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He knew what he was about to tell his old friend would most likely make him think Devon had lost his mind. There was no way to explain what had happened without sounding like a lunatic.
“Yet here you stand before me, very much alive.” West moved closer to Devon, his face torn in a misery Devon could understand all too well. “I checked your pulse and stayed with your body while it cooled,” West explained, his voice distant though his focus was completely on Devon.
This was not the West that he had known. The West from before was always the funny one to Devon’s more serious nature. Unable to stand when someone was down, he always tried to cheer them up and break the tension.
“I think we need a drink and a lengthy talk,” Devon replied as he nodded to a bar near the docks. “You are never going to believe any of this, especially not without alcohol in your blood.”
He caught West looking at him from the corner of his eye and saw his old friend, the West from before, shine through for a moment.
“Try me,” West smirked before he bowed with a flourish that was all West.
***
Once seated at the closest bar with a few beers, West rapped his knuckles on the table.
“Alright, tell me of your resurrection.”
“First, why didn’t you tell me who you were? Why would you work as a mercenary for five years when you had everything you could ever want? Tell me that and I’ll tell you everything that happened from the moment I died until now,” Devon compromised as he watched West with a weary look.
Both men stared at each other for several moments before West finally broke eye contact. He shook his head and took a large gulp of beer like he needed liquid courage to tell his story.
“Ah, yes. Why did the golden child go rogue?” West moved his elbows onto the table and folded his hands together, his head falling forward a moment before he finally looked up at Devon.
“Daddy dearest had plans for me to take over at the young age of twenty-one. I was way too busy being a spoiled brat, enjoying my women and my drinks. Obviously, being the heir of the world’s largest shipping company put a huge target on my back with my father’s less savory competition, and I was unaware that some of my father’s enemies had some pretty appalling ways of dealing with those they found to be a threat.” West took another long pull of beer before he slammed his drink down on the table, having drained it, and made a motion for another.
Devon assumed this was going to be a story that required a lot of booze and finished off his own beer.
“Anyway, one night I went home with a lady I met at a club. We went upstairs to her apartment, and I was enjoying a relaxing evening up until a group of men broke in. Or, so I thought. Turns out she lured me so her and her buddies could get some cash from dear old dad.
“They beat me within an inch of my life, dragging my unconscious body across town and kept me chained to a chair in a warehouse. Since I was known to go on benders, no one looked for me, and so they got the joy of my unending pain for days while trying to contact daddy dearest for a payout.
“However, that wasn’t the worst part.” West looked away, his jaw clenched. “The worst part is the lady working with them thought she would actually get a cut. They decided they didn’t have to share anything with her if she wasn’t around. She was the lure and nothing more, yet she never picked up on their plan. I was barely aware of their argument one night while I sat in that gods-forsaken chair, crumpled and bleeding. Finally, the main guy had enough arguing and offered to compensate her for her time. The way he said it told me everything I needed to know about how he planned to pay.” Now West did look at him.
“Every man in that room took turns with her before the last one put a bullet in her skull. I was held down, getting punched, kicked, even stabbed trying to stop them.”
West took a moment, mindlessly wiping condensation off the glass with his thumb. “I couldn’t go back to my life after that. When my dad’s people finally found me and took me home, it only took a week after healing before I snuck out for the last time. I swore to find every asshole in the world who thought they could treat another human being in that way and end them. I pulled all the money I had set aside for me to drink and whore away my life and used it to fund most of our jobs.”
Devon sat back and ran his hand along his jaw. He looked at West. Really looked at him.
“Did anyone else ever know this?”
“No,” West said simply. “No one did and no one ever would have. I still won’t tell them. Even if they showed up here, Oceanus lit up behind me with arrows screaming my real identity, I still wouldn’t tell them.”
“I get it,” was all Devon said, but the words seemed to mean a lot to West. He watched the relief on West’s face at Devon’s acceptance and confidence on the matter. No more words were needed on the subject.
After a long moment of silence, West looked over at Devon.
It was story time.
“I was very dead. I saw my body…” Devon started as West’s eyes went wide at the confession, and he leaned forward as if this were an interesting fairytale and not the story of Devon’s death.
“As I stood over my body, I couldn’t move, like my feet were planted to the floor and it completely freaked me out. I was confused and unable to think, my mind was completely fogged over. Next thing I know, the woman you saw that night at the gala with me walked in, and she was like a lighthouse showing me the way. My mind just… cleared.
“I just felt this deep sense of trust in my gut when I looked into her bright blue eyes. Like she was what I had been waiting for. I was unsure what everything meant, what was happening, so I started pacing.” He watched West nod. He knew how Devon was when he was frustrated or confused, how he would pace and run his hand through his hair. It was something that both amused and annoyed his friend.
“She was holding this string that went into my chest, so of course that only freaked me out more. Finally, she spoke, and it was like that was all I could hear, just her. She gave me these seeds to eat and it turns out those seeds bound me to the Underworld.” He paused and looked at West before he continued.
“She is the Goddess of the Underworld.” He shrugged as West’s jaw dropped open in shock
