Her laughter is light, like wind off the water. It’s as calming as it is unnerving, like a radio turning itself on to play spa music.
“Isn’t it?” she asks. “What am I, really? What power can I call to play? Arousal? Illusion? Nothing to combat that which is death, Kathra. A Lord of Hell is destruction incarnate. Love and hormones are nothing to an army of the dead, and that is the least of his assets.”
“Great, fantastic, why does he have Hunter’s soul?”
Mother purses her lips. “Gaul and I have a… complicated history.”
“Complicated.” I wait for her to elaborate, and of course she doesn’t. “Define ‘complicated’.”
“Lacking simplicity.”
“Mom. For fuck’s sake.”
“It does not matter.”
Then it dawns on me. “So you slept with him?”
“Kathra.”
“Mom...”
“The point,” she says, gritting her teeth, “is that Gaul and I… are not on good terms, and he has long sought a way to seek retribution against me. And now, it appears, he has.”
I take a deep breath. “How do you know this anyway?”
“I know because it was foretold, long ago. Before you were born.”
“If you say ‘prophecy’, I’m gonna hurl.”
Aphrodite sighs. Deeply. “Gaul, like Azhrea, the current keeper of the First Gate of the Hells, was once light.”
“Light?”
“They were angels, to use your human tongue.”
“Human tongue? Mom, you’re speaking English.”
“And what they once were called cannot be pronounced with any human mouth. I am literally changing the word so it will fit on the human tongue.”
“So, angels…”
She nods. “Angels. Close to the source of all things, powerful and loving. Until they fell.”
“Fell?”
“Greed and desire transcend all things.” She takes a breath. “The Nine Hells used to be quite lovely, actually. Before the fallen angels, now the Lords of the Hells, took over.”
“So they didn’t used to be the Nine Hells?”
She shakes her head. “They used to be the Nine Gardens, occupied by those who had once had a place within Elysium, gods and goddesses in their own right. But the fallen overtook the gardens and turned them into the hells they are today.
“And you and Gaul…?” I don’t know why I want to know this information so badly. Maybe because she’s clearly ashamed of it.
“… Know each other,” she says.
“And he really doesn’t like you.”
“He really doesn’t like me.”
“Why?”
“We had a disagreement.”
“And that was it, you just… fought? Like, you had an actual fight and now you’re just mad at each other… forever.”
“… We had a disagreement.”
So she absolutely one hundred percent had sex with Gaul and then regretted it, while he got beyond attached because that’s what men do once they’ve had the goddess of love, desire and lust. They want more of her. Whether that was the source of the disagreement is a totally different ballpark, but whatever it was, there is no way it wasn’t preluded or followed by sex.
Which is basically all I wanted to know, so I move on.
“And the foretelling was…?” I start.
“The Lords of the Hells are a very envious lot and they’ve long sought a way to usurp Elysium.” She shrugs. “It was bound to happen eventually. I just never thought it would involve you.”
“So,” I say, “I’m going to steal my boyfriend back from a fallen angel who’s technically a god and really doesn’t like you because you spited him sexually.”
“That is the gist, I suppose.”
“Then I have your blessing?”
She frowns at me. “Not for this.”
I almost get mad, but I hear something unstated and I quieten my inner anger. “Then for what?”
“For a quest.”
“Like… actual demigod hero quest?”
She nods. “Like the labors of Heracles.”
“Oh, good, those were fun.”
“Nothing you will experience on this journey will be fun, Kathra,” she reprimands. “You must be prepared for that.”
“I’m not prepared for any of this, you said so yourself, and I’m literally asking you to send me to actual Hell. I never thought this was going to be a fucking waterslide.”
“Please stop your foul language. It is giving me a headache.” And she rubs her temples as if to prove that fact. “It most certainly will not be easy. It would be dangerous even for one of us.”
“One of the gods,” I say.
“Yes.” She frowns at me. “It is a deeply unpleasant place.”
There’s something so quaint about referring to Hell as “deeply unpleasant”. I manage not to laugh. This is a serious moment.
“So what’s my quest?” I ask. “How is this going to work?”
She purses her lips. “It is… forbidden… for any immortal to delve into the circles of the Hells.” It sounds like the words hurt her to say. “They are beyond our reach, and any interference would only give power to those who have stolen the mantels of the Keepers of the Gates, the original gods and goddesses of the Nine Gardens.”
“Wait,” I say and hold up my hands. “You’re saying the original gods of The Nine Gardens are still down there?”
She nods. “Yes. They have been unable to escape.”
“Okay, carry on.”
“I want you to understand that in my sending you after something that belongs to Gaul…
“Hunter’s soul doesn’t belong to Gaul,” I interrupt.
“Gaul captured it and stole it, therefore he believes the human’s soul belongs to him.” I don’t argue with her. “For you to go after that soul… it would be a declaration of war.”
“Hunter should never have gone to Hell to begin with. He was a good person.”
“Well, that is up for debate, I suppose. Regardless, there is a reason Hunter’s soul was taken by Gaul…”
“And we already know you’re behind that reason.”
“Correct,” she nods quickly. “Thus, by the very fact that Gaul has possession of Hunter’s soul and the heavens do not,
