Blood Hunt (27 page)

I heard Apollo, his voice somehow rising above the screams of the panicked crowd. I looked out in that direction to see him rising to resume the fight, along with the others—Hermes and Sigyn, hopefully still on our side, Isis and Osiris, the latter holding a curved staff almost like a shepherd's crook and using it to sweep people out of their way…

That was all I saw before a blow like an anvil dropped on my back and I twisted my head to see that Neith had come down on me, shield first, and that the metal center was digging painfully into my back. My wings tried futilely to flap, but they were stilled by the weight of the shield. I lashed with my tail, but it was caught under her and the folds of her gown.

The whole building quaked around us. A light from the catwalk that had been pointed at the stage broke free of its mooring and fell suddenly, swinging on its chord straight into a believer as he rushed the stage. I heard his skull crack and saw him start to topple before my vision was cut off by all the people who'd reached us…grabbing for their angel or preparing to strike blows against her opponent…me. I was kicked in the teeth. In the ribs. In the eye. Battered from behind. I couldn't protect all of myself at once. I'd no sooner curl or lash one way than a blow would fall from another direction.

In the melee, my tail had come free, and I swung it about like a flail, as best I could, but I didn't dare strike with the stinger. These were
people
. Manipulated, deluded and endangered, but people. I'd fought gods and titans, demons and hellhounds, but never before faced such fragile human fall-out.

I only had one good eye left, the other red-hazed and swollen almost shut from the kick it had taken, but I risked opening it to glare around. I was too low for anyone to meet my gaze, but still I tried. “Freeze!” I yelled, imbuing it with everything I had. They thought I was powerful…they
believed
…maybe it would amplify my strength.

The set of legs before me started to fall, and at first I thought it had worked and the person had been caught off-balance, but as she dropped to the stage floor, I was able to see beyond her, straight to Eros where he stood on one of the theatre chairs, his bow still aimed.

“No!” I called. These were
people
. He couldn't just
shoot
them.

He gave me a wink and drew another arrow from the quiver at his back.

Gold, I saw. I blew out a breath in relief. Gold was the color of love. I might have a new admirer, but the owner of the legs would get over it. She'd live.

The weight on my back started to lift as the believers got a hold of Neith, but then dropped again as the theatre shook, harder than ever, the violence seeming to start from above rather than below as though a giant hound had the roof of the Orpheum in its jaws and was shaking for all it was worth. Those around ducked or fell to the ground covering their heads against the new projectiles plummeting from the ceiling—lights, acoustic tiles, pieces of scaffolding.

And then the most dangerous thing yet—Set descending from the “heavens” of the theatre on a cloud just like the one on which we'd fought him. Only he no longer looked like the myths painted him—skin white as birch, hair red as blood, terrifying and unnatural. He looked as the reverend under his influence had primed the crowd to expect, as
belief
had painted him. He looked beatific. He looked like an angel or, more on point, like the Second Coming of the Christ himself.

We'd failed to kill Set while he was still imprisoned. What hope did we have now surrounded by true believers who would give their lives for his and who fed his power?

That was the whole thing, wasn't it? We had to strike at the heart of the belief. Which meant first shutting down the chaos field that made us all look like angels and demons.

I struggled to my feet, momentarily ignored as all attention turned to Set. Anat, Astarte and Neith all closed in to guard him. Believers moved in to touch even the hem of his robe, which was what he'd appeared in, looking like the Western world's sandy-haired, blue-eyed idealization of Jesus that appeared in about every picture I'd ever seen. Biblically, even touching the hem of Jesus's robe would heal a man. What would Set's touch do to his faithful? I shuddered to think.

While everyone moved toward him, I looked away. Into the wings, where the chaos field
was guarded only by a sociopathic college boy fused with the disembodied soul of an ancient killer. Because things weren't weird enough.

