Rise of the Blood Page 8

  Nick glanced from me to the window. “What am I looking for?”

  “Anything,” I said, slipping away before he could ask any more questions. I didn’t want to lie and pretend I’d seen something I hadn’t, adding hallucinations on top of paranoia.

  “Nothing,” Nick called to me as I hit the bathroom and squeezed toothpaste onto my brush. It was completely tasteless, by which I knew. Ambrosia withdrawal.

  First taste, then color would leach out of the world. All of my senses, so sharp on the food of the gods, would deaden and dull. My mind would lose focus, my muscles their competency. Things were about to get ugly.

  I was going to have to pin down an ambrosia supply. Just until we put this wedding behind us, saved Apollo, recaptured Zeus and Poseidon… Would it never end? I’d never know. As long as I continued on the ambrosia, I’d never be able to trust myself. Were the shakes hyper-caffeination or withdrawal? Was my concern paranoia or prudence? It was no way to live. I knew this. Knew it. I knew too that prolonged withdrawal could mean my death. But, if I was being perfectly honest, I didn’t believe in my own mortality. It was just an excuse.

  I was an addict.

  I pushed the thought forcibly aside and got ready as quickly as I could, given that I’d lost all enthusiasm for the outing. I owed it to Nick not to keep him cooped up in a hotel for his first visit to Greece, to show him something even I hadn’t seen of my native country. I owed it to Apollo to investigate. My own issues were going to have to take a number. Probably that of the beast.

  We hit the lobby one minute behind schedule and still had to wait five more for Jesus.

  The single road into town wound down the mountain without side streets so much as alleys here and there crowded with yet more houses. Shops took up the first floor of almost all, selling jewelry, souvenirs, local arts and everything else from postcards to purses.

  “Oh my!” Jesus said, stopping short before one of the shops, awe in his voice. We halted to keep from crashing into him and followed his gaze up and up to a shelf above our heads in the doorway of the souvenir stand where a bottle of ouzo stood in a satyr-shaped bottle. The reaction was brought on by the fact that the satyr was, in typical satyr fashion…all revved up and ready to go. More than just erect, his equipment curled upward almost to his chin. The bottles were mainstays of every tourist trap in about every shop in Greece, but whenever I saw the proportions, all I could think of was, “ouch!”

  “I’ve got to get one of these to take back with me,” Jesus announced, disappearing into the interior of the shop.

  “What about you?” Nick asked, eyes crinkled in deep amusement.

  “Who needs the bottle when you’ve got the real thing?”

  He snorted, though the smile on his face said I’d scored points. But it vanished almost instantly, as something in the shop window caught his attention.

  “Did you notice anyone following us?” he asked quietly.

  I forced myself not to look around. “Where?” I asked.

  “Two storefronts back on the other side of the street.”

  I pulled a hair band out of my pocket and whipped my head to the side, the better to gather my hair into a ponytail, and spotted a man in a black robe, hair crazier than mine, unkempt, facial hair spread over his chest like a bib. He was pretending to study a display of jewelry with the kind of attention Spiro might give a pretty girl…or boy.

  “I see him,” I said, finishing up with the hairband, lashing my unruly hair into place in case a chase was in the offing.

  “You note the way he’s staring at the jewelry?” Nick asked.

  “Ye-ah.”

  “He was staring at us like that a second ago. Well, you specifically.”

  You’re next. I felt oddly relieved rather than alarmed at the thought. That meant that I wasn’t crazy or paranoid. I’d felt someone watching back at the hotel. The man in black had to be the culprit, maybe even the one who’d left the note back in Athens. There couldn’t be two people stalking me. I wasn’t that popular.

  So, he wasn’t a hallucination, but a real threat…potentially. Only one way to find out.

  “You’re looking a little maniacal,” Nick said. “I’m almost afraid to ask what kind of plan is running through your head.”

  “How about whammying him with the gorgon glare and dragging him off somewhere for questioning?”

  Nick looked at me like I’d grown a second head. Okay, so maybe crazy wasn’t completely out of the question. “You want to kidnap a man off the street for looking at you funny?”

