pleasure and bliss | there will be a reckoning; a hedone/hercules mythfic

[zombres]

(AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is another in my series of "mythfics", to borrow the term from my darling etzyofi. In order to fully appreciate these, be sure to look at the casting picspams.)

CAST:



pleasure and bliss | there will be a reckoning, a hedone/hercules mythfic, pg-13
During the storm, after the fallout. (Dedicated to professor_spork,
who wanted to see Hedone getting her goddess on with Hercules.)
then
This is no average masquerade ball. Of boxes, masks, mirrors, and tests.
That was the moment. The world had shifted, subtly and invisibly but in a way that was felt in the bones, and in the following second they had both changed. He was wiser, she more feeling. (7,615 words)




He was everything. She found herself staring, and frequently, and there was always an edge of disbelief to her thoughts when she contemplated him. How could a man like this exist? In this world? Now? Even if her suspicions were correct and he was more than a man, that still didn’t change the fact that he was very nearly, almost completely, actually rather perfect.

Not even Olympus had been perfect. Beauty and talent were within their scope, but for all that they were divine, it seemed that there had always been some flaw in everything the gods had made.

Or perhaps that was just her mother’s eye and her own cynicism talking.

With Hercules, though, she could stare for hours without finding a mistake. It wasn’t simply physical perfection, though he certainly fit that bill. He had a pure soul-that was what it came down to. Incorruptible: the spiritual equivalent of diamond. He was like one of those golden kings in fairy tales who wore a crown of oak leaves, sat on hand-carved thrones, and truly cared about the people they ruled. He was kind, and not just on occasional days or when he was in a good mood. She suspected he had been a boy who caught flies and spiders in jars, to release them safely into gardens. Hercules was not the swatting type.

And he cared. About everyone he met, from the bus driver in town to the busboy at the restaurant. He tipped generously, and talked to people with slumped shoulders, and smiled at those who frowned. He listened, and he responded, and while he would never be a philosopher with doctrines passed down through generations he still knew just what to say and when to say it. People skills didn’t even begin to cover it; Hercules could make a jumper rethink suicide or turn a bully into a humanitarian.

Someone like that could lead armies straight into hell, and Hedone sometimes wondered if there wasn’t some horrifyingly big destiny lurking in wait for him.

Until it manifested, though, she was more than happy to remain ignorant about what the future held for them. Because there was bliss in such ignorance, which neatly fell under her purview as a goddess. And until whatever was to happen happened, he was hers, and she was his, and there was plenty to rejoice about in that.

It was taking some time and effort, but she was finding it in her to be romantic again. She had half-wondered if Pan hadn’t smothered that out of her. But it was becoming easier to accept the flowers he gave her, and to flirt and hold hands in public, and to see a date as something to look forward to rather than analyze and dread. She was learning how to trust herself again, and that sometimes being softer wasn’t always a weakness.

The payoff was the way his face would light up, and the utterly sincere and utterly unguarded smiles he’d give her. The way his entire body would relax, and the soft circles he’d draw across the back of her hand with the pad of his thumb.

Since that misguided attempt at a break-up they’d begun to talk more. It wasn’t that she’d purposefully kept things from him before, per se. It was more that since that night she’d begun to redefine what was truly private and what should be shared. This was a relationship, a partnership, after all and in order to remain balanced and fair both parties had to be fully in the know when it came to the important things.

Things like desires and needs. Part of the problem had been that she’d denied herself for too long. She may be half-mortal now but she still had a degree of divinity. And for that divinity to live, breathe, and sustain her, it had to be occasionally indulged. Her family had left their hallowed halls but their jobs still required tending, albeit in new forms and roles. Poseidon still watched the seas, though it was frequently from a Greenpeace boat; Hermes still dabbled in thievery, but no longer lifted things that would get him in the papers (mostly); Persephone still tended to the rites of the seasons, the only difference being the television cameras recording everything for her newest show; Dionysius still drank himself into a stupor every Thursday night, though he’d scaled back on the orgies since marrying Ariadne.

And she, sometimes, had to satisfy certain cravings.

He’d accepted this as readily as he’d accepted the truth about what she-and the Lito-was. He was nearly unshakeable, and this was extremely comforting to her. Existence, for her, was a long string of drama and chaos and upheavals. Hercules just took everything in stride. There was no calculation in it. He simply learned, acknowledged, and moved on.

