Page 39 of Monster Song
I ignored the pain and bolted to a sitting position. Demos and I both had our eyes glued to the fight. Hades and Demeter were squared off, flinging magic at each other. Demeter was still quickly turning weapons thrown at her to flowers. Hades had caused several injuries with his magic. Her dress was torn, and she was bleeding, but he still needed to get close enough to drive a weapon home.
Demos and I met eyes.
“Get us down there right now!”
“Pavlina, you aren’t healed yet,” Charley pointed out.
“The pain in my arm will be nothing if Demeter kills River,” I snapped.
Demos transformed in an instant. I grit my teeth as his claws wrapped around my shoulders, and he took to the air again. It hurt like a mother fuck. Demeter could very well kill me, and there would be no one to save me this time. It would be worth it to make sure River didn’t get cursed.
It was like slow motion. We were flying closer. Phoenixes could fly fast, but Demos was also carrying a full-grown woman. I saw River and Solron appear in the shadow behind Demeter. I would kill that demon. She should have placed herself between River and Demeter. She shouldn’t have even taken her here in the first place if she was supposed to be guarding her.
River was one of those book smart people. She had to be to outsmart Demeter and even set all of this in motion. Why the fuck did she just tap Demeter on the shoulder like she was totally insane?
Well, I knew better than anyone sometimes crazy worked in battle, and it paid off this time. Demeter whirled around. Hades got her right in the back with some of his magic, and River drove the blade into her chest.
Demos and I landed on the steps of the temple right when the blade drove home. Hades couldn’t see River in the darkness. He continued to shred Demeter’s back with magic while stalking forward with his own weapon.
I had no idea what a God killing weapon was supposed to do, but Demeter didn’t immediately drop dead, even with a knife in her heart. She tried to pull it out, and she couldn’t. Black veins started spreading from the wound as the blade buried itself deeper into her chest.
Solron pulled River away, but Demeter wasn’t trying to kill her. It was pretty fucking beautiful. She lookedscared.The great fucking Demeter who tricked every monster in the Underworld into collars and got us to kill each other for sport was afraid. A simple blade shouldn’t have been able to kill her. She should have been able to yank it out, heal instantly, and take her vengeance.
“What have you done?” she hissed as the handle of the blade started to disappear into her chest.
Her skin was starting to turn gray, and the black veins were spreading across her entire body. Hades was getting closer and still flinging magic, but it was like it wasn’t drawing blood anymore. What the fuck did Hephaestus put in these weapons?
The blade finally totally disappeared into her chest. Like her kind had done to so many humans, I watched Demeter turn to stone in front of me. River darted from the shadows.
“Lis, no!” she cried.
The Hellhound was tearing across the battlefield. She crashed into Demeter right when her transformation to stone was complete. The statue shattered in a million pieces, but Lis didn’t fare much better. I think the Hellhound just wanted to get a bite in and didn’t realize she was in the process of turning to stone.
Demeter was in pieces, but Lis was on the ground with her body broken and battered. River was over her checking on her.
“Hades, is there a clinic down here I can take her to? She means a lot to Cerberus.”
Hades touched River and Lis, probably to send them to one of the many vets he took his spoiled three-headed dog to. I knew I would be useless to her in all this veterinarian stuff, and I didn’t know the first thing about treating the injuries of a Hellhound.
This wasn’t over yet. Some of Demeter’s soldiers were still alive, and they took notice that it was now possible to kill a God. They all just stopped fighting. It was like it had shattered their entire worlds, and they looked just as afraid as Demeter had.
I got it. I totally did. They devoted their lives to Artemis because she was supposed to be unkillable. She would protect them and bless them. That was everything the Gods promised when they were pretending to rule Earth. Artemis rounded all her little soldiers up and took them to Olympus with her. I’d never been there, but I was sure they lived a charmed life.
I knew they were all trained soldiers, but they probably hadn’t seen battle in centuries. They were sent here with a Goddess who wasn’t their patron Goddess, but they were perhaps promised and expected the same level of protection.
I didn’t know a thing about Hell or demons until River waltzed into my jail and could talk to me. I had no idea what else demons were capable of, but they were brutal fighters, and it didn’t matter how good you were with a bow and sword when your enemy could just materialize in a shadow and slit your throat before you even noticed they were there.
All that aside, the remaining army was now having to come to terms with the fact that they were sent here to be slaughtered. Demeter was dead, and if they had called Artemis, she hadn’t come to help.
Hades walked to the center of the battlefield, stepping over dead bodies and through the blood.
“It’s over! I’m not sure how many of you bothered to check on my wife while she was being held hostage, but if you had spoken to her before she was drugged with Moonflower, she could have told you herself she’s happy in the Underworld, and it’s when she has to leave with Demeter that she hates. We have lost enough lives. You held my wife hostage, and you are responsible for sending several loyal monsters to the pits of Tartarus. You can continue to fight and die, or you can give up and come quietly to my jail. Who speaks for you?”
A fierce woman stepped forward and eyed Hades.
“We were following orders. We demand to be sent back home. If we had disobeyed Demeter, she would have killed us. If she sent word to Artemis, it would have been the same.”
Solron stepped forward and was playing with her knife again.
