Battle for the Blood (30 page)

I thrust my tiny dagger at her, hoping to catch her while she was showboating, but she was ready for me and parried without an effort. The impact of her blade with mine reverberated up my arms, but I didn’t stop to appreciate the pain. I instantly dropped, tried to sweep a leg out from under her. She swung the blade down for me, but I’d whirled away and wasn’t where she expected me to be. In fact, I was behind her, stomping down hard on the back of her knee to buckle it. She turned her forward fall into a roll. I thrashed down with the dagger again, but it only glanced off the leather of her jacket. Damned blunt piece of crap.

She pivoted as she came up, thrusting upward with her sword, and I had to jump to the side to avoid being skewered. It sliced through me anyway, just above my hip, missing anything major. Adrenaline flushed the pain away until I had time for it, and I fought the temptation to throw my dagger at her. It wasn’t sharp enough to pierce without my force behind it, and if I lost it, I could kiss my ass good-bye. I had to maintain hold.

I feinted left, then went right as she raised her sword to block. It got me in under her reach and I sliced through the jacket right under her armpit. I struck flesh, but I didn’t know if I drew blood before she dropped her arms down, knocking mine away, and then struck me in the collarbone hard with the hilt of her sword. I felt something crack, and this time the pain wouldn’t be denied. It rippled through me with the force of one of Amphitrite’s tsunamis and my arm holding the dagger-opener went numb.

I waited for Hecate to follow up with a killing blow and spun to face it, only to find her struggling, her skin taking on the grayish tint of stone. One side of her body had succumbed to the cut from my blood-tainted letter opener. The other half was still flesh, and she swung for me with the sword, but couldn’t move properly. It was easy enough to dodge and to sink my little dagger into her other arm, grabbing for Perseus’s sword before her hand could petrify around it.

Better armed now, I turned to help the others…in time to see Hermes kick Eris out the window toward Eu-meh, who caught her in her claws and held her in place while she thrashed and struggled, her mace lost. Apollo had jumped out of Thanatos’s way and thrust a chair into his gut. Thanatos, still under the spell of Sigyn’s rune, didn’t even seem to notice. He kept coming, something like the Terminator. I swung the sword once, getting the hang of it before I flew at Thanatos’s back. He sensed me just before I hit and turned with his own sword, catching mine in midair and sending it back at me. I instantly changed the trajectory, sweeping for his leg, realizing as I swung that he was going for my neck and I wasn’t going to be able to bring my blade up in time.

But angling in through the window, the sun suddenly flared, blaring hot, bright enough to burn out his eyes, and Thanatos hissed like a vampire in sunlight, recoiling from the pain, sword arm over his eyes as if it could belatedly protect him. My swing connected with his leg, and unlike with the dagger coated with my own blood, the full-on gorgon blood coating Perseus’s sword stoned him on contact. It took an effort to yank the blade out again, he petrified so quickly. I felt like King Arthur, pulling the sword from the stone.

I looked around, unable to believe that it was over.

“What’s going on?” a voice yelled from the doorway. “Let me in!”

It was Nick. Poor Nick, who’d missed all the action. Thank gods. He’d seen enough of it in Delphi and it had nearly killed him.

Hermes went to the door to check out the rigging and to undo the booby trap and let Nick in. He spotted Eu-meh with her hands full of Eris, the three of us, not much the worse for wear, and the two new stone statues, and a huge smile broke out across his face. “Score one for the good guys.”

“Panacea!” Apollo called. “Asclepius!”

A voice came scratchy over an intercom. “Hecate or whoever, come quick. This is amazing.”

We followed Panacea’s voice down a hallway, past several rooms and into a viewing area outside a sterile room reachable only by first going through a chemical shower, followed by a staging area and air locks. We opted to stay where we were, looking in through the thick glass.

Panacea held a vial aloft. It was filled with a pale-yellow liquid that from her reaction I took to be as good as gold.

“Is that—” I asked in awe.

As I watched, she walked it over to one of a few gurneys in the room, this one holding a man with his arms strapped closely to his sides. His face was half-gone, and he was missing both his legs, stumps rough as if he’d been torn, literally limb from limb. Still, he was straining at his bonds, trying to get at Panacea, hunger in his eyes. It was grotesque and horrible, but none of us looked away as Panacea sucked some of the liquid into a tiny dropper and sprinkled it over the zombie-man.

