Rise of the Blood

“Try it and see.”

I looked around for the bartender, hoping for a straighter answer, but no one was in evidence. I held the glass up to my nose and sniffed. My eyes nearly rolled back into my head at the scent. When I tried to chase down a comparison, the smell seemed to shift on me—jasmine and honeysuckle one minute, then vanilla and sandalwood, cinnamon and cloves… In short, heaven.

“What is it?” I asked again, unable to wait for his answer before tipping the glass back to let just a drop touch my lips.

The taste exploded on my tongue, starting small and then overpowering my taste buds like one of those kids’ toys that expanded exponentially in water. It was—

“Nectar,” he said, the glint in his eyes jollier than Old Saint Nick’s and at least a hundred times more mischievous.

My heart kicked, and I would have spat it back, but it had disappeared, seemingly straight into my being, skipping mundane things like my stomach.

“Nectar as in…nectar. Of the Gods?”

“Is there any other kind?”

“But—”

“Oh, the bartender won’t mind. I slipped him a very nice tip to assure he wouldn’t notice me pouring from my own flask.”

“But I’m not—”

“A god? Well on your way, I’d say. You’ve survived the ambrosia. And you know what they say—what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

My hands trembled as I pushed the glass away. It took all my willpower to actually let it go. I knew, knew nothing would ever taste the same again, and considering that everything had already gone to ashes…

I glared at Hermes. “What’s happening to me?” I asked him. He always seemed to know more than he should. Maybe he had answers he shouldn’t.

“You tell me.”

“Why are you trying to suck me deeper in?” I asked.

“Why are you trying to get out?” he countered.

“None of your business,” I said. This wasn’t going at all the way I intended. I had to retake control, if I’d ever had it. “Look, I do want to get out, but not until after this whole wedding thing and—” I couldn’t say it. Bad enough going to Apollo, but he was the one who’d hooked me, and I felt that in some twisted way he owed me, even though the ambrosia had saved my life. But this—this was like meeting my dealer. I’d lied to Nick…or anyway left out a critical part of the truth…and I felt like I was about to make a deal with the devil.

“And what?” he asked.

“Nothing. Forget I mentioned it.” I started to stand, and Hermes grabbed my arm, stopping me. I was afraid he’d feel me shaking and tried to pull back.

“Wait,” he insisted. “You came here for a reason. Here, I’ll buy you a drink more to your liking.” He snapped his fingers, and the bartender appeared like magic from a narrow doorway in the back wall, practically hidden behind a wood-latticed area with wine bottles filling every slot.

“What’ll you have?” Hermes asked. I was surprised he’d bothered to solicit my opinion, he’d been so high- handed so far.

“Diet Coke,” I ordered.

“Come,” he said, “you can do better than that.”

“You asked. I answered,” I said, waiting to see if it took before retaking my seat.

The bartender waited, looking for Hermes’s approval before making a move. Either he was a male chauvinist by nature or that’d been a helluva tip Hermes had given him. Hermes gave the bartender a wink and a nod, and I watched carefully to make sure there were no special additives. Even then, I took only a small sip before committing. Seemed fine. Tasted like swamp water. I sighed and looked longingly at the nectar.

“So, you came for more than my scintillating company?” Hermes asked.

“What did you know about the Back to Earth movement, and when did you know it?” I snapped.

“Is that the question you really want to ask?” he said, downing the last of the nectar in his glass and pushing it aside, just like my question. “What’s done is done. No longer relevant.”

“It’s relevant to me.”

“What’s relevant to me is that you sit here in a bar discussing a case that is closed instead of looking into what ails my friend Apollo.”

“Fine, what do you know about that?”

“Nothing. If I’d wished him harm, I would have taken a backseat when Dionysus and his bacchae were out for his blood. Or when Hades and his brood…”

“You didn’t exactly help.”

“No, but I warned. As far as the fight, what would have been in it for me?”

I wanted to hit something. Him, by preference. But I had the feeling that wouldn’t go well. Not in my current, shaky, under-oxygenated state.

Hermes was playing some kind of game. He was always in the thick of things—warning, needling, riddling. Never quite helping or hindering. But he’d just given something away I don’t think he’d intended. Whatever he had done, there’d been something in it for him. I just had to figure out what.

“You tell me,” I said, echoing his earlier words. “What’s in it for you now?”

“No,” he said simply. Cheerfully. “That’s for me to know and for you to figure out. So much more fun that way. Here, we’ll play twenty questions. By my count, you’ve already used, hmm, let’s say ten, so choose the rest wisely, Grasshopper. And for every question I answer, I get to ask another.”

Gah! More games.

“Fine. First question: did Dionysus get his ambrosia supply from you?”

“Yes. My turn.”

“Wait, yes? Just like that. Did you know what he was planning to do with all that ambrosia?”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, you’re really not very good at this, are you? That was two more questions already. You are down to seven and I haven’t even asked my first.”

I was afraid my teeth would crack from me grinding them.

“Fine,” I said again. “Shoot.”

“How many gifts has Apollo given you?”

It took me a minute to process. I’d expected Hermes to go for something crazy personal, like my bra size, or grill me about Christie and how best to get into her bikini briefs. I’d never expected a serious question. It was on the tip of my tongue to ask why he wanted to know, but thank goodness I wasn’t oxygen-deprived enough to let it out and waste yet another of my questions. Which meant the strategy of answering a question with a question was right out. No playing dumb for me. And I didn’t know Hermes well, but it didn’t take a genius to realize that if I didn’t answer his query, he’d be finished answering mine.

“Just the one,” I said. He hadn’t asked me what the gifts were. Just how many. Two could play at his game of minimalist responses.

“Very good,” he said, eyes glittering.

“Now, about that ambrosia,” I prompted.

“I never asked Dionysus what he intended with it,” Hermes said.

Ah ha. “That wasn’t my question,” I told him, pinning him with my no-nonsense gaze. “I asked what you knew, not what you inquired or what you were told.”

The glittering in his eyes took on a more sinister glint, like snake venom.

“I knew that it was too much ambrosia for personal use. Beyond that, I could only speculate.”

Damn, and double damn. Hypothesizing didn’t count as knowing. I was going to have to start thinking like a lawyer. Or a snake-in-the-grass trickster god.

“Now,” he said, “what exactly has Apollo given you and what have you given in return?”

He cupped his hands together under his chin and stared steadily at me, awaiting my response.