Crazy in the Blood (Latter-Day Olympians) (5 page)

“Think again, buddy. In my book, this just makes us even.”

Apollo tapped a finger on his lip, pretending to consider, but not putting much effort into making it look sincere. “Really? By my count, that makes twice I’ve saved your life and you’ve—oh wait, you have yet to reciprocate.”

“Damn you and your scorekeeping. Tell you what, you let me know when you’re going to throw yourself in front of a train, and I’ll be there to stop you. No, really.” Two could play at sincerity.

Apollo’s eyes rolled upward as if he could spot the heights of Olympus right through my ceiling. “It doesn’t work like that.”

I sighed. “Fine.” I looked down to be sure I was decently clothed, unlike the last time I’d woken in a bed with Apollo, and started to rise. Apollo looked regretful, but didn’t try to keep me there.

I was pleased that all my parts seemed to be in working order. It was the first day in what seemed like forever without the shakes. I didn’t have to
pretend
I was fine. I wanted to give a rebel yell, but that would be undignified. And heavens, having built up my skid row junkie image, I didn’t want to blow it all in one fell swoop. “I need to wash the stink off, and I need food, not necessarily in that order. The least I can do is offer you something.”

I wandered into the kitchen and started opening and closing cupboards, as if elves might have stocked them while I was out. “Um, how about omelets? As long as you don’t like anything in them. More like scrambled eggs, really. Or, I make a mean cinnamon toast.”

He followed me in and lounged against my cabinets. He looked good standing there, and my brain tried to remind me that bedrooms weren’t the only places for fun and games, but those thoughts were by now used to being ignored.

“I’m not hungry, thank you,” Apollo announced as he watched me play at domestication. “I left a…supply…for you in your refrigerator. I suppose you’ll have to let me know when you need more.”

“So, what’s the catch here? What do I owe you?” Rather than look at him, I went about getting the fixings for scrambled eggs and toast. Normally I’d opt for cereal or a Power Bar rather than actual home cooking, but I felt the need for something hot and filling. Besides, I was bursting with excess energy I needed to channel.

“Dump your detective.”

Armed with a tub of butter and a spatula, I whirled on him. “Just because you saved my life doesn’t mean you get to dictate how I live it.”

“Are you yet on a first name basis?”

“Yes.”
Most of the time
. I dropped everything on the counter and attacked the butter with a vengeance, tossing a glop into my pan and barely waiting for it to heat before adding the eggs. “Anyway, it’s none of your business.”

“He’s not for you. I have seen—”

“What do you know about the dead bodies on top of Mount Lee?” I asked suddenly. I didn’t want to know my future…or Nick’s. I’d read enough of the myths to learn that knowing the future often led people to play right into their doom. The whole self-fulfilling prophecy bit. The only thing to do with that power was mark it “return to sender”.

“The ones in the news?”

“I sure hope there aren’t any others.” I chopped the eggs to within an inch of their lives before sliding them onto a plate and carrying my feast to the table. Apollo sat down across from me. It was such a strange homey scene with the morning light streaming through the windows. All we needed were steaming mugs of coffee and newspapers to help us ignore each other.

“They are related to the earlier trouble?” Apollo asked.

I froze, first bite nearly to my lips. “Trouble? No euphemisms before coffee. Anyway, I think they are. There’s the location for one. Plus, the remains of all the bodies would barely fill a chum bucket, so I’m doubtful it was your average man off the street who whacked ’em. Oh, and the Feds asked me some pretty oddball questions. Wanted to know about biological warfare.”

Apollo’s face went all over strange before tightening into a mask.

I swallowed the bite in my mouth. “What? Does that mean something to you?”

“Maybe. Can you tell me any more about the attack?”

“Not…really.” Not except for that strange dream with the gnashing teeth and slashing claws, the details of which were already slipping away from me. And anyway, it was
just
a dream. A vivid, terrifying, heart-pounding dream, but still. Unless…

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” he wheedled.

