Crazy in the Blood (Latter-Day Olympians) (9 page)

That night I dreamed of blood. Rivers of it…with the occasional lily-white bone floating to the surface. Empty eye socket here, lost limb there.

My heart pounded, my temples throbbed, and I willed myself to wake up. Wake up. WAKE UP!

I bolted upright, just as a sword sliced the sheets where I’d been a millisecond before. I looked into the face of Death with only time to think
this is wrong; it’s supposed to be a sickle
before the blade was coming for me again. I rolled, but the blankets coiled around me like pythons, lashing me in place. The blade landed centimeters from my ear, taking some of my hair with it as I fought to get free. The shock of it flooded my system with juice, as if someone had pushed the plunger on a whole vial of methamphetamines. Like Wonder Woman on speed, I tore the blankets from my body and dove off the other side of the bed.

I planted my feet on the floor, dropped into my kickboxing ready stance and faced the Grim Reaper. Or just about. Except for the whole sword thing. The Angel of Death, Thanatos, Mors—call him what you would—was enough to cause heart failure even without a single sword stroke. He stood over six feet tall with the traditional black cloak and cowl shadowing his face. He was surrounded by a miasma of undulating darkness that managed to convey uncompromising…cold. Not evil—evil could be swayed in its own self-interest. Thanatos was far more frightening, because it didn’t look like a wrecking ball could move him, let alone little ol’ me.

“Um, hey, you sure you’ve got the right girl?” I asked, just in case. “I’m only house sitting.”

He nodded. Once. And advanced on me—straight
through
the bed, floating more than walking. I didn’t actually see legs move beneath that cloak, nothing so mundane.

Fear tore through me like a flash flood, instinctive and primal. The myths had no stories I knew about cheating death—not successfully, anyway. Achilles, Orpheus and Eurydice—cautionary tales for incautious children.

Desperate, I yelled “
Freeze
!” and tried to whammy him with the gorgon glare, but I couldn’t even see his eyes, let alone meet them, and he kept advancing as inexorably as, well, death.

If he could move through furniture, I doubted my pitiful roundhouse kick was going to do much good against him. I didn’t have room for a running start, but I lurched around the corner of the bed, set to make a dash for the door. Only to be blocked by the same figure that had reduced even Ebenezer Scrooge to a quivering apologetic heap.
 

I
was the one who froze. Time warped, and everything happened in slow motion and yet too fast to report. His sword came up. My eyes widened, unable to look away from the glistening blade. It flashed as it arced down at me with a terrible beauty, like silver-struck moonlight. The very movement was grace and beauty and terror, and then…nothing.

“Ares’s hairy arse, what on earth was he thinking? Her time isn’t up!”

There was a voice. Faint, but compelling…

“Besides, we were just getting to the good part. Who will win—the divine Apollo or the dreamy detective? It can’t end on a
cliffhanger,” someone else said.

“Lachesis! You’re as bad as these mortals, getting caught up in their soap opera lives.”

“I can’t help it. I mean, it’s better than
Lost
. If you’d put down your clippers every once in a while, Atropos, you’d see. You need to lighten up.”

Lachesis? Atropos?
The Fates
? I drifted closer, certain I couldn’t be hearing right. Couldn’t be hearing anything at all.

“Girls, focus,” the first speaker—Clotho?—chimed in again. “We need a decision. Thanatos has usurped our authority, cutting a cord that had yet to reach its terminus.”

“Not acting alone, I’d wager.”

“Be that as it may, do we sever the cord or rethread? If Thanatos is doing Hades’s bidding and his plot succeeds, it might behoove us to be in his good graces.”

“No!” The voice, crusty and deeper than others—
Atropos?
—was implacable. “We don’t cede him our authority. Even Hades must bow before us.”

“Good luck with that,” Lachesis put in.

“Lachesis!” Crusty scolded.

She hmphed. “Look, I vote no, okay? Tori’s life is way too interesting to cancel mid-season.”

“Addict,” Atropos accused.

