My Life From Hell

by Tellulah Darling

  Except, what if it wasn’t the universe or whoever sending this vision to me?

  Since prophecies were common to the not-so-mythological Greeks I was descended from, I’d figured that these visions were too. Which is why I’d assumed that these images had been sent to me.

  But what if I was generating them myself? From my insecurities and fears, in the same way I’d installed Persephone’s voice in my head. Maybe I was trying to give myself a giant wake up call—that I had to put all my issues with Persephone aside, once and for all.

  Kai and I both did. That could be why he hadn’t figured in any of it. I mean, he had that pomegranate tattoo on his back, right? Maybe the tree in my vision was symbolic of him.

  Of us.

  Maybe the point of all these freaky hallucinations was to press the urgency of Kai and I working things out so that we remained a winning team, instead of two distinct parts that would lose.

  Zeus and Hades had been warring against each other on Earth for thousands of years. They caused a lot of destruction and death, usually managing to blame it all on natural disasters. If Kai and I failed to stop them, their attacks on each other might amp up, thereby taking out more humans. Or worse, if they might just decide to harm humans for the spiteful fun of it.

  Either way, we needed to defeat them.

  I rolled over, mushing my pillow up to a better fluffiness level and resettling myself. I didn’t really believe that Kai wouldn’t show up to the big battle. He had such a horrible history with his father, Hades, that I knew Kai would do anything to take him down.

  I even knew that he still loved me. But Kai’s anger might dilute his intentions enough to cause the ritual to fail. And if I continued to enable him by not forcing us to hash this out, well, that would make me just as complicit in our eventual loss.

  The thing that really killed me was that I didn’t blame Kai for feeling gutted at Persephone’s intention to use and betray him. I just didn’t think it was fair that I was the one who had to deal with the fallout of his anger toward her. He believed that she was a part of me and technically, he was right.

  Still …

  Kai was just so damn stubborn.

  Two months with both of us being mad, and still unable to keep our hands off each other. If that wasn’t messed up, I didn’t know what was.

  I loved Kai back. Fiercely. I’d just been so scared of losing him that I’d gone along with this pattern, even though it didn’t sit right with me. To be honest, I’m not sure who I was more mad at—Kai or myself.

  I sighed. Come tomorrow morning, I had to confront Kai. I’d make him yell at me if he needed to. Whatever I had to do to make this wound stop festering.

  My eye twitched at the brain—exploding sensation of all this overthinking. Okay, it was the pulsing of my low grade headache. But despite the throbbing, I felt filled with a sense of peace, and the courage to finally confront Kai and sort things out.

  Seeing Jennifer had given me clarity. With new hope, and a game plan in hand, I fell asleep. Like, passed out cold.

  I would have slept in even longer on Friday morning, but a particularly despised sound woke me up. A sound that struck dread into the marrow of my bones. The sound of someone singing, “Happy Birthday.”

  I squeezed my eyes tighter, flung the covers over my head and rolled over with my back to the door. None of which deterred Festos from tromping in, still singing the damn song.

  “We talked about this,” I said, my voice muffled.

  He waited until he’d ended the final “to you” in a rousing falsetto before he answered me. “You talked. I ignored.”

  “I hate you,” I said. Although it probably came out muted by the covers.

  “I have cake.”

  Hmph. That was tempting.

  Somewhat.

  I poked my head out from the comforter but didn’t look at him. “What flavor?”

  “I don’t understand the question,” he replied. “Is there another flavor besides chocolate?”

  “Yes,” I heard Theo say. “I like pie.”

  I rolled over and opened my eyes in time to see Festos shoot Theo a pitying glance. “Well, you would. But fun people like cake.” He winked at me.

  Theo waved him off. “Cake is obvious. Pie is for people with depth.”

  Festos’ idea of a deep response was to stick his tongue out.

  Theo grinned. “Way to make my point.”

  I loved my bickering boys.

  “Enough.” I motioned Festos closer. “Bring me the frosted confection.”

  He scooted in, cake outstretched to me like an offering to a god. Smart boy.

