Sacrifice

by N. Isabelle Blanco

  A fatal mistake.

  Herakles is on him in the blink of an eye, an unrecognizable war cry bouncing off the cavernous ceiling. Hands around Catoblepas hooves, he tears him off the throne, only to send him crashing into the stone wall.

  Ground shaking force. Earthquake causing, actually. I skid along the ground, struggling for purchase, as the floor cracks open with multiple fissures.

  Catoblepas lets out a scream, whatever he said lost to the deafening sounds of a dimension threatening to fall apart.

  And the God of Power’s maddened snarl.

  I grab onto a boulder, fingers sinking through the surface. My arm jerks from the force of stopping my slide across the tilted ground.

  Within the whirlwind of pulverized dust and falling debris, I see Herakles slam his white-gloved fist into Catoblepas’ face.

  Straight through it, to be exact.

  Brain matter flies into the air.

  The creature’s eyes fall out of his sockets, rolling across the ground.

  His tongue lulls out, as well, a gruesome display . . .

  And unfortunately for him, it won’t be enough to kill him. Even with that hole in his skull, his immortality will keep him here. Herakles is a god, yet he doesn’t hold the same power of delivering instant death to an imperishable being such as I do.

  He’ll have to finish Catoblepas the old-fashioned way.

  Leaving nothing of his mind, the seat of his soul, behind.

  Something he’s clearly aware of.

  Releasing another unnatural shout, he yanks Catoblepas off the floor, his arm a near invisible blur as he shatters what’s left of that head.

  Then, the headless body is slammed into another wall, Herakles following in its wake.

  Mouth agape, I watch him devolve into a beast of legend, the insane side of him that was prolific enough to make it into his glorious legend. The monster without an ounce of rational.

  Bending over the crippled body, he tears into it piece by piece. Shred by shred. Punches reduce the matter to nothing but a pulp. Kicks turn bones into dust. That white and gold armor is covered in moments with blood and chunks of Catoblepas’ fur.

  Yet it’s what I see on the back of his bent neck that makes no sense.

  A gold fleck, same as what I’d seen in his fractured irises earlier, travels up from the collar of his armor, along the back of his nape, around toward the side of his face. Marking him.

  Carving.

  A black scar-like line is left in its wake.

  Something tells me that might not be the only one.

  Speaking of his eyes, how much do you want to bet what form they’ll be in once he pauses in that madness enough to turn around?

  Bright blue irises fractured like glass, black cracks with gold dots throughout.

  On and on it goes. What’s left of my last rapist seems to have been steamed rolled by a fucking mountain.

  Cro-Magnon sounding grunts leave Herakles as he continues his attack. Off to his left side, a shadowy figure takes shape.

  Catoblepas.

  His soul, actually.

  Watching a mortal awaken in the afterlife is disconcerting, even after I’ve seen it happen countless times. The ancient Greek religion is long dead in the human world, relegated to stories and myths. Only a few cults remain, thus feeding the Underworld souls upon their deaths.

  As an Erinye, however, I’ve been granted the gift of seeing all the dead. Have walked countless plains, watching as beings die, their essence released from their mortal prisons. Their confusion once they realize what’s happened is hardly ever missing. It usually takes beings a while to come to terms with what they now are.

  With the fact that, no matter how strong their belief system was while alive, if they had one, there is an afterlife.

  But seeing an immortal coming to terms with death? That’s on a whole other level. Their confusion is multiplied by age, by eons of walking the physical plane and believing they might never leave it.

  Catoblepas’ has mere seconds to come to grips with what he now is. What he’s watching--namely: Herakles’ continued, rabid desecration of what remains of his body.

  Just as the horror of his new reality sinks in, an unseen force grabs hold of his soul. Mouth open in a silent scream, he’s dragged off.

  The Dividing Road and three judges of the Underworld await.

