Rise of the Blood lo-3 Read online

  Then I realized that all the music I’d heard so far had been low key and new-agey. This was definitely not on the menu. It wasn’t coming from my phone, which would melt to slag if I’d ever made it ring out a Katy Perry song. Any self-respecting phone would.

  I peeled a cucumber off one eye and squinted around me. An eye stared back—huge, golden brown, long lashed. I jumped out of my chair, and there was no Brittany to hold me back. The other slice of cucumber flopped to the floor.

  The music squealed to a halt and a “Whoa!” issued from the magnifying lens that had been right above my head. The eye pulled back to reveal brows, hairline, cheek and, finally, a full face—Hermes, god of mischief.

  “So not a good look for you, agape,” he said, eying me top to toenails. “Your pores are the size of—”

  “Would everyone stop obsessing about my pores?” I nearly shouted.

  “Sorry, I didn’t realize I’d hit a sore spot.”

  I forced myself to breathe slowly and count to five. Bashing the magnifying glass would only hurt my hand. Hitting Hermes himself would be so much more satisfying. He’d scared me half to death.

  “What do you want?” I asked. “And get to the point? I’m relaxing here.”

  “Yeah, you look really relaxed. Maybe a nice massage?”

  He waggled brows at me that not only hadn’t been threaded, but were threatening to merge and mate with his hairline.

  “Pass.” For all I knew that was next on Christie’s menu of masochism. “The point?”

  “Oh, you’re no fun. The point is, you owe me. I’m here to collect.”

  “I owe you for what?”

  “Keeping your friends safe during the last battle.”

  “You mean locking them in the bathroom?”

  “Did they escape unscathed?”

  “Yes,” I answered reluctantly.

  “Then I did my job.”

  Crap. It was impossible to win an argument with the god of mischief. By the time I was born he’d already had thousands of years of talking his way into and out of trouble.

  “Fine. What do you want?”

  “Her number.”

  “Whose number?”

  “Your friend.”

  “Tori,” Christie’s voice carried from outside the room Brittany had tucked me into, far enough back, I’d have thought no one could hear me scream, let alone converse with ancient pains in the butt. “You all right? I hear voices.”

  Cerberus crap. A big steaming pile.

  “I’m okay. Just…watching a video on my phone.”

  “You’re supposed to be relaxing.”

  “Let her in!” Hermes said gleefully. “Three’s a party.” Then he gave me that all-over look again. “Hmm, maybe not. Though you do clean up pretty well.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I mumbled.

  “What’s that?” Christie asked.

  “Nothing. I’ll shut it down.”

  “Uh, okay. It’s just…the girls thought you might be talking to yourself. They were worried.”

  Great, I was a crazy talking, walking disaster with pores the size of volcanic craters. Could the day get any better?

  “How about that number?” Hermes asked.

  I glared at his face in the magnifying mirror. “I don’t pimp out my friends,” I said in a hush.

  “So who’s asking you to?”

  “You’re a god. You can’t get her number for yourself?”

  “She’s unlisted.”

  I wanted to smack my head on something—hard—but it would probably leave a mark Brittany would feel compelled to fix. I didn’t think I’d survive it.

  I thought about Hermes’s request. If I denied it, would he turn up in Christie’s bathroom mirror as she stepped out of the shower? It was exactly the sort of thing he’d do. Maybe the fact that he wanted to start out a little more conventionally was a good sign, something to be encouraged? As if Hermes needed encouragement.

  “Tell you what,” I said, “I’ll give her your number. If she calls, she calls.”

  “That’s the kind of tit for tat I can expect? Honey, I credited you with much better tits.”

  I looked down at myself. “Really?”

  “Well, perhaps not. Anyway, this will barely touch your debt.”

  “Fine, whatever. Are we done here?” Before the spa folk come at me with straightjackets.

  “Unless you want to hear about—”

  “I don’t,” I said quickly, slapping at the mirror to torque it away and break our connection.