The night of the storm, the night she had tried to cut herself away from him, had been the turning point. They both knew it, though they never put it into so many words. She had fought with herself in a struggle to reconcile the past with the future, her divinity with her newer mortality, and in the end the compass at her center that told her what she was had guided her home. Back to him. He had met her halfway, of course; for all of his seeming simplicity, there were times when Hercules grasped things quicker than she could. He understood the big truths, the important facts, with a bone-deep certainty that frequently amazed her. Hercules may have had a hard time grasping mathematical equations and be useless at geography, but he wasn’t stupid.

That night had been important. She thought of it often, and suspected she would silently acknowledge its anniversary every year. It was the night she fully embraced herself again. In the years since Pan, she had carefully constructed a number of invisible defenses. Her cynicism, her sarcasm, her blind commitment to learning at the expense of her heart. She had built those walls to defend, but all they had done was block her from the fullness of the world. She had distrusted herself, and locked herself away in a prison as a punishment, and the most incredible thing was that she had not realized the truth until that night. For a girl with the second-most observant eyes in the universe, that was quite a feat.

Hercules standing on the front step, soaking wet and patient, offering her more words than he had ever given her before. Words, and trust, and devotion. That was the moment. The world had shifted, subtly and invisibly but in a way that was felt in the bones, and in the following second they had both changed. He was wiser, she more feeling. They had come in from the storm, and Pandora had taken one smiling look at them before leaving. Some things must be commemorated in private.

There had been love before, and pleasure. She had been more skilled in the latter but he had unending reserves of the former. They taught even as they learned. But that night-that night was something new. Every moment, every movement, still burned across her skin when she turned back to look; but it was almost too bright now, like over-exposed film.

His hands ghosting so gently over her arms
the slightest pressure over wet, goosebumped skin
and then the knowledge of the impossible strength behind the caress-crashing into her with all the force of a hurricane wave-stole her breath and left her dizzy.

She had known of his strength; had seen the unintentional destruction he wreaked on doorknobs and coffee mugs when he let his attention slip. They’d replaced enough beds and couches in the preceding months. And she had never feared it, knowing the two-fold truth: that no mortal force could ever harm her, and that he always held something back-even in the most passionate throes-out of his own fear. Hercules would rather die than cause her pain.

But standing there while the lightning forked in brilliant flashes just outside the window, and the rainwater dripped and spread in pools around their feet, everything became more real and significant. It was like looking at the world with newborn eyes, seeing the familiar with the distance of a stranger. He glowed before her, statuesque and noble, and she felt tears sting her eyes again. He seemed just as breathless, just as dazzled, and she wondered what he was seeing in that crystallized second.

Then she had half-collapsed against him, trembling with relief and awe and giddy joy, and he caught her so effortlessly. Arms around her waist that could have torn down the walls around them, hands against her back that had crushed guns flat. And yet he was gentle, so gentle. All that power in a man who cried during The Lord of the Rings and volunteered at animal shelters-a man who could be king by force but would rather be just her boyfriend.

Just her man. Hers alone. Faithful to the last breath, committed by every ounce. Hers.

Her hands had tangled in his damp shirt. Pulled at the fabric that was between them, pulled until the seams gave with a long rip neither paid much mind to.
His lips at her jaw, her cheek, the corner of her mouth.
She panted, breath hot against his neck, fingers slipping, sliding, over slick shoulders.
Damp denim was a problem, but a momentary one-he had other jeans.
Then his hands were at the back of her thighs, lifting her up, more firm and steady than solid marble but oh so much warmer.

He started towards her bedroom, slowly, finding it hard to take his eyes from her face.
But then she was marking the curve of his shoulder with tiny crescents, digging her nails in to the point-just shy of-drawing blood, and her eyes were so dark in the lightning flashes. There was a deep, drowning hunger in her eyes, a lust for more than blood. It would have frightened if it wasn’t her, Hedone, the girl who smiled at him over cups of tea. Rather, he saw what was really there: need that transcended mere flesh.
Everything felt wound to the edge of snapping, and he knew without being told. There was a way of speaking that never needed words.

Her shoulderblades hit the wall, sharp enough to crack the plaster, but she was already breathing him in, drinking him in, pulling him in.
The smell of his hair and the solid warmth of his skin and the rhythm of his hips as he thrust into her.
Then they had fallen to the floor in a tangle of limbs, strangled cries, and half-uttered names.
His knee dug into her leg.
The floorboards creaked in warning, unheeded.
She arched, a bridge to close the gap.

This was no holding back, no limits, throwing every caution to the wind. It had never been like this before, so passionate the air between them crackled and the skin instantly froze at every fraction parted, only to burn when the wave crashed them together again.