  If that bastard is thrown anywhere but Tartarus, Hades and I shall have words. Especially after he gave his nephew what should’ve been my vengeance to reap.

  Stepping closer to the male engaged in tearing apart what’s left of . . . I guess, that’s a leg . . . I release a high-pitched whistle. “Dumb ass. He’s gone. There’s nothing left.”

  It’s like trying to get through to a crazed bear. Herakles’ head jerks at the sound of my voice, yet he continues to crouch over the remains as he struggles to find something intact to tear apart.

  The only “humanoid” thing about him in this moment is his physical form. His behavior and mannerisms are so far removed from civilized that I can’t even claim to recognize him.

  Of course I heard the rumors during our quest to help him succeed at his labors. Of course. Like the modern tales of the boogeyman, it was whispered behind his back, around the campfires.

  Don’t anger Herakles, a savage beast lives inside him.

  Killed his adoptive parents.

  Shredded through an entire village.

  Be careful, lest you’d be next.

  It was so hard to believe back then. The new hero of Greece? This physically perfect son of Zeus? Impossible.

  Not so. The proof lays feet from me now.

  I whistle again, much higher this time, the sound ricocheting like a bullet around us. “Herakles, damn you! Enough.” Stop pretending to give a damn he abused me. Stop looking so obsessed about it.

  After all, he’s the one that left me to this.

  Even if he didn’t know about my deal with Atë, he broke his promise the second he spun around and heading toward those gates. There’s no telling how my mortal life would’ve ended up once I was back on my own. What other horrors could’ve befallen me in that ancient, cruel world we were born into.

  Breaths sawing manically out of his chest, Herakles finally pauses. It takes minutes of deep breathing, each inhale and exhale slower than the last, for some of the tension to leak off his frame. Eventually, he’s back on his feet, turning in my direction.

  Right before my eyes, I see his own begin to change back. To literally knit themselves together, black cracks mending, gold flecks disappearing, leaving nothing but that blinding blue shade.

  Beneath his feet, the puddle of blood continues to grow, and the most fucked up part is that it isn’t from Catoblepas’ remains.

  Well, it is, but not what’s scattered on the floor. This is rivulets and rivulets of it, leaking off Herakles’ frame, torrents that cover almost every inch of his armor.

  He isn’t even ashamed about it, either. As some form of logic returns to his stare, he juts his chin, as if daring me to complain.

  Of course I fucking will! It wasn’t his place. He had no right. “What the hell is wrong with you? Why would you do that?”

  My question threatens to drive him back into that enraged pit. I can see it in the way he stops in front of me, eyes closed, controlling his breathing. When his lids rise, his eyes are completely back to normal.

  That expression on his face, though, is not.

  “I will slaughter them all. The ones that took you by force . . .” His bloody hand wraps around my chin; rapidly cooling droplets of leak down the sides of my jaw and onto my armor with small splats I can hear. “And the ones that you went to willingly.”

  I watch as he walks away, aghast. “You truly are mad.”

  Stopping for a brief moment, his head inclines in my direction. That new black and gold stain stretches along his rock-hard jaw. “Wasn’t I always, Meg?”

  CHAPTER 7

  – The Sempiternal Road
/>   HERAKLES

  It’s nothing but an abyss of a passageway. A dark hallway with no end in sight.

  No wonder they call it the “Sempiternal” Road.

  Megara’s ahead of me, as I’ve allowed her to be since we arrived at this place. She won’t look at me, hasn’t said a word since we exited Catoblepas’ cavern.

  Can’t think his name. Might never be able to again. The visions tormenting my mind threaten to distort what’s left of me.

  He took her.

  That hairy animal, twice her fucking size, once raped her.

  He destroyed her and left her broken enough to warrant a transformation into one of the few creatures that could survive his fucking cum inside her.

  A succubus.

  As Hades said previously, my losing myself to that other side is probably going to happen faster than anyone could’ve anticipated. It whispers. Laughs. Taunts me.

