I was ready to reach my foot over the central console and step on the gas for her, but Christie didn’t even pop the parking brake before she was backing out. Still the van had vanished by the time we hit the street.
“Which way?” she asked.
But the trouble was headed away from rather than toward me, and my oracular powers were no help at all.
I sighed deeply. “I have no idea. Might as well head back to the hotel.”
“Yay!” she said. “So we have the rest of the night to ourselves? Chick flick and ice cream?” Her eyes glowed, but not in the supernatural sense.
“Like you eat ice cream.”
“I eat ice cream like you watch chick flicks. We’ll compromise.”
“Chick flick with action?” I asked.
“Fat-free frozen yogurt?”
I stuck my tongue out. “What’s the point?”
“Sorry about losing the van,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it. At least I got the partial plate.”
“So what’s wrong with the food?” she asked. “And what are you going to do with it? Take it to a lab? Go all CSI?”
Questions I didn’t have answers for. How I knew…that one I could sidestep. But what was I going to do with the samples? I didn’t suppose the police generally tested for ambrosia or even knew it existed.
“It’s…something I’ve encountered before. As soon as I tasted it, I knew. The Rustic Potato is putting an additive into their food that makes it highly addictive.”
“Can they do that?” she gasped.
“Not legally. But this is so new, I don’t think the FDA’s even aware of it yet.”
“But you are?”
“I came across it during another investigation. It’s bad news.”
“So if it’s not illegal, how do we stop them?”
“You know the Feds I was telling you about?”
She nodded.
“Maybe they can help.”
But did I want to go there? That was the question. If the Feds already knew about the ambrosia, it was no harm, no foul. Maybe linking it to Back to Earth would give them an excuse to raid the whole set-up and free the cult members.
On the other hand, raids on cults had been known to mean Very Bad Things for the members. I thought of Waco, particularly, but other cults, like Heaven’s Gate and Jonestown weren’t far behind.
I’d have to get assurances… But even then, what if their investigation led the Feds to Apollo and my supply line? That’d be one way to quit, but as ambivalent as I was about Apollo, I just couldn’t throw him under the bus. Not when he’d given me that first dose of ambrosia to save my life, by his way of thinking. Apollo had a habit of doing the wrong things for the right reasons and totally mucking them up for the mortals involved, but that didn’t make him a bad person…god…whatever.
I was afraid I was starting to think like an addict, making excuses to perpetuate my use. I couldn’t be sure my motives were pure, and that scared the hell out of me. Was I reasoning or rationalizing? There wasn’t anyone to ask.
“Tori?” Christie prodded.
I wondered how long I’d been pondering and whether she’d said anything in the meantime when she saved me by repeating herself. “I asked if you were going to call them.”
“Who?”
“The Feds.”
She shifted suddenly across two lanes to take a left hand turn she’d nearly missed. I braced for an impact that never came. I sometimes wondered if she had her very own guardian angel. Why not? I had a god on speed dial.
“I’m too busy praying for my life,” I answered under my breath.
“What’s that?”
“Car!” I shouted.
For a second, I thought we and the SUV next to us were going to try to occupy the same space. I didn’t think it would go well for us. Christie yanked the steering wheel back to center, and I swallowed my heart, which had jumped into my throat.
“Sorry!” Christie said, shooting me a glance.
“Eyes on the road!”
“Okay, jeez. What was in that food?”
Clearly not Valium.
Christie and I ended up back at the hotel with some froufrou wraps. Hers included alfalfa sprouts and other greenery that only a rabbit could love. Mine…didn’t. We also ended up with not one, but two pints of ice cream—one for each of us, since Christie stuck to her guns on the no fat/no fun version, and I insisted in quadruple fudge decadence. I figured the heart attack she’d nearly given me on the drive over had probably goosed my metabolism to the point where I could take it. And anyway, ambrosia gave me the munchies.
“I don’t know how you can eat that crap and stay so skinny,” Christie said, eyeing my spicy Italian wrap—salami, pepperoni, ham and provolone with salt, pepper and a dash of vinaigrette dressing.
