Cole's Haunting Melody (The Gods' Executioner Series)

by A. L. Bridges

  “Of course. Would you like to leave now?” Hades asks.

  “Where are we headed?” I inquire.

  “Mount Olympus.” Hades replies.

  “Let me go grab my things and we can leave.” I say and head down the hall, still limping.

  “I’m coming with you, Cole.” Cheza says as she catches up.

  “Cheza, I don’t want you coming with me on this one… it’s not safe.” I reply.

  “Which is exactly why I’m coming.” Cheza responds.

  “Cheza—” I start to say.

  “Cole, you can barely walk. There’s no way in hell that I’m letting you go to Mount Olympus alone when three Olympians tried to kill you less than a day ago. And I doubt you will get a warm reception considering that you killed two of them. I’m going, and that’s final.”

  …

  Chapter 19: Trofi?

  We arrive in a stone gazebo with Greek columns that support a triangular roof. Fluffy white clouds stretch out in all directions; the air here feels cool and wet, but not exactly cold. Cheza and I follow Hades as he walks down a path of solid clouds leading from the gazebo; the sensation of walking on the solid cloud path is similar to walking in snow, but there’s no crunch with each step. I limp along, still working out the kinks in the new leg as jolts of pain course up from just above my knee. We walk up over a hill and a small town comes into view; there are dozens of buildings that all look like small versions of the Parthenon.

  The path leads into the center of town where there is a gigantic fountain; the fountain is roughly fifty feet in diameter and two stories tall with three levels. There are rainbows that are shooting out of the top level before arching straight down to the base; the other two levels just have water cascading out of them. A group of naiads are playing in the pool and what appears to be several harpy children are playing around the fountain; the little harpy girls have wings where their arms should be, human torsos and heads, and feathers from the waist down, ending with talons for feet.

  The center of this town appears to be some sort of shopping district. There are quite a few demigods around here, along with several seven foot tall Cyclopes and even a centaur, which I keep Cheza the hell away from in case it gets all rape-y. Everyone seems to be wearing white swathes of cloth; some that look like togas and others that would look like white ponchos if it weren’t for the golden cord tied around their waists that keep the front and back together. However, none of the naiads or harpies appear to be clothed; the naiads I can understand because they’re water elementals, but what’s up with the harpies?

  Hades stops in front of the fountain when I feel something nudging my right thigh. I look down and see a naked Addie, like how she was before I gave her a bath.

  “Trofi?” Addie asks; I just stare back at her.

  “Trofi? Trofi?” Addie repeats and the illusion dissolves, leaving a naked little harpy girl behind.

  “Trofi?” the harpy girl asks.

  (She is asking for food)

  “I don’t have any food.” I smile at her and pat her head while trying to withhold my tears; the harpy girl runs off and I feel Cheza’s cool hand entwine in mine. This is getting bad… how did I confuse a harpy with Addie? They’re more than fifty percent bird for Void’s sake!

  “Iris, I need you to open up the gate to the palace.” Hades says to the fountain. A rainbow beams down from the sky about ten feet to the right of our position.

  “Thank you.” Hades adds and walks into the rainbow, motioning for us to follow.

  Cheza and I walk through the rainbow and I feel the ground shift. We appear in the courtyard of a glittering palace that towers over us. A menagerie of gods surround us as my helmet automatically engages.

  “Ah, Pluto, my brother; I see you’ve brought our brother’s killer.” A god with a trident says; he must be Neptune/Poseidon, Roman/Greek god of the seas.

  “No, I didn’t. I brought Feros to help us find our brother’s killer.” Hades replies.

  “But he’s the one that did it!” Neptune exclaims.

  “No, he didn’t. There’s a police report from Niflheim and dozens of witnesses saying that he was in Niflheim at the only time Jupiter could have been killed.” Hades defends.

  “If he isn’t guilty then why did he kill Mars and Vulcan when they confronted him?” Neptune replies.

  “Probably because those two idiots attacked him first and Feros defended himself, isn’t that right, Diana?” Hades asks.

  A Mediterranean woman that is five and a half feet tall with light brown hair and light green eyes, steps forward. She is wearing a brown leather skirt and a matching vest-like garment that shows her midriff.

