Page 21 of Hercules

“Knock it off.” The three words practically collided in her rush to spew the fury. “I mean, I get it, okay? It’s not a secret you can tell everyone. But you’ve already brought me to the lair, and I’m not packing any crucifixes.”

For that matter, having come straight off the media carpet, she didn’t have her mace, ID, or cell phone either—another fact they were probably aware of, though she could hardly tell from the fast glance they shared. A moment that led to a forceful debate of her own.

Was this her only chance to attempt getting away from them?

If so, what direction even made sense for an exit?

Assuming sense could be applied to any of this…

Before she could think any more of that through, Apollo was already on the move again. Or so she assumed when he disappeared from her sights then flashed into place at his brother’s side. Yet while she madly blinked to catch her brain up to the zipline tactics, the tall male never surrendered his urbane regard of her.

So she froze.

A useless countermeasure, she knew—if they were going to drain her as dinner, self-paralysis wasn’t going to help—but terror was insanity’s cousin, right?

“Ms. Korra, we’re not vampires.” With a sweep she could follow this time, he held up his newly retrieved bottle. “Not blood.” His smile was patient, waiting out Lois’s embarrassed squirm. “But still not expired tequila.”

She leaned a hand along the counter, though her attempt at casual interest was wrecked by the squeak of her sweaty palm on the marble. “Okay, so…”

“It’s nectar.” He rammed the bottle to his brother’s sternum with punishing force. “Which, as you’ve likely deduced, isn’t as much fun as it sounds. But if our friendly neighborhood Lion Man wants to keep his big, pretty muscles from liquefying, he’d better start chugging the shit like a sailor on overnight shore leave.”

He was ready to keep going from there, but Hercules cut him off by tearing off the bottle cap then tossing back the contents. It was all so smooth it came off as one impressive motion—until the nasty drink hit his gullet again. His glower twisted with gargoyle intensity.

“You can be a real jockstrap sometimes, Polo Pony.”

“All the better to boss you around when someone’s shot you full of falmouth, brother.”

They stopped bantering as soon as a new gasp fell out of Lois—a reaction to the ruthless realization that stabbed in.

“Holy shit,” she rasped once more, ignoring the situational cease-fire they’d seemed to have suddenly declared. No way were their daisy chains working now. “The names…they’re really not code at all, are they?” While they kept staring as if she’d suddenly switched to gibberish from another planet, she persisted, “You…you’re actually Apollo and Hercules. And back at the club…that was…actually…”

Aphrodite?

Her mouth fell open as her brain lit that firework. But no cute little sparkler for this show. This was like the ones Nat had sent her to buy for a big July Fourth beach party last summer. She’d met a guy named Ozzy in an alley in the warehouse district and paid him cash for a wood box filled with stuff that looked suited for rocket launchers.

Just like the ones ricocheting around the inside of her skull.

“Oh my God. Oh my—” She choked short. “Wait. Can I even say that?”

Apollo—holy crap, the Apollo—shrugged with casual ease. “Sneaks its way across my mouth a couple of times a day.”

His brother—oh yeah, the Hercules, whom she’d been secretly snickering about as her Hercules—gave the cause his own hitching shoulder. “I usually go for raunchier versions. It’s helped with the day job over the years.”

“Day job?” At least the assault of incredulity helped with shoving back her embarrassment. “You don’t have any job. You’re a god!”

“Officially?” he countered, still as irksomely unruffled as his brother. “Just a demigod. Ergo, why this blowhard can keep ordering me to pound this shit.”

“Falmouth, the green stuff in that dart, is a concentrated fungus that eats at bloodborne nectar,” Apollo supplied. “Which, even in a full god, would cause some serious systemic breakdowns.”

“In a full god.” Lois forced herself to nod. “You mean, like you.” She didn’t wait for his actual answer. His flawless face and fortified posture told that truth already. Mythology was real. Which didn’t make it mythology anymore, right? “Full gods. There are actually gods…”

“Who are actually entrusting you with this knowledge for an important reason.”

Apollo stepped over after jabbing a nod at his sibling, his wordless command for Hercules to suck it up and then suck down the rest of the amber concentrate. If Lo wasn’t still struggling to subjugate her thoughts, she’d be backing up the sun god’s point. Hercules was a swaying mess. His face was clammy. His eyes were glassy.

“Ms. Korros, we need your help.”

She was positive her own gaze turned to glass. It wasn’t just Apollo’s finisher, though she already admitted to a few curious theories about that. It was the jolt he delivered from the first part of the line. The reminder of the skin she was supposed to be filling here, not the other epidermis that’d been governed by her own fears and instincts for the last hour.