Battle for the Blood (24 page)

“Us?”

“An Olympian. Reclusive millionaire with the largest collection of doomsday artifacts ever, well, collected. He lives in a penthouse on the Upper West Side.”

“Don’t keep us in suspense,” Lau snapped. “Who is it?”

He held the suspense out for another few seconds while Lau made a fist. Finally, he sighed, like we were ruining all his fun. “Janus. Two-faced god of beginnings, endings, doorways, crossroads…in short, change.”

“Sounds like your kind of guy.”

Hermes shuddered. “He’s always creeped me out. No one likes a guy who can see right through you, least of all a trickster god.”

“You think he’ll help us?”

“I think that if importing Namtar was his way of bringing about the end of the world, then he’s the mastermind behind all this and we’re screwed.”

“But Namtar woke before he was in Janus’s custody. That has to mean something.”

“Only one way to find out. It could even be that Janus’s left side doesn’t know what his right side is doing. Anyway, if he can’t or won’t help us, maybe we can find something in his collection that will do the trick.”

“Fine,” said Lau, as if she had the last word on the subject. “You go see a god about a whoziwhatsis. I’ve got to go check on Eu-meh. And bring her some food.”

“Can she talk to others of her kind over long distances. Telepathy or anything like that?” I asked.

Lau gave me a look. Startled. Suspicious. “Why?”

“We might need backup against the plague demons. We’re tough, but they’re tougher. One bite or one sting and we’re like Hera here. We can’t fight them on our own.”

“And you expect the dragons to risk their lives for
our
survival?”

“This is their fight too. The plagues aren’t just affecting people. Exhibit A—the rabid animals back at the hospital. I don’t know if any of the plagues specifically target dragons, but if all of their food sources become infected…”

Lau chewed on that for a minute. “I’ll talk to her, but that’s all I can do.”

“That’s all we can ask. But you’re going to have to wait. You can’t go in alone, and right now there’s no one to go with you.”

Lau gave me the evil eye. It was weird that I’d sort of missed that. No one did it better. Not even Hades with his furnace flare. “Who’s going to stop me? I saw a motorcycle down in Cori’s parking garage. It’ll be a lot faster and more maneuverable than a car and safer than going on foot. I have weapons. I’ll be fine.”

I boggled at her. “
You’re
going to steal a motorcycle?”

Lau was as by-the-book as they came. “I’m going to
commandeer
a motorcycle…without the owner’s knowledge. I plan on returning it. I’m sure you’d agree that in the event of an apocalypse, standard rules don’t apply.”

“
I
agree. I just never thought to hear
you
say it. If I can’t convince you not to go, I hope you’ll promise at least to be safe.”

“I will if you will,” she said.

Chapter Twenty-Two

“In the country of the blind, the two-faced god is king.”—Tori Karacis

We had Javier/Janus’s address, my wings and Perseus’s sword. But only two out of the three were any good to us right then.

I was exhausted. Being stabbed, frozen half to death and forced into a beastly brawl took a lot out of a girl. I asked for protein bars, about a gallon of water and ten minutes to get myself together. It was a matter of survival. If I’d tried to fly us there in my current condition, we’d be splattered all over the pavement in no time.

I ate the first protein bar down in three bites on my way to the bathroom. The curtain had been drawn over Sigyn, but even so I was very aware of her as I did my business and then grabbed a washcloth out of the cabinet, wet it down with water as hot as I could get it and went liberal with the suds.

I started on my face, scrubbing and scrubbing at the rune Sigyn had put there. I didn’t know if it did any good, but I felt a little better for it. At the very least, I’d scrubbed the saliva away, if not any supernatural residue. I took off my shirt and scrubbed everything underneath, cringing like a girl when I had to put the shirt back on, blood, filth and all. I wasn’t even going to try to detangle my wild hair. That alone could take an hour, especially without salon-grade conditioner. I left it as it was. I’d probably have to cut it out of its ponytail holder later on, but for now it was out of my face and that was good enough.

I didn’t exactly feel like a new person, but the protein bar had helped with some of the shakes and the gallon of water was calling my name. I went back to the kitchen, downed half, ate another protein bar, scarfed a banana and went through a one-serving bag of chips. I was still hungry, but I knew I had to let it all hit, and I didn’t want to weigh myself down. I suspected now that I’d live and that Hermes would be safe enough with me…probably.

“Let’s go,” I said.

“How do you want to do this?” he asked.

“Sadly, I have to hold on to you. You have to hold me back. You cop a feel, I drop you. You harass me in any way, I drop you. Are we clear?”

His smirk was practically harassment enough. “Yup.”

“Why don’t I believe you?” I asked.

He didn’t answer that, and I didn’t push. We had places to go and a two-faced god to interview. I had to admit I was intrigued.

We spotted Janus’s penthouse while still a few blocks away. It was the one with the windows blasted out and smoke rising. I flapped faster. My muscles protested and groaned, but I could hardly hear them over the blood rushing through my ears.

