Chương 680: Day Six Hundred And Seventy-Eight

Dear Diary. Fuck. I did it again. I tortured somebody to death and destroyed their Soul. Ate it, just to make sure that Ares couldn't somehow undo what had been done. Or worse, somehow use Oliver's Soul to strike out at somebody who didn't deserve that kind of shit, like Celeste or Ora. Fuck, I don't know how he could have used it, but now he can't, because I ate the hateful smug motherfucker and now he's gone. Oliver, not Ares. Although I hope that the connection I forced hurt him somehow.

Hurt him at least as much as Celeste was hurt. At least as much as Oliver hurt Celeste's daughters. As much as all the Undead in Calverton were hurt by him sending Garland to destroy any chance they might have had to survive the Plague. Yeah, I know, I didn't hold the knife. I didn't flay him and fillet him and keep him alive and capable of feeling and expressing pain as long as possible. But I gave her the Blades. I held him down when he tried to squirm away. I enabled it.

I'm the one who forced his father, his sister, and his God to watch. I'm the fucking Goddess of Vengeance. No matter how much it hurts me afterward. No matter how much I know I'm gonna want to vomit when I think about some of it. The skin peeling away. The meat underneath cooking. The guttural groans and moans as he tried to scream without a tongue. No matter how much I want to tell myself that I didn't enjoy it in the moment. Didn't enjoy the fear rolling off of Ophelia and especially Octavio in waves.

Didn't enjoy the fierce, vindictive joy radiating from Celeste. Didn't enjoy the mindless terror that washed through my Maw when, after he finally stopped twitching not because he'd died, but because Celeste had burned every muscle loose from every joint, I let him plummet down through my tentacles just to deny Ares a Soul sworn to him. It might have been Justified, but I'm not sure whether it was Justice or not. But it was Vengeance, and I am a fucking Goddess of Vengeance, and I have to own that.

When it finished, when the parts of him dropped away, as the sun dipped below the horizon, I walked over to where I held Octavio and Ophelia. I glared into her eyes, and as they tried to roll away, I whispered, "you ordered him to 'punish' her twin daughters. He tortured, raped, and sacrificed them. She didn't rape him, did she?"

"How could she..."

"DID SHE?" I screamed at the top of my lungs, my body utterly rigid, because right then had I moved, I might have torn her apart.

"No," she sobbed.

"Did she do anything worse than what he did to those two girls?"

"I... I don't know." I just stood there, staring at her. Eventually she croaked out.

"I didn't watch. I didn't," she gagged, maybe because she'd sat there watching for hours, maybe because of the faint lingering smell of pork.

"I didn't tell him to do all that." I shook my head.

"No. No, you didn't. But here's an important question. Did you ever tell him he'd gone too far? Did you think it to yourself? Did you even care enough to find out what he'd done in your name, at your instigation?" I paused, then whispered, "should I hold you fully responsible anyhow?" Her head twitched back and forth, a repetitive spasm, almost like the faint ragged, "no" coming unbidden from her over and over and over.

I let her eyes slide shut, then leaned close enough I could feel the humidity from her sweat and tears, the heat of her breath.

"You're wealthy, Ophelia. Powerful. More powerful than your father ever was." I saw his mouth open, and I held up one finger. One finger, and his mouth snapped shut.

"I get that you might not have had the power to stop Oliver, even if you'd been in the room. I get that he was an evil piece of shit, empowered by an even bigger, more loathsome piece of shit over on Olympus. I dunno. Maybe you just wanted them scared. Or spanked. Or even hurt. Harmed. Humiliated. But you know what? I've discovered that while intentions matter? Results matter too. Who told Oliver to 'punish' them?" I waited while she worked her mouth, eventually whispering out, "I did."

"You're more powerful than he ever was, too. Even without fuckin' Bronze Age Roid Rage pumping Mana up your ass. Not only are you one eighth of the ruling body of the Alliance, you're what lots of people will think is the easiest to corrupt." Her eyes shot open along with her mouth, and I brought that one finger around. She choked down whatever she was going to say.

"I'm in Saffron's head. I know exactly how hard she tries to keep everything on track. I've watched George, he doesn't give a shit about wealth or power, because he's already got more than he ever thought he'd get. Mrs. Driver had power before the Alliance, and used it to help people. Lenny Lancaster will do whatever supports the Glory of Lancaster House, but nothing else matters to him, and he's not stupid enough to be somebody's cat's paw. Cailyn follows her mother's lead, and I'm in Tallulah's head too.

McCann... okay, maybe if somebody convinced him Calverton was better served by fucking the Alliance over, maybe, but Calverton is right in the middle of the fuckin' Alliance. Supported on all sides. Weyson... Okay, yeah, Weyson might be a little shit, but on the one hand he's not a Head of State, even a little bit, whereas you are the de facto leader of New Amsterdam.

