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“If you lay a hand on her, you will die, Michail,” he said. “Now, I asked you a question earlier.”
“Fuck you!” Michail groaned, blood and spit flying from his mouth.
Dionysus shoved his head against the floor again. This time when he pulled his head back, it was by what remained of his hair.
“Let’s try this again,” he said. “The girl, where is she?”
“I don’t know,” Michail said, seething.
Dionysus prepared to bash his face into the floor again, but the mortal had enough.
“Wait, wait!” he said, breathing ragged. “I…I warned her not to go to the shore.”
“You expect me to believe you were some kind of savior?”
“You do not understand her beauty. It’s like a siren’s call.”
Disgust twisted through him at what Michail was implying—that Medusa was too beautiful to exist in this world without worrying about a predator.
“She went to the shore?” Dionysus asked. “And then what, Michail?”
“I don’t know! She never came back!” Michail yelled, and then his voice quieted. “But the ocean is Poseidon’s realm, and we all know what he does to beautiful things.”
Yeah, Dionysus did know.
He broke them.
“Fuck!”
Dionysus slammed Michail’s face into the floor again, and this time the mortal did not move.
When Dionysus rose to his feet, he faced Ariadne, who stood still and quiet.
“Put the gun away,” he said and then crossed to where she’d discarded her jacket. He snatched it off the floor and placed it around her shoulders, drawing her close. “Let’s go,” he said.
This time, he didn’t care to race through New Athens.
He teleported them both home.
CHAPTER IX
HADES
Hades did not particularly enjoy the pleasure district.
He usually only visited to check in on Madelia Rella, who had come to him in search of coin to establish her first brothel. Madelia was different from others who had reigned in the district, as she’d always been vocal about the rights of sex workers. She promised Hades that if he offered up his power, she would use it for good, and she had, though it had come at a great cost, and that cost was trafficking.
The more rules brothel owners had to follow, the more ways many sought to undermine them. Undocumented sex workers could not be held to the same standards, which meant unsuspecting people were disappearing off the streets and forced into this labor.
It was a vicious cycle, as was all life in the Upperworld.
But Hades had not come for Madelia; he’d come for Apollo, suspecting he would be at Erotas, after having visited the god’s apartment in the Crysos District andfinding it empty. He wondered why Apollo kept a residence there at all; he was hardly ever there.
Hades appeared in the foyer of Erotas in a plume of dark smoke. As he manifested, a few people screamed, but the madam, Selene, hushed them all. She was an older woman, beautiful and refined. Hades did not know her, but he was aware that she had run this brothel for a long time, and by all accounts, she took care of her workers.
The madam took a step forward and curtsied deep, her hands locked in front of her.
“Lord Hades,” she said as she rose. “What can I do for you?”
