Wrath "Rise of the Fallen"

The brothers were exhausted and covered in the gore of countless slain demons, who fought like berserkers, which, while daunting, lacked tactical mastery, making them easy targets. Zeus had spotted Ares, God of War, and Hephaestus, God of Fire and Forges, standing shoulder to shoulder mowing down a mob of demons on the library side of the vast main gallery of the palace’s first floor. He’d left them to it rather than distract them from their fight. Down a hallway leading to the grand ballroom, a phalanx of Olympian guards were engaged with another demonic throng. He’d lost track of the time it took to fight their way to the top floor, but it felt like ages by the time they reached the long marble hallway to the throne room.

A dozen spear-wielding demons guarded the throne room entryway. The bodies of Olympian guards lay everywhere. Zeus wearily raised his fists and summoned the strength to drop them hammer-like to the stone floor. Veins of lightning wound their way along the floor, twisting up the walls and ceiling of the hallway in a slow and sputtering march, and for a moment Zeus thought his power had finally failed. But like hunting serpents, the forks of lightning slid up the hallway to ensnare its prey before the undisciplined demons responded to the threat. The weakness of this blast was evident in the way the demons caught fire like a grove of trees rather than bursting into white-hot flame and dissolving quickly into ashes.

“Effective nonetheless,” Hades murmured, sweeping his spear to clear the entryway of screaming demons. Poseidon skewered one particularly flailing fireball of a demon on the end of his trident and flicked it into a corner of the throne room with a belligerent laugh and then stopped in his tracks among the smoking corpses. Zeus had to sidestep his brother to avoid knocking him down.

Despite the brightly burning demons, the throne room was dim like the inside of an old skull. The wall torches were shrunken to weak yellow feathers as if suffocating and even the daylight from the arched windows seemed muddy and smothered. But the palest of moonlights hovered about Zeus’ throne, a complex affair of sea green marble; inlayed with platinum lightning bolts on the arms and back; and crusted with diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, and a dozen other kinds of precious gems on its finials, lancets, apron work, and balusters. In the right light, it glittered like the nighttime sky. But the light at that moment was wrong, all wrong. On the throne slouched a demon wearing a closed-eyed expression of dirty bliss, seemingly unaware that all of its guards were dead. At the foot of the steps leading to the throne, sprawled Hera, Goddess of Marriage and Wrath, Apollo, God of Healing, and Athena, Goddess of Wisdom and Warfare, writhing slowly like worms caught in the sun. It was hard to tell if it was agony or ecstasy.

The demon’s face was a striking blend of female beauty and horror. Like a sculpture, but one carved not from stone, but from disease, mottled black and yellow, hanging in ecstatic slack, pocked with open sores. It wore the merest suggestion of a tunic, revealing the same mottling and pustules on the exposed flesh of the arms, legs, and belly. Zeus swore he could smell the corruption leaking from the sores. But worse than the unnatural darkness and the stink was the confusing scene before him.

Silvery threads of light flowed forth from each of the god’s faces, weaving together to form a single ragged cord that the demon seemed to be breathing in through its gaping mouth. In the moment that Zeus tried to make sense of what he was seeing, his Fell Stone ring lit up and Hades stumbled past him, as if drunk. But no, Zeus immediately saw something else: Hades’ face was blank and his eyes were purple, like Reema’s eyes but nearly black like the color of his Fell Stone necklace, which he thrust at the demon until the chain was tight against his neck. A delicate string of spiritual fire sprung forth from the Fell Stone and enveloped the beast’s head like a delicate web. It glowed green and was shot through with golden motes.

The demon’s eyes flew open, and the silvery cable connecting it to the brothers’ allies snapped with a pop of ghostly wisps. The Greeks surrounding it slumped into stillness. The demon smiled and ran a long, ruby-red tongue obscenely over its lush black lips. “So, so yummy….” A female voice, sultry while at the same time harsh as if the words passed through rusted daggers.

“What’d you just do?” Zeus whispered.

“I-I’m not sure….” Hades said as if under great strain. “I think the Grace and the Stone have given me control of her. Quickly, question her. I’ll not be able to maintain this for long.”

“Who are you?” Zeus asked.

“You thin-pricked abominations will all die,” she said and laughed.

“Not much of an answer,” Poseidon said. Zeus could see his brother’s earring lit up just like his ring.

“That’s not helping, brother,” Hades said through gritted teeth. “Who are you?”

