Page 32 of The Call of Monsters
Back to those women and their strings. I wished I could meet them and threaten them with one of those blades not todo anything to Hephaestus’s string. I didn’t give a shit about anyone else here. I got why we were trying to make it a better place, but I’d kill every last Olympian here if it meant Hephaestus got to live. I was a bitch like that, and I’d protect what was mine.
“I can handle that,” Charley said. “Ithinkit will work on Olympians. It works on just about any supernatural creature, and that’s technically what all of you are. You aren’treallygods and goddesses.”
“No, we aren’t. What did you have in mind?”
“A blood oath. They must let me take their blood, and so will you. You must agree to something they want. The way a blood oath spell works is if you break the oath, you bleed from every orifice until you die. I know your people are supposed to be unkillable unless you use one of those weapons, and I don’t know if it would kill them outright, but I don’t think anyone wants to bleed out their asshole and eyes for all of eternity because they lied.”
Finn grabbed her hand and squeezed it.
“I’ll totally go the blood oath route. It’s a nasty way to die, and it would be even worse if it doesn’t kill you, and that’s your life. You’d beg for death.”
Hephaestus ran his fingers through his black hair.
“I’m down for that. I totally am, and I always keep my word. My family might consider it an insult, and they might not want unfamiliar magic cast on them.”
Demos tossed the last of his sandwich in his mouth and licked his fingers.
“That’s kind of a tough shit from all of us. I was born this way, and so was Kimon, but Pavlina and Tryphon had to deal with strange magic being inflicted on them, and so did half of the Underworld monsters. If your family can dish it out, they can take it if it means those weapons get destroyed when this is over. If they will betray you over this, how do we know they won’t come to use them on you and Hades in the Underworld? They haven’t really given us any reason to trust them without a spell that will kill them unless they keep their oath.”
Hephaestus sighed, and I realized how tired he looked.
“I know you’re right, but when we let that out of the bag, let me do the talking. They don’t like me, but I’m one of them.Pleasedon’t shoot your mouths off if they say something you don’t like. We need them on our side. Even if you don’t like my mother, Apollo, Hermes, and Tyche are all nice Olympians.”
I had very different opinions aboutnicethan Hephaestus did. He probably considered them friendly because they weren’t directly cruel to his face about his limp, but I knew they still snubbed him about it. And that wasn’t even remotely nice.
If I wasn’t going to kill them, I had several things I wanted to say to them about how they treated Hephaestus. But I could keep my mouth shut until they made that blood oath.
Chapter 18
River
W
e didn’t have to sit around this horrifically gaudy bedroom for long before Hera came back with help. We were lying around still trying to figure Hera out, and I was trying to avoid looking at the huge, gilded mirror above the bed. Solron wasn’t wrong when she said it looked like an eighties porn movie barfed in here, and the vibrating bed was defective. Sometimes, it would just start if we shifted, and it was getting annoying. I totally got vibrating toys and was all on board for that, but I hated this vibrating bed with a passion.
Hera came in with this huge, wild-looking man and didn’t bother to introduce him like they had selfies back in ancient Greece, and I knew exactly who he was. There were plenty of people in the room who wouldn’t, but my monsters seemed to know him, so he must have spent a lot of time on Earth. Hephaestus looked utterly shocked to see him.
“I didn’t take you for getting involved in this, Dionysus.”
Hera brought us the fucking God of Wine and Fertility? Wasn’t he this big party freak who was into orgies and getting drunk? I’d learned I was totally into the orgies, and I’d never say no to a good glass of wine, but why was he here?
“I’m the fucking leader of this little rebellion, Hephaestus. We just didn’t know how to get it started until Hera came to me about your weapon.”
I was so confused. Were we going to get led by a drunk? Hera trained her intense blue eyes on me and tossed her hair over her shoulder.
“They are still teaching classes about us on Earth, and this onethinksshe knows everything about us. You might want to clear up some misinformation, Dionysus.”
Dionysus just smirked at me.
“I hope they still get me right. I was never on board with coming to Earth and pretending to be a god. I was totally against it, but Zeus wanted it, so we all had to do it. I already knew how it was going to go down. People would pray to us and be terrified bad things would happen if they weren’t devoted enough.
“Zeus didn’t care what the rest of us did once he hatched his plan. He just wanted to be worshipped as the supreme god. So, I became the fun god. The one people weren’t terrified of. I was all about drinking, merriment, and orgies. I wasn’t a god that was going to curse you. My name became associated with pleasure instead of terror.
“I wasn’t expecting cults to form or people asking me to change them with my magic. After a lot of begging, I created a satyr, and I wasn’t expecting so many people to want it. I tried to make the requirements for me changing them hard so people wouldn’t ask, but people just wanted it so badly.
“The whole thing just blew up in my face. I wanted to be this god people could associate with feeling good, but they liked feeling good so much, they took Dionysus worship to the extreme. I was so relieved when Zeus lost interest, and we got to go back home. I don’t need my ego stroked like Zeus does.
“Zeus is still like that, and he would do it again. You are clearly not mortal. I don’t know what you are. Several creatures in this room aren’t, so you can’t be from Earth. If Zeus knew where you were from and he could take it, he would invade your realm and set himself up as king.
