A Touch of Malice

by Scarlett St. Clair

Strange.

  Persephone hung up and dialed Ivy at Alexandria Tower.

  “Good morning, Lady Persephone,” she chimed.

  “Ivy, has Sybil arrived?”

  “Not yet,” she said. “But I will double-check.”

  The nymph placed her on hold, and as Persephone waited, her stomach roiled with dread. She already knew Sybil hadn’t arrived at work. No one got past Ivy, a truth that was confirmed when she returned to the phone.

  “She has not arrived yet, my lady. Would you like me to call when she does?”

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll be there soon.”

  Persephone hung up the phone and frowned. She did not like the feeling curling in the bottom of her stomach. It took hold of her lungs, making it hard to breathe and swallow.

  Perhaps she stayed the night with Harmonia. Maybe they lost track of time.

  “Zofie.” Persephone called the Amazon’s name, and she appeared instantly. Onlookers gasped in surprise, but Persephone ignored them.

  “Yes, my lady?”

  “Can you locate Harmonia?”

  “I will do my best,” Zofie said. “Shall I escort you to the tower?”

  “No, I’d rather you find Harmonia as quickly as possible.”

  “As you wish,” she said and vanished.

  Zofie will find them, Persephone thought.

  She attempted to comfort herself with those thoughts as she paid for her coffee and made the short walk to Alexandria Tower in the bitter cold. As soon as she arrived, she welcomed the heat tingling across her face, melting her frozen skin.

  “Lady Persephone,” Ivy said. “I have put in a call to Miss Kyros but her phone seems to be off.”

  It was the one fact that kept her from completely believing she was with Harmonia. Sybil’s phone was never off.

  Maybe she forgot her charger, she reasoned. Still, her fear grew.

  “I’ll try again in a few minutes,” Ivy said. “I left coffee on your desk.”

  “Thank you, Ivy.”

  Persephone headed upstairs and entered her office. She started to take off her jacket but paused as she came around her desk, noticing a small black box. It was tied with a red ribbon and sat beside her coffee. Had Ivy left a gift and said nothing of it? She picked it up and was even more confused when she found a sticky substance on the bottom—then horrified, as she realized what it was.

  Blood.

  “Good morning—” Leuce’s voice halted abruptly as she entered Persephone’s office and saw the crimson stain on her desk. “Is that…blood?”

  It was suddenly very hard for Persephone to breathe, and there was a ringing in her ears that hurt.

  “Leuce. Get Ivy.”

  “Of course.”

  Persephone held the box gingerly, her hands already shaking. She pulled the ribbon free and removed the lid. Inside was white, bloodstained paper. She parted the leaves and found a severed finger. An ache started in the back of her throat, and she dropped the box, stepping away from her desk.

  Just then, Ivy and Leuce returned.

  “What is it, my lady?”

  Persephone could feel thick tears gathering.

  “Was this box here when you brought my coffee this morning?”

  “Well…yes,” Ivy said. “I assumed it was from Hades.”

  “Has anyone else been in my office?” Persephone looked from one nymph to the other as they answered in unison.

  “No,” they said.

  “Your door was closed when I got here,” said Leuce.

  Persephone felt dizzy and her mind raced. Her gaze fell again to the box and the ashy limb peeking through the paper.

  “I have to check on Sybil.”

  “Persephone, wait—”

  She didn’t.

  She teleported to Sybil’s apartment and found herself in the middle of the oracle’s living room. It was completely destroyed—the coffee table was in pieces, the television shattered. The doors of the console table upon which it had rested appeared to have been ripped from their hinges. The curtains had been torn from their rods. Shattered glass littered the floor. It was in this chaos she noticed something shivering, curled up on the couch—Opal, Harmonia’s dog. Persephone gathered her into her arms. “It’s okay,” she soothed, but even she did not believe the words. She started to explore the rest of the apartment.

