The night was dark and vast, leading on an unending journey for the traveler that embarked upon its path. It was wrought with the plagues of forgotten gods and angered enemies that Jezebel had made over the years. Walker of demons, Jeze had learned to adhere to the Olympian gods long ago without angering them to avoid their wrath. Simply put, she was the bastard daughter of Erebos and Nyx. Not a soul on that mountain in the sky wanted her to exist because she was the goddess of an unknown power and unknown source. She was shadow. She was night. Jeze was the epitome of what every god feared and so they kept her in line and on a leash and collar like a pet. She was bore to Hades as a gift by her father to appease Apollo and Artemis. Apollo had been furious that one of his former mistresses had even had the thought of giving birth to any child but his own. Nyx had given birth to Jezebel purely as a means to piss off the Greek gods, while Erebos was looking for a way to pass on his blood line without pissing off Hades. Only it wasn't her parents that bore the hardships of their indiscretions, it was Jeze who owed her soul to Olympus. One day however, she'd come out of hiding. She swore one day she'd rise against Artemis and Apollo. She'd make them feel every whip and every blow they'd ever inflicted on her tenfold with her own unending powers. Powers that not even Acheron knew she possessed…
Jezebel stuffed her cold bruised hands in her pockets inside her leather jacket pockets standing outside on the corner by the world famous Café Dumond. The rain was trickling over the hazy New Orleans streets with a heavy conviction, fighting the fog for domination of the roads and low grass marshes. A lit cigarette hung from her red lips as the smoke puffed out between her teeth as she hissed in displeasure. It was muggy, the very kind of night that the residents of New Orleans stayed inside. Her hair was plucked up and back in a mess of snarled half curls and stringy mess on top of her head in a dancer's bun. Wisps of it hung here and there from the bun sticking to her neck in the dank heat. Her back was stinging like holy hell. Artemis had really given her a healthy lashing for disobeying her orders to stay in Hade's home for three weeks and obey him. To hell with that shit…literally. Jezebel had fought him and Persephone every step of the way. Which in turn had bartered her a hefty whip lashing by Artemis and a good backhand by Apollo. The god's would never stop trying to control her and she would never stop trying to fight back even in the smallest of ways. Like now.
She watched a young man walk out of the café with a tall pale woman standing beside him draped on his arm. The demon was beautiful in every sense of the word despite her choice of plaid purple mini skirt and black tank top, Simi was gorgeous. Jeze watched Nick Gutier carefully as he walked the demon down the street and towards the French Quarter. He was a shaggy kid, lean muscled, tall, strong…everything a woman would want. Except for that damn bow and arrow mark Artemis had slapped over the poor kids face, all for the revenge he'd wanted for his mother's death. She rolled her eyes taking a long drag off her cigarette and started off after them both. The person she needed to find would be wherever Nick was taking Simi, Acheron would be there. She needed him to help her like a kid needed sugar on a daily basis. Artemis was the one person he hated as much as she did…and after the last beating she'd taken, Jeze wasn't hiding from Ash anymore. She was under strict orders to never meet the man and never speak to him; "He is mine." Artie had said. Fuck her. She didn't want the goddesses' man, she wanted his help. His powers…and she'd get his help when she showed him what she had to offer. It was an old piece of his history that he'd wipe the face of the earth clean to possess again in his hands. Who was she to deny it to him? Unless he refused to help her get her revenge on Artemis, the goddess of the hunt her ass. Artie was as blind as a damn bat to how many people wanted her pelt on their mantel like she hung hers in her temple.
As they rounded a corner in the shadowy cemetery Nick felt a shiver go down his spine. They were being followed by something or someone powerful. Simi was chattering away on his shoulder as the rain gently fell over them both. She'd worn her hair in pigtails which brushed over his shoulder as Acheron came into view standing by a headstone. Nick stopped walking at the edge of the graveyard and sighed rubbing the back of his neck watching what used to be his best friend. Now It was just his enemy…his hated enemy…
"And thens I says to him, You had better go gets yourself laid down!" Simi grinned brilliantly finishing her story beaming down at Nick who was trying not to laugh as Ash turned his head grimacing.
"Simi, baby, don't start talking like Artie. You meant, You had better go fuck yourself." She nodded shrugging flipping her pink stripped hair over her shoulder.
"Fuck yourself, lays yourself, it makes no difference. Why you people make such a bi…." Ash cut her off feeling the same thing Nick had, he stiffened.
"Simi, return to me." She snorted whining and was about to protest until Ash gave her a specific look that she obeyed.
"Man, you have her trained." Nick teased his former friend knowing it would piss him off.
"She's not a dog Nick. She's my daughter." He snapped when a young woman stepped out from the shadows…or…materialized from the shadows…
Jezebel took the spat as the moment to free herself from hiding within the shadows her father commanded and from the night her mother created. Her body separated itself from the mist of the humid New Orleans air materializing like a ghost from the very graveyard she was appearing in. Ash could barely contain his slight shock let alone the heat deep within his stomach. This girl was every bit the sexy woman she didn't seem to know she was. However he was more tactful that Nick whom whistled low in the back of his throat his jaw slack watching the woman appear before him.
"Acheron." The girl said with a thick accent somewhere between a southern drawl and an ancient lilt that Ash knew only the god's could speak.
"Who are you?" he asked standing tall pulling himself up to his full height squaring his shoulders as she took a hesitant step forward in her high heeled biker boots.
