Rise of the Blood

Another rolled over, struggling to his feet. “We called it in. I don’t know why help isn’t here yet.”

“I’m not sure we’re getting our backup,” said the first. “There’s some kind of disturbance back in town.”

“Damn.” The second officer plucked the radio from his belt and started talking into it as he squatted beside his two compatriots—the one the serpent had attacked and the other who hadn’t gotten up after he’d been crushed when the snake went for Apollo. The one who’d been bitten was swollen up around the face, his skin the color of a bruise. It didn’t look like he was breathing. The other groaned when his fellow officer put a hand to his neck to check his pulse.

“Ribs,” the hurt officer gasped, face contorted with pain.

“ETA on the ambulance is less than five,” the other officer assured him, but he exchanged a worried glance with the other cop still standing.

If there were broken ribs, and if one of them had punctured a lung…

“Don’t move,” the officer said, as if the downed officer had seemed at all inclined. Then he looked around at all of us…all of us still there—minus the director, film crew, Andre, Serena and most of the bridesmaids and groomsmen who’d gone in the other limo. “None of you go anywhere. We’re going to need to take statements.”

“But the hotel,” Tina cried. “I heard—”

“We’ve already got officers on the scene,” the first cop said. “Nothing you can do there but get in the way.”

“Hell with that,” I said. “Who’s with me?”

Our limo still waited, and I raced toward it, not bothering to see who might be following. I could guess at some. As for others…well, the cop was right. They’d only be in the way. But stopping them would take time I wasn’t sure we had, and anyway, they had the right to make their own decisions and do what they could. It wasn’t like I could guarantee their safety anywhere; that was clear enough.

I hit the car and yanked open the driver’s side door. Our driver Viggo was still there, but looked to be in some serious shock. “Move over,” I ordered him. He didn’t have to be told twice. I don’t know if he’d heard from across the way and knew we’d been ordered by the police to stick around, but it didn’t seem to matter to him as long as someone else took control. Doors opened all around us as I quickly adjusted the seat and mirrors. Nick, Apollo, Althea and Junessa piled in, Tina and Jason tumbling quickly after.

“What are you waiting for?” Tina asked as she slammed the door behind them. “Go!”

I went, wishing I’d stolen a police car so that I could have peeled out with lights and sirens clearing our way, but whether it was the quakes or whatever that kept people off this part of the road, we had almost a straight shot down the mountain. Well, straight but for the crazy switchbacks. Luckily, adrenaline or ambrosia had my reflexes reacting better than ever and I didn’t have anything left over for panic.

Our driver felt differently, based on the way he kept trying to stomp on an imaginary passenger’s side brake. He crossed himself and started muttering a prayer as I took another corner in a way that a roller coaster car might have envied.

“Tori, what the hell?” Tina asked from the back seat.

“What the hell, what?” I asked back. We weren’t far from the hotel. I’d had plenty of interrogation practice with Armani. I could avoid a direct answer for far longer than our drive.

“The snake,” she said. “And you girls—” She turned on Althea and Junessa “—bows and arrows. How the hell—”

Hell was getting a lot of credit here.

“I thought maybe that was part of the movie,” I said. “I missed the rehearsal, remember.”

She looked confused for a second, as though working through whether I might actually have a valid point.

“No,” she gasped, still shell-shocked. “No way. Phone,” she said, holding a hand out to the car at large, waiting for someone to hand her one. Apollo obliged, and immediately she was dialing. “Uncle Hector?” she asked, voice sharp. Then, even more sharply, “Uncle Hector!”

There were screams coming from the phone, and we all heard him yell, “Stay back,” before the call ended.

Tina looked terrified.

“I’m, uh, I’m sure everything’s fine,” Jason said, convincing no one. “The cops said police are already there.”

She gave him an “are you crazy?” look as we pulled up in front of the hotel…but not into the parking lot. We couldn’t. Something had destroyed it. The center had been blasted out like something had exploded up out of it. Chunks of asphalt lay like volcanic rock in the road, denting car hoods, piercing windshields.

Tina was out of the car before anyone could protest, dodging the worst of the damage in a mad dash toward the reception, toward everyone we loved who wasn’t already with us. Jason took off after her.

I cursed and did the same, vaulting the debris and trying to catch them. There was a sick, sharp feeling in the pit of my stomach about what we’d find inside, but as it turned out, I’d had no idea. None.

I caught up to Tina, who followed the path of destruction toward the banquet hall. As we burst inside, I didn’t know what to process first. Tables were overturned and wedding guests were hiding behind them, using them as oversized shields. That was the upside. The down was that the center of the room was taken up not by one giant snake, but three—two of them in human form. Zeus and Poseidon…both larger than life, grown as much as they could with the high ceilings and facing (and facing and facing…) off with more heads than I could even process at first. Not the hydra. That serpent had only nine heads, one of them immortal. This beast had dozens, maybe a hundred, a seething mass of dragon-like heads on neck stalks bent to fit the room, all deadly as hell and spitting fire. I’d been so distracted by the heads that I only just now noticed the legs—far too many of them. So, not a serpent then. More like a militant millipede.

“Typhoeus,” Apollo said behind me, voice hushed in awe.

“You know him?” I hissed back, not wanting any of those heads to swivel our way.

Flames shot toward Zeus and Poseidon, and suddenly water burst forth from the sprinklers in the ceiling and wedding guests shrieked anew. The central combatants didn’t seem to notice. Except for Poseidon, who was doing something…grabbing the moisture out of the air as quickly as it fell around them and using it to create Super- Soaker blasts back at the spitting heads. Where fire met water, the dragon-thing hissed, and the air grew thick with steam. In seconds no one would be able to see to fight.

“I know of him,” Apollo said. “Gaea sent Typhoeus after Zeus during the rise of the titans. Zeus won.”

“How?” I asked, still trying to wrap my head around what I was seeing.

“I don’t know, but he was at full power then.”

The…Tyhoeus gave up on the flames and lashed out with its many heads, coming from every angle. Zeus cried out—or Poseidon, or both—and I could no longer see them, covered as they were in the serpent-head swarm.

A sense of triumph bubbled up from within me that I knew wasn’t mine. Two down, Rhea crowed. More to come.

“Do something,” Tina cried.

She was right. Even knowing exactly what Zeus and Poseidon had come for, I couldn’t let them die like that. I didn’t know that Rhea would stop there anyway. Her anger seemed bigger than that. If they went down, I didn’t know that she’d call off the monster rather than turn it on the rest of the guests.

I whirled on Apollo. “Nothing we need to know here, right? If we cut off a head, it won’t grow back?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

Hell’s bells, I was risking it all on a guess?

“Get back,” I told the others, knowing they wouldn’t listen. I summoned my inner loudmouth and all the power I could draw. I sensed something deep within…some hole that had been drilled or some dimension that had been tapped when Rhea moved in. I dove into that too, thrusting her aside as I sensed her try to get in my way.