Page 44 of Monster Whisperer
What the fuck happened while I was gone? The only person who knew the truth about the collars was Demeter, and she wasn’t exactly going to fess up to River.
“Your little plot is still dangerous, River, and I already said I don’t want you doing it behind my back.”
“Does someone want to explain what the fuck is going on?”
“Baby bird tricked Demeter into taking her to Hephaestus.”
What the fuck? Humans and demigods had been trying to get one over on the Gods since they went to another realm. Sure, sometimes, they killed their pet monsters, but the Gods always got their revenge in the end. Why was Hades tolerating this? He needed to send River back home or back to her father. I didn’t care if she was only half human. So were the demigods looking to prove a point.
“Why are you all entertaining this? We know how this ends. Demeter will find out, and River will end up cursed. Isn’t everyone afraid of pissing off Hell?”I snapped.
Hades started drumming his fingers on his knees. He had that look on his face that he always got when he was in deep thought. Typically, we needed Persephone here to interpret for him when he got like this. Hopefully, he’d remember not even River spoke crazy Hades and not go on some deranged rant none of us could understand.
“I’ve been thinking about River’s unique genetic makeup and the talisman Charley gave her. I’ve been thinking about this ever since River tricked Demeter. Demeter might not be able to curse her.”
“Might being the operative word. And when she sees she can’t, she’ll kill her.”
Why was I the only one seeing the logic in this? She wasn’t already dead like all of us in the Underworld. Who knew what would happen to her if Demeter killed her? Would she go to the pits of Tartarus like we would, or would she end up in this Hell with her father? If she randomly showed up in Hell because she died, he would know, and any alliance Hades was hoping for would be gone. River wouldn’t be the only death either. Demeter was crazy enough to kill Persephone.
Maybe I did care. I thought she was dangerous, and I didn’t want to come face to face with that green fire she had, but she was trying to make things better for us here. She was giving us a voice while they trapped us like this. Even if I had sneaked out and scouted, I never could have communicated with Hades what I found out if it weren’t for her.
Yeah, I cared. I cared enough for Hades to stop this and send her back where she came from before something terrible happened to her. I was already worried to death about Persephone. How was I supposed to keep River safe, too, if no one had my back about keeping her as far away from Demeter as possible?
“I’m not okay with this. River has zero experience with Gods and Goddesses.”
“Well, I wasn’t okay when you were sneaking out of this jail to scout, and it was your turn to fight. We had to come up with an excuse to send Pavlina, and it brought Demeter to the jail. I think that was River’s intention this entire time. She tricked me, and last time I checked, I’m still a God.”
Oh, shit. This was all because of me. If I hadn’t gone scouting before a fight, no one would have needed to lie for me. Demeter would never have found out about her.
“I’m not that great at reading monster body language, but this isn’t your fault, Demos. We needed the information you found, and someone needed to see Hephaestus. I needed to meet Demeter.”
How was I supposed to protect this crazy woman when she was trying so hard to get us all killed?
Chapter 34
River
T
he way they explained the arena fights to me was that they were held twice a week to build up publicity and to give those awful people time to place bets. My monsters in the jail were featured events, and they never knew when they would be called to fight. Sometimes, it was both days, and sometimes, they had a week or two off. They thought it was because Demeter was going through the roster of monsters in the pit for someone who would actually kill them.
“There have to be more monsters that are winning. Why aren’t they here with you? There are plenty of cells.”
“Hades pulled strings, and it’s for our protection, my pet. Everyone knows we were Persephone’s bodyguards. There are a lot of monsters down there that blame us for this mess. They think we should have known it wasn’t a normal handoff and gotten her out of there before they could put a knife at Persephone’s throat. They wouldn’t hesitate to kill us in our sleep. And the pool in the pit is filthy.”
Well, damn. I needed to go down in the pits to see if the monsters there needed anything. Were they going to get mad at me too? Demos lost his shit because he didn’t know what I was. Would I get eaten by monsters if I went down there and tried to talk to them?
“Should I go down there and see what they need?”
“No!”Demos barked.“Not until you can bring them some sort of news that will overrule their suspicions when they can’t figure out what you are. You walk in, and they find out you can hear them when only monsters can hear each other, they’ll be more afraid than when they had a demigod after them. They won’t understand it, and they are already afraid. They’ll rip you apart.”
I had no idea big, scary monsters could fear a woman my size just because I could speak for them, but this wasn’t a normal situation. I had an unkillable phoenix afraid of me for a hot minute. Demos seemed a little protective of me now and had gotten over his shit, but he was right. There were all manner of monsters in that pit who could react badly to me.
“I still don’t want you leaving with Demeter, River. There are so many things that could go wrong.”
“You forget Hephaestus’s rules about his forge, Demos,”Pavlina said.“They allow in only one person at a time, and he won’t break that for Demeter. She can pitch any bitch fit she wants. Hephaestus is a hard ass. He’ll kick her ass straight back to Olympus.”
“No, you forget something, Pavlina. A weapon forged by Hephaestus killed almost every monster down here. Hephaestus could be totally down with all of this. He could have a problem with monsters and want us all gone.”