  “—the plot—” I heard as he spun away from me. I rushed to grab the mirror back into position again, but he was gone.

  There was a knock at the door, followed almost immediately by it opening. “Everything okay in here?” Brittany asked, looking around like I was a babysitter who might have snuck my boyfriend in after hours.

  “Sure, except I think my face might be starting to crack.”

  She smiled at the thought. Great. “That just means you’re done! You lay back down and I’ll clean you up and turn you over to Valencia.”

  “Oh goody.”

  If there was more torture, I didn’t even notice. I was too busy thinking about Hermes’s last words. As soon as Torquemada here was finished with me, I was going for the cell phone I’d actually left in my spa locker along with my clothes. Then I was going to blackmail Hermes into telling me what I’d missed.

  But Hermes wasn’t taking calls—at least not mine—and Valencia waited outside the locker room door to take me to some fresh hell, pacing and looking in impatiently while I tried my call again, as though her time was more precious than mine. Probably it was, if we were talking hourly rates.

  I left a message and surrendered myself.

  Christie was already sitting in what looked like a dental chair, her feet soaking in a solution tinted by the Tidy Bowl man.

  “Polish,” Valencia said.

  It was like she was speaking Greek, only that I’d have understood.

  “Um, no, I’m good.”

  She snapped a finger toward a wall rack of nail color. “Pick your polish,” she ordered.

  “Oh.” I’d been afraid that after all of Brittany’s work, she’d been talking about some kind of buffer or something that would shine me up to a high gloss. “Uh, you pick.”

  “What color is your bridesmaid’s gown?” Christie asked.

  “Puke green.”

  She lowered the magazine she was holding—the one with the star who cheated on the other star, making their new movie promo a study in awkward. “Seriously?”

  “For reals. Only I’m sure they call it something a lot fancier.”

  Christie canted her head like she was trying to envision me in puke green.

  “Val, give her the crushed shell shellac.”

  “Wait, shellac?” I asked. But clearly I had no power here; Val was already off to do Christie’s bidding.

  “The way you live, yeah. It lasts for, like, ever, and I know you won’t just go home and take it all off with nail polish remover.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “How does it work?”

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

  “You know, lady, you have an evil streak. I have a friend who would be just perfect for you. And by perfect, I mean that you two together would be truly terrifying.”

  “Sounds intriguing. Is he cute?”

  “Why don’t you call him and find out for yourself?”

  Then I proceeded to tell her all the reasons why it was a very bad idea. The warnings were barely out of my mouth before I realized they were like waving a red cape at a bull or a flame before a moth. Christie had terrible taste in men. Hermes was just her type.

  I’d have felt a lot worse if Christie a) wasn’t a grown-up, and b) hadn’t just had me shellacked against my will.

  We were followed when we left the salon. With plots afoot and escaped enemies on the loose, I didn’t
think I was being paranoid at my concern when a black SUV with tinted windows followed us out of the parking lot.

  “Christie, I’m going to pull over here,” I said, keeping an eye on the SUV in my rearview mirror.

  She looked where I indicated. “This grease pit? Are you kidding me? You can have a heart attack just breathing the air.”

  “They only gave us rabbit food back at the salon. I’m starving. And anyway, I’m testing a theory.”

  “How much the seams of your bridesmaid’s gown are likely to hold? Do you hate it that much?”

  I did, but that was beside the point. At the last possible second, I cut across two lanes of traffic to take the turn into a fast food drive-thru. I checked the rearview mirror as I switched to see the front of the SUV jerk suddenly into the nearer lane, leaving the back still sticking out. Next came a brake-squealing, metal-crunching impact as another car struck the back of the SUV, causing it to rock on its wheels. I was recalled to my own driving by my front wheel thumping over a concrete piling. I righted our trajectory, pulled into the drive-thru line and grabbed my phone out of the car’s cup holder to report the accident. It was still ringing when the SUV raced off, leaving the scene and the driver of the other car staring stunned after it, half out of her own vehicle. She looked around then, as if to see if anyone else planned to report the rear-ending, shrugged and got back into her car. Just another L.A. day.

