“You don’t really get to make requests,” Hel said.
“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” Poseidon said to her. “But I wasn’t sure whether I was going to get to fuck you or not, and it would have been a shame to remove such a piece of ass from the world before I got a ride.”
I looked back at Hel, who burst out laughing. “You really are a pathetic little ant, aren’t you? You think that being misogynistic is going to cause me to burst into some sudden fit of rage? I’ve been dealing with men like you my whole life. You think you’re stronger because you happen to have a penis, no matter how tiny or limp it is. You’re not. You’re not brave. You’re not strong. You’re just a child in a man’s body who never learned the word no and thinks everyone owes him something.”
Poseidon looked over at Mordred.
“You expecting me to do something because you insulted my girlfriend?” Mordred asked. “She could pull your lungs out through your asshole. I think she’s good without my input.”
“And let’s all thank Mordred for that lovely image,” I said, turning back to a considerably paler-looking Poseidon.
“What do you want?” Poseidon asked.
“You’re communicating with Merlin,” I said. “Using a summoning circle. We know about it. We know you were using this place as a sort of stop-off point to pass information along. We’d found a few of the command centers in Europe, and they led us to you. Where is Arthur?”
“No idea,” Poseidon said. “Only spoke to Merlin. And occasionally Gawain. No one else.”
“Where is Thomas Carpenter?” I asked.
Poseidon laughed. “Your pet werewolf?”
I reached out with my air magic and wrapped tendrils of it around his chest, squeezing tighter as Poseidon’s laughter turned to wheezing and his face grew panicked.
“I don’t think this will kill you,” I said. “But I think if I explode your heart, it’s going to hurt like hell. You want to rethink your attitude?”
Poseidon nodded quickly, and I released the air. He took in deep gulps for a few seconds. “I don’t know where he is,” Poseidon said eventually. “No one has brought him up in conversation.”
“You’re going to tell us what the last orders you got were,” Mordred said.
“I write them down in a book inside the room next door.”
“You don’t use a code?” Hel asked.
“It’s in ancient Atlantan,” he said. “You know anyone who can speak it?”
“Yes,” Mordred said. “A few, actually.”
The look of surprise on Poseidon’s face was worth the journey alone.
“Is Arthur in Atlantis?” I asked.
“I told you, I don’t know,” Poseidon snapped. “It’s a dead realm. No way in or out. There’s literally nothing left of it; the Titans turned the entire realm to ash. I don’t see why anyone would want to go there.”
“You wouldn’t be lying to us, now, would you?” Mordred asked.
“About Atlantis?” Poseidon said with a chuckle. “I was there when it happened. I only just got out alive before the realm gate was turned to slag. There’s nothing there.”
“I think the fish boy doth protest too much,” Hel said.
“Wow—can you talk to fish?” Mordred asked. “Like Aquaman?”
The look of rage on Poseidon’s face suggested he was done being mocked.
“I bet Jaws is in your computer’s porn folder,” Mordred continued. “Or are you more of a Free Willy kind of guy?”
“You won’t keep me here forever,” Poseidon said, enraged. “And you won’t kill me. You need me.”
“To talk to fish?” Mordred asked. “I don’t really think that’s important right now.”
“Fuck you,” Poseidon snapped.
A smirk spread across Mordred’s face. “We do need you, yes. You’re going to contact my father, and you’re going to find out where Arthur is.”
“No, I’m not,” Poseidon said.
“Can you both give me a second?” I asked Hel and Mordred, who nodded and left the room.
“You going to torture me?” Poseidon asked.
I shook my head. “It’s going to take us a while to decode your diary, so you’re going to tell me where the next Knights of Avalon attack is going to be directed.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I let Diana in here,” I said. “You might know who Diana’s girlfriend is.”
“Another bear?” he asked with a laugh.
“Medusa,” I said.
Genuine fear spread across his face.
“You and she have history, yes?”
Poseidon nodded.
“You want to find out what Diana will do to you?” I looked back at the door. “You’re in a room that stops your power but not anyone else’s. And you have a sorcerer’s band on. I think you would die in here. Eventually. I think it would take a long time.”
“Merlin will have me killed,” Poseidon said, seemingly scared now.
“Probably,” I said. “But I let you go, and you have a chance. A chance to run and hide. You stay here, and I guarantee you nothing except pain and death.”
I got to my feet. “You have ten seconds to decide.”
“Please don’t,” Poseidon said. “This isn’t how a god dies.”
“You’re not a god, Poseidon,” I said. “You just played one, thousands of years ago.”
“How do you even know there are more orders?” Poseidon asked. “You worked for Merlin for centuries—was he all that chatty with your orders?”
“Do you know what I’ve been doing this last year?” I asked. “I’ve been fighting Avalon bastards. The Knights of Avalon, the Blade of Avalon—same bunch of arseholes, different names and uniforms. Human governments are slowly returning to being controlled by humans. There are large pockets of resistance fighting in every country against you, more than I can think of. More than once Avalon forces got hold of nuclear material and threatened to detonate a bomb. More than once, I’ve been forced to kill people who believe in nothing but their own superiority, simply because they had the fortune to be born with or be given powers.
“You are like them, Poseidon. So convinced of your own self-importance. You will tell me, because I stopped playing games with you people years ago. Who is the next set of orders for?”
Poseidon stared at me for several seconds before sighing. “Secretary of state, in DC.”
“He’s one of yours?”
Poseidon nodded. “He relays information to those senators, congresspeople, and pretty much everyone on the president’s Secret Service detail who work for us.”
“Not the president?” I asked.
“He does as he’s told if he knows what’s good for him.”
“Why is this important?”
“DC is about to enter a very difficult phase. There’s going to be a civil war in a country with enough firepower to burn the entire planet to ash.” Poseidon smiled. “If Arthur can’t have Earth, if you people are so intent on stopping him, he’ll turn it into a wasteland and see how you like it then.”