Sacrifice

by N. Isabelle Blanco

  With the black, stone walls of this passageway behind him, the light bronze glow that barely illuminates this realm, and his long, dark brown hair framing his face, he looks exactly like what he is—an ancient, demigod king, forever cursed to exist in this dark form.

  “You are in a constant state of lamenting yourself, Megara. It stains every part of your damaged soul. And it is when you stare in these eyes and are reminded of my other brother that your spirit bleeds the most.”

  He disappears before I can attempt to murder him for his audacity.

  I prepare to head out myself, perhaps head to the Diving Road and make Minos pay for that comment, when a harsh sound reaches my ears.

  A gasp, raspy, hollow sound.

  It’s the prisoner. Once one of the greatest gods in existence.

  Head thrown back against the wall, he’s laughing up toward the stone ceiling, skeletal chest bouncing.

  He’s made many sounds throughout the thousands of years he’s been down here, but I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed him laugh.

  He is mad, though. I mean, who wouldn’t be? From God of the Sun, revered by millions . . . to this.

  I turn to leave him to whatever demons are causing his hysteria—

  “Come. Come, Succubus. What you’ve sought for so long has finally revealed itself.”

  Maybe it’s the blast of disgust that word unleashes, the reminder of what else I was forced to become that stops me in my tracks.

  Perhaps it’s the fact he’s speaking semi-coherently.

  Most likely, it has to do with his mention of what I’ve been seeking this entire time.

  A god that is also his brother, just like Minos.

  A vengeance I’m owed, damn it.

  Against my better judgement—after all, he’s no doubt speaking to the specters in his mind, not me—I face him once more.

  A thin hand is extended in my direction, the thick silver cuff on the end rattling against the chain. Head still tilted toward the ceiling, he bends his fingers, beckoning me. “Come, lost child. Come. The Hero of Heroes can be seen through the veil.”

  That does it. There’s only one man—no, male now—he can be talking about.

  I materialize inside his cell, feet from his head, and I’m greeted by that once famous face, lost to time and his suffering. His cheekbones jut out on his emaciated face, the straight line of his nose made even more perfect by his lack of body fat.

  He’s frightening compared to what he was once, but the echoes of his beauty remain, as if adding more mockery to what’s become of him.

  His smile is maniacal, eyes gone completely white. There’s no telling where they’re focused but I’m guessing the ceiling by the angle of his—

  In a blur of a speed, his head snaps in my direction, remaining braced on the wall, and his gruesome smile widens. “Yesssss. The hatred within you shall bring retribution for us both.”

  “What are you talking about, Apollo?” I snap, disturbed by how unnerving his countenance is to me at this moment. Nearly three-thousand years trapped down here, ceaseless torture, countless rapes, violations that boggle the mind done to me, and yet something about the way he’s staring at me awakens that fear in my soul.

  The one I’d believed killed long ago.

  Those all-white eyes appear to move back and forth within his sunken sockets. “Fate. Fate. Original Fate. He had his brother do this to me, you know. Could not share his spotlight. Although I could see . . . the eons he sees.”

  What the hell? “Hades, your uncle, did this to you, mad one.”

  One of those bony fingers rises, pointed to the ceiling. “No. No. Not my uncle. Everything is a lie. And at Fate’s behest. Yes. Yes.” He rolls his head side to side along the wall, smiling up to where he just pointed. “Shining blue eyes, reflecting each event. No feeling in his soul. Soon . . . soon his full power will return and he’ll damn us all.”

  This was clearly a waste of my time. These are nothing more than the ramblings of a broken male. Tsking with pity at how far the Greek God of the Sun has fallen—although not a single one of them deserves an ounce of my sympathy—I shake my head and begin heading away from him.

  “Succubusssss . . .”

  “Stop calling me that!” I snap, stomach roiling with the reminder of what I had to become.

  What had to be done to me so I’d survive eons of rape by the monsters housed in this realm. Those first thousand years before Hades realized I was trapped down here and he drafted me into his service, finally giving me the type of protection needed so they’d all back off.

  But by then it was too late. I’d already been warped into this . . . this thing that now sustains nourishment from being intimate with the very creatures who once hurt me.

  “Make him pay, then. He is responsible. You made that deal, unbeknownst to him, to help him win. And what did he do as soon as Father awarded him victory? What did he do, Megara of Thebes, orphan with no sire’s name to claim? What did he do?”

  He is talking about him. His brother. One of the most famous legends to have ever arisen from that golden time of Greek god rule.

  Slamming my eyes closed, I struggle to shove millennia of agony back into its cage before it engulfs me once more.

  “What did he do? What did he do? What did he do?”

  My lids peel back, eyes unseeing. “He chose every single one of you miserable fucks over me and left me to deal with the consequences of my stupid mistake by myself.”

  Apollo’s answering cackle is high-pitched and loud enough to bounce off the stone walls. “Yes! Yes! Such vanity and pride. Just like our father. Just like me. Just like us all! Don’t you want to see him fall, little nymph? Don’t you? Don’t you?”

  We’re definitely speaking of his brother, the God of Power.

  The one the Romans came to known as Hercules.

