“Yes, River’s wings are amazing,” Hades snapped. “Can we focus on my brother?”
“Yeah, sorry. What did the asshole do?” Pavlina said.
“Is he coming so we can sneak into Olympus?” Tryphon said.
Hades ran his fingers through his hair.
“Zeus may be a lot of things, but he’s not stupid. He knows Hephaestus can make a weapon that can kill him. He also knows if he comes to the Underworld in person and everyone here rallies around Hephaestus and me, he could get trapped in the Pits of Tartarus with his father, and Kronos would love to get his hands on Zeus. He knows Hephaestus escaped, but he called me instead of coming here.”
Well, shit. Zeus was pretty stupid too. Most of the time, he thought with his cock. We couldn’t entice him to the Underworld with anything like that because everyone here hated him, and he knew that. Zeus needed to die. Hephaestus and the Underworld wouldn’t be safe now that he knew about that weapon. Trying to reason with him was out.
Sending him to the Pits was also an option, but how would we get him in the Underworld in the first place?
“So, what’s the plan, then?” Tryphon asked.
“Zeus is on the warpath. He sent Aphrodite to seduce the answer out of Hephaestus, and he’s not happy he snapped her neck and escaped. He’s playing this carefully. He didn’t come charging to the Underworld when Aphrodite woke up after she healed. He even checked with the Horae to see if Hephaestus left before he called me. He knows the Horae told him Hephaestus never passed through the gates to Olympus, but it’s also thrown him for a loop that Hephaestus could create that weapon in the first place. He doesn’t know if Hephaestus escaped without going through the Horae.”
“The Horae guard the gates to Olympus like Cerberus guards them here?” River asked.
Hades nodded.
“There are three of them, and they hate Zeus. He wanted them to lie to Hera when he would sneak out to visit a human woman. Hera always knew, and she would take it out on them instead of him. This is where we have an in. The Horae hate Zeus and Hera, but they’ve always loved Hephaestus, even after Zeus permanently injured him.
“You could say they were the only people in Olympus who were ever kind to him, so he was kind right back to them. He made them special gifts in his forge, and he would bring them food before he left. None of the other Olympians ever treated them that way. They treated them more like bellhops at a hotel. Hephaestus thinks they will help us sneak you in if it means killing Zeus. He’s working on it.”
It didn’t shock me Hephaestus’s kindness was going to be our in to Olympus. I’d seen him around the castle servants, and he so never acted like he used to be worshiped as the God of Metalsmithing. He thanked them personally for every refill, and he always smiled at them and made them feel seen. That was one thing I liked about him. He treated everyone the same and like they were his friend, despite the way people always talked about him to his face.
Pavlina just started laughing.
“I love the fact that because none of the Olympians can be nice to anyone they think is beneath them is how we are going to sneak in. Present company excluded, of course.”
Hades held up his hand.
“You don’t have to tell me how bad my family is. They are horrible to everyone, including each other. I tried to change things, and they banished me here. Hephaestus and the rest of you need to think long and hard about something. If you kill Zeus, the Olympians will look for someone to tell them what to do.
“I think the only reason they haven’t overthrown Zeus is that they like being told what to think and what to be upset about. They’ve been alive for a long time, but they are stagnant. They don’t like thinking for themselves, and they are more comfortable being herded like sheep. They didn’t like me because I was saying things that conflicted Zeus, and it confused them. Rather than consider what I was saying, they just sent me away so they didn’t have to deal with it.”
Well, shit. There were only two gods I trusted to run an entire realm. Hades was busy with the Underworld, and I didn’t think Hephaestus wanted to be Olympus's supreme ruler. The rest of them, I flat out couldn’t stand. There wasn’t a single one that hadn’t hurt someone in the Underworld in some way.
“Can we just kill all of them?” Pavlina asked.
“I agree. Can’t I just eat them?” Tryphon asked.
“They aren’t exactly innocent,” I pointed out. “Everyone in the Underworld is here because of them.”
“I’m on board with what the rest of the team decides,” Demos said.
What the fuck? Since when was Demos a team player? He always had an opinion, and it was usually different from what the rest of us wanted.
Barbatos cleared his throat.
“I get that they have wronged you, but you realize you are talking about genocide, correct? Does the entire Olympian race deserve to be wiped off the planet? It sounds to me like they followed Kronos, then Zeus. Have they ever really been challenged and given a chance to think for themselves?”
River cocked her eyebrow at her father.
“I thought Hell was all about torture and killing when people did something wrong?”
I’d like an explanation for that too because it seemed like everyone had some sort of dungeon there and got off on it. Why wasn’t he more gung-ho to get them somewhere he could strap them down and peel their fingernails off?
“I have so much to teach you, my dear. We don’t torture everyone. That’s just cruel. Some people were merely following orders, or they lack basic intelligence and got tricked into something. We find that out and go for the ringleader to set an example. I don’t know any of these Olympians personally, but how do you know they won’t change and be better if you got rid of Zeus?”
Tryphon just snorted.
“Poseidon is just as bad. He turned me into a monster and kept me as a slave to terrorize and kill for him.”
“It’s true,” Pavlina said. “Poseidon is also a rapist like Zeus. He liked to rape women in Athena’s temple, and she’d always take it out on the woman and curse them. That was how I ended up a Black Widow spider. I used to dedicate my life to Athena. I already know if you kill Zeus, she’s going to insert herself as ruler, and she’ll be just as bad as him.”
“I agree with Barbatos,” Hades said. “This is my family you are talking about, and they aren’t all bad. Apollo, Hermes, Tyche, and several others always seemed receptive to my ideas and willing to think for themselves. Hermes likes his tricks too much to rule. If I had to pick anyone, it would be Apollo or Tyche.”
I blew smoke out my nose. I knew Hades wanted to save his family, but he wasn’t thinking clearly.
“Apollo or Tyche would be rational choices, but Ares, Athena, and Poseidon would never allow it. All three of them are going to want to rule, and they will want Hephaestus’s weapon to do it.”
Hades groaned.
“I’m starting to wish we had trapped Demeter in the Pits instead of ever bringing that weapon into play. If all of you don’t kill my family, they are going to get themselves killed trying to get their hands on one.”
“But the weapon is in play, and now we have to decide,” Barbatos said. “It sounds like killing Zeus won’t be the end, and Hephaestus won’t be safe unless some permanent decision is made.”