Accidentally Aphrodite (25 page)

And okay, it was scary to look at her in all this fury Quinn didn’t understand the reasons behind.

But damn, she had some firm grip.

Quinn grabbed at the woman’s hand, tearing at it, unable to breathe. Now probably wouldn’t be the time to bemoan the fact that she hadn’t been turned into a vampire or a werewolf with super-strength. But it had to be more useful than making matches.

As her feet lifted farther off the ground and her legs dangled, she tried to remember the fights she’d witnessed on the playground as a kid in school from a corner where she always hid from the chaos.

What did the person who lost always accuse the person who beat them of doing?

Fighting like a girl.

Why?

Because the winner had pulled her opponents hair.

As her eyes began to roll back in her head, Quinn forced herself to focus on one thing—yanking the shit out of this woman’s amazing hair.

She couldn’t even grunt her monumental effort when she reached upward with both hands and grabbed two lengths of this madwoman’s hair as close to her scalp as possible and pulled for all she was worth.

The woman’s mouth opened wide in a scream so chilling, Quinn was sure she’d shatter all the china Arch had brought in from Nina’s mansion.

So she yanked harder. So hard, her fingers burned with the effort.

The woman dropped her, letting Quinn slam to the floor. She crashed into her end table, taking out the lamp, struggling for breath.

As she reflected on her small victory, she also noted the spinning wheel of fire, coming at her like one of those Chinese stars in an action movie. Coming at her and aimed right at her head.

So, yeah. Bad guys really did exist.

* * * *

“What the hell’s going on?” Khristos yelled over the wind whipping against Nina and Carl.

Nina had sent him a text that Quinn needed him, and even though it only took a second for him to snap his fingers and get back to Quinn’s apartment, it felt like a century.

Nina clung to Carl, trying to keep him protected from the angry slash of wind, coiling, lashing at them, forcing them to almost double over.

“Dude, I don’t know, but we need to get the fuck in there! Someone’s got Quinn!”

His stomach twisted into a tight knot as he grabbed Nina and Carl, fighting against the wind to get back down the stairwell to Quinn’s door and to a modicum of shelter.

A gust of icy air launched him against the brick, oddly scorching his back with agonizing, prickly heat. He fought to keep Nina’s hand as he tried to inch his way to the handle in the tiny space, ignoring the searing pain of his back.

“We have to get in there!” Nina screamed, dragging Carl partially up the steps and pulling out some duct tape from her hoodie. She wrapped his hands to the railing in a blur of freakish motion. “Don’t move, Carl! Stay here no matter what. If Wanda and Marty come, send them in. Okay?” she yelled above the roar of the wind.

Carl bobbed his head, but his sweet face held anguish.

“Whatever you do, Carl—hang on! Don’t let go!” Nina ordered, fighting the howl of air to get to the door.

Her hand on the doorknob, she pushed Khristos out of the way. “Stay here!”

“The hell I’m letting you go in there alone!”

“Whatever the fuck’s going on in there, you got shit to fight it with, dude. Let me assess this first. Stay the fuck here, and text Marty and Wanda again!” she ordered, twisting the doorknob he’d replaced and literally yanking the door off its hinges.

“Duck, Carl!” he bellowed as the door lifted and flew high in the air, the screech of metal scoring the wind.

Nina plowed in, her fangs bared, her hands in tight fists, and Khristos plowed in right behind her, ignoring every word of warning she’d spoken. Quinn was in danger, and the hell he was staying outside to await her fate.

Then everything went silent—so eerily silent, Nina stopped in her tracks.

“Quinn!” His heart crashed in his chest.
Please, let her answer.
His eyes scanned the small room, the floor littered in broken pieces of glass, laminate flooring torn and peeling upward. The table they’d spent so much time at this week upended and shredded.

He looked to Nina, who sniffed the air, her eyes blazing. She pressed a finger to her mouth as she took a long step over the flipped couch and peered around the corner to the kitchen.

Khristos went the other way to the bedroom, pressing himself against the wall in the short hall leading to it, fighting the urge to rush in rather than remain cautious.

“Kiddo?” Nina yelled into the silence.

