Wine and Tears

 
Mitch, aka Death, could hear the laughter of the three goddesses echoing from the heavens. Although he was glad that his Mother had finally been reunited with her grand-daughter, Mitch knew that any laughter echoing from those particular chambers was not a good sign. Nyx was a loving Mother, but she had never learned to be loving to anyone, or thing for that matter, that she wasn’t closely related to.

Years of exile from Olympus had taken its’ toll on her, primordial beings were not the most stable creatures to begin with and being alone for millennia had pushed that stability to its limits. Now she was reunited with two of the most screwed up members of their family. And they were laughing.
‘This is not good.’ Mitch sighed. ‘I guess I’m going to have to pay Mother a visit.’

Steeling himself for the onslaught that he knew he was about to face, Mitch waved his hand and blinked as his kitchen faded from view. Traveling between earth and Olympus was never pleasant for his kind, and today was no exception. Before he could focus on the room that had shimmered into existence before him, Mitch was tackled.

“Thanatos! My son!” Darkness enveloped him, shimmering pinpoints of light covered his body as Nyx embraced him. “Where have you been all this time? Why haven’t you come to see me?”

Nyx stepped back and looked at her son. Streaks of glitter stardust etched trails on her cheeks as the pleasure of seeing the youngest of her twin boys. Hypnos, Mitch’s twin, came to her abode as often as his duties allowed, which in the last few hundred years wasn’t often. But Thanatos, or Mitch as he preferred to be called, had stayed away for over a thousand years now.

“Son?! He’s your son, my uncle?” Lisa was stunned. She didn’t know if she could handle many more surprises today. First she bites a man and tastes his blood which drove her insane. Then she wakes up in her sister’s bed, a sister she hadn’t remembered she even had until said sister replaced the memories she had stolen. Then her Grannyx waltzes in and she finds out her arch enemy was actually her son, alive and well and not beheaded and long buried. She also finds out her husband, the man she had given up her god-head for, was actually NOT a man but a demi-god instead. And now she finds out that the being that had been the root cause of her human death and subsequent state as one of the almost dead, and now one of the who the fuck knows what, was actually her uncle.

“I need a drink. Lee do you have any Ambrosia?” Lisa blurted. “I seriously need a drink. Hell, I need an entire jug.”

Lisa collapsed on the couch and watched as her sister and grandmother made over the handsome man she now knew was her blood kin. Shaking her head, she got up and began to search her sister’s chambers for the supply of Ambrosia that Lisa knew she always kept on hand. Opening the ornate cabinet that sat directly across from the couch, Lisa found a large, silver jug filled with the wine of the Gods. Forgoing the goblet, Lisa took a swig directly from the jug and collapsed into one of the many comfortable chairs that graced the chamber.

The jug was half empty by the time Nyx and Lethe were done fawning over “Thanatos”, as they called him. Lisa had a vague memory of time spent with the young looking man, a time of laughter and fun, but it was only a vague memory. The memory of staring at his ass while following him into the street where a bus smeared her all over the street.

“You realize you’re fawning over the reason I was turned into steak tartar by a bus a few years back, don’t you? Steak tartar that ended up being a flesh eating ghoul whose nose fell off with great frequency.” Lisa’s voice was loud and her words were beginning to slur. “Did you know that a dead human tastes like a cross between peanut butter and moldy bread?”

At that disgusting statement Nyx whirled around to face her granddaughter. Lisa was sprawled across the chair, the jug of Ambrosia tilted crazily in her grasp. Nyx reached out a hand and the jug eased out of her granddaughter’s grasp to float gently to the table where it settled down with a quiet thud.
“You, my dear, are thoroughly drunk.” Nyx stated disgustedly.

“Drunk?” Lethe’s voice held a note of horror. “Oh my heart, she’s more than drunk. That Ambrosia wasn’t cut. She’s going to be hallucinating and who knows what. Oh Grannyx, we have to do something, she’ll be totally out of control.”

“She’s always out of control.” Mitch mumbled. “it’s nothing new……”

He never had a chance to finish his statement before he flew across the room, shadows whirling and boiling around him. Nyx glared at him, her eyes completely black, her hair moving around her head like a living thing and darkness seeping from every pore.

“Keep your mouth shut, boy, before I shut it for you!” Her voice carried across the heavens, the gods froze in place, each battling terror that the Mother of all Darkness was speaking to them.

Mitch, however, was unimpressed. He had been subjected to his Mother’s outburst his entire existence, and this one was a mild one. Springing to his feet, he brushed imagery dust from his clothing and raked a hand through his hair.

“Really, Mother?” Mitch asked. “We both know that she has been out of control for eons, so why is this incident so special?”

