15. Medusa

B enji’s mom was gorgeous, even straight out of the Coalition. I could tell she was where he got most of his looks from. I hadn’t met him yet, but I could tell the parts of Benji that weren’t her had to come from his dad. If he was alive, I knew Athena would find him.

We were trying to get to know Benji’s mom when Dionysus appeared with Lucifer. Honestly, I didn’t think anyone who hadn’t met him before was prepared for him. He always carried this ridiculous man purse with a frou-frou yorkie in it.

That wasn’t an ordinary yorkie. Lucifer stole a hellhound when he was in Hell. From what he explained, regular dogs had the mental capacity of a toddler, but hellhounds were more like teenagers. His hellhound had big opinions about getting kidnapped, so when they got back to this realm, she chose to shift into a yorkie so he had to pay out the ass for grooming.

Every time he tried to convince her to shift into a Pitbull or a Cane Corso, she pissed on his bed and pulled all the stuffing out of his pillows. Lucifer was utterly devoted to that dog. She had her hair up in a topknot with a purple bow because it was her favorite.

I saw Benji eyeing the yorkie like he was about to make a comment and we’d end up with a spiteful hellhound on our hands. Probably Lucifer, too, since he loved that hellhound.

“That’s Josephine, and she’s a hellhound.”

“Of course, she is. I’ll bet it would be fun as fuck to run with her.”

Ah. Benji wasn’t going to be snarky. The wolf part of him recognized that she wasn’t what she seemed. Lucifer seemed distracted and captivated with Alecto.

“Lucifer,” he purred, holding out his hand to her.

“Alecto,” she grumbled.

Lucifer kissed her knuckles, and I didn’t know what was up with her. Lucifer was stunning. He was golden in every sense of the word. I thought she might be jealous that Tisiphone and Megaera found mates or people who were into them here, but Lucifer wouldn’t keep his eyes off of her and she seemed wholly uncomfortable. I was finding out what was up with that later. Lucifer had the same idea.

“I’d love to take you on a date literally anywhere you want to go later.”

Alecto just ignored him, but she didn’t say no. Lucifer was a massive pain in the ass most of the time, but if he cared about something or someone, he spoiled and cherished them. Most of the time, that was just Josephine.

Lucifer didn’t date. If he hit on someone, he was offering a one-night stand with no commitment and he was generally up front about that. I’d never once heard him ask someone on a date and in fact, had heard him rant extensively about how offensive he found the idea.

“So, you’re the new model,” he said, looking his nose down at Michael.

Yeah, he had to instantly go back to dick mode after hitting on Alecto.

“An upgrade,” Michael sniffed.

Were we seriously having an archangel pissing contest right in front my appetizers when we needed to be focused on the angels who were out there causing chaos?

“No, you should be angry. We were the first angels and were on top of the food chain. Back then, we didn’t know better. We thought we needed to ask for equal rights and then we thought we had to stay and fight for it instead of just leaving. The Father was doing what all new gods do and was on a power trip, so it turned into civil war.

“We were cast out, but we didn’t exactly want to stay. Humans self actualized new archangels. You’re the exact same as us, stronger than the rest of them, but by the time you came around the hierarchy was put into place and they put you at the bottom.

“Also, I’m not sure if self actualization has made it there yet or if anyone believes it if it did, but humans love angels. They don’t even know the majority of the choirs anymore and they’ve mixed the cherubim up with Roman cupids. Who do they know the most outside of me? Guardian angels and the archangels.

“You’ve got churches and schools named after you and endless statues. The only reason so few archangels fell with me is because we lost so many in the civil war. Let me guess. You’re all male so you have no female archangel to mate with and it’s forbidden to mix with other choirs. You should ask yourself with so many women who would have wanted a female archangel to call their own, where are they?

“The Father sanctioned a lot of nasty shit, but he was against killing innocents. He was an ass on a power trip for a while, but most of the stories about his wrath were what spread the belief that ended up creating him. He wouldn’t do anything to an innocent angel, but some of the other angels might.”

“I don’t really have time to get mad about any of that. My home is destroyed, my father is missing, I’ve been held captive and tortured for over two hundred years, and if I don’t forget all that and force myself to fight again, all of that is going to spill over to this realm.”

“Hey, listen. I have a pretty complicated relationship with the Father, but the archangels should stick together, even if we just met. We can handle what’s going on here, but if you want to fix what’s going on back home, we’re going to have to find the Father. The angels are either doing this because they are jaded or because they think he wants this. He’s the only one who can set both straight.”

“Do you need to see him, too?” Michael asked.

