Rise of the Blood

Chapter Fifteen

The wings stayed.

I was able to furl them, bring them in close to my body, but there was no way to vanish them. Unlike Rhea. Together, the three brothers worked to sink her back into the earth where everybody prayed she’d sleep for another few millennia or more.

Some of the titans had disappeared themselves, escaping into the night. But Hades, Hypnos and the heroes herded or carried the rest back to the Underworld…just as the sound of police sirens carried up the mountain. Someone or ones had to have noticed the freak storm atop Mount Parnassus and no one within range could have missed the quake of Rhea rising or the concussion of her hitting the earth.

There was no time to clean up the battlefield. Zeus raised a mist that gave us cover as we all slipped off into the night, returning to the hotel in twos and threes, slinking in through side entrances, back up to the bridal suite. I was torn between the hotel and the hospital, where I knew they’d take Christie and the other girls who’d fallen on the field. I felt responsible for them…and besides, there was Nick. Even if we were through, there was history there. He deserved to know that it was all over.

Well, over except for tracking down the escaped titans.

But first I needed to see everybody safe and sound—Mom, Dad, Yiayia, Spiro… Oh, and I had a certain promise to keep to two heroes who stuck to me like glue. An introduction to a siren. Sure, she was a bit of a psycho and had tried to petrify Apollo. For that, introducing her to the twins seemed a fitting punishment. And if they hit it off, well, she had fought for our side in the end. Maybe the two would keep her too busy to cause any more immediate mischief.

So with a raggedy cloak borrowed from one of the downed titans wrapped around my body to hide my wings, we approached the bridal suite.

There was a party going on behind the closed doors. I could hear it even from down the hall. Startled, I looked left and right at the twins, who looked back at me with identical grins. Apparently, where I was ready to mourn the dead and wounded, they were more than ready to celebrate the victory.

I knocked loudly at the door, which swung open after a second of loud, drunken debate about who would get it. I wasn’t surprised to see that Spiro had won that battle. The door opened to reveal his flushed face, sweat starting to curl his hair along his forehead and neck. His shirtfront was open a button or two beyond the norm, giving him a dissolute look, even before I spotted Jesus on his arm, tie askew as I’d never seen it before. Spiro raked a glance over me and my two companions and grinned from ear to ear.

“Leave with one man, come back with two. Way to go, sis!”

“Don’t be a pig,” I told him.

“And togas,” he continued. He opened the door wider to let us in and started chanting, “Toga, toga, toga!”

I glared at him as we passed, not bothering to point out that they wore chitons, not togas. It wouldn’t have mattered to him and anyway I was too happy to see him alive to argue.

Jesus, looking not the least bit sheepish, studied me in typical Jesus fashion. “Rough night?” he asked, eying my wardrobe choice.

“Oh, you’ve no idea. Way to go, keeping me out of trouble. Bang up job.”

His eyes widened at that, and I air-scored a point to myself, catching the cloak as it began to slip off my shoulders.

Tina came rushing up the second she saw me, talking a mile a minute even before she was in range. “Hope you don’t mind. I couldn’t sit around waiting, so I invited people up and pretty soon— What are you wearing?”

To her surprise, I grabbed her in for a hug instead of answering and held her tightly enough that she protested. When I let her pull back, she looked me over from head to foot. I was a mess, but all she said was, “I’m so glad you’re alive.” And then she pulled me in for a hug until two throats cleared behind us.

I grinned into the top of Tina’s head and disentangled myself to ask, “Where’s Serena?”

“Serena?” she said, shocked.

“Is she here?”

“She most certainly is,” Serena said from the hallway behind us. The twins and I turned to see her standing with a hand jauntily to her hip, looking none the worse for wear, but for a bruise on her cheek and a scrape along her neck. I was surprised she’d dared show her face again, but the emerald green gown she’d changed into showed a lot more than that, embracing her curves like Jesus embraced GQ or Cosmo. I supposed she had amends to make with Pan…Uncle Hector…if she wanted to stay with the film.

Castor and Pollux stepped forward even without my introduction, drawn by her striking green eyes that flashed as she spotted them.

“Well, well, well,” she said. “Who do we have here?”

I performed the introductions and quickly became extraneous, which was just how I wanted it. I left them behind and moved into the suite, spotting Jesus and Spiro. Beyond them Mom and Dad, Yiayia and Fergus, Uncle Christos…

Yiayia caught my eye and tugged on Fergus’s arm. I didn’t need my precognition to see the future. She’d corner me and make me tell her everything. Everything. In excruciating detail. I’d be stuck here all night.

But now that I knew everyone was safe, there was somewhere else I had to be—the hospital, checking on Christie and Nick and all the people I’d failed.

I quickly headed for the door, doing my best not to cause a ripple in the crowd that Yiayia could track.

Apollo was coming in the door as I was leaving. I tried to sidestep him with a muttered, “excuse me,” but that wasn’t going to work. He grabbed me by the shoulders. “You okay?”

I shrugged him off and looked up desperately. “Step aside or come with, but if we don’t get out of here now, we won’t be going anywhere.”

He looked over my shoulder, saw Yiayia coming our way and quickly put two and two together.

He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door. As soon as we were out and the door closed behind us, he jogged me toward a dogleg in the corridor.

“Come on,” he said. “My room’s closest.”

“But the hospital—”

“You can’t go in like that,” he said. “Hospital’s the first place the police will look for injuries that could have come from tonight’s trouble. You can’t even ask about Christie. They’ll want to question how you knew she was there.”

“But—”

“No buts.”

