Hellequin Chronicles 4: Prison of Hope

by Steve McHugh

  Ares sat on the other side of his mum, Hera, and my anger rose considerably at his presence. But I knew that diving over the table to grab him for his backing of Mordred’s twisted experiments would get me killed.

  Ares had married Aphrodite years ago, after her last husband, Hephaestus, divorced her when he caught them going at it like rutting dogs in his bed. Word was that the much smaller man scared Ares. For all of his biker-looks, his huge physique, and imposing personality, it made me wonder what had really happened between him and Hephaestus. Because ever since then, Ares will happily prove just how manly he is to anyone who questions it, usually by beating the guy so badly that he can’t talk for a few days.

  The fact that Hephaestus wasn’t at the table wasn’t a surprise. He’d never been much of a politician and had preferred to work with his alchemy, creating things for himself and those he cared about. I always thought that he was a creepy bastard, but anyone who scared Ares couldn’t be all bad.

  Demeter sat on the far side of the table, her gaze at me full of evil intent. To suggest that she didn’t like me was probably akin to me saying that being shot isn’t much fun; I’d need a lot more adjectives. Demeter looks a lot like her daughter Persephone, but her face is harder, and her eyes are full of menace. You know people say that if your heart is filled with evil intent, your face will start to reflect that evil. Well, Demeter looks like she wraps herself up in that shit and never wants to leave.

  I risked a glance back to Deimos, who sat on the other side of Aphrodite, and caught him looking down her top. He saw me watching him and quickly averted his gaze, glancing instead at me with total disdain and an anger that appeared barely in check, while Aphrodite smiled. Deimos still had the same beard as when I’d last seen him, although now he had tattoos on his arms, one of which appeared to be a strand of barbed wire wound around his tense bicep, noticeable because of his skintight red T-shirt that showed off every single muscle in his upper body. It also made him an even bigger dick than I’d originally thought.

  I glanced at Selene, who was looking away. I hadn’t seen Selene since I’d walked away from her in Berlin in ’36. She’d grown her hair out since then and changed the color to a dark red. She looked elegant in a red and black dress, and a mixture of anger and the need to be with her flowed through me, neither one winning that particular skirmish. Deimos placed his hand on her forearm and nodded in my direction. Eos held onto my hand as if it were the only thing stopping me from exploding.

  Hyperion sat on the other side of Selene and took a deep breath. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, with short graying hair and a few days of stubble. He looked a lot like his son, Helios. I wondered if he’d stopped whatever awful things Hera would have had done to Helios once he was in her custody. Hyperion glanced up at me once and held my gaze, although he ignored everyone else in the room apart from Hera and his daughters.

  I wanted to punch him in his face. Even after all these years, that was the overriding desire. Instead, I turned back to Hera, who was having a chat with Ares.

  “Hera,” Eos said when it became apparent that Hera didn’t give a fuck about our being there. “You need to hear what these people have to say.”

  Olivia stepped forward. “My name is Olivia Green. I’m the director of the Winchester branch of the LOA.”

  Hera actually yawned, and I saw Tommy tense.

  “Why should I care who any of you are?” Hera asked, almost bored. “I was enjoying an evening with my family and friends. Exactly what was the point in your removing me from my pleasant time?”

  “Cronus has escaped,” Olivia said.

  “And?” Hera asked, as if it weren’t something she needed to concern herself with. “I got the message from Hades. If I didn’t want to talk to him, why in the world would you believe I would talk to you? Cronus has wanted me dead for a long time.” Hera laughed. “You think he’d manage to succeed? Because I’m certain he won’t get through the gates.”

  “He won’t do it here,” I said.

  Hera’s eyes narrowed in my direction. “Did I say you could speak?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “Maybe I imagined it. Cronus is coming to kill you. He thinks you murdered his son and wants revenge.”

  “You know nothing about Zeus,” she snapped, and an angry expression crossed Ares’s face.

