The Darker Carnival (The Markhat Files) (20 page)

Dragons, demons, gods, gorgons. Who will save the world…and who could destroy it?

Battle for the Blood

© 2014 Lucienne Diver

Latter-Day Olympians, Book 4

Tori wakes after Rise of the Titans to two very shocking realizations: one, she’s in bed with a very naked Apollo, having lost the fight to resist their attraction. Two, she still has her wings. Not dinky little fairy wings. Full-scale, cover-’em-with-a-trench-coat bat wings.

Apollo suggests consulting the Gray Sisters on the wings. Those cannibalistic, psychopathic oracles who, even with only one tooth and one eye among them, manage to see too much. As in a Rapture, zombie-apocalypse, biblical-plague, hellgates-busted-open the end of the world.

While the Sisters are perfectly on board with death and destruction, the thinning of the human herd doesn’t sit well with them at all. They’ll help her. All she has to do is save the world.

Tori and her team trace the origin of the plagues to New York City, which is under quarantine and martial law—as if that’s enough to stop the influx of gods and gorgons, dragons and demons. But as death threatens from without, betrayal lurks within Tori’s ranks. And nobody is safe. Nobody.

Warning: Betrayal and bad-assery, sensuality and a sizzling hot sun god. Death, demons, destruction and, potentially, the end of the world as we know it…zombie style.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Battle for the Blood:

There was a knock on the door, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. “Are you expecting anyone?” Apollo asked me.

I shook my head and reached into my bag for my pepper spray, tossing it to him. He caught it one-handed on his way to the door and looked out the peephole.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Trouble.”

Apollo opened the door and stepped out of the way so that I could see. There stood Hades. Not the flaming-haired, James Woods, Disneyfied version of him from
Hercules
, where Hera is a wispy little blonde and Megaera is the heroine rather than a crazed killer. But the real deal. Dark hair, eyes as black as kohl, overtall and unmistakable in light-wash jeans, a sunny orange Pirana Joe T-shirt and a white blazer with rolled-up sleeves. His aboveground wear. Possibly he would have blended in back in the original Don Johnson
Miami Vice
days, but in the twenty-second century he was an anachronism.

Behind him walked Hecate, all in black leather—pants, biker jacket, knee-high stiletto boots. Even her hair was jet black, twisted and uncontrollable, sticking out like live wires around her head. She looked like a badass biker/dominatrix. Strangely, it worked for her.

Hecate slid down her sunglasses—black, of course—as she entered the room. Light seemed to disappear into her eyes with no escape. My brain dithered, as it sometimes did, wondering how she’d fare as a manga character with no little white wedge of light for her oversized eyes. My mind worked in mysterious ways.

Apollo closed the doors behind them. With everyone else standing, I felt at a disadvantage as the only one sitting, but I wasn’t about to reveal my discomfort. Hades stopped by the desk and leaned casually against it, studying Apollo and me. There was no missing that I was in one of Apollo’s shirts or that Apollo…wasn’t.

“Don’t you two look cozy,” Hades began.

“We are,” I said. “Not that it’s any of your business. I suppose you’re here about this.” I gestured with the remote toward the television, but already they’d moved on to some trouble in the Middle East, face eating forgotten.

“You’ve got to do something,” Hades said. But it wasn’t me he was looking at.

“About?” Apollo asked, crossing his arms over his chest. Hecate clicked her tongue in disappointment.

“Look, I was about to call in that favor you owe me, have you turf-sit the underworld while I go on a well-deserved vacation. I’m thinking maybe an active volcano somewhere, get a front row seat for the panic and destruction. Reconnect with an old flame.”

Hades and Pele?
The mind boggled.

“But there are rumblings. Your blood woke Rhea. She woke the titans. Whatever fallout exists, it’s
your
job to fix it,” Hades continued, giving Apollo his best stare-down.

“First of all, it was
Zeus’s
priests who spilled my blood and performed the ritual, so if you’re looking for someone to blame, I’d start there. Second of all,
what rumblings
? For Olympus’s sake, you sound like one of my Oracles. Can’t you talk in a straight line?”