  It would always end this way. You’ve held me back long enough. Ever since killing your beloved parents.

  It’ll be worth it. To free that female, to make it up to her . . .

  “You could never make it up to me, you hear me?”

  She’s right. I can’t. No matter what I give her now, including my life, it won’t be enough.

  Air shimmers around me in a thin, prismatic wave that’s gone as soon as it appears. Hades is next to me within my next breath, the shadows that have always surrounded him also gone.

  Baring that face that I don’t recognize at all.

  My father has many siblings and regardless of what the mortals believed, what they carved and painted into their relics, each of them have at least one similar trait linking them to their father.

  To Cronus.

  This male I’m staring at possesses none. Not the eyes. Forehead. Chin. Not even his bearing. My father always carried himself like the most insufferable peacock alive, yet Hades’ arrogance is something else entirely.

  He physically seems to be my father’s age, as most immortals are frozen in what humans would call their late twenties or early thirties, yet I can’t shake the sense that Hades is much, much older than Zeus.

  That he’s existed since a time that defies understanding.

  At least my understanding.

  “Are we truly related?” I ask, although the answer shouldn’t be of importance to me anymore.

  I’ve long accepted that my father is a master of lies. Of false propaganda. That my immortal family played into it throughout their entire lives in order to maintain position and power.

  Hades black eyes flicker to me, then back to Meg, where she stands oblivious to his presence, checking her double swords with determination. “I am whatever you want me to be. Isn’t that how it works?”

  “I might be his son, but don’t dare attribute his traits to me.”

  “Yet wasn’t it that same DNA that sent you on a quest for glory so profound, you left an indelible mark through the ages? Cultures toppled. Kingdoms also fell. Religions died. Yet there you stood, Hercules, surviving the test of time. So damned famous, they won’t stop making movies about you.”

  “We all did. We’re all still spoken of, imitated in art. Including you. That doesn’t change what a cesspit of lies most of that turned out to be.”

  Hades hums. “Well, then. You have your answer, don’t you?” While my brain tries to digest that bombshell—holy shit did he just confirm he isn’t Zeus’ brother?—he motions to Meg. “She’ll fight you every step of the way, boy. Especially when it comes time to feed.”

  If he was looking to distract me from the shockwaves of his comment, he succeeds. In a flash, my family’s deceits and intrigues cease to matter and I’m overcome by a heatwave.

  That lust.

  The beginnings of that Succubus hold.

  “I won’t force her like others have,” I choke out, heartbeat pounding through my cock.

  Mouth flooding with hunger.

  Insides quivering with the dawn of a weakness I know I won’t beat. It’s bad enough when you become attached to a nymph you’ve just met.

  That one over there? I’ve loved her since I first saw her.

  Spent over two-thousand years mourning the loss of her.

  Missing her.

  “Once I turned her, no one ever forced her again,” Hades says conversationally, like he isn’t talking about the female I love being violated by countless beings.

  All while I lived, newly immortal, flooded with Power itself, clueless to the fact.

  A secondary heatwave, this one pure, white hot rage.

  “And if you aren’t the one to feed her, you’ll have to stand back and know she’s getting her sustenance from someone else.”

  He’s trying to accelerate my change.

  Once more, he’s succeeding.

  Irrational thoughts of ending every male form in existence so that Meg will only have me to feed from inundate my mind. “Why does it seem like she can’t hear us?”

  “Ah. Yes. You’ll need this skill. My assassin over there? Not so much.” He meets my gaze and taps two gloved fingers to my forehead—

  A rush of information and symbols take over my brain.

  Instructions.

  A way to create an invisible . . . shield?

  Yes. One that hides and protects. Meg can’t hear us and from her vantage point, if she stares this way, all she’ll see is me.

  Hades hid himself from her.

  “What in the . . .”

