Page 24 of Monster Whisperer
“Defeat a Goddess. He’s trying to get you help. I believe Charley gave you something?”
I was so concerned about objectifying Kimon that I didn’t even look in my pocket. I reached in my pocket and pulled out an ornate necklace.
“What is this?”
“This will hide your other half. If you meet Demeter, she will sense you are human, and that is it.”
I could work with that. I needed to come up with a plan. I slipped the necklace around my neck and vowed never to take it off.
“Charley said something about me being precious cargo. She’s lived in two realms. So, either my father was a warlock, or he lives in Hell.”
“The game has changed, River. I approached your father and spoke to him. He really didn’t know you existed. He asked what gifts you have. I told him what I knew. Your father wants you to fully access all of your gifts. Not even he knows what they are, though the talking to animals was expected. He said there should be more.”
I ran my fingers through my hair. What kind of man is my father, anyway? If I have other powers, why wasn’t he here teaching me how to figure them out? Telling me what I was could go a long fucking way. He could throw me a fucking crumb to help me out.
“You aren’t on your own, River. He wants to help you. He just needs permission to travel here. He doesn’t just want permission to come here and help you. He’s mad at me I brought you into this knowing who you were. He thinks I should have asked his permission first. He wants to help in every way, which means he wants to bring others here to help.”
“So then why can’t you tell me what I am?” I demanded.
“Because he asked me not to. He wanted to tell you himself, and yes, this is a quest of sorts. He thinks since you are his daughter, you can help beat Demeter with some help from him. He thought it would be fun for you.”
I scoffed.
“He thought getting kidnapped and being brought into some massive revenge plot in the Underworld by a bitter Goddess would be fun for me?”
Hades cleared his throat.
“Your other half tends to enjoy that sort of thing, to say the least. You might not want to admit it yet, but you feel a connection to the monsters here.”
Well, yeah, and I was still coming to terms with that, but I wouldn’t say I found any of this fun. I hated everything about that fighting ring and what it stood for. I hated watching Kimon fight for his life, and I detested hearing them taunt him and throw things at him.
“Let me put it to you this way, River. You had a pretty extreme reaction to that fight. You wanted to charge down there and stop it. When Tryphon and Pavlina needed to eat, you wanted the people in the audience punished and suggested two of them for food.Thatwas your other side coming out to play.”
That just hit me like a ton of bricks. I suggested two people to be served up as a meal for monsters without even batting an eye. I didn’t think about what they were like or if they had families that would miss them. I just sat there and listened to their screams while Pavlina and Tryphon hunted them too. The man in the pool had stopped screaming, but Pavlina appeared to be still playing with her food.
And if I thought really hard about it, I didn’t feel bad about picking audience members. They didn’t have collars like the monsters. They could do something. They could try to figure out how to free their friends and get Demeter out of the Underworld.
They weren’t doing a damned thing about it. Instead, they were placing bets and throwing things if their friends and neighbors didn’t slaughter each other for their entertainment. That might have been a thing before, but Hades said the pits had been closed for a long time, and these people needed to get with the times. They had Netflix now if they wanted entertainment.
“I’m not wrong, River. Pavlina likes to play with her prey, and you haven’t even batted an eye.”
“Which has me even more curious what my other half is. I have zero guidance trying to figure out what gifts I’m supposed to have.”
“You know you’re immune to fire, River. Start there. I must be going.”
“Wait! Can you get me to Hephaestus? I can’t help but think he doesn’t know what’s going on here.”
“Hephaestus’s forge is still on Earth. It’s under a volcano in Sicily. I’ve already tried. Demeter has scouts guarding the entrance. If they see me with you, my wife is as good as dead.”
Damn it. There had to be a way out of this. I just couldn’t see the path just yet. And why was my father so shifty? Did he not want me?
If he didn’t, why did Charley say I was precious cargo?
Chapter 17
Tryphon
I
