Rise of the Blood (20 page)

“How?” I asked.

“She’s a water divinity, right? Apollo said it happened when she walked in on him in the shower. That’s because she needed to catch him in
her
element.”

“Okay, how does that help us?”

“Apollo’s the sun god.”

“Yeah,” I said, not following.

“It’s not in his nature to change. He’s not fluid like water. He’s centered, steady, that around which things revolve.”

“Or so he’d like to think,” I muttered.

“That’s why he hasn’t petrified already. His own attributes fight against the transformation. That means this is an ongoing spell and they’re still battling it out. Serena’s not strong enough to do this on her own, I wouldn’t think, which means she’s got some kind of help, a talisman to enhance her power or an effigy she’s constructed to work sympathetic magic. All we have to do is find it. Junie and I have already tossed her room and it’s not there.”

“Which means she has it on her.”

“Bingo. And we’re going to get it. If not us, then Hector or Apollo. We’ve got it covered.”

It was the first good news I’d heard since I’d seen the tabloid back in L.A. But it wasn’t a done deal yet, and there was still the matter of Rhea. I knew Hector had told her about the goddess rising. I wondered if he’d filled her in on the rest, like the fact that Rhea could ride me like the city bus. I made sure to tell her, figuring she and Junie would be close enough at the wedding to take me down if I started to act out of character.

“Hector told me about that. But he also says that you saved Apollo’s life. Junie and I will keep an eye out for trouble. If we have to, we’ll stop you, but we’ll do our best to use non-lethal means.”

She grabbed my gown and changed gears so quickly I got whiplash. “Okay then, let’s get you suited up.”

There was a knock at the door, followed immediately by Tina’s voice. “Hurry up in there. We’re taking a few quick pics, then we’re off to the church!”

Althea held out my dress, and I carefully unbuttoned my shirt and dropped trou to step into it and shimmy it up my body, careful not to disturb a single curl. Althea zipped it for me, and I searched for my shoes. Golden sandals with straps that crisscrossed my ankles and tied at the back. Thankfully, they were flats, so that Tina could almost level the field when she donned her four-inch heels.

When I caught sight of the full effect in the mirror, I had to admit that the dresses maybe hadn’t been such a bad choice. The green somehow set off the amber of my eyes and my dark curls contrasted nicely, tumbling over the draping. I felt weirdly powerful. Almost goddess-like, only a lot less bloodthirsty than those I’d met so far.

“Do I have time to make a quick call?” I asked Althea.

“Really quick. I’ll cover for you.”

I went to the phone in the room and was especially careful putting the receiver up to my ear. I dialed Nick’s and my room.

“Tori?” he answered.

“It’s me.”

He let out a huge breath. “Thank God.”

“Want to walk me to the church? We’re headed down to the lobby in just a minute.” I needed to see him. Everything else was such a mess, but Nick…he was my touchstone, my normalcy in the midst of chaos. I was only just realizing how much that meant to me. He was straightforward, direct, by the book. With Nick, I never had to worry about ulterior motives, what game he was playing or who he really was. Unlike, it seemed, everybody else…including me. I didn’t even know who I’d be from one moment to the next.

“I’ll meet you down there,” he said.

Tina appeared in the doorway, hand on one hip. “Come on. The photographer wants to take some candid shots before we go down.”

I bit my lip rather than point out that they couldn’t exactly be candid if they were planned.

“See you in a few,” I told Nick and hung up.

Out in the main room, Tina posed facing a huge mirror with me pretending to adjust her veil. We all posed around her, admiring the ring. There was another candid of Tina holding the curtains back, looking wistfully out the room’s picture window at the view. There were a dozen or so more poses with a zillion shutter snaps for each before the photographer let us go. To her credit, they were quick. She set them all up and knocked ’em down.

I tried to focus on Tina and her day rather than the bodies, police investigation and impending doom. I hoped my smile looked natural, sure the photographer would have told me if it was too hideous. She’d already told us how to stand, where to look, how to cock our heads and stick out our chins and chests, lean in and generally contort ourselves into the world’s least comfortable positions for the sake of the “candid” camera angles.