The demon’s eyes snapped from Zeus to Hades and she grimaced, squirming against the throne’s tall back. “M-Mila,” she said, fighting against her own speaking. “Release… me. Now.”

“Are you the leader?” Zeus asked. More laughter from the demon. “Maybe you need to handle the interrogation, Hades.”

The Lord of the Underworld scowled. “Well, are you?” he asked.

Mila seemed to stop fighting against Hades’ hold. “You’ve no idea what you’re dealing with,” Mila said. “I am but one of many…. I am but one of Legion.”

“Who is leading this attack?”

“The Bringer of Light,” she said. “And the Light will consume every abomination and every human piece of scum in eternal fire. We will fuck your souls forever.” Mila giggled, lapped at her lips obscenely. Her eyes turned completely black and then bled slowly to bright scarlet. Hades clutched the sides of his head and screamed in agony.

“Stop what you’re doing now, fiend!” Zeus cried. Mila offered an open grin, revealing a mouth full of crooked and shattered teeth. Her giggle rose to a shrill cackle.

Poseidon stumbled toward Mila. His eyes were the same purple as Hades’ and, like Hades, he seemed to be almost witless. He thrust his trident at the demon. At first nothing happened, and then water spurted from the trident’s fork. It fell off to a trickle and then rushed out like a storm-swollen river. His eyes still purple, Poseidon appeared suddenly lively again, and he waved the trident back and forth to soak Mila.

Her laughter shifted to a shriek of pain and where the water struck her disgusting flesh, it blushed pink and began to sizzle and smoke.

“What…?” Zeus muttered, but he couldn’t gather his thoughts because Hades still screamed and he himself was feeling suddenly dizzy and foggy. He dragged his baton from his belt. Its handle was a satiny Koa wood with inlaid lightning bolts of lapis lazuli. He was barely aware that it was in his hand, but he thought something strange happened when he snapped the baton. Instead of a staff with a lightning-bolt-shaped blade of polished steel, it seemed actual lightning sprung forth in crackling sapphire splendor.

In a flash—like lightning—his wits returned and he struck Mila’s head from her body with a swift blow sent sparks everywhere and an eruption of black ichor fountaining into the air followed by a roll of wall-shaking thunder.

Hades sagged to one knee, still holding a hand to his head, his eyes back to normal. Poseidon blinked several times, his eyes also back to their normal brown, and he seemed unscathed. He stared at the end of his trident, then at the smoke rising off the headless corpse of the demon. Zeus too had snapped back to clarity and a keen sense of urgency. His thunder staff had reverted back to its baton form, no indication of how or why it had gone from a Hephaestus-forged steel blade to one of living lightning. It seemed a fog had suddenly lifted for the sun streamed through the windows again, and the sounds of a palace in chaos roared into his ears as Olympian guards streamed into the throne room.

All about the throne, the other Greeks roused themselves groggily. They needed a healer, but Apollo, Olympus’ chief physician was among them. Zeus grabbed an Olympian guard and said, “Bring Asclepius.”

“Lord!” The guard scampered away.

Zeus squatted next to Hera to help her up. He walked her to a couch-like kline of rich dark woods and snowy linen upholstery and sat her down. “How are you?” he asked.

Hera pulled her long red hair back over her shoulders, revealing high cheekbones dusted with light cinnamon freckles, and stared into her lap, gathering her thoughts. When she looked back up, her jade-green eyes locked onto Zeus’ icy blues with the strength he found so alluring in her. “Yes,” she said quietly. “A little weak, I suppose, but I will be fine.” She paused, looked over to where guards were dragging the headless demon off the throne. “It was like being trapped in the filthiest nightmare imaginable.” She looked back to Zeus and said, “There was no warning. No sense of power of any kind. Nothing. We were overrun before we knew it. What are these things? What is happening?”

Servants swept in with trays of ambrosia, bustled around the throne room, while others worked with the guards to begin the grim work of removing bodies—both Olympian and demon. Apollo’s son, Asclepius, arrived and started tending to the gods. Zeus watched the healer work and said, “I’ve learned some startling things, Hera.” He offered what little knowledge he had about angels and demons and the so-called Creator. And about them, the so-called supreme gods who were not gods but something called Nephilim. Hera paled. “Half angel, half human…” Determination steeled her features. “How are we supposed to fight this enemy if we cannot sense its power? If we are not… gods?”

“We defeated the Titans,” Zeus said gently. “We will defeat this scourge.” He looked up from his former wife and spoke to the room. “We must focus first on securing Olympus. Then we must gather our armies and our allies, reach out to our enemies. We can no longer afford to be divided or we will not stand in the face of this threat.”

