42. Medusa

D ionysus always got a big kick out of the god reveal. Persephone did, too. Hades went around arranging them because it made her happy. Hephaestus was an introvert. He liked his people and didn't particularly care for anyone else. Athena had always been up front about being a god. She preferred getting straight to business.

But this was honestly kind of fun. Right now, I wasn't Medusa with the tragic backstory. I was a fury and none of that mattered.

"Please, introduce yourselves," Pepper said.

"Athena, God of war, handicraft, wisdom, and practical reason, Patron God of Athens and heroes."

"Hades, King of the Underworld and God of the Dead. Contrary to popular fiction, I have fuck all in common with your Satan and my realm is nothing like Hell. And my hair has never once been blue."

Hades gave everyone that introduction since we walked out of that movie. We used to just avoid movies with me in it, but we stopped going to movies with Hades in it after that. It used to be nostalgia and laughing about the little details, but the creative liberties got to be a bit much. We were, however, big fans of the Percy Jackson series because it was a new twist.

"I'm his wife, Persephone, God of Spring and rebirth, and Queen of the Underworld. No, he didn't kidnap me and trick me with a pomegranate. I broke into his house, he helped me, and we fell in love. No, I don't have Stockholm syndrome. My mother started that rumor. I'm not in contact with her."

Yeah, Persephone always gave that introduction, too. Hades and Persephone were wildly popular now, but Demeter and Zeus used the fact that she refused to leave the Underworld to paint this picture of a poor, confused woman that Hades had taken advantage of and it still pissed her off.

"Hephaestus, God of artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters, craftworkers, fire, metallurgy, metalworking, sculpture and volcanoes. I don't have a big fancy speech, but I find it appalling you people keep voting to cut funding to the arts," he grunted.

"And I'm Dionysus, God of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. As the God of Theatre, I also find it gross you keep voting to cut funding to the arts, but that's not why we are here today. We are here to clear up some misunderstandings about supernaturals since some of you don't believe science."

"And the four lovely ladies sitting next to you?" Tate asked.

"We're the furies. We are justice personified," Alecto said.

"We're here to keep you honest," Megaera said. "We know the things a lot of you have done in the past that you managed to bury."

"We know that some of you plan to do those things again in the future," Tisiphone said.

"And some of you have done worse than the supernaturals you want people to kill for sport," I said.

We were all looking at Saul. Most of the people in this chamber did things like use their political influence to make parking tickets go away, get things for free, or took bribes. That was pretty much expected, and I wasn't shocked in the slightest.

It was Saul that was triggering everyone's inner fury. We didn't like him, but he was a bad, wicked man and he had been since he was a teenager. His father had been paying people off and when Saul got his inheritance, he started paying people off. If someone didn't want the money, they wanted justice, Saul would pay people to terrorize them into never speaking.

I was barely containing my rage because Saul liked hurting women. Later, cupcake. Saul just ignored us.

"There's only one god. This is a desperate move by a sad, old woman," Saul snapped.

"Watch it," Hades growled. "A lot of us are quite fond of that woman."

"There're a ton of us," Dionysus smirked. "All the stories from different pantheons are mostly true. Some of us are hanging out in our realms and some are walking yours. We've got a group chat going for the cool ones. Most of us haven't met the one you're referring to, but a lot of us met his son. Cool guy. Total anarchist. Shame about the Romans."

"Excuse me, but you're telling me you knew Jesus?"

"Listen, we are very old. A lot of supernaturals are very old. Some of the supernaturals you want to deport if they don't register and identify have personally been in this country longer than your ancestors. Some of them fought in the American Revolution, reinvented themselves over the years, and joined every war this country has been in. Those are the people you are painting as your enemy," Dionysus said.

"You also need to realize something," Athena said. "We're older than the angels. I don't know why they started this or lied about supernaturals being possessed by demons, but an angel is a type of supernatural creature just as much as a vampire is. Angel tears might disable other supernaturals, but angels are allergic to silver just like any other supernatural and other supernaturals have gifts that would disable an angel.

"It's about balance. The universe allowed gods and supernaturals to be created, but we all have weaknesses to help the weaker species protect themselves against us. Some of it is public knowledge and some of that has been heavily protected. One siren or one fury could take out an entire choir of angels. The angel would have to get their tears in their mouth to stop them. They are basically distant cousins."

"We met someone who was around the first time angels came to this realm," Dionysus said. "There were several who wanted to settle here and live among us. They fell in love and sired children. They were punished in the worst way. The other angels came down, slaughtered their children and pregnant mates, and dragged them back to their realm. All for choosing to live here and fall in love."

"And before you say that's something any god is allowed to demand of anyone, know that's not true. We want to be loved and we have demands if someone chooses to dedicate themselves to us, but if they want to leave our temple, we don't force them to stay because that's not true devotion.

"I don't really think that was something a god ordered because we get nothing out of it. I don't think Yahweh is giving the angels directions and hasn't been for a long time. They are acting on their own. You have to understand, belief makes us stronger, and it doesn't matter if it's coming from a human or a supernatural.

"It doesn't make sense to force someone back to you who isn't going to believe, and it makes even less sense for a god to get humans against a vast community with a lie rather than using his current popularity to gain their love. I really think the angels have gone rogue because this has never made sense from a god's perspective," Athena said.