  “That is correct. I was observing the altercation, and the way I saw it, Mars attacked Feros before he even had any idea what was going on. After Vulcan tried to burn Feros to a crisp, he said that they were going to find and kill those Feros cared about, just before he was killed from behind. My brother shot an arrow through Feros’s right knee and blew off his leg, at which point Mars kicked his head and proceeded to add insult to injury. Feros shot eight tentacle-like things out of his left arm to grab Mars and pull him closer.

  Apollo fired at Feros and Feros used Mars as a shield while he crawled towards Tlazolteotl with the intent to retreat. Once Feros reached Tlazolteotl, Mars promised Feros that he would find and rape Feros’s girlfriend, whom I assume is that woman there. At this point, Feros killed Mars and tried to port away while my brother took one last shot at him, which I deflected with one of my own arrows because it was obvious to me that this entire altercation was their fault and that Feros was innocent.” Diana/Artemis, Roman/Greek goddess of the hunt, recapitulates.

  “Besides, can anyone honestly say they were sad to hear of Mars’s demise?” Diana adds. A very attractive blonde woman wearing a toga raises her hand as she glares at me.

  “Venus, your vote doesn’t count because you can’t keep your legs shut.” Diana responds

  “Still better than you, little miss eternally a virgin!” Venus/Aphrodite, the Roman/Greek goddess of love and beauty, replies.

  “I’d rather be a virgin than a whore!” Diana exclaims.

  “No, it’s obvious that you’d rather just dress like one with your little cock-tease outfit.” Venus retorts.

  “That’s enough, girls. Well, if Feros is here to help, then I suppose he should see the body first of all. Alright everyone; go about your business.” A blonde, woman that is five foot nine with grey eyes and a golden crown on her head says. All of the gods disperse, except for Venus, who walks toward me.

  “Even if you didn’t kill Jupiter, I still won’t forgive you for killing Mars… and Vulcan too, I guess.” Venus says while glaring at me. She guesses? Wasn’t Vulcan her husband? Venus’s eyes flick to Cheza and give her a once over.

  “Is this your fiancée?” Venus asks and I step between her and Cheza.

  “Yes she is.” I cautiously reply. Venus snaps her fingers.

  “Not anymore.” Venus says with a smug smile on her face.

  I panic and look at Cheza, who looks to Venus and back to me with a slightly confused face. I turn around and see a perplexed look from Venus; she snaps her fingers again and nothing happens. Her face contorts with anger as she snaps her fingers again.

  “THIS IS BULLSHIT! I’m the fucking goddess of love yet I can’t make one girl fall out of it!?” Venus screams as she storms off.

  “I guess your mother’s magic is a bit stronger than hers.” Cheza thinks to me with a smile.

  “I guess so.” I smile back.

  It’s obvious that whatever makes Cheza love me is stronger than what Venus was trying to do, but what would the outcome have been had Natasha or even Lila been in Cheza’s position? If a being has the ability to simply make someone fall out of love, what is love anyway?

  “Would you like to go see the body now?” Hades asks.

  “Sure. By the way, why don’t you go by your Roman name? All the other gods seem to.�
�� I inquire.

  “I haven’t gone by my Roman name since Pluto was demoted as a planet, but that hasn’t stopped any of the Olympians from referring to me by my Roman name.” Hades somewhat spitefully replies and walks towards the glittering palace.

  Cheza and I follow Hades through the twenty-foot tall doors and into the palace foyer. Hades takes a left down a glittering corridor and continues straight for about one hundred meters until we reach a door leading to the exterior. We exit the palace and walk through an elaborate rose garden that leads to a bunch of columns arranged in a ring that are connected by a dome roof. Inside is the body of the god I met in Rome last month; Jupiter’s body is resting on a marble pedestal, surrounded by wreathes of flowers as a beam of sunlight shines through a hole in the cupola and illuminates his body. The entire scene would be serene, if it weren’t for the giant gaping hole in Jupiter’s chest.

  “Where was he when he was killed?” I ask as I inspect Jupiter’s gaping chest hole.

