Warrior Rising (Goddess Summoning #6)(91)

Everyone was looking expectantly at Kat, even Odysseus. Kat wished like hell she could produce a living, walking, talking Patroklos, but of course that was impossible. Even if the warrior was actually alive, he was probably in surgery. Pulling him out of the modern world would kill him as surely as Hector’s sword.

“Patroklos can’t be brought out here on the battlefield. It would kill him. He’s alive, but he’s badly hurt. No, I’m all you have. You have to take me to Achilles.”

“Achilles will not see you, my lady,” Automedon said sadly. “It will only be the berserker, and we cannot save you from him if the creature decides to destroy you.”

“I know that. You won’t have to save me. I’ll save myself.”

Every single man looked at her as if she had just said she was going to sprout a red cape and fly faster than a speeding bullet.

“Just take me to him,” she said with a sigh. “I’ll take care of the rest of it. No, I won’t hold you responsible for my deadness if things don’t work out. And once you get me to him, all you guys back off. I don’t want any of you getting hurt.”

She saw the incredulous looks and heard a muttered, “She doesn’t want us getting hurt?” which she ignored. They were definitely not helping her confidence level.

“All right. Let’s get her to Achilles,” Odysseus said.

The men snapped to like the experienced, disciplined warriors they were. They created a phalanx, putting her safely in the middle of them. Then they began to move onto the battlefield, fighting slowly, as one man, moving inexorably forward, drawing ever nearer the animalistic cries that came from the creature who used to be Achilles.

Afterward Kat couldn’t decide if the nightmare trip across the battlefield had taken a very short or a very long time. It had seemed she had entered a place where time had no meaning, a Twilight Zone landscape of death and blood and violence that her eyes took in, but her soul refused, at least temporarily, to see. Later the memories came to her, mostly in black-and-white snapshots of horror, but at that moment she had marveled what the human mind could deny to survive.

Then the pace of the group changed, picked up, before coming to a stop. Odysseus was beside her, breathing hard. “There is only one more layer of men between us and the berserker. We should push easily through.”

“Okay, good. Just get me close to him.”

“You may not have long before he’s upon you,” Odysseus said.

“Let me worry about that.”

Odysseus nodded and called the men surrounding them to order. “Push through the line then open the column for the princess!”

Kat was sick and scared. As she moved forward again with the men she thought she might puke and was gritting her teeth together against it when the dark shields in front of her parted to let in daylight and madness.

He was standing in a clearing of dead men. Blood had turned the dirt to rusty clay. His back was to her, giving Kat a bizarrely peaceful moment in which to study him. Odysseus and the other men had been right—this creature was not Achilles. His body had grown to such huge, misshapen proportions that the tunic she had last seen him wearing had split, leaving him naked except for a short linen wrap knotted around his waist. She must have made an involuntary noise because he suddenly whirled to face her. Kat felt the men tense. She glanced at Odysseus and told him “Go!” before walking away from their protection.

The creature growled. Kat took a few more steps, distancing herself from the other men, then she stopped and met his burning red gaze. Blood and gore covered his scarred body. It ran in dirty rivulets from his matted hair. His face was not his own. Like his body, it was misshapen, as if there was something under his skin trying to stretch its way free.

“Achilles, it’s me, Katrina.” She made sure her voice was steady and calm, as if he were a client who had just told her that he was thinking about suicide. And wasn’t that just what Achilles was doing? He believed he’d caused his cousin’s death, so now he was planning on paying for that with his own. “Achilles,” she repeated his name. “Patroklos is not dead.”

Achilles curled his lip, bearing his teeth. He began to move toward her, slowly but with a deadly, almost seductive grace. She thought he reminded her of a huge poisonous snake. Kat wanted to turn and run for all she was worth back into the sea of warriors behind her. Instead she drew a deep breath, sent a silent, pleading prayer asking Venus for help, and held her ground.

“Achilles,” she said sternly. “You have to listen to me. Patroklos is not dead. He’s alive and he’s going to be fine.”

As he circled her he made a noise that sent chills skittering across her skin—she realized the creature was laughing.

“Achilles,” she said again, turning her body so that she could continue to meet his gaze. “I know you’re there somewhere. I know you can hear me. Patroklos is not dead.”

“I will taste you.” His voice was so awful, so utterly not human, not Achilles that she had to clench her hands into fists so that their trembling wouldn’t be obvious.

“No, I don’t think you will.” Kat kept her voice as well as all of her mannerisms carefully neutral, as placid as possible. “Achilles loves me, and he won’t let you hurt me.”

His laugher was terrible, mocking and monstrous. “Foolish woman, I am not Achilles.” Almost within touching distance he stopped circling her. She could smell him—blood and sweat and something feral and male.