15
“Death comes in threes; disaster comes in waves.”
Uncle Christos
Even as odd as this case had been, I felt the buzz of satisfaction that came with a mystery solved. I was feeling pretty good—right up until the time I checked my messages. The first was from Jesus, as expected, the second from Armani.
“Tori, your attacker has been found, unfortunately dead, washed up under the Santa Monica Pier. It’s outside our jurisdiction, but Lau and I were called in because of the description. I have no idea what the press will do with this, but I think your gods might be outed a little sooner than intended. There’s no way to keep a lid on it. Body’s off to the ME now. We’re going to need you to ID him as the suspect. Let’s just hope this doesn’t move up the conspiracy’s time table.”
Nothing like the threat of impending doom to kill a buzz. I quickly rang Armani back, but got bumped straight to voice mail. I wondered if I’d catch holy hell if I told Apollo about this latest development. Then it occurred to me that he might already know. What if he’d truly recognized my description of Circe’s killer and taken matters into his own hands? I couldn’t imagine it, but then, I didn’t want to. No, my instincts couldn’t be trusted on this. I’d have a better sense of the truth if I could tell him face-to-face and see his reaction, though with an actor … Aw hell, it wasn’t my place anyway. I was sure Armani would want to do the honors.
The phone rang in my hand—Armani with the address in Santa Monica. The police there were cooperating only so much; the body stayed on their turf, since this murder had taken place within their boundaries. If I had to guess, they might also be thinking of the notoriety the body’s sheer oddity would bring.
I got there as fast as I could, signed in, showed my ID and the whole nine yards before I was allowed into a stark tiled hallway where I found Armani and Lau stewing in a small waiting area with hazmat-orange couches. I could almost see the steam streaming from Lau’s ears.
“Good,” she said, and I knew she didn’t mean me. “Now maybe they’ll let us in.”
Armani rose to take my arm and lead me across the hall to a set of double doors he rapped on twice.
Lau trailed behind.
A man whose hair had all fled to his monobrow and mustache opened one side far enough to glower at us.
“She’s here,” Armani said simply.
“I’ll take it from here,” Monobrow answered. “Our witness, our escort.”
I felt like the rag in a game of tug-of-war.
“Boys, can we play ‘mine’s-bigger-than-yours’ later? I’d like to get this over with.” I tightened my grip on Armani’s arm to make it clear he’d be coming with.
“Fine,” Monobrow said with poor grace, “but don’t touch anything, and I don’t want a whiff of this hitting the press before we’re ready to make a statement. One word and I won’t look any further for the leak. Clear?”
I wondered if he was married. He and Marla Kelly would make a lovely couple. The thought made me smirk. “Yes, your surliness.”
He gave me the eye, but after facing down psychos and gods, I couldn’t really be impressed. “I don’t like your attitude,” he growled.
“No problem. I don’t like yours.”
He didn’t have any choice about letting us in, not if he wanted some semblance of an ID, but he didn’t have to like it.
Besides the still body on the gurney, there were two other people in the room, one a Junoesque African-American woman in a lab coat, hair pulled into a neat bun, and the other the somewhat-less-chiseled version of A. Martinez. If I weren’t already juggling attractions to Armani and Apollo, my hormones might have done a little, “Hey, sailor.”
In contrast to his partner, Detective Rodriguez, as he was introduced, gave us a grim smile.
Dr. Sheridan had barely looked up from the body as she continued her discussion already in progress. “This is too important to treat lightly,” she argued with the detective.
“As I’ve said, the department just doesn’t have the resources to cover an unnecessary procedure. Do you know what an MRI costs? Unless you need it to determine cause of death …”
“It might be unimportant to the law, but its value to science—”
“Then let some science foundation pay for it once the body’s released,” Rodriguez cut in.
Dr. Sheridan looked thunderous, but also seemed to note finally that they had an audience. Still, she offered one final argument. “Once I cut into him, the body won’t be intact; so much of the value is lost.”
