Chapter V: Hades

CHAPTER V

HADES

Hades lay awake staring at the ceiling. Persephone was asleep beside him, her head resting just under his arm, her hand flat on his chest. He could feel the weight of her engagement ring against his skin. The metal was cool compared to the warmth of her hand. He wondered if she had grown used to the feel of it on her finger, or was it still new?

He could not wait to wear a ring for her.

And he immediately felt like an idiot for having that thought, no matter how it rang true.

A soft knock drew his attention to the door. Normally, he would instruct whoever was on the other side to enter, but the last thing he wanted to do was disturb Persephone’s sleep.

“Fuck,” he muttered and glanced at the clock.

It was almost three in the morning.

Something was wrong.

He took a deep breath and then held it as he disentangled himself from her, hoping she was tired enough to remain asleep. She stirred only slightly as he slipped from her hold but settled quickly. Relieved, he crossed to the door and answered.

“What is it?” he whispered vehemently.

Ilias stood on the other side of the door.

“My Lord, we have a murder,” he said.

Hades’s brows lowered. “The ophiotaurus?”

It was the first thing that came to mind, considering they expected more deaths to come until the monster was captured.

The satyr shook his head. “This is something else entirely.”

Fan-fucking-tastic, Hades thought.

“I’ll be a moment,” he said and started to close the door.

“Hades,” Ilias said, and the god met his gaze. “It’s Adonis.”

That was the last thing he expected to hear.

Adonis was most famous for being Aphrodite’s favored. Or, if one wished to be less formal, her fuck boy.

But Hades knew him for a different reason. He’d watched as the mortal forced himself on Persephone in the darkness of Aphrodite’s club, La Rose. Later, Hades had gone to Aphrodite to threaten the mortal.

“Nothing,” he’d said, “will keep me from shredding Adonis’s soul.”

Since that night, Hades had heard nothing from or about the mortal, so he assumed his threat had been communicated.

Now, it seemed, he was dead.

Well, fuck.

“A moment,” Hades said again, and he closed the door.

He sighed and then turned and approached the bed where Persephone slept soundlessly. He watched her for a few seconds—the fluttering of her dark lashes on her cheek, the part of her pink lips, the soft rise and fall of her chest. He bent and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“I love you,” he whispered.

She did not wake, only took a deeper breath and buried her face in the silk sheet she kept bunched near her face.

Hades straightened and crossed to the door, calling up his glamour to cover his naked body. He stepped out into the hallway with Ilias, fully dressed in his usual tailored suit.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“La Rose,” the satyr answered.

---

Hades and Ilias manifested on the deserted, snow-covered sidewalk outside Aphrodite’s club. As it was late and many businesses along this road were closed, there was nothing to illuminate the mirrored exterior of Aphrodite’s club, making it look like a cluster of dark crystals jutting from the earth.

“This way,” said Ilias, who directed Hades to an alleyway that ran between La Rose and the building beside it. The space was so narrow, the edges of his shoulders grazed the wall on both sides.

As they came around to the back of the building, a few people were gathered. Zofie was among them, but also people in Aphrodite’s employ.

Aphrodite herself had yet to arrive.

“Has your goddess been informed?” Hades asked Himeros, who he recognized both as the God of Sexual Desire and a close companion of the Goddess of Love. He appeared very young, as if he were in his early twenties. He had no facial hair to speak of, but he did have a swath of thick, dark hair.

“Eros has gone to inform her,” he said.

Himeros and Eros were Aphrodite’s closest advisors and were two of the Erotes, a group of gods and goddesses who all represented different elements of love and sex.

Hades wondered how the goddess would react to learning one of her mortal lovers had been murdered. He was never certain of Aphrodite’s feelings toward those she favored. He knew she was partial to a few, but her love, whether she wanted to admit it or not, belonged to her husband, Hephaestus.

Still, targeting a favored mortal was like targeting the god who had bestowed it, and when Hades turned and saw Adonis’s body, his blood ran cold.

He looked…broken. It was the only way to describe it. His body seemed to have been so badly beaten, he splattered where he lay.

“This was a bold move,” said Hades as he stepped closer.

To attack not only someone who had favor but outside their club.

“And no one heard anything?”

“Nothing,” said Himeros.

“Is there surveillance?” Hades asked.

“There is, but the lenses are frosted over. It’s impossible to see what really happened.”

Fucking Demeter and her gods-damned winter storm.