Like everyone else, Ian was fixated on Set. I leapt up into the air, but my wings, mashed by Neith's shield, barely flapped, and I fell back to the stage with a thud. My attempt had caught Ian's attention, though, and as I raced toward him through the thickness of the oncoming crowd, he lunged for the closest true believer and held her tightly against his body, producing a small, thin knife from somewhere and holding it to her neck. She struggled against it, registering nothing but her need to get to the vision in the center of the stage. Her blood instantly coated the blade, dripping down his hand.

I didn't pause, knowing I couldn't. The life of one versus the fate of the world…it shouldn't have been any contest, but every step forward the knife pressed farther into her flesh and I felt her pain as though it was my own. I held on to the hope that Ian wouldn't kill her, at least not right away, because then she'd be useless as a shield. Of course, I had no idea how much sanity was left inside not-Ian for logic to penetrate.

When I was nearly close enough to grab for him, Ian shifted the knife, holding it now more like an icepick that he was ready to plunge into the side of her neck. “That's close enough,” he said.

“No,” I answered. “It really isn't. Ian, what do you think's going to happen here? Set doesn't need you anymore. Already, you've been sidelined, waiting in the wings while Set gets all the real action.”

He laughed maniacally. “Is that your plan? You're going to talk me to death? Give it up. Set needs worship.
Human
worship. And I am his conduit.
You
are nothing but in the way.”

Without warning, he stabbed the knife he held deep into the woman's neck, and yanked it back out. As her blood fountained, he threw her at me and dashed away.

Instinctively, I caught her, lowering her to the ground and pressing my hand hard against her neck, even though I knew it was futile. With the pressure of the blood spray, he'd hit something vital, probably severed her jugular. She was going to bleed out in seconds, and Ian was getting away. I said a quick prayer over her, my hurried version of last rites, before lowering her body to the floor and taking off after Ian.

I didn't see him until a clatter above gave him away. Or maybe he'd wanted me to look, to root me in that spot, because the next thing I knew, I was leaping to the side to avoid a light plunging straight for me…a big one. It crashed to the ground with an explosion of sharp glass and busted metal flying like shrapnel. I caught a piece of it in my calf, the lancing pain blinding me for a split second. I tried my wings again, and this time they worked a little better than before, healed enough to lift me into the air, if not confidently.

I sped toward the catwalks and grabbed Ian by one foot, holding on to it as I pulled myself up. He kicked at me with the other, but couldn't get much of his foot through the latticework of the catwalk, and the slight impact barely registered over the pain in my calf.

But as soon as I'd climbed high enough to haul myself over the waist-high bar, Ian grabbed me by the hair, that wild hair that was the bane of my existence, and I cursed that the chaos field had turned me into the image Set wanted projected rather than emphasizing my gorgon side. I'd have given anything at that moment for my curls to turn to asps and bite Ian until he collapsed from the venom.

He tried to shove me back, but I grabbed for anything that would hold me there—years of my phobia of heights momentarily blanking out the fact that I had wings and wouldn't plummet to my death. My hand closed around his medallion, which burned icy cold, like touching dry ice. Instinct insisted I let go, but I fought it. Instead, I yanked hard, hoping that the chain would give way, but it wasn't so easy.

Neither was victory. Ian still had the bloody knife he'd used to impale the poor woman below. He'd tucked it into his belt when he'd climbed the catwalk, but now he whipped it out again. I couldn't escape it
and
keep hold of the medallion. He stabbed it into my shoulder, sending shockwaves of pain all through my arm. My hand spasmed open, and Ian started to pull away, but I forced it to close again, ignoring the pain and the weakening I felt. According to the chaos, I was an agent of evil, a locust, sent to torment mankind. That had to count for something…

My tail…it whipped uselessly behind me, not thin enough to slip through the catwalk latticework or long enough to reach all the way above me and sting Ian to stone. Despite the fact that he was still human and my client's brother, I was getting dangerously close to not caring.

Ian ratcheted his hand back for another stab at me, and I knew I had to do something fast. I'd never used my wings for anything but flapping, but now I tried to sweep them over the rail of the catwalk, to hold me firm so that I could get my feet onto the rails and use the leverage to burst upward, yanking the chain up and over his head. I scrabbled at the base of the catwalk and latched on with one foot as the knife came back. The second foot caught as the knife struck, and I launched myself up like a rocket taking the knife, now embedded in my forearm, with me.

