15. Medusa

I had never met Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera, but they were infamous. When I was dealing with my shit after Poseidon and Athena, I even let myself think it was all my fault and I was somehow bad. I thought the furies were going to come punish me. Yeah, I was in a terrible place for a while. I was terrified and looking over my shoulder for the furies for months.

They were supposed to be monstrous in appearance. It gave credence to the theory they were curses personified. So, color me totally shocked when I saw three totally gorgeous, completely normal looking women lounging in the garden drinking cocktails. Well, two of them were. That had to be Alecto trimming a hedge to look like a tentacle.

They looked up when they saw us and they were all focused on me. Yeah, that wasn't uncomfortable. They just stared and scrutinized me. I felt like I was five years old again and I was trying to hide that I'd broken something important. My parents usually just needed to stare at me long enough and I'd confess.

Then, their entire faces just lit up.

"Where in actual fuck did you find another fury?"

"We thought it was just us."

"Oh, she's beautiful. I can't wait to corrupt her."

Cas stepped forward.

"How do you three know she's a fury, but the gods who have spent this much time around her think she's a Gorgon?"

"A Gorgon? There's only a few of those, too. There's only one this could possibly be. Welcome, Medusa. I'm Alecto, this is Tisiphone, and that's Megaera."

"It's an elementary mistake to make," Tisiphone said. "There's three of us and you only see us if you've been naughty."

"Like Krampus?" Benji said.

"We're much scarier than Krampus. Most of the gods avoid us because they don't know if we haven't gone after them because of the covenant or because we can't. We like it that way. Gorgons are rare, too. Most people avoid them because of their gaze, but the ones who are immune don't like being around them because they are utter cunts. Persephone told us she was best friends with Medusa and she was different. It's not just the rareness and that most people avoid furies and gorgons. It's the nature of furies. Did you just figure it out, Medusa?" Megaera asked.

"No, Athena finally told me the truth after I met my mates. She never cursed me. She asked the fates to help me because Poseidon would come for me again and they did this to me."

"No, they didn't. Are you sure you're ready to hear this? It's going to be a mind fuck after finding out you're not a Gorgon and it's probably not going to feel good."

"Will it feel as bad as being starved in the basement of a Coalition facility while they try to exorcize you through the door?" I asked.

"It's a different kind of shitty, but once you hear it, it's going to change your life for the better. You'll figure out your magic and a single fury could stop the Coalition. But you're our sister so if the angels show up, you'll have four furies. Four furies are potent enough to fuck up an entire choir of angels if they showed up trying to get messy," Tisiphone said.

"Well, I suppose this is a lovely place to hear it."

"Love your bush," Benji said, winking.

Alecto batted her eyelashes.

"I like your mate. Can one of the gods make food and drink?"

Dionysus conjured wine and fruit while Persephone made salad and cucumber sandwiches. Hades made a grill appear and started making burgers. A lot of people didn't know this about Hades, but he loved to barbecue.

"Okay, so you're friends with gods, so I'm betting you know about the self-actualization thing."

"I do. My mates are kind of new to it."

"So, you're about to hear things about us that we've never let anyone else know. You can't let this leave here. We're telling you because you're one of us."

"You should pinky swear," Benji said.

Megaera cocked an eyebrow at Benji.

"It's sacred to him," Pax explained.

Megaera leaned forward and held out a pinky to Benji.

"Swear it, hybrid."

Benji hooked a pinky with Megaera. Did my mate just make a pinky swear with a fury? I really hoped he never broke that.

"I think I speak for all of us when I say your secret is safe with us," Cas said.

"Gods, too," Dionysus said.

"Well, we know you get it."

"How?"

All three furies sighed.

"Ever wonder why we go for trapping people in their worst nightmare? Mental illness didn't use to be a thing. People used to treat people with it terribly. It's been everything from witchcraft to demons, but back in our time, it meant you'd displeased the gods and they cursed you with it."

It was terrible. I'd been like that once, too, because I really didn't know any better. None of us did.

"I'm sorry. A lot of us were like that back then."

"Best we can figure in the modern age is that I'm bipolar, Megaera has schizophrenia, and Tisiphone is borderline. We got the help we need, but back then, we were cast out and ostracized. They threw rocks at us and we nearly starved to death because they didn't want us near them.