Then we were on our way down. One of the primping people had gone ahead and caught us an elevator. I picked up Tina’s train and held it so it wouldn’t be caught in the doors. Her dress was a ruched, sequined fit and flare ball gown with the bling concentrated toward the top, getting scarcer and simpler toward the bottom. In her four-inch heels with her hair bigger than everyone else’s—more Marie Antoinette than Grecian goddess—she looked like Bridal Barbie. It was the first time since we were eleven that she could stand and almost look me in the eye.

“Thank you,” she said, as the elevator closed on us. “For being here, for finding Uncle Christos to give me away.”

I admit it, I got a little choked up.

“No problem. You’d do the same for me.”

“You look beautiful.”

“So do you,” I said, blinking away the tears in my eyes before they could dissolve the glue on the false eyelashes they’d given me.

We smiled at each other, and I could
almost
forget everything going on outside this elevator. Then it hit bottom, dinged and opened up, and I realized there was at least one thing I didn’t
want
to forget. Armani. Nick.

He stood there in a silver-gray open-necked shirt with no tie beneath a dark blue suit. He had actual product in his hair, it seemed, so that for once it didn’t flop over his amazing eyes that were just a shade lighter than his suit. He looked good enough to eat. Way too good to take to a public place where I’d be expected to keep my hands to myself. I wanted to drag him back into the room and rip the rest of the buttons off his shirt.

He licked his lips as he looked at me, those incredible eyes growing darker as they did when he wanted to drag
me
off somewhere private. I didn’t know if we were okay yet, but it was clear that at least we weren’t finished with each other. That was something.

I forgot to pick up Tina’s train as she exited the elevator, instead going right to Nick. I waited for him to open his arms, to take me into them and hold me so that I could apologize and…but he just stood there, arms at his sides.

My heart fell until he said, “I’m afraid to touch you. You’re so perfect.”

“Oh no,” Tina cut in as I was about to tell him he was being ridiculous, “No touching. Not until after the ceremony and the pictures.”

Nick looked amused and offered me an arm instead of a hug or a kiss. Apparently,
that
was okay, because Tina didn’t protest when I slid my hand along his forearm and held on.

Uncle Christos stood a few feet away with his date, Detective Beverly Simon of the LAPD. Clearly, we Karacis investigators had a type. He kissed her warmly on the cheek and left her to offer his arm to Tina, since he was standing in for the parents she’d lost.

Tina looked sad for a moment, maybe thinking of them, but then Uncle Christos smiled that infectious smile he had and said, “If I had a daughter, I’d want her to be just like you. You look beautiful, m’dear. Like a cake topper.”

“Or Bridal Barbie,” I said, out loud this time.

Christos laughed so loudly that everyone stared. “Bridal Barbie, only better, because you are Greek!”

“Hear hear!” a voice agreed wholeheartedly. I recognized it as Hermes, and looked to see Christie beside him in a dazzling silver sheath dress.

Another person to protect.
That was what ran through my head. My heart started to pound, and I didn’t know if it was pessimism or precognition—fear or knowledge that something would go wrong.

I looked for Jesus, wondering what
he’d
say about my transformation, but I didn’t see him. Clipboard guy stepped up to block my view of the others assembled and clapped to call us all to places in the procession. We were walking to the church. Tina had told me about this bit. Paper lanterns—luminaries—had been lit and placed all along the sidewalks of the short walk to the church, and the hero and heroine of the film were to first catch sight of each other in the candlelight, which meant that Apollo and Serena were here somewhere. It also meant that Nick got pushed aside in favor of my matching groomsman, Jason’s cousin Ernest, who had the most pronounced Adam’s apple I’d ever seen and who turned pink every time I looked at him. I thought he was going to have a stroke when I had to take his arm.

Uncle Christos walked almost at march, standing every centimeter of his five-foot-nine height, looking like a proud papa as he escorted Tina out of the hotel. Lining the streets were luminaries, light diffusers, roving cameramen and others high up in a cherry picker for the overhead shots. I did my best not to look at any of the cameras, which was fairly easy because the paper lanterns were so beautiful. Like something out of a dream or, yes, a romantic film. I wished it was Nick’s arm I was holding.