“Sister, I share Lachesis’s view,” Clotho said. “The thread is intriguing. It strengthens the weave.”

“Fine,” Atropos grumbled, “then we’re agreed?”
 

“Yes. Besides, we’ve got to get back to work on these those costumes. Full dress rehearsal is tonight.”

I gasped in a breath that felt like a chainsaw unleashed in my chest. My eyes snapped open. I expected to see a bright light or a dark and desolate hell, depending on whether I’d been judged naughty or nice, but my own room swam in front of me. At least, I thought so. I’d never seen it from this angle before—an unlovely view of the dust bunnies and dried, boxed sea life beneath Lau’s bed.

I was
alive
. Like Scrooge, I wanted to throw open my window and shout it out to the world. I had some vague retreating memory of the Fates discussing my life or death as if I was some sitcom they’d be sorry to see canceled. It seemed I’d been picked up for another season. Either that or I was in some bizarre version of Tartarus and the dust bunnies were about to swarm.

I tried to roll to my feet, but my eyes were the only things that moved. That was when the panic hit. What if I was paralyzed? How long would it be before someone came to check on me? Long enough to dehydrate? Starve to death? No, dehydration would come before starvation. And hey, if that wasn’t comforting…

I took a few deep, jagged breaths and put everything I had into pressing my arms to the floor to raise my upper body. I felt…nothing. At all.

Terror choked me, my vision swam, my breathing went so shallow in my panic that no actual air exchange was going on. No feeling was
bad
, I knew that much. The fact that I could breathe on my own, no machine required, didn’t mean much if I was to be locked inside an immobile shell for the rest of my life, able to see and think but not respond. Helpless. My own special hell.

Then suddenly—

“UNG!” An inarticulate cry ripped from my lips as my entire body arched off the floor in pain. It tore through me, shredded my mind, burnt out the nerve endings that had just reknit. Possibly my spinal column had just mended itself. Gods bless—

“Arrrrr.” Agony stole my breath again, chased my awareness to a dark little corner and told it to stay put as it took over everything.

Mercifully, I blacked out.

Chapter Seven

“You keep saying ‘twisted’ like it’s a bad thing.”

—Cousin Tina Galanos, contortionist for the Rialto Bros. Circus

Distantly, I was aware of the ringing of a phone but it didn’t seem to mean much to me. My consciousness kind of dog-paddled to the surface, in no rush to arrive. Equally distant was the cry of pain from one shoulder and a numbness in the arm that signaled I’d fallen asleep in a bad position. For some reason I was soaked to the bone, hot and cold at the same time. Clammy. It was the taste of blood that snapped me awake.

Blood in my mouth was bad. Bad, bad, bad. There were probably other adjectives, but I couldn’t think of them right then. I tested my body, and it moved—sluggishly, because that numb arm didn’t want to cooperate, but I was able to sit. My tongue was swollen. Probably I’d bitten it at some point and the blood was only the result. Panic began to retreat.

I fumbled for the phone on my bedside table and answered, “’Elo.” Something like it anyway.

“Oh my God, Tori, are you okay? Did you oversleep? It’s almost nine o’clock.”

Christie. Right. We had plans.

“’M okay,” I said, clearing my throat between words. “I’m just…groggy. Give me a little bit? My alarm didn’t go off.”

“No problem. Do you want me to meet you at your place?”

My bedroom looked like something out of a slasher film. “No, I’ll be there to pick you up as soon as I can. Sorry.”

“No prob—”

I hung up maybe a syllable early, but the shakes had set in with a vengeance, and the only thing I could think of was getting to my fridge and getting help. I didn’t want to want it, to
need
it. But if I died or went insane, Hades would win, and that so wasn’t happening. I pulled myself upright and did the zombie shuffle into the kitchen. The sight of my bloody arms as I lifted them for the handle of the fridge didn’t do anything to put me off my feed. I hadn’t asked Apollo about dosing, but inside the Tupperware container with the sky blue top was a scoop. I was going to guess one would be enough. If not, I’d try two—

I ate it standing. As the ambrosia touched my lips, my mouth flooded with saliva. The flavor burst over my tongue like…like ambrosia-flavored champagne and Pop Rocks. It seemed to fizz and tingle all the way down as my body came back on-line, leaving me hyper-aware, hyper-alive.

