Accidentally Aphrodite (26 page)

She whirled around to see a cyclops running toward her, grizzled and thick-skinned, his eyeball rolling—his horn aimed directly at her chest.

Carl raised his hands high in the air, the effort clear from the grunt of pain his stiff joints must have caused, and he was holding something in them—something she had no time to identify as he head-butted her out of the way and brought his hands downward with a scratchy, uneven yell.

The cyclops screeched, arching his short neck, spewing his anger and going straight for poor Carl, charging him with so much fury it stole the very breath from her lungs.

But Carl just stood there, and as the mattress sank beneath her feet, she began to topple over, helpless to right herself.

Until, with a booming, “
Nooooooo!
” someone hard and heavy rammed into her, in turn hurling her into Carl.

They fell on the floor in a tangle of limbs and grunts of pain, her battered body thunking to the ground.

Khristos. It was Khristos! He reached for them both, his head bleeding, his body covering them, protecting them from falling debris.

“Enooough!”

Yet another voice, male and rumbling, ripped through the space, stopping everything on a dime. Concrete blocks hung in the air, particles of her shredded comforter and pillows floated motionless.

“
Eris! What have you done?”
the voice boomed, bouncing and thunderous.

What was it with these people and the disembodied-voice fixation? It was damn jarring.

“Eris, explain yourself. Now!”

Oh, shut up.

Eris? Like,
the
Eris, Eris? The Goddess of Strife and Discord?

Talk about living up to your myth.

Khristos rolled from her, grunting as he did, pulling himself to his feet and reaching for her, scooping her up in his arms to tuck her tight to his chest.

That was when she saw Carl.

“Carl!” she yelped, looking down at his broken body, sprawled and still. She tried to squirm from Khristos’s arms, but Nina was on the ground in a flash, her hair covered in dust, her clothes torn.

She hauled Carl up, pushing his face from his hair, running her fingers over his head. Standing, she draped a limp Carl over her shoulder and headed straight for the cause of all this discord and strife.

“You fucking, fucking, motherfucking, stupid, dicklick, dumb, motherfucking bitch!” she hollered in the face of the woman who’d abandoned her serpent form and returned to still one of the most beautiful women Quinn had ever seen. “I’m going to make you bleed buckets, you crazy, out-of-control, motherfucking piece of mythological shit! And when I’m done, I’m going to do it
again
. You fucked with my zombie!
You—hurt—my—zombie—twatcicle!”

Nina jammed her face closer to the woman, who now paled. “You know what that means? You have to die, and it’s gonna hurt. Oh my God, it’s gonna hurt like nothing’s
ever
hurt your fucked-up, warped, pretty face before!”

Marty, in a scrap of what was left of Quinn’s sheets, and Wanda, her face dewy with sweat, rushed to the vampire, pulling her back, but Nina, who’d fought so valiantly not to swear, was clearly on the cleanse plan.

“
Get the fuck off me
!” she growled at her friends. “I will kill this bitch! I’ll rip her damn face off—eat my way through her delicate little intestines while she watches. Do you hear me, you batshit, boil-on-my-fucking-ass, chariot-driving olive-lover!”

“
Nina!
” that voice bellowed again, sharp and with a hard warning. Only this time, as though the very air in the coliseum had a rip in it, a man—an enormous man—slipped through the folds.

A beautiful, dark, enormous man dressed in a stark-white polo shirt and plaid golf pants.

Khristos’s chest heaved in relief as he cradled her close. “Zeus. Jesus Christ, damn glad you showed up, man.”

Zeus?
Seriously? Zeus was in her apartment turned coliseum in lower Manhattan? Oh, this day was shiny-shiny.

Crossing his arms over his wide chest, he approached Eris with a frown that could only be described as deep disappointment. “So what do we have here?”

Eris lifted her head, her sapphire eyes flashing and wild, her creamy breasts rising and falling beneath the silky white gown she wore. “You know damn well what you have here, you scourge of the universe!”

Zeus’s chuckle vibrated the entire room as he grinned. “Are you still angry with me, Eris? Did you do all this in my honor?”

Quinn’s head ached, her hands throbbed, but not so much that she was going to miss this chance to find out why her apartment looked like a Sherman tank had driven through it. She squirmed in Khristos’s arms, using her wrists to push off his broad shoulders and forcing him to let her slide to the floor.

He kept his hands protectively at her waist as she wobbled when her knees buckled. “Quinn.” He muttered a warning in her ear. “Let Zeus handle this.”

