Blood Hunt (25 page)

“Don't touch it!” Apollo said, grabbing my hand back. “Just wait.”

He looked around for something and apparently didn't find what he was looking for. “I'll be right back.”

I didn't protest as he left me there with the four unconscious women. Instead, I did a little exploration of my own, looking for something to tie up Thalia and Jessica before they could come to. I really wanted to check on Sulis and Iphigenia, but there was time for that once I made sure our threats were neutralized. I found two boys' robes shoved into the bottom of the closet—one brown and one blue—and used the belts to bind Thalia and Jessica's hands. Apollo was back before I found anything for the feet, and he carried a pair of those yellow plastic kitchen gloves that made the hands sweat but supposedly protected them from the rigors of dish detergent. He also came with a pair of tongs, the kind used for turning meat on a grill.

“What are you going to do with those?” I asked, afraid I already knew the answer.

“Here,” he said, handing me the tongs and donning the gloves himself, thank goodness.

“I need you to use the tongs to hold back the edges of the wound,” he said. “I'm going in.”

So we were playing a real, live game of Operation. My stomach rebelled. For the second time in not very long, I swallowed back bile.

I squatted down close to Thalia and forced myself not to squinch my eyes shut to protect myself from the sight. Instead, I eased the tongs into her chest cavity. Apollo crouched on her other side, reached in gingerly with the gloves and tapped something hard. Her sternum, I thought at first, but then…

Oh no, I was
not
going to lose my lunch.

I fought it down. I was made of sterner stuff. I repeated it to myself like a mantra, but myself was unconvinced.

He curled three fingers into his palm and used just the thumb and forefinger to grab at something inside her chest cavity.

“It's not coming loose,” he said. “It's like it's become part of her.”

“What?” I asked.

“A coin. Small, about the size of a nickel.”

“One of the Set coins.”

“At a guess.”

“Embedded into her chest?” I said, just to be clear.

“More like her heart,” he answered. “It's—”

“Barbaric,” I finished.

He nodded. “I can't just yank it loose. It's really in there, and I don't know what it will do to her.”

“We don't know what having it there has already done…or what it will do. Already she's not in her right mind.”

“We need to get her to a healer. A real one this time. The mud bath at Sulis's spa is not going to cover this.”

“Speaking of which—”

I rose, my knees protesting the time I'd spent squatting, and went over to the bed with the blonde hair shining in the sun. It was Sulis, as expected, and her chest wasn't the only part of her covered in blood. More had seeped out of her nose and coagulated on her upper lip, and… I concentrated on her chest, watching to see if it rose and fell. There was no movement. I put two fingers to the pulse point at her neck and didn't feel anything there either.

“Apollo,” I said softly.

He gave Thalia a tortured look and then stood, stripping off the rubber gloves and following my gaze.

“She's gone,” I said. “At least I think so. I don't know what the rule is for you gods, about resurrection and all that.”

He rose to look at Sulis himself and did something I hadn't even thought to do. He took an untouched hank of her hair, separated out a few strands and held them in front of her nose and mouth to see if there was any air passing at all to stir them, but there was nothing. With a heavy heart, I walked the few paces to the other bed.

The woman who lay there—Iphigenia?—had clearly been through torments I didn't want to fathom. She was all torn up. I could see her chest rise just slightly, and heard a single breath escape. Then, as if it had taken her soul with it, she lay still. I cried out and readied myself to do chest compressions and CPR when another breath issued forth, no less heart-wrenching. It was too shallow and far too slow. I didn't know how much longer she'd hold on… And that was when I noticed that there was something glinting inside her chest as well. At a guess yet another of the insidious coins. I picked up the house phone and dialed 9-1-1 then held my hand over the receiver as it started to connect. “What do we do about Jessica and Thalia?” I asked. “Do I tell them two victims or four or…?”

Apollo looked away from Sulis to me. “I don't like this.
Any
of it. But…you'd better tell them four. These ladies need medical help and right now we're not in a position to give it to them.”

“What about the Set disks? We can't just leave them behind for anyone to touch. We don't know if they're a one-time-use sort of thing or if they can still infect others.”

“What choice do we have? Doctors use gloves and all that. They should be safe enough.”

