11. Medusa

I liked Warden Doyle. She said exactly what she was thinking and gave zero fucks what anyone thought about it. She was brusque and a little rude, but I got the vibe she actually gave a shit. I doubted vetting prison guards involved digging into what their fathers did for work or knowing who would be good at dealing with the press.

Honestly, she reminded me a lot of a crasser version of Athena with no filter. Athena knew all of our backgrounds, strengths, and weaknesses, but she never really told us any of that until she thought she could use it.

Warden Doyle addressed the press first.

“You’re probably here because you heard there was a prison break. Make no mistake, this wasn’t an ordinary prison break. We were attacked by angels intent on breaking two new prisoners out. You can guess who they were after. I got here as soon as I could, but it was already over by the time I got here thanks to the supernaturals behind me. I’m going to let them tell you what happened in their own words.

“This is Lewis Turner. He’s been a guard here for ten years. He’s agreed to speak about what happened from the guards’ perspective before backup arrived in the form of multiple supernaturals. Lewis?”

Lewis stepped forward and cleared his throat. He’d just been terrorized, and I was pretty sure he didn’t have public speaking on his bingo card. But yeah, he looked like he could handle this.

“It was just a regular day here. We’d taken two new high-profile prisoners that we had to move to solitary for their safety and the safety of all the prisoners. They watched the news when they were arrested. The talk of the prison was the news bulletin that angels were here. Everyone was trying to figure out what they wanted.

“We weren’t expecting them to come here, but someone said they saw them land on the front lawn. Ed went out to greet them and they just killed him! They didn’t want to use the front door. They threw some ball of light at the side wall and blasted a hole. It killed anyone near it instantly.

“They started spilling in and demanding to know where Hannibal and Saul were. We knew they weren’t friends, so we tried to fight them. All of our weapons are designed for humans and they didn’t do a thing to the angels. If we tried to fight them, they’d kill us in horrific ways, so several of us went to the control room to watch and try to keep the prisoners contained.

“The angels weren’t content with just breaking Hannibal and Saul out. They’d check a wing and try to let the other prisoners out. Some of these people are violent offenders. When they’d try to open the gates, we tried to close them from the control room. They started damaging it so we couldn’t close them from where we were.

“It was like they wanted to release all these criminals. It would have been a blood bath if we tried to stop the angels and there weren’t enough of us left alive to stop the prisoners from escaping. It was the worst thing to ever happen to any of us, but then there was a knock on the door.

“It wasn’t SWAT in riot gear, it was several well-dressed supernaturals. I’ve never seen anything like it. Three of the women were outside, and we watched two of them herd the prisoners towards one of them. We couldn’t tell what she did, but they all just collapsed and she never laid a finger on them.

“There were four women who faced down the angels inside. One took out several angels at once by just looking at them and turning them to stone. We couldn’t hear what was said, but one of the other three women just said a few words to the angels and they basically ran off with their tails between their legs. Well, they blasted through the ceiling, but they were really scared of those women. I could tell.”

Lewis backed away and everyone started firing off questions. Warden Doyle took over again.

“You’ve gotten the human perspective. I’m going to let you hear from the supernaturals who saved the day.”

“Some of you might not be aware as these stories were removed from your bibles, but the last time this many angels came to Earth, it was a blood bath. Several of them chose to live here full time. They took husbands and wives and started families. The other angels didn’t like that. They descended on their village, murdered their children and anyone who fought, and then forcibly dragged the other angels back.

“My friend Kat over there who helped subdue the prisoners is old enough to have been there when it happened. She had an angel lover. She could tell you how horrifying it was. If you think I’m lying about her being that old, I can tell you exactly how I turned those angels to stone.”

I looked to the sky, so I wasn’t making eye contact with anyone, and then I let my snakes come out to play. I wasn’t ashamed like I had been in the past. This was me. I let them take a good look and take any photos they wanted, and then I put my snakes away and looked back out.

“ I’m that old. I’m younger than Kat, but I’m that Medusa. Perseus never took my head. That was a bit of a god ruse. The angels are mostly isolated in their realm. We don’t know anything about their motivation. I have several gods with me and none of us have any idea why they started this mess with the supernaturals.

“We’re trying to tell all of you to be wary. We don’t know why they are here now, but it involves Hannibal and Saul. They clearly have no problem with collateral damage as they killed several guards for doing their job and they could have tried to get to Saul and Hannibal without releasing all those prisoners, but they didn’t. If you see them, don’t approach them. Tag Benji or Dionysus on social media and we’ll handle it.

“If you’re wondering how we did all this, the three women who took care of the prisoners are a vampire, an imp, and a siren. Sirens’ powers are in their vocal chords. They herded the prisoners to the siren, and she used her song to put them to sleep until we could take care of things.

“The women with me are the furies. Those furies, but they only go after bad people so you only have to worry about them if you’re one of those. If you’ve read my story and it resonated with you, here’s the twist. I’m a fury, too, and my sisters are helping me. You don’t want to mess with us. That’s if you want to discount that we’ve got multiple gods with us.

“One of those gods is my best friend, Persephone. We’re trying to show you that we aren’t your enemy. We never were. She’s got this handy little power to fix the prison with the upgrades Warden Doyle asked her for. Persephone?”

Persephone was going to Persephone. She tossed her hair over her shoulder and twirled so that her skirt fanned out. My bestie loved pretty dresses with fucked-up patterns. If you weren’t paying attention to what was on the dress and that twisted glint in her eyes, you’d think she had a list of things she didn’t want to do because she was worried about her nails. But my girl could slaughter anyone she wanted without damaging her manicure and that was why I loved her.

“Do I get to pick the books in the library?” she asked Warden Doyle.

“Absolutely not. Law books, things for furthering education, and the fiction needs to be clean and non-violent.”

“Well, you just ruled out my entire Tbr, but very well.”

Persephone thrust her hands at the rubble of the prison. I loved watching her in action. My mates and the rest of the humans here had never seen it before. I knew the reporters were filming the entire thing because none of them had ever seen a god use their magic before.

I was pretty sure a few of them doubted my god friends were actually even gods. As Persephone did her thing, I heard several gasps as the prison knitted itself back together and the additions appeared out of nowhere.

After Jezebel knocked the prisoners out, Kat used her vampire speed to tie their feet and hands together. Hades was one of those men who was proud of his wife for any minor thing. He’d seen her do this countless times over several millennia and he was still bursting with pride.

He came to stand beside her and waved his hand. All the prisoners disappeared from off the front lawn.

“No idea if I got them into the right cell, but they are all locked up again. When a siren uses their song to put someone to sleep, it’s a peaceful kind of sleep. They’ll be pretty docile for the next day or so while you sort things out.”

The angels made their move, and we made ours. We hadn’t stopped them from kidnapping Hannibal and Saul, but we did prevent them from unleashing a bunch of criminals. Hopefully, we turned some people to our side.

But I wasn’t stupid. It might not be enough for others.