“Enough,” Monobrow—Detective Mikulski—cut in. “Argue on your own time or take it up with the chief. Ms. Karacis would like to take a look at our vic.”
Rodriguez and Sheridan both eyed me as if to see if I could stand the shock. Then Dr. Sheridan peeled back the sheet, releasing the incongruous smell of ocean salt and singed flesh.
It was fish-face all right. He certainly hadn’t gone gently into that good night. His face was a mask of anger. I could just barely see the top of a blackened chest wound. Without a better look, I had no idea if the cause of death was man-made, like a large caliber bullet from a gun held at close range, or godly, like a lightning bolt.
So I asked. “How did he die?”
“Is that the man you saw kill Circe Holland?” Mikulski asked.
“Yes. I believe he may have been stalking Sierra Talbot as well.”
It implied that Glaucus had killed both, but it was for the best. He was too dead to care about his reputation and I suspected Poseidon, if Sierra was indeed his handiwork, was a bit beyond human justice. Anyone looking for him would probably land on a matching slab. Better to put the whole thing to rest.
Mikulski nodded and Dr. Sheridan replaced the sheet. “You didn’t answer my question,” I reminded him.
“No, and I’m not going to. For one thing, the autopsy results aren’t in. For another, it’s none of your damned business.”
I was escorted out. Lau reminded him before the door shut on us that they’d be in touch. “What’s his deal?” I asked.
“He’s on the wagon,” Lau answered. “Happens every time. Weirdly, he’s much more charming when he backslides.”
Armani gave her an odd look.
“We have history.”
I had the office all to myself. Armani and Lau were on duty; Jesus had gone home or wherever he went when he left here. There was no one to hear me scream or cry or rant like a lunatic. I wanted to do it all at once. I didn’t like feeling powerless, a teeny tiny ant compared to the huge, unapproachable power of the gods. It made me angry and the anger felt huge, too big for me to contain—as if all hell were literally about to break loose. It gave me the brass balls I needed to threaten a god.
I punched in the number Jesus had found for Hermes in his Thom Foolery persona. When his machine picked up I started talking. “Hermes, I know it’s you. Glaucus is dead. You’d better damn well pick up. If I have to fly to Boca to kick your sorry ass—”
“Please, tell me more,” he purred into the phone. “I just love it when women talk dirty to me.”
“That was not foreplay.”
“Not to you, maybe. Really, tracking a man down might be considered forward by some, but I like a little aggression in my women. Of course, now you’ve blown my whole mystique.”
“Whatever. Look, I need to know everything you know. I don’t have time for riddles. Three people are dead already—”
“And that’s supposed to make me talk? I’m not foolish enough to set myself up as the next victim.”
“Then try this on for size—either you tell me and I keep it to myself that you’re my source, or I find out elsewhere and put it out that the information came from you.”
“It occurs to me that if you ‘put it out’ that you know, you’re in as much danger as me. Maybe more. I’ve had centuries to prepare for anything.”
“Well, damn. That always works on TV.”
He chose not to comment.
“Then how about this: I keep completely silent and no one knows the beans have been spilled.”
“Until you swoop in to foil the plans. Anyway, I’m not certain I’m so enamored of my current reality that I wouldn’t welcome a change.”
“Exactly when did you get that stick implanted up your butt? Where’s the Puckish rabble-rousing? Come on, you’re not really going to hang back and let things unfold without your interference. What fun would that be?”
He laughed. “A very palpable hit. Let me think. How can I keep you in the game without exposing myself? You’ve caught me at a loss. All that disingenuous idiocy is not without cost, you know.”
Hermes made thinking noises until I was ready to jump through the phone line and throttle the answers out of him. Just as my very last nerve was about to snap, he said, “I’ve got nothing. I only hope you don’t unearth the plot too late.”
He was gone. My stomach sank down to my toes.