  It was really fabulous. One of those super sugary chocolate sheet cakes with red icing flowers that hurt my teeth to even think about eating. I grinned in anticipation.

  “Make a wish already and blow these puppies out,” Festos said, tilting his head at the eighteen lit candles blazing away on top. “The heat is opening my pores and that is not a good look for me.”

  Sitting here, with these two guys who so totally had my back, who so completely loved me, gave me the strength to keep going. No matter what went down when I finally faced Zeus and Hades, I was going to bring my A-game and not let anything get in my way.

  I closed my eyes, wished for victory, and blew.

  Every single candle went out. The seventeen for my birthday and the one for good luck. I took it as a sign. Today was going to be a damn fine day.

  I flung off the covers.

  Festos winced. “There’s only one reason to ever be wearing last night’s clothes, honeybunch, and you are far too young to be doing the walk of shame.”

  Theo winced. “Can we not ever put that image in my head?”

  I scrambled into a pair of clean leggings. “Festos, bring cake. Theo, it’s time for you to know everything.”

  “Hallelujah,” Theo muttered.

  I padded out to the living room, moved the books onto the floor and motioned for Festos to set the cake down. “Get three forks,” I instructed.

  Theo looked appalled.

  I patted his arm. “Consider getting to eat directly from the cake my birthday present from you. I’ve never gotten to do that. Combined with the fact that I will also be spared Felicia’s birthday call of thinly veiled contempt and disappointment, this year I’m the luckiest girl ever.”

  Well, not really. Which is why I got serious and started talking.

  I brought Theo up to date. Where things were with Kai, the visions, the visit to Jennifer, everything that I’d been keeping bottled up inside me. By the time I was finished, it was afternoon. Surprisingly, and more than a tad sickeningly, there wasn’t much cake left.

  I was exhausted at the end of my tale. Physically, psychologically, psychically—you name it, it had tired me out. Plus I felt slightly queasy from all the fat, sugar, and lack of actual nutrients.

  Anxious for Theo’s reaction, I nudged his leg under the table with my foot. “Say something.”

  “Yeah,” Festos echoed. Theo hadn’t been happy to find out that Festos had known about things between me and Kai.

  Theo shook his head at Festos. “You. Don’t keep stuff from me,” he said with a swat to his boyfriend’s shoulder. He turned back to me. “With the exception of you and asshat needing to get past, well, the past, I don’t see that we’re in any worse a place than we’ve been since you became a goddess again. In fact, even with all this, we’re still better off.”

  I startled. Didn’t expect that. “How so?”

  Theo carved off a sliver of dessert and popped it in his mouth, proving that even he wasn’t immune to cake. “First, you have all of Persephone’s memories back now.” He pointed toward the whiteboard containing the words of the ritual. “Second, we know what the ritual is.”

  He was right about that. Loosely translated, I would say the first line: “I am above.” Kai would take the next: “I am below.” Except in the Ancient Greek that we had to speak it in, it was more like “I go down,” re
ferring to me as the heavenly Persephone descending from Olympus. Kai’s line was reversed: “I go up.” Then we would link hands and together we would say, “Through our love, are we power. Through our love, are we strength.” As if strength came into being because of our love. That kind of thing.

  It sounded much better in Ancient Greek. And was fraught with all kinds of meaning.

  katabaino / anabaino / di’erota, sthenos gignetai / di’erota, menos gignetai

  The language part wasn’t even a big deal. Theo, Festos, and Kai all spoke Ancient Greek. Even I had gotten that knowledge once I’d regained Persephone’s memories. Sadly, I couldn’t trot it out much. It’s a good thing that I’d remembered what the ritual entailed, though, because with Kai not in a sharing mood, the details of the ceremony certainly hadn’t come from him.

  Theo continued. “Third, we know that you have to speak it on the spring equinox. Which this year happens this Thursday, March twentieth at 6:57PM Athens time. Six days from now.”