We hit the edge of the roof—not only a penthouse, but a garden apartment…or at least it had been. The place now looked like a jungle that had been trampled flat by invaders. Hanging baskets had been knocked to the ground. Leaves, dirt, palm fronds and flower petals were scattered across the roof. Inside was worse. Or at least more deadly. Shards of glass, some dagger-sized, some bloody, lay strewn about the floor.

Then, even as we stepped inside, the broken glass began to shake and shift, beginning to slide to the center of the room…and then to fly through the air, whipping and biting at us as it gathered into a small tornado. The thin membrane of my wings took it hard.

Between my arms, which were up, shielding my face, I could just make out the tableau in the center of the room.

Hecate was directing the tornado—or so I gathered from the fact that she had one arm wrapped around her waist, as if she’d been wounded, and the other lashed out toward one of the strangest figures I’d ever seen. The man at the center of her cyclone, standing as if impervious to it all, had one head but two faces. As I was trying to decide whether to intervene, and on which side, Janus—because who else could it be?—raised a fist and made an abrupt explosion with it, like after a hearty fist bump, and the glass and debris swirling around him burst outward. Hermes and I dove to the floor, and Hecate let out such a scream I immediately knew she’d been directly in the blast zone.

I landed badly. Half on Hermes and half on a jagged piece of glass that punctured my knee as I went down and sliced deeply. I pulled it out mercilessly, before I could heal around it and make it a permanent part of me, and looked toward the terrible twosome in the center of the room.

Hecate was on the ground now, but there was hellfire in her eyes, and I could see it gathering in the hand still clenched to her stomach, the one not currently pushing her up from the floor into a hunched-over position. I didn’t think Janus could see the hellfire from his angle, even with two sets of eyes. One watched us steadily, while the other seemed riveted on Hecate. It was eerie.

“Hit me with your best shot,” he taunted her. “It won’t matter. Not as long as I wear the Stasis Stone.”

I looked him up and down for a honkin’ huge stone…or even a teeny-tiny gem…something that I could rip off or smash to smithereens if need be, but he had to be keeping it close to the vest. Maybe literally. His clothing was from another era. Victorian, maybe. It hearkened to the time of ballrooms and the
beau monde
. A brocade vest, a flowy shirt, tight pants he probably called breeches. Even an ascot.

“Recall them,” Hecate ordered, the glow from her hand becoming more obvious by the second.

“I wouldn’t, even if I could. They’ve dispersed to all the ends of the earth.”

“You’re going to destroy the world,” Hecate spat.

Hermes grabbed me by the ear and whispered into it, “You get Janus; I’ll take Hecate.”

Of course he’d leave me the hard one.

“Give me a sec,” I whispered back. “I want to hear.”

“That
is
the general idea,” Janus responded to Hecate. “A new world will rise from the ashes. It is well past time for a change. Haven’t you been paying attention? Movies are the new myth. They’ve predicted our future. Mankind will destroy this planet and its resources. We’ll be forced to the level of barbarians or abandon this world for the stars, to exploit another planet where we will be nothing. The gods forgotten. Left behind on a dying world. This one
will
end, but it will end my way. Begin again
my
way. Where I am king.”

“He’s crazy,” I whispered to Hermes.

“If you had two faces on one head, you might be crazy too,” he whispered back.

“I heard that,” said the closest face.

Hecate lashed out with her fireball at just that moment, maybe figuring Janus’s attention was on us. I was in motion before it could even hit, my wings propelling me into the air, sword raised and ready to come down hard, aiming for the sweet spot between shoulder and head, otherwise known as the neck. Even if I couldn’t hurt
him
, maybe I could sever his fine threads and get to whatever talisman lay beneath.

But the fireball flattened and dissipated against his chest, and my sword bounced right off, numbing my hand as it quivered and reverbed. I couldn’t touch him. I didn’t think the gorgon glare was going to faze him either. But I tried it, looking him in the closest set of eyes and yelling, “Freeze!”

He just laughed, and it was like he came with his own laugh track. Laughter in duplicate.

I wanted to hurt him. Badly. Maybe Lyssa was somehow still affecting me, because I didn’t just want to knock him out and make the laughter stop. I wanted to thrust my sword down his throat. Or cut off both sets of lips. Or…

For a moment I thought I had an idea, inspired by the hell I wanted to unleash on him. We might not be able to hurt him. But entrap him…that was a whole other matter. Porting wouldn’t actually harm a hair on his head. If Hermes could send him to Tartarus or into the belly of a whale at least we could be rid of him. But then I remembered that it was the combination of Apollo’s power with Hermes’s that did the trick, and Apollo wasn’t here.

When I went for Janus, Hermes had gone for Hecate, taking her down in a flying tackle. She now lay squashed beneath him, the fight gone out of her, but not the fervor. That burned from her eyes as she glared at Janus and at me and would have glared at Hermes if he weren’t right on top of her.

“You’ve sealed your fate,” she said, mostly to Janus. “I’m not stupid. I knew failure was an option. I arranged with Amphitrite that if she didn’t hear from me or Sigyn within an hour, she should unleash everything at her disposal on the city. Hurricanes. Tsunamis. She’s got Poseidon’s trident, and she’s not afraid to use it.”