Struggling not to lose hope, I pulled out my list. I wondered if Jesus’s hacker buddy could get access to Yiayia’s phone records, track down her “friend.” I wasn’t ready to cut off the very last tie to my family now that Uncle Christos had fled into the wild blue yonder. Not yet anyway. Both Apollo and Hermes had dodged my questions.
Maybe I should have started with Christie and worked my way up. I owed her a call anyway. Aside from emailing her Jesus’s head-shot preferences, I’d been ducking her since slipping out of the nightclub with Apollo. She’d want details. Girlfriends told each other that kind of thing, I knew. It was just kinda hard to get used to. In the circus everyone knew each others’ business; there was hardly a need to talk about it. Anything truly private was guarded like Fort Knox. The only way to survive in such close quarters day in and day out was to respect that. My fatal flaw. I was good at blowing things wide open. Not so good at sharing.
I sucked it up and dialed Christie’s number. “Hey, traitor,” she answered.
“Um, hey?”
“Don’t say it like you’re not sure I’m talking about you. You practically disappeared off the face of the earth.”
“I know. I’m sorry. A lot’s been going on.”
“Yeah, I saw the news. Looks like you and Apollo are getting pretty chummy. Are you ditching me for a guy? I mean, at least I can sort of understand this one, but—”
“Christie, I’m not ditching you for Apollo or anyone else. It’s this case. Well, two really, but I just wrapped up the one.”
“Well, goody for you,” but the vehemence was already draining from her voice and for once I really appreciated the bigness of heart that allowed Jack the jerk so many chances.
“Actually, maybe you can help me with the other.”
“Really?” She brightened.
I grimaced, certain she had something other than interrogation in mind. “Yup. On the day of Circe’s murder, the conversation kind of took a right turn before you got to tell me whether or not you knew her.”
“Oh.”
Noncommittal, but, hey, not outright hostile. “Do you?” I pushed.
Silence.
“Christie, I can’t hear your head shaking.”
“Well, duh. I was just trying to decide what to say. See, you’re going to think I’m nuts.”
“I promise, whatever you have to say, I won’t think you’re nuts. I’ve seen enough insanity these last few days that it’s starting to seem normal.”
“Okay,” she answered doubtfully. “Um, here goes—Circe Holland contacted me, like, a year ago about representation.”
“She’s your agent?” No, that couldn’t be right. I was sure she called him something like Mac.
“No, that’s the crazy thing. You’re going to think I’m all superstitious, but it seems like she’s kind of a Typhoid Mary. Her actors are all, like, big, you know, for a short time, kind of shooting stars, but there’s no staying power—they die young or fade away. Maybe it’s just that her attention wanders to the next big thing. Maybe it’s the nature of the business. I just get this weird vibe. But, you know, Circe Holland. So, I met with her, took a look at her contract. I can’t remember now, but there was something strange about it.” Yeah, like a forget spell, I thought. A clause like that doesn’t just slip your mind. “Anyway, I didn’t sign. Look how well that’s turned out—still doing commercials and catalogue shoots.”
“Oh, Christie, you did the right thing. Trust me.”
I’d been ridiculously arrogant thinking Christie needed me to be some kind of guardian angel shielding her from the world. Maybe she already had a guardian angel. Recent events had proven there were more things on Earth than were thought of in my philosophy. Anyway, she did just fine. Probably better than I would have if someone offered up my dreams on a silver platter.
“Really? I’m not a silly superstitious freak? I know you think I’m naïve—”
Ouch. “No, you’re just right. I’m the idiot. I’m such a cynic I think it’s the only way to be.” I needed to start giving Christie more credit. “I’m sorry.”
“Good. That way you’ll be beholden to me, which works out because, ah, I wanted to ask you something. Just to see what you think. You can always say no, or—”
“Christie, just ask.”
“Okay, well, like, I heard that Apollo is taking over Circe’s business—hey, wait, that’s weird, they’re both totally Greek names, right? Anyway, I was wondering if you thought he might consider me again, you know, if he were changing that contract boilerplate, and hoped you could put in a good word?”
