Sin City Goddess Read Free Page A

see him, but I heard him coming. I was about to release my wings, when he came hurtling at me full speed. I put my hands out in a feeble attempt to slow him down. “Cerberus, no! Easy, boy!”
    Too late. He crashed into me, all three heads and 250 pounds of him. He was a massive beast, taller than I when he stood on his hind legs. He knocked the wind from my lungs for a second. As I struggled to free myself from beneath the muscular frame of Hades’s hound, I was glad I hadn’t opened my wings, or surely he would have broken one. On second thought, perhaps I should have. It would have been a graceful way to decline the mission and still maintain my reputation. Dammit. Why couldn’t I think more like a deviant?
    Hermes hovered over my prone body, concern coloring his face. “Are you all right, Tisi?”
    “Eh,” I choked, still trying to catch my breath as Cerberus coated me in licks from head to toe. Much faster to accomplishwith three tongues. I could feel his hot breath frizzing my hair, but I couldn’t see much beyond his watermelon-sized heads.
    I really wished Hades would send him to obedience school.
    A familiar voice shouted down the hallway then. “Cerberus! Off!”
    It was Artemis, Apollo’s twin sister. Thank the heavens. The goddess of the hunt had a special knack for taming beasts.
    Immediately, the dog leaped off me and I felt the breath fill my body once again. I gathered myself, with the assistance of Hermes, and stood, straightening out my clothing. Cerberus slunk over to the golden goddess, remorse dripping off his frame. He hung his heads low as she scolded him. She whispered something in his fourth ear a moment later, and he gingerly walked over to me and extended his paw. I shook it and told him he was forgiven. Artemis tossed him three bones, and the big black dog caught each one and trotted down the corridor and out of sight.
    “A thousand pardons, Tisiphone,” Artemis said. “I have tried to instill propriety in that canine time and time again, yet Hades refuses to correct his bad habits.” She flicked her blue eyes to where Cerberus had trotted off, and finished with “I’m afraid the poor beast is terribly confused about etiquette.”
    “Don’t give it another thought, Artemis,” I said.
    She smiled, her bright teeth lighting up the room, and motioned with her suntanned hand. “Come. We’ve been expecting you.”
    Hermes and I followed Artemis down a wide passageway. Her gauzy robes grazed her curved hips as her sandals clicked against the marble floor. We passed gilded portraits of the gods, vases of black dahlias, and chairs carved from jet, until we reached the massive room filled with screens,knobs, buttons, type boards, speakers, cords, and various other electronic devices that I could not identify. The war room had changed since I had last stepped foot in it. Gone were the welcoming stone walls, replaced with a smooth, shockingly white surface from which the screens now hung. The whole place was offensive to my senses. I was forced to shield my eyes for a moment.
    A gentle hand covered mine.
    “Tisiphone, remember your breathing exercises,” Athena said.
    It was Athena who had shown me the power of mercy, forgiveness, and meditation. She had taught me how to gain peace and strength from the natural surroundings that appealed to me, like the water and the moon. In other words, it was Athena who had taught me how to subdue my fury.
    Her gray eyes gazed into mine as I took a few deep breaths, imagining all the noisy electronics fading away, gently lapping waves taking their place.
    “Feel better?” the goddess of wisdom asked.
    “Yes, thank you.”
    I turned to find Zeus and Hades deep in conversation. Zeus’s thick, snowy brows kept crashing into each other like two caterpillars fistfighting as he listened to his brother with intensity. Hades tugged on his black beard as he spoke, the dark skin on his bald head wrinkling with his movements. I spotted Poseidon at the