19. Hades
Hades
W ho would do such a thing?
Who would commit such a crime against me? The god of the dead, the king of the Underworld?
Did they not know my wrath?
Did they not know what I was capable of?
“How could you let this happen?” My voice was foreign, animalistic. It didn’t sound like me.
“Darling, we didn’t let anything happen. It just…happened,” Clotho said.
What was the name she went by now? Chloe? How ridiculous.
“How? You’re the Moirai. You’re untouchable.”
“Were,” Lachesis said.
“What do you mean?”
Lachesis shrugged, and the third sister answered, “We were untouchable. Until we were trapped in our dimension like you were in yours. Ever since taking these human bodies, we’re not. We’re as susceptible to magic and pain as the rest of them.”
“So…what you’re saying is I can torture you as much as I want, and you’ll feel every second of it?”
This was preposterous. The Fates being tricked like they were cheap, low-grade witches.
“Hades, no. Stop that,” Sandro said. His voice did something to me.
Even though it was warm inside me, and it should be feeding the rage pounding at every muscle, it didn’t. It…it made me breathe. It made me see things with more clarity.
“Don’t worry, darling. He could try to hurt us. That doesn’t mean we’d let him,” Clotho said.
“Besides,” Lachesis added.
“You should be focusing on yourself, don’t you think, Hades?” Atropos finished.
I stared at each of them, and I could feel that anger rising again.
Not because of what they said. But because they were right.
“Wha-what do they mean?” Sandro appeared worried.
He should be. I should be too. Things were far worse than I could ever have anticipated. And for once, I didn’t know how to fix them.
I turned to him and brushed the air over his cheek, wishing more than ever that I could touch him. Truly touch him.
“What I’ve been telling you from the start, my love. You die, and I die with you.”
“No.” He stepped back as if the gravity of the situation was finally hitting him. As if he finally knew he was who I’d been saying from the start. “You can’t. You can’t die because of me. He can’t.” He addressed the last part to the Moirai.
Lachesis pursed her lips into a sad smile and presented another ball of yarn. This one was blue, unlike Sandro’s. There was a tear in the middle, and the threads around it were all frayed.
That.
That was my life. Nothing more than a tangle of threads in someone else’s hands. That was what all of us were.
“I’m afraid it’s not in our hands anymore. Unless you find out what happened, who stole your life and make them return it…” Lachesis said.
“Then he’ll die too,” Atropos said.
“No!” Sandro shouted.
He turned and grabbed my arms.
“You have to do something. You have to fix this. I can’t let you…I won’t let you die.”
The blue of his eyes was piercing even in their transparent state and the verve of his words sparked through me like the sustenance I needed.
“Believe me,” I growled and focused my vision through him on the three women standing behind him. “I won’t. When could this have happened? How could someone gain access to your threads?”
It was Clotho who stepped forward. “There could have been plenty of opportunity, darling. We’re busy women. We have fashion shows all around the world. We just came back from Japan.”
“Fashion—what? What are you talking about?”
Why did people in this realm no longer make sense?
“What did you expect, Hades? We live in this world. We have to make a living somehow. You do know controlling people’s fates doesn’t pay, right?”
“So you’re trying to tell me you leave your threads unprotected while you jet around the world?”
When had the Moirai turned stupid? How could they do this? No wonder Sandro had died. Who was next?
“Of course not, darling,” Lachesis said. “We’re not amateurs. We’ve got wards, protections only we can unlock. Give us some credit.”
“Credit? Because of you, my godmate is dead. What credit do you want?”
Sandro stepped forward and ran his hand down my arm before wrapping his fingers around mine. The hold lasted a moment before he went through me, but it was enough to again soothe the storm inside me.
“Breathe, H. Breathe. Let’s stop focusing on the past and focus on the now and what we can do. Yeah?”
How could he always be so right? How could he always know what to say? How could he keep his cool at a time like this?
“H, huh? I like it. You know, darling, you really should consider finding a more…modern name. People tend to get weird with our ancient names,” Clotho said.
“I’ll consider it, ‘Chloe,’” I said. “When I’m not running out of time to save the love of my life!” My voice got louder and louder until the ground shook at the last word.
The Moirai frowned at my display of power but didn’t seem bothered by it.
“Who could break through your wards? Think. Is there anyone— anyone —that could do it?” If anger wasn’t going to cut it, maybe a plea would be more fitting, although I had my limits.
They better start singing, or Sandro and I won’t be the only ones to die!
“Well,” Clotho started.
“Whoever it was, they’d have to know…” Lachesis continued.
“About us and our threads,” Atropos finished.
“So, any of the gods and their cohorts.”
“And don’t forget the believers,” Clotho said.