I didn’t groan, but it was a close thing. I didn’t want to owe any more to Apollo than he already thought I did. But for Christie …
“I’ll have to play it by ear. He’s”—how to put this?—“not always so approachable.”
“Uh huh. He looked pretty approachable the other night at the Kasbah,” she teased.
I let my head fall until it thumped on my desk. “Ow.”
“Tori?”
After the call I sat staring at my blotter for a full minute. Something about the conversation had sparked the glimmer of a thought, but it remained stubbornly out of reach. I was pretty disgusted with myself for taking things for granted. Weeks ago, I knew that Yiayia was eccentric and our family stories a bunch of hooey; gods didn’t roam the earth, magic existed only in books and movies; blonde plus big-hearted equaled dupe. Blind, deaf and dumb. Some investigator.
That was when it hit me, the niggling thought. Since when had Hermes ever been at a loss for words? I had assumed that he was on the level when he told me “I got nothing,” but Hermes/Coyote was never that straightforward. I was on the tail end of a planet-sized learning curve about assumptions. What kind of idiot would count her change at any deli but take a trickster god at his word? My kind of idiot, apparently. Uncle Christos was going to regret leaving me alone with his business.
But dammit, I was going to see this through. I thought back over Hermes’s parting words. “I hope you don’t unearth the plot”—was that it? I didn’t see what I could do with the first part, so I moved on to “unearth.” I grabbed a piece of blank paper from my printer and started writing. Unearth—excavate, exhume, dig up, uncover. Hmmm. Plot—of land, grave, plan. Exhume and grave would go together, but if so, whose grave? Hell, for all I knew this could be the plot of a novel or screenplay. It could mean anything. Was I making erroneous assumptions again, trying to read into Hermes’s words? Maybe. But I figured it couldn’t hurt to put it on my backbrain, see what developed, whereas ignoring the possibility might be hazardous to LA’s health.
My stomach growled and the phone rang all at once. I ignored the one and answered the other. Without preamble, Armani asked, “Are you near a TV?”
“No.”
“You might want to find one. I’ve got some things to wrap up. Then, if it’s all right, I’ll come by. I’ll bring dinner.”
Much as I hated to nix what sounded like Armani’s attempt to make good on that date … “I’m headed out for something now. You could bring dessert.”
“What do you like?”
“Anything chocolate.”
I stopped for takeout souvlaki and ate it in front of my television. I flipped through the channels until I found what Armani wanted me to see—the press conference already in progress.
Detective Rodriguez and a man I didn’t recognize, but major brass, a captain by his bars, shared the mic while Monobrow tried not to sulk too obviously about his strictly supporting role. Someone must have decided that Rodriguez would make a better impression in front of the cameras. Go figure.
From the sea of raised hands, brass chose a brunette Barbie in a red power suit.
“We’ve heard that there are some unusual identifying characteristics about the body that was fished out of the ocean. Would you comment on that?” Which either meant a leak or, more likely, that whoever found the body had already contacted the stations about selling camera-phone pictures or amateur video to the highest bidder.
Brass oh-so-kindly sidestepped that one, leaving Rodriguez with the mic. “Yes, our victim has certain abnormalities, as noted by one of the witnesses at the Circe Holland homicide, a local investigator.”
Reporters clamored for attention, shouting questions about my identity, the nature of the abnormalities. Somebody brought up the X-Files.
I leaned forward, realizing only when I ran out of air that I was holding my breath.
Brass stepped in then, “Okay, ladies and gentlemen. That’s all we have for you right now. The investigation is still ongoing.”
Oh Lord of the Rings, the cat was out of the bag now. I could think of only one reason the gods would allow Glaucus’s body to be found. They were ready to make themselves known. We were out of time.
I turned off the television in favor of my laptop. Every single hourglass was a saw-stroke to my nerves. Even cable was too slow.