I looked down at myself, as if to double-check her perceptions. “Um, thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“So, which should we watch first?” she asked. “Romancing the Stone or True Lies?”
“Which has the higher body count?”
She rolled her eyes at me, and we settled down for a girls’ night in.
Chapter Nine
“The difference between a mare and a nightmare is one you ride, the other rides you.”
—Gus Karacis, head of the Karacrobats
The nightmares closed in on me like a pack of rabid dogs with the decaying flesh of the last person they’d torn apart still trapped in their teeth. Poisonous breath laced with the stench of death.
I was in a field, the same one I’d tasted in that single bite from The Rustic Potato. In the way of dreams, I knew it was the same, even though there was no way I could have. Also in the way of dreams, seasons didn’t matter. I stood in that field chest high with golden wheat—golden something, anyway—even though it was spring, and there was no way it would be more than a gleam in the sun’s eye.
I spun around in the field, my face turned toward the sun, my arms flung out, the breeze blowing my pitch-black hair into my face like a lash. It stung, and I brushed it back only to find that the sky had darkened. Clouds replaced the strands of hair blotting out the sun. They were thin dark wisps, like fingers, skeletal and reaching. It sent a chill over my heart, and I looked around for shelter, as though the darkness was a danger and my life would be snuffed out along with the light.
The sun was no longer warm on my face. The wind no longer blew. It blasted, picking up debris as it whipped through the field, throwing it into my eyes and mouth. I tried to breathe through my nose, but the stench of death came to me on the breeze, choking me. It poisoned my every breath, as if I took in shards of fiberglass, ripping their way through my sinuses, tearing through my lungs. I started to panic.
My frantic search for safety turned up nothing but a solitary figure far off in the distance. He waved to me, calling me over, and I started to race toward him. The wheat stung me like switches, but I didn’t stop. My face and arms turned slick with blood or sweat; my lungs labored.
Behind me the thing with the charnel house breath pursued. Teeth snapped, tearing at my clothes, nearly taking me down. I jerked with each snap, tearing myself free again.
The figure I was racing toward was just coming into focus. Familiar. So familiar. And yet, I didn’t dare hope. I knew that. The gasp of breath I took in at the sight of him hurt like hell—no longer shards, but throwing knives of cutting pain. Uncle Christos. Alive. Calling for me.
The sight gave me wings. I put on an extra burst of speed, only to rear back like a startled horse when another, darker figure rose up out of the ground between us. He was cloaked and cowled.
And this time he’d brought his sickle. He swept at the wheat between us, cutting it down like he’d cut me down in another step.
My recoil brought me into range of the dagger-teeth pursuing me, and the agony as they clamped down put all the rest to shame. The teeth tore into my shoulder, and I could feel the flesh shriveling away fro
m them on contact, dying, their poison shutting me down cell by cell. The sickle flashed in the last shards of sunlight, streaking straight for me.
“No!” I cried. “Christos!”
“A life for a life,” a voice cracked like lightning across the sky. Not thunder, which was a rumble, but truly lightning, electric and deadly.
“No!” This time the cry was cut short by the biting blade.
My whole body spasmed as I screamed and thrashed, as if I could stop death with a badly aimed blow. The darkness was complete, the chill my world.
I made impact with something, though, and it shrieked.
“Tori, Tori, WAKE UP!” Christie said. “Tori, you’re having a nightmare. And you hit me.”
My heart stopped. Christie? What was she doing here? It was too dangerous.
“Christie, run!” I said. The shards of air had scored my throat. The words were barely intelligible.
Then the blow landed across my cheek. “I said wake up, dammit!”
My eyes popped open, but couldn’t make sense of what they saw. “Christie?” I asked, even though the answer was obvious.
“In the flesh,” she said.