“The hell I will. You, you crazy—although I admit, utterly gorgeous—nutbag, just hold on. Just all of you hold right the hell on!”

Zeus caught sight of Quinn and winced, his tanned face pained. He lifted her hands with gentle fingers, examining the spikes embedded in them. “Gods!” he shouted. “Are you responsible for this, Eris?”

Quinn fought a whimper when he touched them, but that wasn’t going to stop her. “You’re damn right she is. This is my apartment, for the love of Pete! I’m not going to have anywhere to live. I’ll never get my deposit back. Not to mention, I have spikes—
spikes
—in my hands! Cheese and rice, you people are insane! What the
hell
is going on?”

Zeus looked over her head to Khristos. “So this is the one?”

“She is indeed,” Khristos answered with a hint of amusement in his tone.

“Aw, Quinn. Welcome to the fold!” He gathered her up in his bulging arms, making her cry out. “So sorry! Hang tight. I’ll fix this right up.” He took her fingertips and ran his lips over them, making the spikes and gaping holes in her palms disappear. With another snap of his fingers, her knees no longer felt as though someone were driving nails through the caps.

He cocked his head, looking down at her with sparkling green eyes. “Better?”

“So much,” she uttered, then pulled her hands away, feeling guilty for admiring his beauty.

Cracking his knuckles, Zeus turned his attention back to Eris. “What is this about, Eris?”

Eris’s eyes narrowed, her luscious lips thinning. “You know what this is about, you goddess-loving lothario!”

Zeus gave them all a sheepish look before he grabbed Eris by the throat, so fast her body jerked like a limp ragdoll from the upward swing. “What does this have to do with Quinn?” he hissed in her ear.

Eris’s hands went to his thick wrist, struggling against it. “She has the power of Aphrodite now!” she cried. “If I could have gotten my hands on it, I would have made you—”

“Oh, I know!” Quinn jumped up and down, her arm in the air, everything making complete sense in a rush of understanding. “You wanted my power so you could make Zeus fall wildly in love with you and steal him from Hera! Am I right?”

“Yes!” she wailed a sob, her head falling back on her neck. “She doesn’t deserve you! I do! Don’t you remember all the things you told me that night on the Aegean, Zeus? Do you remember the sailboat and our lovemaking? You told me you loved me!” She let out a sob. “I’ve waited lifetimes for Khristos to become distracted enough to get my hands on that ludicrous apple.
Lifetimes
!”

Zeus clucked his tongue at her in admonishment. “Tsk-tsk, Eris. You know Hera’s my one true love. I made that clear from the start. And now look what you’ve done. You’ve made a mess of everything.”

She clawed at his wide hand, tears streaming down her face. “Let me go!”

Zeus made a sad face at her, puckering his lips. “I can’t do that, Eris. We don’t subscribe to the old ways any longer, and you know that quite well. You can’t go around creating this kind of havoc anymore. Remember what I told you the last time you took it upon yourself to react out of spite when your candidate didn’t win and you almost wiped out the White House with Talos? And what will Ares say when he sees you’ve stolen his horses—
again
? Unacceptable, Eris. You must be punished. Our new Aphrodite is to be celebrated, not nailed to a wall like some cheap art.”

Carl stirred on Nina’s shoulder then, slipping to the ground and landing on his feet, currently pointing outward to either side of his legs, his left hand completely torn off.

“You’d damn well better make her pay, Zeus, or I swear on all that’s fucking holy, I’ll hunt you
and
her down, and drop you both from the top of that damned mountain,” Nina growled, cracking her neck by rolling her head side-to-side.

Zeus dropped a jovial kiss on her cheek, clearly not at all fazed by her threats. “As pleasant as ever, Nina! I assure you, punishment will be meted out appropriately. Let’s do a Save The Date for another round of Vampires vs. Gods, yes? I’ve had some time to think up our line of defense.”

Nina huffed at him, pulling Carl close to her and hissing up at Eris.

Khristos moved in closer to the dangling Eris and looked up at her, his face a mask of rage, an emotion that almost startled Quinn. “Let me make myself perfectly clear. If you ever, and I do mean ever, come near my woman again, I’ll hunt you down, Eris. I’ll hunt you down, I’ll flay you alive. I’ll kill you myself.” And then he smiled, his expression light and easy as he held out his hand to Zeus. “Thank you for showing up. Sorry to bust up your golf game.”

