16. Cas

I hadn’t figured out what to feel about Athena until now. I knew Medusa had forgiven her, and I got that the Fates were involved, but at the same time, Medusa had been through a lot because of her. It wasn’t my place to get angry at someone on behalf of Medusa, but I couldn’t help it. I’d never say anything, of course.

But she’d found Benji’s mom, Hwan, as soon as she could and brought her straight to him. I had no doubt if his father was alive, she’d find him and bring him back. Benji needed this. We’d found our center, and I’d gotten enough schooling to talk him through the worst of it, but the worst of it wasn’t going to get totally better until he knew for sure what happened to his parents.

Hwan would need help, too. She’d been held by the Coalition for a very long time and they always focused harder on the actual demons. They thought everyone was a demon, but I guess they thought those that admitted it were worse. It was also nearly impossible for them to escape because they were always kept in the basement.

Benji was from Louisiana. He said none of the Gulf states had basements because of the flooding and hurricanes. He said it was rare, in any case. If the flooding wasn’t a nightmare, the flood insurance was insane. The Coalition in those areas had them, anyway. They just left them in the basement and let them drown if the basement flooded.

Benji ended up near me, they sent Hwan to Ohio, and we didn’t know if Benji’s father stayed in Louisiana. Benji’s father was a werewolf and only would have ended up in the basement if he got violent. Louisiana had experienced several devastating hurricanes and many floods since Benji got taken. I just didn’t know about his dad.

Hwan was an amazing, resilient woman. She’d just been released from decades of torture. She came straight to Benji to make sure he was okay and see him again and she was ready to jump straight into the fight. She recognized that even though she was a shadow demon, and those were always an asset, she’d been through a lot and her abilities would be better suited to helping victims.

She’d already left to join Athena. Benji was in a better mood than I’d seen him in a very long time. We were down three gods and two archangels, but we could handle it without them. Persephone was probably scarier than any of the gods I’d met so far.

“Look to the TV! You’re going to want to see this,” the bartender hollered.

All the TVs lit up to the same broadcast. The bar quieted down, and the volume went up. The newscaster was sitting in front of her table.

“We’ve just received a video from escaped prisoners Hannibal Payne and Saul Wood. We’ll be playing the video shortly. If anyone sees them, please contact local authorities and do not approach them. They are considered armed and dangerous.”

Mother fucking shit. We should have known they were going to address the press. The angels might not have a plan, but Saul was a politician. He’d know he needed to smooth this shit over so all the people who were pissed they were willing to let all those prisoners into their backyard got back on their side. We should have beat them to it.

Their video flashed on the screen. Hannibal and Saul were sitting on a couch. The Gold Party wasn’t very large, but there was only one other member with them. Several of them got arrested with Hannibal and Saul, but I guess the ones that didn’t either didn’t want to be associated with them or they were pissed the angels made a mess breaking those two chuckle fucks out but not the rest of their friends.

They were flanked all around the couch by angels with their wings out. They were all standing at attention with their swords out and looked pretty badass if you didn’t notice they all looked completely unhinged.

“Friends, some of you heard about the prison break, but you have to know it never would have happened like this if we weren’t arrested without cause. It had to happen like this. This was cooked up by our enemies to silence us because they knew we would have fought this. We would have come back stronger and wiped the supernaturals out. This is what we intend to do now and we’ve got the angels on our side now.

“We’re coming for you. Those aren’t gods with you. Those are powerful demons doing parlor tricks to confuse you. Don’t fall for it. It’s what the demons do. They trick and try to pull you away from your purpose. We need your help. We need you to?—”

The video cut off and went back to the newscaster.

“The rest of the video encourages violence, looting, and mayhem, so we’ve chosen not to show it. That’s exactly what a politician shouldn’t be doing. We only opted to show the video we were sent because we wanted to reiterate how dangerous these individuals are. Several innocent prison guards died and the entire prison could have been out on the street. No matter how you feel about the situation, that’s never justified. If you see any of these individuals, do not approach. Call for help.”

Well, fuck. I could see where angels wouldn’t understand mortals’ psyche, but Hannibal and Saul had to know how that was going to play. They looked deranged. I mean, yeah, there were going to be folks who agreed with them and justified the prison break, but they were going to be a small minority. I was guessing they lost some supporters with the sex trafficking and a few with the prison break.

But I knew how to lose a good bit of them and it had everything to do with meeting Michael.

“Benji, I want to do a video on your social media.”

Benji’s face lit up. He was constantly trying to rope Pax and me into his thirst traps. Pax would do it if he was in the right mood, but I was never really into flexing my pecs or shaking my ass for the internet. The only people I wanted to do that for were the people I loved.

Benji knew I wanted to use his platform for social justice and I knew what he required for that so I just braced myself.

“Let’s get back to Dionysus’s place. It’s quieter and I don’t feel like taking my shirt off in this bar. There’s a group of vampires and succubae over there who keep eyeing me, even though they can sense my pack is complete.”

“ Mine,” Medusa growled.

Ugh. That went straight to my dick like when she was wearing my hoodies.

“It would be hot to watch you throw down with them, little monster,” Benji purred.

“Maybe later,” Pax said. “We need to do damage control and Cas clearly has an idea.”

Yeah, I did. The angels left and didn’t really spare a thought for their prisoners. They didn’t know Michael came to us and gave us all that angel intel. Humans didn’t need to know about the civil war or that a god was missing.

But there was one particular fact I’d learned about the angels that could change a lot of minds and I intended to get it out there.