  Now that I’m up close, something is very apparent to me. When I killed Horus, I had to crack open his chest like a lobster before I reached in with my left hand and disintegrated the golden mass that is inside of all gods. However, Jupiter’s ribcage is not cracked open or even cut open. Jupiter’s exposed ribcage is melted in exactly the same fashion that the back of Horus’s chest cavity was.

  “He was found in a back alley in Rome yesterday by Juno, Neptune, and I. We all felt it when one of our fellow heads of the pantheon died, so we came as soon as we were able to.” Hades replies as I pull out my phone and take a few pictures of Jupiter from different angles.

  “I’d like to ask Juno a few questions in private; can you arrange that?” I inquire.

  “Yes, I’ll go speak with her now.” Hades replies.

  “Okay, I’ll wait here.” I tell him.

  Hades nods in response and walks off. I’m about to feed some of my blood into Jupiter’s mouth when something occurs to me.

  “Hey Airi, am I able to scan gods?”

  (No, Master)

  “Shit… well, there goes that idea… wait, can you see Jupiter’s memories like you could with Inti’s?”

  (No, because Jupiter didn’t end up in the same place as Inti; he was absorbed)

  I’m about to ask what she means when my mind jumps to the instant I killed Horus and how the black smoke that I turned his golden mass into appeared to go into my arm. Based on the melted edges of Jupiter’s chest cavity, and the lack of melting to the cracked open section of Horus’s ribcage, it’s almost as if the golden mass in Jupiter was turned into smoke before his chest was opened.

  “Airi, when my arm is black—when I’m channeling the Void—what exactly is happening?”

  (Your arm becomes a piece of the Void, Master)

  “So it’s like Jason’s blade and Horus’s mace?”

  (In the same way that carbon is diamond; one is simply a derivative of the other, nothing more)

  “So while my arm can disintegrate the golden mass inside of gods, Jason’s blade would never been able to?”

  (Correct)

  “Technically speaking, would it be possible to create a weapon capable of absorbing the cores in the same fashion as my arm?”

  (Technically yes, but not for one such as yourself, Master)

  I think I might’ve just figured out how Jupiter was killed… wait a second, can that golden mass even be stabbed? I recall Cheza stabbing through Horus’s chest with ice spears, but did those ever make contact with the golden mass, or did the core somehow contort out of the way?

  “My brother said that you needed to speak with me?” the blonde woman with grey eyes from earlier inquires while appearing beside Cheza and I.

  “Can I stab you in the chest?” I ask.

  “What!?” Juno replies.

  “Sorry, that wasn’t what I needed to ask. My first question is: what was the relationship between Jupiter and Hades was like?” I question as Juno looks at me warily and I pull out my phone to open the notes app.

  “Amicable.” Juno replies simply.

  “Okay… And that between him and Neptune?” I inquire after typing Juno’s response.

  “Also amicable.” Juno answers.

  “Alright… and what was the relationship between you and your husband like?” I ask.

  “We loved each other.” Juno responds.

  “Right… Well, I have just one last question. I studied mythology quite a bit when I was younger and I was wondering how much of it is the truth?” I question.

  “A great deal of Roman mythology is accurate, while Greek mythology is mostly accurate.” Juno says.

  “Like the details of the relationship between you and your husband? From what I remember, there was a lot of adultery that you didn’t approve of. I also remember quite a few instances where you are characterized by jealousy and vengeance.” I reply.

  “Are you implying that I had something to do with my husband’s death?” Juno pointedly asks.

  “What? Me? Nooo—yes, that is exactly what I’m implying.” I reply.

  “I loved my husband!” Juno defends.

  “Which is exactly why you killed him! He just kept cheating on you, and cheating on you until you finally snapped! You couldn’t take it any longer so you killed him, didn’t you!? DIDN’T YOU!?” I accuse and Juno breaks down into tears.

  “Easy there, Feros. Juno was with me when Jupiter was killed.” Diana says.

  “Really? I was so sure she was the one behind it too…” I reply.

  “Why?” Diana asks.

  “Because…” why had I been so ready to believe Juno did it when really none of the evidence suggests that?

