Monster Whisperer - J.B. Trepagnier Page 0,50

bet he had it coming, didn’t he, Cerberus?”

“You talk to him like he can talk back to you. You’d better explain yourself, little human.”

I held my palm up and let a little green flame start to flicker.

“Half human. Other half unknown, but current hypothesis some sort of Hellspawn. I can talk to animals and monsters, apparently. Persephone’s bodyguards, who are trapped in their monster form by your collars, were able to tell me exactly how they ended up in those collars.”

“Well, well. Then perhaps I should start calling you little Hellspawn. Exactly why am I sensing you are only human?”

I dangled the amulet Charley gave me.

“Witches.”

Hephaestus rolled his eyes.

“Oh, I’m aware of witches. The good ones are wonderful, but when they go wrong, they get into all sorts of nasty things. They know I’m here. Some of them have been foolish enough to visit. Some of those divots in my door are spells because everyone thinks brute strength and magic is the answer over simple politeness.

“I don’t fill all requests. I listen to petitions and use my forge if the requests have honor. Some of these witches have wanted some awful things, and they don’t like taking no for an answer. Some of them have tried to hex me, so I just threw them into the forge.”

“And those monster collars?”

“Honestly, I didn’t think they would work. I thought the entire mission was to rescue Persephone because she wanted to leave. I tried to convince her to let me forge a better weapon, but she insisted on the collars, even though I told her they would be impossible to get on. I should have known something was wrong, but I don’t think there’s a single person in Olympus or this realm that doesn’t know the story about the pomegranate seed. I thought Persephone needed help.”

“Is rescuing the monsters, Persephone, and stopping Demeter’s takeover of the Underworld an honorable request.”

“Yes, but I’m guessing Demeter brought you here for different reasons.”

“I tricked her into thinking I wanted a weapon that would send Hades to the pits of Tartarus with the Titans, but I was hoping you could stick a key to the collars in the handle.”

“I made those collars that only Demeter’s key would work. I can’t make you a key, but I can offer you something that can help a little. And I will make you a blade if you swear not to use it on Hades.”

Well, fuck. How was I supposed to swipe that key from her neck? Still, Demeter has said all sorts of things about those collars, and Hephaestus could tell me the truth. It would give me something to provide every single monster in the Underworld with hope.

“Can you clear up some rumors about those collars? Demeter has every monster in the Underworld petrified their heads will explode.”

“Little Hellspawn, I’d never make a weapon like that. I make all my weapons to give a fair fight, even those collars. Honestly, I thought those collars would end in disaster. They would have been almost impossible to get on, and all they do is trap them in their monster form. They can’t revert back to their human form. They still have any magic they had before, and honestly, being trapped as a monster gave them an unfair advantage in a fight. Fuck. I should have known something was up and refused to make those collars.”

So, a bonus. If I could rally them, we’d have an entire army of monsters to rescue Persephone and get rid of Demeter. But I needed some sort of proof. I couldn’t just waltz in there and ask them to believe me.

Hephaestus took my arm and led me deeper into the forge. I finally got a look at his workshop. I understood why he couldn’t make me the Swiss Army knife of God killing weapons. It looked like Hephaestus set up his forge here when his people occupied Earth and just never updated it. I suppose if it wasn’t broke, why fix it?

He walked over to a tall wood shelf and pulled down a vial of swirling white mist.

“Hide this. It won’t unlock the collar, but it’ll take away the bit of magic I put in them. The collar will stay on, but they can switch back into their human form if they like.”

There had to be a catch. My proof was swirling around in that vial, but that vial wasn’t huge.

“I’m sorry I don’t have more on hand, but I used up most of my