Four hundred and ninety-eight years...
Megara pressed her face into the obsidian wall of her living space. Was it worth unleashing two massive gorgons on the world just to claw her way toward freedom?
A groaning shade flew straight into Megara's sorry excuse for an apartment and got caught in the corner.
"You can't go through there," Megara told the ghost, forcing a sardonic smile. One day she'd be one of these mindless creatures. She couldn't get too annoyed with her. "Look, the fields continue that way." She got to her feet and grabbed the ghost's dress to tug her toward the exit.
The shade resisted, floating toward Megara's rat hole apartment once again. Her arms were outstretched, her mouth hanging open in despair.
"There's nothing in there," Megara assured her. "Get out."
In a flash of choking smoke, Hades appeared behind her. "Gah!" he roared in frustration. "Can you believe Zeus made me sit around praising Hercules's career? That little sun spot just– what are you doing? Are you listening to me?"
"My apartment is full of unexpected guests today," Megara said, attempting to hurl the ghost out into the fields.
Hades snapped his fingers, and the woman shrieked, clutching her head. The ghost corkscrewed through the air, still screaming, until she was so far away Megara couldn't hear her anymore. "If you're a good little minion, someday I'll teach you that one!"
"I'll pass. I understand you're the king of the dead, but could you at least try to be gentle with your subjects?"
"She won't remember that," Hades shrugged. "Why do you care so much?"
Megara mirrored his shrug. "Some of us don't like screaming." And "some of us" were destined to die, meaning it was impossible to stop imagining herself incorporeal.
"You're in the wrong place to complain about that. Now! How'd your talk with Medusa go?"
"She's a tentative yes. Her sisters Stheno and Euryale are eager to help you. I was thinking that rises to the level of tripling my reward. That's three monsters for the price of one, have you ever beaten that?"
"I once had an allegiance to the mother of all monsters, the mighty Echidna, and she had an army of her children… But that was a while ago, and they couldn't even wreck the Olympics."
Megara raised a brow at him. "I think we both know that doesn't bode well, but the point is I got you three Gorgons. I believe you promised me two years off my sentence, and I raise you that I deserve six."
"Hey, I get it, you're an enterprising young lady. But you don't make the rules."
"No, you do, and so far, you've set a rate of two years per monster. Well? I got you three monsters, and that's three times the going bounty. I'd like to call in my chips."
Hades stared at her, motionless for a long moment. "Fine." He snapped his fingers, summoning a hovering year counter reading 498. The 8 started to cycle toward seven, but stopped.
Stay calm, Megara coached herself. He wants to see you upset.
"You know, I'm wondering if you should get three times the original rate, or an add-on of two fifty percent bonuses."
Don't scream. You can't claw his eyes out, anyway.
Megara shrugged. "It's up to you, of course. You do make the rules, after all. But I have to wonder what my buy-in is if the payout is so low."
"Excuse me?"
"Oh, it's only that I did stellar work for you, probably the best you ever had, and talked around someone who started out as a no-sell. Frankly, considering she already put up with your attitude once, it's a miracle she's willing to put up with you a second time."
"Get to some kind of point with this before I singe you."
"I'm just saying! What's my incentive to overachieve if you never over-reward me? I knew you were a swindler, but geez, you could at least be honest with me."
"How dare you?" Hades raised his hand for a swipe across her face, but he stopped at the sight of something in the distance. "You're going topside before my stupid nephew gets here."
Megara's mind whirred. Nephew? Was Hercules about to visit the Underworld?
She was on the surface, standing in the graveyard before she had any chance to contemplate the question. Dizzy from being so unceremoniously transported, she leaned against the nearest mausoleum.
Why would Hercules be in the Underworld?
She shook herself. It couldn't be him. He'd never have a reason to go down there. And she had to stop thinking about him in her off time. He was a mark. There was no point dwelling on him when… Her eyes caught the amphora she'd left in the graveyard.
Someone had moved it.
She could've slapped herself for how quickly she reached for the vase. The lid came off, and there it was: two rolled-up papyri. It seemed ridiculous that she ought to be so stunned by the thought of Hercules following through with sending her a letter when he'd been the one to beg for the relationship. No, not a relationship. It was a… a correspondence.
