Who to help kill next?
Chapter 23
Pavlina
I
’d dreamed of this moment for so long, but it was a little bittersweet. Athena needed to die. That was a given, but why should I get this honor alone? I knew why they weren’t invited, but the Gorgon sisters needed to be here for this. What Athena had done to Medusa was above and beyond cruel. It was worse than what she did to me. She cursed her sisters for standing up for Medusa, and now all three of them were monsters in the Underworld.
I knew they weren’t invited because they would have slaughtered any Olympian they came across, no questions asked. They’d be pissed they weren’t because, like me, they needed to see her die. I decided something right then and there. Hephaestus made damned good blades, even if they weren’t for killing gods. I’d bring them back her head. Medusa could turn it to stone, and they could either display it on a bookshelf or smash it into a million pieces. I hope these damned Olympians on our side understood how many people they hurt while they were pretending to be gods and didn’t get butt hurt about me taking a head for a trophy. It wasn’t like she needed it anymore, and all those burial rites they fed us we needed to do to end up in the Underworld were total shit.
I was zeroed in on Athena after Artemis’s arrow took out Zeus. I started laughing like a crazy person when the great Athena attempted to run to the door in those ridiculous fucking heels she was wearing. I nearly peed myself when Tryphon wrapped a tentacle around her waist and she ended up flat on her face. He even did me a solid by dragging her closer to me before he went off to kill Poseidon.
Athena scrambled to turn around and wildly threw a spell. I tried blocking it, but it hit me right in the face. Did she just throw a punch with magic? It cracked my lip open, and I could taste blood in my mouth. Out of everything she could have thrown at me, she gave me a weak-ass punch in the face. I knew how creepy I looked when I just smiled at her with blood all over my teeth.
“That’s it? After all the creative curses you dealt out, you punch me in the face like that?”
Athena flung something else at me, but Hephaestus was right about those blades. If I aimed right, I could block her magic. Hephaestus said there were certain spells it wouldn’t block, but whatever those were, she hadn’t tried them yet. She must be out of practice.
“Why are you in our home trying to kill us? How is any of this possible? What did we ever do to you?”
That bitch didn’t even remember me. She ruined my life. She took away my ability to have children. And she had no fucking clue who I was or why I was here trying to kill her. I think I offended her at the idea I thought she deserved to die. Fucking Olympians. It looked like she wanted an honest answer too.
I’d answer her like the monster she created. And I didn’t want to give her the chance to fling something at me I could block. I shot two webs at her and nailed her hands to the wall. There was so much about me in my human form that marked me as a black widow spider, and she still didn’t remember me.
I climbed into her lap and straddled her waist. I just shifted my face so that my pinchers were showing. I got right in her face and snapped them an inch from her nose. She tried to recoil into the wall as much as she could. She might have enjoyed creating monsters, but she certainly looked at me in horror now that I was right in her face.
I didn’t shift back right away. No, she was going to experience the monster she created. She didn’t just turn me into a spider. She made me venomous, and I knew what my bite could do. It wouldn’t kill an Olympian, and I didn’t know how fast her healing would flush my venom from her system, but it would fucking hurt until it did. I wasn’t gentle and bit her as hard as I could.
For someone who had caused so much fucking pain when she was pretending to be a goddess, she screamed like a little bitch when I tore out a chunk of her neck. I watched the wound heal before my eyes, but I left a little present behind in her bloodstream she hadn’t entirely realized just yet.
“You bit me!” she shrieked. “Whichever one of my people turned you into that probably had an excellent reason, you savage!”
Oh, my gods, was that totally the wrong thing to say. How deluded did you have to be? She still didn’t remember me and couldn’t even own it she had this coming. I saw this panicked look in her eyes as the cramps set in from my venom. It worked much faster from me than regular spiders. I shifted back and laughed in her face as she legitimately looked scared.
“You did this to me. I devoted my life to being a priestess in your temple. I sacrificed and kept your temple spotless. Poseidon was angry with you, so he went around raping your priestesses. Instead of taking it out on the rapist, you punished his victims. I’m not the only monster in the Underworld you did this to. I’m just the only one that got an invitation to Olympus to make you pay for it. Believe me. You’ve got former priestesses who would line up for this.”
I wasn’t expecting an explanation from her. Nothing she could have said to me would have made me feel as good as taking her head back to the Underworld and showing it to everyone she hurt. That was partly why I bit her. I didn’t want to listen to her try to justify what she did to her priestesses. There was nothing she could say. Poseidon wasn’t gentle. Medusa and I shared stories. We tried to fight back, and he used his fists on us.
When Athena came to us, we were bleeding and broken. I couldn’t stand and could barely lift my head because Poseidon had done such a number on me. She could have used her magic to heal me and promise Poseidon would pay. Instead, she raged at me for defiling her temple, tried to slut-shame me, and turned me into a monster. And she didn’t remember me.
No one knew what happened when you died for good. I didn’t know if Athena’s spirit was going to end up somewhere good or bad. But I was going to make damned sure she remembered me now. She hadn’t healed from my venom yet, and all she could do was moan and scream as it coursed through her body. It was music to my ears, but I couldn’t take the time I wanted to draw this out. Zeus was dead, and I was certain Tryphon was dealing with Poseidon, but that left Ares and any other Olympian who was feeling life forces going out and storming Zeus’s place to find out why.
How did I want to do this? What was the worst way to die for a shitty person? There was so much to choose from. I was planning on taking her head, but slitting her throat was way too good for her. I knew what! A knife wound to the gut was the best way to kill someone who needed to pay. It was supposed to be an awful way to die. Perfect. Athena was a horrible person.
She wasn’t even paying attention to me anymore. She was in a haze of pain from my venom. I pulled a blade from my boot and slid it into her gut. I’d seen what that blade did to Demeter when River left it in her chest. That was too quick. I pulled the knife out because I didn’t want Athena turning to stone. That honor would go to Medusa and the head I was bringing back.
I yanked the knife from her stomach and left her there to bleed out. I had my revenge, and it felt good. But I wasn’t alone here. Poseidon and Ares hurt people I care about too.
I needed to see if my team needed help to get their revenge. I’d come back and get Athena’s head once all the bad Olympians were nice and dead.