  “I guess it was simply because she’s a woman.” My statement garners dirty looks from the three women present.

  “Hey, don’t look at me like that! Blame my life experiences, one in particular in which I was stabbed after a perceived cheating by Cheza! And that wasn’t even real! It just wasn’t much of a stretch for me to believe that after cheating dozens of times, Jupiter might get the equivalent of dozens of stabs in return!” I explain. The women just continue to glare at me.

  “Well, I think I’m done for today. I’ll continue the investigation tomorrow.” I say as I grab Cheza’s hand and walk past Diana and Juno.

  “Hold on, you’re going to need this to access the palace.” Juno venomously says and hands me a golden coin of a mountain with a ring of clouds at the summit that is roughly three inches in diameter.

  “Thank you.” I reply and continue walking.

  We head through the palace and to the courtyard where we came in. Cheza and I stand there for a moment, but nothing happens.

  “Umm, Iris?” I ask while holding the coin up in the air. A rainbow appears and I drag Cheza through it. We touch down next to the now-deserted fountain and head back to the stone gazebo/gate via the cloud pathway.

  “Am I really the reason you thought Juno was guilty?” Cheza quietly asks as we walk.

  “No… well, maybe. It was also because the spouse is often responsible in human murder cases so why should it be any different with gods?” I reply.

  We reach the gate and I touch my triskele to port us to the house in Arizona, not being able to port directly to the Underworld.

  “Yeah, I suppose that makes sense… and I’m, uh, sorry for stabbing you…” Cheza quietly apologizes.

  “Don’t worry about it; I still love you, regardless of what you do.” I tell her.

  I give Cheza a quick kiss before remembering my internal conflict about love. How does Venus make someone fall out of love? Does she simply make the person seem unattractive to the victim or does she mess with the brain’s chemicals that are responsible for giving the feeling of love? I wonder why the girls see me as attractive…

  “What are you thinking about?” Cheza asks.

  “I don’t see why Natasha is in love with me; or Lila, for that matter. I mean, I’m pretty average looking, I don’t think this has anything t
o do with money, and it’s not like I’m making panties drop everywhere I go…” I say.

  “Cole, every girl loves a hero, and we all have a genetic predisposition to like bad boys; you’re both. You saved Lila when she was kidnapped and saved Natasha from marrying an asshole: hero. You have an air of danger about you because of your impulsive/ thrill-seeking behavior and because, well, you kill gods: bad boy.” Cheza explains. Is it really that simple? I touch my Haglaz rune and port us to Niflheim.

  “Hey you two; did everything go alright?” Tia asks from the couch when we port into Jason’s room.

  “Hey Tia, I was just about to go look for you!” I announce as I walk towards the couch. She’s wearing jeans and a burgundy tank top, which won’t quite work…

  “What’s up?” Tia inquires as she sets down her magazine and stands up. I quickly grab her tank top with my left hand and rip it off.

  “Cole?” Tia asks with confusion in her eyes.

  I bring my Sic dagger from behind my back and proceed to stab her in the chest, betwixt the ribs beneath her right breast as Tia yelps in pain. I pull the Sic dagger out and watch as the golden mass in Tia’s chest heals just before her skin does. Then Cheza tackles me from the side and starts repeatedly punching me in the face.

  “WHAT IN THE HELL HAS GOTTEN INTO YOU!?” Cheza screams during her flurry of punches.

  “Chezarei, how is he supposed to explain while you’re punching him in the face?” Tia asks and Cheza stops punching me.

  “Well, she did throw a knife through my neck last year!” I exclaim and Cheza starts punching me again.

  “AHHHH! WHY DO I PUT UP WITH YOU!?” Cheza screams rhetorically before her punching stops.

  Her words are concerning to me because if Cheza stops to think about it, she’d realize that the reason she puts up with me is because she has no other choice…

  “I needed to see if I could penetrate the golden mass in Tia’s chest and I decided that ripping her shirt off and stabbing her was a better alternative than cutting her chest open and stabbing her.” I explain.

  “Thanks for that!” Tia exclaims.

  “Why did you need to do it in the first place!?” Cheza demands.