In the blur and daze there were only moments, as quick and brilliantly outlined as the lightning.
His hand along her throat, thumb against the pale hollow.
Her head thrown back as her mouth opened in a red-edged gasp.
The graceful line of her leg and the bend of her knee pressed against his side.
The darker ridge of muscle above the softer curve of breast.

Friction, flow, yield and thrust. This was the kind of union that resulted in prophesized leaders, or supernovas, or the end of all things. As they both approached the brink it was like the horizon was about to end-a sheer cliff before them that dropped into the vastness of space. She tried to scream, to cry out, but there was no breath, no coherency left. There was only him and the ecstasy, the fullness of the joining that carried her in an inexorable wave.

She saw the stars. It was no metaphor or colorful use of imagery. For a fraction of a beat, she felt her divinity rise up in her heart and overwhelm the mortality that had dulled her senses in so many vital ways. She felt everything; and nothing as well. In that second she was thrown back into the past, back to Olympus’ glowing halls, when she had stood apart from all things that could age or die. In her heart and mind, Hedone was once again aware of the universe in all of its infinite and overwhelming detail.

And then her body remembered the fear of pain and the taste of death, as the pleasure became so sharp it nearly hurt, and she was back in a small apartment and a frailer frame that could never withstand the full power of the cosmos again. She could breathe again, though she felt blind and dumb from sensation.

There was the sudden, sharp sound of wood cracking and the floor caved in around them. They didn’t care-they hardly noticed for quite some time, both far too overwhelmed.

Several minutes and they were breathing evenly again, the dust had finished settling, and the sweat was cooling on their skin. Hedone was still dizzy, but noticed that Hercules had managed to brace his arms on either side as the floor gave way; some loose boards had fallen against his back, but not onto her. She found the energy to laugh at that. Ever the gentleman.

“Uh…” he had said slowly, looking around rather sheepishly. “…I’ll pay for the repairs.”

She wondered if Hephaestus would be able to make an unbreakable bed.



It had taken six weeks. It was as if the stars had conspired to ruin their plans and muck up their schedules-finally the four of them had found a mutual evening free. And as fate would have it, it was the night of the Masquerade Ball. It was a relatively recent Stanford tradition; Pandora had gone to last year’s with one of her old mayflies (which was Hedone’s name for them, as few had lasted more than an evening), but this would be a first for the rest.

“This is great,” Hercules said, an excited bounce in his step, as they walked across the green lawn to the formidable stone building that housed the theater and ballroom. “Like something out of a movie. I’ve never been to a really fancy party like this.”

“Most are highly overrated, old boy,” Bellerophon drawled, spinning his cane. For a man who was all awkward limbs and an even more awkward face, he certainly looked good in a tailored suit. The top hat and black gloves were a nice touch. “The people are boring, the drinks watered down, the food room temperature when it should be steaming or chilled-”

“Don’t pay him any heed, Herc,” Pandora said sharply with an arched eyebrow. “He’s in one of his moods.” They passed a group of freshmen, all of whom did visible double-takes and stopped with gaping mouths to stare at Pandora in her peacock-feathered dress and green stiletto boots. Hedone covered her smile with a cough, though she couldn’t blame them for staring. Only someone like Pandora could pull off such a get-up, blue and purple and green feathers on her dress and in her flame-red hair.

She’d never gone for that much flash before, and had opted for a more subdued flapper costume-well, it was a costume to everyone else but that was only because they didn’t know the truth. And she hardly felt inadequate next to Pandora. Not with the look Hercules had given her when he’d first seen her step out of the bathroom, hair pinned and makeup applied.

And while Bellerophon looked sharp and dapper, Hercules looked regal. It was no leap to believe him actual royalty in that red uniform with gold braiding. When she complimented him, he admitted-with a blushing grin-that it had been tagged PRINCE CHARMING at the costume shop.

They stepped through the doors, propped open with huge marble planters sprouting primordial ferns, and paid for their tickets. A professor so old he practically creaked was passing out plain black and white domino masks for those who hadn’t come fully prepared. Pandora waved him away with a flirtatious wink, lifting up her feathered lorgnette mask.

“Cheep cheep, birdie,” Bellerophon said archly, black domino in place as he offered his arm. “Let us away to a pretty perch.”

The ballroom came as a shock. It reminded of the soirees at the Lito, so much gold and black and red, ostentatious dresses and champagne and filigree. How was something this grand happening on campus? It was almost too much. Like something from a fever dream.

And yes, the air seemed to shimmer with heat, and the eyes blurred if focused on one part of the spinning crowd for too long. It was loud but indistinct, a steady susurration of conversation. The occasional trill of laughter, more brittle than candied glass, sometimes rose above the murmur.

