Page 117 of Dead End

An arrow whistled past me and pierced the side of Bossu’s neck. The god struggled for another few seconds before his arms slumped to his sides.

Brody fell in step beside me. “Phew. For a moment there, I was worried I might hit your pup.”

“Poison?”

“Sedative. I’d hurry if I were you. Not sure how long it will last on a god that large.” He looked me up and down. “Are you capable of hurrying, lass? You look a wee bit worse for wear.”

“I’ll make it.” I shouted into the void, “Kami! You’re up!”

The goddess was beside me in a heartbeat. She thrust a collar into my waiting hand.

Cerberus kept the god pinned to the ground while I fastened the collar around Bossu’s neck, severing the god from whatever limited power he possessed. “Gotcha.”

The god’s eyes snapped opened, and he instinctively tried to rip the metal from his neck. “Remove this at once.” His speech was slurred as he fought the effects of Brody’s poison.

“Or what? You’ll insult me to death?” A quick survey of the area showed that all the critical gods were now collared, and those without collars had surrendered to the hodgepodge of Fairhaven’s finest. “The fight’s over.”

“Thank the gods,” Brody breathed, then frowned. “What am I saying? It’s no thanks to any of you lot.”

Kami hustled to my side. “Melinoe, you’re hurt.”

“It’ll heal eventually. Right now we need to finish this.”

“The gods are ready for transport.”

“Thank you.”

Bossu’s eyes opened and closed as he fought to regain consciousness. “Back to Paradise?”

“In your dreams,” I said.

The forest itself looked like a nightmare, a wasteland of splintered trees, scorched earth, and shattered rocks. Wild Acres would bear the scars of this battle for decades, but it was worth it. We were battered. We were exhausted.

Most importantly, we were victorious.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Welcome to your new home,”I said. “Tartarus is far from Paradise, but it’ll have to do.”

Bossu’s gaze swept the area with a superior air. “I dislike this place.”

“Good, because this is where you’ll serve out your eternal sentence. If you were happy, I’d have to find alternative accommodations for you.”

To be fair, Tartarus wasn’t the land of gloom and doom anymore, although it wasn’t exactly a country club either. Libitina had worked tirelessly with Hestia and my parents to create a new kind of Tartarus. The inhabitants would be given choices as to how to spend their time, within reason, of course. There was an activities hall for those who enjoyed chess, Scrabble, or any other game that tickled their fancy. Nobody was forced to push a boulder uphill every day. Nobody was flayed while they were spread-eagle on a spoked wheel. And Enceladus had been freed from his chains and transferred to Elysium.

“Where’s the torture chamber?” Mars asked, sounding oddly hopeful.

Libitina wagged a finger. “We don’t do that here.”

Epona looked down her muzzle at me. “This is a surprising turn of events, I admit. I didn’t think you stood a chance.”

“The best doesn’t necessarily mean the most powerful,” I said. “You might want to remember that.”

“What happened to our collars?” Bossu asked.

“You don’t need them here. Think of Tartarus as one giant collar.” If Bossu had bothered to learn anything about other pantheons, he would know that Tartarus was designed to imprison gods like him.

“Miniature golf?” Feng Po exclaimed, catching sight of a flashing neon sign. “You said there’d be no torture here.”

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