And it was likely her kindness he had abused.
Hades’s magic welled, and in the next second, a familiar screech broke the air as the Furies—Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone—erupted from the floor around him. They hovered in a circle, their pale bodies adorned with black snakes that hissed as they slithered around their arms and their stomachs and their legs.
“Lord Hades,” they said, their voices a horrible, strange echo.
“Find Persephone,” he said. “Do what you must to keep her safe.”
The Furies screamed as they accepted their orders, and their black wings beat, whipping the air as they rocketed toward the ceiling, breeching the pinnacle of Nevernight, sending chunks of obsidian flying across New Athens.
“What can we do?” Helen asked.
“There is nothing you can do,” he snarled, and she stumbled back at his rage. He did not care that he had startled her, because he had silenced her, and that was what he needed right now—the quiet, so he could follow the Furies’ magic. While he held on to them, a finger twined around thread, his mind felt like a battlefield, erupting with nothing but thoughts of the consequences of finding her too late, and that only fueled his agony.
He knew when the Furies had located her because the tension between his magic and theirs lessened, and while he felt the smallest sense of relief, he would not be okay until he laid eyes on her, until he was certain she was unharmed.
He teleported, manifesting in the shadows of his own magic to find Persephone bound to a wooden chair. Her face was stained with tears—eyes red, lashes wet—and all around the room was what looked like wood debris. Then his eyes fell to the man who had abducted her.
Pirithous.
He was unassuming—thin and willowy with dark hair and high cheekbones. There was something to his features that made Hades think he had Divine blood. He was crumpled against the wall, a massive stake protruding from his chest.
He was dead, but not for long.
Hades called on his magic, and Pirithous gasped, then moaned, the pain of his wound shuddering through him. When he saw Hades, he began to whimper.
“I brought you back to life so I can tell you that I will enjoy torturing you for the rest of your eternal life. In fact, I think I will keep you alive so you can ruminate in your pain.”
Hades snapped his fingers, and a chasm opened beneath Pirithous’s body.
As the Earth fell away, he took pleasure in the sound of the man’s screams echoing as he fell to Tartarus.
“Alecto, Megaera, Tisiphone, see to Pirithous,” Hades ordered. The three would guard him until he could take over. They bowed and vanished, and Hades was left to care for Persephone.
He released her from the coarse bindings Pirithous had used to restrain her, noting the redness on her wrists. As he knelt before her, she fell into his arms, and he gathered her to him, teleporting to the Underworld. Once in their bedroom, she burst into tears, and he felt helpless to do anything but sit with her and hold her and let her expend every ounce of her fear.
“I’m so sorry,” Hades said as he rocked her. “I did not know. I’m so sorry.”
While he held her, he felt like breaking too. He could not control the beat of his own heart, could not stop his stomach from twisting or the nausea from climbing up this throat. He was angry for so many reasons, but at the end of the day, he was devastated that she had not been safe, that there was a possibility she would never feel safe again.
He did not know how long Persephone cried, but there came a time when she quieted, and when she pulled away, she took his heart with her.
“I need to scrub him from my skin.”
Hades said nothing because he feared what he would say and instead took her to the baths. Once there, he sat apart from her while she undressed and entered the hot pool. He watched as she washed every part of her skin until she was red from head to toe, and all he could think was that he had touched her there—everywhere. By the time she finished, his hands were fisted so tightly, his nails had cut into his palms.
He only healed them when she crawled into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. He was grateful for her closeness and held her tight.
“How did you know I was missing?” she asked.
“Your coworker, Helen, got worried when you didn’t come back from the basement. She went to search for you and found the journals.”
When he thought of them, he wanted to kill Pirithous a thousand times over—and he would. He had no tolerance for abusers of women and children, and the fact that Persephone was involved made it even worse.
“She didn’t know who to tell. For better or worse, she told a security guard. Zofie had been patrolling outside when she was notified, and she realized she’d watched Pirithous leave with you—in a tilt truck. When she told me, I sent the Furies. You had already been gone so long…I wasn’t sure what I would find.”
“He was a demigod,” she said, her voice quiet. “He had power.”
Hades’s earlier observation had been right, then. He grimaced.
“Demigods are dangerous, mostly because we do not know what power they will inherit from their Divine parent.” Not to mention many demigods did not know their parentage, and it was not always apparent even after their powers developed. Hades could not help thinking about Ariadne’s comment, that Theseus had gathered an army of demigods—soldiers, she had called them.
Pirithous was just one example of how little they actually knew about demigods—including their numbers, their powers, their capabilities.
“What was Pirithous able to use against you?”
“He put me to sleep, and when I woke, I couldn’t use my magic. I couldn’t focus. My head…my mind was in turmoil.”
Hades’s brows lowered. “Compulsion. It can have that affect.”
It took a lot of training to keep from being compelled too. Persephone would have had no chance to fight it.
After a moment, he asked in a quiet, rough voice, “Tell me what happened?”
She studied him for a moment, looking very troubled. Perhaps she worried over what he would do once he knew the full truth, and she had every reason to, because he was not stable at the moment.
“I will tell you if you will promise me one thing.”
Hades studied her face, waiting.
“When you torture him, I get to join you.”
He hugged her tight as he swore, “That is a promise I can keep.”
*
It might have been a promise Hades kept eventually, but it was not one he would keep tonight. Once Persephone was sleep, he teleported to Tartarus.
Pirithous had been taken to his office and tied to the same chair he’d used to restrain Persephone. The stake that had left him lifeless on the floor in the
Upperworld was still embedded in his chest, and with each breath the demigod took, he whined.
When Hades finally came face-to-face with him, he lashed out, kicking the stake farther into the man’s chest. Pirithous gave a pathetic cry and began to wheeze as blood spattered across the floor and dripped from his mouth.
“You touched my lover, my fiancée, my future,” Hades bellowed. “An unforgivable crime.”
“It’s not my fault!” Pirithous gave a gargled howl.
“Not your fault?” Hades repeated, the fury burning his blood. “Go ahead and tell me how it wasn’t your fault. You stalked her. You wrote horrible things about her. You abducted her. You. Touched. Her.”
He was raging, and once more, he kicked the man in the chest. This time, Persephone’s stake went right through him and fell to the floor, though Hades managed to hold on to the man’s life thread. He would not die yet.
He would face immeasurable pain, and despite the pleasure Hades would take from inflicting it, he knew it would not atone for what this man had done to Persephone.
“No,” Pirithous moaned, his words barely intelligible. “Th-Theseus said…we… Theseus said…”
“Theseus?” Hades repeated, his body stiffening at the sound of the demigod’s name. “Did you say Theseus?”
Pirithous nodded.