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Chapter 22
Ares
X was on a fucking rampage. The guy had properly lost his shit and was turning Chicago on its head. He wasn’t only killing humans left and right, devouring their souls and leaving nothing but ash in a city that seemed to be burning to the ground. He also demolished buildings and threw cars around, making it known the devil had somehow returned.
It was on the news and everything—no more reports about missing persons and all the things X had done to make it look like a human disaster. He’d unleashed his breath upon the city, and he wasn’t hiding anymore.
And the humans were terrified. They were sure the end had come, that this was the apocalypse, that everything everyone had talked about for years would finally come to pass.
“Have you seen this?” I asked, pointing at the television when Poseidon walked in. We were at Heracles’s house again. We’d congregated to talk quickly about what was going on with Elyse. She’d withdrawn completely, retreated into her own home, and locked herself away from the world. I tapped the cell in my phone with my finger so when she messaged me, I’d be there in a flash.
“Yeah, I did,” Poseidon said grimly. “This is not going to end well.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” I asked.
Poseidon shook his head. “This isn’t our fight. Besides, what’s X going to do, listen to us? He never has. Come to the kitchen. We’re all talking there.”
But sitting around the kitchen counter, talking about a solution to this mess when the city was in turmoil was going to do nothing. I started following Poseidon but changed my mind after he disappeared into the kitchen. I wasn’t going to sit here and do zilch, even if this wasn’t my fight. I was the God of War and no matter what they told me, I wasn’t going to just let this happen.
I didn’t give a shit about the humans—not besides fucking them, using them for my own pleasure, and making them fight. At least, that was how I’d seen the world before I met Elyse. But Elyse was a human, too. And she cared about the beings on this Earth. And because of that, I cared about them, too.
Besides, it was bullshit that X got away with breaking all the rules like this and no one did anything about it. Talk about a kid throwing a temper tantrum without being reprimanded.
Sure, the “kid” was a devil who was larger than life and stronger than anything else out there. And the “temper tantrum” just so happened to be a burning city. But those were formalities.
Instead of going to the kitchen as I’d been told, I turned and left the house. I flew across the city, again not bothering about who saw me or what they thought. I doubted the humans were going to focus on strange sightings with X destroying everything around him. They had their hands full with surviving, never mind pointing out my godlike form moving through the sky, wondering if it was a bird or a plane.
“What are you doing here, puny god?” X boomed when I closed in on Death, all in black, shadows dancing off his form. He’d seen me coming from a mile away.
“I’m here to stop you,” I declared, sticking my chest out.
X laughed and it sounded as if the world was split in two. “And what do you think that’s going to do? It’s not your fight. And even if it were, there’s nothing you can do now.”
He was right. It wasn’t my fight, so my magic wouldn’t do much to him. And he was here because Hades allowed him out. Not on purpose, of course, but because of Hades and his ridiculous approach to his own life, X slipped away. Until Hades pulled his shit together, X would continue to do what he was doing now.
I just worried that if Hades didn’t do something about it soon, no matter what it was, it wasn’t going to make a difference anyway. X was out of control and it seemed like he’d gained power over everything. It didn’t matter what Hades did if he didn’t hurry his ass.
It was probably too late, anyway.
My sword and armor appeared as they always did when I readied for battle, and I went in for the kill. Was it going to work? No. Was it going to make a difference? I hoped it would slow him down a little at least. Until… I didn’t even know what I was waiting for. The only thing I knew was I couldn’t let this continue. And I needed to fucking beat something up.
“The good thing about having a coach,” Elyse said, suddenly next to me, “is someone teaches you how to pick your battles.” She looked at me with a grin. Hell, she was beautiful and so sexy, especially with her long, chestnut hair plaited down her back.
“Don’t suggest I’m in over my head.” I flashed a cocky smile right back at her. She was joking—this was a good sign. And she was here. An even better sign.
“I’d never dream of it, god of War. What are we going to do to stop this?”
I pulled up my shoulders and raised my chin. “He’s not even acknowledging our existence aside from laughing at us. I think we’re in deep shit in all honesty.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Poseidon snapped, appearing to my left.
“Oh, look, you came out to play, too.” I punched him on the shoulder.
“Shut up,” he quipped. “We have to figure out a game plan or something. This beast is huge.”
“Bigger than he ever should have been,” another voice said, and we all turned to see Hades.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I asked.
