“Doesn’t it, though?” the god replied with a wink.
“I can’t kill Stella,” Ben said after the moment had died down. Hades stared at him soberly and Ben gave a helpless shrug. “I can’t kill a human being for no reason.”
“She’s a serial killer, if that helps,” Hades said, tipping his bottle toward Ben as he tapped a bit of ash from his slowly burning cigar.
Ben’s eyes widened. “Sorry?”
“I wish I was making that part up, but I’m not. Persephone saved her from herself by taking her over. I’m not entirely sure what Persephone told you, but the body she’s occupying is a fantastically dangerous criminal. Trauma, I’m sure, though I never really bothered to inquire further into her psyche.”
Ben licked his lips nervously, trying to process that information. If this was true, Stella could not be allowed to walk the streets, but considering his own personal body-count over the last year, Ben was not fit to be judge and jury. And he was not an executioner. He found it impossible to agree to take a life to fulfill a request from this god, no matter how noble.
“I will assist in removing Persephone from the body, but I can’t kill her,” Ben finally said. “I don’t understand why it’s so important, anyway.”
“Because if you kill her,” Hades said slowly, “Persephone will realize she’s lost. She’s lost you and, with that, perhaps her will to be here. If she loses that then just maybe, if I am very, very lucky, she will leave this place and free me from her curse.”
Chapter Thirteen
Judas and Alex were the only ones awake in the apartment. Mark had long since retired, and Andrew was keeping watch over Persephone, who had made four more escape attempts. They were all concerned about Ben, deeply. However, despite Judas not being able to sense Ben’s thoughts, he simply knew deep down that the detective was fine.
Alex hadn’t said a word since Andrew had taken Persephone into the back room, and as the night grew darker, Jude could feel his mood slipping. Alex was always in control, but right now he was petrified. He was dealing with forces beyond his own comprehension, and for the first time he wondered if he was going to lose this battle.
Jude stood up and went outside onto the balcony. He heard Alex startle in his chair at the movement of the back door, and he knew Alex was now terrified that all the important members of their little group were going to be compromised. That wasn’t the case, and although Persephone had been less than forthcoming with her intentions, Jude felt no real danger from her.
She wasn’t a full goddess either, he found, when he finally examined her in detail. She was like them, but not exactly like them. Her form had been muted, corrupted by breeding with species not native to the Greeks. Part human, Jude finally concluded; human and something else, something he hadn’t come into contact with. Nothing with spectacular power or force; Persephone was relatively week compared to most of them, but she was different. It was likely why she knew where the portals were, and how they could get to them.
“Are you okay?” came Alex’s gruff voice from the doorway.
Jude smiled as he looked out over the city, the soft yellow lights of the street lamps marring the deep blackness of the night’s sky. He could hear the voices out there, the people lying in their beds, minds filled with pain and anguish, begging for it to end, for some relief, to be saved. He remembered once upon a time when their cries appealed to him, when he traveled the world trying desperately to save them all, thinking they would be better for it. Before he realized it would only make them want more from him, that it would cause such a deep-seated greed that they would try and steal, to take what wasn’t theirs to further their own misguided beliefs about what would make them happy.
Suffering was the only true lesson in life, he realized a long, long time ago. Suffering was the only thing that let the human beings appreciate the goodness in the world. Loss gave them a love of what they possessed, pain gave them an appreciation of relief. But out of the millions who experienced such things, only a few understood the purpose of it all.
Taking a deep breath of the cool air, Jude gave a slight nod, barely visible in the dim light of the balcony lamp. “I am fine.”
He wasn’t aware of how much time had passed between when Alex asked the question and when he answered it, but when Alex spoke again, the god had moved to Jude’s side, his arms resting over the ledge, his head hanging low. “You’re not though, are you? You’re never really fine.”
“No,” Jude said with a slight grin. “Not really, and when I am, it doesn’t last.”
“How do you stand it?” Alex asked.