“
Get out! Run!
” He heard the urgent whisper, experienced the utter anguish those words stirred in his gut. The words were an effort, a croak of a warning as the bedroom door creaked open.

Her room was no longer the size of a broom closet.

It was a coliseum—like back in the day, when his mother used to take him to the Panathenaic Games. Sprawling and wide, the walls made of concrete, the sheer size of it daunting.

And then he saw her—the woman he really was falling in love with—tacked to the wall of her former bedroom like a poster with a spike in each palm. Blood dripping from her hands, her neck purple with bruises, her feet just touching the ground, her eyes wide with fear.

Chapter 16

Q
uinn’s eyes met Khristos’s as the position of her arms, stretched to an abnormal width, tore her tendons and the nerve endings in her hands burned as though she were on fire, begging for relief.

“Go!” She mouthed the word, unable to explain, incapable of making her vocal chords cooperate.

But Khristos, this amazing, incredible, wonderful man, rushed at her rather than listen. Climbing over the bed blocking the entrance to this monstrosity, he knocked the pillows to the floor, spanning the short distance between them in seconds, his handsome face a mask of fury and concern, his eyes locked on hers.

He reached for her instantly, obviously afraid to touch the spikes nailing her to the wall. “
Who?
” he seethed, his rage clear as his hands fluttered over her, not knowing where to help first. “Who did this, Quinn?”

“Please, go. Please, Khristos,” she murmured, knowing the woman was lurking somewhere in the massive space she’d created with a snap of her fingers.

She would never forget how the woman had turned her tiny bedroom into this vast venue Quinn had only seen in pictures. The room had transformed—walls lengthening, the ceiling rising to stratospheric heights, pillars erupting from the ground like seeds sprouting in fast-forward.

Chunks of rock had spewed and kicked up pebbles until everything clicked into place. All that remained of her bedroom were the furnishings, minute as dollhouse furniture against the new backdrop.

Nina flew up and over the bed, her eyes narrowed, her nostrils flaring as she saw what had happened to the bedroom and Quinn. “Holy fuck!” The vampire was across the coliseum in the blink of an eye, horror on her pale face.

“Go, Nina! Take Khristos. I’m…begging,” she tried to whisper, her eyes pleading with them, her body shaking with violent tremors.

“Not gonna happen, Goddess-Lite!” she said, but her confusion about how to help, what to do next, was clearly written on her face.

A howl, a rush of furious rage, breathed through the coliseum, kicking up more wind tunnels of dust, and screeching through her ears.

The still unknown woman rose from the farthest corner like a serpent, bending, bowing, slithering upward and toward them. She morphed, changed, her head elongating, her body following suit, stretching until she was scaled, her tongue forked, slipping in and out of her transformed mouth.

A hiss omitted from her throat, sizzling and hot, swishing around the open space, growing louder, picking up speed. Her mouth opened wide again, just like it had before she’d broken all the glass in the apartment. She lashed her tongue at Quinn, a ribbon of crimson unfurled, flapping in a grotesque wave aimed directly at her head.

In those seconds, as she watched helplessly, her death imminent, she thought of only one thing—Khristos, who was as powerless as she was. He would feel the lash of that tongue if he didn’t move.

“
Look out!
” Nina screamed, making a run to rush the woman, only to trip over a chunk of fallen pillar and hit the ground made of crumbled rock, leaving a cloud of dust in her wake.

But Khristos refused to move anyway. He placed himself between Quinn and the warp speed of the tongue.

To protect
her
.

And the last thought she had just before she used all her might to pull her knees to her chest, as sweat dripping down her face and the flesh of her hands tearing when she levered herself with them and kicked Khristos out of the way was, even in the throes of battle, he was a good guy. So, so good.

Khristos fell, his head hitting the post on her bed, crumpling to the ground as the tongue rippled toward her.

There was nowhere for Quinn to go, pinned to the wall, but Nina leaped up and forward and managed to wrap her arms around the neck of the python, yanking its head to the left with a scream of uncontained fury.

Then Marty was there, like a flash of motion and sound, with Wanda hot on her heels, tearing at this woman who’d become a slithering python of howling rage. They’d reached Nina just as the grotesque python attempted to strike again and the thunderous pound of hooves reverberated, shaking the structure.

