Sacrifice

by N. Isabelle Blanco

  Immobilize her.

  My chest expands with a breath and the scent of her is back in me.

  Changing me.

  Crippling me.

  There’s something coming off her, a force that wraps around every one of my senses—

  Her armored elbow catches me right in the face. Bone crunches inward. Blood rushes to cover my lips and chin.

  She’s out of my grip, faster than quicksilver. Again, it’s the voice of Power that grabs control, blocking the knee she throws with my arm.

  A hand cracks along my temple.

  I block her second attempt at slapping me, only to feel her fist connecting with my cheekbone hard enough to send every sinew rippling. Flesh is torn open along my shattered teeth.

  Growling, I start to dematerialize, but I’m pulled out of the air once more and slammed into yet another wall.

  Which makes sense, my brain admits, eyes falling to that emblem on her left breast.

  No one ever gets away from them once they’re made a target.

  No one escapes Hades’ personal assassins.

  The Erinyes.

  Megara takes advantage of another round of my distraction, flipping into the air in a perfectly synchronized move, head over heels, one booted foot ramming full strength into my shoulder.

  I’m dropped right to my hands and knees on the marble, destroying another layer.

  Yet all I feel is the mind-numbing rage.

  The disbelief.

  He’s had her this entire time. He’s fucking had her. He turned her into this and hid her from me!

  And that’s not all he’s done. The aching pulse between my legs, the rush of adrenalized blood abusing my heart, screams that this is more than what I’m admitting to myself.

  Megara isn’t just one of Hades’ immortal assassins now.

  I’ve experienced this unrelenting pull, this insane need to fuck, before.

  My throat expands with a rough sound and I’m on my feet on a burst of pure instinct.

  That feminine snarl leaves her again as she tackles me back into the wall. I dodge one fist; the molding on the wall is pulverized to ashes. Dodging the other, I hear the other side of the wall fair the same.

  That face I spent eons envisioning, countless nights drawing from memory, is flooded with malice. An eternal need to kill.

  She wasn’t just sent here by Hades to finish me off.

  Megara wants me dead more than she’s ever wanted anything before.

  Not more than I want her, though, and horror fills me at the thought. This isn’t just because I missed her. This isn’t just the same age-old, obsessive lust that possessed me the moment I first laid eyes on her.

  “Meg, stop . . . talk to me.”

  “Talk, you bastard? Fine!” She grabs me by my shirt, managing to lift me into the air—

  The large, marble coffee table disintegrates upon impact as I’m slammed through it.

  Aura pulsating with fury, she grabs a chunk of the marble and breaks it across my face. “How’s that for talking, Herakles?”

  I cough from the cloud of dust unleashed by the destroyed marble. “Megara, wait—”

  And just like that, I’m airborn again, flung across my penthouse. Lamps are kicked up in my wake as I bump into them. More glass breaking.

  An impact on the floor I know for a fact had to be felt by the rest of the inhabitants in this forty-story building.

  A building that also happens to be a hotel.

  Not that Megara cares.

  I feel her hands wrapping around my fur coat to throw me once more.

  ENOUGH.

  That command from Power barrels through, my gold and white aura flaring to life and flooding the penthouse with light. “Enough!” I hear my voice, split in two between my normal tone and the reverberation of sentient energy, mimic the roar inside me.

  She might be an assassin now, an elite kind that’s nearly unbeatable.

  She might be . . . something else I can’t bring myself to name.

  Yet I am still fucking Herakles, the Greek God of Power, and I say this ends.

  Now.

  I move at a speed I can’t even keep up with, hands wrapping around her. Body propelling us like bullets across the vast space. I have her against the wall, kicking, growling, and near screaming, in the blink of an eye.

  Even faster, the thirst spreads. The need to taste her on my tongue. Have her wrapped tight around my cock. Every move she makes to free herself, every ounce of her struggle, feeds the urge to dominate her. “Fuck me, I just want to be inside you,” two voices groan at her as I wrap a hand around her thigh to spread her legs and press my weight against her.

