by Dan H Kind
Chapter 48
The Exorcism of Hades
Hades pitched his Helmet of Invisibility into the grass. Herby and Cerby's hackles raised, but they made no move to strike, as if they had tried it before and the results had not been good. Everybody else jumped back and fanned out with weapons drawn and trained. But Hades did not seem to mind standing in a closed circle of his enemies. His sides heaved with silent laughter, and the grin on his face seemed near splitting his head in twain.
“So this is how it ends,” cackled Hades, his fangs glistening in the orange light of the oncoming fireball. “Did you really think that pitiful being made of nothing but Tricksters”—he spat the word as though it left a foul taste in his mouth—“could hope to stand up to a Creator god as powerful as Shiva?”
“Why have you done this, Pluto?” said Stephone. “If I had known it would come to this, I would have given myself to you willingly, suffered my own personal hell until the end of Time so this universe could remain in existence.”
Hades spat on the ground at her feet. “I do not want you, wench! That was all a front! I need no mate! All of Creation sprang forth from me! I am Creation!” His bloodshot eyes danced an insane jig. “And I am not who you think I am.”
“No?” She took a cautious step backward. “Then who are you?”
Hades smiled like a lunatic on amphetamines and laughed like a madman locked in a padded room. “Have you failed to notice all the entropy going on in Eden lately?”
Confusion swept across the minds of the gathered mythos—all but one.
Sir Arthur sprang forward and placed a glowing index finger upon Hades's forehead. “Enough of this charade! Get out of there, you—NOW!”
Hades began to shake like an epileptic, foaming at the mouth and snarling. Then his face really did split into two. His mouth expanded to a gaping black maw from which murky darkness gushed in a torrent. Liquid shadow convulsed, condensed, and coalesced into an anti-sun that churned like a thunderhead and flashed with violent bursts of reddish lightning.
The shadow finished spewing forth and Hades collapsed to the grass, his bearded face slack and lifeless, his tongue lolling from his mouth, his eyes rolled back in his head.
And Chaos swam in the air before them.