“They are safe, Hades,” said the goddess. “You are safe.”
How can you be sure? he wanted to ask, but he kept the words inside, too afraid to say them aloud, to admit that he doubted his abilities.
“Everything you have ever wanted is before you,” said Hecate. “Don’t let fear keep you from seeing it, holding it, enjoying it.”
Chapter 6
Hermes
“You ruined Christmas,” Hermes muttered mockingly as he trudged through Circe’s dense forest, nearly tripping over a nest of thick vines. He steadied himself and then took a moment to assess his surroundings.
He had been to this island long ago, when Odysseus made landfall, warning him about the cunning goddess’s propensity to turn men into pigs with her enchanted wine. He’d picked an herb only the gods could harvest, a plant called moly, and given it to the hero to consume so that he would be immune to her power.
His interference had enraged the enchantress, but unlike Circe, Hermes was bound to the Fates and so he executed their will.
Though their will must have also included him incurring Circe’s wrath because that’s exactly what happened once she discovered what he’d done, threatening to turn him into one of her swine if he ever returned to her island.
Which was why he was on the hunt for the powerful drug.
Of course, he wouldn’t need it if Hecate had let him keep his powers.
“You promised,” he parodied in a high-pitched voice. “How was I supposed to know literal fucking gremlins were going to get into the Underworld? No one told me.”
Suddenly, he caught his foot on something and lost his balance, falling hard to the slimy ground.
“Ugh,” he said in disgust, fingers coated in smelly mud. He turned to see a root vanish beneath the soft ground. He probably should have moved on, but he couldn’t help himself. He scrambled to his feet, flinging forest juice from his hands and whirling on the root. “You want to fight, motherfucker?”
The root popped out of the ground, as if to peek at him.
“Yeah, you!” he said, bouncing on his feet. “You want a piece of this?”
The root vanished again.
He crossed his arms over his chest in triumph. “That’s what I thought.”
A second later the root burst from the ground and slammed into Hermes, sending him flying backward into the trees. They broke against his back in sharp succession until he landed on the ground, sliding to a stop in a muddy grove. He lay there for a few moments, processing the pain wracking his body.
Gods, he hated being human.
What a horrible fucking existence. He wasn’t sure he’d last a week in a body like this, much less a lifetime. How did mortals make it to old age feeling like this? He considered begging Hades to take him now and not in the kinky way, but he was distracted from his suffering when something brushed his hair.
He looked up to see a hairy pink nose.
A high-pitch yelp escaped his mouth as he scrambled away on all fours to face a pig.
He was a plump, pink fellow with floppy ears that covered his eyes. He was grinding something between his teeth. Hermes leaned in for a closer look, noticing the gleaming gold of his own hair between those bulbous teeth.
His muscles felt weak as he smoothed a hand through his hair, feeling the unmistakable coarseness of broken ends.
He inhaled audibly, then bared his teeth, glaring at the pig.
“I’ll turn your hide into leather for that!”
Hermes was just about to launch himself at the pig when he noticed other animals in the clearing, not just pigs, but goats and sheep. A few of them seemed to be chewing a familiar plant, a white flower with blackened roots.
Moly, he realized.
“No, no, no,” he said aloud, racing into the herd, searching for the flower. From what he remembered, it grew in a sporadic pattern, marking the ground where the giant, Picolous’s, blood was spilled.
