Hell Becomes Her - The Midlife Goddess

While dragging me around the woods like a human toy wagon, Mira had spoken of an "it" that she intended to get away with, on the day Hadrian and I inadvertently foiled her plans for escape.

A thorough investigation had eventually revealed Mira using a spell at the In Between to smuggle out a box, but whatever it contained, and who it was given to...time would only tell.

As with any immortal found guilty of crime, a transfer to an undisclosed relation in Tartarus was arranged for Mira, and it was while a female warden was performing a standard body check that we found the missing SR-41 vial...tucked between the scoops of Mira's heavily-padded bra.

I wish I could say I was kidding.

But I'm not.

Mira had used one of the oldest tricks in the book and played all of us for fools. And while stupidity, just like misery, often loved company, I'd rather have been the only idiot in the room in this case. Because if it were just me, then maybe Maya might still be alive.

If only.

It was just one of the mistakes that I'd have to live with for eternity, and the fact that SR-41 did turn out to be an effective cloaking agent was poor consolation. Cheiron had tested it in his own lab and confirmed Mira's results. But since an antidote had already cured Zeus of his madness, we had collectively decided it was best that none of us remembered there was a way to make ourselves invisible to Zeus' thunderbolts. For this, we then drank a special concoction that had several drops of water from Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, and come tomorrow we wouldn't even know SR-41 had ever existed.

As for how one of the vials was "stolen" in the first place, the whole thing was a sham. The only reason an Echo's spell had worked to unlock her lab was because she had been the one to perform it herself.

It was something I had puzzled over at that time, how someone as clever and meticulous as Mira wouldn't have noticed a strange floral scent in her lab. But because I had the Big M, I had convinced myself that all of my first instincts were best forgotten or ignored.

Anyway, after having the vial "stolen", Mira had then used her knowledge of my "predictable" and "desperate" nature to concoct an elaborate tale of theft and redemption, all to buy herself some time to figure out a way to escape the Underworld with SR-41.

She had been like a parent preparing a scavenger hunt for her kid, only her clues involved sending Sssusssan off to visit a long list of people...and then getting the Gorgon to retrace her steps and killing everyone along the way.

So no, Maya was not their only victim. Four other people had died just to make things "fun" for me, and it was while Mira and her snake-haired henchwoman were talking that Gaea, having returned from a walk, accidentally found herself eavesdropping on the tail end of their conversation.

While she hadn't heard enough to know anything about Mira's plans, what she did know was that I was in danger, and so she had waited until Mira was gone before making her move.

She killed the real Sssusssan by burying her underground and then "dressed" herself (those were her exact words, FYI) in the Gorgon's flesh.

Since the earth goddess wasn't the type to risk underestimating her enemies, she had decided to stay in character while keeping me company in my quest. And when we reached town and I started acting rather suspicious, Gaea had decided to let me walk away and see what I'd do next.

I thought you were being threatened, the earth goddess explained, and you wanted to get away to meet your blackmailer.

So when she saw me enter a strange, dark house, Gaea had gone charging in, thinking I needed rescue, but instead she ended up exposing herself to Hadrian, who - in their quick exchange of Greek - had agreed to keep the secret of her identity.

Big mistake, that one, I always liked to remind Gaea and Hadrian, but only because I wanted to help them keep their feet on the ground.

Hadrian had believed I might accidentally slip up around Mira if I knew about Gaea disguising herself as the Gorgon, and the earth goddess had agreed.

Obviously, they thought wrong, and I had ended up throwing caution in the wind.

When I asked Gaea about the thing she had to do that kept her from accompanying me to Cheiron's house, she told me it was because she believed she had seen Mira lurking around outside the fortune teller's hut. So she had gone back to town, hoping Mira would take the bait and talk to her.

It was a good plan, especially since she was right, and Mira, in her monologue of evil, had admitted to being in town and watching from afar.