Godtown

Chapter Fifty-Five

I was sitting on the bed when she came through the door the second time. This room was not as large or luxurious as her penthouse. Small and bare, it made my Spartan quarters look like Zeus' bedroom. All the warmth was gone too, replaced now with tacky mirth and false welcome. The orange paint peeled and the bed squeaked with the slightest movement. The smell alternated between heavy tobacco and dirty sex. I didn't want to think about who or what had gone bump in the bedsheets I sat upon.

"Took you long enough. Long night?" I asked as I saw a gleam of sequin shine enter the room. Hestia gave a start when she saw me.

"Hades!" Hestia yelled. "I nearly jumped out of my skin."

"Titans forbid," I said, looking her over. Hestia had traded her frayed hair and frumpy blue jumpsuit for a tight diamond-sequined dress that hugged curves like a boy on his first date. A white fur hung over her shoulders. I saw some movement within the fur, so I pulled out my revolver.

Hestia calmly lifted her hands to show she didn't have anything in them. I hadn't forgotten how our last encounter went so I kept my gun trained on her midsection. She didn't seem to mind.

"You don't seem surprised to see me," I said. It was a statement, not a question.

"You always were the determined sort," she shrugged. "If Persephone has taught us anything, it's that you aren't the kind to let things go."

"It is not a good idea to mention my wife," I said, my voice so low it was almost a growl.

"Have it your way," she said with a wave of her hand. I made sure she wasn't building up a Conjure. "So how did you find me?"

"It wasn't hard, once I knew who I was looking for," I said. "It's not too hard to find you. I just searched for all of the hotels."

"That must have been a lot of hotels," Hestia said.

"Not when I had this," I said, holding up two pieces of paper, torn from Hermes' ledger. "I swiped it during our last meeting. Hermes supplied all your hearths in town, including the hotels. That's what you were after when you drugged my dogs and tore these out of the ledger."

I was quiet for a moment. Hestia didn't seem too worried about my presence. I looked down. She could have run. Instead, she did the damndest thing. She walked over to the bed and sat down beside me. She looked back at me with a concerned, sisterly expression.

"Is that why you killed him?" I asked. "To cover your tracks?"

Hestia sighed. "I've been the virgin goddess for thousands of years. Do you understand what that means?"

"You were never lonely," I said. "And you had plenty of suitors. Poseidon was one of them, as I recall."

Hestia shook her hair, tossing her golden-brown hairs in a fury. "That was different. That was when it was just us. One family," Hestia said. "But then we came here, and it was different. Everyone was different, except me. And I was expected to keep playing my part."

Hestia gave a shrill, bitter laugh. "Honor. Tradition. All those lies we told ourselves. Just a sham to keep us in our place."

"Why didn't you go to Zeus?" I asked.

"You think I didn't?" she said. "Every time I cleaned his office I mentioned it, but he always had the same line about the poll numbers not being right. Titans forbid, what would the press think if they found out I didn't want to be a virgin?"