  “Well, when you put it that way… What do you suggest?”

  “We keep an eye on him and stop him if he makes a move.”

  Oh sure, without a badge to flash or any kind of official standing, it was the most sensible course of action. I was just so much better at the direct approach.

  “I was afraid you’d say something like that.”

  Jesus came out then, looking ridiculously pleased with his purchase.

  Nick glanced at his watch. “We don’t have much time left. Should we grab lunch, like we talked about?”

  There was a lovely taverna on the other side of the road, but it was cantilevered out over the edge of the mountain, and there was no way that was happening. I said so.

  “Gah, I’ll get us lunch to go,” Jesus said. He handed his precious bottle to Nick. “Here, hold this.”

  The shape was apparent right through the clear plastic bag. Nick didn’t look like he was secure enough in his masculinity to be left holding it. I took pity on the poor man and relieved him of the package.

  Jesus came back shortly juggling three Mythos beers and three gyros. We looked around for a place to eat them. The streets were narrow, with no margin at all between the cars cruising by and the walkway, so that we couldn’t sit on a curb without risking our feet, and with sidewalk and storefront space at such a premium, there were no benches.

  “Chica, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but you are a pain in the ass,” Jesus said helpfully.

  I looked at Nick. “A good boyfriend would disagree,” I told him.

  “I’d have aimed higher,” he said to Jesus. “Pain in the neck, maybe.”

  I stuck my tongue out in their general direction.

  In the end, we risked our toes and ate on the curb, pulling our feet in whenever a vehicle came by. It wasn’t dignified, and I expected trouble at any moment over our location with the open containers and all, but as the taste of slow-cooked lamb, onions, tomatoes and tzatziki sauce burst over my taste buds, I forgot to care. In America, every Greek restaurant served gyros. In Greece, Jesus had been lucky to find them. They weren’t restaurant, but street food here, like hot dogs and soft pretzels in New York City. But here or there, they were just about perfection. Unfortunately, that first burst of flavor quickly faded away, leaving me unsatisfied. Bereft, even. And no matter how many bites I took, I still felt empty. Hunger gnawed at me like a junkyard dog at a bone.

  I glanced up and down the street, looking for our tail, and found him across the way, staring into yet another storefront, not so subtly watching us via the reflection in the window. In that same window I caught sight of a second black-robed figure. I pretended to stretch so that I could casually look around. Behind us, half in and half out of a shop, pretending interest in a rack of postcards, was another man in black, more priestly than secret-agently. When he felt me looking, he grabbed up a few of the postcards and disappeared into the shop. I hoped the proprietor got at least a little business out of our creepy surveillance.

  “Yeah, I see them,” Nick said without me asking.

  “The one who just went into the shop…I think I’d like to talk with him if you’ll keep an eye on his friend.”

  There were no testosterone-fueled protestations that he should be the one to confront the creep, which was one of the many reasons I adored him.

  “But no trouble,” he warned. “I shudder to think what your yiayia would do to me if you were arrested
on my watch.”

  I smiled at the very thought, almost tempted to find out. But not quite.

  “I’ll be good,” I promised, giving him a quick kiss as I jumped off the curb.

  I sauntered into the shop the man in black had disappeared into. I didn’t bother pretending interest in anything. I’d seen it all before—the embroidered linens, the baubles, the bangles, bottle openers in the shape of satyrs or nymphs, pottery, soaps and oils. I was shopping for a man in a black robe. The shop, as jam-packed with touristy trinkets as it was, wasn’t very big. I could almost see the whole place at a glance, and the only person in it was the proprietress, who bustled up to me, her reproduction coin earrings jingling, and asked what she could help me with.

  Short of tearing apart her shop, all I could do was ask, “A man just came in here. I was hoping to talk with him.”

  She glanced around the small shop and back at me. “There’s no one else here.” She looked me right in the eyes as she said it, a little too purposefully, and I knew she was lying. I couldn’t blame the man on my ambrosia withdrawal, not if Nick had seen him and this woman was covering for him. I wished, not for the first time, that my powers ran to compelling the truth out of people, but all I could do was stop her in her tracks.

  “Freeze,” I said, putting everything I had into it.