Hermes and I locked eyes. Last we’d seen on the news Amphitrite was on the other side of the country, threatening L.A. with the storm to end all storms. I hoped that Hecate had called her to this coast in time to save L.A. from total destruction.

And now she was here. Somehow, in the midst of stopping the plague demons and saving the world, we were going to have to pencil in saving New York City. Go us.

“You’ve got to call it off,” I told Hecate.

“If he recalls off his demons and grants me control I’ll call off the destruction of New York,” she said, her glare now all for Janus.

“Not
my
demons,” he said. “And never going to happen.”

“Then let it rain,” she responded.

I stared at her, unable to believe that she’d be so casual about the destruction of an entire city full of people. Hermes, still seated on top of her, gave her a blow to the back of the head, knocking her out. Before she could do any
more
harm.

I turned on Janus. “Aren’t you going to do anything?” I asked.

“She is only hastening what I have begun,” he said with such supreme unconcern that I wanted to give him something serious to fear.

“Gah, they deserve each other,” I told Hermes. “Let’s go. We have a city to save.”

“What about her?” he asked.

“Take her with us. Between her and Sigyn, we might be able to get one to call off the destruction.”

“You think so?” he asked.

I didn’t know what to think. Right now all my mental powers were focused on the fact that there were two of them and one of me.
Take her with us,
I’d said. But
how
?

I scanned the trashed penthouse for inspiration. The windows and floors had been wrecked, of course, but the walls had been largely untouched, and there was a device that instantly caught my eye. It was made of wood, sinew and hide, and looked like something da Vinci would have devised.

Janus saw me see it—with two sets of eyes, it was inevitable. The closest set fixed on me with a gleam of gamesmanship. “Don’t even think about it,” he said.

I didn’t dignify that with an answer, but leapt for the wall, my torn wings nonetheless displacing enough air to propel me faster than the two-faced god could move. I grabbed the device off the wall. It was unwieldy, spread open as it was for display, but I closed it up, yelled Hermes’s name and threw it as hard as I could, sending it like a javelin flying over Janus’s head.

He reached for it, but the Stasis Stone only made him invincible. It didn’t turn him into an action hero. He caught an edge, blowing its trajectory, but Hermes, the trickster god, was skilled at games like Keep-Away and launched himself into the air for a two-handed catch.

Janus turned on Hermes with a bivoiced growl, and I leapt at him from behind. The field of the Stasis Stone kept me from connecting and doing anything useful like slamming him with my sword. Instead, I threw the blade around him like an extra arm, catching at the flat of the blade with the hand not on the hilt and holding it like a bar around him to prevent movement, at least long enough to give Hermes a chance to escape. “Use it!” I yelled to Hermes. “I’ll take care of Hecate. Go. Open portals, spread the word. Get everyone out you can. Just go!”

Hermes didn’t need to be told twice. If he felt any qualms about leaving me, they certainly didn’t show as he latched the device’s armbands around himself and quickly tested out the workings.

Janus, unconcerned about my blade, pushed against it, rushing to get to Hermes. I tangled my legs up with his to trip him, entwining far more intimately around him than I was comfortable with. I ended up cheek to cheek with his second face. The side that had faced Hecate had been intense, very in the moment. Determined, resolute, terrifying in its ferocity. The one that faced me was sloe-eyed with a distant look. The face of a dreamer only half-awake.

The dreamer blinked at me sorrowfully as Janus’s hands pushed against the flat of the blade to free himself. But while I’d never joined my family’s acrobatics act because of my fear of heights, I was an expert at death grips. I
would not
let go, even as the blade started to bite into my hand. Janus had slowed to a near-stop, and Hermes was now in the air, flapping the wood-and-hide wings like a giant bird.

“Go!” I shouted again.

Hermes headed for the nearest window, and I had a second to marvel in amazement before Janus decided that if he couldn’t dislodge me, he could at least fall backward and smash me into the glass-spattered floor.

I felt the intention, but wasn’t able to disengage in time to stop it. I hit the broken glass and pain lanced through me as shards pierced my back and further shredded my wings. My hands flew wide as I struck a nerve, and the blade went flying toward the broken windows, slipping over the edge of one, lost.

I howled at the loss and tried to go for it, but Janus was up first. He kicked me to keep me down and sprinted for another wall, this one full of shelves holding artifacts and gadgetry that looked like a steampunk’s dream.

I didn’t know what he was going for, but with his reputation for collecting doomsday devices, I wasn’t waiting to find out. Whole body screaming in pain, I lunged for Hecate, grabbed her awkwardly to my chest and ran for the window through which the sword had vanished. Before I leapt, I tested my trashed wings. They were willing to give me a little lift, but I wouldn’t know until I jumped out the window whether it would be enough, particularly with two bodies to support.

I couldn’t resist a glance at Janus to see how close he was to firing off whatever weapon he’d grabbed, in case I’d have to dodge it. The device he pointed at me looked like an antique flare gun—a big muzzle that flashed in that moment.