30. Medusa

J eqon sent Benji a DM about doing a video chat. The archangels didn’t know how to use a cell phone, but I was betting Jeqon did since he had a whole side business going delivering tears to psychopaths. And now that I had a lot more information at my disposal, I had questions.

“Um, where are they getting the tears they are delivering to the Coalition?” I demanded.

Because before all this, I thought they just had a few angels who could cry on command and I didn’t really believe that anymore.

“Are you sure you want to know?”

“I mean, I have a pretty good idea, but I want to hear you say it.”

“Pulling our feathers out is agonizing. Even if you don’t outright cry, your eyes still water. The prisoners of war always dreaded it when a new shipment needed to be delivered. The feathers grow back, but it takes time,” Michael said.

“Bitches,” Benji growled. “Do you want me to hold Fart Wings down so you can pluck his feathers like a chicken?”

“Um, no. None of these angels tortured us. You don’t let people you don’t trust around prisoners. If they aren’t on your side, they’ll help them escape and if they are on the fence, seeing that shit is sure to turn them. You leave that to the people you trust because they’ll follow orders without question and they aren’t going to catch feelings.”

“That’s fucked up,” Benji said. “I’ll bet they burned ants and pulled wings off butterflies as kids. Anyway, has anyone taken dance lessons before? One decade, I decided I was going to be a famous breakdancer, so I signed up for ballet. I loved it and would have stuck with it, but they wanted me to wear this thong that crushed my nuts. It made me feel weird, so I dropped out. Anyway, we need a really powerful tableau. I can pose people if I’m the only ballet expert.”

“Excuse you, but I’m an expert in dance and tableaus,” Persephone said.

She really was. Persephone was an expert back in our day. It was one of the few things she loved other than Hades. During her forced visits outside of the Underworld, she took classes and learned different styles over the years. She’d learned them all over the world and if we needed to pull out something intimidating to settle Benji down, she could do it.

The angels seemed wholly irritated, but Yahweh seemed to find the entire thing amusing. I appreciated that because since he wasn’t annoyed, the angels weren’t saying anything. I loved Benji and everything about him, but I got that he could be a lot sometimes.

Benji was in a rare mood today and I couldn’t love him more.

“Hey, Fart Wings, snap a picture with my phone so I can see how we all look and go back to the naughty corner.”

I could tell the only reason the new angels hadn’t started brawling with Benji was because of Yahweh and maybe they just weren’t stupid. There was a reason they banished him before and it had nothing to do with time. Shadow demons were deadly. He could fuck them up, but Benji would just turn to smoke and they’d never land a blow on him. I was pretty sure we all knew this, so Benji was going to continue to make them his bitches because he couldn’t kill them.

He grumbled, but I couldn’t believe he actually took the photo for Benji. I mean, he hurled the phone at Benji’s face pretty hard when he was done, but Benji had the reflexes of a cat and easily caught it.

“Oh, yeah. This is the one. Hey, can you teach me dance stuff without that thong?”

“That’s to keep your boy bits from getting all tangled up and also for not offending the ladies.”

“My bits are not offensive. Everyone loves my bits. If I wouldn’t get banned, I’d go viral posting my dick.”

“Sheriff Riddle found your bits pretty offensive last time,” Pax pointed out.

“That doesn’t count. He’s a fascist.”

“Anyway, we’ll discuss dance belts and dance lessons later. We’ve got work to do.”

“Nah, I’m making him wait. It’ll piss him off and we don’t want to appear needy. If he’s off kilter because he’s pissed, we’ll have the upper hand.”

“That’s the smartest thing you’ve said since I met you.”

“Literally, no one asked you, Fart Wings. You’re not capable of understanding my brilliance. Anyway, go back to your corner and shut up. I’m making the call.”

I could hear his teeth grinding from here and I was trying not to laugh. I got they were trying to do the right thing now and things were pretty complicated, but a lot of people got hurt before they came to that decision. The least they deserved was Benji poking them.

When the screen lit up, there was a black-haired angel sitting in a wingback chair surrounded by other angels. Yeah, we looked way more impressive. Saul and Hannibal were nowhere to be found. Those two were pretty power hungry. I had a feeling even with angels involved, they’d still want to assert dominance and be involved in all of this.

“Where are your bitches?” Benji sneered.

The angel looked taken aback for a minute.

“Excuse me?”

“Hannibal and Saul,” Cas said. “You made a mess breaking them out of prison.”

“We couldn’t use them and they screech like monkeys, so we locked them in their dog kennels.”

I barked a laugh, and I got what Ariel, Jophiel, and Gabriel meant. The angels sneered at me for daring to laugh. Seriously, fuck them. I turned plenty of them to stone.

“What do you want?” Pax asked. “You’re outnumbered and out gunned.”

“We want the archangels and the Father. We know he’s with you. We can feel him.”

“You have nothing to negotiate with, Adolf Shitler,” Benji hissed.

Oh, yeah. That nickname was going to stick.

“My name is Jeqon,” he growled.

“Don’t give a crap. You’re Adolf Shitler now and trust me, you earned it.”

The archangels were finally laughing.

“You really did earn that nickname,” Gabriel chuckled.

“You’re going to have a hard time coming back from this,” Michael said.

“I command the entire army of Powers and their allies. I could make a big show and rally the more violent humans to my side in an instant. Show me some respect.”

Gabriel fell out laughing and honestly, I liked this side of her.

“Listen, I was created to be the Messenger of God. Everyone knows my name and who it came from when I appear with a message. You can certainly try, but a lot of these people don’t even know that the Powers are a choir of angels, much less who you are. This is a totally different era. The entire world saw my message this time with the amount of cell phones and cameras out there. I could deliver a new message that you’re the enemy, your name is Adolf Shitler, and it would stick more than yours.”

There was this giant, ugly vein pulsing in Jeqon’s forehead. We needed him off kilter to reveal any surprises that the other angels wouldn’t know. Some of us were old, but we were young compared to this realm. Just because we didn’t know of a way to kill a god that didn’t involve another god or fading didn’t mean it didn’t exist.

Cassandra was still a backup plan. In fact, we’d probably still need her to fact check. Jeqon could lie and even if he was in possession of something he thought could kill a god, there was no way to know for sure it worked until someone actually killed one with it. And since Dionysus would have felt it and looked into it, that hadn’t happened. Cassandra would know for sure.

“We can do this the easy way where you give us what we want and the rest of you can go about your business or we can make it hurt and destroy you.”

I shared a look with Dionysus. We could read between the lines. They had something they thought would contain or kill a god. They hadn’t used it yet because the only gods they had met were from polytheistic families. If they hurt or killed one, the rest of their family would want revenge.

Except it didn’t work like that anymore. We weren’t dealing with isolated pantheons who thought they created the world and they were the only gods. Everyone knew each other. We had holidays together. We vacationed in each other’s realms.

Even if they left us out of it, hurting Yahweh wouldn’t stand with any of the other gods. They wouldn’t want that knowledge getting out. They would spill into this realm and theirs to obliterate the angels to make sure no one found out what they knew.

And in this case, I wouldn’t blame them at all.

“Sorry, but you’re going to have a hard time fingerpainting sigils with blood with your eyes closed because Medusa is on our side. You’ll also have to paint it faster than the furies can fuck up your mind. We aren’t scared of you,” Dionysus said.

“You should be,” Jeqon sneered.

Yeah, he thought he had something big. Whether it worked or not was anyone’s guess. Jeqon disconnected the video chat, and I turned to Dionysus.

“You’d better get Cassandra and pass any prophecy on because most of us aren’t immune to her curse.”