7. Pax

W e were all on edge. Athena was the main reason. She explained what she'd done to Medusa and why, but Medusa was clearly upset or pissed. I didn't know because she left and everyone said to let Persephone go after her. Even Dionysus said let her go and he knew her the longest. That didn't mean I had to like it.

Cas and Benji were about to lose their minds because of their shifter halves. I hoped they came back soon because Benji's other half was shadow demon and when that half got antsy, it tended to fuck with people. He was probably going to offend Sugar Tits, eventually.

"Look, I'm sorry, but you do need to eat the ambrosia and so does she. It'll give her the strength back she needs since she's underweight and it'll help all of you in the fight to come."

Cas snarled at Athena and Benji's horns came out. Magic was crackling at my fingertips. We couldn't fight her. At least, I was pretty sure we couldn't. We probably shouldn't. She probably had answers we needed, even if she thought she didn't.

"Relax," Hephaestus boomed. "She's not wrong. We've pissed off some powerful people. The ambrosia will give your magic a boost and make you stronger. And it will help Medusa regain the weight back. You can only get it on Mount Olympus and Athena is the only one who can safely go back there. Hades isn't really welcome, they only want me there if I'm making them something, they'll try to force Persephone to stay, and it's not safe for Dionysus."

"Hi," a sultry voice said.

We all turned. I'd hear that voice in my fantasies. Medusa was ours. She seemed like she felt better and was ready to hear Athena out. Her aura felt much calmer. Dionysus squeezed next to all of us on the couch and held his arms out.

"Uppies?"

She came running at us and we all caught her. I blew out a breath as her shoulder connected to my stomach, but she nuzzled my chest with her cheek and her snakes wrapped lovingly around my neck.

"Hi," she sighed.

"You okay, little monster?"

"No, but I'm at least ready to keep going."

"You can proceed, Sugar Tits," Benji said.

Athena just rolled her eyes. Benji had this way of getting away with murder because he was so pretty and had those big, brown eyes. I knew Athena was Ace like Hephaestus was so she wasn't attracted to Benji that way. No one was immune to puppy dog eyes, though.

"Like I said, I've been researching this for ages. I don't think the furies were born from Nyx. I think they were also created by the Fates to stop some kind of evil and they just kept punishing evildoers. I'm pretty sure there's some truth to the whole curses personified. The rest of you found the whole self-actualizing thing ages ago. I think that plays into all of this."

Medusa tensed in my arms, so I squeezed her and started rubbing her back. Honestly, with everything we knew, what Athena was about to say was probably true, but it was probably going to hurt. I had a feeling I knew what she was about to say, too. So did Dionysus, apparently.

"Let me take this one. You'd just been through a horrifically violating experience, love. The fates hit you with magic and made you a fury, but they let you choose how it manifested. The other furies appear differently. You thought you were being cursed, but you also wanted to protect yourself from being hurt again.

"You manifested the snakes and the gaze to keep people away from you. You probably didn't even know you were doing it because you thought Athena was cursing you. Which means I think Athena is right and you have the power to turn it off."

Which is exactly what I had been thinking, and I hadn't even been alive then. I just paid attention. I wasn't excusing Athena for not telling her this ages ago but it would mean the world to Medusa if she could turn her snakes and gaze off when she wanted to.

"It's true," Hades said. " I personally haven't because they'd fuck me up, but my wife has seen Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megaera without their makeup on."

"Don't be gross. What he means is that I've seen them with regular faces on. We might be able to convince them to come here if you don't want to go to the Underworld, but Cerberus misses you."

"That dog is a menace," Dionysus said.

I could tell he didn't mean that, and he actually liked the three-headed dog that guarded the Underworld.

"You shut your damned mouth. My dog is a perfect angel."

"You keep slipping him food from your plate and he farts fire."

"That's badass," Benji said. "We should totally go to the Underworld with some burgers. Right, Calamity?"

"It would be cool, but I hate ghosts. My dorm room was haunted by some pervert who would hang out in bathrooms and watch everyone shower with his hands down his pants."

Hades swooped in and explained what happened after you died. Ghosts were kind of people who had unfinished business like the movies. The pervert in Calamity's shower stuck around because he wanted to creep on women. Kat was on her phone trying to look up how to kill a ghost. Jezebel thought the whole thing was funny.

It was a total mind fuck.

"The shades in the Underworld are totally different," Hades said. "They stick to the areas they think they belong in and don't really wander near my house. You'd be safe. It's one thing when the living break in. It's totally different when they are my guests. Cerberus won't eat you."

I was cursing the Coalition blinding me because I really wanted to see the Underworld if that was what we were doing. Cas's phone went off, but he didn't put it on speaker. He had a brief conversation and then hung up.

"Father Nathan was sitting on his nuclear bomb until he knew Hannibal was about to make himself known to the public. He said Hannibal is about to make a statement and he's going to push the information to the reporters in the middle of it. I want to see the Underworld and Medusa needs those answers, but we also need to be dealing with the fallout from New Eden since Hannibal runs the Coalition," Cas said.

"I don't know if you can get a cell phone signal in the Underworld, but couldn't you take Medusa to find out what she needs to know and let us handle it up here? I'm an original, Jezebel has her lure, and Calamity is a demon. We've got a lot covered and you could leave one of the gods behind just in case."

"Hephaestus and I will stay," Athena said. "I have a good relationship with the furies, but not as good as Persephone."

At least Sugar Tits was finally making herself useful. Cas grabbed the remote.

"We'll go after we see what's going on with Hannibal."

Father Nathan was a good friend of mine. I was probably closer to him out of all of us. He was motivated to bring down the Coalition even before he knew the leader had his hands on Oberon.

If Oberon had gotten anything off of his chest, we were about to witness retribution from a real priest on a fake monsignor.