  An attempt to further subdue her.

  A mindless move to get me closer to accomplishing what I just mentioned.

  I haven’t been this savage with the need to take a female since the first time I ever laid eyes on her.

  Maybe not even then.

  There’s a slight ebb in her frenzied movement, a softening in her luscious form.

  Eyes on my lips, pupils dilating past a mortal’s capacity, she exhales a whimpered breath.

  That’s all it takes for me to almost bust in my slacks.

  All over her.

  Panting like a deranged bull, I wrap my hands around her waist and jerk her higher. I’m cradled between her thighs now, the one place I’d gladly die to be, and nothing’s ever looked as delicious as her lips.

  I want her cunt on my mouth just as bad.

  “We’ll talk after.” Hips rocking into hers, I lean to take those lips. “After I’ve made you drench my cock.”

  Her moan is catastrophic music to my ears, a starving sound that heightens my awareness of her as much as proves she’s right here with me.

  Needing this as bad as I—

  Meg’s head cracks forward, connecting violently with my own.

  I’m pushed away from her, head ringing from the impact. For a single breath, I’m bombarded by her panic stricken expression.

  Then, she’s gone, disappearing into the ether from whence she came.

  No. Not the ether. A distinct, cold smell is left in her place, one that I remember very fucking well.

  Hades. Not my uncle, but the realm itself.

  A realm I can’t simply flash myself into like Meg just did.

  Doesn’t stop my stupid ass from trying.

  Forgetting about the restriction on outsider entry, I break apart my physical form, intent on invading the underworld once more--

  And slam straight into the aforementioned but forgotten barrier. An invisible block in the fabric of space and time that ejects me back into my penthouse and into solid form. I try to stop myself, yet I’m sent cutting through my marble floor like a meteor impacting the Earth.

  The building shakes even harder than the last time.

  Undoubtedly, that’s the screams of the mortals I hear rising in the air. The fire alarms somehow triggered. Their frantic footsteps as they rush to escape down the stairs, clueless as to why this entire structure just momentarily tilted.

  I finally come to a stop by the stairs leading to the second level, fingers knuckle deep in the floor. My first thought is to shout, rage, finish destroying every inch of this building. That secondary voice, the one that lurks beneath the impulses of Power, whispers to life.

  Ruin it all.

  Blaze a path of annihilation.

  Slay everyone.

  I’d managed to suppress those impulses for untold ages. My legend became grossly exaggerated in some parts, but in others it was accurate beyond belief.

  Those infamous rages that drove me to commit unspeakable atrocities? They were real. Except, I never had a wife or children to slaughter.

  What I did in the grips of them was much, much worse.

  Grappling for calm, I reach for my cell in my pocket.

  Ashes. It’s been reduced to even less than that.

  Thank the Fates the gods, like me, were gifted with the ability to will almost an
ything into being.

  Envisioning a replica of the device into my palm, I punch in Theseus number. He picks up first ring and I shout into the device, “Get over here, now!” Discarding it without a second thought, I head into my bathroom. My phone rings from where I left it. It wouldn’t be him, he knows not to question me in this mood, so I can only assume it’s building management, trying to get me to evac like the rest of the residents.

  Fuck that.

  My bones have already begun to heal back to their original form, the torn skin along my face reknitting itself. The wound inside my mouth is long gone. Yet the blood she drew remains on my skin.

  The blood she drew.

  My Meg.

  The world threatens to destabilize before my eyes from another round of disbelief. If her scent, so similar yet different from what it was when she was mortal, hadn’t clung to every bit of me, I’d believe it was that madness finally come to collect me.

  The insanity I battled back for so long settling in permanently.

  But it was her. She was here, immortal, determined to murder me.

  With the weapons and the strength to succeed at her task.

  With that emblem on her armor that designates her as an elite powerful enough to strike fear into even the hearts of the gods.

