Combining powers. Victoria had told me that the Ophi had had to combine their powers to raise Medusa’s soul and put it in the statue. Many of them had died in the process. This was more than a little risky, but I had to try for Leticia’s sake. I glanced toward the bathroom. “Okay, but we have to hurry. Alex won’t let me try this without knowing what’s wrong with me.”
Chase scooped me into his arms and carried me to the floor near Leticia. He held my hand, and we touched Leticia’s forehead. I didn’t normally need blood to raise things anymore. Other Ophi did, but since I’d drunk Medusa’s blood I no longer had to bleed on the body of the person I was raising. Chase didn’t know that though. He took a needle from the sewing kit on my dresser and poked both our fingers. Drops of blood dotted Leticia’s forehead.
“Ready?” Chase asked.
I nodded and willed my blood to mix. I felt it working, and Chase was right about combining powers. I could feel his blood flowing through the veins in his hand. I focused all my strength on Leticia’s soul. Sweat poured down my cheeks, and I started shaking. Still, I concentrated on bringing Leticia back. Her soul was still in her body, so I only had to wake it. “Breathe,” I commanded. There was a sudden intake of air as Leticia’s eyes and mouth opened. She was alive.
“What are you doing?” Alex yelled. I could barely see. My vision was cloudy. He rushed to me and pulled me away from Chase. “Why did you let her do that?” He buried my face in his shirt.
“Alex, calm down,” Randy said. “They brought Leticia back. They saved her.”
“And it nearly killed Jodi.” Alex’s chest heaved, and he let go of me. I pulled back and saw his shirt was covered in blood.
“What happened to you?” I asked.
“It’s not my blood.” He wiped my cheek with his thumb and showed it to me. It was covered in a deep red liquid. “It’s yours.”
I brought my hands to my eyes. Blood was pouring out of them. I’d gotten headaches and nosebleeds from using my powers, but never anything like this. At least not from raising souls. My eyes had bled after I drank Medusa’s blood, though. I turned to Chase, and he looked as horrified as I was.
“Jodi, I had no idea combining our powers would do this.”
“It didn’t do anything to you,” Alex snarled.
Chase shook his head. “You have to believe me. I didn’t know. I was only trying to help Leticia.”
Leticia sat up and gasped. “Jodi? Are you okay?”
I was burning up from the power inside me. My blood wouldn’t stop boiling. “It’s too much. It’s trying to find a way out.”
“What is?” Alex asked.
“My blood. There’s too much power in it.” My body shook, jolting with every surge of power running through my veins.
“Alex, we should take her to Arianna and Tony,” Randy said. “They might be able to help her and explain what happened.
“No,” I said. “Take me to Medusa. She’ll know.”
Alex carried me downstairs and held me up while I joined hands with Medusa. The second the connection was made, I started to feel better, and before long I was standing on my own. Medusa’s spirit appeared in my mind like usual.
“My child, what’s happened? Who did this to you?”
“I’m not sure. It happened when I brought Leticia back from the dead.” Luckily, my conversations with Medusa were completely private. We spoke only in my mind, so Alex couldn’t overhear anything.
“How did Leticia die?”
“I don’t know. I was sort of out of it when it happened. I heard her choking and gasping for air. Then she fell to the floor. Randy checked for a pulse and said she was dead.”
“Why were you out of it, Jodi?” Medusa eyed me suspiciously. She knew I was holding back.
“There’s a new student at the school.”
“Yes, I met him earlier today.” Medusa only ever appeared to me, but when another Ophi connected with her statue they felt her power and Medusa could tap into their emotions.
“Right. Well, we were all watching a movie in my room.” I swallowed hard before continuing. “Chase started touching my feet. It was weird at first, like a tingling in my feet and legs, but then I recognized it was power I was feeling. Only it wasn’t like the power I feel when I raise souls. I don’t think this power came from you.”
Medusa nodded, like she understood. “Jodi, when you arrived here you were told that the blood in the left side of my body could not harm you, but that was not entirely true.”
“What do you mean? I thought it was only poisonous to humans?”
“It is highly poisonous to humans, but in its purest form it’s poisonous to Ophi as well.”
I shook my head. “In its purest form? What does that mean?”
“It means you weren’t mixing your blood, Jodi. You were pushing all the blood with the power to restore life to a very concentrated part of your body and allowing the poisonous blood to spread throughout the rest of you.”
I started to feel dizzy again, but this time it was from information overload. “How is that possible?”
“How much do you know about Chase?”
“Just that he’s from Serpentarius. He studied with Mason, but he wanted to learn more about his power, so he came here. They don’t actively train there. They don’t believe in it.”
“Keep him close, Jodi. I sense he isn’t like the others.”
“Do you mean he’s like me? He has more power than other Ophi?”
“More power, yes.” Medusa looked down at our hands. “That’s enough for now. You don’t want to indulge in too much of my power at once.”
I wanted to know more, but Medusa was right. Connecting with her for too long drained my energy completely. “Thank you.” I let go of her hands.
“Well?” Alex asked the moment I opened my eyes. I’d only been connected to Medusa for a few minutes, ten tops, but he looked like he’d been waiting an eternity. “What did she say?”
He wasn’t going to like this. “She said Chase isn’t like the other Ophi. He’s more like me. He has more power.”
“You’re kidding, right?” His voice was full of disgust.
“No.” I conveniently left off the part about Chase touching my feet, the incident that had started all this power overload. “When we combined my power and his, it was too much for my body to contain.”
“So, now we know not to let you work with Chase anymore.”
“Actually, I think I need to work with him more.”
He folded his arms in front of him. “How do you figure?”
“We need all the power we can get. Hades is breathing down my neck, and my power alone isn’t enough to keep him away. Maybe if I can figure out how to work with Chase, then—I don’t know. But if it might help us, it’s worth a shot.”
“What about before you raised Leticia? You were acting really weird. What was that about?”
“Stress, I think.” I turned away so he wouldn’t be able to read my face. I was sure it had “big fat liar” written across it.
He stepped forward and hugged me. “We’ll figure it out. But just so you know, whenever you train with Chase, I’m going to be there to make sure nothing like this happens again.”
I nodded. I’d expected as much.
“Let’s get you cleaned up. The blood-streaked face is very last season.”
I smiled. He always could make me feel better.
The movie party was definitely over, so I said goodnight to Alex and took a long, hot shower. Nothing calmed me down better. I was looking forward to crawling under the covers and sleeping my problems away. I couldn’t deal with another thing today. Before I shut my eyes for the night, I said a little prayer—that I wouldn’t have a single dream.