Rise of the Blood

“No,” I said instead, “exorcist.”

“We’ll talk outside,” he promised.

I thought that was a damned good idea. There was still paperwork to sign and the warning that I shouldn’t leave town and should keep myself available. Then we were free of the station.

Free. With a goddess possessing me at will, doing gods knew what to attract the unwavering attention of my fellow prisoners. I didn’t like it.

As we got into Uncle Hector’s limo, the prisoner with the black eye was just leaving the station, apparently having made bail or whatever herself. Her head turned a third of the way around, almost like an owl’s, to stare at me through the tinted windows she couldn’t possibly see through. When her gaze locked on to mine, she gave me a very definite nod, as though I should know what she was agreeing to. Uncle Hector’s driver pulled away.

“Wait,” I said, brain racing and getting nowhere. “Maybe we should stop and question her.”

Uncle Hector turned around to see what I was seeing. “Right here in the police station parking lot?” he asked. “Better not. I know that look. She won’t tell you anything. She thinks you already know.”

“Know what?”

“Whatever it is. She’s been mesmerized. It’s all over her face. Apollo said that Rhea rose last night, using you as her vessel?”

“Yeah.”

“Rhea has many powers, not the least of which is mesmerism. How do you think she convinced Kronos that the stone she fed him was the child Zeus? I don’t know what she’s planning, but she’s had millennia to think on her revenge. I’d say she’s just tagged her first recruits.”

“How do we stop her? Stop me? I’m not safe to be around people.”

“For now, we ward you as best we can. We get through the wedding. Rhea should still be getting her feet under her. She shouldn’t be strong enough yet to summon power in someone else’s sacred space. The church should be safe enough.”

“Should be?”

“It’s not exactly a science.”

“Can you do wardings? Lay down protections?”

“I don’t know that I’m strong enough alone, but I’m sure that if we explain the situation, we may be able to find some recruits of our own.”

We had a little over an hour to go before the wedding. Our appearance back at the staging suite caused quite the kerfluffle. Althea opened the door to Uncle Hector’s knock. She looked like a Greek goddess—hair half up and half spilling down in ringlets over her neck and shoulders. The green gown draped over one shoulder and hung almost like a chiton. Her eyes got manga-huge at the sight of me, and she yelled back over her shoulder at top volume, “You can stop panicking, she’s back!”

“I don’t know that I’d call off the panic just yet,” Uncle Hector said helpfully. “We need to talk. Get Junie.”

Her eyes went from soup bowls to slits. “I don’t answer to you.”

“What about Rhea?” he asked. “Because she’s back and she’s pissed. Look, I know you don’t like me.” Because Pan the promiscuous and Artemis’s adherents were pretty much diametrically opposed. “But I think it’s time for us to come together lest we come apart.”

From the look of fury on her face, she was not unaware of the double entendre.

“Rhea?” she gasped. “But how—”

“Call your compatriot. I promise to fill you both in.”

“Junessa,” Althea called over her shoulder.

She appeared, looking like a Nubian goddess, her hair done in the same style as Althea’s. Runway fierce.

As Uncle Hector opened his mouth to speak a third person pushed them out of the way and grabbed my arm, yanking me into the suite. I expected Tina, but it turned out to be one of the makeup militia.

“Come on,” she said, “there’s no time to waste.”

I dug my feet in and held my ground. “One minute,” I told her. “Give me that and I promise I’ll be as good as gold.”

“I’ll vouch for her,” Althea said with a smile.

I bristled over needing a voucher, but I didn’t have the time to make an issue of it. “One minute,” she said significantly.

I held my fingers up in what I thought was the sign for scout’s honor, and she huffed, but moved off to prep…whatever she had to prep to make me presentable.

“Serena?” I asked Althea quickly, hoping she’d neutralized that threat while the police had held me in custody.

She was shaking her head before the name even left my lips. “Couldn’t get to her. She was already with the production people.”

“Damn.”

“Time’s up,” the makeup lady said, tapping the spot a watch would be if she was wearing one.

“Tell him,” I said to Althea. “I’ll—”

“You’ll come with me,” my new nemesis said, taking me by the arm. I let her lead me away, hoping I’d left our fate in good hands. A petrifying Apollo, me, Pan and a couple of huntresses against a rising mother goddess who could mesmerize and possess at will…to say that I was worried would have been a massive understatement.

Then I was in another room and plunked into a chair. My hair was sprayed down with some kind of gunk— probably conditioner to give the stylist a fighting chance to get a brush through it, and then I was combed, curled, twisted, twirled and teased until my head ached. The makeup was less painful only, I presumed, because I’d been pre-threaded and waxed. When the torment was over, all the girls stood round me gaping.

“Wow,” Tina said. “I didn’t even know you could look like that.”

I took in my reflection and…maybe took in was too strong. I saw, but I didn’t necessarily accept. The image looked like me, but as Disney might paint me, some idealized version that didn’t seem quite real. My hair fell in soft ringlets rather than tangled curls. My brows arched gracefully. My skin was smooth, even and youthful, like I was sixteen again…only without the acne. I looked…beautiful.

Except for the dumbfounded expression on my face. I’d been through a lot of crazy crap today, but this seemed downright impossible.

“Um…thanks?” I said to Tina.

I’d certainly steal Nick’s breath, but his heart? I had to hope it wasn’t already lost to me. I felt selfish beyond all reason even thinking about that in the midst of everything else.

I stood from the chair before I could get too crazy with the new look and start asking the mirror, mirror on the wall whether I was the fairest of us all. It wouldn’t last anyway—not past the first sign of humidity or the first course I spilled on myself.

“Let’s get you dressed,” Althea said, and dragged me off to the room where we’d all hung our gowns. Once she had the door shut behind us, she dropped my arm and said, “We’re still working on plans for Rhea, but Serena’s going down. Don’t sweat it.”

“How?” I asked.

“She’s a water divinity, right? Apollo said it happened when she walked in on him in the shower. That’s because she needed to catch him in her element.”

“Okay, how does that help us?”

“Apollo’s the sun god.”

“Yeah,” I said, not following.

“It’s not in his nature to change. He’s not fluid like water. He’s centered, steady, that around which things revolve.”

“Or so he’d like to think,” I muttered.

“That’s why he hasn’t petrified already. His own attributes fight against the transformation. That means this is an ongoing spell and they’re still battling it out. Serena’s not strong enough to do this on her own, I wouldn’t