Curse of Prometheus: A Tale of Medea - Morgan St. Knight
Genre: Paranormal/urban fantasy
The ancient world's most notorious sorceress has just become the modern world's only hope for survival.
Synopsis:
How do you fight a God of light who has been seduced by darkness? That’s the challenge Medea Keres must meet. Posing as a wealthy young heiress in modern day Atlanta, no one knows she is the original Medea, the sorceress from ancient Greek legends.
As priestess of the witch goddess Hecate, Medea is charged with hunting demons that would otherwise overrun the world. Now she must face a far greater adversary. One of the twelve shining Olympian gods has turned rogue, violating the edict against human sacrifice. As the body count quickly rises, Medea knows her enemy is getting stronger.
With the help of the underworld nymph Orphne and the hero-god Heracles, she must find a way to unmask the evil so that the other Olympians will take action.
But as she probes deeper into a blood-soaked labyrinth of suspense and intrigue, Medea finds a net of deceit and treachery that will require all of her cunning to escape.
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When You Need All The Bada** You Can Get
By Morgan St. Knight (author of “Curse of Prometheus: a tale of Medea”)
So here’s the story: a god has gone mad and has set up a bloodthirsty cult in Atlanta, Georgia. Not a vampire, not a demon, not a shape-shifter. A god. A nearly-omnipotent Greek god from Olympus, who is getting stronger by the minute by consuming human blood.
Who you gonna call? Sabrina? Samantha with her twitching nose? Oh, I know. Maybe those three sisters can look in their book and come up with a potion and a cute little rhyming spell that sounds like it came from a get-well card.
Or - stay with me here - you can call a sorceress who zooms around the sky in a fiery chariot drawn by dragons, is the granddaughter of not one, not two, but three Titans (including Helios the sun god) and just so happens to be high priestess of Hecate, the goddess of witches.
Well, I know who I’d pick. And I did. Thus we have “Curse of Prometheus: a tale of Medea.”
I’ve always had a soft spot for Medea. I first read about her when I was in second grade. I had already developed a fascination with witches thanks to reruns of “Bewitched”, which I watched when I came home from school for lunch every day.
But here was a witch like no other. Medea didn’t ride around on a broom. She had a flying chariot. She charmed a dragon to sleep so that Jason could get the Golden Fleece. When the crew of the Argo was threatened by an unstoppable bronze giant the men all wanted to run, but Medea stood her ground and called up death-spirits to destroy the monster.
Medea was tough, but she could also be compassionate. She restored youth to Jason’s father, healed Heracles of madness, and healed the Athenian king Aegeus of infertility after he gave her sanctuary. On the other hand, she betrayed her own father to help Jason and tricked the daughters of King Pelias into chopping him up and boiling him alive.
And then there was the part where Jason decided to ditch her, and she sent a cursed robe to his mistress, the princess of Corinth. When the princess put it on she burst into flames, taking the palace and her father the king with her. An epic revenge if there ever was one. In short, Medea is a complex person. If you’re her friend, she’ll get your back. If you betray her, she’ll get you, period.
I don’t paint her as some noble figure who only does good in my book. She can be very selfish. She shamelessly lusts after a man who has just lost his fiancée to the blood cult, and she even more shamelessly seduces a man who most of us would consider to be off-limits.
It’s not too hard to see why Medea goes to extremes. She is, after all, the dedicated priestess of Hecate, who is a very powerful goddess in ancient mythology. Apollonius of Rhodes says Medea didn’t sit around the palace all day, as many another princess might, but was always busy at Hecate’s temple. The link with such a powerful, and oftentimes dark, deity would be a good indication of Medea’s proclivities.
Medea’s birthright also is impressive. Her paternal grandfather is Helios, and her maternal grandparents are Okeanos and Tethys. All three are Titans, and while they play a relatively benign role in mythology, it pays to remember that all of the Titans were primal gods who represented uncontrollable forces of nature, rather than the principles of high civilization and evolution embodied in the gods of Olympus. When you've got that kind of blood flowing through your veins, it’s bound to influence you, and probably not for the best.
