“But I do,” Dionysus said. “And it’s as you said. I only truly concern myself with the pretty things up front.” I couldn’t be sure if he was referring to his floor staff or the pricy food and beverages that Cornucopia had on display. “Do you really think I would pay such close attention to all these frosty things in storage? Pah. I hire people for that.”
I folded my arms, stepping closer. Dionysus looked so uncertain now, almost flighty. How the tables had turned. “Do you vet your employees? How long ago were they hired? And do you know if any of your people are adherents of the Hunger?”
Dionysus looked down at his hands. “I’d never considered it. I thought – human loyalty. I trusted these people enough not to squawk about the pocket dimension I turned into our freezer, so I trusted them enough to – oh no.” He dropped his hands, making a quick U-turn as he marched out of the freezer. “I need to go.”
“No,” Artemis cried out. “You need to stay here and help us, Dionysus. You have to see that your negligence is part of this, right?”
Dionysus turned back to us with a glare. “If the Lorica catches wind of this, I am finished. You understand? Finished. I wash my hands of this place. Burn it to the ground if you must. In fact, I would prefer it that way.”
He waved at the floor, the fingers of both his hands going through a series of intricate gestures. The ground trembled, then the tile burst apart, making way for thorny vines and brambles that snaked out of the soil deep beneath Cornucopia. They coiled themselves around the prone bodies of Dionysus’s employees, dragging them into the earth.
Artemis shouted. “Hey, what the fuck are you doing? Stop, or I’ll shoot. I mean it.”
“They are fine,” Dionysus said. “I owe these people at least enough to get them to safety. But if you’re saying that the workers in cold storage have captured a nephilim – no. I could not fathom. I wish you luck. Farewell.”
He made a final gesture, the tiles beneath his feet shattering. More of the vines reached up from the ground, pulling Dionysus into the earth.
“Coward,” Artemis said, lowering her bow.
“Not cowardice, sister,” he said. “Prudence. I will investigate my ranks for ties to the Hunger. There will be purges.” His eyes locked with mine. “I will make amends.”
Dionysus vanished into the ground. I felt like the bottom of my stomach had fallen out, but I wanted to believe him.
“Fancy trick he pulled with the vines,” Florian said absently. “I could learn a thing or two.”
Artemis clucked her tongue. “Can you believe that guy? Had no idea about his people, he says. Hah. A likely story.”
“I have a feeling it could be true,” Apollo said. “We’ve known Dionysus forever. He’s not lying when he says he only cares about the fun stuff. It stands to reason that he would hand off the boring minutiae of daily operations to someone else.”
Samyaza punched his fist into his open palm, flexing his muscles. “The question is who that someone else could be.”
Florian nodded at the inside of the freezer, this unexpectedly huge other dimension. “I guess we’re about to find out for ourselves.”
We didn’t have to look for long. A series of shouts went up from within the depths of the freezer, what was starting to feel like some big, icy dungeon. The first of the workers turned the corner, and Artemis loosed the first of her arrows. Someone gurgled from out of a pierced throat and a bloody mouth. Someone else screamed. We exploded into battle.
These were regular people, just average guys who had been conned by the promise of profit. If I didn’t know any better, I might have assumed that Mammon, the Prince of Greed, also had a hand in this. Maybe these people had families, others that they loved back home. But to me, that didn’t matter. I saw butchers. I saw killers. I saw a golden blade appear in my hands, summoned by my subconscious, and from that point on, I saw only red.
My sword sang my fury as it cut a bloody swath through the Hunger, these brainwashed men who had fallen prey to hearsay and rumor, to pure drivel and garbage that they’d read on the internet. The problem was that this went up higher. These were only the grunts. Somewhere out there, people were paying for this grotesque product. How were we ever going to stop them?
With blades, I thought, hacking at one man, taking off his hand at the wrist. With cuts, I told myself, drawing a crimson line in another man’s belly, across another man’s chest. We would take this beast down with a thousand cuts if we had to.
A beam of golden light shimmered in front of me, piercing the ceiling, the very walls of this strange dimension. I stepped back, my body glazed in sweat, my heart thumping and hoping that it was Raziel, come to help us. The pillar of light wavered as it solidified, bending itself into the shape and form of a woman wearing a severe bun and a gray power suit.
“Oh, look who it is,” I said, wiping the back of my hand against my mouth. I was practically frothing and hadn’t noticed. “So she’s finally decided to show up.”
“Let’s not start with that, Mr. Albrecht,” said Sadriel. “I’ve come to help.”
To help? As the haze of anger cleared from my mind, I heard the men shouting to each other about opening fire. “Fuck. Then help us, Sadriel. I can’t protect all of us. My shields only go so far.”
She nodded, calling out loud. “Everybody, behind me.” Her heels clicked as she walked us towards the back of the freezer, oddly calm and collected given how our attackers had just reorganized themselves into a firing squad. I followed her,