"We don't know if someone self-actualized us into furies or the fates did like they did with you, but we woke one morning looking as monstrous as we felt inside with this burning desire to punish wicked people. It gave us focus and really kept us stable as the centuries passed and we had a name for what was going on with us.

"We're still furies, but our focus has been different now. Once we figured out how to change back to our regular faces, we've been fighting for mental health care reform," Alecto said.

"And punishing bitches who abuse the helpless," Megaera shrugged.

"Furies gonna fury," Tisiphone said, flashing the peace sign.

"Why haven't you stopped the Coalition before now?" Cas demanded.

"Because the angels dragged some crap-ass wards from the bowels of Tartarus and until anyone knew what they were and how to disable them, we couldn't get close. Persephone said you got those answers from Cassandra. The three of us aren't gods, so we aren't immune to her curse. If she told us, we wouldn't have believed her.

"We were hoping to get in on the action if Persephone pulled this off even before we knew Medusa was one of us. The shit they are doing is the same crap we fought to put a stop to ages ago. We've been trying to figure out how to bring them down for a while now. Torturing innocents in the name of science and trying to put a mental health bow on it is exactly what summons the furies now."

"We'd be honored to have you join us, but how did Medusa end up different from the three of you? And if you were able to shift back into three lovely women, does that mean she could eventually go out without the glasses Hephaestus made?" Pax asked.

The three furies beamed at Pax and preened that he called them lovely.

"She can go back to how she was before the snakes. Medusa, you can only turn people to stone when you want to, but you're going to have to dig deep because your trauma is different from ours. We were angry with how we were treated when we were changed, but it was also pretty messy in our heads. We manifested into some pretty sexy monsters who were angry at the people who abused others. We embraced it.

"Medusa, you'd just been violated, and you thought the one person who was supposed to protect you and take your side punished you for it. You might not have even realized you were doing it, but your subconscious kicked in and made sure no one would touch you like that again. The snakes kept the gods away and your gaze made sure everyone else couldn't get close."

"Excuse me, but I happen to think her snakes are very sexy," Dionysus said.

"You don't count," Alecto said. "Your curse may have been lifted, but you're just like us. You danced the dance and had divine intervention. I take pills. Our dark places change us."

"True. And I'm sorry for how you were treated. And a lot of that had to do with me and that curse Hera placed on me. She meddled with my mind and then banished me to Earth to force the wonders of wine on people. The things I did were terrible and people talked. There's a big difference between being cursed and your brain chemistry being different. If I'd known better back then, I would have cleared it up. If you ever want to talk, just let me know."

"Fancy and we might take you up on it, but we've got an amazing mental health team. If you're going to be mated to our sister, there're a few things you should know. We are creatures born of trauma. I don't care how supportive you think you are. Medusa isn't going to be able to take those glasses off until she feels safe enough to be out and about without her glasses and snakes."

"But I do feel safe," I argued. "It used to be just Dionysus and me, but my adoptive dad was Hephaestus and my best friend was Persephone. Hades is a good friend, too. Poseidon isn't going to mess with me knowing Hades and Persephone are involved and Athena only crashed into my life if Dionysus wasn't with me."

"Gods aren't the only ones who can hurt you," Alecto said softly. "Those people at the Coalition were completely human. It's one of the reasons we love the Underworld—fewer people. Furies have certain powers. You'll learn. Like, we can portal anywhere, including in and out of the Underworld, even though we're not gods or dead. We go back to meet with our mental health team, pick up medication, work, and girls' night out."

"Girls' night out gets complicated," Megaera sighed. "We can literally feel when someone is about to drug someone's drink or try to get them alone in the bathroom. We stop them and punish them, of course, but keeping this face on while doing it was challenging for a bit. If we can do it, then you can make your gaze lethal when you want it to be."

"There's also so much more to being a fury that you haven't even tapped into yet because you didn't know. We could have told you but this is the first time we've met you."

Yeah, that part of this fuckery was on me. I couldn't do a damned thing about Athena not telling me the truth, but the furies were Persephone's friends. She told me how amazing they were, but I let old fears get in the way of meeting them when I was in the Underworld. And I trusted Persephone implicitly. She had amazing taste in everything, including people.

"Is it possible to get a crash course on Fury 101? Because we've already started the process of bringing the Coalition down."

Because seriously, I had no doubt Benji and Dionysus's social media followers were bringing a shit storm down on Hannibal and Saul, but we needed to be there to bring this whole thing home.