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“Perhaps that’s putting it lightly. What’s that word you humans like to use again, for people who like to spread fear and destruction? Ah. Terrorists. That’s closer to the truth of it. They couldn’t siphon power from my Chalice, and they ended up warping it instead. I don’t know if it was intentional, but I felt it when it happened, when the energies of my artifact were corrupted.”
“Wait. So if you knew that your Chalice was corrupted out in the city – then surely you also knew that my boss destroyed it.”
“Correct.”
I threw my hands up, narrowly avoiding sloshing a full cup of wine all over myself. “Then why the whole thing with hanging me upside down and trying to wring a confession out of me?”
Dionysus shrugged. “I wanted to test if you were someone to be trusted. If you were honorable.”
“Pssh,” I said. Screw communing, and screw etiquette. That was probably the rudest I’d ever been to an entity, but I felt I deserved to express that much. I sipped from my own Chalice in what I hoped was a sufficiently defiant and grumpy display, but as soon as the wine touched my lips I felt my inhibition and annoyance rush out of my body. Whatever wine they served out in the Amphora was fantastic enough, but this? It was like tapping into the source of nature itself. The sun, the earth, pure water, and the finest grapes bursting in my mouth all at once. Every cell in my body was humming in sheer pleasure.
“Holy shit,” I mumbled, chugging more.
Dionysus tipped his goblet at me. “I know, right.” He sipped from his own cup, then tapped it against mine in a half-hearted toast. “But listen. These cultists, terrorists, what have you. My Chalice was only ever meant to provide endless bounty, never to incite the frenzy. That only I can do on my own. Something they did to corrupt the Chalice made it so that it bore an aura of destruction on its own, driving those around it to madness.”
“Uh-huh,” I muttered. I knew all that stuff already, whether from Carver, or from Prudence’s spilling over brunch. Damn, that wine was amazing.
“Now these people? They need to be stopped. Because twelve dead mortals is bad enough, and I don’t need the Lorica or your human authorities sniffing around. It’s bad for business, and well, less mortals in this city means less customers and worshippers for me.” He waved his hand. “And I guess the dead people bit. Imagine if these cultists laid their hands on another god’s artifact and twisted it to their own nefarious purposes. Mine was just a drinking cup. They might take a weapon next, then corrupt it. Do you see what I mean?”
“Uh-huh.” I can’t lie, I’d probably chugged about two cups by then, and downing that much wine so quickly was taking its effect on me. I was only really half-listening to Dionysus at that point.
“And since you used to be a dog – ”
“Hound.”
“Yes, a Hound. Since you used to be one, you will have the correct set of skills required to locate these people, find information on them, and stop them. The gods don’t need idiot mortals besmirching our good and holy names.”
“No way.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The most I can tell you is that I can talk to my boss and see what he’ll have us do. But I can’t do much on my own, man. Like I can walk through shadows and shit, and I guess I have this sword that’s really good at cutting people up, but like – ”
“You have three days.”
I laughed. “Says who?”
The smile creeping across Dionysus’s lips made my skin itch. “Says the poison you just consumed.”
“What?”
“I give you the freedom to choose, mage. You may die now at the hands of my servants, with your genitals stuffed down your throat and up your arse. Or you may take your chances at locating these cultists before the poison takes hold of your puny body and consumes you utterly.”
I looked at the Chalice in my hand, then blearily up at Dionysus. I guess I was too stunned to even get properly pissed at that moment – or maybe I was just too drunk.
“Dick move, bro.”
“Indeed. My agents tell me that these idiots call themselves the Viridian Dawn. Start with that. You have three days.”
He grasped my wrist, and I hissed at the immediate, searing pain of his touch. I pulled my arm away, but the god’s grip was far too powerful. When the sensation was intense enough that I thought I was going to pass out, he smiled, then released me.
I looked down at where he had touched me. On my wrist was a tattoo of a flower, wavering slightly in the invisible wind blowing across my skin, precisely like the wreath of living ink Dionysus wore across his temples.
With mounting horror I realized the flower had three petals – one for each day I had to accomplish his task. I set down my goblet, politely, because I decided that three days was still better than risking offending the god, getting ripped apart, and having bits of me torn off then shoved in various orifices.
I fixed him with a dark gaze. “Whatever happened to honor?”
“Ah,” Dionysus said, lifting his finger. “I said I wanted to test if you were honorable. I never said anything about myself.”