Pandora went, “Oooh!” with an appreciative clap before grabbing tight hold of Bellerophon’s gloved hand. Like a shark among glittering minnows, Pandora cut through the whirling dancers, her black-clad date her wake, her attention focused on the table stacked with tiers of champagne glasses.

Hedone began to follow but then paused, and Hercules stopped a second later. Her hand was still hooked in his elbow; like a tethering chain it drew him short. “Something wrong?” he asked, taking in the strange, glazed look that had settled on her face.

“I… I don’t know,” she said distantly. The room swam before her, sharpening and blurring in the breadth between blinks. It was… Off. As if the space couldn’t decide how big it was, how many doors lined the walls and hallways branched away. There was a sharp twinge in her chest, like heartburn, and she felt suddenly dizzy. “I’m a bit light-headed.”

“I’ll get you a glass of water,” Hercules said, breaking away to bee-line to the buffet tables.

Hedone stepped back and put one hand to the wall, the other to her forehead, and tried to untangle her thoughts. There was the unsettling sense that she was forgetting something, or ignoring something-her eyes were trying to point it out. But the soft music was very soothing. The notes wrapped around her like a warm blanket, and soon she was swaying gently with the rhythm.

There was a glass in front of her. It contained something sparkling red, and smelled strongly of strawberries. “I couldn’t find any plain water,” Hercules apologized as she took it. “I’m pretty sure it’s just juice, though. Some sort of fruit punch.”

She sipped. Then drank greedily, throwing the last bit back like a shot of bourbon. His eyes widened slightly. “Tasty?”

“Very,” she said. It was like a switch had been thrown. She felt good, more relaxed and at ease than she had in ages. Her entire body was looser, warmer. Everything was beautiful, the music and the decorations and the dresses. Hercules was so handsome, more handsome than any other man there, and he was all hers. Like the rest of her family, she could be impossibly possessive-it came with the divinity, part and parcel.

She dropped the emptied glass carelessly on a table before grabbing him by his golden lapels. “Let’s dance, baby,” she laughed, eyes glittering and glassy.

“Hedone, are you sure you feel alright?” he persisted as they joined the twirling satin and silk. She had promptly positioned his arm at her waist, taken the other hand in hers, and started to waltz. They were slightly less elegant that the other dancers, but only because she insisted to lead and they were turning counter-clockwise.

“I feel better than alright,” she said, shaking back the hair that had escaped her clip to tangle in her eyelashes. “Now this is a party! Even Aunt Persephone would be impressed-if you like this, we should go to more of the family’s events. We out-pomp and circumstance everyone.” She laughed in a breathless, giddy way.

But Hercules’ brow was furrowed, and while his feet moved smoothly in the steps of the dance it was clear that his attention was elsewhere. He looked from Hedone’s face to the crowd, scanned it until he found Pandora and Bellerophon. They were at a table; Bellerophon was sitting down with his cane propped up between his knees, his hands over the handle and his chin on his hands. Pandora stood beside him, leaning into his chair, laughing wildly at something he was saying as a small crowd gathered around them. This was nothing strange or different: people often gravitated to Pandora and Bell. They were attractive in more ways than one, and pulled in smaller figures the way planets gathered moons. But there was still something that just felt unusual.

“Awww, sweetie,” Hedone sighed into his ear, hot cheek pressed against his. “We’re having fun, ain’t we? So much fun. It’s so-” she dragged the word out with a giggle. “Pretty here, don’t ya think? Sparkly and warm…”

He pulled away. Stared into amber eyes that were too glassy. “What the hell was in that drink?” he muttered to himself. “Hedone, something is definitely wrong.”

“Wrong?” she echoed faintly. His voice had cut through the music like a knife, and in its absence she no longer felt comfortable and pleased-only empty. The crinkle just between her eyes, the one she wore when confused, appeared.

“I can feel it. Like an itch behind the eyes.”

“Eyes…” She almost had it there, but it flashed away like a fish fleeing the shallows for the safety of deeper water.

“Maybe we should sit down for a moment and catch our breaths-” he started to suggest.

“No. Kiss me.”

“Hedone-”

“Kiss me, Hercules!”

She didn’t know why it was so important. Didn’t know why the idea had sprung into her head and practically screamed for attention. She only knew it needed to be done, and quickly, before the music enclosed her in an even warmer fog. When his lips met hers, though, then it became clear.

