The big head tilted. “Meaning?”
“Meaning it’s hard to possess someone when they’re already being possessed by someone else. There was another spirit in there.”
“And you think it was Ares.”
“I know it was. He was possessing that mage. Or doing something to that mage, I don’t know. But he was in there. The way he felt, what he did—it had to be him. Which explains the attack, why it was his style, not theirs. His impatience, his arrogance, not theirs!”
“And now they’re dead, and he’s still out there smelling like a rose,” Marco summed up. “Is that it?”
I nodded.
“And doing what? Looking for a new body?”
I hugged my knees. “I don’t know. I don’t know how much he can do, from the other side of the barrier. I don’t even know if it was a real possession. He seemed to have . . . limitations.”
“Like what?”
“Like it took him a second to see me, when I first moved inside. Not a long delay, hardly anything really, but—”
“But more than you’d expect from a god.”
“Yeah. And then he attacked, but Mircea confused him enough for me to get away—”
“Wait. Mircea took on a god?”
“He didn’t tell you?”
Marco stared at me for a second, and then burst out laughing. “No.”
“What’s funny?”
“I called him earlier—our way, you know?” He tapped the side of his head. “And he told me to switch to a phone ’cause he had a headache. I thought he was joking!”
“He wasn’t joking.”
“Damn.” Marco shook his head, still grinning.
And yeah, I supposed it would sound funny.
If you hadn’t been there.
Eating, he was eating you. He was—
My hands started to shake and I shoved them under my armpits. “It, uh, it also took him longer to react to some of the things . . . that happened in the fight . . . than I’d expect from the god of war.”
“Maybe he’s not so good at this possession thing,” Marco said, eyeing me. “You know it squicks out us normal types, right?”
“I’m being serious!”
“I know. That’s what scares me.”
“Nothing scares you,” I said as one of his arms went around me, pulling me close.
And damn, it was huge. I didn’t understand how some guys got so big. It was almost like they were another species.
Of course, Marco sort of was, but it didn’t matter. He felt solid, strong, reassuring. I might have even leaned on him a little. Maybe I needed a bit more of that comfort stuff than I’d thought.
“A lot scares me,” Marco said. “Anybody says they’re never scared is an idiot. But I’ve learned a few things over the years.”