  I step into one of the many bathrooms and begin rinsing the blood off my face. As with the materializing of the phone, this too I can simply will away.

  Cold water helps with anger, however. Even when you’re a god. Right now, I should be dousing myself head to toe in it.

  That’s how Theseus finds me when he appears at the doorway to the bathroom.The infamous first King and founder of Athens, a man that traveled with me on my asinine tasks that led to my own fame, rises a dark eyebrow at my state. “Alright. Who pissed off the nuclear bomb waiting to go off?” In his expensive light blue suit, he steps further into the bathroom, hands in his slacks.

  “Hades. I’m heading there. There’s a blade that got propelled out the window. Need you to find it and bring it to me. I suspect it’s half of the Harpe.”

  “Whoa. Whoa. Slow down. What the fuck happened here? Seriously? And why is there what appears to be every cop and firefighter in the city gathering down there?”

  “The building tilted for a bit. Meg was here. She tried to kill me—”

  The mention of her name does it. He’s next to me in the blink of an eye, grabbing my arm as I’m wiping my face clean. “Who?”

  “Me-ga-ra. Meg.”

  The doubt I felt upon my first glance of her fills his expression. That silent question. “Is he insane?”

  I’m about to be.

  It’s not a look I haven’t gotten from him before, either.

  “Listen to me,” I snap, slamming the cloth into the sink and facing him. “The rumors of my uncle being up to something are true. Megara is one of his assassins—”

  “An Erinye?”

  “Yes, a motherfucking Erinye! Now get me those fucking blades because I’m going into Hades to murder him.” Vision pulsing red, I push past Theseus.

  Or, at least, I try to.

  Grip harsh, he stops me with a hand around my arm. “Kles, stop for a second.”

  “No time!” I bump him out of my way and head back out to the living room. One of the two missing blades is where Meg and I left it mid-fight—embedded in the wall.

  About four feet into it, to be exact.

  I reach into the hole it made and bring it out, holding it up for Theseus incredulous hazel gaze. Once I’m sure the recognition of what it’s made out of has sunken in, I throw it at him. “The other one went that way.” I point at the broken window. “Go get it.”

  “You aren’t the boss of me.” But he disappears from sight, on his way to hunt the blade down.

  Good thing I didn’t reiterate my plan to head to Hades. There’s only one way in for anyone not granted free entry and I’ll be heading there as soon as I get those blades and some last minute shit in order.

  Top of that list? A visit to Haphaestus, one of the few gods I’ve remained in contact with. He owes me a favor. One that I’ve waited thousands of years to collect.

  CHAPTER 3

  – Entrance to Hades, Póntos Áxeinos, The Black Sea.

  1,675 miles from the shore of Istanbul

  HERAKLES

  Millions of falsehoods we’ve had to let lie. The ones I now know of, and many I’m sure I’ve been left in the dark about. Every modern human, as well as the mortal Greeks of my time, believe the entrances to Hades all lie in Greece.

  Or Hellas, as we called our country. The bloody Romes are to thank for the name Graecia, which would lead to my land’s modern name.

  My beautiful, tragic land, filled with its naive, gullible people. The same ones that believed everything they were fed without questioning any of it. For the most part, at least.

  I, too, believed all the tales, until the day I had to find my actual way into the underworld. Those tasks I became known for were straight forward. I didn’t encounter any of them, as the myth claims. I was an errand boy hellbent on completing his mission of becoming a legend and I went everywhere I was told.

  Nemean Lion? Found it exactly where I was informed it was.

  Hydra? Same shit.

  Acquire the Ceryneian Hind? I’m sure you can guess where this is heading.

  On and on it went. Years of my life lost to the cause. So many of my companions, including Meg, also wasting away their time to help me achieve my glory.

  I found and conquered the object of each mission in the same place we were pointed to. That is, until my final task. Until I had to invade the Underworld.

  Cerberus.

  I’ll never forget that journey. That task. What it did to me from the very beginning.