“Great. So…we’ll never find them.” Sandro sighed and turned to me. “Unless…you have any ideas.”
I watched all of them for a moment that turned to two, recounting everything they’d told me and everything that had happened.
The more I analyzed everything, the angrier I got. Would these games never end?
“How many of us are there? Are my brothers and sisters here?”
“To my knowledge, you’re the first of them to arrive in Gaia,” Lachesis said.
The first… Then that meant.
“I’m gonna kill them!” I shouted.
“Kill them? Kill who?” Sandro asked, but I didn’t answer him. I turned around, raised my hands, and screamed their names.
They appeared in a blaze of blue, wearing the same clothes they’d been wearing last night and looking just as clueless.
“My lord.” Hypnos went down on his knees as soon as he saw me.
Thanatos mimicked but kept quiet.
“You! What have you done?”
Sandro stepped beside me, and Thanatos dared to look at him.
“Hades, what are you talking about?” he asked me.
“Didn’t these two wastes of space say they were at a party last time?”
Sandro’s eyes went wide. “They did.”
“We were, my lord,” Thanatos said.
“Oh really? How, when Hades is the only Greek god around? Huh?” Sandro shouted at them before I got the chance.
His tone was dripping with anger, but he still managed to look perfectly innocent as he chewed their heads off.
I couldn’t help the smirk that crossed my face. He may not remember his life before, but there were those little things, subtle things, that were so distinctly her.
“I…” Thanatos said.
“He’s not,” Hypnos said, standing.
The disrespect.
“Speak the truth, you insolent child. The Moirai tell me I’m the only one of my kind here.”
“The Moirai don’t know what they’re talking about,” Hypnos said.
I raised my eyebrows and felt the fire building inside me, along with a growl.
“You dare talk back? To your king?” I sent the fire after him and his brother.
The flames turned into ribbons of wildfire and wrapped around them, constraining them. Hypnos collapsed on the floor once more.
“Some king!” Hypnos groaned as the fire burned brighter.
“Hyp, stop!” Thanatos wailed.
Now we were talking.
“Oh. Got anything to say, Thanatos?”
“Something you’d like to share with the class?” Sandro added.
Thanatos shook his head.
“Leave him alone,” Hypnos said.
I approached them and crouched so I could look into their eyes.
“I will not until you tell me what you’ve done,” I said.
“We haven’t done anything,” Hypnos said.
“Why don’t I believe you?” I rasped under my breath and tightened the hold around them.
Their clothes burned to a crisp and their skin turned red where the fire touched, but I didn’t care. They were big old boys. They could handle it. They still had their original bodies. They couldn’t be harmed that easily.
The Moirai gathered around the other side of them, watching everything unfold.
“I don’t know. That’s not our fault,” Hypnos said.
“Shut up, Hyp,” Thanatos reprimanded his brother.
“What have you done? I’m your king. I command you to give me answers!”
Hypnos scoffed and hissed. “Now you care. Where was our king all this time?”
“Shut up!” Thanatos said again.
I grabbed them both by the neck and forced them to look me in the eye.
“What. Did. You. Do?”
They watched me with fear in their expressions, and I knew they were close, so close to cracking.
“All right. I guess I’ll ask them to cut your lives short,” I looked up at the Moirai, and Atropos smirked.
She loved cutting lives.
“No!” Thanatos shouted.
“We did nothing,” Hypnos shouted as well.
“Just what we had to,” Thanatos added.
“What the hell does that mean?” Sandro leaned forward and glared at Thanatos.
“We’re sick, all right?” Thanatos said.
“And fucking tired,” his brother said.
“Of what?” Sandro asked.
“Of everything. This life. This eternal damnation,” Thanatos answered.
“Eternal…what eternal damnation? What are you talking about?” I asked.
They were not damned. They were still alive and thriving.
“This. What we do. We’re sick of it. We’ve been stuck doing this job for millennia. No breaks, no holidays, no time off,” Hypnos said.
“Yeah. If he doesn’t protect people when they fall asleep and I don’t mark them for death, things go to shit. But enough is enough,” Thanatos added.
“You think this is damnation? You think this is torture? I’ll tell you what torture is. It’s waking up every day and only finding darkness. It’s waking every day and knowing my true love is not beside me. It’s going about every single day knowing I can’t breathe, I can’t fully live until she finds her way back to me. It’s trying to pretend there’s any sort of life without her. That’s what damnation is. You’re doing your duty to the world!”
I let the fires recede, but my anger was stronger than ever. Besides, if I was going to make them hurt, I’d like it to take as long as possible. So they felt every second of despair like I did without my love.
“Boo-fucking-hoo. You didn’t have your playmate. We’ve been stuck without lives of our own,” Thanatos said.
