Page 16 of Monster Whisperer
I thought Kimon was huge, but he looked tiny next to this giant king. Kimon had two swords in his hand, and he already told me he needed something in his cell to service his blades. I swear, if he ended up in Tartarus with the Titans, I would find a way to get him back. I mean, the monster called me baby bird and wanted to snuggle.
I couldn’t see their faces from here, but they were both just standing there staring at each other like they didn’t want to do this. Had they been friends before all this happened? How many friends had Kimon, Pavlina, Tryphon, and Demos been forced to kill in this ring? No wonder Demos was in such a nasty mood all the time.
“What do you say, people of the Underworld? Do you want to see them fight?”
Okay, I officially wanted to punch that announcer in the face. My heart sunk when the entire crowd started chanting for them to kill each other. Why couldn’t one person step up and say no? If the crowd stopped betting and refused to attend, then Demeter wouldn’t make any money off these fights. Would she stop then?
“Begin!” the announcer screamed.
I knew I couldn’t look away. I had to take this all in. I’d scouted the crowd. I knew Demeter was here. Now, I needed to watch the fight. I needed to see how Kimon was injured so I could treat him. Kimon was mostly human. Only his head and neck were a bull. I wasn’t sure how much I could help him, considering I’d only ever patched up animals before. My clinic wasn’t like the movies where shady criminals came to me to patch them up because they couldn’t go to the hospital.
Kimon and the giant circled each other. I’d never been much for watching fights, but it seemed to me more like they didn’t want to hit each other rather than looking for an opening to strike.
The crowd hated it. The longer they circled, the more unruly the crowd got. They started throwing fruit into the ring and booing. I jumped to my feet when a tomato struck Kimon in the chest. Hades yanked me back in my chair.
“Don’t draw attention to yourself, River. Don’t speak, don’t rage, just watch.”
I think this was the hardest thing I’d ever done in my entire life. Vet school was hard. Losing an animal on the operating table was hard. But at least I tried as hard as I could to save them. It felt like I should do something. I felt like I should be charging down there and stopping this.
The crowd was screaming for blood. Kimon and the giant couldn’t put this off much longer. What would happen if both of them just refused to fight?
I didn’t get to find out. I couldn’t help it. I clenched my eyes shut and clenched the armrests as the giant swung that giant spiked club right at Kimon.
Chapter 11
Kimon
I
hated this. This was worse than the labyrinth I spent centuries in and met my death in. At least in the maze, people were stupid enough to stay away unless they had something to prove. Asking them not to try to fight me was pointless. I would have shown them the way through the maze just to fuck over King Minos for trapping me in there.
But no. I was part of the game. Solve the labyrinth and kill the minotaur. Minos was a sore loser. He only stuck me in there because I won a ton of drachma off him at cards. That mother fucker never beat me, and I always caught him when he tried to cheat. Heloathedlosing at anything.
I was pretty sure he was plotting my death, but I outmatched him at fighting, and I could beat any of his soldiers. What he did to me was much worse. He drugged my wine and stuck me in the labyrinth. He set up a game he thought was impossible to lose, and he used me as a pawn.
I was a pawn again, but this was much worse than being trapped in an endless maze with heroes showing up to try to kill you. This hadn’t been going on nearly as long. This only started two months ago, but it felt like an eternity.
This was different. It wasn’t nameless demigods and heroes I was killing this time. It was my friends. All of us vanquished monsters who ended up in the Underworld because demigods felt like the only way to get daddy’s attention was to take on something bigger and more powerful than them had become a community.
I didn’t want to kill Porphyrion. I was on suitable terms with all the giants. Porphyrion and I liked to watch sports together. We could get stations from all the realms now. We liked human rugby and Fae wrestling. Some demons live-streamed their torture, but neither of us had the stomach for that.
We didn’t have a choice. We could fight each other, or Persephone would die. I’d been her bodyguard since she came to the Underworld. Ineverkept her captive here. She wanted to be here. I was protecting her from people who were sympathetic to Demeter and would kidnap her.
Persephone told us all about what kind of mother Demeter was. It was the whole reason Hades had to trick her about the food. Demeter would have scorched every single realm if Persephone told her she preferred Hades over Demeter and didn’t want to leave. Fucking Goddesses and their egos. Persephone was never like that.
There were all these myths and legends that had popped up about these collars around our necks that kept us trapped in our monstrous forms. Hephaestus forged them so they could do anything. Personally, Pavlina, Tryphon, Demos, and I all thought we should use our monsters to rise up and fight, even if it meant our death.
The monsters in the pit were totally beaten down. They were passing rumors among themselves that if we fought, the collars would kill us. I didn’t think Hephaestus would make a collar like that for Demeter. I knew she fed him some lie about keeping us in line, and that was why he created them.
Hephaestus was one of the good Gods like Hades. The other Gods always abused him because he wasn’t as perfect looking as they were. They were still demanding he make weapons for them and their children. Aphrodite cheated on him in his own bed with Ares, but he got his revenge. If Hephaestus knew what was going on in the Underworld, he would stop this. The problem was, no one could get to him without running into Demeter’s army, and if they saw us, Persephone would suffer.
I had to think quickly. My giant friend and I had delayed this fight as much as we could, but they had thrown rotten fruits and vegetables at us. They wanted blood. People before this had tried not fighting. They set down their weapons and sat on the ground. The crowd nearly revolted.
Demeter had her own monster. It wasn’t from the Underworld, and it wasn’t one I knew. She probably plucked this one from a different realm. It looked like an enormous dog, but it burned with intense heat. If she set it loose because someone wouldn’t fight, it was hard to get a blow in because of the fire coming off it. It was so hot, it melted metal.
We could refuse much longer, or that infernal dog would come out, and I couldn’t die just yet. I had two women to protect now. I had to save Persephone, and I had to keep my baby bird safe. She did not understand what kind of gift she was giving me just being in the room and talking to me. I was getting pretty fucking tired of Pavlina and Demos throwing barbs at each other, and Tryphon complaining about being hungry. It didn’t hurt that she was just as beautiful as any Goddess in Olympus.
I guess I would have to fight my wonderful friend until one of us was dead. I hoped my baby bird wasn’t watching this. I saw the way she looked at me the first time she saw me. She wasn’t afraid of me, even if I was in full minotaur form. Most people were when I was still alive. She looked at me in awe, like I was this thing of beauty.