  I ended the call and relaxed back into my seat.

  “What was that all about?” Christie asked.

  But, crisis averted, the munchies had kicked in with a vengeance, and I was totally focused on the drive-thru menu board. “They serve sweet potato fries now? Awesome!”

  “Tori.”

  “Oh, sorry.” I turned a sheepish grin on her. “I don’t know. It might have been those enemies who escaped. Or someone they hired to follow me. Or…”

  “Tori!”

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got it covered.”

  “How?”

  “Tomorrow, I leave for Greece.”

  Where the old gods would have the home court advantage.

  Chapter Three

  “Is it bad or is it Tornado Tori bad?”

  —Tori’s father, assessing a messy situation

  I surveyed the wreckage of my apartment. Well, the apartment I was housesitting for Detective Helen Lau, Armani’s former partner, until her return from traveling with honest-to-gods dragons. I knew I’d forgotten something. I just couldn’t think what it was.

  “It’s not like they don’t have stores in Greece,” Armani said, frustrated. He’d been fully packed before we went to bed last night. That’s right, I said “we” and “bed”. Couldn’t wait to see the look on my mother’s face when she heard we were sharing a room or the inquisition my father was likely to unleash on Nick. Nick, I had to practice that. Bad enough we’d be shacking up. If I couldn’t even convince my family we were on a first name basis….

  “I can’t kick the thought that I’m forgetting something important.”

  Then it came to me. Oh, Hermes’s hairy arse—it wasn’t the thought I had to kick, it was the habit. The ambrosia. I still hadn’t thought of a way to take it with me. Without it—sweats, shakes, loss of concentration, cramps, pain and a better than average chance of death. So, nothing serious then.

  “Me!” Came an announcement from the doorway to the apartment. “You’re forgetting me. But now I am here, and all’s right with your world.”

  Oh hell to the no. Jesus?

  I stared at him and his flaming-red luggage.

  “How did you get in?”

  “Nick buzzed me up.”

  I looked at Nick.

  “I did ask first, but you were sort of…frantic at the time.”

  “But…but…” I stopped, took a deep breath and said, “Jesus, you are not going to Greece with us. I’m fairly certain you wouldn’t fit in my carry-on. Hell, I’m not even sure your personal items would fit in my carry-on.”

  “Not to worry.” From the man-purse slung over his shoulder, he produced a colorful piece of paper with a barcode. It looked suspiciously like a boarding pass. “I have my own ticket.”

  “But—”

  “You said that.”

  “But—”

  “Chica, it does not bear repeating. Apollo said that he had it covered, and he does. I am here to run your interference.”

  “What interference?”

  “At the airport.”

  I could feel steam about to come out of my ears. If I built up any more, I could power my own way to Greece. I gave him my dead stare, the one that brooked no resistance…if only my power ran that way. “Why would there be interference at the airport?” I asked through clenched teeth. One more evasion and I was going to blow.

  Jesus cut his gaze to the side, a sure sign that he was about to prevaricate.

  “Tori,” Nick cut in, “I think he’s going to have to explain on the way. Our cab’s here.” He looked up from his phone to me. I hadn’t even heard the alert, I’d been so focused on Jesus.

  “Fine, but this isn’t over,” I said, trying to impress it on him with my look. Hard to do when he wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  I nearly gave myself a hernia swinging my carry-on over my shoulder. I was no wilting flower, but somehow by the time I was through loading it up with all my electronics, enough books to get me through umpteen excruciating hours spent in airports and on planes, and things like jewelry I couldn’t risk putting in checked luggage, it weighed a ton. Armani—Nick, dammit—didn’t risk a direct hit with it by offering his manly muscle.

  He did, however, hold the door for us all, and I allowed it. After all, I’d have done the same for him, only he got there first.

  I held my questions until we got into the cab—Jesus chose to sit up next to the driver, so my laser-like stare had no effect on him. I had to make do with my words. “Spill,” I ordered.