  “I didn’t suggest you did anything to Zeus,” I said. “But Cronus doesn’t care. He won’t kill you here; he’ll wait to attack somewhere where you’re less safe. Do you have any public engagements in the next few days?”

  “The book fair,” Aphrodite said, managing to make the words “book fair” sound sexy, a feat that had probably never before been achieved in the history of humanity.

  “You have a book fair?” Olivia asked.

  Hera glared at Aphrodite, who barely seemed to register the other woman’s feelings. “Yes, the London Book Fair. We’ll be going to have some meetings with investors. As you know, Aphrodite owns one of the world’s biggest publishers of romance books. But I assure you, we have our own security, and there will be thousands of people in Earl’s Court. Cronus would not try to attack us there—it would be suicide.”

  Earl’s Court was a massive building in London. It was usually the place to hold huge conventions and the like. It meant there would be thousands of people inside that building when Cronus attacked. Thousands of potential victims.

  “I don’t think he cares about such things,” I said.

  “What you think doesn’t matter!” Demeter snapped. “Now, you came here to give us a message and you’ve given it. You may leave.”

  “So, that’s it?” Olivia asked.

  “He’s barely going to be a match for a human,” Ares said. “He’s been in Tartarus for too long; his power will be tiny compared to ours. We’ll destroy him—hell, I’ll welcome the fun.”

  Aphrodite giggled, actually fucking giggled, like she was someone’s damn groupie, and Ares grinned like an idiot. From what I understood, Aphrodite held the power in that relationship, even if she liked Ares to think otherwise.

  I turned to leave.

  “Nathan,” Deimos called out.

  I stopped and turned to face him as he walked around the table. “I just wanted you to know something,” he said loud enough for everyone to hear. “Every night when I’m inside the woman you used to love, when she closes her eyes and arches her back as she comes so damn hard . . . Oh, actually that’s it, I just wanted you to know what she does every night.”

  I glanced at him and returned his grin with one of my own. “You seem to be under the false impression that I care about who she sleeps with, but I can assure you, that ship has well and truly set sail. Enjoy your married life together.”

  Hera glanced over at Selene and grinned. Selene, on the other hand, had turned away from watching her husband and me talking.

  “We both know you can’t stand that I won,” Deimos snapped as I walked away. “Selene is mine, not yours. As it will always be.”

  I paused at the door and turned back to the room. “Deimos, exactly who do you believe Selene’s thinking about when she closes her eyes? Because it sure as fuck isn’t you.” I walked out of the room without another word.

  We’d left the mansion, and I wanted nothing more than to let Cronus come and try to kill Hera. She was so damn certain of herself and how safe she was that it was infuriating. She couldn’t see any possibility that her life was genuinely in danger. And the word of three people she considered beneath her was hardly likely to change her mind anytime soon.

  We’d reached the SUVs when Eos called out from behind us. We all waited by the cars as she left the security of the mansion’s grounds and walked over to me.

  She hugged me tightly and grabbed my hand, leaving something that felt like paper inside. “This address in thirty minutes,” she whispered. “There are things you need to know. Do not be late.” Then she turned and walked back past the gates, which closed after her.

  Once I was at th
e car, I opened the paper, making sure I kept my back to the gates. The address written on it was for a bar not too far from where we were. I told Tommy and Olivia.

  “What do you think she wants to talk about?” Tommy asked.

  “No idea.” I said. “I guess we’d better go find out.”

  Tommy took the car with me on the short trip, presumably because Olivia had her phone out and was talking on it before we’d even reached the cars.

  “So, that went better than expected,” Tommy said once we were on our way.

  I turned toward my friend. “In what way is that true?”

  He ticked the reasons off on his fingers. “One, you didn’t try to tear Deimos into tiny bite-sized chunks. Two, no one died. And three, I managed to keep my temper when that fucking asshole spoke down to Olivia like she was something found on the bottom of her shoe.”

  “I noticed that,” I admitted. “I was very proud of you. Being all grown up and everything.”

