Chapter 24
Hephaestus
I
think I was the only person paying attention to the entire room. They gave everyone their positions and jobs. They allowed those that had targets to take them out. Hermes, Apollo, and Dionysus weren’t in here fighting with us. They were helping prevent more lives lost, but they had one of my weapons with them.
Everyone thought they knew who would try to get their hands on my weapon and insert themselves as king or queen by force. But it didn’t matter which realm you were dealing with. People were unpredictable. Someone here might have secretly wanted to run the show but didn’t have the means to do it until my weapon came into play. Apollo, Dionysus, Hermes, and Hera were waiting in the front of Zeus’s palace to answer questions from the people afraid of all the life forces they felt going out and trying to do it in a way we didn’t have to kill more people wanting that weapon.
Artemis didn’t have another clear shot with her arrow, so she was hanging back. Tryphon and Pavlina seemed to handle things with their revenge, so that left River, Kimon, Demos, and I with Ares. I could warn them all day Ares fought dirty when his life wasn’t on the line, and they would still think this was going to be easy.
Ares pretended to be the God of War for a reason. He loved picking fights. He loved stirring up drama between lovers and friends so he could watch them fight. Ares was an asshole and picked on anyone about everything. Pavlina was currently taking her anger out on Athena, and I think we could all admit she deserved it. Still, Pavlina didn’t know Ares taunted her about the fact that Poseidon was raping her priestesses and tried to throw it in her face it made her less powerful.
I was done with Ares. I hadn’t stood up to him when he played these awful pranks on me or belittled me in front of everyone because I knew no one would have my back, and Zeus would probably hurt me again. I said I didn’t care who killed him, but I’d changed my mind. I didn’t want to risk Ares hurting River, and he fought dirty enough that he probably would.
Red magic crackled at Ares's fists as he raised them to his eyes like a boxer. He was taking in everyone around him. I watched Kimon change into his Minotaur, and Demos burst into flames. River completely shocked me when she sprouted claws, fangs, a cat head, and wings, but I could admit she looked sexy as fuck like that.
Charley and Finn were right behind us, waiting to cast a spell, and Barbatos was behind River. Barbatos was such a strange father. He was not only on board with River being here, he was going to help her kill Ares if that was what she wanted. Solron was pacing like a tiger holding two of my knives.
Ares couldn’t fight all of us at once, even with his magic, and he knew it. He also didn’t know a single person in our group to use something to turn us against each other, which was a personal favorite of his. We had an advantage over Ares. Ares picked magic fights unless he was getting humans to fight wars. Ares didn’t know the first thing about physical altercations, but everyone here did. I’d never been in a fistfight before and tried to avoid it, but I’d learned how because I knew everyone in Olympus relied on magic.
Ares zeroed in on me. He knew I made the weapon, so he thought I was the leader. I was also an Olympian, so he thought it made me more powerful than any monsters in this room. Ares’s arrogance was going to be his downfall because any one of these monsters could have kicked his ass.
“You always were a coward, Hephaestus. You couldn’t even satisfy your own wife. You made that horrific weapon, and you bring these abominations of humans to help you kill us. You can’t even fight me like an Olympian.”
My fist shot out and broke his nose right as River threw fire at him for insulting me. Ares looked shocked and shrieked as he tried to put his trousers out. As shocking as it may seem, no one had ever punched Ares in the face before, and it warmed my heart that I was the first.
“That’s cheating!” Ares yelled.
He flung magic at me, and it hit me right in the chest. A large cut opened, and blood started pouring out. Two could play at that game, and we had witches on our side. I heard Charley chant something, and Ares’s entire body erupted into bleeding pustules. I didn’t know the first thing about witch magic, but I fucking adored that spell and the fact that they cast it on Ares.
“Who did this?” Ares yelled.
Ares started randomly firing magic all over the room, hoping to take out everyone. He’d gone insane, and he was acting recklessly. He wasn’t even aiming, and none of us could get close enough to him while he was doing this to get a blade in him.
I had forgotten who I was with and everything I’d made. Ares nearly hit Charley. He was so close, her hair got singed. Finn hardly ever talked, but he asked me to make him bullets and told me what he needed. I made him a fair bit of them. Even if I hardly knew Finn, I knew Charley was his partner, and they were in love.
Finn wasn’t standing for this, and neither was Solron. While everyone else was trying to dodge what Ares was throwing and trying to get close enough to kill him, Solron and Finn stood firm. Solron flung her blade right when Finn shot his gun. Solron’s dagger buried itself in Ares’s neck, and Finn got him right in the forehead with a bullet.
I honestly don’t think Ares even knew what hit him. He fell over dead, but I didn’t have time to think about that. I checked on my people. I could heal Olympian magic, but they couldn’t. The wound Ares had given me on my chest was already starting to knit itself closed.
Several of us had been hit, but it paid off Ares had been in a panic. He was throwing random magic and nothing that would have killed anyone. Still, my people were bleeding pretty badly, and there were black eyes and busted lips. Finn and Solron took the worst of it since they stood their ground to take Ares out.
Based on their wounds, there was a high risk of them bleeding out and dying if they didn’t get treatment. Finn had a nasty gash in his gut, and Solron was spouting blood from her neck. We needed Hestia. She was the best at healing magic, but I also knew Demos had a beef with her. He hadn’t mentioned wanting to kill her, but we also hadn’t brought her up or put them in the same room.
Hestia was technically older than any of the Olympians. She was the Titans' first-born child, but they had never shown her respect like Zeus and her siblings were. The Olympians always overlooked her because she was better at healing magic, and they didn’t exactly need it. Demos might not get it, but I understood why she created phoenixes and was obsessed with them, even if I agreed with him she took things too far.
“Oh, shit,” Solron said with her hand over her neck. Kimon caught her just as she collapsed.
Finn was already on the floor, while Charley tried to use her magic to heal him. He kept arguing with her to heal Solron first because of her relationship with a king of Hell, but I already knew who Charley was going to work on first—the man she loved.
Hestia would have been better, but I also knew healing magic, and we didn’t have time to get her. It also stood to reason that if Artemis really cared about her handmaidens so much that she was willing to sit this out unless she got them back, then she knew how to heal their injuries too.
Solron was the color of parchment, and she was bleeding from the mouth. I kneeled over her.
“Artemis, get your ass over here and help me. If this one were human, she’d make an excellent handmaiden.”