Hercules had become her solid ground and her sense of home. With him, things were always more solid and real. The taste of him on her tongue was like an elixir, a shot of adrenaline that made every synapse fire and dissolved the drugged melody in a blazing rush. She opened her eyes and saw the discord, the small details that didn’t add up into a unified whole.

There were too many dancers. It wasn’t that the room was too full-it was that there were duplicates. Five of one man, three of one woman. And in staring, so many of the dazzling figures started to waver like mirages. It wasn’t that the room was huge. It was that half of its occupants weren’t really there, fading in and out of being as they twirled through the next pair.

And the eyes. Everyone wore masks but she and Hercules, but if you actually looked for eyes there sometimes weren’t any. Only holes for eyes, blank spaces in masks that had nothing behind them to fill in the gaps. Mouths moved in conversation, widened in laughter, but it was nothing but a sham. There was no soul behind the artifice, no person behind the costume. They were nothing more than spinning puppets.

But then who was tugging at the strings? She looked up, half-expecting to see a dark robed figure leaning over a balcony. There was nothing but the arched ceiling and an empty skylight with a glimpse of the night sky beyond.

She could hear the music again, creeping up on her by the edges, worming its way back in. Not yet! Not yet! She hadn’t had enough time to reason properly!

Hercules’ hand curved around the back of her neck, fingers sliding into her hair. The touch had the effect of a silencer. For a brief pause, there was only the two of them in the center of the dance floor, in a small pool of quiet. She slid her fingers across the back of his hand and focused on the shape of his wrist while her brain scrambled for answers.

This was a trick, or a trap. Something nasty cooked up by someone in the family. Perhaps a prank from Hermes, who she never got on well with thanks to the dirty history with Pan. But no, that wouldn’t make any sense. She hadn’t gotten on anyone’s bad side in years; why would she suddenly be a target for mischief? And besides: this had a darker, harsher feel to it. Malevolent, even. And whoever was responsible was throwing around power, of a kind that shouldn’t have been possible since the Pact. The mirages, the warping of space and sight, that insidious music that was still slipping through the cracks-

She kissed him again, and knew he felt the tension and fear behind it. Knew it because he gripped her tighter and pulled her closer, because when Hedone was scared there was a reason to worry. But mere strength wouldn’t protect, not here, and she didn’t know what to do. There was a threat, but no explanation, no reason behind it that she could surmise. A random attack-because she was an Olympian? Because she and Hercules and Pandora and Bellerophon had been touched by strange powers?

Pandora and Bellerophon. They were here; they’d come with them on a double date. How could she have forgotten them? She pulled away from Hercules so quickly he jumped, and spun to search the room.

They were still at their table, still surrounded by an adoring crowd laughing at the latest quip. But none of it was real. Every man was the same; every woman was eyeless behind her white mask. And one of them had a box in their not-there hands, a dark black affair carved from ebony heartwood. The figure was holding it out towards Pandora with an encouraging smile, the spoken words lost in the hum of voices.

And Pandora’s face had a fixed, terrible expression. There was longing there, a deep and overwhelming curiosity and desire to know. But there was also horror, and fear, and shame so bitter it was an almost physical blow to behold. She was stretching out a hand inch by inch, her fingers trembling. She wanted, but she hated. She needed, but she fought it. The story of her past and the tragedy that had almost destroyed her-Pandora, the closest and truest friend she had ever known-rose up in Hedone’s memories like a knife honed to a razor’s sharpness.

“No!” Hedone screamed, pushing through the crowd. She touched physical shoulders and backs, because not everyone at the Masquerade was a figment, but often her hands pushed through nothing more than colored mist. Mist that billowed up before her and threatened to obscure her vision.

That was a futile effort. Because it was Pandora in danger, the woman who had already atoned for her sins, and Hedone pushed forward heedlessly. Pandora, who had supported and comforted and called her out on her bullshit. Pandora, with the late night cups of tea and soppy movies. Pandora, with the blunt advice and fashion suggestions and unwavering loyalty. Pandora: her friend.

How dare they?

Her hand swung down wildly with a sound like ripping paper. The box was knocked aside, crashing to the floor where it shattered into a billion black fragments. But Hedone had her arms around Pandora, hugging her fiercely, and hardly cared that the air was full of smoke.

“The same box,” Pandora was gasping in shock, fingers digging into Hedone’s back. “How. But. They destroyed it. Burned it to ash and burned the ash to nothing.”

Bellerophon stood so quickly the chair fell over with a clatter. His cane fell next, rolling under the table unnoticed. “What the bloody hell?”

“There’s power at work,” Hedone said darkly, smoothing back Pandora’s hair. “We’ve been bewitched by someone.”