  His real name, his given them, is Herakles, and I’ve spent every day since I was drafted into Hades’ service after the first thousand years of sheer torture trying to find a single trace of him.

  Only to fail. One search after another.

  “I see where he is, little nymph. I see him.”

  It’s enough to bring me back around to him. Even enough to help me ignore the fact he keeps pointing out the reason I’m now fully immortal--a secret I didn’t learn until I was dragged to the underworld to begin my never-ending sentence.

  As a mortal, I believed what everyone else believes: that nymphs and succubi were two different species. Instead, they’re one and the same, and that makes one term just as insulting as the other to one such as me.

  After all, I abhor what I now am. What I must do because of it.

  I reappear beside Apollo. “Where is he? Where is Herakles?”

  His reply is another of those ghastly, hollow laughs, one that rises in volume with every breath he takes.

  My hand curls into a fist at my side.

  I’m about to slam it right into his giggling face when a new presence arrives.

  An overwhelming presence. One that bends the entire atmosphere of this realm to its will. The stone walls and gothic carvings around us mutate, splitting in multiple, moving directions, a glitch effect that instantly disorients me.

  The pressure in the air is nearly unbearable and I grunt as I struggle to remain standing.

  Forcing my head to the side, I see him deep in the shadows beyond the prison door.

  Him.

  The lord of this realm.

  The King of us all.

  He’s nothing but a shadowy form with luminous eyes, yet there’s no mistaking it’s him.

  There never is.

  All he needs to do is wander into any place on this dimension and everything responds to his sovereignty.

  “Megara . . . my pretty assassin. As my nephew has already given away, I have a new mission for you.”

  “Not my uncle. Not my uncle. A million spiteful lies!”

  Ignoring Apollo’s odd comment--what the fuck does he mean Hades isn
’t his uncle?--I fight the dizziness that comes from seeing everything moving in at least three different directions at once, and head closer to Hades.”Why would you send me after your nephew?”

  Bronze eyes narrow with amusement within that shadowy form. “Because it’s finally time. You will do what must be done and destiny will finally be accomplished.”

  “I’m going to kill him. Your nephew. A god. You do understand that, right?”

  A blast of power pulses from him, barreling into the cell.

  Both Apollo and I are slammed into the rock wall.

  “Are you not one of my Erinyes, Megara?”

  Swiping bits of stone off my face, I grit out, “ I am.”

  “Then why else would I be sending you after Herakles?”

  So . . . the God of the Underworld wants the God of Power dead.

  I thought Hades had given up his goals of punishing Zeus long ago, after the Greek pantheon fell, yet here he is, doing what he does best.

  Finding yet another way to punish his brother.

  Yeah, Zeus isn’t the most loving father of all time, but Herakles always had a special spot in his petty heart.

  My blood rushes with cosmic excitement, a heady sensation that infuses me with giddiness.

  Finally.

  Finally.

  His time to die, to end up down here, suffering with the rest of us, has come.

  I will my swords into my hands--gifted to me by Hades, and split from one sword into two at his command, the weapons once known as the Harpe, the blade that took Medusa’s head, vibrate with energy in my grasp. I’m so focused on Herakles that I cease to notice the movement of the dimension in response to Hades’ presence. “Where am I going?”

  “Hmmm. New York, as you’d have it. Seems my nephew is living the high-life across from Central Park. Go figure, huh?”

  An address forms across the landscape of my mind, put there by him, and the last thing I hear before I vanish is Apollo’s taunting cries.

  “Not your nephew! Not your nephew! Just like me!”

  Opulence, everywhere the eyes can see.

  The immortal eyes, mind you.

  Yet I shouldn’t be surprised.

  Nothing but the best for him, the great legend that he is.

  Above my head? Gold slats between the white molding of the ceiling and narrowing my eyes is all it takes for me to confirm what I already suspected.

  Yup. That’s real gold. How much do you want to bet that’s twenty-four karats shining high up there?

  The chandeliers have gold accents, too.

  The floor . . . wait, is that . . . By the gods. Those are diamonds inlaid in the marble.

  Scoffing, I head over to the fireplace on the left side of the living room—which rivals a modern football stadium in size, swear it does—and run my finger across the Greek-inspired carvings.

  It’s not that I’m not surrounded by finery. The first millennia in Hades, I was one pit away from Tartarus itself, where Atë, the Goddess of Ruin, now reigns.

  She’s the one that offered me the deal, back when I was a clueless mortal. She presented herself as a loving sister that wanted nothing more than her brother’s success.

  Turns out, she was in league with her mother, Hera. Both of them wanted him destroyed.

  Should’ve never made that deal. Should’ve let them both succeed. Would’ve served that traitorous fool right.

  Atë and Hera’s plot, which apparently began before Herakles was even born, was discovered by Zeus prior to Herakles completing his tasks. As punishment, he grabbed his first-born daughter by the hair and flung her off Olympus.

  Very much like the human’s tale of Lucifer and God.

  Atë fell so far, so hard, she bypassed the Earthen dimension and ended up in Hades.

  I’ll never forget the bitch’s glee the moment Herakles turned his back on me to enter the golden gates of Olympus and she appeared to collect me as her due.