Yeah, I know, not officially, because you're dickless, but I think you know, I hope you know, that if that's the one thing keeping you from being leader of New Amsterdam, you have my one hundred percent support, because that's the dumbest fuckin' reason ever. But besides that, I'm pretty sure Lancaster's in Weyson's head, and would execute the little bastard himself if he got out of line." If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I kinda ran out of steam, even here in M-Space where air was a suggestion, even without needing to breathe to live. After a minute of glaring at her while she sat there kinda panting in silence, I said, "So, any reason I should think you're worth giving another chance? Any reason I should think you're not gonna just flail around because you've got a mad on, and destroy lives because your pride has been stung?" Her eyes slid closed. She took a deep breath.

"Take me?" Not at all what I expected.

"Dafuq?" She glared at me through slit eyes.

"Get in my head. Make me your Priestess, that I might not have the capacity to betray you." I stood there with my mouth hanging open, then fucked up modeling the behavior I wanted to see in her by saying, "Ew. No. Fuck no, I have standards, and you haven't even come close to meeting them. Not to mention the Trials if you're talking about becoming Clergy of Tabitha Diaz."

"Who else would I become Clergy of?" I just stared at her. Waved my hand around at all the tentacles. After she just stared at me, I said, "Mimic?" I watched as, for the first time in a while, somebody who apparently hadn't made the connection had their train of thought jump the tracks and slide sideways through the station.

"Fuck."

"Again, no thank you. But..." I sighed.

"The fact that you would suggest that? Yeah. I'm gonna give you that chance. A chance to do better." I shook my head.

"Let me make one thing clear, though. Celeste?" Celeste looked up at us, but Ophelia stared at me blankly for a second before realizing.

"Shit, you didn't even know her fuckin' name. My point? If anything unfortunate happens to Celeste? I'm gonna be paying you a visit. You will not like it." Ophelia took a breath, then shook her head.

"I understand."

"Good." I turned to Octavio.

"Well?"

"She killed my son," he growled out. Before I could say anything, Ophelia lashed out, the back of her hand catching Octavio in the face. He would have toppled over backward had I not been holding him, and given that the edge of the blade sticking out of her sleeve was less than an inch from his eyes, he could definitely see it had some nasty looking fluid on it.

"Enough. In fact, Champion? May I?"

"You wouldn't dare!" I slid over in front of him, glaring at him from the far side of the knife.

"Yeah, she can argue that she didn't want her brother going that far. She sure as shit wasn't in charge back then. On the other hand, that shit happened on your watch. In your House. Which means I can totally hold you fuckin' responsible."

"I... I...."

"He's a conniving snake, who still has connections throughout the City. I still have things to lose. Things to gain. I can set aside my... annoyance in favor of all that. He... does not." I nodded.

"Okay. Fair point." I turned to Octavio again.

"So. What's it gonna be? You gonna convince me that you'll be retiring to some warmer climate to rest your old bones?"

"You wouldn't dare kill me!" I looked at Ophelia. She shrugged. I stopped holding him up. He tasted like shit too. I sighed.

"Celeste?"

"Yes, Goddess?"

"Do you have anything keeping you in New Amsterdam?"

"No, Goddess." I nodded.

"Ophelia. I'm gonna put her somewhere else. If I find you're looking for her, I will not be pleased. Do we have an understanding?"

"How am I to protect her if I know not where she is?" My eyebrows shot up at that, at which Ophelia said, "Didn't you say if she came to harm you'd be looking for me?" I nodded.

"Fair point. Something happens to her when you don't know where she is? I'm not gonna be looking at you. But the Imperator probably will be. Just sayin'. Make sure nobody thinks doing bad things to Celeste here is gonna win favors from you." She thought about then nodded.

"So be it. May we return now?" I'd been watching when Saffron went to Orange House to pick the Oranges up. I Co-Located to step her home, then collapsed back to myself and reached one hand out to Celeste. She looked down.

"I... I don't know what to do next."

"Come with me. For tonight, you can stay at the Homestead. Once you're rested up, we can see how you feel." She nodded, and we stepped back to Bath. The kids hadn't arrived yet, so I gently washed her down, then carried her gently over to the Bath. We lay there with her quietly sobbing until she fell asleep. The kids and my ladies joined us later, as did a few of the Homestead women. I quietly waved them over, and handed Celeste to them.

"Take care of her, please." Dreamt of my ladies wearing hazmat suits, scrubbing the shallows of the Maw with long handled brushes, like they were cleaning a biohazard infested swimming pool. Along with all my other normal daily tasks, I ran the Cadets through some basic athletic training today. Weight lifting. Distance running. Obstacle course. I was still not copacetic about what I'd helped Celeste do the day before, but Cadets still needed to be taught, fed, and laundered.

At lunch I remembered something, wandered over to Doc Roberts, and he sent me down to Smith Jon, who had a stockpile of what I was looking for. When I got back upstairs, I said, "Okay, guys. Today we're gonna be practicing our three point shots. Or better, even longer shots." Citron's hand shot up, and instead of nodding to him, I said, "observe."

I threw up a one way Filtration Ward above the formation, picked up the little charge I'd gotten from Jon, yeeted it as high as I could into the air, and tagged it with a Fire Bolt. While everybody watched the shrapnel bouncing off of my Filtration ward, I said, "okay, ladies and gents. Anybody else wondering why we're learning to throw stuff?"