Hades’s dark brows raised, and I thought I saw the hellfire spark in his eyes. “Be glad I don’t strike you down where you stand.”

“Hit me with your best shot,” Apollo fired back. I tried not to laugh as I heard Pat Benatar in my head singing backup. Death threats from the god of the dead were no laughing matter. But still.

“Boys,” Hecate said, stepping between them, drawing all eyes. “Apocalypse first, grudge match later.”

I latched on to the important part of all that. “What do you know about the apocalypse?”

Hades looked from Hecate to me to Apollo again. Yes, there was definite hellfire in his eyes. “Souls started arriving yesterday. Well, souls are always arriving, but these…these were mad. Stark, raving mad. No humanity left, just appetite. Hunger, thirst. We have a place for damaged souls like this, of course. It is a dark place, howling and unhappy. Dante would have called it the seventh circle of hell, although his
Inferno
is about as accurate as the
National Informer
. If he’d ever had a tour, he’d never have lived to tell about it. But now, the lost souls batter against their barrier, ravenous, hungering. Our boundaries wear thin as it is, with the damage of the titans rising and all of our energies going to repairs. With the world’s population explosion the various underworlds are stretched to their breaking points.”

“Wait,” I cut in, “
various
underworlds? You’re not just talking about the Elysian Fields versus Tartarus, are you?”

Hades’s eyes blazed as he turned them on me, twin infernos that looked about to explode. He was
not
happy about what he had to say. He was not happy that he had to say it to
me
, a mere mortal…or something. In fact, if looks could kill…

“No,” he growled. “I am sure you’re aware by now or have been told…” he shot a glare at Apollo, “…that belief and worship fuel our power? They also shape reality. There are many different beliefs and many different afterlives, with divinities for all. Sometimes there are turf wars as one faith is lost and another rises or is usurped or stamped out. Holy wars, plagues, ‘missionary work’—all change the landscape of not only your world, but ours. You have overcrowding on Earth because of all those who live. Imagine the overpopulation in the underworlds due to all those who have died.”

“But—but I’ve been to the underworld, the caves. There’s room for expansion,” I protested.

“Ever closer to your living world and discovery. Remember, much like the Hotel California, you can check into the underworld anytime you like, but you can never leave. Even as it is, a few of the living find their way every year. There are some missing-persons cases that will never be solved. If we keep expanding at this rate, there will soon be no barrier, no boundary between the living and the dead.”

“I’m not sure I understand what that means,” I said, “or why souls take up space.”

“Then you understand nothing. Remember,
belief
fuels reality. So much of the human imagination or religious teachings have focused on what comes after death. Except for the atheists, for whom there is nothing, all involve elaborate setups. Pearly gates, harps and wings, scales and a great book in which deeds are weighed or recorded, servants or grave goods, beloved pets or virgins aplenty. Belief takes
shape
.”

My wings ruffled at that, and I wasn’t sure why. Was that some kind of key? My wings existed because I remained aware of them? It made much more sense that I was aware of them because they were there. I put that aside for later, when I wasn’t facing down the god of the dead and the dominatrix of the damned. Okay, not quite fair. Hecate was the dominatrix of the undamned as well and the mother of witches. She’d once brought Apollo back from the brink of death…or the godly equivalent.

“So what do you want us to do?” Apollo asked, cutting to the chase.

“There are rumblings that Namtar has risen again, the bringer of plagues, purveyor of death and destruction, and that the apocalypse has begun. If this is true, we are all doomed. Cassandra has come to me—”

Pain rippled across Apollo’s face, and his eyes closed, as if what went on behind the windows to his soul was just too raw and private. Was Hades talking about
the
Cassandra? The prophetess of Troy, whom Apollo had granted the gift of prophecy, then cursed to be powerless in the face of her visions when she spurned his advances. It was one of the tales that had kept me from giving in to my attraction to him for so long. I kept a watch on his face. Hades and Hecate watched just as avidly.

When Apollo opened his eyes again and saw all us staring, he tried to glare back, but the pain was still too present. “How is Cassandra?” he asked.

Hades ignored that. “She said that you—you two—are to fight. And win. Or die. Apparently, the future is unclear. Also, she says to tell you that you’ll find what you need at Mycenae.”

