Rise of the Blood

“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.”

“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.