"I still don't think any of you are gods or furies. This is a ruse," Saul snapped.

Dionysus laughed and waved his hand. I already knew what he did without asking. It was his favorite party trick when someone didn't believe him.

"Senator, take a sip of your coffee please."

"What? Why?"

"Proof. Burden of proof is on the claimant. The proof is in your coffee cup. You can take a sip, or you can be a chicken shit and keep running your mouth, but based on how my fury friends keep looking at you, you might want to shut up and drink so they don't get pissy about what they're feeling around you."

Saul just glared at Dionysus. They were having this good old-fashioned stare off until the man next to Saul grabbed his coffee cup and drained it. He immediately started choking.

"Saul, did you bring wine on the Senate floor? Did you attempt to introduce a bill drunk? Where's your decorum? Are you not taking this job seriously?"

"What?" Saul demanded. "That was black coffee!"

"Just in case any of you were having doubts about us being gods, I took the liberty of turning all your drinks to wine. Hello, God of Wine making. I couldn't do anything with vegetation in here and I thought you'd prefer a drink swap over ritual madness. You're welcome, though if I need to whip that out because you're being stubborn, I can do that. Just remember, this is being televised and some people are watching."

Everyone checked their drinks and realized they had wine now. Everyone was looking around uneasily when Athena decided to flex her god muscles.

"I'm also the Patron God of Heroes and getting rid of the Coalition is a heroic quest if I ever heard of one. It's not a traditional fight, but a battle of wits. I'm officially blessing Pepper Crane as my hero."

Oh, fuck. I knew what was about to happen because I'd seen this before. If this didn't convince the doubters, I didn't know what would. A golden owl burst from Athena's chest and flew over to Pepper. Athena's owl landed on Pepper's desk and ruffled her feathers. Pepper briefly looked like she was about to faint, but quickly covered it up and bowed her head respectfully to Athena.

She had no way of knowing this, but everyone wanted a visit from that owl back in the day. Pepper seemed to get this was a pretty big deal and showed proper reverence. Hades looked bored and pretended to check out his cuticles.

"My domain is the dead. Pretty sure you don't want me to flex my god dick."

"That could be fun," Persephone laughed, clapping her hands.

"That's not necessary," Pepper said, clearing her throat. "You've all got five gods here testifying that they know the angels and they are just like the other supernaturals we've been torturing and experimenting on. They've told you what belief is like for them and that they don't think any god would order this because it makes them weaker.

"We've basically been carrying out the angels' agenda and we really don't know why. We've angered these gods. Who's to say you won't eventually anger the one you worship, too? We can't talk about how great our country is when we are rounding our citizens up and experimenting on them. If they break the law, they should be punished just like humans."

"Is that even possible?" someone asked.

"Yes," I said. "Some of you want to pretend that supernaturals are these boogeymen who are lurking in the dark waiting to murder you, but they're just regular people. Some of them are cops or in the military. Some of them are checking out your groceries or teaching your kids. I have an affinity with plants. If it was up to me, I'd work in a greenhouse or help the farmers with their crops.

"If you make things safe for us, you wouldn't need us to register or wear some kind of identification. If we weren't being rounded up or being hate crimed, we could be open. If your coworkers and neighbors know they aren't going to get experimented on and that you're a safe person, then there's nothing stopping us from telling you what we are. And by the way, I've seen the photo of the man Hannibal and Saul think is Lucifer. He's very much not a fallen angel."

Because I didn't need anyone hurting Pax. None of us planned on mentioning Pax or that we knew him. We knew they were trying to find him, but we didn't know they thought he was Lucifer.

"I've met Lucifer just like I've met Jesus. He's very much not interested in the affairs of humans or starting the end of the world. You have to remember, we are real and most of the pantheons have their end of world mythos. Revelations is just one of many of those stories," Dionysus said.

"Most of them have the end of things pawned off on a person, but literally everyone has free will," Athena said. "Loki could have brought about Ragnarok and Lucifer could bring about the Book of Revelations, but frankly, neither of them are interested. Think about it logically. They are prophesied to fail and die in those endeavors.

" No one who was prophesied to bring about the end of the world has been interested in actually doing it. They like the comforts of this realm and they like being alive. I've also met Lucifer. He wouldn't be interested in infiltrating your organization.

"He probably thinks the same thing I do—You've been presented with a treasure trove of scientific evidence and you haven't actually had any successes in hundreds of years. At some point, you should have changed your methods and way of thinking, but you haven't. I can only believe you're sadists using this legal loophole to torture and murder people and you're getting off on it."

I looked around. It seemed like a lot of people, even the ones I had pegged for voting with Saul, might have been swayed. I mean, it looked like their entire world had been rocked, but Athena had sealed the deal.

We revealed a little more of the cosmos than we intended, but it was needed. We all agreed that we weren't going to obliterate anyone's belief unless things got desperate. We wanted to let them know all gods were real, and that angels were supernatural creatures just like the people they were hurting, but Athena went a step further and let them know she didn't think Yahweh had directed them to do this. She had a perfectly logical reason why, too, so they could be mad at the angels, but not their god.

Maybe I should get over my shit and forgive her. This was it. They were calling for a vote.