She smirked as a small huff escaped her lips. “So docile today, Phobetor.” Mel uncrossed her legs and leaned forward as she glared in his direction. “Have you come to talk me out of your death?”
“I’ve come to seek your mercy, mistress.” His head bowed, though she caught the grimace he tried to hide with subservience.
Melinoe waited a moment to respond, pleased to let him simmer in anticipation. “I’m listening.”
“What Rue says is true. Siren has gone with Chaos, but I’ve set a plan in motion to get her back.”
“Oh? Do tell.”
“I can get both of them to the Freakshow on Erebos. A seer stalks my club and I’ve made her an offer she can’t refuse. I will deliver an invitation and make it clear they’re to come. With some assistance from you, mistress, I can guide her way with strategic visions.”
“Are you going to haunt her nightmares, little lordling?”
A muscle jumped in his temple as his fingers twitched. “No, mistress,” he ground out. “Due to your generosity, I’ve consumed my brother's powers. Now that they belong to me I can bend her chaos and force a vision.”
“I know.” She smiled. “I just like to hear you say it.” Phobetor straightened and defiance flamed in his eyes. His rage tasted like ambrosia on her tongue and she longed to glutton herself on it. “I doubt their intelligence, though, and want no room for mistakes, Phobetor. You and I will spell it out. After you fuck me, I want you on your knees in my dressing room and we willput on a show. Your little birdie needs to trust you if this is to work.”
“Yes, mistress.”
“Now get out of my sight.”
He left with a stiff nod and Melinoe turned her stare back to Rue. “And you?”
Rue’s brow dropped, her mouth slightly agape as if she’d been trapped in a spider's web. Smart girl.
“I’m at your will and mercy, mistress.”
“You disgust me. Weak. Pathetic. The only good thing that bastard of a man ever did was rip me from you.” Rue’s head bowed, jaw trembling as she picked the skin around her nails. Melinoe sneered, incapable of being in the same room with who she used to be for even a moment longer. A surge of chaos flared in her chest as she reached out to the Underworld and called forth three souls. “Take two of them with you to the mortal world, Rue. I want to know where Phobetor’s seer is taking my Siren. Once you find them, gain her trust. Separate her from the group. Bring her here alone. If we have the Siren, Chaos will follow.”
“Yes, mistress.”
“Cover your hair and for Hel’s sake, do not call yourself Rue. We can’t run the risk of Chaos recognizing you.”
That confused expression returned as Rue asked, “What should I call myself?”
“I don’t care!” Melinoe snapped, her voice bouncing off the stone and echoing through the room. “Make it simple and easy for you to remember. Call yourself Ruby and be done with it. Just get. The Siren.Here.”
Melinoe hated being dead. With her soul bound to Rue and nothing but chaos to fuel her wrath, she was forced to put her game pieces in the hands of others as she sat on Erebos staring through the looking glass. Just another ghost unable to piercethe veil of the living. Fury and wrath were too shallow to describe the depth with which her hatred simmered.
Melinoe pushed away from the throne and called forth Hades’ chess board. She paced around the ornate table observing each piece and calculating their next move. Chaos ripping free from her illusion made things complicated, but Melinoe liked a challenge. What was a game of warring gods without a good parry now and then?
Her eyes roved over the checkered pieces, past the Siren carved from obsidian and the god of Chaos. She looked past the caged demon she controlled and the weaker half of her soul. Dionysus’ piece on the board was no matter, and neither was Zeus sitting atop his platinum throne.
Pawns, and all of them useless.
That ancient malice rumbled in her bones, and with a war cry Melinoe threw the chess board and kicked the table from the dias. Her bellows shook the in-between and rattled the Underworld where even the shadows seemed to shrink and hide. She turned to the artistry behind the throne, a sculpture of her own making hanging displayed for all to see. Faded skin torn down the seam of a spine and ribs broken outward spread like wings. Arms were outstretched to either side and nailed into stone, the insides forever draped on the outside. A trophy. A memory. Reminder.
“I’ll be back, Beauty,” she whispered to the man on the wall. “Do try not to miss me too much. Longing never suited you, Hades.”
Melinoe summoned her chaos and vanished from her palace on Erebos, the kingdom she’d built in between life and death, and stepped from the shadows into the rubble that was once the home of Hades. She took a look around, disdain curling her lip, before stepping into Black Mirror Lake. Melinoe swirled herhands in the water and smiled as a whisper of scales brushed against her palm.
“It won’t be long now, pet.”
She waded through the water until she reached the door Hades had taken her through all those years ago. Melinoe walked through the tunnel lit by black flame and stepped into Asphodel Meadows. Wilted petals covered the ground, falling from stalks left unattended for centuries.
Melinoe had been so careful, only consuming one section of stalks at a time. Never enough to risk attention from the Fates or wake the Deathless God. However, she was tired of waiting, and sick of scheming. The Deathless God was free from her illusion, the daughter of Typhon clung to his side, and a soul-walker guided their way. Melinoe needed to strike while they were still unaware of the power in their pocket.
She mustered the rage and spite and indignation from every fiber of her being, squeezing every drop of accelerant from her psyche tofinallywatch them burn. Melinoe cried out and ripped stalk after stalk from the sacred ground. Petals fell in a flurry and a buzz rent the air as if the Earth was shattering. Orbs of chaos slammed into her chest from every direction, the power trying to overcome her as she swallowed more than her form could handle.
