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“I suppose you think they came back to kill me?”

“We can’t really know for sure…unless you saw them?”

The soul shook his head. “Later that night, I heard a sound outside. I thought that monster had returned, but as I stepped off the porch, I was hit on the head. After that, I remember nothing.”

Hades exchanged a look with Thanatos. When he met Georgios’s gaze again, he offered his hand.

“I’m sorry to have had to bring this up, Georgios.”

The farmer shook his hand. “No need to be sorry,” he said. “Perhaps you will manage to do me justice.”

“I will,” said Hades. “That is a promise.”

Hades and Thanatos left the farmer to continue milking his cow. The two gods walked side by side and did not speak until they were far away from any wandering souls.

“Do you suspect he was killed by demigods?” asked Thanatos.

It sounded like it. An actual god would have concealed their appearance. A mortal would have never been described as godly.

“If they did not pull the trigger, they ordered it,” Hades said, though who had sent them to the farm was the greater question.

If he had to guess, he’d say Theseus, but he also knew it was dangerous to fixate. There were countless demigods who roamed New Greece unchecked, their powers unknown. Any one of them might have heard about the resurrection of the ophiotaurus and decided to track it.

“Whoever they are,” said Thanatos, “I dread the lives they will take.”

“Let us hope they take no more.”

“Fucking female assassins,” Hermes said, appearing a few feet away from Hades and Thanatos. As he approached them, he brushed at his clothes and his arms as if he were dusting himself off. “Well,” he said, meeting Hades’s gaze, “you weren’t wrong about Dionysus.”

Hades’s brows rose, but he was distracted by a reddish mark on Hermes’s skin.

“Did you…get punched?”

“Listen, have you seen maenads fight? They are vicious. I think I’m in love.”

Hades chuckled.

“Sounds like you’ve had an eventful day,” said Thanatos with a smirk.

“Why don’t you tell us about it?” Hades asked, though he knew he would not need to implore the God of Mischief. He had come to perform a drama.

“I was tracking the ophiotaurus. I’d heard rumors that someone had spotted a large snake outside Sparta, which sounded promising, and it was. I found a trail of blood.”

Hades frowned. “How much blood?”

“Not enough to make me think it was struck by a fatal blow, but something definitely hurt it. What, I cannot say, because I was interrupted by three ferocious female…demons!”

Dionysus’s maenads, Hades presumed.

It wasn’t so much a surprise, but Hades wondered if Dionysus did manage to capture the ophiotaurus first, would he tell him?

“And then what?” asked Thanatos.

“I came here,” Hermes said. “Youtry to escape. They haveteeth.”

“Most people have teeth,” said Hades.

“That is not true, Hades.Trust me,” Hermes said, and by the look in his eyes, Hades guessed he’d seen some things. “Anyway, I’d go back, but I’m kind of aroused now, and I don’t think those ladies are interested in a foursome so…”