There were roughly a bazillion government and academic websites dealing with the San Andreas fault system, none of which were overlaid by city or county maps so that I could see if any fissures ran beneath a cemetery or any other sort of plot. By flipping back and forth between a fault diagram and a map of the San Fernando Valley, I was able to get a very general sense of locations, but that was it.
After an hour, I was ready to tear my hair out in frustration. Even if I could correlate the information, I’d inevitably miss something. Even the most helpful site admitted that there was no way to be sure of the full extent of the faults. New fissures appeared all the time, many never even reaching the surface—until suddenly they did, swallowing someone’s house, shearing off a section of cliff with an ocean view.
I pushed back from the computer, closed my eyes and tried not to think. My light bulb moments usually came to me when I was in the middle of something else, a shower, a lonely stretch of road, allowing my mind to wander. Quiet moments hadn’t exactly been plentiful recently.
Two things immediately pushed their way to the fore. One, the god-gossip website that mentioned the divinities making a comeback said something about old rivalries laid to rest for the sake of combining forces. In my limited experience, it took more than two to tango, conspiratorially speaking. Nothing in the Greco-Roman pantheon played quite as tight as sibling rivalry. If Poseidon Earthshaker had buried the hatchet with, say, Zeus Stormbringer or Hades … well, if he had a moniker, I’d never heard it … we were pretty much dead meat. Even two-thirds of the mighty triumvirate ought to be good for an apocalypse—or close enough for government work.
Second, my brain leapt to some new conclusions about Hermes’s message. I’d been thinking about things all wrong. A cemetery plot didn’t make any sense. Even a freshly dug hole wouldn’t deliver explosives deeply enough into the earth to have a real impact. No, there was something else. I allowed my brain to wander over a mental map of LA until finally it clicked, panned right and zoomed in.
I was ready to burst when Armani knocked on the door seconds later. I flung it open and hugged him so hard I crushed the bag he carried.
“What’s that for?”
I stepped back to look him in the eyes. “I know. I know where it’s going to happen. Not when, but soon. Tomorrow, maybe. I think they’re ready to make their big entrance.”
His face was grim. “LA’s about to blow sky high and you’re grinning like you’ve won the lottery.” That had better be some good chocolate he was carrying.
“The point is, LA’s not going anywhere. We’re going to stop it.”
“How?”
My smile wobbled. “I haven’t worked that part out yet. For that I need caloric fortification. What did you bring?”
“Eclairs, but they’re probably flat now.”
“They’ll still taste the same. Come on in. What can I get you to drink with them? Coffee, milk?”
“Coffee, please.”
I pulled him in, only then realizing we’d been talking about the end of LA right out in the hallway. My neighbors and I pretty much kept to ourselves, but I wondered if any had noticed the patrolman in the hall last night. If so, I hoped it hadn’t made them particularly curious about the goings-on. Not that there was anything they or I could do about that.
I fiddled with the coffeepot, making enough to last a while. If we were going to come up with a plan, I needed all the artificial stimulation I could get.
“Okay, you’ve watched me sleep; you’ve seen me in a towel; you’re no longer company. I’ll pour, but you’ve got to do your own alchemy.” I gave the sugar bowl a nudge along the counter.
Next thing I knew, Armani was right behind me, close enough that when he took a deep breath I felt his chest against my back. Then his hands were hot on my shoulders. My eyes closed and I leaned back into him, almost without thought. He slid one hand down my arm to my waist, then across my stomach to fan his hand there. My breath caught. He kissed the top of my head, which should have felt chaste but didn’t, not with the warmth of his breath and his body pressed against mine. I wanted to turn toward him and try that kiss again, but I was afraid that if I moved it would break the spell and we’d find reason again to fight so that we could go back to our neutral corners. Which was just stupid. Were we so scared of losing a pointless flirtation that we’d sacrifice the chance for more? I couldn’t speak for Armani, but for my part, hell—
I turned and his lips came down on mine. He must have started on his éclair; his lips were incredibly sweet. I wanted to lick them clean, but my lower lip was trapped between his teeth as he nibbled it until I moaned, then thrust his tongue into my mouth instead. For a moment, we seemed to be fighting for dominance, his tongue parrying mine and falling back as I thrust into his mouth as well. Then he moved on to nip my earlobe as one hand traced my spine. I felt Armani growing against me and slid my hips back and forth against him. He groaned and started walking me back toward the bed.