What happened next was the most startling thing of all—I burst into tears. Huge, great, gasping sobs. Each breath still hurt, but the fact that I could take them…
Christie dropped down on the bed next to me and folded me up in her arms like I was her child. “Shh, Tori, it’s all right. Whatever it is.”
“I almost died,” I choked out, sure it was true, even if it didn’t make a bit of sense. “Christos…he’s waiting for me to ride to the rescue, and I was never going to get there.”
She pretended I wasn’t a babbling idiot whose very sanity she was questioning and rocked me like a three-year-old with the night terrors. I was so shaken that I let her. I hadn’t cried in…possibly ever. But this time there’d been no Fates intervening on my behalf. If I hadn’t woken up…
I wondered how long Christie had been calling to me, and if she’d just saved my life.
I got myself under control, wiped my nose on the back of my hand like the classy broad I was, and tried to turn it into a joke.
“Sorry, Chris. I guess I’m the worst roommate ever.”
“At least you don’t snore,” she said, looking terribly serious about it.
Our eyes met, and we both broke into stupid hysterical giggles.
Chapter Ten
“When you’re sane, they call it prudence, not paranoia.”
—Christos Karacis
The digital clock said 3:16 a.m. It taunted me with its cheerful glow.
After a while, Christie went back to her own bed, pretending to believe my repeated assurances that it was nothing but “an undigested bit of beef.” Yes, I quoted Scrooge. I had enough to worry about without wondering what that said about my character.
In contrast to Christie, I laid awake staring at the ceiling or the wall or the clock or anything but the back of my eyelids. I spent all that time cursing Apollo. Before his “gift” of prophecy I could sleep in peace, knowing that a dream was just a dream. I didn’t have to wonder what it meant that death would strike me down in a field of gold. That dog breath would be my downfall. That Hades was coming for me. Anyway, that much I already knew. I guess if…when…I met him, I could compare his true voice against the one in my dream. Of course, by the time I could do that and know whether the dream held deeper meaning I’d probably only have seconds of life left to give a damn.
“But it wasn’t me!” I said aloud. “I didn’t open any damned portal to hell.”
Christie mumbled something and turned over in her sleep, and I instantly regretted my outburst. I’d already woken her up once. At least one of us should be getting our beauty rest. She had the best chance between us that it would take.
The air conditioner in the wall seemed to cough and rattle and shut off. I looked over to be sure that it was just resting and not dead, since that seemed to be the theme of the evening, and saw something glowing behind the curtains. Had the hounds of Hades found me already?
Paranoid, I told myself.
Duh, myself whispered back.
I had to know. Bracing myself to come face to face with the stuff of nightmares, I got out of bed and crept to the curtains. I took a deep breath, counted to three, and twitched them aside.
It was a car. Just a car. Or an SUV, actually. Someone had forgotten to turn off the headlights, and they were aimed straight for our room. Huffing at the lack of consideration, I pulled my shoes on—they coordinated so well with my ducky and bunny sleeping pants—and opened the door as quietly as I could. I realized as the air conditioner noisily kicked back on at the flood of hot air I’d let in that the way I’d chosen to deal with things was not necessarily quieter than picking up the phone and calling the front desk from the room. But I was committed now, and Christie was still asleep, so no harm, no foul. I grabbed my keycard off the desk by the door, eased myself out and the door shut behind me.
I knew almost immediately that something was wrong. I couldn’t have said exactly how. Just that the night seemed…dead. There was no movement. Not even the breeze from my dream. The early warning system in my mind went on alert, flashing lights at me if not setting sirens wailing.
This time when my brain taunted me about paranoia, I was able to tell myself to shut it in no uncertain terms.
thought, to be caught without a weapon. No gun, pepper spray or so much as a pocket knife. I was armed only with my keycard and my wits. I wasn’t exactly oozing with faith in either. I debated ducking back into the room. Probably it was the safest survival strategy, but if whatever was out there didn’t care for locked doors and Do Not Disturb signs, then I’d be inviting trouble in to meet Christie.Stupid, stupid, stupid, I
If I continued on to the front office, would I be leading danger away or leaving her defenseless?