"My name is…" she would have finished her sentence had a giant ass bird like creature not swept through the night towards her face. She huffed cussing and threw her arms up as the bird collided with her snagging its long talons into her jacket and flesh. She ground her teeth in pain hissing and rolled with the overgrown hawk throwing it onto the ground she snapped at the bird in ancient Greek before blasting the birds head off with a lighting strike from her palm. The bird screeched before she blew it's body apart beneath her in the grass and it pierced her ears. Ash stepped back putting his hands up motioning for Nick to move behind him. It wasn't because he was scared of the girl, he assumed was a demi-god, but that her lighting blast had not been of light. It was of darkness. Pure undiluted darkness. Only a handful of gods held darkness in their hands and could wield it openly like she had and as far as he'd known, they hadn't procreated ever.
"That…was unexpected…" Ash said watching her heave a long sigh as the shrugged off her jacket carefully to check the deep wounds in her arms. She was wearing a tight black tank top underneath laced with silver embroidered angels wings that hugged her back and ribs. She shivered looking down at her arms before looking up at the sky, her voice was angry and low as she whispered a threat to a certain goddess in Greek that only Ash understood.
"Artemis, I dare you. Come down here and fight me. Because if you send another bird, I will fuck you up bitch." She hissed and Ash stiffened again answering her in their native tongue, well her native tongue, since his was Atleantien.
"And why is Artemis attacking you little goddess?" he asked her. She stood and tried to straighten her arms to ignore how bad her arms were bleeding let alone hurting.
"Holy damn!" Nick stared. "You need to get healed…like now…you have skin hanging off your arm." But Ash held him back from going to see her.
"I said." He amended in english. "Why did you just get attacked…who are you…?" She glanced at the two boys biting her red lip for a long moment trying to find the words to explain her heritage. It wasn't easy and it certainly had never gone well before.
Every time she'd tried to tell someone who and what she was, the god or goddess had stripped her bare of anything she'd owned and beaten her attempting to cage her like an animal. They'd tried to make her theirs and destroy her will, one god whom was dead had even tried to make her his sex slave. Thankfully Apollo had a soul and had rescued her from that fate killing the minor god for his balls to steal one of his sister's play toys. She needed to have Ash on her side. She needed his help. She would have gone to Apollo and bargained her freedom from Artemis for slavery to him had he not taken her home the night he'd saved her and offered her to Hades. She'd never trust the siblings again. Ever.
"I am daughter of Erebos and Nyx. Goddess of nothing and the whispers of the night. I am Jezebel of the darkness." She said matching his height and stance. She wouldn't back down. Not ever. Jezebel was a goddess despite how everyone else treated her, her entire life.
"There is no way you are who you say are…you can't exist." He said simply crossing his ars over his chest, his muscles rippling under his gothic anti-society black t-shirt.
"Listen, I hardly have time to argue with you right now." She gestured to the barbecued bird she'd fried. "As you can see, I am being hunted." She snapped impatiently. "I need help. Miss Bitch is upset because I'm a servant of hers as well and I'm trying to escape her…only it doesn't stop with her…I'm Apollo's too…" and that was when Ash saw the pain in her eyes.
It was a pain that he knew so much more than any person could bare. And in this horrible pain that burned it's way through her soul and out of her eyes, scorching to explode from her every pore as she fought to keep herself in check…Ash saw a wonderful young woman. He saw a Goddess of strength and dangerous power one day ruling the earth beside the very woman he truly did fear…their hands entwined Apollymi and Jezebel would rule the earth while destroying it and torturing Apollo until his very last breath and the earth exploded when the sun would go out. He felt it deep inside himself. This was one possible future for the young goddess should he refuse her help…but if he offered her his hand…right here and now…if he did this one selfless activity and took the punishment with Artie…
He saw her standing beside Nick in the pits of Tartarus battling Hades for something that meant more to Nick than his very own skin. She was charging Hades in front of Nick protecting and shielding him so that he could attain his mother's soul from the underworld…but that wasn't what surprised him, not even the fact the Jezebel stood clad in skins and armor fit of an Amazonian woman brandishing a sword much like the one Erebos bore in battle streaming and commanding the fires of hell against Hades…no what astonished him was his own form that stood beside her…touching her arm ever present as she flipped and moved in battle…Ash was standing beside her guarding her back, but not as a friend…not it was too intimate for that…no he saw the love in his own gaze…he guarded her as a lover in the underworld…
For the first time in his entire life, Ash had seen himself in a vision of the future. He'd seen himself in love with the woman, the goddess, that stood before himself. But what's more he'd seen a clear choice he'd have to make. To sacrifice. Ash would have to give himself up to this young woman to save the entire world from the destruction that he knew now she was capable of. She was so beautiful though. So tiny framed thin like a bird. She was lithe and fragile looking but he knew better. He could feel the power rolling off her in waves, the pain though that was in her voice as she went to stuff her hands back in her pockets.
"Follow me…we need to talk…in private." He said cutting a glance askew towards Nick. "Go to Kryian's tonight. Tell him I've had a run in with a young woman. It'll make him happy for once." Ash grunted shoving Nick gently in the direction he was to go. He was going to fight back and quip off a smartass remark when Jeze cut him off. She smiled seductively at him.
"Be a good boy and go home Nikkie. I'll see you again rather soon. The grownups have business to attend too." And with that she flicked her hand in his direction and vanished him to Kryian's home from his memories that she momentarily staved into.
"Looks like this is going to be an eventful night Miss Jezebel." Ash said watching her carefully as he came over to gently touch her arms tracing his fingers over the long wounds that were still freshly bleeding.
"I…" she made to pull her arms back from him so that he wouldn't see but it was too late. Ash saw the familiar brandish whip marks that only came from one whip and one whip only. He froze and his eyes grew a swirling silver as he grew angry. His grip on her arm painfully tight.
"How long has she owned you?" he asked.
…..
