Page 68 of Whiskey, Thieves, and Bastards
I loved this for Saul and Hannibal.
I looked around. Nearly everyone was having an existential crisis. Either because gods existed or because there were more than one of us. There were a few that were glaring at Pepper like she was bullshitting everyone and we weren’t gods. Saul was one of them.
Oh, this was going to be so much fun.
Dionysus always got a big kick out of the god reveal. Persephone did, too. Hades went around arranging them because it made her happy. Hephaestus was an introvert. He liked his people and didn’t particularly care for anyone else. Athena had always been up front about being a god. She preferred getting straight to business.
But this was honestly kind of fun. Right now, I wasn’t Medusa with the tragic backstory. I was a fury and none of that mattered.
“Please, introduce yourselves,” Pepper said.
“Athena, God of war, handicraft, wisdom, and practical reason, Patron God of Athens and heroes.”
“Hades, King of the Underworld and God of the Dead. Contrary to popular fiction, I have fuck all in common with your Satan and my realm is nothing like Hell. And my hair has neveroncebeen blue.”
Hades gave everyone that introduction since we walked out of that movie. We used to just avoid movies with me in it, but we stopped going to movies with Hades in it after that. It used to be nostalgia and laughing about the little details, but the creative liberties got to be a bit much. We were, however, big fans of the Percy Jackson series because it was a new twist.
“I’m his wife, Persephone, God of Spring and rebirth, and Queen of the Underworld. No, he didn’t kidnap me and trick me with a pomegranate. I broke into his house, he helped me, and we fell in love. No, I don’t have Stockholm syndrome. My mother started that rumor. I’m not in contact with her.”
Yeah, Persephone always gave that introduction, too. Hades and Persephone were wildly popular now, but Demeter and Zeus used the fact that she refused to leave the Underworld to paint this picture of a poor, confused woman that Hades had taken advantage of and it still pissed her off.
“Hephaestus, God of artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters, craftworkers, fire, metallurgy, metalworking, sculpture and volcanoes. I don’t have a big fancy speech, but I find it appalling you people keep voting to cut funding to the arts,” he grunted.
“And I’m Dionysus, God of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre. As the God of Theatre, I also find it gross you keep voting to cut funding to the arts, but that’s not why we are here today. We are here to clear up some misunderstandings about supernaturals since some of you don’t believe science.”
“And the four lovely ladies sitting next to you?” Tate asked.
“We’re the furies. We are justice personified,” Alecto said.
“We’re here to keep you honest,” Megaera said. “Weknowthe things a lot of you have done in the past that you managed to bury.”
“We know that some of you plan to do those things again in the future,” Tisiphone said.
“And some of you have done worse than the supernaturals you want people to kill for sport,” I said.
We were all looking at Saul. Most of the people in this chamber did things like use their political influence to make parking tickets go away, get things for free, or took bribes. That was pretty much expected, and I wasn’t shocked in the slightest.
It was Saul that was triggering everyone’s inner fury. We didn’t like him, but he was a bad, wicked man and he had been since he was a teenager. His father had been paying people off and when Saul got his inheritance, he started paying people off. If someone didn’t want the money, they wanted justice, Saul would pay people to terrorize them into never speaking.
I was barely containing my rage because Saul liked hurting women. Later, cupcake. Saul just ignored us.
“There’s only one god. This is a desperate move by a sad, old woman,” Saul snapped.
“Watch it,” Hades growled. “A lot of us are quite fond of that woman.”
“There’re a ton of us,” Dionysus smirked. “All the stories from different pantheons are mostly true. Some of us are hanging out in our realms and some are walking yours. We’ve got a group chat going for the cool ones. Most of us haven’t met the one you’re referring to, but a lot of us met his son. Cool guy. Total anarchist. Shame about the Romans.”
“Excuse me, but you’re telling me you knew Jesus?”
“Listen, we are very old. A lot of supernaturals are very old. Some of the supernaturals you want to deport if they don’t register and identify have personally been in this country longerthan your ancestors. Some of them fought in the American Revolution, reinvented themselves over the years, and joined every war this country has been in. Those are the people you are painting as your enemy,” Dionysus said.
“You also need to realize something,” Athena said. “We’re older than the angels. I don’t know why they started this or lied about supernaturals being possessed by demons, but an angel is a type of supernatural creature just as much as a vampire is. Angel tears might disable other supernaturals, but angels are allergic to silver just like any other supernatural and other supernaturals have gifts that would disable an angel.
“It’s about balance. The universe allowed gods and supernaturals to be created, but we all have weaknesses to help the weaker species protect themselves against us. Some of it is public knowledge and some of that has been heavily protected. One siren or one fury could take out an entire choir of angels. The angel would have to get their tears in their mouth to stop them. They are basically distant cousins.”
“We met someone who was around the first time angels came to this realm,” Dionysus said. “There were several who wanted to settle here and live among us. They fell in love and sired children. They were punished in the worst way. The other angels came down, slaughtered their children and pregnant mates, and dragged them back to their realm. All for choosing to live here and fall in love.”
“And before you say that’s something any god is allowed to demand of anyone, know that’s not true. We want to be loved and we have demands if someone chooses to dedicate themselves to us, but if they want to leave our temple, we don’t force them to stay because that’s not true devotion.