  He looked back at me over his shoulder. “This is your interrogation technique? Spill? I think I deserve a bit more effort.” He crossed his arms over his chest and turned back around.

  “Would you like me to move on to threats? I can, you know, starting with your job.”

  Jesus gasped and gave me the stink-eye in the rearview mirror. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  I nudged Nick, who sat beside me in the back merely watching with amusement. The cabby, for his part, was still trying to fit our luggage into the trunk. The car rocked as he finally slammed the trunk shut and climbed into the driver’s seat.

  “Oh, I don’t think there’s much she wouldn’t dare,” Nick said, catching on to his cue. “You’d better tell her. You know she won’t leave it alone until you do. She’s like a…um…a PI with a lead.”

  He’d been about to say “a dog with a bone”, I just knew it. Lucky for him he’d held back.

  Jesus sighed dramatically, the way he did everything. “Okay, but if he asks, you beat it out of me.”

  I grinned. “We could make it very convincing.”

  Jesus stuck his tongue out at me. Then he made me wait. He adjusted his seat, his belt, his cuffs, he cleared his throat, and just as I was about to launch myself over the center console and throttle him, he finally condescended to answer. “You know how Apollo said he was going to put to rest those rumors about you and him being you and him?”

  “Yes,” I said, wondering what that had to do with Jesus and Greece.

  “Well, he has a plan.”

  A public affairs rep from the airline descended on us the second we set foot out of our cab. She snapped her fingers at someone behind her before we could so much as wrestle our luggage to the curb. I glanced over at Jesus, sure I saw Apollo’s fingerprints all over the suspicious red carpet treatment, but he only smiled and shrugged. Goldilocks, because that was how I was going to think of the blonde in the shapeless blue suit, seemed in a horrible hurry to get us off the sidewalk, past the crowd I could see gathered just inside the doors, and through security.

  W
hen the mob shifted, I understood exactly why.

  Apollo’s plan apparently involved nearly six stunning feet of brunette bombshell. Only part of that height came from her sky-high rhinestone heels…or were those diamonds? Surely not diamonds. Whatever they were, there was no question about the breasts currently defying gravity in her strappy silver gown more suited for walking the red carpet than catching a flight. Although, perhaps that was what one wore in first class. I wouldn’t know.

  Most stunning of all, she wore the ultimate accessory—Apollo Demas, looking more gorgeous than I’d ever seen him before, and that was saying something. He was dressed all in black—shirt, tie, suit, wingtips. His leonine golden hair stood out against it like the rays of the sun. His turquoise eyes were even bluer in contrast. And the glint in them as they gazed down on the bronzed beauty beside him and up again at the cameras flashing all around was luminous. Not to mention devastating.

  I looked to Jesus. “Tell me they’re not on our flight,” I growled quietly, trying not to attract any attention as we veered very widely around the paparazzi pile-up.

  He avoided my gaze.

  “Tell me,” I repeated.

  “I can’t,” he said. To his credit, he sounded like he felt badly about that. “He’s apparently coming out of retirement to do a very special film. There’s some wealthy financier putting up a lot of the money for it, hoping it’ll help revitalize the Greek economy. I think maybe you know him—Hector Papadopolous.”

  “Uncle Hector?” I asked, stunned.

  “Is he?” Jesus asked disingenuously.

  “Let me guess,” I continued, “Brunette Barbie is Apollo’s co-star.”

  “Serena Banks,” he said, with something like awe in his voice. “Hottest thing to hit Hollywood since…since maybe ever.”

  He blushed at the glare I sent him. “I’m just saying,” he continued lamely.

  I felt a pang of envy, which was as selfish as it was stupid. I’d wanted Apollo to move on, and yet… And yet what? There was no and yet.

  I shot a sudden glance at Nick and caught him looking back over his shoulder, even though Apollo and Serena were now well out of sight. He jerked guiltily when he noticed me watching.