Cry, Nike! (The Judas Curse) by Graff Angella

Author:Graff, Angella [Graff, Angella]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2013-06-23T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Ben sat in silence for quite some time after Hades had stopped speaking. The room echoed the silence around them, the only distraction was the soft hum of the small fridge, and the occasional drinks from the beer bottle as Ben finished off his drink.

Hades had taken a spot on the bed now, across from Ben, giving the detective a polite distance as he recounted the story of how he came to be, and who Stella—or Persephone—really was. With a sigh, Ben finally set the empty bottle on the ground and leaned forward, forearms across his knees.

“So what happened?” he asked, his voice sounding strange in the heavy silence between them.

Hades chuckled a little and lifted an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“Well you just sort of ended the story,” Ben complained. “You were smitten, she’d lost her corporeal form, but from what it sounded like, this was before Greece was even really Greece.”

Hades cocked his head to the side in thought. “Yes. Yes it was. Honestly, we just sort of…made it work,” he finished with a shrug. “She would occupy the dying or the ill, and I sought them out for her. The Greeks, well, most of them left, and it wasn’t until the fall of Rome, as the humans now call it, that I even met two of my three brethren.”

“Who were they?” Ben asked, finding it odd that he cared, but the entire story was confusing and he still wasn’t sure what Hades wanted besides the body of Stella terminated and Persephone pushed through the portal.

“Apollo and Artemis,” Hades said. “They’d been branded Angels by the mortals by then, the messengers of God. Something was wrong with Artemis from the start. She was never quite like us, never totally sentient, but I never figured out what caused it. She followed Apollo around until she faded and Thor took over her body. Apollo was angry with me for the fate of his daughter, and Persephone was so terrified of him that we fled. He chased us for some time, branding me the Devil, and Persephone my whore.” Hades shook his head and rolled his eyes. “What a load of shit, really.”

Ben couldn’t help but laugh, a startling sound in that room, and he rose from the chair to stretch his legs. “So you just sort of ran from him? That’s it?”

“The longer I was with Persephone, the more her influence held strong over me. She would stray from time to time, but just as her influence would start to fade, she’d return in the form of some mortal and I’d be overcome by her again. Even now I hate her, with a fiery passion I hate her, but I want her.”

It was starting to become clear to Ben, and he looked at Hades, his arms crossed over his chest. “So you want me to get rid of her?”

“Your plan is to push Nike through the portal, and I want you to have Persephone taken with her,” Hade said with a shrug.

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