“But Nick.”

He blew out a breath, stopped in front of a door and used his key card to get us inside.

“Fine, Nick, but don’t get caught sniffing around the others.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” I said, saluting him. My cloak dropped and my wings unfurled, nearly knocking over the little decorative table in the room’s foyer.

We both froze.

“I thought I’d seen, but…I didn’t…are they permanent?”

My heart dropped. I didn’t realize how much I’d been wishing he could tell me.

“I don’t know.” I was surprised to hear a sob in my voice. After everything that had happened… The wings had been a godsend during the battle, but now…nothing would ever be the same again. “What did you do to me back in the fight?”

Apollo’s gaze slid away from mine, and I grabbed his face, pulling him back around to look at me. “Apollo?” I asked.

“It was the breath of life,” he said softly.

“The what?”

“I gave you some of my divinity. It was…it was just supposed to save you, but everything I do keeps having unexpected side effects with you. It’s like parts of you that have been dormant are starting to awake.”

“So today the wings, tomorrow the tusks?”

“I don’t know,” he said miserably. “This has never happened before. I’ve never—”

“Can it. Recriminations later. For now, I need to clean up and get to the hospital. Do you have a jacket I can use?” I didn’t have to say “oversized,” because with the width of his massive shoulders everything he had would hang on me.

Besides, whatever he gave me would do well enough. I had to get out of here and away from the look in his eyes that said there was nothing I could accuse him of that he didn’t already blame on himself. Another second and I might be trying to comfort him, let him off the hook. I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.

Apollo grabbed my chin, gently, and now made me look at him. “Tori, this doesn’t change anything about you, you know. You’re still you. Still beautiful and amazing and vital. You saved the day. Not the Olympians or the heroes—you.”

“Great, pin a big ole medal on me. Maybe it will distract people from my wings. I have to get out of here.”

I backed out of his grip and closed myself in the bathroom. I was a wreck. Apollo was right, the police would have converged on me the second I set foot in the hospital.

I started with the tear tracks on my face, staining his white washcloth with dirt, makeup and blood. Then another for my clothes…and another. I rinsed grit from my mouth and brushed twigs, grass and dirt out of my hair, which still, miraculously, fell in waves rather than tangles, a testament to whatever industrial grade gunk they’d put in it.

In the end I looked halfway presentable. Pale and ragged, as one might expect from a woman whose fiancé…or had I called him husband?…was in serious condition. I hoped I’d pass.

I stepped out of the bathroom five minutes from when I’d gone in, wearing determination like a shield.

“Give me one minute,” Apollo said, stepping in as soon as I was out and closing the door behind him.

It was two, but I used the time to find a blazer of his and roll up the sleeves. I was slipping out the door when he emerged. He caught the door before I could close it and slid out behind me.

“We’ll go together,” he said, “in case of trouble.”

I turned and glared, crossing my arms over my chest, which made my wings want to flare, as if I had feathers to ruffle. “I don’t need your help for this.”

“You’re getting it regardless. Don’t worry, I’ll stay out in the waiting room.”

“Fine,” I said, though it wasn’t fine at all. I didn’t want him there, sensing my every emotion through our strange link. If I broke down…well, I didn’t need an audience. It gave me a tiny sense of the vulnerability people felt when I poked around in their lives. No wonder the Rialto Bros. had kicked me out and my family still had no idea what to do with me. I was a freak. Now I had the wings to prove it.

Apollo swooped in and kissed me hard, his hands going to my hips. The suddenness of it made me catch my breath and made a hot spike of desire start in my stomach and finish up somewhere significantly lower. The shock of it brought me back to myself and I heaved him away, ready to slap his face…before I saw the look on it—satisfaction.

“What?” I asked. “What did you do that for?”

“You were feeling sorry for yourself. I figured the kiss would either turn you on or piss you off. Either way, no more pity.”

“Screw you,” I said, giving him my back and starting for the stairs.

“Any time,” he said softly.

I pretended not to hear and continued on my way, only stopping when I got to the front desk to ask about a cab. I’d already put Viggo through enough. “Ms. Karacis?” the desk guy asked.

“Yes.”

“You have a message. I took it myself.”

He grabbed it from an old-fashioned lattice of message boxes behind the counter and handed it to me. It was on hotel stationary, folded in half.

I read it as the hotel clerk tapped away on his keyboard.

Apollo sensed it the second my heart stopped. “Tori?”

“He’s gone,” I said. No inflection, no emotion. Dead.

“Who’s gone?”

“Armani. Nick. He’s gone.”

I had to hold tightly to the counter, my knuckles white.

“Gone where?”

“Home. He wants to be treated and heal at home. Without me. I didn’t even get to say good-bye.”

Apollo opened his arms, and this time I stepped into them willingly.

“Do you still want the cab?” the desk clerk asked.

Apollo shook his head. I could feel it through our hug. Then he guided me back toward the elevators.

“What do you want?” he asked. “A drink? Bed? The comfort of your family?”

“You,” I said. It slipped out before I could think, but I realized I meant it. “I want to be with someone who understands.”

The elevator came and he was so stunned he didn’t move until I did.

“Just hold me?” I asked as the door closed behind us.

“I can’t make any promises,” he said, more truthful than he had to be.

“That’s okay too,” I said, not knowing if it was true. But I wanted him—had always wanted him, from that first second he’d walked into my office. But Armani’d had prior claim on my heart.

But now, without that, I realized I couldn’t make any promises either. If Apollo were to kiss me again, I couldn’t answer for where it would lead.