“But what if—”

“Hello? Hello,” came a voice. “What is the nature of your emergency?” Time was up. Even if I had the leisure to think it all through, I wasn't sure Genie had that kind of time. I explained everything to the dispatcher as best I could, which was to say “not very well”. I told her we needed medical help, stat. I told her it was pretty clearly a crime scene and that based on the violence it might have something to do with that case in the Hollywood Hills and that the police might want to come along. I could only hope that this would be enough to get the disks handled with care and with kid gloves, knowing they could be evidence and all that.

I was told to stay on the line and had every intention of doing so, but just then Hermes's frantic face appeared in the air right before me.

“We need you!” he said, looking around and catching my gaze. “Bring Sigyn's tracker.”

“What's happened?” Apollo asked, at the same time the dispatcher said, “Is there someone there with you?”

I ignored her, hitting the Mute button and waiting for Hermes to continue. “We've got Richie.” I didn't even have time to process relief at that before he went on. “But Ian's got Neith.”

“What? What happened?” I asked.

“Another blast from that chaos amulet or whatever it is the one is wearing. You do
not
want to see modern art come to life.”

Crap, crap, crap. “We're on it,” I said. “Apollo, do you want to work with Hermes to turn his window into a portal?”

“No!” Hermes said instantly, fear in his voice like I'd not heard it before. Mischief he was up for…mischief he could control, but it seemed chaos had him spooked. “Not with this field going here. You might get turned inside out. Or end up two dimensional or… Just no. Wings or wheels,” he said.

I looked at Apollo and he at me. “Wings are faster,” I said. “Want to go for a ride? We can be like Superman and Lois Lane. Only, I wear the tights in this family.”

“Good. No one wants to see my hairy legs in tights,” he said.

The banter was a reflex. Neither of us felt very funny. I could feel his concern through our link. And it only got worse when I said, “Wait, what about Jessica and the others? We can't just leave them. What if Ian comes back? Or Jessica and Thalia get free? Or Genie stops breathing…”

“Poseidon's puckery posterior! Fine, I'll stay. You go. Anyway, you'll be faster without me. Track Ian, save Neith. But be careful.”

“But—”

“Go!” he said. “I've got this.”

There was no time to argue. I unmuted my phone and answered the dispatcher's increasingly worried questions. “Sorry, I'm here! I just…I have to get out of here. So much blood…” I quickly told her about Apollo so the police wouldn't shoot him on sight, thinking he was a danger, and handed the phone over to him.

“I'm going to check the last two rooms before I go, just to be sure…” I said quietly. By my count, at least three of the Set coins had been used—one on Viktor, one on Genie and one on Thalia. Four coins, actually, because there was no way Jessica would have attacked if she hadn't been under the influence, though at least her coin hadn't been implanted straight into her chest. I didn't think so anyway. For one, there was no blood and for another, she was still kicking, while Sulis, a goddess if not one of the biggies, wasn't nearly so lucky.

What I didn't understand was why the brothers had mutilated the goddesses. Because they were more than human and theoretically able to take it? Because with humans Set could get into their heads, but with someone stronger he needed to seize control of their very hearts? Had Genie and Sulis been earlier experiments, before the system was perfected with Thalia? Had the shock to their bodies been too great? Too many questions, too little time.

I walked quickly through the rest of the house, toward the back two bedrooms. The one at the end of the hall, the master, was a disaster of beer cans and bottles of even harder stuff. The comforter had been yanked off the bed to create a kind of nest or pallet on the floor. The bedding reeked with the acid bite of ammonia that signaled night sweats. The scent was strong enough to reach me even at the doorway. I stepped in quickly, careful to avoid landing in or on anything, and checked under the bed before moving to the accordion doors of the closet. I opened them in a flash, flailing inside with my blade, stabbing nothing but women's clothing.

The next room…I closed the door to the next room without ever stepping inside. In fact, I raced for the outside and only made it as far as the tall grass before losing everything in my stomach. Newsflash: bacon does
not
taste as good coming up as it does going down and coffee downright burns.

I was gasping for breath by the time I was done, and then blowing air out my nose, hoping to get rid of the stench of death. The horror of that third room would haunt me forever. Three bodies stacked… But no, that would imply precision or order. They weren't stacked, they were thrown aside, one on top of the other, their blood mingling and pooling on the floor.

