Rise of the Blood

strongly about that, since the funeral would likely be mine.

I could be flippant or I could be afraid. I’d found it was pretty difficult to be both at once.

The airline whisked us all off to a private lounge as soon as we hit the terminal, presumably so we couldn’t frighten other flyers with the horror story of our ordeal. Jesus helped himself to a good bit of the complimentary booze they supplied to help us drown out the horror and blunt our memory.

Finally, though, we were rebooked on a flight from our emergency landing airport to New York, where we’d catch the next leg of our flight. Jesus grabbed some of the free booze in their tiny travel sized bottles and brought them along for fortification. Nick and I didn’t risk it, both determined to stay sharp for no good reason I could tell. It wasn’t like we’d be any better in the face of a new attack than the last, but still, I wanted my wits about me, such as they were. Plus, I wasn’t so sure how ambrosia and booze would mix. Would the whole super-healing thing allow me to get drunk or would the ambrosia treat booze as some kind of poison to be fought? I didn’t really need my body becoming a battleground.

That thought lasted until takeoff. At the first bump on the runway, I shrieked and grabbed at the bottle of vodka Jesus had tucked into the seatback pocket in front of him. I downed it like a shot as Jesus eyed me sourly. “By all means, chica, help yourself.”

“Got more?” I asked.

He toed open the shoulder bag at his feet to reveal enough booze to open a fairy bar. Not that fairies existed…that I knew of.

I reached for two more bottles but was stopped by my seatbelt. Then we were lifting off, being bounced around by stray air currents, and my heart nearly stopped in panic. I grabbed Nick’s hand and he grabbed mine right back. Jesus gripped my other hand, and we sat there like a ring-around-the-rosie of fear.

Nick smiled at me, and those incredible midnight blue eyes crinkled at the corners. “It’s going to be okay,” he lied.

“How can you be so calm?” I asked.

He brought my hand to his chest, and I could feel that his heart had picked up all the beats mine had dropped. It was going double time.

“I’m not calm. I’m confident. The way your luck runs, you will not die before I get to see you in a puke-green bridesmaid’s gown. And take pictures. And hang them up around the precinct.”

That surprised a laugh out of me, and I felt the vice grip around my heart begin to ease.

“You’re right,” I answered.

His smile got even bigger. “Can I get that in writing?”

“Now that really would be the end of the world.”

This kind of moment, this banter, was exactly why I’d fallen for him to begin with.

“You still want that vodka?” Jesus asked, watching Nick and I have our moment.

“No, I’m good,” I heard myself answer.

“More for me.”

Nick and I smiled like fond parents half an hour later when Jesus fell fast asleep like a child who’d tuckered himself out. He snored softly, and his head lolled onto my shoulder. If there was drool, I’d never let him live it down.

I didn’t sleep. By the fifth hour, it was glaringly apparent that wouldn’t change any time soon. I didn’t know if it was the ambrosia heightening all my senses or my new oversensitivity that made every single air current feel like a death sentence. I’d become the princess and the pea, only with the outside air my mattress and the deceptively fluffy clouds pillows waiting to smother me. Paranoia was a symptom of ambrosia withdrawal. It wasn’t supposed to happen when I was dosed, which I’d made sure of before leaving the apartment. Maybe all that fear-fueled adrenaline had rushed it through my body faster than normal. If so, it was a terrifying thought. I’d need to find a new supply when we landed in Greece. I only had one contact there who could get me what I needed…and I hadn’t seen him since our crash landing when he and Serena had been whisked away to, I presumed, some kind of VIP lounge where they were pampered and placated. I had his number, but he’d pointed out recently and rightly that I only used it when I needed something —when it was convenient for me—and then I pushed him away again. I’d never been a user…before ambrosia. I didn’t want to become one now. I needed to quit it, regardless of the possibility of deadly withdrawal, but there was always a reason it was a bad time. I was in the middle of a case; my uncle had been taken by a killer cult; my cousin was getting married…

I didn’t want to go through the shakes, distraction, sweats, cramps and fainting spells I knew would come in front of my family. I was already the black sheep. I didn’t want to become the pariah.

After, I swore to myself. After Zeus and Poseidon were safely recaptured and Tina married off. Then…

In the meantime, I did have another god on speed-dial. If I got desperate… Desperate enough to become further indebted to the trickster god? Willingly? The conviction that I wasn’t an addict was getting harder and harder to maintain. I had to be going through withdrawal to even consider such idiocy.

“Go ’sleep,” Nick murmured when I’d shifted for the one zillionth time since takeoff. Fidgety, unfocused, barely able to sit in my seat…yeah, I recognized the symptoms. Maybe I hadn’t taken enough ambrosia to hold me over. Maybe I was building up a tolerance.

“Sorry,” I whispered back, endeavoring to be still.

If I wasn’t careful, this ambrosia addiction might kill me and save the greater gods the trouble.

We had a three-hour layover in New York. I was dead tired by the time we got there and yet wired, as though if anyone touched me, I’d flare up and short out. It was a fragile feeling that I didn’t like one bit.

After an internal slugfest between my id and my ego, I decided on an over-the-counter sleep aid for the nine-hour flight from New York to Athens. I’d already been up for almost twenty-four hours at that point, and I knew that if I didn’t get some sleep soon, I’d be insufferable…assuming that ship hadn’t already sailed. Plus, Nick deserved me passed out on his chest so that he could sleep himself. Jesus was on his own. Yes, he’d left drool on my shirt. I showed him the pic I’d snapped with my cell phone on airplane mode. All I’d had to say was “company website” for all the lost color from earlier to flood back into his face in a furious blush.

I grinned evilly.

“You’re a wicked, wicked woman,” he said.

“Don’t I know it.”

The sleep aid didn’t kick in until well after takeoff on the next leg of the trip, but once it did, I slept like a baby until the wheels touched down in Athens, jarring me awake. I cried out, and Nick’s arm tightened around me. I was crushed up against his chest, seatbelt buckle digging into my hip and no armrest between us. When I lifted my head, I saw that Jesus wasn’t the only one to drool. I wiped my mouth, trying to look like I wasn’t swiping away spittle, and patted Nick’s shirt as if I could blot it dry with my bare hands.

“Don’t worry about it,” Nick said. “I’m not.”

That was the other great thing about him. As a police detective, he’d been faced with all manner of bodily fluids. A little spittle was nothing.

There was no coffee between us and customs. None. There was a terrifically long line of people. But it moved surprisingly swiftly. I understood why when we got to the front. After looking over our paperwork and asking a perfunctory question about the nature of our visit, the customs agent rubber-stamped us and sent us through. I didn’t really know what it was supposed to accomplish. Did they really expect someone to give “terrorism” or “smuggling” as the reason for their visit? Was it just to be able to say, “Ah ha, caught you in a lie!” when people were nabbed later?

Anyway, we were through and on to the baggage claim area when I spotted a placard with my name on it —last name at least—in the oversized hands of a suited-up chauffer who looked like the right-hand man of some Bond villain.

Of course, we were in Greece, where the name Karacis wasn’t exactly the oddity it was in America, so I wasn’t necessarily the target audience.

“Here!” Jesus said before I could think it through. He waved a hand so there could be no mistake where “here” was. “We’re Karacis.”