Jude gave a little snort and shook his head. “What makes you think I can stand it? I have the luxury of going completely and totally mad, locked inside of my head, unconscious, reliving dreams and nightmares of my past. I reach a point where I’m not sure what is reality and what is fantasy. Sometimes, when I’m most lucid, just the thought of what I hear, what I’ve been through and seen, what I’ve had and lost, drives me to that point of utter insanity. If you want to talk to someone about being able to stand it, ask Mark. He’s never been allowed that quiet slip into the chaos of his own mind. He must bear it all, the knowledge, the past, the weight of his own written word, and he must do it completely alone, and completely aware.”
Alex gave a little shiver. “Such a curse.”
“The Judas Curse,” Jude said with a laugh. “I’ve heard it called that by my brother once, before he went back to India. He said it nearly destroyed him because it was meant for me. Mark called it that, too, once, as he watched the body of the woman he loved most burning in a pyre after the entire city went mad from his scroll. A heretic and a witch, they flayed her alive, and while she was still screaming, they threw her onto the flames. I’d made it to the city, but not in time to save her. He hated me so much for that. He blamed me for stumbling into his life that sweltering afternoon, forever changing the course of his existence. The Judas Curse.” He gave a soft laugh and shook his head again, causing some of the shorter, curly strands to fall into his face.
Alex reached out and moved the hair from Jude’s face, staring at him intently. “I’ve been trying to understand you both for weeks, but you completely perplex me. I just can’t wrap my mind around how you exist. You’re not possessed or inhabited by one of us, and the strength of your power surpasses even my own existence in the world. Something brought you the life and power you have now, but it’s something far beyond what my abilities could ever be. I can extend the life of a human body, but not a human soul. And you two, completely untouched, here and present, even if you’re slightly mad.”
Jude looked away from Alex and back out over the city. “We’re going to be in very real trouble soon, if we can get a handle on Nike.” He had to change the subject. He was lonely, starved for affection, and terrified of it. Alex would give him whatever he wanted, if only Jude would ask, but this was neither the time nor the place for it.
“I know,” Alex said with a sigh. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a flask, taking a long, deep drink. He offered some to Jude, who refused with a slight shake of his head, so he took another sip and then put it away. “To tell the truth, I’m at a loss. I can make Persephone talk, to tell us where the portal is, I have no doubt about that. I’m actually very tempted to move forward without Ben, though I’ve been warned several times over that it will end in disaster if we do.”
“Despite my protests earlier, I have the same feeling,” Jude said, which was true. He didn’t know where it came from, or why he felt it, but he simply knew that in order to defeat Nike, Ben had to be there. It was odd, considering he couldn’t feel Ben, but he still knew how the path must be walked.
The faint chime inside the house signaled there was someone at the door. Alex perked up immediately and stood straight. “It might be Ben.”
Jude closed his eyes and felt something. Something weak, but desperate, a little angry and very hostile. “It’s not him. It’s one of hers.”
/> Alex’s face dropped. “Is it Nike?”
Jude gave a slightly sarcastic laugh, raising an eyebrow at the one called Thor. “Do you believe she’d make a house call? With all of us here, ready to destroy her vessel the first chance we’ve got?”
Alex blushed and walked to the door, not waiting for Jude following close at his heels. The door chime hadn’t woken anyone else in the house, which surprised Jude, but he also knew how dead tired Mark was.
Peering through the small hole in the door, Alex turned back to Jude. “I can’t tell who it is. He’s warded, though it’s weak.”
“I know you’re in there, I just want to talk,” came the deep voice from beyond the wooden barrier.
Alex sighed. “Damn it.”
“Let him in,” Jude said with a nod. “He’s not strong enough to take you on his own.” This was true, although Jude was sensing something else from this being, something not quite Greek, much like Persephone. However, seeing as she held little danger over them, Jude felt they would be safe.
