Rise of the Blood

He snarled.

“Or you can agree to join forces with us to put Rhea back in her place. She’s already come after you once. If she and the titans make a triumphant return, I’m going to be the very least of your problems.”

Poseidon was silent but for the rattle in his chest.

“Think about it,” I said.

“Have you talked to Zeus?” he asked gruffly.

“Does he speak for you?”

He started to growl again and had to stifle another bout of coughing. “Up this high,” cough, “he’s the one with the power.”

The cough that burst out this time went on for so long I thought he’d break a rib. Poseidon was left gasping like a fish out of water, his barrel chest working like a bellows, trying to make up for the deprivation of air.

“Think about it,” I said again, turning to go. “You’re with us or you’re on your own.”

A man in scrubs with some kind of breathing machine on a wheeled cart nearly crashed into me as I exited, and I moved quickly away to let him do his job. Poseidon was right—this far from the oceans and his base of power, he was probably pretty near human in his abilities, but the titans weren’t just land creatures. If this thing got out of hand, if Rhea got down off the mountain or if she was able to move through followers who could we’d have a worldwide awakening on our hands. We’d need an army. And even that might not be enough.

I stood there trying to figure out how I’d missed Zeus and where to find him. A pair of hands clamped down on my shoulders and yanked me into one of the treatment alcoves. The hold shifted, and I stomped down on an instep, threw an elbow back and then pivoted out of reach—or out of reach in a perfect world. In a cramped treatment room I pivoted into the bed and rolled myself up over it instead, coming down on the other side. The bed between us, I now faced my grabber, staring into the crazed and hate-filled eyes of the king of the Olympians, Zeus Earthshaker.

“You called my mother?” he asked.

I was so stunned that it took me a second even to laugh. But as soon as I did, I realized it was the wrong move.

Zeus, enraged, shoved the bed at me. Luckily, the casters were old and clunky and the bed didn’t go far.

“Maybe you didn’t notice, because you were so far over your head, but we saved your ass back at the hotel,” I spat back. “I’m not sure why. But to answer your question, no, we didn’t ‘call your mother’. Your priests did that.”

He was breathing hard, looking from the hospital bed to me, as if he might give up trying to shove it and just lift and launch it instead, but that caught his attention.

“What?” he asked sharply.

“When your priests tried to gut Apollo in that stupid ceremony, the power unleashed with his blood woke her up. And I think she got up on the wrong side of the bed.”

He fell back a step, like I’d slapped him, and man did I want to.

Anger bubbled up at that thought, but it wasn’t his…wasn’t mine. Inside I was like a boiling pot with the top about to blow off.

No, no, no.

I gasped, trying to release some of the pressure, trying to fight Rhea down.

“What’s wrong with you?” Zeus asked.

I tried to answer him, but it wasn’t my voice that came out. “My son,” Rhea spat. I listened helplessly, mentally clawing at my own throat. “Your days are over. Typhoeus was a warning. The titans are rising. You couldn’t even hold your world against the humans. How will you hold it against us? Your time is through.”

I braced for another quake or explosion, but none was forthcoming. Rhea’s serpentine minions were off licking their wounds or whatever giant mythological beasts did when they’d been beaten. At a guess, she didn’t have any more tricks currently up her sleeves. I imagined it would take time to gather more monsters. There couldn’t be too many in the immediate vicinity. Which meant we had time. But how much when a titan could probably chew up the landscape like a 2 Fast 2 Furious car in a no-holds-barred race?

Zeus stared into my eyes, but I wasn’t the one glaring back.

“I defeated you once,” he said. “I’ll do it again.”

“You and what army?” Rhea asked. “The giants have largely faded from the world. The cyclopses haven’t been heard from in ages untold. Your allies are no more. Your strength is no more. If you’d been alone tonight, Typhoeus would have destroyed you. You can’t stay surrounded forever.”

Zeus’s eyes blazed like one of his infamous bolts. “If you’re so sure you can defeat me, why waste time talking about it? Do you expect me to concede?”

“No,” she responded calmly, my mouth forming the words. “If you did, I could hardly use you as a rallying point. I expect the promise of vengeance will overcome anyone’s reluctance to awake. I’ve only come to say good-bye, my son.”

He lunged for me, straight across the bed between us and I fell right into his hands as Rhea suddenly withdrew from me and Zeus latched onto my throat, thumbs digging into my windpipe, cutting off my air. I stared, terrified, up into his bloodshot eyes, struggling to tell him that she’d gone. I wasn’t sure it would matter, and anyway, I didn’t have the breath. I dug deep for the energy to throw my head forward, crashing my forehead into his. His grip loosened, and I forced my hands in under his forearms and thrust, freeing myself from his grip.

I choked and coughed, my eyes watering, and whirled for the counter, grasping for anything I could use as a weapon. But there were no handy scalpels laying around for just such emergencies. Only tissues, a box of sanitary gloves, a plastic container of tongue depressors…

I spun back around, ready to find him closing in on me, prepared to use my body as a weapon, but he seemed to have gotten ahold of himself. He hadn’t rounded the hospital bed, but was watching me like a hawk from the side of it.

“You see,” I said. It came out, well, strangled. “She’s dangerous. We didn’t call her, but we’re going to have to work together to put her back to rest.”

“Work together?” You would have thought he’d been strangled by the sound of his voice. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“You think you can stop her alone?”

His glare was answer enough.

“Talk to Poseidon and meet us back at the hotel. I promise you, we defeat her together or we go down separately.”

He didn’t say a word as I edged cautiously past him, but neither did he grab me again.

As I stepped out of the treatment room an intercom crackled and snapped, then a voice came over asking for Tori Karacis to report to the ER front desk.

My heart gave a thump. Fear and hope battled it out in a cage match in my chest to see which would win in regard to Nick. I’d lied and told them I was his wife. I prayed they weren’t calling to tell me I was a widow.

I rushed back the way I’d come, back toward the waiting area. As I burst out of the inner door to the treatment area, I nearly collided with an orderly, who turned just in time to catch me before I could overrun him.

“Mrs. Armani?” he asked.

Close enough. “Yes,” I answered.

“Your husband’s out of surgery if you’d like to see him.”

“He’s okay?” I asked, for the second time today, feeling like I wanted to collapse as the tension went out of me and relief flooded in. Relief was not nearly so rigid as fear.

“He’ll need skin grafts and reconstructive surgery, but as long as we can keep infection away…”

Skin grafts and reconstructive surgery…and I’d brought this on him.

“I’ll follow you?” I asked.