“Oh, Bell!” Pandora cried, tears streaming down her porcelain face. “He had the box! He said I had to open it-that I would always open it, that it was meant for me. He was laughing about it! History always repeats, especially the bits where people fuck up-” She threw herself into his arms and buried her face in his chest, her shoulders shaking with the force of her sobs. He tightened his arms around her, lost for words and overwhelmed. Then he looked up at Hedone and his face sharpened.

“Find whoever did this,” he said in a voice so full of fury that Hedone took a half-step back. “I’d like a word or two with them. Very short words.”

The rest of the room had fallen silent; they had become the center of attention. But the crowd was also significantly smaller and the costumes decidedly more simple-when the mirages had faded, they had taken much of the finery with them. And the music had stopped, blessedly. Hedone could think and see properly again, without the aid of

“Hercules?”

He was gone.

She had wanted to panic. It was the first thought that seized her. But that was her mortality overwhelming her reason, her newer sense of loss and the accompanying knowledge of how temporary things could be in a world of constant death and birth. She feared because she was all too aware of how fragile Hercules’ life was, regardless of his strength.

But she managed to push it away and stamp it down under a ruthless heel because panic would be of no service. Running frantically would only exhaust her and waste time. And time could be precious.

So while her nerves screamed to move, to run, to shout his name, she thought at a ferocious speed, organizing her options and conclusions so quickly she could almost hear the progressing ideas click into place.

Perhaps he had been the target all along. This wasn’t far-fetched if her hypothesis about his true parentage was correct; and she was nearly certain on that count. Someone could have use of him as a bargaining chip with Zeus, as a means of blackmail, as a way to manipulate her, or perhaps they wanted him simply for his superhuman strength.

He could be a diversion. While she was searching for him, they could return for Pandora and Bellerophon. They were only mortal, but both had been touched by the gods in certain ways. That sort of connection left a trail and traces of power. If someone had the knowing of how, they could be used as channels; and, again, they were connected to her and could be used as weapons against her if wielded ruthlessly.

And if she was the intended prize all along, what better way to grab her than to uproot her first by removing her strongest support. She would do anything in her power to protect Hercules; perhaps the unknown puppeteer was counting on that. She would damn the Pact to save him; she would damn the Pact to avenge him.

Regardless, there would be a reckoning.

A man pointed through a door. As he was flesh-and-blood-and she vaguely remembered him from an Econ class last semester-she decided he was trustworthy. It was a short hall and it ended in a single door. She expected a bathroom, or a janitor’s closet.

She did not expect a room of mirrors. It was some sort of dance studio, with railing along the walls at hip-height for stretches and limbering exercises. Standing in the doorway and looking in at reflections of herself, she knew it wasn’t real. But on the far wall was another door. And if she didn’t push forward she’d start screaming.

Two steps inside and the door swung shut behind her with an ominous finality. The lights flickered out. She was stranded in a space that felt far too echoing and vast, blinded and disoriented. She forced herself to breathe evenly and swallow the lump in her throat, even as the soft clicking began. Something was moving around her-she could sense the changes in the air, almost feel the breeze over her skin.

There was a loud clap; not of thunder but of hands. The lights came back on. Much brighter this time with a dazzling white intensity far beyond what mere fluorescent bulbs could ever achieve. When Hedone looked up, the ceiling was nothing but a bright haze of light.

And the mirrors were no longer on the walls. They had slid forward, split apart, angled and repositioned into a glittering kaleidoscope of reflections. She was surrounded by dozens of images of herself: some life-sized, some giant, and some small and indistinct in the distance.

“I won’t be a rat in a maze!” Hedone shouted angrily. “I’ll smash this place to the ground before I play your games!”

There was a soft, decidedly feminine chuckle. But whoever was hiding wasn’t ready to step into the light-there was no rise to Hedone’s bait, no dramatic unveiling or monologues.

“Give Hercules back to me,” Hedone demanded, every inch the imperious princess. “I won’t ask so nicely again.”

“You make it sound as though he were a possession,” the voice said, echoing from every corner. She didn’t recognize it, which was worrying. She had half suspected-

There was a loud bang, and her heart leaped fully into her mouth. It could have been a door, a machine, any number of things. Surely it hadn’t been a gun. A disembodied giggle made the hair on the back of her neck stand to attention, and her fists tightened until her knuckles popped.

“He is mine.” Hedone summoned every bit of rage she had in her; anything to overwhelm the numbing, freezing fear.

“Yet you were so willing to cast him aside, not so very long ago,” the voice said silkily.