So why should she hesitate to read it? This was no big deal! Nothing to be afraid of. With a firm yank, Megara pulled the paper free.
A flier fell out, advertising an appearance by alumnus Hercules at the Prometheus Academy in Athens. According to a notice in a set of parentheses near the bottom of the flier, it might help the school recover from some recent, and somewhat understandable destruction. She turned over the papyrus, discovering a few ink blots from where it had been wrapped around the letter while it was still wet.
Thankfully, none of it was so smudged she couldn't read what Hercules had written. At the top of the page, all he'd written was "Meg." Simple, but it made her hold her breath. It gave her no inkling of what to expect. She ducked around the side of the mausoleum, clutching the letter close. It was still daylight, so there were plenty of recently-interred to visit, but so far, she had no witnesses.
Anyone who caught her reading a letter from Hercules would have all kinds of questions, and when the letter had her actual name at the top, she couldn't pretend she'd found it. She'd better read this and then either hide or destroy it.
She'd mentioned using nicknames, but she should've specified a fake nickname for Hercules to use for her. He'd probably thought she meant to keep it casual. Brilliant.
Oh, well. They were in it together now.
She'd intended to give the letter a quick scan so she could pick out a few things to reply to in her own letter, but his words were too compelling to skim. He wasn't the most elegant writer, but his artless sincerity had a certain appeal she wasn't yet accustomed to.
He'd told her too much. Someone with genuine malice would've taken this opening to rip out his heart and feed it back to him.
Megara glanced around cautiously once more. Nobody was around, yet, there was still time to tear up the letter and pretend she'd never seen it. But then, there was still time to commit it to memory, just so she could reply. After a confession like this, she'd have to be a craven of the highest order to offer nothing in return. Even the smallest token would be better than showing no evidence that she'd actually taken the time to honor his words.
It had been some time since she was the subject of a boyish crush, but she could wait it out. He'd be harmless she could keep him at arm's length until he found a better match. Heck, why not Medusa? They'd gotten along fine before, and crazier things had happened than a monster turning human, right?
Her eyes flickered back to the safe haven of the Prometheus Academy flier. Had he left that in as some kind of invitation? She couldn't go anywhere without Hades's say-so, but in this case, Hades was already planning an ambush on Hercules with a triple gorgon team. A team she'd assembled personally for her own selfish goals. An ambush that she would attend by invitation of the intended victim. Something about that sounded extra wrong. How to decline without hurting the poor guy?
He saw her as a girl she could only hope to be. Perhaps in another lifetime, she could have gone to this thing, showed him off, and told everyone how proud she was that he'd asked her to be there with him. She didn't live that life.
Megara stuffed the flier back into the vase. She owed it to Hercules to read his letter, maybe even reply, but she couldn't force Fate. Those ladies would jinx her beyond recognition for trying.
Fine. She'd put up some emotional boundaries. Now it was time to give the letter a second read-through and try to find some way to answer him without humiliating him or worse. He spoke of a feeling that drove him toward her just in time to help her. That couldn't be more than a coincidence, not when everything since they met was an outrageous series of coincidences.
He'd started reading into his future with her, imagining the life he'd live with this woman he imagined her to be. She ought to have known that he wouldn't give up on romancing her. Since they first met, Hercules had fawned over her. His love confession stared at her in the gloom with the brilliance of his smile. She couldn't keep her eyes on it for long. They stung. She covered her face, trying to refocus. Her hands caught her tears, making them impossible to deny.
They could never be together. Not with Hades pitting them against each other and Megara's own hangups. So why did the inevitable truth bother her so much?
She couldn't have written a better tragedy, and she'd lived through half a dozen. The protagonists always thought they knew the true meaning behind a prophecy and that they could outsmart Fate. In this case, Hercules found it impossible to recognize the bait that led him into every trap Hades devised for him as the greatest danger in his life. If he could just ignore her, or listen to his nanny goat's advice…
Megara shook herself. She was being ridiculous. Wiping her eyes, she chided herself for not adapting better to her circumstances. She'd seen this play before, as it cycled through every generation of her people. This was Thebes. Whenever this thing reached a climax, someone would wind up dead.