He convulsed once, everything stiffening so that his back lifted straight off the gurney, and he collapsed back again, his whole body falling into a completely boneless state. Then, as we watched, his face seemed to…regrow. His skin took back some of its vitality. And then…and then the ragged stubs of his legs started to throb and…I had to look away for fear that I’d be sick, even as I knew that this was a good thing. Very good. Asclepius was avidly watching the transformation, his face full of wonder and a kind of hunger.

A booming voice came from behind us, “I see you started without me.”

I hushed Hades and pointed through the glass at the miracle going on inside.

“Ah, Asclepius is up to his old tricks. Raising the dead.”

I turned on Hades, meeting his hard gaze dead-on. “Healing the living,” I said instead. “With Panacea’s help. Healing the world. And unless you want the underworld truly overflowing with psycho zombie spirits, you’re going to let him.”

And for the second miracle of the day, Hades didn’t have anything to say to that.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Panacea and Asclepius hadn’t yet figured out a way to restore those who’d been turned to stone, but they were working on it. In the meantime, their miracle cure was a huge success. Asclepius knew how to raise the dead and Panacea knew how to heal them so that they were more than just the walking wounded. What she didn’t know was how to do any of that en masse and at a distance. Alone she’d been strictly one touch/one healing. Together, they were dynamite. As in, all the gods were going to want to control or kill them. Add in Hera, who could take life as soon as give it, and Janus’s Stasis Stone and…well, if
that
cabal ever formed it would truly be the end of the world.

It had taken time and some of Nick’s contacts in L.A.—which had mercifully survived Amphitrite’s killer tidal wave, which had worn itself out before it got to shore when she turned her attention to New York—but we’d managed to locate next of kin for all of the kids from the hospital. The hardest part had been extricating a tearful Lacy from Nick, accomplished only after he pinky swore to keep in touch.

Nick reunited with his sister, who thanks to the miracle cure had come back to herself with most of the horror forgotten. The time between leaving Nick’s room at the hospital and regaining her humanity was lost to her. Probably for the best.

And then it was time for that talk I’d promised Nick when things settled down. They were as settled as they were going to be for a good while, while the world itself tried to heal and make sense of the absurd. Even with the miracle cure, not everyone made it back to the land of the living. There was death, destruction, families torn apart…

I now stood with Nick in a room in the hotel we’d all retreated to in order to give Cori back her space. We’d already given her back her roommate. Melpomene had been one of those we’d been able to save.

We stared at each other across the bed, which stood between us like a wall. His eyes seemed tired and infinitely sad.

“Tori,” he said finally, and I nearly sobbed hearing my name on his lips, knowing we were at good-bye.

“Hold on a minute,” I answered.

I stepped around the bed, right into his personal space and gave him a hug. It was something I had to do, and I didn’t know if he’d let me afterward. I hadn’t meant to, but his warmth and the memory of…everything that had been between us…had me melting into him. Our bodies had always fit so well together. Now was no exception. He held me too, his arms wrapped tightly around me, his face buried in my hair. I breathed in the familiar tangy, spicy scent of his neck and tried not to want to kiss it. It would only confuse the issue and it wouldn’t be fair to anyone involved.

I could have stayed there forever, but I had to step back and meet his gaze. Nick studied me back.

“Tori,” he started again, “when I said…those things…I was in pain and on meds and not in my right mind.”

“I know.” I had to look away for an instant, but it was a cop-out and I didn’t let it last. “But they were all true. I think that with your usual ornery self suppressed, you were able to get to what’s real. I love you,” I said truthfully, “and I know you love me. And I think if we lived on a deserted island somewhere with no gods and grief, we could make it work…until one of us went insane from the lack of adventure. But here, in the real world…you’re right. We live in different worlds. It’s not that mine is too dangerous for you”—
though it is,
I thought—“it’s that it’s not yours.”

There, I’d said it. The words had actually come and not gotten all garbled up between my head and my lips.

I waited with held breath to see what he’d say. I
did
love him. But I knew this was right. Even though I’d chosen Apollo, which had possibly always been a foregone conclusion, part of me was afraid that Nick would find just the right words to make things different. Or maybe I hoped it. Life with Armani would be trading one set of fears for another—the fear of losing him over the fear of losing myself. But love wasn’t about fears or rationality or… Well hell, if it were just about love, we could just make a threesome and be done with it. Well, okay, maybe not.

