Page 4 of Apollo

He had to focus. Zoom his available powers in on two mandates alone. To cover and heal his little monster.

Well, shit.

“No,” he gritted out. She wasn’t his anything, except the information source he was here to mend for one specific point. Someone had stolen a string from his lyre—yes, that lyre; the gift from Hermes so many millennia ago—which had, due to rarely leaving his side, soaked up a potent amount of his powers. But in the wrong hands, like the clutches of the dirty demigod at the top of his suspects list, that magic could explode into danger between one breath and the next. Mounted into the wrong instrument or played by an inexperienced novice, the single strand of cow’s gut would fight back hard enough to put a nuclear core meltdown to shame. Even worse, if it got unleashed upon the minds of unsuspecting mortals.

He had to find that bastard Rizon. Right the hell now. And she was his only key to unlocking that secret. As soon as she spat out what he needed to know, she could choke to death on her own blood for all he cared.

“No.” He emphasized the repetition, intending it as a clear answer to her question. He had no choice about it, and neither did she. “Helping isn’t an option, sweetheart. I’m sorry.”

The meaningful rasp came from the same stupid place his psyche had used for all the new endearments. She’s not your sweetheart. Or your adorable little monster. She’s the wack-a-doodle Lara Croft pretender who just tried to fill you, your brother, and his new human gal-pal with a hundred rounds of lead—just an hour before shooting up Hercules with a vial of something worse.

Falmouth.

Holy gods, he’d nearly forgotten about that.

Which put a worse spin on all of this.

A much more frightening twist of thought . . .

Who the hell was she? And how and why had she been packing a holster full of the substance that zapped Hercules from hero to zero in minutes? Who had supplied her with that kind of exclusive intel, then bought her off mightily enough to try and use it in a public space like DeLux?

Questions she would be answering for him, but only after he made it physically feasible to do so.

Closing the wound from his extracted arrow took first priority. Since he’d fashioned the whole thing himself, from nock to head, it wielded godly lethality close to Zeus’s level. If he didn’t repair the damage right away, she’d be dead in five minutes. Dead mortals told no tales.

He still needed a lot of her tales.

With his left hand, he pressed harder at her wound. While the heat from his fingers turned her flesh into biological solder, instantly jacking the intensity of her screams, he also stretched out his right hand, aiming it at the space beneath her body—only to watch his weakened levitation powers hit a two on a scale of twenty.

“Shit.”

This is what he got for whisking his brother out of harm’s way tonight, twice. But if he didn’t extract this woman from the chandelier that had become her bed of spikes, the arrow gash would be the least of his worries—and the beginning of her death sentence.

Coincidence, with its depraved sense of humor, underlined the point as soon as his little monster parted her lips again.

No scream this time. Fresh blood gurgled from her mouth instead.

“Damn it.” The mutter emerged nearly beneath his breath as he fought to funnel more power to his fingertips. Again, no use.

Time to employ the backup plan. Except that he had none.

Bullshit. Of course you do.

This time, the inner voice wasn’t his. He never sounded that harsh and ugly even when drunk as a bacchanal pixie, though why he pictured pixies and Kaw within seconds of each other was a mystery that’d have to stay unsolved. Because, as usual, his crow team leader was right—thank every fuck there was—and there wasn’t a second to waste before putting the knowledge to use.

He reached over, flicking the shiny gold band around the bird’s left leg. “If you had to pick a moment for great timing, this is it, avian.”

The hell? My timing’s always great.

Kaw’s regal ring was bested only by his cocky brass balls, but this time he’d earned the right to swing them. His stunningly accurate read on the situation—half-dead female at the feet of his agitated boss, in a Hollywood Hills foyer starting to resemble a Cronenberg movie set—granted him leniency for the brash line. But only that one.

“Shut up and tell me you brought the rest of the squad,” Apollo snapped.

You mean these guys?

Before the last syllable of the telepathic comeback, there was a synchronized thunder of wings then a precision descent of black, times six. As their leader intimated, the cavalry was really here. As Apollo’s instincts screamed again, not a moment too late.

“Efcharistó.” He used the Greek expression of thanks with them all, because this particular mission would require them all. This was no normal task like speeding some intel to Zeus or making sure Aristaeus didn’t wander afield on his way home from school. In the case of his bee-loving little shit, that was more often the case than not.