Rise of the Blood (21 page)

“Spiro.”

I took the flask from Althea, who protested, and tested a drop myself.

“Whiskey,” I said.

“What did you expect?” Althea demanded, swiping the flask from me and handing it to Tina, who took a huge swig.

Althea grabbed it back. “Enough. That ought to warm you up.”

Tina coughed and nodded.

Althea dropped to her knees in front of Tina.

“It’s not too late to back out. Say the word and we’ll have you out of here.”

“What?” I pushed Althea out of the way and squatted down to Tina’s eye level. “You love him, right?”

Tina looked apologetically at Althea and nodded back at me.

“You want to marry him?”

She swallowed hard and brushed away at tears that threatened to fall and undo her perfect makeup. “Yes,” she said.

“So don’t let the cameras stop you. Don’t let
anything
stop you. The important thing here is that at the end of the day, you’re married, right?”

Tina sniffled.

“Right?” I asked again.

“Right,” she echoed.

She took a deep breath and smoothed down her dress as she stood. “I’m ready.”

“Good, because so are they,” Junessa said, peeking out through the door. “Let’s go.”

Tina went first, leading the way back into the small foyer where Uncle Christos and the groomsmen waited to escort us in.

She smiled transcendently and took Christos’s arm. I looked away, wishing I could appreciate the moment, but trying to spot whatever it was tying my stomach in knots. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, but my inner alarms wouldn’t cease. I was wired. I wished I’d had more of that whiskey to settle
my
nerves.

Ernest held out his arm for me to take, and as I did he whispered, “Everything okay?”

“I hope so,” I whispered back.

Then we were walking down the aisle—slowly, as we’d been taught. Step. Pause. Step. Pause. I forced myself to smile at everyone, looking for particular faces in the crowd. Apollo with Serena right there beside him, Jesus, Hermes and Christie, Uncle Hector,
Nick
, looking handsome and alert, as though he sensed something as well. Spiro, Mom and Dad, Yiayia and Fergus… Everyone I knew and loved in one place. Disaster
could not
strike. If the prophetess Cassandra had been cursed with the inability to change the futures she could see, it meant that changing them was a possibility in the normal course of things. I had to hang onto that thought.

I just prayed I’d be part of the solution and not the problem. I put Rhea out of my mind and hoped she’d stay out.

We reached the front of the small church, and Christos kissed Tina on both cheeks before surrendering her to Jason. Then everyone turned toward the priest. I fixed Tina’s train as she took her place beside her groom and then she handed me her bouquet. It took a superhuman effort to turn my back on the congregation. An entire church full of potential trouble, and I had to face forward.

My back itched. My nerves jittered. My stomach danced the
syrtos
, at least staying in the wedding theme, but as each second ticked by and nothing happened, the constriction around my heart started to ease.

Behind the altar, the candles flickered, but no more or less than they should. The happy couple stood gazing into each others’ eyes, hands clasped, bodies straining toward each other. Tina was beautiful. Her veil, sequined along the scalloped edges like the bodice of her dress, caught and reflected the light, which didn’t even come close to matching the luminescence of her eyes. Jason looked at her like they were the only two people in the world, and seemed to pull himself out of a trance each time a response was demanded of him.

It would have been perfect, if not for the nettling sense of doom pricking at each one of my nerves. I waited for the “kiss the bride” part of the ceremony with held breath, which I realized only when spots began to form in front of my eyes.

Althea elbowed me in the side like she knew I was in danger of passing out, and I let the breath out in a gasp, sucking more in and then holding that like I couldn’t help myself. I tensed for the words…or for disaster. When the priest finally spoke them, I didn’t know who was more elated—me or the bride and groom.

Tina’s smile lit the room, and she threw herself into Jason’s arms as though she’d barely been holding back. As soon as their lips touched, the earth moved.

Literally
.