“Of course, Mycenae,” Apollo said.

“Why of course?” I asked.

“The founding was attributed to Perseus. It makes sense he’d be buried there with his sword.”

I’d always wanted to see Mycenae, which I knew best for the legendary Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, the brother-in-law and sister of the notorious Helen of Troy, with the face that launched a thousand (battle)ships when she ran off to Troy with Paris. As usual, the whole trouble was started by the gods and paid for by humanity. Well, started by goddesses, anyway—some petty squabble between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite over who was the fairest of them all. Poor Paris had been roped into judging, as if there were any
right
answer, and let himself be bribed by Aphrodite with the hand of the most beautiful woman on earth. Never mind that she was already married. School children learned of Aphrodite as the goddess of love. Lust would have been a lot closer to the truth. Physical slaking of thirsts, maybe, but Aphrodite had never contributed to
anyone
’s happily-ever-after.

But I digressed. Again.

“Hecate will stay with you to make sure the job is done,” Hades said. “Don’t fail me in this.”

I started to protest that we didn’t answer to Hades and
certainly
didn’t need a babysitter, but Apollo got to Hades first, putting a hand to his arm to stop him as he turned for the door.

Hades stilled, making the stop-motion somehow threatening, like he’d had to leash all kinds of potential energy that might not be a ton of fun if
un
leashed.

Apollo was undaunted. “Tell Cassandra…” he began, then seemed at a loss. “Just tell her…that I’m sorry.”

Hades took his arm back and glowered at Apollo. “She knows. She’s had centuries to get over it. Probably time for you to do the same.”

And with that oh-so-helpful pronouncement, Hades was out the door, and we were left with Hecate, who stared at Apollo’s chest while we stared at her. “Well, this is fun,” she said wryly. “Where do we start?”

“First, we get you your own room,” I said. “Three might be a crowd.”

“Done,” she said. A room key appeared in her hand as if she were a magician producing a bouquet of flowers. “Now what?”

“Asclepius?” Apollo started. “I know he’s deceased—Zeus lightning-bolted him for raising Hippolytus from the dead,” he said as an aside to me, “but surely you have access. The god of medicine seems the perfect ally for countering supernatural plagues.”

Hecate averted her gaze, studying her nails, which made
me
study her nails, which led me to discover that they were sharpened to points. Note to self: Avoid catfights with Hecate…or invest in a nail file of my own. “He’s, um…indisposed,” she said without looking up.

“Indisposed?” I asked.

“Gone, okay? When the titans busted out of Tartarus, they weren’t alone. We’ve rounded up most of the escapees, but Asclepius…we’re still tracking him. If stopping the plagues were that easy, why would I even be here? Anyway, what about your granddaughter Panacea?” Hecate asked. “This sounds right up her alley.”

Panacea! I nearly smacked myself upside the head. “That’s perfect!”

I ignored the twinge about Apollo being a grandfather.
A grandfather!
Hell, he was probably a many-times great-grandfather thousands of times over by now. Which made us, what—a
January
/December romance.

“Disappeared,” he said sadly, “into Africa. The AIDS epidemic.”

“But—” so much I didn’t understand, “—if she’s there, why is it still raging?”

“At the height of our power maybe she could have controlled it, but almost no one believes in miracles anymore. Everyone is suspicious, even of modern medicine. And why not? Medical disclaimers are longer than the ads themselves—touch this and you’ll go blind. Take that and risk depression, thoughts of suicide…impotence. Unlike germs, her cure doesn’t spread. She needs to heal individually, and she’s only one woman. But, still, it’s something. She’s still a miracle for some.”

“So even if we find the epicenter of the problem and take her to it, she can’t magically save the day?”

“We’d only be stealing her from one epidemic to face another.”

“Well, damn,” I said eloquently. “So, the Sword of Perseus.”

“Tonight?” Apollo asked. “First we have to reconnoiter, eat and rest. Mycenae is many hours from here.”

“Does the great god fall with the sun?” Hecate taunted.

“Does the mother of witches fail to realize that the sun never falls, the Earth simply turns away, unable to stare too long at its glory?” Apollo fired back.

Hecate snorted.