“But from what I can see,” the god continued, “he seems to have tried to come to the club after we were closed. When he couldn’t get in the front, he came back here. That’s when he was attacked.”

“Who discovered him?” Hades asked.

“I did,” said a new voice: Eros, whose magic felt warm and heady—wrong in this environment. He appeared alongside Aphrodite.

Hades turned and looked at the two, but he could only focus on Aphrodite, whose expression remained disturbingly neutral. He waited for her to change, to realize what happened and rage or perhaps even weep, but she did neither, though her eyes did not waver from the dead mortal.

“By the time I found him, he was already gone.”

Hades bent over the body. There were any number of people who might be responsible for this death, but the severity of his wounds was what made Hades so uneasy. This was hate.

He stared for a long moment before reaching toward the body.

“Do not touch him!” Aphrodite said. She took a step forward but no more, held back by Eros.

Hades glanced at the goddess but ignored her and placed his hand fully on the mortal’s back. Instantly, black tendrils shot from his body, wrapping around Hades’s arm. They continued to climb until Hades was sure of his grip, and when he pulled, he freed Adonis’s soul from his body, and then it vanished, transported to the shores of the Styx where Charon would greet him and take him across the river.

“What did you do?” Aphrodite demanded.

“His soul had yet to leave his body,” Hades said, straightening, which made everything far more horrific. It wasn’t unusual for souls to abandon their body during surprise attacks to escape the brunt of the trauma that would inevitably be inflicted on them. But Adonis hadn’t escaped it, which meant his soul was just as battered as his body. It also meant there was nothing they would learn from him in the afterlife—he would be too distressed to help.

A small part of Hades wondered if Adonis’s attackers had known that. He found it strange that so much had worked in their favor—the cameras, for instance, and the fact that no one heard this horrific attack happening. It all seemed too orchestrated, like they’d had some kind of divine intervention.

“Apollo!” Hades called, hoping his summons worked.

“Why call on him?” Aphrodite asked.

Hades met her bloodshot gaze. Now he noticed her anger.

“We need to know exactly how he died,” said Hades. “I do not trust that this was just a few jealous mortals.”

“What else could it be?”

“I don’t know,” Hades admitted, and he couldn’t really explain why he cared so much about figuring this out. He did not like Adonis, but he did like Aphrodite, despite her meddling, and it worried him that someone close to her had been killed. This was a violation.

“What is it?” Apollo yawned, appearing in the cold night dressed only in a floral robe. When he ceased to rub his eyes and glanced at the ground, he lifted a foot. “Eww. What is that?”

“A body, Apollo,” Hades said flatly.

“Gross,” the God of Light said, and yet he approached and bent over it, studying it closely.

“I need you to conduct an autopsy,” Hades said. “We need to know how he died.”

“Well, I can assure you the fact that he was beaten to a pulp did not help his case.”

“Apollo,” Hades growled, annoyed by his sarcasm. “This man was one of Aphrodite’s favored.”

Apollo straightened, and his head snapped toward the Goddess of Love, pale with understanding.

“Oh,” he said. “Fuck.”

“Yes, fuck,” said Hades.

Apollo frowned and turned his attention to the body again. His feet were bare, and he did not seem to mind that he was standing in Adonis’s pooled and coagulated blood.

Hades was not certain what the god was doing, but after a few moments, he reached for something near the body and held it up. It looked like the handle of a knife.

“I imagine I’ll find quite a few stab wounds.”

Hades turned to Aphrodite. It was hard to say how to move forward from here. Did they warn her favored mortals of the attack and risk it leaking to the media? It was one thing for the favored to be murdered—attacks were not unheard of—but it was another thing entirely for it to happen so close to a divine establishment.

“I do not think it would be an exaggeration to say this was likely done by the Impious,” said Hades. Whether they were associated with Triad was another story.

Impious did not worship the gods. Some lived quietly in their rejection of cult practices, while others were far more extreme, choosing violent methods as a way to attack the gods. Some had organized under the official banner of Triad, a group that touted a belief in fairness, free will, and freedom despite terrorizing numerous mortals in their quest for said freedom.

Now, they claimed to be peaceful protesters, though Hades believed otherwise. But one thing worked in their favor, and that was the chaos caused by anyone who had forsaken the gods.

“Protect those in your circle, Aphrodite,” said Hades. “I think they want your wrath.”

“Why would anyone want my wrath?” she asked, her fair fingers curled into fists.

“To illustrate a point.”

“What point, Hades?”

“That a god’s favor truly means nothing,” he said.