Page 84 of The Demigod

“Wouldn’t have you any other way. Besides, we all live here. And fuck here. It’s the norm.”

“That’s fair,” she agreed. I mean, after all, she’d spent several nights under our roof; there was no way someone else hadn’t been making their own noise.

“Have the girls been welcoming?”

“I’ve honestly been in here literally nonstop,” she admitted. “The only time I’ve seen anyone was when they were bringing food up or asking if I needed any help with you.”

“You gotta be going stir crazy.”

“Actually, it’s been nice. I mean… you being catatonic aside. I’ve been on the move so much for so long that just doing nothing has been a welcome break.”

“I mean, you did just save the world. You earned a rest.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” she said with a sigh.

“What do you mean? You got Nemesis free.”

“I did. And she got her revenge for sure. But, well, I guess… here,” she said, reaching across me to get the remote from the nightstand.

“There aren’t a lot of news stations still operating,” she told me. “But there are a few sticking it out.”

“Like the musicians on the Titanic,” I said.

“Yeah, I guess. With the way the news is going, I’m kind of shocked the power grid is still up.”

“Well, even the gods must like entertainment,” I said, shrugging. Television was one of the things I loved most when I joined the human plane.

“Maybe,” she agreed, finding what she was looking for—a petite woman with short brown hair who looked like she hadn’t slept in a week—and turning up the volume.

If anything, it seemed like everything had only gotten worse. More fires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, and the expected famine and fighting.

“And it’s not just here,” Nox told me. “It’s the same across the globe. Except there are already wars starting to break out in the smaller countries where people are more on top of one another and competing for resources.”

“What the fuck is their plan here? Don’t they want to be worshipped and shit?”

“My best guess is they want to show them all how bad it can get. Then swoop in and offer aid. Then they get all the credit, admiration, and gratitude.”

“I can see that,” I agreed. “And, I imagine, it is going to take some time for people to accept that the old gods existed at all, let alone that they are back and want to be worshipped and obeyed.”

“Yeah, I don’t see any talk about that yet. The only scuttlebutt I’ve heard about less-than-human beings has been attributed to aliens. Which, valid,” Nox said. “But no one has really drawn the lines yet. I think that is only going to bring its own kind of chaos.

“What did Lucy have to say?” I asked, running my fingers up and down her arm, loving the softness of her skin.

“You mean…”

“The Morning Star, yeah,” I said, smiling.

“I actually haven’t met—Jesus!” she shrieked when the door flew open. And there was the man in question.

“Have I been summoned?” he asked, walking in with all his casual cockiness and good looks.

“No,” Nox grumbled, trying to burrow deeper into the covers.

“I’m wounded,” Lucy said, pressing a hand to his chest. “I heard you snuck into the Underworld and stole some flowers from that wannabe.”

“He sicced his three-headed dog on us.”

“Dramatic,” Lucy said with an eye roll. “What’s wrong with some good, old-fashioned demons?”

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