I wanted him so badly that up against the kitchen counter would have been just fine with me, but at least this way I had the leisure to taste him, cup the butt I’d long admired, make him shake with need. I probably should have been thinking about ramifications, but if I was thinking at all, it was that I wanted to shake Armani’s control, see him urgent with need. I wanted to feel those final hard thrusts before he spilled into me.
When he hit the bed, he pulled me down with him, then tried to roll me under. I stubbornly resisted, instead straddling him and riding his erection until he subsided with his hands on my hips, encouraging the motion. I was already wet and, if our clothes vanished in the next second, could easily take him, but that would be too quick. I pulled my camisole over my head and tossed it to the floor. Armani’s eyes went straight to the black lace of my demi-cup bra.
“God, Tori.” It sounded like it was forced out of him.
I leaned down, letting my breasts brush his chest, my nipples sensitive beneath the lace as I tasted his neck. In contrast to his lips, his neck was tangy, delicious. The taste made me shiver all the way down to where I rubbed against his erection.
With a hand to either side of my face, he raised my lips back to his, darting his tongue into my mouth, quick invasions that left me wanting more. No doubt that was the plan, as I let him roll me over a minute later so that he could devour my mouth while his hands alternately tweaked my nipples and caressed my flesh, above the bra, then down over it to my ribs and stomach on to the fastening of my slacks. He played with it for an exquisite second where I thought he would undo it and I’d finally get to feel him where I wanted him then settled for dipping his fingertips inside the waistband.
I freed my lips long enough to say, “Tease.”
His gaze met mine. Inches away the blue was the color of midnight. “Not if I intend to follow through.”
I slid a hand between us to cup his shaft, hot and rock hard, straining against the fabric barrier. “You’re a little overdressed.”
As he reached a hand down to remedy the situation, I felt a zing of another kind—danger. I gave an inarticulate cry as a thunderclap with the weight of a sonic boom startled the bejeebers out of me.
“What the hell!” Armani cursed.
“Get down!” I yelled.
Lightning lit the sky like a Roman candle. Armani and I dove for the floor, but the bolt was faster, shattering the window. Glass shards like missiles pierced my back as I fell. Wind whipped through the broken window, bringing with it a cold, driving rain. My back stung like a bundle of exposed nerves.
“You all right?” Armani called over the howling wind.
I didn’t respond, teeth too tightly gritted against the pain as I reached for my shirt. “Tori?” he prompted, an edge of concern creeping in.
“Hell no,” I managed as the wave ebbed, “but there’s—no time—for that. This has got to be the beginning … Too much power to waste all on us.”
Another thunderclap sounded, rattling the remaining glass. “Door. Now!” I yelled. To hell with my shirt.
Steeling myself, I gathered my strength and exploded up from the floor a millisecond before the second bolt destroyed my bed.
Armani beat me to the door and we thundered down the stairs, unwilling to trust the elevator’s electrical system. I was more gasping than breathing, praying under my breath that the glass shards in my back wouldn’t sever anything vital. Already the pain signals were so scrambled my whole body felt aflame. Armani burst out onto the street first and hit the auto-unlock on his car. I threw myself into the back as he slammed into the driver’s seat.
“What—” he swiveled to look at me, eyes going wide at my prone position—or maybe it was all the blood.
“Just drive!” I ordered.
The agony of twisting to close the door nearly blacked me out. I steadied myself with my hands as best I could, trying to anticipate the jolts while spots danced before my eyes. At least I was too distracted to worry about the fact that I was naked from the waist up.
“Where?” he asked.
