Tryphon looked ready for battle, and he wasn’t fucking around. He usually wore these colorful blue and green robes and matching nail polish. His robe was black with a hood this time, and his fingernails and toenails were painted black with some glitter. He was also sporting heavy guyliner, and I wanted to eat him up.
Charley and Finn were coming with us, and so were Solron and my father. They must have been wearing Hell battle gear because their clothing was similar. It looked a lot like something you would wear to a sex club, and I was trying to avoid looking at my father in tight black leather with metal spikes.
I still had no idea how we were actually getting to the gates of Olympus. I was getting pretty good at making portals to go places, but they had a distinctive glow that would give away our location if anyone was awake and looking at the gates. It was the same for all the demons here. Maybe it was different for Olympians. I didn’t know because I passed out before Hades brought me down here. I was still mad about that, by the way.
We were all gathered in the courtyard waiting with Hades, who kept looking at his watch like he was waiting for something. He checked his watch for probably the tenth time before it read what he wanted it to read.
“It’s time. Are you all ready?”
“I’ve been ready for this since that bitch cursed me,” Pavlina grunted.
“Poseidon earned this,” Tryphon growled.
Hades just sighed.
“Remember, we aren’t killing everyone. Just the ones who want the knife or those you have a beef with.”
Demos tossed his hair over his shoulder and struck a pose worthy of a teenage girl.
“What if they sass me?”
Hades pinched the bridge of his nose and groaned.
“No killing if they backtalk. Only kill if you have no choice, and that doesn’t mean because you don’t like something someone says to you. I mean it. I will hold every last one of you accountable. Now, step back.”
Hades held his hand up and practically cut a hole in the air with his finger. It opened up, and I could see through it. I could see a tall and ornate golden gate right there. Was this Olympus? I just wanted to stare for a minute, but everyone was already jumping through.
Kimon didn’t have anyone there he absolutely needed to kill, so he stayed back and grabbed my hand. He gave it a gentle squeeze.
“Ready, baby bird?”
I squeezed his hand back.
“With you? Always.”
We were the last to go through. We hopped through, and it closed behind us. I was officially now in Olympus. How weird. This place was something else. The atmosphere outside was perfect. It was like living somewhere that hadn’t been tainted with pollution. The night sky was a vivid dark blue with a million stars spattered about. The moon was enormous and glowing.
I took in the gates before me. They were towering and solid gold. Even in the moonlight, they seemed to shine as if the sun were hitting it. The glow was preventing me from seeing inside. I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to knock like at Hephaestus’s forge or if it was even safe to touch with the glow and hum coming off the gates. I could feel this hum coming off it I wasn’t sure was dangerous or safe.
The gate started swinging open a crack, and I saw a man illuminated by the glow. Even though he was in shadow, I knew who it was without already knowing he was supposed to be waiting.
Hephaestus!
I didn’t cry out like I wanted to. I still knew we needed to be quiet. I sprinted the short distance and flung myself in his arms. He caught me and spun me around. He barely kissed me before he set me down. He beckoned to the others, and we snuck through the gates. They were eerily silent as they closed behind us.
Three beautiful women were waiting for us, and they all wanted to hug me.
“Take care of Hephaestus.”
“Girl, you’d better treat him well.”
“Based on that greeting, I know you love him.”
They finally let me go and turned to Hephaestus.
“I wish you’d stay at our place.”
Weren’t we? Where were we staying anyway? Hades kept saying Hephaestus was right under Zeus’s nose, and he was getting a lot of inside information. Did we have allies?
“We can’t. I don’t want to implicate you if this goes wrong. Zeus thinks I can do a lot of things I can’t, including sneaking out without you knowing. We need to be at his house to take him out.”
Wait, hold the fuck up. We were hiding in his fucking house? How was Hephaestus doing that? Hades had a massive palace, but there were people everywhere. I didn’t take Zeus for not having servants. He probably had way more than Hades did.
One woman caressed his cheek.
“We aren’t afraid of Zeus. He can’t hurt us without your weapon.”
“We need to be close to him to kill him, and I can’t sneak this many people in during the day.”
Oh, shit. We weren’t just sneaking into Olympus. We were sneaking straight into Zeus’s house. Hephaestus pulled a hood over his face. We all had hoods except Kimon, who didn’t like wearing shirts. We covered our faces and started towards Zeus’s house. I’m sure we looked like criminals. We were a bunch of people in black leather or gigantic men with no shirts on and swords strapped to their backs. Yeah, that wasn’t suspicious at all.
I tried to take Olympus in on my way. Was everything here made from gold? It looked like the roads were, and they were having them repaired. I guess you couldn’t get away from road construction, even in paradise. The palaces we had passed were ornate and gleaming white and gold.
There were plants here I couldn’t identify, but were beautiful. I couldn’t place them, but they smelled amazing as we walked by. This place was beautiful. So was the Elysian Fields portion of the Underworld, just differently.
Hephaestus jerked his head towards a garden and veered off the sidewalk. We all followed. We came to a massive arch made of greenery and didn’t move forward until Hephaestus had checked to make sure no one was there.
We snuck through this vast garden with massive flowers and statues to what looked like a wine cellar. Hephaestus looked around, then opened the door.
“This is how Zeus sneaks his mistresses in,” he whispered.
Well, now I just felt dirty.
We were mostly silent as we snuck down into the cellar. What now? I was pretty sure Hera had something to say about women in her house. Zeus was such a shit. Hephaestus led us to a back wall and pulled a bottle of wine out. To my surprise, the wall swung out and revealed a secret passage. Zeus had secret passages to cheat on his wife. Total garbage Olympian.
Once we were all inside, the door shut, and we started walking, and Hephaestus finally relaxed.
“It’s soundproofed in here, but try not to make a lot of noise. My father is too worried about my weapon to take a lover, but he can’t go for long without dipping his dick in something. We can’t stay here long because he’ll eventually bring a woman down here.”
Hephaestus led us down several corridors with two-way mirrors we could peek into before we finally reached a bedroom. And it was quite the bedroom. Pavlina let out a low whistle.
“Wow. This is tacky.”
“Not even phoenixes have nude paintings of themselves in their secret bedrooms,” Demos said. “I agree with the spider. This is gauche.”
Solron flopped on the heart-shaped bed, and it started vibrating. She smacked something on the side of the bed, and it stopped.