  It changed everything. Turned my ignorance on its head and taught me that I might be entering a world of deceit.

  Did it stop me from wanting my godhood? Obviously not. It was merely a beginning. A seed planted that would one day sprout into my complete dissatisfaction.

  That would lead to my abandoning an entire pantheon at the time they needed me the most.

  None of the entrances to Hades lie in my country. As a matter of fact, there wasn’t even more than one.

  The single way in was located thousands upon thousands of miles away, on an invisible island out on the Póntos Áxeinos.

  Or, as it’s now known, the Black Sea.

  From the shores of Byzántion—Byzantium in English—we sailed deep into some of the most inhospitable, most difficult to navigate waters known to man at that time. Eventually, the veil was peeled back and the small, dark island with its actual accessway to Hades was revealed.

  The same island I’ve just stepped foot onto, memories from that bygone time eating at my mind.

  My new mission even more so.

  “You’re not powerful enough to take him on, even with all your might, God of Power. You can suck a god’s energy right from his soul, but I think the rumors are true: Hades has reached a level even your father couldn’t imagine. Perhaps, he always did possess more power than the mighty Zeus himself.”

  The main problem with having friends that are also immortals, that can travel by thought alone just like you? Once they decide to stick to you, that’s that. Getting rid of them is an impossibility. “I faced him and won once, Theseus.”

  “You faced his beastly dog and he gave you permission to take him once you won.”

  “He allowed me to take you, as well.” Theseus had been condemned to the underworld after separating from my crew. Why? Oh, for letting his friend convince him that trying to free Persephone was a good idea.

  Sadly for both those idiots, she was long gone by the time they got there. What Pirithous heard in his dreams that led him to desire her so badly was nothing more than echoes of her suffering emanating from Hades.

  A ghostly voice that no longer had a source.

  Didn’t stop my uncle from unleashing his rage on the t
wo idiots that dared desire his mistreated and ill-gotten bride.

  Our boots crunch over the dry, dark stones as we walk further inland. At our backs, black waves continue to crash against the shore, burning sea spray hitting the tall walls of gray rock just ahead.

  The path in between the two, mountainous barriers is even blacker than the sea we’re walking away from. No matter. It’s a trek I remember all too well. Within that darkness lies the shores of the real river of Suffering.

  The true Acheron.

  Its horrors don’t begin until once you’re in the underworld, the forced recollection that simply sailing on it brings forth. On the surface, that river simply leads to the guarded entrance of an entirely different dimension.

  The beginning might be on Earth, but the endpoint is somewhere entirely different.

  A disorienting, twisted world deep in the far reaches of our Universe.

  And that’s before one encounters its ruler. Hades’ mere presence in any part of his domain unleashes a bewildering chain reaction that leaves even the strongest of immortals confused and off-kilter.

  He thrives on that. On reminding anyone that enters that he happens to be lord of that realm.

  Also thrives on vengeance, as evidenced by his actions thousands of years after my father already paid for his sins.

  Alright. He hasn’t paid for all of them. Again, the modern world thinks they have an understanding of Zeus through myths; I pity them for ever placing even an ounce of honor upon his head.

  My father is the monster the myths hinted at and more.

  There are things he’s done that were purposely left out. PR has ruled humanity since the beginning of time. In order to maintain the belief that the new ruler of the Greek gods, the male that managed to overthrow the Titans, was even a little bit worthy of his throne, some things had to be scrubbed from history.

  Things I can’t bring myself to think about most of the time.

  Things that my uncle Hades isn’t ready to let Zeus off the hook for.

  Not that I blame him. His one mistake, though? Using me against my father. Using Meg against me. I might’ve forgiven him turning me into a puppet of retribution, but keeping my Meg? Making her an Erinye?

  Turning her into a . . . can’t even fucking say it. Acknowledging it means analyzing the repercussions of her new species. What it would have forced her to do the last two millennia she’s been alive without me.