  “Sybil!” Persephone called, her shoes crunching on the debris as she moved down the hallway, gathering her magic into her palms, a hectic energy that matched how she felt. She checked the bathroom and found the mirror shattered, the vanity spattered with blood. Her eyes shifted to the bathtub, concealed behind a shower curtain. Time seemed to slow as she approached, her magic hot in her hand.

  She jerked the curtain back but found the tub empty—spotless.

  Still, she felt on edge as she moved out of the bathroom further down the hallway to where Sybil’s bedroom was. The door was ajar, and as she kicked it open a little more, she found it demolished, but there was no Sybil.

  No Sybil.

  Then she recalled the words of the false oracle.

  The loss of one friend will lead you to lose many—and you, you will cease to shine, an ember taken by the night.

  Ben.

  * * *

  Persephone summoned Zofie, handing off Opal before teleporting to Four Olives, the restaurant where Ben worked and where he’d met Sybil. There were gasps as she manifested and scanned the crowd. Mortals withdrew their phones to snap pictures or film her.

  “No,” she commanded and sent a rush of power throughout the entire room. Suddenly, tiny saplings grew from inside their devices. Some mortals dropped their phones in shock, while others called out.

  “She’s a goddess!”

  “The stories are true!”

  She ignored them, searching for Ben, who had just exited the kitchen, carrying a serving platter full of food. When he saw her, he halted, and his blue eyes widened. He dropped the tray and swiveled on his feet in an attempt to reenter the kitchen, but instead he collapsed to the ground, his ankles held in place by thin roots that had grown from the floor beneath him.

  Persephone stalked toward him. With each step, she felt her anger—and her power—growing.

  “Where is she?” Persephone asked as she approached. By the time she was in front of him, he was struggling to free himself, his fingers bleeding from the splintered wood. “Where is Sybil?”

  “I-I don’t know!”

  “She is missing. Her house is in disarray, and you might as well have been stalking her. What did you do?”

  “Nothing, I swear!”

  Her magic swelled, and the vines that trapped his ankles now trapped his wrists, growing rapidly until they circled his neck.

  “Tell me the truth! Did you capture her to prove your prophecy?”

  “Never! I gave you the words I heard. I swear it upon my life.”

  “Then it is good I hold it in my hands,” she said, and the vines squeezed his neck harder. Ben’s eyes grew wide and bulging, and the veins in his forehead popped.

  “Who gave you the words? Who is your god?”

  “D-Demeter,” he rasped, barely able to utter words as he turned purple in front of her.

  “Demeter?” Persephone repeated, and she released the mortal’s throat.

  Ben gasped and fell to his side. Tears streamed down his face as he groveled, hands and feet still bound.

  “You knew who I was,” Persephone said.

  Ben had a reason to attach himself to Sybil. It was because Sybil was close to her.

  It is only a matter of time before someone with a vendetta against me tries to harm you.

  They were words Hades had spoken—a fear he’d had as their relationship became more public. Persephone had never considered that those words would ring tru
e for her.

  “Tell me everything!” Persephone demanded.

  Ben attempted to scurry away, but he was held in place by her vines.

  “There is nothing to tell! I gave you the prophecy!”

  “You did not give me a prophecy. You gave me a threat from my mother,” she raged.

  “I was only given words to speak,” he cried. “Your mother threatened Sybil, not me!”

  As she stared down at the man, she noted a wetness pooling beneath him. The mortal had pissed himself, but it wasn’t his fear that convinced her he was telling the truth. It was that she knew he believed he was a true oracle—he did not recognize that he, himself, was a tool of her mother.

  “Trust, mortal, if anything happens to Sybil, I will personally greet you at the gates of the Underworld and escort you to Tartarus.”

  His punishment would be brutal, and it would involve severed limbs.

  She rose then, her anger subsiding into something that felt a lot like grief—what if she couldn’t find Sybil? Ben had been her only lead. Then her gaze shifted to the other mortals in the café, and she found that while some glared at her, others were riveted to the television, where breaking news streamed.

  Deadly Avalanche Strikes, Thousands Presumed Dead

  No.

  No, no, no.