“Threat? Annoyance more like.”

Zeus turned to the deep, measured voice coming from the throne room entry. Ares stood there, his unadorned helmet tucked under his left arm, his huge broadsword in his right hand drooling demon’s black blood, his red-enameled armor streaked with the same. His auburn hair was stringy with sweat, wild looking, and his hazel eyes, so bewitching to those ladies drawn to warriors, now bore the glassy pink haze that usually followed his berserker fighting style. Zeus tipped his chin in greeting to his son.

A deep belly laugh came from out in the hall. Ares turned toward Hephaestus, and it seemed the Colchian dragon emblazoned across the shield slung on the Lord of War’s back had been feasting on demons. Hephaestus stepped through the doorway, disheveled and gleeful like some sailor fresh from a tavern brawl. His iron-grey top knot barely reached Ares’ chest plate, and he barely fit through the doorway with his brother there. His shoulders were like boulders, his forearms like giant clubs, roped with fat veins and ending in fists that looked a lot like the massive gore-spattered hammer he held. “Fookin’ pests, they were.” His eyes, also iron grey, widened. “A lot of fookin’ pests.”

Ares guffawed and slapped the blacksmith’s huge shoulder with a gauntleted hand. “A lot,” Ares agreed.

Zeus favored his sons with a weary smile and looked around. “Hermes. Where is he?”

“He went to the Isle of the Three at the behest of Hades,” Hera said. Zeus remembered Hades telling him that, and he turned to his brother. “He hasn’t yet returned?”

A look of dismay crossed Hades’ pale face. “Truth be, I’ve been a bit preoccupied.”

“Something must’ve happened to that speedy little turd,” Poseidon said.

“We need Hermes to help gather the armies,” Zeus said to the Lord of the Seas. “Take Ares and go to the Isle of the Three. See what kind of trouble that little trickster got into. And bring him back.” He shook his head as Poseidon and Ares left the throne room. “Never trusted those witches…. Hades, you’re with me.”

“Where are we going this time?”

“To get more help.”

“I would like to check on my realm,” Hades said.

“Well, then, brother, you’re in luck. We’ll be passing right through there on our way to Tartarus.”

“The Titans?” Hera said, arching a thick ginger eyebrow. She still looked a little queasy. Whether from the demon’s attack or Zeus’ revelations, he didn’t know.

Hephaestus and Ares shared a look. Apollo, who now sat on a divan looking a little pasty beneath his bronzed skin, made a sound like a hiss. He flipped his blond hair from in front of his blue eyes, revealing disgust with Hera’s utterance.

Zeus grunted and stood. The room stilled. Even the servants ceased their cleanup efforts. Tired as he was, he cut an imposing figure in the middle of the ravaged room. “In a very short time, I’ve learned some very disturbing things about what we have all taken for granted for a very long time. I think you will find a lot changing quickly as we face this war. And make no mistake. This will be a war beyond anything we have seen.”

“How do you know this?” Athena stood beside Apollo. Her brown eyes glittered, not with tears, but with anger. Without her red-crested helm, her mahogany hair fell loose to her shoulders. She crossed her and uncrossed her arms, muscles jumping into relief, and shifted from one hip to the other, clearly trying to control a nervous energy seeking release against someone or something. She never took any form of defeat well.

How do I know this? Zeus wondered. A being called an angel told me and I believed everything she said. She said we were not gods, but something less. Then she shared some of her “Grace” with me, and she shared some of her Grace with my brothers, and now I think we have new powers. And those powers may be growing. I need to speak to Reema again….

“Athena, Hera. You must secure Olympus. Where is Artemis?”

“Where else?” Apollo said.

“Well, she’s going to be hunting something other than harts for now. And is Aphrodite still in Corinth?”

“Of course,” Hera snapped.

“We need everybody here,” Zeus said, uninterested in the dealing with the various jealousies that typically stalked the marble-tiled hallways of Olympus. “See that they are called home.” Zeus grabbed an Olympian guard. “Gather my Thunder Guard at the North Gate.” With a quick salute, the soldier hurried away. Zeus looked around the trashed throne room again. At the dead, at the demon’s head under a gore-blackened blanket at the foot of the throne steps, at the faces of his family and staff, looking to him for solace and leadership. He was at a loss. And that fueled a growing anger. “Hades,” said quietly, “time to take the fight to them.”