I bent double for another heave, this one producing nothing but a thin trickle of pure stomach acid. My gut hurt, my brain hurt, my heart hurt most of all. Three more dead. Three innocents…a woman and her two young boys. Ian was going down. Hard. I'd rip
his
heart out. I'd…
No,
I wouldn't do any of the things I sorely wanted to do. No more death or destruction or chaos. Not if I could help it. No more glory to Set. No. This needed to end.

I wondered how close the brothers were—
brother now, singular
—to freeing Set. One more death, say the murder of a major pantheonic player like Neith?

My precog didn't just kick, it performed feats worthy of my family's acrobatic troupe.

Could Neith be the final brick in the wall…or, rather, the final blow that busted Set's chains?

Chapter Twenty-Four

As soon as I had my feet under me again and could be sure I wouldn't spew all over the good people of L.A., I consulted Sigyn's blood dial, hoping it would hold, since I couldn't count on my knack. I had the taste of Richie's blood, but not Ian's. I couldn't trace him on my own.

But as I focused on Ian, a vision began to form. I knew it for that and not a memory because I'd never seen him this way—face half covered in blood from a slash that had gauged a deep furrow from his hairline down across his nose. Combined with the snarl that twisted his features, he barely looked human. I could see only the top of Neith's head as it lolled in his grip. I didn't know what he'd done to her, but he had her now in a half-Nelson, his other arm seeming to hang useless at his side. Whatever had gone down at the museum, our side had gotten their licks in.

The dial spun in my hand, pointing back in the direction I thought led to the museum, but then hesitating and pointing off to the east. I'd more than half expected to intercept Ian, but east meant he wasn't bringing her back here. Did he already know the house was compromised or had he intended something else all along?

It didn't matter. Not really. Either way, I had to hunt him down.

My wings were out before the words to summon them had died on my lips, as if they'd been poised and ready. It freaked me out all over again that they seemed practically to have minds of their own.
Instinct.
I was going to call it instinct and leave it at that.

The media already had pics of me—stills and now actual video. I couldn't worry any more about being seen. Set had already blown the doors of the bizarre and unexplainable wide open. Unexplainable unless a person believed Reverend Smith's End Times explanation.

I took off, feeling a brief, fluttery moment of panic, as always, as I cleared the tops of the houses, but exposure therapy was getting me over my fear of heights.

I had no idea how Ian was getting anywhere with Neith. Motor vehicle, I presumed, which meant he had to take roads and deal with traffic. I could get wherever he was going as the crow flies…or gorgon. Which meant, hopefully, I could head him off.

My precog was going all sorts of crazy, practically shooting off fireworks in my head to get my attention. I told the precog to Shut It! in no uncertain terms and the fireworks died down to those firecrackers kids set off in the street. Still, the urgency drove me, almost straight into the back end of pigeon, which squawked indignantly and veered sharply out of my way, eyeing me reproachfully out of its beady orange eyes.

The path took me wide of the LACMA, but a plume of dark smoke roiled out of a gaping hole in the roof that hadn't been there before. I hoped the museum's insurance would cover it…along with the medical expenses of anyone caught in that cloud. Something in the way it churned said that it was something far more noxious than mere smoke.

I was glad Sigyn's device had taken me wide of it. I checked the dial again, adjusted my path and headed for the downtown area. Back toward my office and all the old theatres from the heyday of Hollywood—The Roxie, the Tower Theatre, the Rialto…the Orpheum…

The alarm that went off at the thought of the Orpheum nearly blew me out of the sky, but I couldn't figure out why at first. Why would Ian have headed for the old theatre rather than for his house of horrors? And why…

The question was answered a moment later when I came within sight of the theatre itself and spotted the marquee. The Orpheum was one of the few old theatres that actually still operated like a theatre, featuring traveling acts—plays, musical performances, screenings, comedians, even the occasional motivational speaker or big business seminar. Whoever could pay or bring in a big enough audience to fill the seats. Tonight, the featured “performer” was none other than the Reverend John Moses Smith with
Reflect and Redirect
. I could only guess it was the name of his program. Catchy. Alliterative. Positive-sounding and spiritual without being in-your-face with any particular credo that might alienate his audience.

