Page 34 of Deadly Games
Dionysus and I stood by as Fenrir shifted and I couldn’t help but glance Dionysus’ way. His reaction to the massive beast was priceless, though to his credit, he didn’t make a peep.
“Not very fluffy, is he?”
“It’s...unsettling,” he said guardedly as Hades and Fenrir slipped past the grid and into the simulation. “But all the better for our purposes.”
I smirked. “Just watch and enjoy the show. They’re good at this.”
“Apparently,” he said in a tone of disapproval.
He watched eagerly nonetheless. I wasn’t quite sure what illusion Hades and Fenrir had coopted to slip seamlessly into the simulation, but Fenrir in his hellhound form was an unwelcome surprise on any occasion.
The moment I heard her scream, I knew the ruse had worked. “Come on,” I said, nodding for Dionysus to follow me in. “Just stay close and keep quiet.”
He hesitated, but curiosity won out and he followed me into the grid. I watched with growing amusement through the thick brush in the jungle simulation she had chosen. Couldn’t have been a better cover for Fenrir, but we’d all done that sim a thousand times and this would be the first time it ever featured a hellhound.
Helle was backed up against the rocks at the base of a waterfall with nowhere to run. She’d dropped her sword in her haste to escape, and the great black beast kept creeping toward her, jaws dripping and fangs bared.
Fenrir was doing a convincing job of pretending to be hungry. Either that, or he really had skipped breakfast. Either way, Helle looked like she was ready to piss herself.
Hades stepped out at the exact right moment, when her terror was at its zenith and Fenrir was crouched, ready to go in for the kill. Her face went pale as a ghost, and in that moment, it was obvious that Hades was even more of an unwelcome sight.
Strange reaction for someone without a guilty conscience, really.
“What are you doing here?” she cried, her back flattened against the slick rocks. Her eyes darted wildly between them, and she didn’t even seem to have noticed us.
“I was going to ask you the same question,” Hades said calmly, sauntering toward her. He stopped at Fenrir’s side, glancing over at the monstrous creature. “I see you’ve met my friend.”
“What the fuck is that thing?” she demanded, her voice cracking with fear. I could tell she was trying not to look directly at him, as if his void of inky black fur might swallow her whole.
To be fair, I’d felt pretty much the same way the first time I’d seen him in that form.
“It’s a hellhound,” Hades answered smugly, patting the top of Fenrir’s head. He snarled in response, but his fiery glare was still focused on Helle. “And before you ask, no, he’s not a new addition to the sim. He’s quite real.”
Helle’s eyes widened, and her confusion soon became more horror. “I’ll scream,” she said, her voice tightening.
Hades cocked his head to one side. “Now, why would you go and ruin a friendly conversation? We’re just talking.” His lip curled back into a malicious sneer he only reserved for those he truly despised. “You wouldn’t want what happened to Kore at the trials to happen to you, would you? Go running out of here wailing about a hellhound…” He clicked his tongue. “People might think you finally snapped. I’m sure they’d question your story then.”
I could practically hear Helle gulp from across the room, over the sound of the rushing waterfall. She didn’t respond, whether it was because she knew she’d been caught or she was simply too paralyzed with fear to do so.
“And it is just that, isn’t it?” he pressed, taking another menacing step toward her. Fenrir inched even closer. They could get along well enough when they had a common enemy. “A story.”
Helle’s guilt was as plain as day, and she sank against the rock behind her back like her knees were going to give out at any moment.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“I want to know why you lied,” Hades answered. “Why did you tell Odin and Kunzite Kore is the one who killed your twin?”
“She is,” she protested.
Hades was good at masking his irritation. His face didn’t change, but the moment he snapped his fingers, Fenrir lunged with a snarl fit to wake the dead.
Helle’s shriek made my ears ring and as she cowered against the rocks, sobbing a barely intelligible concession, Fenrir stopped just short of tearing open her throat. He snorted hard enough to disturb her long tresses and stood frozen and growling, awaiting the next command.
“Well?” Hades asked impatiently. “Why did you do it?”
“He made me,” she cried, trembling from what seemed like a combination of terror and anger, judging from the bitterness in her voice.
Hades frowned. “Who?”
