Rise of the Blood

the knife plunged into Apollo’s chest was in my hand instead. The priest was lunging too, but an infinity too late. I was slashing for his throat before he could even close on the spot the knife used to be.

The blade sliced. His skin ripped open like a busted seam. Blood spurted. Already I was whirling on the other two priests, who’d risen to come to his aid. One rushed in from the left and the other from the right. I continued on my slashing arc and buried the blade in the chest of the priest on the right. It sank deeply and stuck when I tried to yank it out. I had to use a foot to kick off his body, and the knife caught on bone before sucking free. The other priest reached me. Hands or something equally ineffective crashed down on my back, and the anger that he would DARE touch me rose up like someone had just tossed accelerant on the fires of Hell.

I swung around with my newly liberated knife, noticing distantly that the tip had been left behind in the last priest’s chest. It didn’t stop me—her—from slashing the rough edge across any part of him that happened to be in my way. His cheek opened, and blood geysered once more. I could feel the power of the place further awaken all around me, fueled by blood and belief. Difficult for the men in black not to believe in the goddess tearing them to shreds, even when she was wearing another body. Pain tended to be very convincing.

It wouldn’t help them now, or me, watching a horror movie play out from inside my own head. I fought, but like trying to fly with broken wings, it did no good. I was fairly sure it didn’t even register with Rhea.

The priest took another run at her, and she let him come. He’d grabbed another knife they must have brought with them for backup. But it wouldn’t matter. She could see all—what would come and how it would end.

She moved my hand in a lightning strike, grabbing his knife and breaking bones. More powerful than I’d ever been, even after an ambrosia infusion. The power of the place was still flooding me. Overloading my system, which was not meant to hold it or the goddess. I felt the crackle of the electrifying energy singing my synapses, frying my senses. For now, though, I was a live wire, electrocuting on contact. The priest cried out, but was cut off when the broken knife in my hand slammed into his stomach. And not just the knife. I was knuckle deep in his internal organs. The rush of it, the lifeforce flowing straight out of the priest and into me, chased what was left of my consciousness straight out, and—

Gone.

Chapter Nine

A chill swept over me, and I reached for the comforter, cursing Nick as a cover hog…tried to reach for the cover, but couldn’t move. My body wouldn’t respond. It felt frozen, though it wasn’t cold enough for that. Could I have been petrified somehow? Like Apollo…

Something stirred in my memory. Us getting kidnapped, being laid out for sacrifice and then…nothing.

I started to panic. What if this was it? What if the chill was of the grave? What if I couldn’t move because I was all but dead already? Not enough blood left to keep my limbs alive and motivate them to move.

I couldn’t hear my own heartbeat, but beneath me…warmth. I could feel that much. It was the only warmth in my world. And it came with a heartbeat, pounding loudly, as if it was pressed right against my chest. Apollo then? Alive?

The heartbeat and the warmth argued for it, but the fact that the warmth seemed liquid, like spilled blood… His or mine? I couldn’t remember.

My brain felt sandblasted, as if the infrastructure to catch racing thoughts had been blown away. Thoughts, fears and hopes whipped around, but like the rest of my body, my mind seemed too paralyzed to catch any of them.

All I knew was that something had happened here. Something big. The jury was still out on whether I’d live to tell about it.

The chest beneath mine rose and fell, focusing me on the moment.

A sound came with it. “Tori.”

I wanted to answer and couldn’t. My lips wouldn’t move.

The body beneath mine shifted, and I felt my body start to slide. Felt. It was the first physical sensation beyond warmth. With it rushed pain, everywhere. It overrode even the attempt to gather my thoughts.

Nausea rushed in, but had nowhere to go. Even my gag reflex was dead, immobile, and the bile sank back into my stomach to lie in wait.

Outside myself there was swearing in a language I almost thought I understood. Older than me. So old—

“My gods, Tori. We’ve got to get out of here.”

My head rocked from a blow I felt only when the pain suddenly concentrated in one spot, my cheek. “Tori, snap out of it. We have to get out of here before someone discovers…all this.”

He slapped me again, and I heard myself moan.

Then a sound of frustration, and I was grabbed, not gently, and hoisted up. The world rocked and Apollo held me in his arms. That bile reared its ugly head again and threatened to return with a vengeance. My stomach roiled like a storm-tossed sea. But was, as I’d been, unable to rebel.

Rebel? But why? I couldn’t catch the thought, as hard as I tried.

My body lurched again, suddenly, and my feet hit something hard, like the ground. All at once the acid that had been burning its way up erupted. I doubled over, coughing and spewing it, causing a yell and a sudden movement outside myself. Someone—Apollo—braced me from behind and patted my back. I wanted to tell him it was torment, but my throat had been burnt out and I couldn’t speak.

I blinked away tears from my violent purging and only then realized I could blink again. I was as weak as a kitten, completely dependent on Apollo holding me upright, worried about keeping my feet under me.

Until my newly opened eyes lit on the carnage all around us, and I learned we had much, much bigger things to worry about.

I blinked up at Apollo, every muscle in my body protesting the simple turn of my head. “Did you do that?” I asked.

His eyes were a bottomless pit of pain. I fell back away from them—or would have fallen if I hadn’t caught myself on a still-standing column. “What?” I asked, filled with dread. There was no way that pain was caused by killing in self-defense. There was more to it, and the way he was looking at me…

I looked down at myself and saw my chest, matted in blood that was tacky and thick. It wasn’t just the “blood spatter” pattern on all the CSI shows with the blowback from a bullet wound or the cast off from a blunt force weapon. It was up close and personal lifeblood spilling out as I—

I hit a mental wall, and my knees buckled. My back scraped against the stone as I slid down it to the ground.

Had I—

The wall hit me. With a vengeance. My vision, my world blinked out and swam back again, but when it did I was lying in a puddle of bile and blood with Apollo crouched over me, smoothing hair away from my face.

“You saved my life,” he said softly, as if that would make it all better. “Or, anyway, Rhea killing them kept them from killing me. This wasn’t really you, you know. None of this was your fault.”

They were just words. My hand had wielded the blade, had buried itself in some guy’s flesh. I knew that now. I remembered. I was the one covered in their blood. I searched inside myself for any sign of Rhea, to cast her out or rail at her or assure myself that yes, truly, this had happened and there was nothing I could have done to stop it. But if Rhea was still in possession, she was playing it cool.

“Come on,” Apollo continued, reaching for my arm when he saw that I was coming back to myself. “We have to get out of here before anyone finds the bodies.”