But…this couldn't have been thrown together just since this morning when Reverend Smith had invited all of L.A. to pray with him. The Orpheum booked up months in advance, which meant that either they'd had a very coincidental cancellation or the reverend's revival had already been in the works and he'd merely taken advantage of the insanity that had hit L.A. to promote his message and fill seats. At this rate, it was likely to be standing room only.

I circled the theatre from the air. The blood dial confirmed what my precog had already told me. This was the place. It was quiet yet. The actual revival, according to the sign, was hours away. I needed to get in and get Ian before he could do any damage. Before there was an overwhelming chance of civilian casualties. I couldn't wait for back up. That didn't mean I was stupid enough not to call for it or to let everyone know where I was.

I texted Apollo, even knowing he'd still be tied up with the police.
At the Orpheum. Urgent.

Send failed
, my phone said almost immediately.

Oh holy hells.

Cursing, I next voice-dialed Hermes. It seemed to take forever to start ringing, but once it did, the connection was terrible.

Hermes answered, but we could have been two kids using Dixie cups connected with string for all the reception we had.

“Tori?” he called through the phone line. “Tori?”

“Hermes,” I yelled. “The Orpheum. Get here. All of you.”

“What? Tori, I can't hear you. I'm going to hang up and try you again.”

No call came back, and when Hermes's window appeared in front of me, it was barely the size of my thumb nail. “Quick,” he said, “something's interfering.”

I could see part of his eye, that was all, and it was completely disconcerting. “Orpheum,” I said loudly and clearly. “Get here.”

“Opium? Tori, what—”

“Orf-E-Um,” I said, enunciating. The window snapped shut with an audible pop just as I hit the last syllable, and I cursed again.

The chaos field?
I wondered. But if the blood and tribute the brothers had offered up was powering the field, how much was getting to Set? Or was there a great big feedback loop with chaos itself fueling the god and the god fueling the field? Damn and double damn.

I tucked the blood dial into the pocket of my track pants and tucked my wings away. I should have done it already. I was not exactly inconspicuous perched on the roof of the Orpheum in downtown L.A. It was nothing short of miraculous if I hadn't been spotted already.

I started looking for a way off the roof and into the building that didn't involve property damage or charges of breaking and entering.

My precog hit me just before the sound of electricity had me whirling around. I'd been so focused on the paranormal threat, I hadn't even considered all-too-human security. They seemed to have come out of nowhere—two men, one about the size and shoulder width of Apollo and one tall and whipcord thin like a long-distance runner or pole-vaulter. That was all I caught in the split second before I was diving out of the way to avoid the taser blast I knew was coming. I dodged the one, but the other…

Suddenly it was as if I'd been struck by lightning.

Electricity shocked through me, arching my back, contracting my muscles. My whole body went rigid and paralyzed with the jittering. My teeth clacked together, eyes rolled into my head. No thoughts but pain. No control. No…

I fell away from myself, my brain's electrical system fried like a power surge to an unprotected computer.

I couldn't have been out long, but I'd lost time, because when I jerked awake, the guys with
Security
emblazoned in bold yellow letters across their chests were standing over me. My body was still shaking, a million volts seemingly still running through me, making it hard to get my thoughts together. I wanted to kick out, knock them both to the ground, catch them by surprise, but my legs wouldn't obey. Nothing was obeying.

One bent down to examine me. “I think she bit her tongue,” he said.

I must be bleeding. The urge to spit it at him was almost overwhelming, but as useless as my body seemed, I was more likely to dribble it on myself. Anyway, he didn't deserve to be turned to stone just for doing his job. If I'd been purely human and a winged woman had landed on the roof of the building I was hired to protect, I might stun first and ask questions later as well.

Still, I wasn't going down like this. I rolled my eyes until I could catch his gaze and said, “Freeze.”

It came out more like “Fee” along with a little of that dribble, but the intent behind it came through. He froze.

The other guy, not aware yet that there was anything wrong with his partner, circled behind me to cuff me or ziptie me or whatever he was about to do, and I tried to twitch myself into a position to get him too. Only my body wouldn't move.

He grabbed one hand behind my back and had to roll me to grab the other. But he wasn't looking into my face. He was focused on my hands and getting me locked down.

