Page 28 of The Call of Monsters
“You still haven’t said what you want, Hera. I know you probably have just as much a reason to want Zeus dead as anyone, but why should I trust you with my weapon?”
She held out her hands like she was pleading with me.
“Because I don’t want to stay here. I’ve long wanted to go to Earth and live with the humans. I want to run my own business far away from Olympian nonsense. I saw how they treated you after you got your limp. I disagree with how humans are treated here. Zeus won’t let any of us leave. The only reason he let Aphrodite go is that she causes so much trouble sleeping with married men, and their wives were complaining to him too much.
“I’m not the only one who feels this way. I want to leave entirely, but Hermes, Apollo, Tyche, and several others wish to change. They don’t like what we’ve become. They want to give all of the humans here the option to go back to Earth instead of serving us, and if they don’t, improve their conditions.
“Zeus won’t stand for that, and he has several others on his side. Others agree with his stance but would happily kill him so they could take over if they knew about your weapon. The only reason civil war hasn’t broken out in Olympus is that the only way it would ever end was if we moved the battle to the Underworld so we could trap people in the Pits of Tartarus. Neither side is willing to risk it. Your weapon changes everything.”
Wasn’t that what we wanted? What had Hades planned for? I held no love for most of these people, but they weren’t all bad. Some names Hera dropped had been friendly with me before I was injured, then avoided me after that. They never outright said anything to my face, but they wouldn’t be near me like I had some disease. My limp lost me so much. None of my friends in Olympus would be seen with me anymore except the Horae.
Had it been fear of Zeus this entire time? Were the ones who weren’t nasty to me, but couldn’t even meet my eyes doing that because they didn’t want Zeus doing the exact same thing to them? No one ever stood up to him because he was violent and had a horrible temper. I knew that when I tried to stop him from hurting my mother, and I paid the price.
River pointed her knife at Hera. River would have tried to beat the shit out of anyone here who so much as gave me the stink eye about my limp. I loved her for that, but she was going to get hurt if she tried.
“I learned about you in my Greek mythology class. Didn’t you make it a point to torture Zeus’s victims and children? What about what you did you Hercules?”
Hera glared at River. My motherhatedhaving that thrown in her face. Zeus had been torturing Hera about her treatment of Hercules when I stepped in to cut her down from the device he’d strung her up from to stop him when he threw me through several realms. I wasn’t going to say anything about that, but my mother was.
“Maybe things are different for you since I see you in bed with my son and several other creatures. You’re snuggling a little too close with all of them for that to be just about the fact that there’s one bed in the room. They share you, but would you be angry if they repeatedly went out and raped women?”
River let out a little growl at the idea, but she wasn’t backing down.
“I’d settle that with them, not their victims or offspring.”
Hera just tossed her long, red hair over her shoulder.
“That’s because none of those creatures rule an entire realm, and I know my son is not violent. He would step in if anyone in your bed were. I couldn’t take on Zeus on my own. I hoped if I became a harpy about his indiscretions, he’d stop hurting women. Newsflash, he didn’t. He still does it. Hercules and I have made our peace, and he’s now married to my daughter here in Olympus. I just had tea with him earlier today.
“Did your little class teach you about what Zeus did when he took offense at my treatment of Hercules and how it affects you directly? He beat me until I could no longer stand, then strung me up by my arms in the top room of his palace. My feet couldn’t touch the floor, and my shoulders disconnected from their socket. They couldn’t heal themselves because I was hanging from my arms.
“Zeus would have left me there for centuries, but Hephaestus stepped in and cut me down. He laid into Zeus for hurting me, and Zeus threw him through several realms and gave him that limp. You can go by whatever they say about me now in your little Earth class, but it’s not the full truth, and Zeus is so much worse. I came to help, and I can bring you Olympian allies who want things to change.”
That seemed to calm River. She lowered her knife to her lap and visibly relaxed. No one else in the room had said a damned thing, and there were many people here. My mother had done a lot of shit, but she had hurt none of the monsters in this room, and they acknowledged that and were willing to hear her out. I had a feeling there were several Olympians here who wouldn’t have been given the same courtesy.
“We need help, and Hades doesn’t want everyone here to die.”
Hera started laughing.
“I would imagine not. Many of his ideas that were too radical ages ago are now held as truth for several of us. Zeus and Poseidon banished him to the Underworld because they didn’t want them catching on, but they did anyway. What is Hades’s big plan?”
I took over. My mother seemed to want to help us, and she wasn’t outright sneering at the people in the room that weren’t Olympians. She wasn’t even all that mean to River when she challenged her. Maybe Olympus could change.
“The man on the chaise is a Duke of Hell in another realm. He brought armies to help the Underworld defeat Demeter when she was holding Persephone hostage. He’s my mate’s father, and he’s been talking to Hades. A few other realms have opened their gates to the possibility of allowing citizens to come and go and let new people in. Hades wants to do this with Olympus, but it sounds like several of you already want this, which we didn’t know. You really want to live as a human?”
I got everything my mother had said so far except that. She was Queen of Olympus, and most everyone here feared her. Now that I knew she wanted things to change, andshehad changed, she wouldn’t have been a terrible choice at staying here and helping to run things. Why would she want to go to Earth and start over? She’d have to rebuild her entire life from scratch, and since when was my mother interested in running a human business when she’d been a queen for so long?
I realized how tired my mother looked when I really gazed at her.
“It gets old being queen, Hephaestus. Everyone kisses my ass just because I’m married to Zeus. I’ve wanted a divorce for the longest time, but he thinks people will see him as less of a man if he loses his queen. We’ve long had separate chambers, and the only reason I care about him sneaking women down here is that they are usually not willing. Some of them think sleeping with him will better their station if they get pregnant with a demigod.
“There’s a simplicity on Earth, Hephaestus. I just didn’t see it before. Mortals can be petty and money-grubbing sometimes, but are we any better? I want to work for a title and respect instead of having it handed to me by marriage.”
River just laughed.
“That isnothow my professor portrayed you at all, but I can dig that.”
Hera gave her a small smile.
