The Neon Olympus

New Olympus didn't sleep; it just dimmed its lights to a sultry, bruised purple.

From the stage of *The Siren’s Call*, the city looked like a jewelry box kicked into a gutter. Skyscrapers of white celestial marble rose out of the smog of the Lower District, their spires piercing the smog clouds that perpetually choked the sun. Up there, in the Penthouses, the corporate gods—Zeus Industries, Poseidon Maritime, Ares Security—drank nectar from crystal flutes. Down here, in the grime, we drank cheap gin and hoped the gods didn't notice us.

I adjusted the strap of my diamond-encrusted bodice. The bass of the club thrummed through the floorboards, vibrating up through the soles of my six-inch heels. It was a rhythm I knew better than my own heartbeat.

* Thump. Thump. Thump.*

It was the heartbeat of a drowning man.

I stepped out onto the catwalk. The spotlight hit me, blinding and hot. A roar went up from the crowd—a mix of satyrs in business suits, minor demons dealing drugs, and humans looking to forget their debts.

I didn't smile. I didn't need to. I was Cassia, the mute star of the Lower District. I was the woman with no voice, but a body that spoke a language older than Rome.

I moved. I didn't dance like the other girls, all frantic energy and desperate hustle. I moved like water. I moved like the tide pulling back before a tsunami. I gripped the chrome pole, spinning slowly, letting the centrifugal force fan out my hair—hair the color of sea foam in a storm.

I saw their eyes. They were glazed, hungry. They wanted to consume me.

If only they knew.

I was Ligeia. I was one of the original three. I had sat on the rocks of Anthemusa and sung the songs that cracked the hulls of triremes and turned sailors into bone-dust. I was a monster wearing a girl’s skin, and my silence was the only thing keeping this city from shattering.

Then, the air in the club changed.

It wasn't a smell, though the scent of ozone and iron suddenly cut through the cheap cologne. It was a pressure. Static electricity prickled the skin of my arms.

The crowd near the entrance parted like the Red Sea.

A man walked in.

He was tall, broad in a way that gym memberships couldn't achieve. He wore a suit of charcoal grey, tailored to hide the holster under his left arm, but failing to hide the violence in his walk. His hair was black, cropped short in a military fade. His face was a landscape of sharp angles and old scars.

Julian. The Son of Ares. The Enforcer.

He wasn't here for a lap dance. He wasn't holding a drink. He was holding a scanner—a celestial bronze device that tracked magical signatures.

My heart hammered against my ribs. *He’s hunting.*

The Council had been cracking down on "Old World" refugees lately. Unregistered monsters. People like me.

I watched him from the safety of the pole, upside down, my legs hooked around the metal. He scanned the room, his eyes—burning with the amber fire of war—dissecting every face. He ignored the dryads waiting tables. He ignored the cyclops bouncer.

He looked up.

His gaze locked onto mine.

Usually, when men looked at me, I felt their lust. It was sticky and gross. But when Julian looked at me, I felt... seen. It was a physical impact, like a punch to the sternum. He didn't look at my legs or my chest. He looked me dead in the eyes.

He tapped his earpiece, said something I couldn't hear over the music, and pointed a gloved finger at me.

Then he walked toward the VIP stairs.

He was coming up.

I finished my set, sliding down the pole with practiced grace, but my hands were trembling. I grabbed my silk robe from the stage floor and wrapped it tight, covering the skin that had survived three thousand years of history.

I hurried backstage, my mind racing. *Run? No. Running admits guilt. Stay. Play the part. The mute human dancer.*

The curtain to the dressing room whipped open.

"Cassia," my manager, a nervous satyr named Phil, bleated. "VIP Room One. High roller. Specifically requested you."

"I'm done for the night," I signed, my hands moving sharply.

"It’s the Enforcer," Phil hissed, sweating. "You don't say no to Ares Security. Just... give him a dance. Make him happy. Don't let him shut us down."

I looked at Phil’s terrified eyes. I looked at the exit door.

If I ran, Julian would hunt me. He was the God-Killer. He never missed.

My only chance was to fool him up close. To mask my aura with the scent of his own desire.

I nodded once.

I walked toward VIP Room One, unaware that I was walking into a trap that would snap my soul in two.