  “Heavy snowfall is believed to be the cause of the deadly avalanche, which has buried the cities of Sparta and Thebes under several hundred feet of snow. Rescue workers have been dispatched.”

  Persephone’s whole body felt warm, primed with anger and magic.

  And then something struck her in the head. She looked in time to see an orange hit the ground and roll away.

  Her head snapped in the direction it had come, and a man yelled, “God fucker!”

  “This is your fault!” a woman yelled, picking up her plate and throwing it at Persephone. It hit her arm and fell to the floor, shattering.

  More food, objects, and words followed.

  “Lemming!” another yelled, throwing their coffee at her.

  The ground began to shake, and Persephone knew if she didn’t leave, she would bring the whole building down, and despite their assault, they did not deserve death. With a final look at the television, she teleported.

  Chapter XXXIV

  A Battle Between Gods

  She arrived at the site of the avalanche, which stretched for miles—every direction was a blanket of bright white. There were signs of a city; toppled buildings, broken trees, wood and twisted metal jutted out from the snow, but the worst part of it all was the silence. It was the sound of death—of an end.

  As she stood there amid the devastation, pieces of food that had stuck to her hair and clothing fell to the ground, and it spurred something inside her—a desire to end her mother’s reign once and for all. She reached for her magic, for what life remained around her, drawing upon its energy, upon her anger, upon the darkness inside her that wished for revenge, and as she released it, she thought of every beautiful thing she had ever wanted to create—the nymphs she had wanted to protect from her mother, the flowers she had wanted to grow, the lives she had wanted to save.

  The magic built behind a dam of emotion, and when it burst, it streamed from her in a wave of bright light that made her eyes water and her skin hot. The snow began to melt beneath her feet, and in the gruesome aftermath of the avalanche, amid the rubble and debris, grass grew, flowers sprouted, and trees straightened and bloomed. Even the sky above split at her command, the clouds parting to show blue skies.

  Then vines rose from the ground, lifting and righting whole buildings and houses, repairing the structures until they were covered in greenery and flowering blooms. The landscape no longer resembled a white desert or a metal city but a forest of colorful and fragrant flowers, emerald vegetation, and pure, bright sunlight.

  Still, the silence reigned, and there was a new sensation that played upon the edges of her mind, much like the life that fluttered there—but this one was dark, a curl of smoke, teasing and mocking.

  It was death.

  She might be able to bring life to part of this world but not all of it.

  She was distracted from her sorrow when she felt a terrible power coming from the sky. It was both wicked and pure, and it crowded into her soul, raising the hair on her arms and the back of her neck. Then Olympians fell from the sky, landing in a circle around her—except for Hermes and Apollo, who landed on either side of her, slightly in front, as if to defend.

  Hermes was dressed in gold armor and a leather linothorax. His helm boasted a set of wings that matched the ones sprouting from his back. Beside him, Apollo wore a similar outfit, only a halo of spikes protruded along the top like a sunburst.

  Hermes looked over his shoulder and grinned.

  “Hey, Sephy,” he said.

  “Hey, Hermes,” she replied quietly, unsure of what to make of the presence of the gods and yet knowing this was not good.

  Directly across from her was Zeus, who was bare-chested, saving for a fur pelt he wore as a cape and a skirt made of leather strips called pteruges around his waist. Beside him was Hera, who wore a complicated mix of silver, gold, and leather armor. Despite Persephone’s fear of Zeus, she felt as though the Goddess of Marriage looked the most battle hungry. Then there was Poseidon with his predatory gaze. He too was bare-chested and wore a white tunic, secured in place by a belt of gold and teal. In his hand, he gripped his trident, a weapon that gleamed with malice. Ares was here too, his bright red cape and feathered helm fluttering in the wind. Then there was Aphrodite, draped in gold and blush, and Artemis, whose bow was slung on her back. Persephone could tell she was tense, ready to reach for the weapon if given the signal. Athena looked regal if not completely passive as she stood with Hestia, who was the only goddess not dressed for battle.

  Her mother was the only Olympian missing—and Hades.

