39. Dionysus

I ’d been in love with Medusa since I first met her at Hephaestus’s workshop ages ago. I’d watched her go from traumatized former priestess to a strong, confident woman, but this? She’d never been more beautiful than right this minute as she learned her fury magic on the man who hurt her.

The furies were good for her. Medusa’s blood sister was terrible. She’d always been jealous of Medusa, but Medusa worked her ass off to get a position at Athena’s temple. It wasn’t like modern day priests and pastors. Back then, you didn’t feel this calling and automatically get picked for a temple.

The god whose temple you were pledging to had to pick you and some of the gods were notoriously picky. Athena was probably the hardest when it came to new recruits. It was considered a tremendous honor to be picked for any temple, but especially Athena.

Artemis was another god who had strict requirements for her priestesses. Medusa’s sister broke several of them before she hit fifteen and tried to pledge, anyway. It was somehow Medusa’s fault when she got laughed out of the temple. It was mostly her sister’s fault Medusa’s entire family except her grandmother turned on her after Poseidon.

But the furies adopted her as their sister. They’d been nothing but supportive and they ribbed the shit out of her, which was something she loved because she knew they didn’t actually mean it. They were holding her hand and walking her through scrambling Hannibal’s brain like eggs without taking the rest of us out.

Of course, he wouldn’t shut the fuck up. I didn’t have the misfortune of being his prisoner, but he really liked hearing himself talk. I walked over and punched him in the face.

“Do you mind? My mate is trying to concentrate. Babe, do you want me to conjure some kind of gag?”

“It’s best if you don’t,” Megaera said.

“Yeah, we were empaths before we were furies. It’s not a Zen thing,” Tisiphone said.

“Doing it right comes from your gut. You have to feel how awful someone is and react to it. You have to want just that person to pay to really focus it so it doesn’t hit everyone else. Medusa isn’t an empath, but she has access to fury magic. The more he runs his stupid mouth, the easier it’s going to be for her to figure this out.”

“I changed my mind. If you don’t talk, I’m going to hit you again,” I growled.

Because Medusa and I were a team and I’d kill anyone for her.

“You can see how ridiculous this is, right?” Hannibal yelled.

“Not as ridiculous as shitting yourself to keep demons at bay,” Benji giggled.

Benji had shifted back now that he wasn’t killing Hannibal. Benji had killed everyone he needed to kill, and I hoped he found closure once we got his dad. Hannibal was turning this lovely aubergine shade and I could tell we were about to have a little fake-priest-sized mantrum.

But that was exactly what Medusa needed. I saw the exact moment it clicked for her because I’d seen that look when she was teaching herself something new over the years. She was hyper focused and a slight breeze started blowing. Damn. I was getting goosebumps and a boner.

Hannibal’s eyes rolled back into his head and then he just started hysterically screaming about demons and the Devil. Fixing his afterlife was going to be a daunting task if he was even able to do it, but Yahweh succeeding in getting this one where he needed to go based on the shrieking.

Then, the furies were shrieking and hugging Medusa because she got it. Persephone and Jezebel joined and I guess Benji didn’t want to be left out because he was screaming the loudest. I snapped my fingers and deposited Hannibal back in the dog kennel until Medusa decided he should die.

“We need another night getting drunk and doing mean things to stupid boys to celebrate all of this,” Jezebel said.

“Definitely,” Medusa said. “We should probably see what’s going on at the front of the house and we need to get Benji’s father out first."