  Pointless glee. Herakles didn’t care for me in the end. The brother she loathed now held her sacred place among their family. He hugged me, kissed me softly, thanked me for the help . . . then, with his skin beginning to glow golden from his full godhood sinking in, he turned around and walked away.

  He. Walked. Away.

  So Atë’s happiness at the prospect of punishing me for his sins was always asinine. ‘Till this day I don’t understand it.

  But once Hades himself became aware of my plight, he intervened—for reasons still unknown to me—and ripped me from Atë’s grasp. Ever since then, for the last fifteen-hundred years, I’ve had my own quarters in the Erinyes wing of his palace in the underworld.

  A palace that makes a mockery of most refined places.

  Still, for being in the mortal, modern world, I have to admit, Herakles might’ve gone overboard with the expenses.

  More proof of who he always was. I just didn’t see it at first, bought into his little polite good boy act. In reality, he’s vain. Egotistical. Probably on par with Narcissus himself.

  That sickening feeling that’s followed me for eternity twists in my chest. In my mind. It’s so damn wrong inside me, every moment of my miserable life, that the only thing that soothes me now is killing.

  And fucking.

  But that’s because of what I now am. I derive nourishment from sex. It just is what it is.

  It all happened because of him and I. I want Atë dead as well, don’t get me wrong, but in the end my fate, what happened to me, what I endured and became, is mine and Herakles’ fault.

  Mine, for loving him. For being faithful to him. For wanting him to succeed so badly, it never occurred to me that he would leave me behind.

  Mortals couldn’t live on Olympus.

  Yet he didn’t even try asking. Didn’t fight for my presence in his life.

  That isn’t the part I blame him most for. It’s the journey. The way he treated me. The way he would look at me. Talk to me.

  Touch and make love to me.

  He made me believe I was everything to him.

  I paid dearly for that belief.

  So today, finally, he dies.

  Nursing that corroded infestation of hatred in my soul, I head over to one of the velvet, navy blue armchairs in the middle of the living room, facing the floor to ceiling windows.

  Taking a seat, I lean back, get comfortable, and what for that son of a bitch to show his fucking face.

  CHAPTER 2

  Present

  – New York City, NY (USA)

  HERAKLES

  “What? No answer. Hm. I would say ‘pity’, but it’s better this way. Don’t need to hear your voice before I end you.”

  I’m astonished past words or coherent thought. Eyes eating up the impossibility of this hallucination—

  She slams both her hands on the hilt of her sword. A blast of violet energy throbs down its length and with a quick flick of her wrists, the blade is separated into two identical blades. Another quick movement and they’re arching in a circle around her form, before coming to rest by her hips.

  Loosely held.

  An expert grip.

  A deadly one.

  I step back involuntarily, not because I fear her—although every warrior instinct in my body is screaming that I fucking should—but from the knowledge of what this all means.

  Whatever happened to her, whatever she became, she’s no longer mortal. Hasn’t been for the Fates know how long. Something changed her into this unbelievably powerful creature standing feet from me.

  She shifts, the emblem on her armor glinting in the light and catching my gaze for the first time.

  “Meg,” her name finally leaves me; a shocked breath, a pitiful plea. Please don’t let this be true. Don’t let this have happened to you.

  Her dematerializing is hard, fast. The only thing I can register is the pieces of marble left flying through the air in her wake, one piece large enough to break an antique vase as it shoots through it. The sound of glass shattering fills the air. />
  I have just enough time to roll away, my lion fur coat flaring around me. It’s followed by an instinctive attempt at flashing to the other side of the penthouse—

  It’s like my molecules are plucked right out of the air and I’m forced to reform, slamming into the wall with enough force to shake the entire penthouse. The wall crumbles in my wake. I barely stop myself from going straight through.

  Violet.

  Purple.

  Blue.

  Those eyes.

  Hatred.

  A scent that addles me as heat floods every ounce of my body.

  It’s a mad whirl of sensory input and next thing I know, one of those swords is arching toward my head. I twitch my neck, barely evading it. It slices through the wall behind me as if it’s made of paper. In that split second, my advanced eyesight magnifies the metal.

  It’s composition.

  The immediate suspicion is a second dose of awe.

  No time. Her other blade comes at the other side of my head, fast enough to pass through the sound barrier with a crack. Our eyes lock and my determination to get to the bottom of what the fuck is happening fuels my infamous response time; my forearm shoots up, slamming into the back of her own. The hit sends the blade out of her hand and into one of the windows.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see the entire window fracture apart, air flooding inside. That sword, if it’s what I think it is, is capable of slicing through anything. Mortals are in danger of getting hurt out there.

  Megara doesn’t give me any more time to think on it. Lips parted in a snarl, she twirls, the remaining blade aimed at my neck.

  A thought and I appear at her back, hand around her wrist. I follow it with a jerk that would’ve torn a mortal’s hand right off the bone. Instead, she merely loses her grip on the blade and it, too, shoots through the air and into one of the walls.

  The warrior in me shouts my next move. Powers I rarely use anymore, the voice of Power itself, demand I incapacitate my assailant.

  Flip her to the ground.

  Wrap my hands around her neck.