Finally Nick let out the breath I’d been holding. That’s what it felt like anyway. On the exhale he said, so quietly that I barely caught it, “I know. But it hurts. Should the right thing be this hard? Doesn’t that mean it’s the wrong thing? Shouldn’t love conquer all and crap like that?”

We looked into each other’s eyes, and Nick cracked a smile first. It was tainted with sadness, but still.

“Did you really just ask me about love conquering all?” I asked.

“Yeah. I did. Don’t mention it around the station, would you?”

Because Nick would be going back to L.A., back to work as a police detective, and I…I guessed I’d be going back as well. Sooner or later. Not right away. I needed to go back to the Grey Sisters, learn what to do with my wings. I needed time and distance. Nick probably needed that as well. Because our paths
were
going to cross. As the Fates would say, our weave was too intricately linked for things to be otherwise.

“Promise,” I answered.

“One last kiss?” he asked.

I knew it was a bad idea. Knew it with every fiber of my being. And not a one of those fibers gave a damn. We’d never truly had our breakup…until now. We hadn’t had the chance to do that awkward dance. The will-we/won’t-we of getting back together. We still weren’t going to get that. Not with Apollo in the picture. It would be cleaner. Easier. Yeah, easier.

I nodded, and when he stepped toward me, I tilted my head up to meet him. Instead of wrapping me in his arms and pulling me in for some film kiss meant to drive home how the hell we shouldn’t be breaking up in the first place, he cupped my chin in his hands and brought his lips down to meet mine. It was so sweet and so…not enough. Not after all we’d been through.

Regardless of Apollo waiting in the wings, it all came flooding back. Our flirtation, Nick showing up at my door with pizza, fighting alongside me at the La Brea Tar Pits and at Dionysus’s compound in Napa and… It swamped me, dragged me under. I fought back to the surface just as he was pulling away.

There was a determined tapping at the door. “Everything all right in there?” Apollo called through it. He could sense my every mood through that link of ours, and right now I cursed it. At least he hadn’t burst in. I suppose that was restraint.

“Go to hell,” Nick said. “You get her—” he stumbled over the next part, “—when I’m gone. But for now, this is our time.”

I could feel Apollo outside the door. Fear and love and something like hatred warring right then. It was dangerous. The myths and legends were full of what happened when someone flouted Apollo’s will. And yet, this was what I was getting myself into, trusting he’d changed. In a way, this was a test.

He walked away from the door. I didn’t exactly give a sigh of relief—if I hadn’t trusted in his restraint, I wouldn’t be sticking around—but maybe I did breathe a little easier.

“But why did it have to be
him
?” Nick asked. So he knew. It wasn’t like I’d been trying to keep it from him, but Apollo and I hadn’t exactly flaunted anything either, respecting that I had to wait for the right time to tell him.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It just does.”

“You know I’m always here for you,” he said.

My heart felt like it was breaking. He was such an incredible person. Why couldn’t it be
him
?

“I know,” I answered.

“I lied,” he said, sweeping in for one last kiss.

He was gone before my lips stopped tingling, and Apollo stood in the doorway, puffed up like a cat whose fur someone had rubbed the wrong way.

“Is it over?” he asked, not setting foot inside the room while he waited for my answer. I knew he didn’t just mean our farewell.

“It is,” I said, sadly.

“Are you okay?”

I looked into Apollo’s eyes, fell into them. We had the all-clear now. Nothing between us.

It was scary as hell.

I nodded and added, “Just hold me for a while?”

The door to the hallway opened and closed. Nick was gone.

Apollo took a deep breath as though it were his first in a while and came to me, taking my hand and leading me over to the bed, where he lay me down and tucked me against him. He held me, and I readjusted to the feel of his arms around me, his heat reaching out, the beat of his heart against my hand resting on his chest.
See,
I thought to myself,
we can be domestic.
It was nice. Comfortable. Amazing, after all we’d been through.

And after a while, Apollo’s hand that had only been soothing, stroking my hair, stroked lower, and I rolled to give him access to other areas and nice could no longer begin to describe it.

Magical. Amazing… Addictive.