Thebes was running out of royals to die dramatic deaths. The tug of war between Hades and Hercules had just the one Theban in the ring. Even though neither of them knew of her ties to the other, never in the history of Thebes had a royal tangled with the gods and came out alive. Not Semele, not Admetus, not even Cadmus. Laius and Oedipus had damned three generations between them and Oedipus himself had never had an active hand in the damnation.
Now it fell to Megara to be the bad luck charm. She wasn't particularly innocent, and in life Oedipus had been called a hero. How much worse would the fallout be from her own implosion?
Her head swam with premonitions worthy of Teiresias, only for the thought of him to summon forth his pitying words. He'd spoken to her when she was a mere girl of twelve, incapable of comprehending the hideous mass of horrors she'd been born into. She'd stood petitioning the gods with her sisters and cousins, not even prepared to receive an oracle, but the man had turned his blind eyes toward the girls. He'd warned them that the Fates had destined some of their number to die for love.
Megara had at times believed she was exempt from that fate, it was meant for the others who dropped around her, but someone must be free of the prophecy. And yet, here she was, in a sort of living death that Hades would never release her from.
A telltale waft of smoke hit her in the face.
She shouldn't have even allowed herself to think of him!
With seconds to spare, she sat on the letter.
"Gah! I hate it when Hermes shows up unannounced!" Hades screamed as if they weren't under the eye of Apollo. He appeared to have a selective awareness of whether his nephews were a threat.
At least it hadn't been Hercules wandering into the Underworld unannounced with no apparent purpose. She could've gotten caught down there.
"Isn't that your jar of secrets? Gimme something interesting to read!" Hades extended a tendril of smoke to lift the jar off the grass, while Megara prayed to any god but him that he wouldn't ask her to stand. It was already a stroke of fortune that she hadn't put the letter back in there, hopefully her luck would last.
When only the flier fluttered out for Hades to catch, he frowned. "I thought you were my mistress of whispers. What's this?"
"Haven't had time to search the city, spent too much time hiring three gorgons to serve you. Besides, the last time I was in town, nobody had anything useful to talk about. Everyone's obsessed with Herc–"
"Don't say it!"
"Fine, I won't say it. But I've heard more bicep comments in one week than my entire life."
Vicious yellow flickered through the blue of Hades's flames. "I can't wait to deep-six this guy. I thought he was annoying as a skinny little twerp, but this?"
"Scared he's in better shape than you? I bet you could put in a little more effort if you didn't spend so much time getting other people to do all the heavy lifting for you."
Why did she always set herself up like this?
The golden malice in Hades's eyes fixated on her, his irises shrinking. "I'd be careful saying things like that to someone who remembers how many years in debt you are."
Megara's chest seized with dread. Still, she shrugged off his warning. "I remember, too, and I also remember that you're ripping me off. Aren't you supposed to be a grand arbiter of justice? Well, you run things on a whim and you have zero authority to hold me accountable."
"Never question my authority! I will decide the value of your work, and whether you deserve to be rewarded for it!"
"Fair is fair! You can call me whatever you want or do whatever you want to me, but I deserve your respect, even if you won't give it to me. I'm the best assistant you have, and maybe if you were half the boss I deserve, my productivity would be through the roof. You don't want to give me my six years? I don't give you side projects."
Orange flickered around the edges of Hades's flames, but he kept his cool. "I'd be careful with that… You tell me everyone's obsessed with Jerkules. What are they saying?"
"I heard he was in the square and drew a crowd just by flexing. He made a thousand drachmae an hour just showing off."
"And let me guess: you went to check him out?"
"Who, me? I only found out what was going on because the road was so clogged I couldn't get by. That's when they told me what everyone was looking at. That man can flex everything, it's crazy."
"I wonder if I haven't been clear with you what my plans are for my nephew." Hades drew nearer. "If he's not dead before I attack Olympus, I will fail. I've got mere months before the planets align! And you think it's funny to talk about his muscles?"
Megara stood as tall as she could, hands in fists at her sides. "What do you think I'm supposed to do to him, exactly? Do you expect me to walk up to him and start heckling? If you haven't noticed, I'm not exactly built to square up to someone like that. He'd probably just laugh at me." And then ask her out. "If I can't do anything, I don't see any harm in laughing at the ridiculous situation we're in."