Zeus used his free hand to shake Khristos’s, his smile warm. “Got here as soon as I could, but you know how hard it is to get a signal on the mountain. Sorry it took so long. I’ll have Ares come collect the horses. The rest you can handle, yes?”

Khristos scrubbed a weary hand over his face, blood still drying on his forehead. “I can.”

The god held Eris up for inspection, letting her dangle from his grip as her long hair streamed down her back. “Say goodbye to all the nice people, Eris. Quinn, it was great to finally meet you. See you around the forums, huh?” With a wink and a smile that would make women all over the planet melt, he and Eris disappeared.

Marty and Wanda shook their heads in unison, glanced at each other and squealed. “Was he not the most divine, Wanda?” she gushed.

Wanda grinned, half of her hair falling from the perfect chignon she favored, her red wool dress torn and covered in soot. “Not a lie! Did you see him just make everything stop? Like just done. Totally over. And the way he kissed Quinn’s fingers to heal them? Sa-woon!”

Their giggles warmed Quinn’s heart, and when their eyes landed on her, they held out their arms and she gave them each a tight hug. “Ingrid told me about you guys in action, and I thought I believed, but after seeing that, there’s not a shred of doubt. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“Jesus,” Marty breathed into Quinn’s hair. “You pulled yourself off that wall, Quinn. To see you nailed there…” She stopped herself and audibly gulped.

Wanda pressed a kiss to Quinn’s forehead, her breath shuddering in and out. “Thank God you’re all right,” she whispered before setting Quinn away from her. “Now let’s get this mess cleaned up, ladies!”

Ingrid, Archibald and Darnell plowed into the coliseum—which was slowly returning to her tiny bedroom—their eyes wide. Ingrid stumbled over the littered floor and lunged for Quinn.

“Don’t let me hear you ever call yourself a chicken again, Quinn Morris. And don’t ever scare the shit out of me like that again. I’d never survive the rest of art history without you. I’m so glad you’re all right.”

Quinn took a deep breath and nodded. “You’re right; you’d never survive without me in art history.”

Ingrid giggled as Darnell wrapped his arms around both of them and hugged. “Daggone, Miss, Quinn. You tougher ’n I’ll ever be. I’m sorry I wasn’t here for ya. I don’t know what that crazy lady did, but she sealed the whole dang place after Marty and Wanda got through. Not even my magic could get me in here.”

Thank God. Thank God Marty and Wanda had made it through.

Archibald stuck his head between them all and grazed Quinn’s cheek with his knuckles. “I’m going to prepare the best chocolate cake you’ve ever eaten in honor of such a fierce warrior! But for now, we must make haste, family! Darnell, you get the shovel. Ingrid, locate a broom, would you?”

As they broke apart, each heading off to begin cleaning up, Quinn bent at the waist and breathed. The horror of those spikes in her hands hitting her once again.

But Nina patted her on the back, wrapping an arm around her neck and pulling her upward, dropping her chin to the top of Quinn’s head. “Jesus fuck and a sidecar, Mini-Goddess. You’re a GD badass, and you tried to save my boy Carl. Can’t ever say thank you enough.”

Quinn inhaled the scent of Nina, full of cinnamon and cloves, and rested her cheek on the vampire’s shoulder, tears stinging her eyes. “Do you feel all gooey on the inside right now, Nina?” she teased, her voice gruff, her throat tight.

“Like a goddamn toasted marshmallow, Love Maker,” she replied, hoarse and low.

Quinn squeezed her arm and pulled back, her eyes catching sight of Carl’s missing hand. “Carl! Your hand, buddy!”

But Carl was busy picking through the rubble with Khristos, using his one hand to dig furiously through her shredded pillows and crumbled rock, grunting until he found whatever he was looking for.

He pulled something tattered from the remains of the mess and held it up, giving her his endearing lopsided grin.

She fell to her knees in front of him with a sob, right there in the middle of the mess, and hugged him hard.

It was a book. He’d tried to take out the cyclops with a copy of Jane Eyre.

“Carl,” she whispered against his cold cheek. “Thank you. You were so brave.”

He thumped Quinn on the back once more as Nina helped him up, giving Khristos’s shoulder a squeeze. “Thanks for looking out for my Carl and Goddess-Lite, dude. You might not have any supernatural powers, but that was some damn tackle.” She looked to Carl then, her eyes soft. “Now, c’mon, buddy, looks like we got some duct-taping to do.” Leading Carl off, she left Quinn and Khristos alone.