  Then she felt his unmistakable presence—a darkness so delicious, it felt like home as it curled around her waist, and suddenly, she was pulled back against his solid chest. Persephone tilted her head back and felt Hades’s jaw scrape her cheek as his lips settled near her ear.

  “Angry, darling?”

  “A little,” she replied breathlessly.

  Despite his teasing comment, she felt the tension in his body.

  “That was quite a display of power, little goddess,” Zeus said.

  “Call me little one more time.” Persephone glared at the God of Thunder, who chuckled at her anger. “I am not sure why you are laughing,” she continued. “I have asked for your respect before. I will not ask again.”

  “Are you threatening your king?” Hera asked.

  “He is not my king,” Persephone said.

  Zeus’s eyes darkened. “I should have never allowed you to leave that temple. That prophecy was not about your children. It was about you.”

  “Leave it, Zeus,” Hades said. “This will not end well for you.”

  “Your goddess is a threat to all Olympians,” Zeus responded.

  “She is a threat to you,” Hades said.

  “Step away, Hades,” Zeus said. “I will not hesitate to end you too.”

  “If you make war against them, you make war against me.” The words came from Apollo, whose golden bow materialized within his hands.

  “And me,” Hermes said, drawing his blade.

  There was a stark silence.

  Then Zeus spoke, “You would commit treason?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” Apollo mused.

  “You would protect a goddess whose power might destroy you?” Hera asked.

  “With my life,” Hermes said. “Sephy is my friend.”

  “And mine,” said Apollo.

  “And mine,” said Aphrodite, who broke from the line and crossed to Persephone’s side. As she came to stand
beside Apollo, she called Hephaestus’s name, and the God of Fire also appeared, filling the space beside her.

  “I will not battle,” Hestia said.

  “Nor I,” Athena said.

  “Cowards,” Ares shot back.

  “Battle should serve a purpose beyond bloodshed,” said Athena.

  “The oracle has spoken and pinned this goddess as a threat. War eliminates threats.”

  “So does peace,” said Hestia.

  The two goddesses vanished, and then it was Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Artemis, and Ares who faced them.

  “You are sure this is what you want, Apollo?” Artemis asked.

  “Seph gave me a chance when she shouldn’t have. I owe her.”

  “Is her chance worth your life?”

  “In my case?” he asked. “Yes.”

  “You will regret this, little goddess,” Zeus promised.

  Persephone’s eyes narrowed.

  “I said don’t call me little.”

  Her power moved and broke the earth beneath Zeus and the other Olympians’ feet. They jumped to avoid falling into an open abyss, rose into the air with ease, and attacked. Zeus seemed intent upon striking Persephone, and his first attack came in the form of a powerful bolt of violet lightning that struck the ground near her feet, causing the earth to shake.

  “You are as dogged as your mother,” Zeus snarled.

  “I believe the word you are looking for is strong willed,” Persephone said.

  Zeus reared back, but instead of striking her, his arm met a wall of sharp thorns—and they shattered, but it was enough of a barrier for Persephone to avoid the god’s blow. As she did, Hades stepped between them, his glamour fading into black armor, but the shadows that fell away from him barreled toward Zeus. One managed to pass through his body, causing him to stumble back, but he recovered in time to deflect the other two with the cuffs that braced his arms.

  “The rule of women, Hades, is you never give them your heart.”

  Persephone didn’t have time to wonder how Hades responded, because as she stumbled back from the two, she came face-to-face with Poseidon, who swung his trident at her. The edges cut into her upper arm as she tried to move, and she gasped in pain, but she used that sting to begin to heal and summoned vines from the ground that tangled around the trident, pulling it from Poseidon’s grasp. The god was quick to anger and punched his hand into the vines, ripping his weapon from their hold and slamming it into the ground. The earth began to shake and crack open, and the land that Persephone had healed was now broken. A giant fissure appeared between her and the God of the Sea, and as he took a step closer to her, fire sprang from its depths, and a flaming whip cut through the air, wrapping around Poseidon’s neck, sending him flying backward. He crashed into one of the vine-covered buildings Persephone had resurrected.