“Tar pits. Call Lau, call anyone you think will listen. We’re going to need reinforcements.”
The wind shrieked around the car. Rain hit with such force it sounded like hail. I could practically feel Armani fighting for control of the car. Maybe dividing his attention with the phone wasn’t such a hot idea.
“Never mind.” A sudden bump in the road made me wince. “Pass the phone to me.”
“You can barely talk.”
“Screw that. You need to focus.”
Armani grabbed the phone from its belt holster; I was amazed I hadn’t dislodged it back at my place.
He handed it back to me without turning around.
My back twinged as I took it, but the pain, weirdly, seemed very far away, which was either a miracle or a really, really bad sign. I flexed my feet—thank gods, still working.
I called Lau, told her about the tar pits, everything. Let her call the cavalry. If anyone was likely to mobilize troops, I was betting on her.
Another thunderclap rumbled and lightning turned night into day. A huge CR-RACK! sounded and Armani cursed as a giant palm tree began to topple. He slammed on the brakes, but not soon enough. Impact took the front bumper and smashed the lights, but at least we were still alive.
“You’ve got sucky aim, buddy!” Armani yelled at the sky. He hit reverse. The car protested, leaving some of itself behind, but finally let go with a giant groan of metal. “Hang on!”
Armani did a crazy U-turn that almost spun us three-hundred-and-sixty degrees before he got control and headed for a detour. The move would nearly have killed me moments ago. Now—I tentatively sat up. The tinkling of falling glass joined the howling chorus of the elements. I brushed it away, onto the floor and felt my back. Raised welts. That was all. My body had rejected the glass, knit itself together. About as natural as the storm raging outside.
Armani flicked a glance at me in the rearview mirror. “What the hell?”
“Don’t ask.” ’Cause I don’t know, I thought. I was guessing Apollo had a lot to answer for, though in this case I couldn’t get all worked up over it.
“Okay, how about this one: why the tar pits? How do you know?”
“Hermes.” Had I told him about Hermes? In all the insanity, I couldn’t remember. “I tracked him down. All he gave me was, ‘I hope you don’t unearth the plot too late.’”
“Based on that—”
“Hey, give me some credit, okay? I grew up with the tales. I know how these things work. It took me a while to figure it out. At first I thought he was talking about a cemetery plot, but that didn’t make sense with the whole earthquake/explosives plan we’d figured on. Graves just don’t go deep enough. But the tar pits make all kinds of sense—deep, open fissures the tar still bubbles up through to the surface, excavations all over the place and, if you think of it the right way, a graveyard. Animals, even a woman, went in but they never came out, except as fossils.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“So do I.”
“Are you going to call Apollo?” he asked.
I crawled through the space between seats so that I could sit up front. He looked over quickly, but I noticed his eyes made a quick stop at my chest before moving up to my face.
“Do you want me to?” I asked.
“It wouldn’t hurt to have a—uh—god on our side.”
The car hydroplaned and Armani fought for control. I grabbed the hand rest, as if that would save me. Armani cursed fluently as the car spun a one-eighty, making geysers of the water on either side of us. He steered into the turn until we were facing the way we’d come.
While he righted us, I pried my fingers off the handrest to reach for my seat belt. “I don’t think his powers are really, um, warlike,” I said feebly.
Armani risked another glance away from the road. “Oh, really? Never mind. I don’t want to know. Maybe he’s got friends.”
Yeah, but which side would they be on? If it came down to gods bent on recovering their power against humans who’d really rather they didn’t, which side would Apollo choose? What in the world did we have to offer?
On the flip side, not calling Apollo had never kept him out of the loop before.
“The storm seems to be moving off in the direction we’re headed, like it’s got something else on the agenda.”
“Good. If it has to give up battering us to focus elsewhere, maybe the gods only have enough power for one small concentrated storm. Maybe we can wear them out.” I wondered how long they could keep it going fueled only by the belief of Yiayia and a few other eccentrics. “The bad news is that with lightning et. al., we may be facing Zeus as well as Poseidon and Hephaestus.”