  I picked up the fat blue mug in front of me and took a sip of English Breakfast tea, heavy milk, heavy sugar. It had gone cold but I drank it anyway. “We also know that Zeus and Hades are going to throw all their minions at us. Seeing how their supply is inexhaustible and we’re not, that means timing our arrival on the location in Eleusis to within seconds of having to perform the ritual.” I didn’t want to have to hold off the minions a millisecond longer than I had to.

  Theo shook his head. “Not quite.” He patted a slim volume that remained on the table. “There’s a bit of a snag. Because of the wards.”

  A few months ago, Zeus had kidnapped me and held me as his hostage up in Olympus. He drugged me with truth serum and tried to learn the location of the ritual in order to destroy the place. Luckily, I didn’t have Persephone’s memories back at that point and couldn’t tell him anything.

  Not that I would have, but he had ways of making me talk.

  I’d managed to escape with Kai’s help, triggering the start of the Hermes mission—that did actually resulted in said memory return.

  To be on the safe side, as we waited the two months for the equinox to come, Theo and Festos had used our blood—mine and Kai’s—to ward up the ritual location and keep it out of the big gods’ clutches.

  “What snag?” A worrisome thought hit me. “Did the wards fail? Can Pops and Hades get to the spot?”

  Theo looked at me like he wasn’t even going to dignify such a stupid idea with a response.

  “You can’t just show up, pop behind the wards, and do the ritual,” Festos said. His attention was on Theo. There seemed to be some kind of wordless communication between them. Were I to guess, the gist of it would be something like: Festos was mad and Theo was telling him to get over it.

  I guess Festos decided he wasn’t going to. “The wards have to be down before you two can perform the ritual.” He threw an extra glower at Theo, who rolled his eyes. “The spot also has to be cleansed with a brief ceremony to purify it in preparation. Which means at least two minutes of holding off every single minion in existence.”

  “Eep!” I squeaked out my shock and then glared at Theo. “So I wasn’t the only one holding out and not sharing around here.”

  “First off, I only learned this last night. When you didn’t want to talk,” he added pointedly.

  I crossed my arms. “Yes, well.”

  “Besides, it won’t even be two minutes. Maybe one. One and a half tops. You and Kai will be fine. And I know you’ll protect me. I’ll take down the wards, cleanse the spot, and you’re good to go.”

  “Theo!” I jumped to my feet. My hands clenched into “throttle him” formation. “There’s blind faith and then there’s ‘did you walk into a bus and suffer brain damages’ faith!”

  Theo was his usual, matter-of-fact self. “You are destined to be humanity’s savior. I staked everything on it. If I can believe it, you will too.”

  At that, I deflated. Theo had staked everything on it. Putting Persephone into my body had cost him his Titan powers. And no one had seen the crone who’d taken them since.

  I sat back down and thought this through. I’d really been hoping not to have to take on the minions en masse, but since that was not an option I’d come up with a plan. “Kai can hold his own, but the only way I can is if I use my full body shockwave as they come at me. Repeatedly. Which leaves us with two problems. Well, probably only one. If my shockwave didn’t take out Zeus, chances are it won’t affect Kai.”

  “Too bad,” Theo muttered.

  “So sad,” Festos agreed. There was zero love lost between those three.

  I ignored them and stood up. “Our problem is that I can only fire a single kapow before I need to recharge. Even if it is a hot sunny day which, if I wanted to bet, I say is ‘highly unlikely’, even in the sun I’d still need recoup time. So how do I repeatedly use that level of power?” I gathered up the cake, the forks, and my mug, and headed into Festos’ open-concept kitchen. All white hi-gloss cabinets and stainless steel counters. I dumped the cake, rinsed everything off, and stuffed it all in the dishwasher.

  “Uh, slightly bigger problem,” Festos said. “Maximum detonate while Theo is around and you’ll kill him. He’s human now.”

  “And capable of taking care of himself,” Theo said.

  My mouth fell open. “Yikes. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Apparently not,” Festos snarked. He sighed. “Which is why I will perform the cleansing ritual to purify the area for you.”

  Theo began to protest, but Festos slapped a hand over his boyfriend’s mouth. “Not one word, Thesi. This is non-negotiable.”

  Theo pulled Festos’ hand away.

