lowering her body to the floor and taking off after Ian.
I didn’t see him until a clatter above gave him away. Or maybe he’d wanted me to look, to root me in that spot, because the next thing I knew, I was leaping to the side to avoid a light plunging straight for me…a big one. It crashed to the ground with an explosion of sharp glass and busted metal flying like shrapnel. I caught a piece of it in my calf, the lancing pain blinding me for a split second. I tried my wings again, and this time they worked a little better than before, healed enough to lift me into the air, if not confidently.
I sped toward the catwalks and grabbed Ian by one foot, holding on to it as I pulled myself up. He kicked at me with the other, but couldn’t get much of his foot through the latticework of the catwalk, and the slight impact barely registered over the pain in my calf.
But as soon as I’d climbed high enough to haul myself over the waist-high bar, Ian grabbed me by the hair, that wild hair that was the bane of my existence, and I cursed that the chaos field had turned me into the image Set wanted projected rather than emphasizing my gorgon side. I’d have given anything at that moment for my curls to turn to asps and bite Ian until he collapsed from the venom.
He tried to shove me back, but I grabbed for anything that would hold me there—years of my phobia of heights momentarily blanking out the fact that I had wings and wouldn’t plummet to my death. My hand closed around his medallion, which burned icy cold, like touching dry ice. Instinct insisted I let go, but I fought it. Instead, I yanked hard, hoping that the chain would give way, but it wasn’t so easy.
Neither was victory. Ian still had the bloody knife he’d used to impale the poor woman below. He’d tucked it into his belt when he’d climbed the catwalk, but now he whipped it out again. I couldn’t escape it and keep hold of the medallion. He stabbed it into my shoulder, sending shockwaves of pain all through my arm. My hand spasmed open, and Ian started to pull away, but I forced it to close again, ignoring the pain and the weakening I felt. According to the chaos, I was an agent of evil, a locust, sent to torment mankind. That had to count for something…
My tail…it whipped uselessly behind me, not thin enough to slip through the catwalk latticework or long enough to reach all the way above me and sting Ian to stone. Despite the fact that he was still human and my client’s brother, I was getting dangerously close to not caring.
Ian ratcheted his hand back for another stab at me, and I knew I had to do something fast. I’d never used my wings for anything but flapping, but now I tried to sweep them over the rail of the catwalk, to hold me firm so that I could get my feet onto the rails and use the leverage to burst upward, yanking the chain up and over his head. I scrabbled at the base of the catwalk and latched on with one foot as the knife came back. The second foot caught as the knife struck, and I launched myself up like a rocket taking the knife, now embedded in my forearm, with me.
It took everything I had to keep a grip on the medallion when my muscles wanted to give in, drained of fight and draining of blood, but I kept it clasped in my hand as I skyrocketed, pulling the chain up over Ian’s head. He reached for me as I went, but he missed, and had to catch himself on the rail as he overbalanced and would have gone over.
I had to do something about the medallion before my strength ga
ve out—transfer it to my other hand or…
Put it over my neck. Some kind of instinct kicked in, but I didn’t know whether I could trust it. Was it my precog? My oracular powers growing ever greater…or was it the chaos field itself? I opened my hand just enough to get a look at the pendant within, now slick with the blood that had dripped down my arm. If I wore the amulet, would I have any control over it or would it control me?
I clenched my hand again and looked down at the chaos below. Set was laying on hands, “blessing” his followers. I couldn’t see the looks on their faces. I didn’t know if they’d been transfixed or transfigured, but I knew a false prophet when I saw one, and I knew I didn’t have any other hope to fight Set.
I looked for the others, who hadn’t yet been able to get anywhere near him, and for the first time, I spotted Nick. I didn’t know when he’d arrived, but he was faced off with Neith, who looked a lot more ready to kill than kiss him.
“Nick!” I yelled, afraid to distract him, but even more afraid he wouldn’t last long without help. “Get under her breastplate!”
He didn’t spare me a glance. “I don’t think now’s the time,” he growled.
“No, seriously, she’s being controlled. If you can break her free—”
Neith got in a blow just then, knocking his head to the side with the tip of her spear and going in with her sword. I couldn’t distract him anymore. I had to end this.
My hand started to lift even before I was aware of making any decision, ready to drop the chain around my neck, but the knife in my forearm and the deep stab to the shoulder kept it from rising all the way. As I went to transfer it to my bloodless hand, my good hand, a sudden vision gripped me. Thousands slaughtered. Hundreds of thousands. People dead in the streets. So many there weren’t enough left alive to bury all the dead. A whole city of carrion and vultures…and I wasn’t talking Hollywood agents.
And me, flying above it all. Laughing…having become that which Set had made me.
Blood Hunt Page 29