It’s often said that everyone has their own demons, but in Medea’s case it’s probably not just a metaphor. I have no idea what - or who - she feeds them, but I have no doubt she feeds them well. If a rogue god is after me, I’d much prefer to have help from someone like Medea than the more common “good” witch. Maybe it’s just me, but if there’s a fight involved a sorceress who’s got plenty of experience with shedding blood is much more reassuring than one whose spells sound like they came from Hallmark.
Author Bio:
Morgan St. Knight live in Atlanta, and is a lifelong student of mythology, the occult, and comparative religion. With more than 25 years of experience as a journalist, Morgan enjoys the occasional foray into fantasyland to escape the grim realities of life. He is currently working on the sequel to "Curse of Prometheus" and is developing a second paranormal series which also takes place in the South.
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/morgan.stknight.5
Twitter: @morganstknight
Excerpt:
The man in front of me held up a restraining hand. A hand that, like the rest of him, was changing again, shifting from the image of my father to someone new.
He was becoming far younger. Barely twenty now. The face so familiar, tanned from months on the unforgiving waters of the Black Sea as he sailed with his comrades to my birthplace in Colchis.
I kept myself from looking into eyes that should have been a soft amber-brown. I knew they would be red, and that I would be lost if I glimpsed them. Instead I focused on the hair. A rich chestnut, curling slightly where it met his shoulders. It matched the short beard, streaked through with gold from the relentless sun.
The beard framed a mouth that still had the fullness and softness of youth, not a trace of chapping despite his exposure to the cruel elements. It was a mouth that begged to be kissed and promised to be marvelous at returning it.
I avoided that temptation, though it was hard. Instead I allowed my hand to trace the arm. So well-muscled from his turns at the oars, which he insisted on taking even though he was leader of the band.
He leaned into me, the feeling of his body so familiar against mine. I smelled honey and salt, and a slightly heavier musk wafted to my nostrils now and again. The scent of hardship and deprivation willingly embraced, the sadness of friends lost along the way, and an underlying fear that he would never again see his home.
If the situation had been any different I could have almost forgiven him for taking Jason’s form. Almost, because no matter how much it hurt to see my first love’s likeness again, there was something else too.
This was how he had looked when we first met alone, after he landed in Colchis on the quest for the Golden Fleece. It was enough to remind me the breathless excitement of infatuation which I’d mistaken for love. I’d never felt quite the same way with any other man.
“Sweetly done,” I murmured, allowing my lips to just caress the edge of his ear. “But we have a saying these days. I’m over you.” I pulled back and turned away.
The movement was so subtle I almost mistook it for an errant shadow. Orphne?
I glanced back to my right. The movement came again. It wasn’t Orphne. Nyx had just appeared, quickly. She saw that I was looking, put a finger to her lips to silence any possible giveaway I might make, and just as quickly vanished.
Was she going to help me somehow? She had some tricks up her sleeve, but I doubted they’d be enough to get us very far. Still, she had the one thing I desperately needed now: the element of surprise.
“I was right,” I sighed as I took a few thoughtful paces. “You’ve been stuck on holy Olympus too long. You think these images from my past will hurt me. But you’re wrong. I long ago came to terms with my father and Jason, and their memories. They wronged me, but in revenging myself I committed my own wrongs. I forgave them. I had to, so I could forgive myself.”
There was a slight sound of footsteps behind me. But they were softer than they should have been for a man of Jason’s size.
“And have you really forgiven yourself?”
My veins ran cold at the sound of the child’s voice. My breathing quickened, but my heart slowed so much it might have been pumping lead. My eyes squeezed shut involuntarily at the pain that voice sent surging through me.
A small, cool hand slipped into mine.
“Have you forgiven yourself,” the voice repeated. “Mother?”
Kyrax