Nyx sighed as the shadows surrounded her eased out of existence. Her son was correct, as much as she hated to admit it her favorite grandchild had always been a bit of a problem child.

“Thanatos, it’s uncut Ambrosia. Any one of us would have difficulty handling her if she decides to take vengeance on us.” Nyx shook her head. “It would be a chore even for me. Now be a good boy and go fetch Dionysus. Tell him I said to come here this instant.”

“Dionysus? Oh Hells no!” Lethe shrieked. “That drunk, useless bastard is NOT here. You can take her to him, but he is NOT coming into my chambers!”

“Not come into your chambers!” Lisa laughed. “Oh that’s GOOD sister!! From what I hear that ‘drunk, useless bastard’ has ‘come’ into every single one of your chambers more than once.”

Lisa began to laugh hysterically at her Grandmother’s reaction to that little tidbit of news. She watched as the blood drained from Nyx’s face, leaving her as pale as Death. Speaking of Death, even Mitch was stunned by the revelation that his beautiful niece had been screwing the God of Wine.

Lethe was as white as a sheet. She didn’t realize anyone knew of her dalliance with Dion, at least she had fooled herself into believing that it was secret. She should have known that her sister had only to take one look at her in order to uncover every dark secret she had attempted to hide.

“Dionysus?” Her Grandmother demanded, her voice raising in volume with every word. “You’re sleeping with Dionysus? Why? Have you finally run out of innocent humans to destroy? Of all the pricks on Olympus you HAD to pick that one, didn’t you?”

If Lethe’s actions with the God of Wine had been a secret it was quickly becoming a topic of discussion for every household in the heavens. Mitch almost pitied the stupid child, almost but not quite.

Lethe exploded in anger and humiliation at her Grandmother’s questions. No one was supposed to find out about the relationship she had with Dionysus, now the entire realm would know.

Olympus trembled at the sounds issuing forth from the chambers of the Goddess of Forgetfulness.

The Devil Cries

 
Lucifer twisted on his bed, his body covered with a cold sweat. Strange voices, women’s voices, echoed in his head.

“….child of your body.” One said.

“They’re alive, they’re all alive”, said another.

His father’s voice joined the women’s, “She’s your mother.”

Then the echoes of laughter, maniacal, insane laughter, rang in his head.

With the laughter came flashes of memories, brief moments in time that his mind had buried so deeply that he hadn’t realized they existed. His mother, dressed as a warrior, blood splattered across her vest. A man that looked vaguely familiar stood slightly behind her, a look of adoration on his face.

A little boy, dark eyes shining, looking at him with a smile as he held out a frog like an offering. His mother again, her long, flowing hair glittering in the sunlight; a happy smiled on her face as she looked loving at him and the little boy.

The memory of thundering hoofs, the screams of dying men and the sickening smell of roasting flesh pierced his mind. A flash of his mother, held captive by strangely dressed men, screaming out his name…..he couldn’t hear what she was saying, but he knew it was his name.

Pain lanced through his chest, his mother screamed and struggled all the harder until one of the men drove his lance through her stomach. His vision darkened at the edges even as she sank to the blood soaked ground and reached out to him.

Then darkness, complete and silent, followed by maniacal laughter again. Satan’s laughter. The creature he thought to be his father had laughter at a child’s death.

Lucifer sprang from the bed, his clothes sticking to his damp body. Fear, anger and some emotion he couldn’t identify raged in his chest. Shedding his clothes, he stomped to the bathroom. Making the water as hot as possible, he stepped into the shower. His skin blazed red immediately, but he took no notice. Grabbing his scrubby, he scoured his skin, rinsed and did it again. By the time the water was cooling he was beet red from head to toe, and still he felt dirty.

His mother. The woman he had lusted after was his mother. No amount of soap would wash that off. Yeah, he was kinky, he’d been into the absurdly strange sex that pushed all limits. But his MOTHER? He lusted after his own mother? He knew she was his Mother, the flashes of memory he had experienced confirmed that one simple fact.

And the other little boy? The vague figure of a man behind his mother? In a flash he knew. The little boy had been his brother, a brother that he had no memory of. He couldn’t remember having a family, only Satan and that twisted bitch he had been forced to call Mother. Lilith was not the mothering type, although she was the mother of millions.

Lucifer experienced a feeling in his chest, a tightness that made it difficult to breathe. Spots appeared before his eyes and he felt a strange sensation behind his eyes. He had never been sick, had never suffered the pains of illness. So the feeling in his guts was not anything that he could identify until it was too late. He vomited before he knew he was going to.

Standing under the now cold water, Lucifer cried for the first time in his long existence.