The fact she was right wouldn't save her from Hades's wrath. "Since it looks like all you're doing out here is wasting time, I'm revoking your topside privileges!"
Chains of smoke seized Megara around the ankles and wrists. "I haven't had enough time to be useful!" she shouted back. "It's been a slow week because nobody has time for anything but their Wonder Boy! Let them get sick of him or something!" The chains forced her to her knees.
"No excuses! Unless I release you from the Underworld, personally, you are under strict– what is that?"
Megara's head whipped around. The flier for Prometheus Academy hung halfway out of the vase. "I did find something this week," she said, praying that Hades wouldn't move her from her spot and uncover the letter. The chains held her in place while Hades passed.
He stopped to pluck the flier free of the vase. "Wonder Breath is headlining an event at his old stomping grounds?"
"Fundraising."
"So he'll be in Athens with lots of his obnoxious fans… Probably still flexing."
"It does seem to be his main talent." That and Hydra slaying.
"There's still a way to salvage this."
Megara closed her eyes, forcing herself to stay calm. The chains dug into her arms, and the ones around her ankles threatened to drag her into the grave dirt.
"You'll go to this reunion, and you'll provide reconnaissance for ny new trio of gorgons!"
"You're sure they won't see better than me? We're talking giants with magical eyes."
"Did I ask you to get into a staring contest? Find them Hercules, and help make their job easier. Then maybe I'll consider your idea of tripling your years off your sentence."
Megara hated that his words made her hope. He was toying with her, just as he always did. "You only asked me to recruit them, this is different. It's another task, and I posit that you should double my rate if there's any success." She'd leaped into haggling so fast it hit her too late that Hercules would have to die for her to earn her reward. Still, she was so far from freedom, she had to reach for anything.
"You have some real delusions about the dynamics of our relationship, huh?" Hades snarled. "Do what I say, and don't tell me how to reward you. If you can understand instructions as simple as that, there may be hope for you, yet!" Hades coiled fresh chains around her body and tightened them until they hurt. Then he grabbed her by the ponytail and forced her to look up at him. "Don't try to take advantage of my mercy. You should know by now I don't have any."
"I'm under no illusions," she spat at him. "Amuse yourself. Get it out of your system. I'll wait."
Hades's face twisted. "You take all the fun out of it with that attitude of yours."
"I've heard tell it's my best feature."
Hades gave her a good shake, and turned away. "You'll do exactly what I tell you. I don't want to see you freestyling and playing hooky just because you think you can get away with it."
Defiance lit Megara up from the inside. "You can say whatever you want. You can do whatever you want. I do things my way or not at all. That's why I'm the only effective member of your team. What exactly would you do without me, o oneness? You might as well admit that you're too lazy to even attempt half of the things you send me out to do. If you had any self-respect, you'd try to pull off a scheme with me instead of leaving me to my own devices. If you think Pain and Panic don't goof off half the time, you should probably check where they're shopping when you send them off to do something."
"Don't deflect!" Hades screamed, flaring up with fire all the way down his arms. "You are such a petulant, defiant little princess! Have you forgotten that you traded in your crown years ago? You don't get to play royalty, anymore! I'm your king!"
"Kings are overrated. Try again. Maybe then you'll impress me."
The chains pressed Megara closer to the ground, doubling her over and tightening until she thought her bones might snap. Rage boiled through her blood. She'd let him do worse just to prove she wasn't afraid. She'd berate him until he felt a fraction of the disgrace he'd reduced her to.
"You little–" Hades cut himself off, too infuriated to speak. He ignited the chains around Megara, burning the shapes of each link into her skin.
There was only so long she could hold out.
Megara screamed.
With a sardonic chuckle, Hades loosened the chains, though the heat took longer to recede. "Finally. What took ya so long? Geez, someone might think you enjoy torture."
Her head was swimming, and the tears rushing from her eyes did nothing to relieve her. "Theoi. I hate you."
"Feeling's mutual, babe. I'll see ya in Athens."
Megara rolled onto her side when he was gone.
The edges of Hercules's letter were singed, but at least Hades hadn't read it.
While the blisters slowly disappeared from her skin, Megara smoothed out the letter and shoved it back into the vase. There was a lot she could say, but if she ever got a chance to write to Hercules, she definitely wouldn't tell him everything.