“Fantastic. Can’t wait. Call Apollo.”
Right … but with Apollo’s ability to scry me and all—“Um, Armani, you got something I can wear?”
His lips tugged upward in a lascivious grin. “You’re a better distraction as you are now.”
“Please.”
“In the back, I think maybe there’s a jacket.”
I reached behind the seats and found the jacket on the floor behind Armani, where I’d probably pushed it in my graceful belly slide into the backseat. Or, I thought when I held it closer and caught a whiff, it had been there for a really, really long time. Still, it probably wouldn’t bite and I was in no position to be choosy. I put it on, zipped it up and rolled the sleeves thrice.
Then I dialed Apollo, but with no idea what to say that wouldn’t make me sound like a whack job if anyone else checked his messages—like the police in the event he’d already become a casualty. My heart clenched. I hung up when his voice mail kicked in. If he was interested, my number would come up as a missed call.
“No luck,” I reported.
“Plan?” he asked.
“I’m open to suggestions.”
“Great.”
I couldn’t say for sure, with the raindrops still committing hara-kari on our windshield, but I thought I spotted the entrance to Hancock Park, the tar pit complex, just ahead. Yup, no mistaking the stylized saber-tooth tiger guarding the gate, even with our headlights the park’s only illumination. It was eerily dark. No security lights. No street lamps lit in the vicinity. Nada. Armani pulled into one of the empty spaces all around the business district this time of night.
“What do you want to bet this freak storm has cut power to annoying little things like alarm systems?” Armani asked.
“And backup generators. Don’t suppose you have any night-vision goggles.”
Armani snorted. “Flashlight in the glove compartment and some flares in the trunk, that’s about it.”
“Gun?” I asked, reaching into the glove box to grab said light and trying to ignore Armani’s stare.
“Where’s yours?”
“Lockbox at home,” I answered defensively. “I didn’t exactly have time to grab it.” No need for him to know I hadn’t used it since—
An immense gust actually lifted the car up on two wheels and dropped us down again. Damn, we had regained the storm’s attention.
“No safer in than out,” I said, mostly to psych myself up. “Let’s do it.”
Armani nodded and we threw open the doors—or tried to. The wind hurled the door back in my face, but my shoulder took the brunt of the impact. Hard rain picked up the slack, stinging like ice—or acid. I could see only the narrowest sliver of world through my eyes, squinting to near blindness in defense against the burn. A thunderclap clashed with enough force to crack my chattering teeth together. “Get away from the car,” Armani yelled.
“Trying!”
I took a deep breath and channeled my inner strongman, er, woman. “Eee-yah!” With a sudden burst of power, I flung the door back at the wind and pounded pavement. My feet nearly went out from under me on the slick street, but I managed to right myself and make it to Armani’s side. I held the flashlight and he the gun as we advanced on the gate, blinking against the rain that threatened to eat us alive.
A bolt had melted the gate to slag. The flashlight beam didn’t extend beyond, so it was impossible to see what lay in wait. We’d ditched the car so quickly that the flares still sat uselessly in the trunk. We’d be blind to anything more than a few steps away. We took those steps, over the twisted lump that had once guarded the complex from trespassers like us. Then we crept a few more paces across the grass, toward the slowly bubbling morass of tar and groundwater that I knew from past visits held plaster representations of mammoths soon to become one with the earth.
Those few steps had brought us to the eye of the storm, the eerie oasis of calm around which everything swirled. As I panned the flashlight beam before us, I knew why. A chill skittered up my spine as the beam hit upon the figure in profile to us a quarter of the way around the lake—powerful build, high-tech goggles and a faintly glowing remote. Hiero—no, call him what he was at that moment—Hephaestus, deranged god of the forge. The beam of my light tore his focus away from the black water. He thrust one arm out at me and the bulb in the flashlight blew. Darkness swallowed us.