Page 11 of The Demigod

“Your sister and your nemesis?”

“No,” she said, a little smile toying with her lips. “Nemesis is the name of one of my sisters. Half-sisters. She’s a goddess.”

“Oh, alright. Well, she doesn’t sound much better than the others. Why do you want to find her?”

“Her name is deceptive. She’s actually the goddess of balance. She balances human grief and joy. Pain and pleasure. She’s the only thing that keeps all our other siblings in balance. Without her…” she said, waving out a hand.

“People get their arms torn off.”

“Yes.”

“Well, can’t you just, you know, call her? Don’t gods have some sort of Bat Signal or something?”

“It’s not that she’s just not here,” Nox said. “It’s that they took her.”

“They?”

“Our other siblings. They took her. Hid her somewhere. They want to be unchecked. They don’t want her interference.”

“Hm. Can’t you just call Mommy? Tattle on the bad siblings?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s… the old gods aren’t black-and-white like your religion is. There’s a lot of gray. They don’t believe that the Keres, for example, are inherently bad. They just… have a job to do.”

“Making sippy cups out of dying people?”

“Yes. Besides, Nyx is a primordial goddess.”

“Sweetness, I have no fucking idea what that means.”

“It means she was born of Chaos itself. She’s one of the oldest gods. One so powerful that Zeus himself fears her.”

“That’s quite the origin story.”

“She’s the goddess of night, of secrets, and can speak to us through our dreams.”

“Cool résumé. So why can’t you reach out to her?”

“Because I wouldn’t even know where to begin. She’s not one of the gods who hung around on Olympus or in the human realm. She exists outside of us and this world.”

“Would she help if she could? Or is she as evil as all her kids?”

“They’re not all evil. Some are more… neutral. Hypnos, the god of sleep. Thanatos, the god of nonviolent death. The Moirai, the fates who control the destinies of all humans. And there’s maybe more of me, I guess. But that’s not clear.”

“And what about you, sweetness? Are you good or evil? I ask, as an evil creature myself. So no judging.”

“I guess I’m more… human,” she said. “I’ve always been on the human plane. I’ve always been… this.” She waved down at herself as if to indicate her shortcomings. But my gaze didn’t see anything lacking.

“Are demigods immortal?”

“Not… entirely?” Nox said, eyes scrunching up. “It seems to kind of be different on a case-by-case basis. Like Achilles was immortal, save for his Achilles tendon area. And Heracles was poisoned. But it seems like, as a whole, we are semi-immortal. We live unnaturally long lives, but we do die.”

“How long have you been alive?”

“Only about fifty years.”

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