  She froze, mouth half open, as if it had been on the tip of her tongue to say more. But she was going to have to hold that thought.

  I stalked to the checkout counter, where three postcards lay abandoned, and peered over it. There was no black-robed man crouching behind it. Just to be doubly sure, I rounded the counter for a closer look. Nothing. It took no time at all to survey the rest of the shop. There weren’t any other places to hide. There was a door at the back, covered over by a tapestry. I might have missed it if the pots in front of it hadn’t been slid away to allow access, disturbing the dirt on the shop floor. I dashed to the tapestry, pulled it aside to reveal the hidden door. I yanked on the handle, but it wouldn’t budge. Locked. And me without my lock picks. I thought about kicking it in, but given the disturbance in the dirt, the door opened toward and not away from me, and regardless of the way they made it look in movies, I’d break my leg before I’d break most doors. Oh yeah, and there was that whole not-getting-arrested thing. I’d promised.

  Regretfully, I admitted temporary defeat and slunk back outside.

  “Gone,” I said to Nick and Jesus as I approached.

  “His friend too,” Nick said, nodding to where the other man in black had been.

  “Skata. I’ve had enough of this cloak and dagger crap already. Why can’t we just have a nice, straightforward wedding?”

  “Speaking of which, we’d probably better get back. Production meeting in T-minus twenty.”

  “What’re you, an astronaut?” I asked, suddenly irritable. Another thing, maybe, to blame on ambrosia withdrawal.

  “Am I the only one excited about this?” Jesus asked. “Come.” He linked an arm through each of ours, and I grabbed up his ouzo bottle from the curb so it wouldn’t be left behind.

  We let Jesus drag us off. I continued to look into storefront windows to see if I could spot our sneaky surveillance, but there was no further sign of them.

  We met Mom, Dad, Uncle Christos and his girlfriend—which seemed so weird to say at their age, since she was hardly a girl—coming through the door of the hotel, just back from a sightseeing trip of their own.

  “Tori!” Mom gasped, throwing her arms around me and waving Dad in for a group hug. He grumbled, as always, but complied. I didn’t take it personally. Dad was the least touchy-feely guy I knew. Pretty ironic for someone whose livelihood and welfare depended on making contact—catching and being caught during the family acrobatic act. Maybe that was it. With life and death on the line there, maybe all other contact felt gratuitous. But Mom sure didn’t feel that way. She more than made up for him. And gods knew Spiro was touchy-feely enough for them both.

  I hugged her back hard. It was so good seeing her again. It’d been hard when circumstances forced me to leave the Rialto Bros. Circus behind. I could have fought for my place, but…I think we’d all known I never really belonged.

  When Dad dropped out of the hug and Mom finally let me go, I found I had tears in my eyes. I wiped them quickly away and introduced Nick, who was treated to a handshake from my father—two pumps and done—and a warm embrace from my mother.

  “We were so glad when Tori found someone to keep her out of trouble,” Mom said, looking earnestly into Nick’s eyes. Mom was a petite woman, weighing in at maybe a hundred pounds—less after sweating some off in a performance. She had mounds of dark hair, brown eyes, long lashes and a heart-shaped face. People wanted to protect her. Me, that was a whole ’nother matter.

  I shot Nick an amused glance, which he mirrored back to me. “Well, I try, ma’am, but it isn’t easy.”

  “And who is this?” Dad barked, jutting a chin at Jesus, who smiled, bowed deeply and introduced himself.

  “I’m Jesus, Christos and Tori’s executive assistant at the agency. When trouble calls, I’m the one who takes the message.”

  I didn’t think that came out quite the way he’d intended, since it didn’t puff up his importance the way he liked. I blamed jet lag.

  “Shall we?” he asked.

  Christos made an “after you” gesture, and Jesus led the way to the meeting room—where I was jumped immediately upon entering.

  “There you are!” Tina said, mugging me. I’d have called it a hug, but her arms were like steel bands propelling me forward, leaving the others in the dust. “Come on, they want to meet my bridesmaids.”

  “They?”

