Page 33 of Monster Song
Shewantedto stand guard because she knew we were targets. This whole time, I thought we would be at a safe distance until the fighting was over, but Solron knew better. She hadn’t complained because she knew she was exactly where she needed to be.
“Solron, do you have one of Hephaestus’s weapons?”
I realized I didn’t need to ask. She was practically eye-fucking that knife.
“This is probably one of the best blades I’ve ever had the pleasure of holding, and I’ve got my killing knives and my bedroom knives. Bael would pay him a lot of money if he made knives this good for our bedroom.”
I shrugged.
“I think he takes the projects he wants and doesn’t ask for money.”
“We can figure your sharp sex toys out later. The two of you need to meet Kimon and get to the temple, and I need to get to the pits with the other monsters. You look like a killer now. Make me proud,” Pavlina said, giving me a hard smack on the ass before sauntering out the room.
This was it. We were going to rescue the queen of the Underworld.
Chapter 18
River
I
was still getting the hang of and processing the fact that I could open a portal with my mind and go anywhere I wanted. Kimon finally joined us and looked sexy as fuck. He had on leather trousers that hung low on his hips and some sort of spike and leather contraption on his chest that showed off all his muscles.
“One portal coming up,” I said, once we were all together.
“Oh, put that away,” Solron snapped. “Demon portals can be seen from miles away. You’ll have every soldier in that temple on us if you open one. That’s what shadow, smoke, and flame demons are for. We can travel without a portal. Now, turn off the lights.”
I had a million questions, but I didn’t have time to ask them. Kimon cut the lights off, and the only light in the room was moonlight streaming through the window.
“Grab onto me, stay still, and shut the fuck up if you get surprised later on, or you’ll get us all killed.”
She was looking right at me when she said that.
I grabbed her arm and tried to keep my mouth shut when my entire body went ice cold, and my flesh seemed to disappear before me. There was this odd sensation of being outside my body and floating above the earth. It was wholly bizarre. I didn’t feel like myself anymore. My vision went black, but I wasn’t passing out. I could feel Solron’s arm in my hand, and I pinched myself with my free hand. Still awake, but blind as fuck.
My vision came back seconds later, but I still couldn’t see my body. I wasn’t in the bedroom anymore. I was somewhere else entirely. I didn’t need to open my mouth to ask where we were. It was pretty obvious we were in Demeter’s temple somewhere.
If I could compare it to the modern world, it would be like if someone compulsively took selfies, then had their favorites blown up and mounted on canvas to decorate every single inch of their walls. They painted all the walls we could see with frescoes depicting Demeter as this beautiful Goddess helping humanity. There was an altar with a tiny statue of her, but Demeter couldn’t have just one icon. There was a twelve-foot-tall statue of Demeter sitting on a throne covered in flowers.
It looked like she made all of Artemis’s soldiers worship her in here. There were so many flowers around the shrine, and there was blood on the altar like something had been sacrificed there recently. Who still did that?
“Well, this is tacky,” Solron whispered. “Kimon, I don’t know the first thing about Greek temples. Where would you hold someone hostage?”
“Every temple has a sanctuary. She’ll be there.”
“Well, where is the fucking sanctuary?” Solron hissed.
“Fuck if I know. This is like she took the old Greek temples and added things that came after that she liked. We didn’t have half this shit back in my day.”
“Great. Well, we can’t split up, or I can’t hide you in shadows. We have to stick to dark areas because my power doesn’t work in the light.”
I looked around.
“There're no lightbulbs in the ceiling. I can feel air conditioning, but the only light source in here is candles.”
“Who puts air conditioning but no lights in their big masturbatory temple? Oh, well. That plays to our advantage. Stick to the shadows and don’t let go of me. If you seeanyone,don’t alert them to our presence. They gave me intel they all have earpieces. We can’t have them alerting Demeter until she realizes the monsters are free of their collars and flees the arena to get to Persephone. Don’t fuck this up. I have a reputation to uphold.”
It was hard sticking to shadows and sticking together, but we didn’t come across a single soul in the temple until we found a door with two guards posted. Solron stopped us and placed a finger over her lips.