Gasps sounded throughout the church, even from the bride, but Jason only pulled Tina closer as if he thought she was the one rocking his world. Candles toppled from the altar, and Junessa screamed as one caught her dress. She brushed at it, and it flew into one of the altar cloths, which were already starting to smoke from one of the other candles. I lunged to rip it off the altar, but before I could, it burst into full-on flames. The ground bucked again, more violently this time, and I fell forward toward the blaze. I’d been planning to smother the flames, not snuff them out with my own body, but as I went down, I grabbed at the cloth, which tore free of the altar, falling all around me, along with the branches and berries that had sat atop it. The branches also started to smoke, but were still green enough not to catch…yet. I’d stopped and dropped, now I rolled, desperately trying to smother the flames.

All around there were screams and running feet. Someone yanked at the cloth engulfing me, trying to get me free. It was Junessa, offering a hand to help me up.

We looked quickly around the little chapel filling with smoke, the priest yelling instructions for evacuation, ushering the newly bound bride and groom out and calling to the altar servers to grab holy water and to pray.

Nick dashed to the nave to take me off Junessa’s hands, and together we all ran for the door of the chapel. It was bottlenecked by panicked people, including Apollo and Serena, who was frantically trying to turn
back
, into the church. At first, I thought she was mad with terror, but then I realized she must have left something behind. Something important? Like her purse with the power she held over Apollo. Our eyes met, his and mine, and I mouthed, “Get her out.”

He nodded and I stood on my toes to give Nick a quick kiss on the cheek before bucking his grip and promising, “Be right back.”

I whirled and pushed through a stunned crowd of fleeing people back into the church. They let me go, more interested in taking my place closer to the door than in stopping the crazy lady who wanted to run
into
the flames.

Smoke clouded my vision as I raced to the pews. The priest yelled at me to get out, but I was on a mission. I ran to the pew where I thought I’d seen Apollo and Serena earlier. I could barely see the bench, but I felt along it. Nothing. Coughing now with the smoke clogging my lungs, I dropped to the ground to search beneath the seats. My hand encountered papers and a pair of shoes—high heels someone had left behind in their haste to escape. I despaired finding Serena’s talisman when I encountered something pliable and beaded. A purse! I grabbed it
and
the heels, hoping and praying one held the key, and bolted, wheezing, for the door, which had already spat out the fleeing guests. I had to dodge a fireman racing his way in, but then I was out of the burning building.

More firemen rushed the entrance, one grabbing and moving me away at speed, turning me over to a paramedic who’d just arrived on the scene. I refused medical treatment and went for Nick, who met me halfway, having seen me escape the church.

“Here, stash this,” I said, shoving the purse at him.

He gave me a disbelieving look, but grabbed it all the same to conceal under his suit jacket.

Then he grabbed me and kissed me for all he was worth, which was a helluva lot in my book. I was breathless when he let me go and not because of the fire.

“Don’t do that again,” he ordered.

“I won’t,” I promised, leaning into him. “But I think that’s Serena’s purse and that it may hold the spell petrifying Apollo.”

His expression turned grim and I knew then I was losing him. I’d left him and safety to run into a burning building, just like I’d left him aboard the storm-lashed plane. I’d risked my life for a purse, all to help Apollo. I’d have done the same for him or Tina or…but the fact that it was for his rival made all the difference.

In my turmoil it took me longer than it should have to realize that the tremors had stopped and that no attack had followed, which baffled me. If Zeus Earthshaker and Poseidon Stormbringer had been behind things, surely they’d have brought the church down around us. This didn’t feel like them, which meant that it was another thing entirely. The unknown. I didn’t like it one bit.

The earthquake had to be a side effect of something else, because Delphi was
not
known to shake, rattle and roll, and the idea that it would suddenly do so while we were on site…too much coincidence to credit.

But what then?

Jesus sprang out of the crowd toward us muttering a string of Spanish that seemed three quarters prayer and half curse, which even I knew didn’t add up.

He stopped just short of us and applied hands to hips. “Chica, I love Ferragamo as much as the next person, but even I wouldn’t have dived back into a burning building for them!” 

Ferragamo?
Oh right, the shoes.

The absurdity of it all struck me suddenly funny, but my laugh turned into a cough almost instantly.