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“So, what? You killed me for what? Revenge?” Sandro asked.
“We didn’t kill you. We just wanted his attention,” Hypnos said.
“You certainly have it now. What do you want?” Sandro said.
Thanatos and Hypnos exchanged a look and turned from Sandro to me.
“Come on. Out with it!” I urged them.
“We…” Thanatos started.
“Um…” Hypnos said.
“What?” I screamed.
“We…we don’t know.”
“You don’t know? What do you mean you don’t know? You went through all the trouble of putting the Moirai to sleep and stealing my lover’s life, and you don’t know what you want?”
Hypnos shook his head. He glanced at his brother, and they shook their heads again.
“What is this? A farce? A tragic comedy? Give me his life back,” I told them.
“We…we don’t have it,” Thanatos said.
A loud chirp of a sound vibrated through the entire room, and Chloe apologized and walked off to answer the front door.
“What do you mean you don’t have it?”
This was making less sense by the minute. These two had never been the brightest, but I’d hoped the years would have given them some wisdom.
Apparently not.
“Let me get this straight. You’re angry at H for being trapped here doing your duties for years and years…and years. You then come up with a plan to deceive the Moirai and kill me to get H’s attention, but you don’t know what you want and you’ve lost my life?”
Hypnos dropped his head and Thanatos bit his lip.
“We…we didn’t think that far ahead. We just did what he told us,” Thanatos said.
“‘He?’” I growled.
Who was that he and what did he have to do with anything?
Thanatos winced and looked at his brother.
“Did I just do a boo-boo?” he asked Hypnos.
“What the hell do I know anymore?” he answered him.
“It’s okay, boys,” someone said. “I’ll take over now.”
Thanatos and Hypnos looked up behind me. Sandro and I turned to face the newcomer walking in beside a bewildered Chloe.
He was short, large, and stumpy, wearing a suit a size too big, and his hair looked wet, combed back as if a cow had licked it into place.
“And who the hell are you?” I asked him.
The man put his hands in his pockets and looked at me with raised eyebrows and an infuriating smirk.
What was there to smirk about?
“Mr. Erman?” Sandro exclaimed beside me.
Mister what?
“Hello, Sandro, dear,” the man answered, and his smirk widened.
“You know him?” I asked Sandro.
Sandro grimaced and slowly turned from the guy to me.
“He…he’s my lender.” He chewed his lip.
“Your what?” I asked.
“Oh dear, you’re too slow, I see. Have you still not adjusted to this world, Hades? I gave your little boy here the money to buy his little parlor and house. Or did he not tell you that yet?” Mr. Erman replied with a dark tone I did not appreciate.
My face contorted. I couldn’t help it. I wasn’t one to keep my feelings inside and all that unholy shit.
“Do…do I know you?”
The man laughed. A deep, belly laugh that sounded way too ominous for a human.
“You only see me every. Single. Fucking. Day. What? You don’t recognize me, cousin?”
Cousin?
I have way too many cousins. Who the fuck…?
I squinted a bit more as I focused all my energy on the stranger, and the magic surrounding him pinched my skin, giving me goosebumps.
I knew that magic. And he said I see him every day.
“Hermes?”
“Took you long enough,” Mr. Erman replied.
“H-how?”
Since demons and gods had been trapped away from Gaia all those years ago, Hermes had been stuck doing the job he’d always done. Ferrying the dead into Hades for me to judge.
Hermes shrugged.
“I learned a few tricks in the past few years. Like how to steal human bodies for a while so I can break free of my… prison .” The last word was said with so much venom I almost felt poisoned.
“You…you’re Hermes? The god of messages?” Sandro asked him.
Hermes did a little theatrical bow that seemed uncomfortable in the body he possessed and smiled. “In the flesh. Well…almost.”
My patience was running thin, and so was my life. “You told them to steal his life?” I snarled, pointing at his two minions. The minions who were supposed to be mine for eternity.
“Oh yes, indeed. It was me. Me, me, me.”
While I could see more of him in this strange body, he wasn’t exactly the Hermes I knew.
No, the Hermes I knew, the god who brought souls to my domain, did not talk or raise his voice like that. Or even laugh like he’d just laughed.
“Why?” I asked.
Someone was playing a very bad joke on Sandro and me, and I did not appreciate it one single bit.
“I thought we could do a little swap,” he said with a disgusting smile I wanted to punch into the wall behind him.
His blood would look good on the white marble.
“A swap? What kind of swap? What could I possibly have to trade with you?” I asked him.
Hermes joined his hands in front of his chin and smirked. “Your kingdom? Yeah, that sounds about right. An equal trade, don’t you think? Your godmate’s life for your crown.”