My lungs felt seized, my heart beating way too fast and so strongly I thought it might explode with the effort. I mustered what energy, what control I had to force air out of my mouth, to make a sound to get his attention. I managed something like a honk. It startled him enough to look up, and I said, “Fee” again. He froze in place. I didn't know how long it would last, especially not as weak as I was. I felt like a newborn…without the strength, muscles or coordination to get myself up off the ground. With no choice, I gave myself another second to lay there, hoping that with my advanced healing I would overcome a taser charge faster than the average person, but…
damn
, it hurt. And the helplessness was something I never wanted to feel again.

Again?
I was still feeling it now. I
might
have felt a finger twitch, but I couldn't even be sure of that. Or that the twitch was in fact voluntary. Randomly, my knee would still jerk up or my foot would flick…

Rise, I told myself. Myself would have laughed if it had even that much motor control. Nothing happened. I decided to focus in. Small things first… Roll to my side, get my legs under me, use my hands to push myself up… Nothing.

I counted to five, watching the security guys closely for signs they were coming out of it. I could freeze them again if they started to move…if I could get them to meet my gaze again and if some instinct hadn't taught them better. But the sooner I could get moving, the better. I didn't want Neith to turn into…whatever Thalia had become. Herself, but not. Would it feel like my helplessness, only a million times worse? Would she fight the control yet be powerless against it? Or would the disk subsume her, taking away her will, turning her wants to his?

On five I tried again to move. This time, I was able to rock to my side, only to see the first security guy blinking down at me.
Blinking.
He was coming out of it.

It would be a race to see which of us could recover first. I got up as far as my knees when his partner's hand twitched. Oh crap. I nearly fell trying to get my feet under me too fast, but then I was balanced, making sure of myself before I started to rise. The first security guy reached for me, but in slow motion, still shaking off the effects of my gorgon glare.

All I could think was that this was going to be the lamest fight in creation. A battle in super slo-mo, like something out of a low-budget
Matrix
. I hoped I was going to be Nano. Or at least Agent Smith. He was, after all, pretty cool. Evil, of course, but cool.

At least my sense of inappropriately timed humor had returned.

Sec Guy connected, knocking clumsily into my shoulder, but it was enough to overbalance me, and meanwhile his partner had shaken off his paralysis and raised a foot, ready to stomp down like a puppy eager to keep his ball from getting away. Only, I was the ball. I rolled out of the way, into the first guy, acting like a bowling ball and treating him as the pin. It wouldn't have worked if he'd been moving quickly enough to adjust, but he wasn't, and as he started to topple, I had a burning urge to yell
Timber!
except that he was falling
at me
.

His buddy, coming down on the foot that had failed to connect, was off balance as well, and the two met in the middle, holding each other up like a tent over me. I alligator-crawled out from between them, grabbed the ziptie cuffs off the one guy's belt and grabbed hands together before they could disentangle, locking them tight, weaving the zipties together.

They looked at their bound hands, at each other, at me…both faces promising serious retribution. Personally, I wasn't even sure we were even from that taser blast.

“Sit,” I ordered.

They stared at me in defiance.

“Fine, try to get somewhere and fall down. Up to you.”

I patted them down. Came up with keys, personal radios for communication with each other, their cell phones, and more ziptie cuffs. I tucked the latter into my waistband, hoping I'd have the chance to use them later.
Soon.

“Now, freeze,” I said, while they were both shooting daggers at me with their eyes.

They froze, of course. I'd been trying to save them the inevitable bruises to their butts when they unfroze again and overbalanced each other, but, well, I couldn't be too torn up about it.

Then I headed in the direction from which they'd appeared, knowing there'd be a way into the theatre, hoping I'd get there before any reinforcements. Because for certain they weren't the only security, whether hired by the venue or the revival.

Sure enough, they'd left a door propped open. More of a hatch, really, but the effects of the taser were wearing off, and I thought that I could handle a ladder. Maybe. My legs still shook and wanted to accordion like those of a Jack-in-the-box who'd just sprung. But they held. I was down the ladder before I heard voices and readied the gorgon glare again. As long as they kept sending humans at me, I'd be okay. And as far as I knew, they didn't have any gods on their side…yet. I planned to keep it that way.