“That your boyfriend back there?” Ernest asked, nodding behind us toward where Nick and everyone else followed.

“Yeah,” I said, wondering whether it was okay for us to be talking. Tina hadn’t said, but I doubted the cameras would do more than pan past us, so I wasn’t too worried.

“He going to kill me for laying a hand on you?”

I laughed at that thought, and suddenly the image of a sword slashing and blood flying rose up to choke me and I stumbled.

Ernest caught me with a hand under my elbow. “I’m sorry, I was only kidding. I didn’t mean for you to take me seriously. I’m terrible at small talk, as you can see.”

I fought down the bile that had burned its way up my throat, leaving it stripped and raw. “It’s okay,” I rasped out. “I just…I’m no good at it either.” I worked to put a smile on my face. “No, he won’t kill you. He might even thank you for preventing me from falling on my face.”

“But it was my fault you stumbled. I shocked you.”

“Oh, it takes a lot more than that to shock me. It’s just been a long day.”

“I heard about your concussion. That’s probably it then, you’re still a little dizzy, between the altitude and the knock to the head—”

Oh gods. I hadn’t been looking or thinking beyond the lanterns. I hadn’t been thinking about the height…until then. Panic started to rise.

“Ernest, um, I don’t think we’re supposed to be talking. Maybe I should just focus on putting one foot in front of the other?”

His face went from pink to red. “Oh, yeah, sorry.”

He looked miserable and embarrassed, and I swore to make it up to him as soon as I could breathe without hyperventilating. If they sat us together at the reception, maybe I could give him my cake…if the ambrosia munchies allowed.

We made it to the oversized oaken doors of the church without incident. No Rhea. No quakes or men in black. No police or portents, except for the vague queasiness in my belly.

The doors opened before us, as if by magic, to reveal the inside of the church, lit by more of the paper lanterns, as well as candles over every surface. Branches had been laid along either side of the white runner that led toward the altar, heavy with deep green leaves and red berries. Straight ahead, the set designers had created a bower from a white trellis strung with climbing vines of what appeared to be poppies, only I didn’t think they grew that way, and little white mini-lights that glowed like fireflies. The altars were decorated with more of the berry-laden branches with flickering tea lights.

All I could see was doom. The place was a fire hazard, and the sickness in my stomach grew.

Clipboard guy hustled the women of the bridal party into a small anteroom, mercifully candle-free, and sent the men off to seat the guests.

I smiled at Ernest as he bowed to take his leave. Old-fashioned and charming. He dashed away, and as the doors closed us off from the guys, Tina suddenly folded like a subway map. I caught her before she could fall.

“Chair, someone!” I ordered, looking around for one myself.

Junessa was there in a flash with a folding chair from the stack against one wall. I lowered Tina into it. Her eyes were wide and shocky. “I can’t do it,” she said, her gaze meeting mine in appeal. “I thought I could, but I can’t. The cameras—
on film.
They
say the camera adds ten pounds. What if I look huge? What if I stumble over my lines? What if they call ‘cut’ in the middle of my wedding?” Her voice rose with every word. “
What was I thinking?
”

“Get her a glass of—something,” I said to whoever would listen. Althea and Junessa exchanged a look. There was clearly nothing in this little room where they kept vestments and extra odds and ends. Althea let herself out of the room to find something, and I squatted in front of Tina and took her hands.

“Breathe,” I said. “Just breathe.”

The vision hit me like a two-ton truck. Tina gripping Jason as the earth lurched beneath their feet, screaming, fire erupting, panic and pain.

I let go of her hands with a gasp.

“What? What is it?” she asked. “Tori?”

I shook my head, trying to erase the vision like the lines from an Etch A Sketch, but it wasn’t that easy. Not nearly.

My heart pounded, but I made myself put on a show for Tina, starting with a smile.

“Nothing, just…your hands are so cold.”

Tina gave a little laugh. “Only because yours are so hot. You’re burning up!”

Probably my body trying to fight something off—like a body-stealing mother goddess.

Althea came rushing back with a flask.

“Whose?” I asked before I’d let her pass it to Tina. All we needed was the bride hooked on nectar or something to really kick this crisis into high gear.