“I have no tolerance for spies. Or thieves,” she managed to say through gritted teeth.

“Which is rich, coming from someone whose family includes several of both.”

“Who are you?” Hedone demanded.

“I am not the Wizard of Oz, and there is no curtain that will be drawn back,” the voice laughed. “You don’t need to know everything, little goddess.”

“Let Hercules go. Unharmed.”

“How about we play a little game? Or you could think of it as a test-yes, a test. Pick the right option, and you both walk away free. No muss, no fuss. No loud dramatics. But,” and the voice suddenly dropped in pitch, full of the promise of pain. “Should you fail, the penalty will be… Harsh.”

A pair of unseen fingers snapped, and he was there. He was everywhere. Trapped behind panes of glass, reaching out to her and mouthing wordless pleas, hammering at the mirrors until they shook, tears on his cheeks and panic in his eyes. A dozen Hercules calling out to her in inaudible voices.

But which one…

He opened his eyes. He was in a pure white room, so white that it was difficult to make out where the floor met the walls-if there even were walls. His eyes stung it was so bright, and he found himself squinting as he pushed himself up onto his feet.

“Hedone?”

There was no memory of leaving the ballroom. In his mind’s eye, he watched as Hedone ran towards Pandora and Bellerophon, as the box shattered onto the floor, and then-here. Had he actually moved at all? Perhaps he was still in the ballroom, and everything was being obscured somehow. He put out a hand and began walking forward, half-hoping he would touch something solid and reality would snap back into place.

But there was nothing. The air seemed to be getting colder; he could see his breath in a cloud before him. He was beginning to shiver through the thick satin coat. He pushed on, because what were his options? At least in moving he had the semblance of effort. Sitting in place would accomplish nothing.

A dark dot appeared on what could only be called the horizon. Someone was coming towards him, shouting something still inaudible.

He picked up his pace.

Hedone turned in place and as she did the mirrors reshuffled and came closer, until they had circled her, closed her in, locked her in a glittering cage of glass and reflections. Every Hercules was identical, down to the part in the golden brown hair. And the mirrors began to spin around her, like some terrible carousel, dizzying her until she swayed on her feet.

“Tick tock, tick tock,” the voice taunted. “Time is running out for your precious strongman, goddess. You’d better make a choice.”

It was like having a head stuffed with cotton and molasses, every thought a sticky struggle to pull free. Her vision swam, the pleading reflections reduced to a red and gold blur. She felt as though she was coming undone, something at her core unraveling, plucked away by the laughing voice. Everything felt heavy, cold, too confusing, and she was suddenly so exhausted-more tired than she had ever been in her entire existence. What she truly wanted, needed, was to sleep. To sleep and never wake up again…

She jolted as if shocked, the way a dreamer jumps when the brain tries to tell the body something vital. How could she be so blind? So stupid?

“Hercules!”

She was coming into focus, close enough now for him to properly see her face. His heart leaped with relief as he broke into a huge smile. His legs found the energy for an extra burst of speed, and soon she was twenty feet away, then ten, then within arm’s reach. She was laughing giddily, with the same relief he was feeling, and held her arms out to him with a white smile.

He stopped short, almost falling backwards. He stared at the figure with confusion, distrust, fear.

“What?” she demanded as her smile faded and eyes widened. “Hercules, what’s wrong?”

“I’ve made my choice,” Hedone said in a clarion voice.

The mirrors stopped spinning so abruptly, there was an audible hum of strain and tension. Every Hercules stared at her, silent and frozen.

“Then make it.”

“I choose none of them!” she shouted, ringing with conviction. “They aren’t real! They aren’t Hercules!”

“You’re not Hedone,” he said quietly, taking a large step back. “I don’t know who you are-what you are-but you’re not her. I don’t love you.”

The mirrors exploded.

There was a blinding flash of intense light that seared his skin with frozen heat.

She started to fall to her knees, hands over her face as the shards of glass spun through the air in a sharp maelstrom of chaos, when he caught her. Then they fell together, collapsing inwards and bowing their heads cheek to cheek as the world became nothing but sparkling light and the crashing of broken mirrors.

It seemed to go on forever, a perpetual crescendo of destruction. And over it, could she just make out a cheated scream of anger? Or was that only wishful thinking-her need to know they had won, and that their persecutor’s plans had been spoiled? A part of her was already filing away every detail of this night for future reference; so she would have a list of grievances to mark off when the time for retribution came.

Because her blood was on fire and her vision had sharpened in a way that almost frightened her. If the woman behind that cruel laugh had thought her a “little” goddess; if she had expected to run away into the night and not be pursued; if she had assumed that she could toy with mortals and divine alike and not be held accountable-

She was dead wrong.

