“We need them all in one place,” Dionysus said. “Athena and Poseidon still hate each other, but we need them working together towards a shared goal. Everyone loves Hermes, even Zeus. It’s why he’s so good at spying for us. They whisper into his ear, and he whispers into ours. Everyone thinks he’s harmless, but what he knows makes him one of the most dangerous people here.”
“The Olympians don’t take Hermes or Eros seriously, and Zeus forbid them to be together because he thinks it’s unnatural if love isn’t between a man and a woman. They’re still together right under his nose, and they’ve been collecting secrets for centuries. All Hermes has to do is have tea with Athena and mention Zeus and Ares are plotting. He can just say he thinks it has something to do with what we all felt with Demeter.
“Athena has always been smart. She’ll gather power and allies before she confronts Zeus. She hates Poseidon, but she’s intelligent enough to know she would need to use him to question Zeus and Ares. I can already tell you how she will play it. She’ll go straight to Poseidon and make him think it’s his idea. Poseidon will do all the talking, and she’ll act like she’s just there because she’s concerned. Any anger Zeus and Ares will have about the intrusion will be taken out on Poseidon and not her. Once that’s all died down, she’ll insert herself into the situation and see how she can use it to her advantage,” Hera said.
Tryphon just laughed.
“You know Athena, but I know Poseidon. He’s going to barge in that room and make a scene. It’s not going to take much to convince him it was his idea. He’s not going to go in and just ask. He’s going to hit someone, and since he can’t hit Zeus, he’s going to hit Ares.”
“That’s not a shocker,” Hephaestus said. “Everyone here wants to punch Ares if Olympians actually used fists.”
“None of us liked the way he bullied you after Zeus hurt you,” Dionysus said. “He was beyond cruel. If he was going to bed Aphrodite, he could have done it anywhere except your bed. What you did to him with that trap was just poetic.”
River let out this little growl, and I already knew where this was going. Pavlina had her sights on Athena, and Tryphon wanted Poseidon. I was pretty sure my little Hellspawn just picked who she wanted to kill. Ares was this miserable bastard who was still trying to humiliate me about my limp. Still, I humiliated him in front of everyone in Olympus, and he burned his ass off trying to get into my volcano. Honestly, I didn’t care who killed him, but I loved that River wanted to when she found out he was horrible to me.
“It’s a good plan, but how are we going to know when they are together to take them out?” Kimon asked.
Hera just grinned.
“Easy. You might not be in Zeus’s house anymore, but I’m stuck there, and I watch everything. I’ll give Hermes the access codes to the cameras so all of you can watch. I’ll alert Dionysus when they show up at the front door. One of his secret passages opens up to his war room. He thinks only the humans he brings down to the bedroom know about them, but I’ve always known.”
“Did you bring the bag of arrows I made?” I asked.
Kimon pulled a bag off his belt and handed them to me. I balanced the bag in my hands.
“These will do the trick if you can get a kill shot. I don’t suppose Apollo can talk his twin into joining us?”
“Weren’t all those women with bows and knives in the Underworld hers? They are all dead or in some Underworld jail now. Isn’t she going to get all pissed about that, even if you all treat humans like garbage?” Solron asked.
That pissed Dionysus off, even if it was technically true for many people here.
“Not all of us. Artemis is well-liked and treats her handmaidens well. She indeed loathes hearing about women being hurt, and she hates Zeus. I know her, and she wouldn’t have sent her handmaidens if she thought Persephone was happy and wanted to stay. She also wouldn’t have sent them if she thought it wasn’t a rescue mission, and they would all end up dead or jailed.”
“Yeah, but I talked to several of them,” River said. “A lot of them didn’t want to be there and disagreed with what Demeter was doing. Demeter cursed one of them and threw them into the Pits with the other monsters for trying to contact Artemis. Why didn’t Artemis ever check in with them? Demeter set up shop in the Underworld for a while. Long enough for someone to wonder if a simple rescue mission had gone wrong and checked in.”
“No offense meant, and I realize all of you have your various reasons to dislike us, but I don’t think it was like that. Artemis takes pride in her handmaidens, and she didn’t send all of them. Do you think there’s any such thing as a simple rescue mission when it comes to stealing Hades’s wife away from him? Even if it were true and Persephone didn’t want to be there, do you think it would be so simple if all the mission was meant to be was getting her back home?
“Artemis trains her handmaidens in stealth and the long game. She knows they are capable, and she trusts them. Not many people knew Demeter was in the Underworld, including me. We all knew she was gone, but we thought she had pestered Zeus to let her go to Earth for something. It would have been time for her to bring Persephone back, but we thought they were on Earth.
“We didn’t know the truth until we all felt Demeter’s life force go out. Artemis was angry and went to speak with her twin. She tried to reach out to her handmaidens after that and couldn’t contact them. She wanted Apollo’s help to get revenge against Hades. Hermes and Eros, remember? They know everything, but they didn’t know about this.
“They did, however, know Persephone was quite happy in the Underworld, and it was coming back here that she hated so much. It took some convincing, but Artemis now knows she sent her handmaidens into a dangerous situation, and she feels horrible about it. She’s furious at Demeter for lying. She feels the loss of her handmaidens strongly, and I don’t think she would risk them again to help us,” Dionysus said.
Maybe they misunderstood me.
“I wasn’t asking for her handmaidens. I was asking for Artemis to pick up her bow and help us,” I said.
“How about you let me talk to Artemis?” Pavlina said. “I’m not just here to stop that weapon from falling into Zeus’s hand and help you build a new society. Poseidon raped me, and Athena punished me for it rather than him. If she’s all about female empowerment to the point she would risk her handmaiden’s lives to steal someone’s wife, then she should be willing to help me get my revenge and stop Zeus and Poseidon from hurting any more women.”
“That’s solid logic,” Hera said. “Artemis doesn’t fight battles unless she knows she can win, or they have hurt a woman. Speaking to Pavlina directly might get her involved.”
“Can Pavlina do this without pissing her off?” Demos asked.
Pavlina glared at him.
“We want her pissed off, jackass.”
“Does he do this often?” Hera asked. “A pissed off Artemis is usually the most effective.”
“Good. It’s settled. Why don’t you relax and enjoy my home? I need to move pieces around to bring this plan into action,” Dionysus said.