  “I’ve been practicing. So far I’ve gone a few years without tearing anyone’s head off for pissing me off. It’s going well.”

  I laughed. “Glad to hear it. You know Hera could have killed us all if she’d had the inclination.”

  “Oh, yeah, the woman terrifies me. I wonder if she really did kill Zeus. If I were him, I’d have gone into hiding long before she got the chance.”

  “Don’t know. My gut tells me he’s dead. But I’ve thought people were dead before, and they popped right back up. If Zeus isn’t dead, he’s somewhere far away from anyone who knows him. Either Hera killed him or removed him from the picture. Either way, something bad happened to him.”

  “So, how was seeing Selene again? You managed to embarrass Deimos. Again.”

  “Everyone needs a hobby.”

  “Pissing off that psychotic little prick is probably one that will come back to bite you in the ass, though.”

  “He can get in line; I’m busy.”

  Tommy was quiet for a few seconds. “Do you think Kasey is okay?”

  “She’s fine; certainly she’ll be enjoying herself more than we are. But if you’re worried, call her. Brutus wouldn’t let anything happen to her, and Diana certainly won’t. Would you want to go up against Diana?”

  “I’d rather fight Cronus.” He took his phone from his pocket and dialed, talking to Kasey a moment later. When he’d hung up, he turned to me. “Kasey said that she wants to go back to Brutus’s place at some point in the future. Diana said there’s loads of stuff she probably won’t get to see.”

  “Glad to hear she’s enjoying herself.”

  “Living with a teenage girl is like walking through a tiger-infested forest; you’re pretty sure you know where the trouble’s coming from, and you try to avoid it, but just as you think you’re scot-free, a big fucking mass of trouble jumps out at you.”

  I laughed. “But I guarantee you: you wouldn’t change it for the world.”

  “Nate, I’ve considered shooting her with a tranquilizer dart, just so she’d stop being a moody shit. But, no, I wouldn’t change it for the world. She’s my little girl. Always will be.”

  I patted him on the shoulder. “Plan on having more?”

  “Fuck no!”

  We both laughed as the car pulled to a stop, and were still laughing as we got out and met Olivia. “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “Nate wanted to know if we were going to have more kids.”

  “Fuck no,” Olivia expressed, making Tommy and me laugh again.

  “Every day I wonder if I behaved toward my mum the way Kasey does,” she said as we waited by the cars.

  “Did you?”

  “Almost certainly. I think the only difference is that my mum was more apt at throwing stuff at my head when I did.”

  “Did that make you stop?”

  Olivia shook her head. “I think the days of pelting our children with stuff are sadly behind us.”

  “Parents these days,” I said with a grin.

  “Very funny,” Olivia said. “We’ll send her to stay with you for a week, see how you take to having her roll her eyes at you every time you say something.”

  I laughed, and it felt good to remove some of the anger and tension that had built up inside me.

  The bar was off the main street and appeared to be a fairly classy establishment, with very few people in there. The area was quiet, and there was a park nearby with two policemen walking through it.

  “You can go in, you know,” Eos told us from the darkness that sat at the edge of the building. She stepped into view, under one of the nearby streetlights attached to the wall overhead.

  Tommy held the door open for Olivia and Eos, who both nodded a thanks. He even held it open for me.

  “Good job that, man,” I said in my best upper-class accent.

  “No tip?” Tommy exclaimed. “Fucking cheapskate.”

  I flipped him my middle finger, which caused Tommy to laugh, gaining the notice of everyone in the quiet bar.

  “Are you two done?” Eos asked. When we nodded, she spoke to an older man behind the horseshoe-shaped counter, and he pointed to a booth in the corner.

  “You want anything to drink?” he asked Eos. She asked only for a jug of water and four glasses, but left a fifty-pound note on the counter, which vanished a moment later.

  “What was that all about?” I asked as I sat at the booth opposite Eos while the jug and glasses were placed between us.

  “I didn’t want us to be interrupted,” she told me and turned to Olivia. “Are those guards of yours just going to stay outside all the time?”