In her sheer panic, as gold-bridled horses with flames shooting from their mouths appeared out of nowhere, set to trample right over Nina and the girls, Quinn wildly wondered how many more mythological creatures were due to make an appearance.

What was next, a chariot?

Which was exactly the moment she heard more hooves.
Naw. No way!

More golden horses—attached to a chariot—melted through the walls, their galloping shaking the earth. The concrete starting to crumble while the python danced, twisting, turning, mesmerizing.

The hard surface at her back suddenly shifted and her right hand began to pull away from the wall with an agonizing rip of her flesh, making her bite her lip bloody to keep from screeching. And then her right hand was free—the spike still deeply embedded in her palm.

Quinn fought a scream of unimaginable, searing pain, fought the horror as Khristos lie at her feet with the walls falling all around them. If she didn’t get to him, he’d be pummeled to death.

While madness raged around her, while every creature she’d ever read in her beloved books appeared before her eyes, she cooled on the inside. Found some strange focus she didn’t know she possessed and, with a single-minded act, began to use her right hand to free her left, yanking, tugging, loosening, fighting the dizzying wave of nausea and fear tearing her hand from the wall produced.

The spike in her left hand loosened with a jolt, a white-hot rip of agony. Quinn used that to her advantage, clawing to pry her hand free.

Almost there, Quinn, almost there! It’s gonna hurt, but pull!

With one last grunt of effort, her eyes scrunched tight, sweat pouring from her brows, horses and pythons and chariots whirling around, she ripped her left hand free with a long howl.

She hit the ground hard with her knees, unable to even brace her fall with her hands for fear she’d drive the spikes further back into her flesh. The velocity of the drop took the wind right out of her, but she was still capable of rolling.

She tucked her knees and turned toward the bed, where Khristos lay half under it, unconscious. Using her feet, she backed up against the crumbling wall for leverage and shoved him directly under the bed.

Nina’s yowl of anguish had Quinn fighting to stand. As she rose, using the heels of her hands and the bed to do so, she saw the battle waging before her and felt a moment’s helpless panic. So deep in her soul, so dark, she winced at the black talons scraping her insides.

How could she help? Her hands were torn to shreds, her knees so bruised she almost couldn’t stand up, and she had nothing but gumption on her side.

And as if the whirling dervish of Greek mythology come to life wasn’t enough—flying serpents took to the ceiling, their wings creating such a whoosh of wind it almost knocked her over.

One went directly for Marty’s head, his webbed wings slashing the air, his tongue flicking debris out of his path.

Quinn grabbed the nearest thing she saw, her nightstand lamp, and hurled it upward, blood dripping from her open wounds and into her eyes. “Marty!
Loooook out!
”

Marty reacted by rolling her head then shaking out her arms and shifting into her werewolf form.

Oh God, oh God, oh God!
Quinn had only heard from Ingrid about Marty’s ability to shift, and after what had happened to Quinn, she had mostly believed.

But to see it, to see her bones melt and reshape themselves, to see hair sprout from her body like some sort of weird time lapse video, was amazing and frightening, rooting Quinn to the spot.

But the serpent kept flying straight for Marty. “Marty!” she screamed, hoarse and raw, her throat on fire.

Wanda knocked Marty out of the way, steamrolling her to the ground as Nina round-housed the python woman, landing a punch square on her head. Nina’s fangs flashed, her arms landing punch after punch, the motion so rapid it left Quinn dizzy.

But from the corner of her eye, Quinn saw Carl at what was once the bedroom door, now a gaping hole, his gait slow, his eyes wide in his pale, greenish-tinted face.

Oh God! Carl was too slow, too awkward to move quickly enough to get out of harm’s way. “Carl! Run, Carl! Ruuuunnnnn!” she screeched into the latest tornado-like wind.

But Carl kept moving forward, kept fighting the force of the air pushing him back. She fastened her eyes on him, forgetting the sharp stabs of pain in her knees, as she jumped up onto the bed, bouncing with her weight.

“Carl—get out!” she warned again, her head down to avoid being blown off the soft surface.

All at once, as though someone had sucked the air from the room, everything appeared to slow. Carl’s determination was clear on his face, but his eyes were no longer fixed to hers. They were on something
behind
her.