on one of the incestuous branches that had been turned back in and wrapped around itself like a food court soft pretzel. She tried to explain to her half-brother that the ancients didn’t view these sort of intra-family pollinations the way modern folk did, but Dee didn’t buy that as an excuse for the status quo continuing to quo.
She sighed. “Hades is Hades, what can I say?”
“That you wised up and left the bastard for good. That you’re not just pulling another one of your temporary ‘I am woman, hear me roar’ shticks until he shows up with flowers and a box of candied ambrosia and sways you back,” Dee returned harshly. “But maybe that’s hoping for too much.”
Her eyes surveyed the bottom of the window pane. “You know I can’t do that. I’m obligated.”
“Yeah, everyone knows the story. Here’s the thing though, Steph. I don’t buy it. Why do you think I turned down the opportunity to rise to the mountain? Because it wasn’t worth the exchange. I loved Clare too much to give her up just so I could live forever. Because I knew that what I would be doing without her would be dying forever.”
Persephone’s eyes narrowed ruefully. “Well, I don’t see her here and now, so apparently that whole ‘I can’t live without her’ spiel of yours turned out to be crap.”
Dee’s head lashed from side-to-side. “I’ll be with her again someday.”
“Where?” his sister scoffed. “In Heaven? May I remind you, dead gods don’t go to Heaven. He has exclusive claims on that territory, and He doesn’t grant favors to our kind.”
“True, but I am half-human, and when I held Clare in my arms and in my heart, I was the closest thing to a man I’ll ever be. I have to just hope half-human is enough.” He tipped the last of his champagne into his mouth before concluding, “And if you had half a brain and a sliver of the heart you claim to have, you’d renounce your immortality too and beg for a conversion.”
“Never. I could never ask someone who loved me to sacrifice their own life for that to happen,” she stared down into her champagne. “I could never ask anyone to do for me what Clare did for you.”
“No, I guess you’re right. No one will ever love you like Clare loved me unless you can learn to value yourself first.” They stayed a moment in silence before Dee turned to her, getting back to the moment at hand. “Anyways, what’s going on here with your pest problem? How you so sure it’s something demonic?”
“Whatever it is doesn’t affect me, but for all the others, it gets worse as the night goes on.”
He shrugged. “Could just be all the alcohol building up.”
“No. I mean, yes, I’m sure some of it’s that. But this thing… It’s not just random people, and even the Red Bull devotees get sucked in. Dee, this is a night club on the edge of a college campus. Horny kids are just part of the package. But I have regulars who’ve been coming forever who don’t want anything, but to let off steam on the dance floor. They’re not the different-partner-every-night types. And out of nowhere they just … start screwing in every corner of the club, shooting up any drug they can lay their hands on, drinking to extremes that frighten even my liver… anything and everything. I stay on the floor for as long as I can take it, but I can barely last past ten anymore before it all becomes too much for me. It’s like being at home; everyone’s screwing everyone else and they don’t care what the ramifications are or who they hurt, even if they end up hurting themselves.”
A chord struck as Dee noticed the rhythm of the swinging bodies change below, of the way hands and arms and torsos were suddenly grinding up like the club was some sort of underworld flour mill.
“Good people have bad days, but they don’t en masse just toss their morality away like that. You’re right. Something demonic, making good ones turn bad.”
Purity torn asunder was the dark side’s ultimate high, and the purer the soul, the more fabulous the euphoria. That’s why they all had wet dreams about turning a Pure Soul. It was like hitting the MegaMillions lottery while discovering a cure for cancer.
The thought hit him like a brick.
“Wait! You say, people who don’t ordinarily…” he stumbled. “Fuck. Steph, I have to find Riona