It made me wish Armani was here. And naked. And standing at attention… Okay, so a cold shower before dashing off to pick up Christie. At the rate I was going, the car was optional. I felt like I could run to San Francisco myself and be back in time for lunch.
 

Clearly the ambrosia had side effects—delusions of grandeur, mistaking oneself for an Indy 500 car.
 

The shower was…oh no, I was
no
t going to wax poetic about the feel of the crisp, incredible water flowing over me. Except to say that it did nothing to cool my jets. It was
almost
enough to wash away the horror of my near death experience, though. Priorities. I left Armani an X-rated text message—very life affirming—dumped all the ice from the freezer into a Styrofoam cooler I found in Lau’s pantry, and gently placed the tub of ambrosia on top of it. Side effects or no, I couldn’t afford the withdrawal while traveling four hundred miles from home.

I wondered how I’d convince Christie that the tub was off-limits. Maybe I’d make up an incredibly high caloric content. It might even be true.

Twenty minutes later I sat in front of her apartment building, calling for her to come down, since I was double-parked. I had time to download a GPS app onto my phone and program in the address of the Residence Inn before Christie arrived, matching Coach luggage slung over one shoulder and rolling along behind.

I popped the trunk and got out to help her. “Jeez, Christie, how long do you think we’ll be gone?”

She flashed me the smile that had gotten her the teeth whitening commercial last year. “I don’t know, but I figure it’s my Girl Scout training kicking in. I like to be prepared.”

“You were a Girl Scout?”

“Well, a Brownie, anyway.”

She tossed the big bag into the trunk, not needing my help after all, thanks to her personal trainer. Then she dug around in her shoulder bag and came up with a matching hot pink iPod. “Tuneage,” she explained, as if I might not get it.

We plugged in, buckled up, fidgeted with settings and mirrors, and hit the road. Christie produced a thermos out of her clown car of a bag, and two stainless steel cups to go with it.

“Not pink?” I asked.

“Can you believe the pink only came in
plastic
?”

I refused to comment on the grounds that she held exclusive access to my caffeine options.

“I hope you like Kona,” she added.

“Love it.”

She produced some kind of frou frou liquid sweetener. “Sugar?” she asked.

I gave her a look.
 

“Okay, sugar-like substance,” she amended. “Kid tested, FDA approved.”

“Hit me.”

She doctored my cup and handed it back to me. I took an immediate sip. It was no ambrosia, but it wasn’t bad either.

“Thanks.”

“
De nada
. And Tori, thanks for letting me come with. And for not saying ‘I told you so’ about Jack.”

I bit my lip.

“I Can’t Drive 55” by Sammy Hagar blasted out of the stereo.

“Really?” I asked her.

It was good to see her grin. “Like I could leave that off the ultimate road trip mix. Just wait, there’s more.”

“Come Monday” by Jimmy Buffett

“Little Red Corvette” by Prince

“Sleep While I Drive” by Melissa Etheridge

“Take it Easy” by The Eagles

“Highway to Hell” by AC/DC

“Please Come to Boston” by Joan Baez

“California” by Joni Mitchell.

Christie’s tastes ran a lot more folksy rock than mine, but she’d put so much effort in, I didn’t have the heart to tell her so.

I’ll skip over the next eight hours of girly stuff, pit stops, smoothies and half-caf, skinny, grande, ridiculously overpriced foamy goodness. But for almost an entire day, no one tried to kill me, torture me with crime scene photos or entice me over to the dark side with six-pack abs, dreamy azure eyes or snickerdoodles. The sun was shining, the AC was working, and Christie, who was as tone deaf as me, didn’t give a damn when I tried to sing along with the CD.