Alex looked unsure, but he slowly opened the lock, pulled the door aside, and glowered at the man standing there. He was tall, muscular with broad shoulders under an impossibly tight t-shirt. He wore jeans and boots, and his hair was pulled back with heavy amounts of product.
He looked like the men Jude had seen in sporting magazines, with the oiled skin and smoldering expression. He stood there, one hand on his hip, looking almost bored. If it wasn’t for the subtle glowing in his eyes and almost metallic quality of his voice, Jude could have easily assumed he was just another human.
“May I come in?” he asked, scratching the edge of his well-groomed eyebrow.
“Apollo,” Alex said, still not stepping aside. “Or are you going by another name?”
“Apollo is fine,” he said, and smiled, showing his overly white, too straight teeth. “It is rude though, keeping me standing in the hallway.”
“I will burn you alive before you’d make it a block with her,” Alex said. “Imagine the smell of burning feathers.”
Jude frowned, not understanding the reference, but he didn’t comment on it. He simply stood back, staring at the god. It was odd, looking at him this way. The more he stared, the more something wasn’t quite right. He looked human, but he had a quality about him that was just… different.
“I’m not here to take her,” Apollo said, still grinning. “And your threats are meaningless to me, Thor, or are you going by a different name now?” he finished in a mocking tone.
“Alex, and won’t you please come in?” the Norse god replied without any voice inflection whatsoever. He stepped aside for Apollo to enter and the three moved into the living room.
“So this is the notorious Judas Iscariot. Even in our circles your name bears weight. The man who betrayed Christ for forty gold coins.”
Jude snorted out a small laugh as he took a seat on one of the sofas. “Strange how those legends get started.”
“Strange?” Apollo asked with his eyebrows raised. “Your very own companion wrote it down.”
“You and I both know what he truly wrote down and what managed to scrape through the charred remains of his scroll were not the same thing,” Jude said in a serious tone.
Apollo laughed a little and turned back to Alex. “You both realize you’re not going to be able to stop Nike, right?”
Alex pinched the bridge of his nose and gave a little, tired sigh. “Yes, we are. You seem to forget that under your impossible infatuation with the crazy bitch, she’s not actually very strong. Without that vessel she would just waste away.”
Apollo’s laughter startled Jude. Not just the sound of it, but the feeling of absolute malice and hatred that hid behind the jovial sound. Apollo shook his head and let out a small sigh. “Ah, your kind, always so arrogant,” he hissed the word arrogant, his eyes flaring slightly brighter. “So…certain.” He clasped his hands together and cocked his head to the side. “I want to speak with my daughter.”
“Daughter?” Jude blurted, surprised at the request and at himself for speaking aloud.
Apollo turned to him and said, “Yes. Persephone. My daughter. A long time ago, we used to procreate just like you sacks of meat. Coupling, and a baby would be born, and one of those children was Persephone. I haven’t spoken to her and I want to ensure her safety.”
“The only thing truly unsafe is her vessel, and we all know how you feel about human vessels,” Alex said, his tone grave and deep. “Does Nike know, by the way, how you feel about human vessels? Does she even realize that you—”
“Bring her out,” Apollo interrupted in a commanding tone. There was a shift in the room, and a visible shimmer around the Greek god. Jude felt a power strong enough to almost suffocate him.
Before he could panic, however, Alex raised his hand and the feeling was gone, leaving just empty space between them. Apollo looked paler than he had before, almost out of breath, and there were beads of sweat on his forehead.
“As I said before, you’re no threat to me, despite what you are,” Alex said with a pleasant smile. “Now, you really don’t have anything to say to Persephone, we both know that. You mean to transfer her power or knowledge, and that’s not going to happen. But knowing you,” Alex continued, leaning forward slightly, “you have a plan B. So out with it.”
Apollo stared at Alex, shifted his gaze for a moment to Jude, and then back to Alex again. He gave a resigned sigh and said, “Fine. Let’s strike a deal.”
