Last Daughter of the Gods - 6

My plan was slow in evolving, but with the discovery of newfound ability to conjure a pathway to the other world, my spirit began to wander to unfamiliar lands and peoples in the night, always searching for clues to David’s disappearance. Unfortunately, it has not been easy. The ancient thrones and dominions in this dark world do not readily vouchsafe passage through their realms. For that I will need to enlist a power greater than my own.

I began to pray each night to Hekate, Goddess of the border lands, the keeper of the keys for every passageway in every dominion. If any Titan might have survived the millennia, it would be her. She alone of all the old Gods still has followers in the world of men. More on that later....

But as the days in the county lock up dragged on with no material change to my circumstances, I began to spend hours devising thousands of different ways to eke out my vengeance. Even though Father took away the only person in my world who made me happy, I still had acted as the dutiful daughter. If he thinks betraying me after all that I have sacrificed for Him would have no consequences he has another thing coming.

The District Attorney has frequently hinted that if I cooperate with the investigation, he might be able to put together a plea deal. But what he really wants is to collar my Father, and as much as that idea cheered me, I knew it was a practical impossibility. Father is impregnable in His house and never leaves it for any reason whatsoever.

I suppose I could have told them the truth and then spent the remaining interviews with court appointed psychologists till they tossed me in the looney bin. After months of waiting for the next shoe to drop, I began to think that was probably Father’s intent in any event. During the last two weeks of August, I was so stir crazy that the idea of confessing what really happened to Michael Konstantinos began to appeal to me. At least it would have occasioned a change in my environment, and I can conjure the wishing well anywhere.

When my Mother finally returned from Greece on September 21st, she went straight to the District Attorney’s to demand my release. But when she went to the County lock up to give me an update on the situation, I refused her offered hug.

“Where’s David?” I demanded.

“Soma, we already been through this.”

“The only way I will come home is if Father promises to show me David’s bones.”

For a few moments she was speechless. “Soma! Your Father would nev….”

“Don’t lie to me, Mother.” I angrily interrupted. “I just spent almost four months in a cell because Father set me up. Father set me up! Do you realize what that means Mother? He closed the Underworld rather than make any effort to bail me out. I will return when He shows me David’s bones or brings him back to me living.”

She looked at me in horror, her recognition of my resolve causing a deep intake of breath. “You don’t want to defy your Father. He will come for you … or Thanatos will.”

“If he kills me, he kills me. If Father wants me to return of my own free will, he must take me to David.”

Mother’s face had paled, her hand involuntarily bracing against the wall from the shock of my emotion. “Father only wants what’s best for you, Soma. Surely you know that.”

But I know better. After the hound killed Michael Konstantinos, I warned him the cops would come sniffing around. "We can’t very well take them to your rec room to sort through your bone collection,” I said in exasperation.

“Let them.” He replied sarcastically. “I’m bored and could use the distraction. I hate it when your Mother is away.” Eyeing me suspiciously, he changed the subject. “This really isn’t about the elevator, is it.”

I felt a wave of terror sweep down my back. The thought that he might try to pry something out of me didn’t help my nerves.

I groused – “You didn’t need to kill them.”

He looked at me in shock. “They could have shot you and not thought twice about it, and you feel sorry for them?”

“You kill the innocent as easily as the guilty. Do you think twice about it?”

“Do you seriously dare to compare Me to them? They are beneath contempt. … they were created for our pleasure, not the other way around.”

When I scowled back, he growled with bared teeth, “You think you’re ready to dance with the Devil?”

No one had ever stood up to him before. Why should I be any different? Even Mother has never challenged him. But unlike me, she leaves in the Spring and does not return until the autumn equinox. That is their unspoken arrangement, even though Father’s a miserable cur in the months when she is away. Not that he is pleasant during the six months that she spends with us, but at least then he is bearable.

But I am almost as afraid of her as Father is. He fears nothing else. Every ounce of love in his cold heart belongs to her and she lords it over both of us. “We all have a role to play,” Mother likes to say.

But I can't continue to play mine.