Yiayia approached as I was fighting it off and I was so glad to see her that I nearly threw myself into her arms…before I saw the look on her face.

“Tori, what the
hell
is going on? That was no natural quake. During your
cousin’s wedding
and everything. What have you brought down on us?”

My whole body went cold, frozen out by her words. “Me? What do I have to do with anything? I don’t have the power to shake the earth.”

I’d gotten loud, and people around us were turning to gawk.

“Trouble always finds you. Or you find it.”

It hurt to breathe, but this time I knew it wasn’t the smoke. So much for returning to the family fold. Lenny Rialto had kicked me out for turning up trouble. The family had more or less washed its hands of me. I’d thought that finding and rescuing Uncle Christos had won my way back in, but apparently, it had been short-lived. Even Yiayia, who’d always stuck by me, now sounded ready to be done.

The worst part was, I couldn’t even tell her she was wrong. With Rhea playing ride-along, I held the potential for destruction inside of me. Despite what I’d said, I
could
shake the earth. Or
she
could, and had back at the police station.

Rhea
. Could it be? Wouldn’t I have known? Or did it somehow have to do with that head-nodding from my fellow prisoner back at the jail? Was it possible I wasn’t alone in my possession? That somehow, like disaster coverage, Rhea could show on multiple screens at once? If so…if so, she could be anywhere. In anyone. And if this was like a multiplication dance where I tag three people and each of them tag three people…how long before the possession or mesmerism or whatever this was spread like an infection? I’d been worried about Zeus and Poseidon, Hermes and his addiction schemes, but an invasion from within…how did we fight that?

“Tori!” Nick snapped—literally and figuratively—in my face. “Tori, come back to us. What’s the matter?”

“Only everything.” I looked for Uncle Hector in the crowd and spotted him not far away, watching us. “I think it’s time to rally the troops,” I told him. “So far we’ve been reactive. I think it’s time we change that.” I grabbed his hand and started for Uncle Hector…Pan. That was going to take some getting used to.

“Wait,” Yiayia said with a hand to my arm that wouldn’t have stopped me if I’d been really determined to get away. “That really wasn’t you in there, was it?”

“No. I’m sorry you didn’t know that.” I took my hand back. “I really didn’t start this, any of it, but I’m going to finish it.”

“How can I help?” she asked.

I looked at her and at Fergus standing behind her. How much did he know about Yiayia’s crazy beliefs? Did it really matter?

“For now just see that all the wedding guests get back safely to the hotel.”

I turned for Uncle Hector again, to find Apollo, Althea and Junessa converging as well.

“What was
that
all about?” Althea asked, but it was a general question, not directed at me. The knot in my chest didn’t loosen, but I could breathe through it.

I had a horrible fear I might even know the answer, though saying it out loud seemed to somehow make it real.

I looked at everybody, weighing my words. “When Rhea was in my head she ranted about the time for the Olympians being past and about it being time for the titans. The last time I felt the earth shake like this a dragon had awakened…” from its slumber at the peak of Mount Lee in L.A. Its rise had knocked the Hollywood sign askew. “Do you think she could be awakening the titans?”

Silence met my question. I’d been hoping someone would tell me I was crazy, that the titans had died out ages ago, but I could tell from the looks on their faces that no one would be laying my fears to rest.

“Where’s Serena?” I asked Apollo, like he was her keeper.

“She’s trying to convince the firemen to rescue her purse,” he said with a grim smile. “I made sure she left it behind when I dragged her out.”

Nick and I exchanged a look. “You mean this purse?” he asked, letting it peek out from beneath his jacket.

Apollo’s eyes widened. “You couldn’t have just let it burn?”

I stared at him. Nick stared at me, and I got a sinking feeling. “You mean fire would have done the trick?”

“Maybe. Hector told me about your theory. If whatever she’s using to fuel her spell is inside, fire should have cancelled it out. It’s anathema to water.”

“Gah!” I poured my frustration into that one word, but it was inadequate for the job.

“Never mind,” Apollo said, amusement trying to twitch the petrified planes of his face into a smile. “Now that we have it, I know just what to do.”