“I think I’m going to need a drink for this,” Alex said, slapping his hands down on his knees before rising. “I’m also going to have a word with your spawn, if you don’t mind. I don’t think I need to warn you what will happen if you try and leave, or touch a hair on Jude’s head.”
“Oh, unlike Nike, I do have an appreciation for pretty faces,” Apollo said with a flashy grin. “No hair touching—I swear it.”
Alex rolled his eyes but walked down the hall. Jude heard Persephone’s bedroom door close. Now alone, Apollo shifted on the sofa, one knee crooked up onto the cushion, and he gave a smile to Jude. “You want to have sex?” he asked.
Jude sputtered, surprised by the question, and he forced himself to calm down. “Sorry?”
“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t want it,” Apollo replied with a wink. “I know what I look like.”
“My fondness of the male form goes beyond physical perfection,” Jude said simply. An image of his last lover rose in his mind. He hadn’t been young, or particularly attractive. His teeth had been yellow and crooked, his beard long and impossibly tangled. His eyes were beady, and his hands wrinkled. None of that mattered, though, when he’d taken Jude into his arms and gave Jude that sense of belonging, of worship not because of his power or his immortality, but simply because he felt Jude was worth it.
“So there is someone,” Apollo said.
“There was, and thank you, but no.”
“Is it Alex? That little meat-suit is quite nice looking, if I do say so myself.”
Jude sighed and shook his head. “Alex is kind, but no.”
Reaching across the distance between them, Apollo closed his hand around Jude’s wrist. The moment their skin made contact, Jude felt something, a sort of humming sensation all over his body. He felt enveloped in a warmth, like large feathered wings wrapping around him, holding him in euphoria. He couldn’t keep his eyes open, and he wanted to struggle against Apollo’s physical closeness, but the draw to the god was stronger, fierce, something Jude had never experienced.
He felt Apollo’s hand on his cheek, his breath on his face as the god moved in. Their lips met briefly, but that short contact devastated any memory of any amazing kiss Jude had ever had. It raced through his body, filling him, lifting him, making him feel a love and desire like he had never felt before.
Without warning, however, the warmth and embrace was ripped away, and Jude felt freezing cold suddenly, unable to stop the tremor in his jaw. He gasped for breath as he looked up and saw Alex ho
lding Apollo by the neck against the far wall of the room.
Alex turned is head, his eyes unreadable and he said. “The feeling will pass. I warned him.”
“What was that?” Jude gasped, coughing a little in an attempt to get control of his breath.
“I’ll explain it to you later,” Alex said though clenched teeth as he returned his gaze to Apollo. “And I warned him sufficiently.”
“You said not to harm him, and I wasn’t posing any danger to him,” Apollo said, holding his hands up in surrender.
“You and I both know what you’re capable of, and I have been patient enough with you,” Alex said. There was a shift in the room and suddenly the silence of the apartment was filled with the bigger god’s screams.
Beyond the sound of agony, Jude heard Persephone calling out, trying to open the door, but Andrew clearly had it locked. A moment later, Mark came flying out of his own room, poised for attack, but he stopped when he saw Alex in front of Apollo.
Alex had made no physical move against the god, but clearly he had power to hurt him, and after a moment, Alex relaxed and the screaming stopped. “Tell me what Nike’s proposing and then be on your way,” Alex spat.
He shoved Apollo away and took a step back, his arms crossed. Gasping for breath, Apollo doubled over and shook his head back and forth in a clear attempt to regain control of himself. Clearing his throat, he stood upright and his eyes, though narrow and glowing, showed obvious defeat.
“Provide the location of the portal, and the human we have will live,” he said.
“Olivia?” Mark asked, speaking for the first time since he stepped into the room.
“That’s right, scribe,” Apollo said. “Nike will refrain from tearing her apart slowly if you let Persephone provide us with a location.”
Cry, Nike! (The Judas Curse) Page 11