Page 33 of Hercules

“Save it,” he snapped. “Just tell me how long you think she’ll take to heal. I’m guessing we still have enough time to search at least the bottom floor.” Because like it or not, he had to still care about that damn string and Byrd’s fuckery. “If we jump to it now, we might get to part of the second too. This is some extensive damage. And if she’s only a demi or a harpy, that’ll add some—”

“Herc.”

His brother dropped a hand over his forearm with such force, Herc forgot about all three of the bullet stabs. Not a good thing, considering the torment that persisted across his brother’s features.

“I don’t think she’s one of us.”

Herc flinched. “The fuck?” he snarled, as if drawing out both syllables would bring a flare of understanding. Apollo still didn’t help the cause, appearing as if the lump down his esophagus was a volcanic fragokefala from the heart of Lemnos. “That’s…not…”

Logical.

Practical.

Accurate.

Mentally he circled all three, but his vision contradicted his mind through every one of the scribbles. Which, by this point, were exactly that. Useless crayons against the permanent marker of what Apollo had already observed and processed.

The growing lagoon of blood under the ruined chandelier.

The numerous puddles, smaller but just as horrific, across the landscape of the woman’s form—none of them coagulating yet. Not even faint crusts.

Most telling: her limbs themselves, remaining so stupefyingly still. It’d been nearly two minutes since her fall, and Herc didn’t detect a single twitch or tremor.

“Hold up.” He jammed in a pause of his own, his throat borrowing one of his brother’s lava boulders. “So…what…” Then another. “She’s mortal?”

Despite borrowing Apollo’s symbolic marker to triple his emphasis, it sounded like some strange sacrilege. The feeling only worsened when his punctuating shock was submerged by her gurgled inhalation.

And in the next moment, Apollo’s pronounced whoosh in the other direction. “A fighter,” he murmured, even adding a quirk of lips that looked too damn much like a smile. “Maybe we won’t have to answer to Hades for an unscheduled soul, after all.”

That took plenty care of Herc’s sappy muttering.

“And maybe we’re burning minutes dicking around while this virago fully restores,” he spat. “Hey. Brother. Are you listening? Just because it looks human and bleeds human doesn’t mean it is one of the pitiful creatures. Are you going to just sit here and wait out the verdict? To see if this thing is tricking you or not? And when that time does come, what happens if you’re suddenly on the bad side of a gorgon? A manticore? A hydra? You really want to hear the dirty details about fighting and subduing a damn hydra?”

“No.”

Herc indulged a lording laugh. “Didn’t think so.”

“I meant no; I’m not going to sit here to figure things out.”

Thank the gods. Well, all of them except him and all this waffling bullshit. “Okay. Then let’s hop to it and—”

“Because I’ve already done that.”

“Great,” Herc said, firmer and louder. For the love of Echo, Apollo and his need to swoop into the stratosphere—to the point of listening to nothing but the stars and comets and his own damn voice. “So like I said—”

“Mortal or monster, this female needs to survive.”

And there went both of Herc’s kneecaps. Not literally, but painfully enough as soon as his brother lobbed that doozy into this crazy exchange.

“Not exactly where I was going, man.” Not even remotely, for that matter. “Apollo. She’s a she-snake in the garden. Do you really want to keep her around just to see what she does the next time you step on her?”

“Of course not.”

“Then wh—”

“I want to see what her snake charmer does.”

Herc paused mid-rub on his knees. And tried but failed not to fume while sliding his grip to his thighs. “God damn it, I hate it when you’re right.”