  “The God of Power, yet your education on how to tap into all that potential is woefully lacking. To be expected. You left the immortal world behind after only a single year in it. You’re going to have to learn everything you’re missing within the next few days, at most, if you plan to save her.”

  Fucking hate being part of the “immortal world” most of the time. Can’t deny it. “While going crazy.”

  Hades’ lips curl into a smirk. “While going crazy. You became the hero of all heroes for a reason. Act like it.”

  Was that a backhanded compliment from the God of the Underworld?

  “Feel, Kles. Allow yourself to feel. Whatever it is, don’t block it. Gather the intel around you.”

  Is he talking about my feelings, or something else entirely?

  Perhaps he’s alluding to both. The emotions I’m constantly fighting to suppress and something related to my powers. The ones he claims I never fully learned to use. “Are you trying to help me? Or finish ruining me?”

  “A little of both, I guess. You’ll be handling Cyclops first. His location was already given to Megara, but you might as well know. He’s been hiding in Axane.”

  I might have been away from the immortal world too long, but the mortal one? Even keeping away from human affairs, building my own empire of wealth didn’t leave much room for isolation. That name is one I recognize immediately. “The pharmaceutical corporation in California?”

  “I told you they’ve been causing havoc with mortal affairs.” With that, he vanishes in a mist of black smoke and the air ripples.

  I’m presuming that was the shield vanishing along with its creator.

  Megara turns to me, as if she finally sensed a disturbance in the air. “Got your shit together? Can we leave now?”

  I stare at the obscure walkway that stretches endlessly before us. “Sure. But just how do we—”

  A snap of her fingers and a thin sliver of light comes to life yards from where we are. It expands, soon forming a bright passageway, and Megara nods to it. “California is where we’re heading. After you, oh great god.”

  I almost confess I know Cyclops’ location, as well, yet it’s probably best to leave my conversation with Hades hidden for now. Megara always had a suspicious, overly analytical nature. She was born harder than most women of her day, more Spartan female than Thebian, and her hard edges have only become sharper with age.

  If she so much as finds out that Hades and I were speaking about her “feeding” . . .

  As if she’ll want that from me
.

  Maybe that was a flash of hunger I saw in my penthouse and earlier when Hades first took me to her, yet that was clearly her Succubi nature.

  The female herself hates every breath I take.

  And I won’t force her as the others have. If that means finding a way to give her the freedom necessary to seek what she needs elsewhere, then so be it.

  As I approach the bright light, a palm tree framed road on the other side, that laughter rings up from my gut again.

  The gloating cackle of that other voice. The agent of my darkest urges. The perpetrator of my most savage desires.

  We’ll never let another have her again.

  Ever.

  No one but us touches her from now on.

  Any who try, shall die.

  I shove it where I always do: in the tiniest corner of my mind. It hasn’t been this loud since my demigod days.

  Not like I’ll ever forgot what it’s capable of.

  I step foot onto a perfectly smooth road leading to the main headquarters of AXANE about half-a-mile away. From this distance, the three story, gated off facility can be seen, glowing with its bright lights.

  Alerting anyone nearby of its existence.

  Its glory.

  Megara comes through and quickly makes her way around me, making sure there’s a good few feet of distance separating us. “Even Hades couldn’t confirm exactly where he is. However, the facility has twenty floors beneath the ground. And based on the rumors of what’s being done down there, I think it’s safe to guess Cyclops might be on the very last one.”

  I expand my senses, searching out any life forms close by. Cataloguing all possible threats.

  With a mere thought from her, Megara’s swords and armor are replaced by regular, modern-day clothing—a pair of tight, dark jeans hugging those muscular thighs and pert ass.

  High-heeled boots that stop above her knees.

  A leather jacket that offsets that auburn hair and purple eyes.

  Fuck me. One thing immortality granted her, aside from her abilities—the main thing it grants all beings—was that powerful body. Every muscle larger. Defined.

  Yet still feminine enough to drive a male wild.