  “Yes,” Olivia said. “Nate, if you say anything about them not being housebroken, I will kick you in the ballsack.”

  Tommy had poured himself some water and found it difficult to laugh and drink at the same time. He gagged, then coughed violently.

  “That’ll learn ya,” I said. “Why are we here?” I asked Eos.

  “Because you’re a fucking idiot.”

  That wasn’t quite what I was expecting. “You probably could have told me that without all the secrecy,” I pointed out.

  “Your turning up at Hera’s tonight went down about as well as a fart in an elevator, but that isn’t actually what I’m referring to. You have this anger against my dad and sister, and it blinds you. It’s time you knew what happened and why she left you.”

  “We don’t have time for this,” I said and tried to move, but Tommy wasn’t budging, so I sat back down.

  “You listen to my words, and maybe they’ll enlighten you. You do it without comment, and then I’ll tell you what I know about Cronus and Hera.”

  “Do you know where Cronus is going?” Olivia asked. “Because if you don’t tell us—”

  “You have a few hours before he arrives. More than enough time to listen to me and still get there. I don’t wish to have anyone’s death on my conscience, but it’s time for Nate to listen for a change. Because everything that’s happening here links back to you.”

  “Ummm, how in the hell is that possible?” I asked.

  Eos looked between Tommy and Olivia. “You sure you want them knowing?”

  “Tommy knows everything about me, so no problems there. Olivia knows more than most, and being together with Tommy, probably more than she should. I think we’re okay.”

  “Before I get to that part, you’ll want to know about my father, Hyperion. A few centuries ago, Hera visited Tartarus and asked Hyperion for him to join her group in exchange for getting him out of there. He turned her down. Pretty emphatically, I’ll add.

  “A century ago, while you were with Selene, she repeated the offer. This time she threatened to kill Selene, Helios, and me if he disagreed. He still refused, and she left disappointed. There was no way she was going to kill the three of us; it would have cost her dearly both in terms of manpower and Avalon’s ire. It was all bluster and she knew it. So, because she’s really bad at accepting defeat, she decided to be a colossal douchenozzle and go through his ch
ildren in the hope that one of us would convince him to help her.

  “She came to me first and asked me to help her. I told the hag to go fuck herself with her own broom, and she left.”

  “You have a beautiful way with words,” I confessed to her.

  Eos smiled. “I’m not done yet. Hera tried the same trick with Helios and Selene, each of them telling her which short pier to take a long run off. I believe Selene was dating you at the time—that’s probably the right word, yes?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Hera retaliated by threatening to kill Selene, which we all knew was bullshit, so she laughed in her face. And then Hera threatened you. Apparently, Selene laughed even more at that. Threatening you when you were still with Merlin was insane; Merlin would turn the fucking bint to molten thundercunt. And Hera knew it.”

  She paused while Tommy and I stifled a chuckle. “It was ‘thundercunt,’ wasn’t it?”

  We both nodded.

  “It’s an apt term for her. Anyway, you two done?”

  We composed ourselves and motioned for Eos to continue. “By this point, Hera was getting desperate. We didn’t know what she wanted my father for, but it was certainly enough for her to go after his children, a fact that wasn’t lost on him. She wanted to get us to work for her so she could show him how dangerous it would be for us if he continued to say no to her requests.

  “She got my attention when she threatened my children. Just told me what she’d have some of her people do to them; make me watch it all. I was furious, but I also knew that she would follow through with that threat. I couldn’t risk it, and I caved. I admit it, I wanted to tear her fucking head off and stuff it up Demeter’s ass, but I caved. I had no choice.

  “I sent them away to be with their father, and they grew up not knowing me. They had new identities, new lives. I’ll never forgive Hera for that.” Eos stopped and took a deep breath. “The last few years I’ve made contact with them in secret, and they’ve become powerful. I hope that one day I’ll be able to leave Hera and never have to watch my back for her assassins. But until then, I remain in exile from my own family.”