It took everything I had to keep a grip on the medallion when my muscles wanted to give in, drained of fight and draining of blood, but I kept it clasped in my hand as I skyrocketed, pulling the chain up over Ian's head. He reached for me as I went, but he missed, and had to catch himself on the rail as he overbalanced and would have gone over.

I had to do something about the medallion before my strength gave out—transfer it to my other hand or…

Put it over my neck.
Some kind of instinct kicked in, but I didn't know whether I could trust it. Was it my precog? My oracular powers growing ever greater…or was it the chaos field itself? I opened my hand just enough to get a look at the pendant within, now slick with the blood that had dripped down my arm. If I wore the amulet, would I have any control over it or would it control me?

I clenched my hand again and looked down at the chaos below. Set was laying on hands, “blessing” his followers. I couldn't see the looks on their faces. I didn't know if they'd been transfixed or transfigured, but I knew a false prophet when I saw one, and I knew I didn't have any other hope to fight Set.

I looked for the others, who hadn't yet been able to get anywhere near him, and for the first time, I spotted Nick. I didn't know when he'd arrived, but he was faced off with Neith, who looked a lot more ready to kill than kiss him.

“Nick!” I yelled, afraid to distract him, but even more afraid he wouldn't last long without help. “Get under her breastplate!”

He didn't spare me a glance. “I don't think now's the time,” he growled.

“No, seriously, she's being controlled. If you can break her free—”

Neith got in a blow just then, knocking his head to the side with the tip of her spear and going in with her sword. I couldn't distract him anymore. I had to end this.

My hand started to lift even before I was aware of making any decision, ready to drop the chain around my neck, but the knife in my forearm and the deep stab to the shoulder kept it from rising all the way. As I went to transfer it to my bloodless hand, my good hand, a sudden vision gripped me. Thousands slaughtered. Hundreds of thousands. People dead in the streets. So many there weren't enough left alive to bury all the dead. A whole city of carrion and vultures…and I wasn't talking Hollywood agents.

And me, flying above it all. Laughing…having become that which Set had made me.

The amulet had to be destroyed. Now, before…

I looked around frantically for Apollo. The amulet was made of metal, gold in tone, maybe in reality. There was one surefire way I knew to slag metal, and that was with extreme heat.

He must have heard me call for him mentally, because in the huge melee, one face turned toward me. Astarte tried to run Apollo through as he turned, but Sigyn hit her upside the head with something, screwing with her aim and drawing her attention. I guessed that answered the question of whose side she was on.

“Apollo,” I called, “slag this!”

I held the amulet aloft in my good hand, up over my head.

Set let out a huge roar and started to rise from his worshippers to come after me, but suddenly all the lights of the stage—
all of them—
swiveled toward me, flaring and burning with the light of a thousand suns. I had to turn my eyes away, but the brightness burned even through my closed lids. And my hand…the heat was so intense, it was all I could do not to drop the amulet…and then that wasn't even an option, as the superheated metal started to flow like oil, coating my hand with the burn.

Set flew into me, sending me reeling, and I reached out with my burning hand to push him away, the molten metal there scalding him on contact. I ripped away some of his skin when I pulled back, tearing away his illusion with it.

He floated there now, in the heavens of the theatre with me, revealed for his true self—hair flaming, skin unnaturally white, like something hidden for centuries away from the sun, eyes black as night.

Below, people gasped. Some yelled that it must be a trick, that I'd done something to him. Others fell to their knees and wept.

Set snarled. It pulled badly at his burned face, and when I bit my lip and spat my blood at the raw section where the skin had come away, he began to freeze that way…or, rather, petrify. His face half stone now, set in a perpetual snarl, he lashed out at me, swinging with a hand that quickly became a claw. He was giving himself away now, changing forms. I was no longer the one bearing the scorpion's tail.