“Fuck no. Falling was the best thing that happened to me. Lucifer and the devil are two totally separate entities, but most people don’t know that. Do you know how much shit you can get away with? People are pretty desperate to make deals with the devil and they’ll trade anything. I haven’t seen him in several millennia, but I don’t feel like dealing with the judgement. But I’ll totally help you.”

Yeah, that was Lucifer’s thing. If he couldn’t make a deal with someone, he made a wager. The gods were stronger than him, so he made everything a bet. Someone gave Josephine a bad haircut, and he tried to make a deal with me once. He wanted me to turn them to stone so he could put the statue in his living room, throw food at it, and let Josephine piss on it. In return, I could call in any favor at any time.

Dionysus threatened to throw him through a wall if he ever tried to make a deal with me again and he backed off.

“I don’t even know how many realms there are, but they must be as big as this one. How would we even find him?” Cas asked.

“We can sense other gods from across the planet. I know all the gods here. We can sense gods in other realms, too, but the problem is that the other realms were either specifically created for them or they are an afterlife realm. They are full of gods and now that we all know about each other, we’ve made friends. I wouldn’t be able to tell if it’s your god whose hiding out or someone just visiting friends,” Persephone said.

“But you might,” Dionysus said. “He’s your pantheon. You should be able to feel him even if you’ve never met him.”

Lucifer let out this long-suffering sigh.

“I’ve met him. You’re going to make me face him and deal with that vein in his forehead when he’s disappointed with me. Not only are all my debts paid, I’m calling in chips for one hundred years of future debts paid.”

“You could just not make everything a wager.”

“Don’t kink shame me. None of you will make a deal with me and I have ‘completing a deal with a god’ on my bingo card. Hey, this can be a deal!”

Ugh. This might be the one time he could rope Dionysus into making a deal with him. Dionysus and Hades just rolled their eyes.

“Oh, fine. You have a deal.”

“What’s he like?” Michael asked.

“The Father? Not how anyone thinks. He used to like dad jokes and family dinners. It really hurt him when we rebelled. A lot of stuff that I blamed him for really wasn’t his fault. He was created alone with just us. He made the same mistakes every other god makes in thinking they are the king of all gods and their way is the right way. Shit. I know exactly where he is and none of you are going to like it.”

Fuck. There were only a few realms Dionysus hadn’t taken me to because they were wholly unpleasant and I had a feeling I knew where Yahweh was.

“Where?” Michael asked. He seemed desperate.

“If he was banished, we don’t know where he ended up or how long he stayed there. He’s been away from home long enough to know the truth about self actualization and the various afterlives. The Father would be feeling betrayed he was banished from home and he’s smart enough to know if he stayed here and tried to help, innocents might die if the angels came.

“He’s a decent man, even if he lost his way for a bit. If he found out the system of Heaven and Hell wasn’t based on actual goodness but on where people thought they deserved to go, he’d go to Hell to help souls who didn’t really deserve to be there. And if he was doing that, he really wouldn’t know what was going on here or back home.”

That…made a ton of sense. Hell was one of the few realms I’d never been to. Hades went out of personal curiosity and said it was self actualized by sadists during a time people thought public executions were entertainment and actual theatre was for deviants.

“I’m probably the only person here who has met Satan,” Hades said. “He likes me as a fellow Underworld ruler, though our realms are completely different. No one keeps trying to break into his and steal any souls because they think they are all bad. He’s not going to take kindly to angels without an introduction.”

“Excuse you, but Satan plays fantasy football with the rest of the fallen. Unlike the rest of you bitches, he owes me money. If you aren’t a god or a part of our pantheon, Hell is going to be toxic for everyone here who isn’t dead and it’s a dangerous place. So, Michael, gather any other archangels you have with you and we’ll need as many gods as you can spare.”

“I’ll stay,” Persephone said.

“I just found you again,” Dionysus said, nuzzling my neck.

Dionysus wasn’t worried about leaving me unprotected. He knew I was capable and so was everyone here. He lost me when the Coalition kidnapped me and there wasn’t much he could do about it because of those sigils.

“You’ll be back before you know it and you know you’re curious.”

Dionysus was a curious creature. I loved that about him. He’d never been to Hell because it was supposed to be so awful, but he wasn’t going to say no to a quick trip. Especially if it helped everyone. And he loved meeting other gods. He’d met nearly everyone who hadn’t faded or wasn’t a violent shit except for this one and I knew he always wanted to.

We were so close. Hopefully we could do this before whatever shit storm the angels were planning to unleash with that prison break happened.