  Commence silent scowling showdown.

  I stood in the kitchen, frozen. It was actually kind of scary watching them.

  Theo’s fingers twitched toward the solid metal chain that was looped from his belt to his wallet. As if he might snap it off and use it to slice through his boyfriend like butter. It was actually the same magic chain that had been used to bind him to a rock after he, still Prometheus, had given mankind fire.

  An eagle had come every day to eat his liver as punishment. Yeah, Zeus came up with some real doozies when he got pissed off. My lovely father had also forced Festos to both make the chain and bind Theo with it. That had been quite the setback to Festos getting a second date with Theo.

  “Try it,” Festos said, uncurling his right hand from his cane. “I made that chain and I will unmake it. And kill you myself if it keeps you safe.” Since Festos could unleash a torrent of flame and lava with the flick of a finger, I knew this was no idle threat.

  Theo’s jaw tightened. “Fine. I won’t go.”

  Festos relaxed. “Good.”

  Theo leaned over and kissed Festos hard. “If you die, I’ll reanimate you and then kill you myself.”

  Festos batted his lashes, coyly. “I love you too, sweets.”

  I was so over cute boys and their constant PDA. Okay, not really. But it was my birthday so unless I was the recipient of affection like that, it was time to focus. I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Okey dokey. Now that we’ve solved the matter of Theo’s survival, let’s do the same about mine.” I picked up a rag and ran it under the tap.

  There was silence for a few moments as we all mulled over the problem.

  I wiped the counter down as I thought. “Why haven’t Zeus and Hades sent all the minions after me at once before now? I would have been exhausted, out of power, and pretty easily killed. Happy them.” I leaned my hip against one of the kitchen counters, damp rag in hand as I glanced over at the boys still seated at the table.

  Theo shook his head. “Doubt even Zeus and Hades know how much it would deplete them to do that. They’ve never done such a thing. What if it weakened one more than the other? What if other gods decided to step in at that point and stage a coup? It wasn’t worth the risk for them.”

  “So they’re saving it all up for the big battle,” I said.
“Makes sense.”

  “It’s also not as much of a risk on the equinox,” Theo said, bending over to pick up the books I’d moved from the floor. He set them back down on the table. “If this idea of ‘one above’ and ‘one below’ gives you and Kai your greatest power on the equinox, assume the same for them.”

  I squeezed out the rag and draped it over the faucet. “Lovely.”

  Festos smacked the table, excitedly. “I think I can help with bringing the sunshine into your life,” he said. “I’m just that good.”

  “Okay, oh modest one,” I replied, giving him a playful shove as I returned to the table and sat down. “What’s your plan?”

  “Light boxes. Like, for depressed people.”

  I scrunched up my face in confusion. “Explain please.”

  Festos lit up. He found a pen on the table and began to sketch out a box with what I guessed were rays shooting from it. “People who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder use them. Basically, they sit in front of a box and expose themselves to specific wavelengths of light that mimic sunshine. You can use polychromatic polarized light, dichroic lamps, full-spectrum …”

  After about ten minutes’ worth of detailed explanation, Theo poked him. “Even I’m glazing over, babe.” Theo wrapped his hand around Fee’s neck and leaned into him. “And I love when you get all techie.”

  “Spare me the foreplay,” I muttered.

  “At least mine talks to me,” Festos shot back.

  “Ouch.”

  He leaned over and kissed my cheek. “Anyhoo, I could build you a specially amped up wearable version capable of feeding you all the light you need.”

  “If it works,” I pointed out.

  He nodded. “Which is why we commence testing. Also, I may have something up my sleeve that I could quickly doctor.”

  “See?” Theo said brightly. “All is well in hand.”

  Theo’s belief was so rock solid, it was hard to disagree. Also, I didn’t want to. I wanted to face this with optimism and the conviction of my victory. I’d been off my game, but talking this through had helped.

  As had the reaffirmation of everything we had going for us. In six more days, we were going to wrest power from Zeus and Hades and stop humans-as-expendables for good. Now, all I had to do was get Kai to talk to me and we’d be peachy.