I decided not to find out. Do the unexpected.
I stepped out into the parking lot, right in front of the headlights glaring straight at our window, making it impossible to see beyond them.
“You want a piece of me?” I asked the night. “Well, here I am, all defenseless.” I hoped my very bravado would make whoever was there think I protested too much and second guess the wisdom of attack.
It came out of nowhere. One second I was standing, daring danger. The next a ten-ton truck flying-tackled me to the ground, and I was kissing pavement. Tiny little stones ground into my cheek and diced the hands that I’d flung out to catch myself. The ten-ton tackle landed hard on my back, making my skin and those rocks seem to occupy the same space. The weight on my back was too much for me to fill my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. The parking lot lights seemed to blur and recede away from me. I realized that it was my consciousness fading, and I fought it, desperate to turn my gorgon gaze on my attacker…only I could no more move than breathe.
A whistle split the air, and the weight on my back shifted, at first painfully. I could hear ribs groaning in protest. A sharp agony ripped through me as one didn’t creak so much as crack. Another jumped on the bandwagon. I gasped as the weight disappeared from my back to settle less completely and painfully on my legs…like a dog coming to heel.
I tried to twist, to get an eye on my attacker, but piercing pain shot across my chest, reminding me of the broken ribs. I was terrified I’d puncture a lung if I pushed it. I settled for moving as little as possible, just my head and shoulders off the ground looking instead for the source of the whistle. Not that I thought for a second the person on the other end of it was a friend. Someone had halted the attack, but I was willing to bet they’d started it as well.
The lights from the SUV shut off, but it didn’t stop the sight of the figure walking toward me. The parking lot lighting was enough.
Sauntering toward me was a man well over six feet, with wild Jonas-brothers hair, a back broad enough that he looked like he could take over for Atlas carrying the world on his shoulders. I wo
uldn’t have minded terribly getting a look at the rest of his body, but the shape was obscured by a pastel-blue jacket over a pale yellow shirt with a bright yellow cartoon sun ordering “Have a sun-shiny day!” I’d have laughed if I didn’t know how much it would hurt.
Plus, one did not laugh at the god of the dead. He was not reputed to have a sense of humor. Based on the T-shirt, his sense of irony might be another matter.
“Good dog,” he said as he neared. He lobbed something the size of a softball over my head, and I heard teeth snap together as something snatched it out of the air. My legs were starting to go numb, but I was fresh out of Hound of the Baskervilles-sized biscuits to lead the monster astray.
“Mizz Karacis,” Hades began, fire in his eyes taking the place of those dowsed headlights. Literal fire, flaming on like CGI effects around the irises, which were as dark as an underworld night. “I understand we have much to discuss.”
I had to spit to clear my throat. It hurt like, well, Hell, and I knew this was no mere nightmare, because those were supposed to be in black and white and what I’d hacked up was definitely red. As in blood. I knew that for a bad, bad sign. On reflection, the golden color of the field in my dream should have been a warning sign as well.
“Can’t…talk,” I managed. There was a wet gurgle to it that I didn’t like at all. My head was swimming, and Hades was starting to become a Dali-esque figure with a melty head that was no longer quite on straight.
He looked peeved, as if I’d been wounded just to thwart him.
In two strides he was by my side, squatting beside me, his whitewashed jeans just inches from my face. If I’d ever thought about it at all, I’d have guessed Hades would look like a badass biker or a metal-head—a cross between Ozzy Osborne, Dave Navarro and Alice Cooper. I’d never have guessed Don Johnson from Miami Vice with boy-band hair. It was too weird.
He took one of my hands in his, and a chill numbness started to seep outward from the contact to spread throughout my body. In two blinks of an eye, the pain was gone, but so was all other feeling. I couldn’t feel my heart. I couldn’t tell if it was still beating. I started to panic, yanking my hand back from his, but he had it in a death grip…literally.
Crazy in the Blood (Latter-Day Olympians) Page 9