  She paused in her manhandling to give me a quick once over. “You look good, except for some puffiness around the eyes. Flying always makes me water-retentive too. Don’t worry, we’ve got a cream for that. Remind me to give you a sample.”

  I bucked out of her embrace. “Good to see you too. Congratulations, by the way.”

  Just like that, the disapproval left her face, and she beamed like a prison searchlight. “Sorry. I’m just…nervous. I want everything to be perfect, and I know the film stuff is paying for my dream wedding, but…OMG, the stress!”

  A young blond man with a pompadour, a shiny vest and a clipboard bustled up to us. “This the last bridesmaid?” he asked, giving me the same critical stare I’d gotten from Tina. “Let’s get her with the others.”

  It was his turn to hustle me about the room…or try to, anyway. When I growled, he drew back his arm and instead crowded me toward Althea and Junessa.

  He eyed the three of us—the Amazon, the wispy wood nymph and me, the wild woman, probably still smelling of onions and tzatziki sauce. His face scrunched when he looked at me, but all he said was, “I can work with this.”

  This.

  “Hello. Living, breathing person right in front of you,” I snapped.

  “As if I could miss you breathing,” he sniped back.

  Damned onions.

  “Okay,” he said, clapping to get our attention as if we were wayward children. “Tomorrow you’re due at eleven a.m. sharp for hair and makeup,” he said to Althea and Junessa. He pointed to Tina and then to me. “You and you, ten a.m. You’re getting the works.”

  I started to protest that I’d just gotten “the works”, courtesy of Christie, and I still wasn’t over it, but Tina looked so happy that I bit it back. Not my day, not my day, I chanted over and over to myself.

  “Also tomorrow—no alcohol. No caffeine, if you can manage it. Makes you bloaty and adds to those dark circles under your eyes.” Why was he looking at me? “Now, off with you. The meeting will start momentarily, and that should tell you everything else you need to know.” He made shooing motions, and I stood my ground until Tina bumped my shoulder. “Thanks for this,” she said to me. “I know it’s not your thing.”

  I looked down, feeling like a behemoth next to her, just like I had my mother. Tina,
too, was a tiny little thing, small and wiry, the better to fold herself into impossible spaces as the contortionist for the Rialto Bros. sideshow, where Yiayia performed as the bearded lady and where Pappous, rest his soul, had once been the strong man.

  Something was different about Tina. I struggled to put my finger on it.

  “Your overbite!” I exclaimed. So tactful. And oh-so-observant. How had I not noticed right away?

  But she didn’t slap me down as I deserved. “You like it? Jason is amazing! Did I tell you how we met?” Of course she had. She’d told anyone who would listen…twice…but I let her go on. “I had my jaw reset. Jason did the work on my face and then fell in love with it. That’s what he said. Have you met him yet? He’s unbelievable. Tori, I’m so in love!”

  The wedding had pretty much tipped me off to that, but once again I bit my lip. Tina and I hadn’t always been close—the dainty flower and the tomboy—but we had always been family, and it was good to see her happy. Good to see everybody all together again after I’d been away for so long. For a second I was able to forget death threats and mysterious priestly stalker guys and think familial thoughts.

  Tina’s gaze shifted suddenly to something—someone?—behind me, and I whirled, ready for a fight, only to see an unassuming man with his hands up in the universal “don’t hit me” sign.

  I hadn’t realized I’d swung around into a ready stance. Twitchy. Hair trigger. I was going to have to get better control. I glanced back at Tina for assurance that she knew the stranger before me, and from the look on her face, figured that I’d just met Jason. Good thing he wouldn’t have a mark from the impression I’d just left on him.

  “Whoa,” he said. “Down girl. I’m just here for my beautiful bride.”

  I quickly got out of the way of the lovers as Tina leapt into his arms.

  I studied them as they clung to each other. Jason was a head taller than Tina, with light brown hair. He was handsome in a baby-faced kind of way men often grew facial hair to disguise. No piercings or prison tats that I could see. No psycho, serial killer vibe that I could pick up, and my internal alarms didn’t buzz, which might not mean anything at all. They tended to be pretty danger-focused, and at the moment he looked like a lover, not a fighter.