I eyed him. “I’ve seen yours.”

“Innuendos aside,” he said.

“Oh, can we do that? I didn’t know it was an option. Anyway, that’s all the info I have except for a nightmare where it was me on that mountain with claws and teeth coming at me from everywhere.”

Apollo went as white as the china, which, with his tan, was an incredibly impressive feat. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

“What is?”

“You remember that
gift
I gave you?”
 

“Oh, you mean besides the deadly addiction?” Apollo waited patiently for me to remember manners. I hoped he wasn’t holding his breath. “The precognition…yeah, I remember. Interesting side note, it now comes with GPS.”

He didn’t look entirely surprised. “Well, you may also find that you have very vivid dreams. You’ll want to pay attention to them.”

Damned to addiction by day, haunted by horror at night. My life was really some kind of John Carpenter dream come true. I wished I’d slammed the door on Apollo back when I’d first laid eyes on him. I’d known he was dangerous, but couldn’t resist him any more than a moth could resist dashing itself against the flame.

“So you’re saying these dreams have meaning. Are you guessing or do you know something?”

Apollo shrugged. “There’ve been portents, sightings…nothing concrete.”

“Buffy was right, then. We really are living on a Hellmouth.”

“The underworld isn’t Hell—well, except for Tartarus. The Elysian Fields are there too, don’t forget.”

“I was trying to be clever. Okay, Mr. Literal, what does all this have to do with the bodies?”

“Well, the rumors are that a fissure has opened into Hades’s realm. Anything could be coming up through it. Escaped souls, Erinyes, Cerberus himself—” He stopped.
 

Now that’s a thought. The Erinyes…the Furies…they wouldn’t attack without provocation, but Cerberus… In your dream, the attack came from all sides?” I nodded. “A three-headed beast would certainly account for that. Plus, it’s said that black venom drips from his jaws. I’ve never had the privilege of seeing for myself, but if it’s true, this might be the biological weapon the federal agents inquired about.”

“Oh, bloody hell—” I held up a hand before he could protest. “I know, I know, but bloody Tartarus lacks the same oomph. I don’t suppose the whole problem can be solved by asking Hades to bring his dog to heel?”

“It might.”

“But you don’t think so.”

“Well, for one thing, they don’t exactly have cell towers down there, so it’s not like you can call up and ask him. And since you’re still alive, you can’t just pop down for a visit. But mainly, Hades keeps Cerberus on a pretty tight leash, and I can’t imagine that he’s just gotten loose.”

“So if Cerberus is running amok, it would mean—what? That Hades has lost control? That he’s let Cerberus off the leash?”

“Perhaps. We did put his brothers in jail. Hades could be distracted enough to drop his tether. Or he could be letting Cerberus play in our world as revenge. Or…it could be more than that. He might have Cerberus hunting something specific.”

“Something like—?”

“You.”

“Great. Really and truly awesome.” I pushed my plate away, unable to eat another bite. “I mean, who doesn’t like a good fight to the death?”

“Tori, this is—”

“Nothing to joke about. Yeah, I get that. But sometimes life’s too absurd not to laugh.”

“So now we’re finishing each other’s sentences?”

“Only because you’re so predictable. Don’t read anything into it.”

He studied me for a moment, a look that made me understand the eyes as windows to the soul cliché. I felt like he could see straight inside me to things hidden even from myself. It was eerie, more exposing than standing naked on the Santa Monica Pier.

“Stop that,” I said.

His serious look changed to an obnoxiously knowing smile. “Are there any other
services
I can provide for you before I go?” he asked, reaching to brush my hair away from my neck. The flesh there sat up and took notice.

My mouth dried up as I tried to form the word
no
all while my body screamed
yes
. This was the dangerous Apollo, the one who could swallow me whole. The one I’d run from…was still running from. I hadn’t talked to him since then or since my relationship had heated up with Armani and Apollo had sent me that strange note—
I know
.

