Rise of the Blood

have asked the ancient oracles at Delphi. It was amazing how they’d gone from enemies one moment to potential lovers the next. It was a shame Serena was a sociopathic siren. There was no debating she had talent. Together they managed to spin an entirely illusory web of magic and romance.

The first half dozen times anyway. Once the director had stopped and restarted them, moved them and the cameras into different positions and made them go through it ad nauseum, the scene had lost its charm.

Tina began tap-tap-tapping on Andre’s shoulder, ending more on a thump than a tap. I could see an argument brewing, when the director finally turned and smiled through his scraggly beard. “And now for the bride.”

I let out a breath, praying we’d be done and gone before whatever tension I felt building sprung on us like snakes from a can.

Someone snapped in my face, and I blinked at Andre’s fingers an inch from my nose. I thought about breaking them, but I was pretty sure it would piss Tina off and, anyway, the police were watching.

I settled for glaring and going where he arranged me. We all stood at the steps of the Tholos, apparently not cleared, like the famous people, for use of the platform. A photographer and videographer both moved in to shoot us. Traditional poses first—boys on one side, girls on the other flanking the bride and groom. Then variations. Just the girls. Just the boys. Guys holding the bride vertically and her looking exasperated. Girls gathered around the groom, all leaning in to kiss his cheek. And then the wedding party was off the hook and it was just the bride and groom in the spotlight.

Tina was gazing up into Jason’s face, looking like she’d just won the lottery when my precog kicked into high gear. I looked around at every face, including the face of the mountain above us, searching out the danger. But my vision jerked suddenly as a tremor started up the mountain, radiating down the side. Rocks began to cascade down, knocking larger rocks loose and starting a shearing. The stones sounded like gunfire as they struck, broke apart and ricocheted down the mountain toward us.

“Back to the limos!” Andre yelled to be heard above it.

No one needed to be told. Already, Tina clutched Jason’s hand and was running blindly away from the Tholos, back toward the road. I lurched for Nick just as the whip end of the tremor hit us like an explosion, sending me skyrocketing into him. He rocked with the impact of my body blow but managed to keep us upright…until the ground bucked beneath us again, harder this time, like the earth was a bed sheet being snapped out of its orderly folds. Nick and I were knocked apart. I fell hard, striking my butt bone in a spine-numbing impact with the ground.

I lay momentarily stunned, until something began to rise from the ground before me and true fear kicked me in the gut—a monstrous snake with fangs the size of steak knives. The head was triangular, which somewhere in the back of my jibbering mind I knew meant that it was poisonous. Its yellow-green eyes gleamed with intelligence and malice.

Around us was chaos. There were screams and running feet. Someone clutched clumsily at my shoulders, and I looked up into Tina’s terrified face, but she had eyes only for the snake—hence the clumsiness—and when it darted its head at her, fangs fully extended, she shrieked and ran. I didn’t blame her. I gave her props for coming back for me at all.

The upheaval of the snake’s eruption from the earth upset one of the huge stones atop a Tholos column and it came crashing down. I shouted a warning to anyone still in its path and covered my head, as if that would do any good against a two-ton stone, but for one brief shining moment luck was with me. It missed, falling onto the stone platform in an explosion of sharp projectile fragments. The snake’s head whipped around at the crash, and I seized the moment to roll away toward Nick.

He reached for me too, a “What the hell!” coming out of his mouth, but I presumed it was rhetorical, because even if I had the answer, I didn’t have the breath to offer it.

Gunfire started up around us, and Nick pulled my head down to the ground, covering me with his body to protect me from doing anything stupid like trying to get into the line of fire. I’d forgotten about the police officers and their weapons, but I blessed them now.

I squirmed enough in Nick’s grip to be able to see what was going on…and to be very, very afraid. The snake barely rocked with the impact of the bullets. Instead of recoiling, he sprang at one of the officers and bit down hard before the man could even cry out. I flinched my eyes shut as the officer's blood spurted and his gun fell to the ground.

Within me, deep within as if it had burrowed there, an alien part of me reveled, glad to see the serpent rise again. The Pythian serpent resurrected? Rhea’s avatar that Apollo had fought for control of the sanctuary back in his glory days? Would Apollo have the power now to do it all over again? I couldn’t imagine it. The thing was bigger than a football field—not end-to-end, but circled like a boundary line. It was twice as thick as a person, too thick to wrap arms around and too deadly.

The other officers fell back toward their cruiser, emptying their clips into the creature, who spat their compatriot to the side and went after the next.

We had to do something.

Suddenly, an arrow lodged in the roof of the serpent’s mouth, catching it in mid-strike. It seemed to shriek as it spasmed in pain, looking around for the source of its torment.

I did the same, and found Althea and Junessa poised by our limo, its trunk open, making it clear from whence their weapons had come. They closed on the serpent in unison, as if they’d been hunting together forever, stopping to fire arrows, advancing again as they reached for another.

The other limo was on the move, carrying everyone who’d piled in to safety. But as it made the turn to head back down the road, a door was suddenly flung open and Apollo bailed out, flying past the hands trying to grab him back inside.

I pushed at Nick, desperate to get up and join the fight, but before I could do a thing, the serpent launched itself at the new moving target, its tale lashing into Nick and I, sending us rolling over the ground, skinning arms and legs, tearing up my bridesmaid’s gown something fierce. It blew past the officers still standing, slamming its oversized body right over them to get to Apollo and the girls.

The girls? Women. Huntresses. Right now our best hope.

The belt radios of the downed officers all came to life at once, and I didn’t know the code coming through, but I recognized the address involved. Something was happening back at the hotel.

What in the holy hells was going on?

I rose up and dove after the snake with no real plan but to end things. Thinking only to launch myself on top of it, distract it long enough to keep it from eating Apollo and to allow Althea and Junessa to finish him off. I landed on top of the tail. Beneath me, bands of muscles worked, terrifying in their power, but the snake didn’t so much as swivel at my extra weight. The tail did flick, and I couldn’t find a handhold on the smooth scales. I went flying. My vision went cloudy with a chance of blackout.

Someone called out and suddenly, instead of going dark, the world lit up like from a massive lightning strike, only there was no electricity in the air, and when I blinked the now gold-limned clouds away, I saw that it was as though a beam had shot straight from the sun, a laser-like solar flare targeted on the serpent’s face. The smell of ozone and burning flesh filled the air. The snake made an indescribable noise, thrashing and coiling back on itself like a spring that had bounced back, trying to escape the burning light.

The beam seemed to follow it, and the snake’s tongue darted out, started to smoke, and flicked back. Blindly, it sprang again, striking in Apollo’s direction, but it didn’t come even close.

“Now, aim for the eyes!” Apollo shouted.

Arrows arced through the air, striking the serpent again and again. Left eye, right. Everything about it screamed in pain, its contortions like the desperate throes of a worm that’s been hooked, and I actually felt sorry for the creature. If I was right, it was following Rhea’s compulsion, no less than I had the other night. It was blameless. It didn’t deserve this.

“Stop!” I ordered, before I knew it was coming out of my mouth. “Just stop. He’s retreating.”

And he was—drawing back and back. I’d never seen a snake move that way before. It was spastic and terrible to see, but the arrows halted and the world went back to its former lighting, which now seemed impossibly dim, maybe because I’d burned out some rods or cones or whatever in my eyes.

Momentarily, silence reigned, as we all watched to be sure the monster didn’t renew the attack, and then one of the downed officers said, “What the hell was that?”