Not even having Hercules back, his arms around her, the scent of him, the knowledge that he was whole and real would distract her. Not for a moment. Because for all that she hated the Lito and its hypocrisies, and detested most of her family, she knew what she had to do in the morning.

There was strength in numbers. And power. With the Pact intact, there was only one way to properly untangle this knot. Surely, it had been an unintended side-effect, because Zeus would never have purposefully set about to do it. But on Earth, as they had become, they could only move mountains as a family, through their combined resources and abilities. For a group that was eternally fractured and at odds within itself, it had become another failsafe against a second War.

She would have to make them all see. She would have to find a way to unite her squabbling aunts and uncles and cousins against this common foe. Because if this mystery woman had the power necessary to cloud Hedone’s judgment and warp space itself, she wouldn’t be stopped by such a minor setback. She would strike again, for whatever purpose-Hedone knew it in her bones, because this time she had been foiled. She had fled without her intended prize, whatever that had been.

The last shard of glass dissolved against the floor, leaving only the faintest of fading shimmers behind to mark where it had fallen. When they raised their heads and took in the porcelain bathroom around them there was the sense of waking from an especially lucid dream.

Hercules ran his hands up her arms feeling for any wounds. “You’re alright?” he demanded. “You’re okay? You’re fine?”

“Yes, yes,” she said quickly, hugging him tightly. “Oh thank Elysian, you’re safe.” She pressed her chin to his shoulder, her cheek against his jaw, and was silently thankful that he could not see her face in that moment.

Because she could. She stared at herself in the mirror above the sink and did not recognize the woman staring back. There was too much anger and hatred and fear in that face to be familiar.

Oh, yes. There would be a reckoning.

She looked up as the door banged against the wall. “…If that left a mark, you’ll pay for the repair.”

“Do I fucking look like I care?” the other woman screamed. Her hair-a black that was almost blue in certain lights-hung down around her white face, giving her a ghastly, witch-like appearance. She was sunken and drawn, the black circles under her eyes livid. A beautiful woman made old overnight and apparently beaten badly to boot.

“I take it the trip to California did not go well?” she asked with an infuriating amount of nonchalance. She delicately licked a finger and turned a page in the magazine she was reading.

“You said she was little more than a mooncalf,” the pale woman spat. “A horny girl infatuated with a pretty face.”

“Ah, but her mother is Psyche,” she said. “Clearly, she’s inherited her mother’s clear eye.”

“If you had even suspected she would see through my tricks, why the fuck did you send me?”

“Because even a failure teaches us something,” she replied, tapping the side of her nose. “We may not have been successful in siphoning more power, but we’ve certainly learned something new about our enemy. Don’t look at this as a complete loss, sweetie.”

“It’s all well and good for you to sit there, smiling smugly, reading a trash tabloid while I look like this.”

“Calm yourself-we’ll have you fully restored in no time at all.”

The pale woman had begun to pace restlessly, hands clenched into shaking fists. “And the way you just condescend, and brush my failure off-then again, you’ve had plenty of experience with failure, haven’t you, you-”

She was out of her chair and rushing the woman to the wall before the sentence could die, perfectly-manicured hand around her throat and red nails digging painfully into the flesh. They struck the wall so hard, the plaster cracked in a vast web around the woman’s shoulders. Her eyes were like Holocaust fires as they bored into hers, and the heat was palpable.

“Thalia, you ever speak like that to me again,” she whispered, teeth bared in an animal snarl, hand tightening until ruby droplets spattered to the floor. “And I will dig your eyes out with my fingers.”

“Remember,” Thalia wheezed as her own fire flickered in her hazel eyes. “Who has… helped you. None of this would, would be possible. Without me.”

She released her and strode back to her desk, snatching up a tissue and wiping the blood from her hand. “Yes, you’re absolutely right. You have your uses, honey. Now be a lamb and send that little military man in.”

Clutching her throat and gasping hoarsely, Thalia left as quickly as she had entered. A minute passed, then two, and she occupied herself with scraping the blood out from under her nails.

There was a polite cough and she looked up at the man in nondescript olive green and beige, his sandy hair closely cropped at the sides, his pale blue gaze straight ahead, his bearing almost painfully stiff. Outwardly regimental, but she had seen enough of the raw meat beneath the civilized veneer. She knew what made him tick-what buttons to press on her little tin solider.

It was so much fun when they were already indebted.

“Orion,” she said with a feline smile. “I’ve got a little job for you.”