He leaned in and bit down suddenly on the flesh that he’d cleared. Not hard. Just enough to flood my system with longing, to start me fantasizing… He ended the nip with a kiss and rose without another word, giving me his back.

Always leave them wanting more
, I thought. And gods, did I want. But I couldn’t have. An ambrosia addiction was one thing. An addiction to Apollo…that I would never survive.

Then suddenly he was gone, and I was left with nothing more than a plate of congealing butter, half-eaten eggs and my thoughts, none of them sunny side up.

Ten minutes later, I got myself in hand. It was Sunday morning. I could either watch cartoons, follow leads or go to church, which would make my mother
way
too happy, now that she was almost speaking to me again. Besides, recent events had thrown a monkey wrench into the belief system I’d never fully developed. Being me, I chose option B, or snooping, as my mother called it.

L.A. doesn’t really get moving until well after noon, so the streets were nearly deserted on my drive to the office. I was able to get a parking space right out front. Given the hour, even the mom and pop deli on the corner wasn’t open for business, so I was going to have to fend for myself coffee-wise when I hit the office. No biggie, since aside from cinnamon toast, scrambled eggs and grilled cheese, it was the one other thing to which I could apply heat and expect something palatable to result.

There was no supernatural trill of alarm this time when I opened the office door, just the normal
oh my gods
reaction to the sight of fingerprint powder on every surface. It was a wonder that I’d forgotten for even an instant. The LAPD had taken a lot of prints, including Jesus’s for comparison—mine were already on file because of my gun license—but it was too soon to tell whether any were unaccounted for by staff and clientele.

I started coffee, turned on Jesus’s computer so that I could pop a CD in to make cleaning tolerable and gathered supplies. The Arctic Monkeys belted out a song as I scrubbed.

The coffee was ready before the cleaning was done—I had a sixth sense about these things—so I gave myself a well-deserved break, doctored a Kong-sized mug for myself and sat down at Uncle Christos’s desk. Since it was Sunday, the banks would be closed, but I was almost certain Christos would have things set up so that he could manage his accounts on-line. He was pretty computer savvy for an old guy. All I had to do was figure out his password. If I was really lucky, he’d set the computer to automatically remember. Given his chosen field, I thought he was probably too smart for that, but I could hope.

Sure enough, once the computer was up and running, I played around on his browser, and found that his bank’s website was bookmarked, but no account numbers or codes were programmed into memory. Account numbers I had covered. The password was going to be trickier. Important dates were the most common numeric codes, which banks seemed to favor, but after trying Christos’s birthday, my Aunt Helen’s birthday (taken from us all too soon in a freak accident), and their anniversary I gave up, afraid the browser would lock me out for too many bad attempts.
 

I turned to Christos’s blotter for clues. It was one of those huge paper calendars that covered nearly the entire surface of the desk. The top sheet was still for November of last year, when Uncle Christos had left with a jolly wave and an order that Jesus and I keep the home fires burning. He was fried, he said, and needed an extended vacation. Didn’t know where he’d end up or when he’d be back. All we knew was that he was starting out in the general direction of north—toward the Napa Valley, wine country. This did not exactly come as a shock.

There were two numbers scribbled in the blotter’s margins that I thought traced to the San Francisco/Napa area. Christos’s own cell phone had stopped working long enough ago that the number had been reassigned, which did wonders for the family fears. I opened up a reverse telephone directory we had bookmarked on the web and went to work. The first number traced to a Residence Inn that, when called, had no record at all of a Christos Karacis, not even as far back as November. Or so they said. The second number I found was registered to an M. Olivieri. I didn’t know if M. stood for Mr., Ms. or Marsupial, but I hoped I was about to find out.

The phone was answered on the second ring—a woman’s voice, either weary or wary. It was hard to tell based on the simple, “Hello.”