by Linsey Hall
The sun beat down brightly on a rolling green field. In the distance, a small city sat on a hill. White buildings filled the city, and there would be people there. Or souls, at least.
I turned back to the door to find it gone.
My shoulders relaxed for the first time since we’d arrived in hell.
“We made it,” I said.
“In Elysium, no less.”
“Apparently we’re heroes.”
“Because of what you’re doing,” Maximus said. “Trying to fight the Stryx.”
I warmed at his words. “Well, whatever the case, let’s find our way to Hecate.”
“As expected, we’re not being guarded. But we should find someone to ask.”
“Agreed.” I started toward the city, my steps quick. I had no idea how to find Hecate, but at least we now had freedom of movement and there were no angry gods peeved by the fact that we’d broken in. If Hades realized the truth, he was ignoring it.
The city was quiet as we approached, though the buildings looked lived in. Plants and vases sat in the windows of the houses, and smoke drifted up from chimneys. They were simple white structures, very classical Greece. The smell of food wafted on the air.
But there was no noise. It was so quiet that I’d have heard a bird sing. Except there were no birds either.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
“Some sources report that the Greek Underworld is full of shades. They’re people—and they look like they used to on earth—but they don’t live full lives like humans do. They sort of drift through, doing the things they did on earth, but they aren’t fully present.”
I’d read something like that and hated the sound of it. I shivered and stepped onto the road that led into town. Maximus and I walked quickly down the street between the white houses, searching for a sign of anyone.
Twice, I thought I saw figures drift past windows inside the houses, but they were gone quickly.
When we arrived at the town square, I finally saw a bunch of people. They were transparent, like Maximus and me, but otherwise, they looked normal. There were at least twenty of them, all gathered around various pursuits. There was a massive fountain in the middle of the square, and people stood next to it, staring at the water. Children played a game with a hoop and a stick, while two old men played a game with little dice. There were even two ghosts dancing, though they didn’t look particularly thrilled.
In fact, no one looked thrilled. Not miserable either. Just…existing.
It was a city full of ghosts.
“Which one should we speak to?” Maximus asked.
“How do we speak to them if they are so silent? No one is talking.”
“Odysseus sacrificed a lamb, and whichever shade drank the blood could then speak to him.”
“Damn. No lamb. And I don’t think I have the stomach for that anyway.” I looked at him. “But I’m glad you read The Odyssey.”
He shrugged, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “It’s how I learned to read. There was a smuggled copy going around the slave quarters. We didn’t have the whole thing—that would have been more than one scroll. But we had the part about the Underworld. It was literally more valuable than gold to us.”
It was a poignant image, and I was reminded anew of the hardships Maximus had faced.
“Think they’d drink my blood?” I asked.
Maximus nodded. “I think they’ll drink human blood. But they can have mine.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I have a lot more blood.”
“You need a lot more blood to run that big body of yours.”
He sighed and chuckled at the same time. “Consider this like a…chivalric gesture. I can’t open the car door or bring you flowers since we have no time for dates, so I’ll donate blood to the dead shades so they’ll tell us the secrets of the Underworld.”
I laughed low in my throat. “How romantic.”
“Hard to resist, isn’t it?”
I grinned widely. “Very.”
“Good. Glad you agree.”
“I’ll cut you a deal. You donate to the first shade, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll donate to the second.”
“Like going Dutch on the check?”
“Sure.”
“Fair enough.” He spun in a circle, then pointed. “That one looks promising.”
I turned to look, spotting an old man sitting under a tree. He looked peaceful and about as old as the sun, with a long beard and a severely wrinkled face. “He does look good.”
Old people always knew the most stuff.
We set off across the square, walking at a sedate pace. I didn’t know what the shades would do if we revealed ourselves to be not quite dead, but I didn’t want to find out.
We stopped in front of the old man, who blinked and looked up at us.
“Hi,” I said. “Can you speak to us?”
He frowned, clearly confused.
“Looks like a no.” Maximus’s magic swelled on the air, bringing with it the light scent of cedar. A small blade and bowl appeared in his hands, and he quickly made a cut on his forearm, letting the blood pour into the little bowl.
“If he doesn’t want the blood, he’s going to think you’re really freaking weird.”
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and he handed the bowl to the man. “A sacrifice.”
The man smiled, clearly understanding. Then he drank the blood.
Ew.
If he wasn’t a vampire, which he didn’t look to be, that was mega gross. But it was bad manners to comment on someone’s food, so I snapped my mouth shut.
The man smacked his mouth, his eyes brighter than before. “Thank you.”
Maximus nodded.
“I am Aklos. How can I help you?”
“We are looking for Hecate,” Maximus said.
“That miserable witch? You’d be better off playing fetch with Cerberus.”
I had a feeling that fetch with Cerberus wouldn’t end well for us, which meant that Hecate was a real piece of work.
“All the same,” Maximus said. “We seek her. Do you know how we can find her?”
The old man shrugged. “First, you need to get out of Elysium. You won’t find the likes of her in the hero’s realm.”
“No, I imagine not,” Maximus said. “But where is she?”
“In her own realm, situated between Tartarus and the Asphodel Fields. There’s an entrance to that realm at the top of that mountain.” He pointed toward an extremely creepy-looking black mountain. Lightning flashed overhead, but it was so far away I couldn’t hear it. “But you’ll need the Keys to the Underworld to get through the gate.”
“Where would we get those?” Maximus asked.
The old man’s eyes twinkled. “You’re in luck. Aeacus holds the Keys to the Underworld, but be aware that there are guards at the gate. Only Aeacus wields the key.”
I frowned. “Only Aeacus, or someone who looks like Aeacus.”
The old man shrugged. “I’m not sure it matters. There is a guard at the gate who will expect him to be the one wielding it.”
“Where can we find Aeacus?” Maximus asked.
The man grinned. “He just so happens to dine several days a week with Rhadamanthus, who rules this realm.”
“The judge?” I asked.
The old man’s eyes flicked to me. “The very same.”
He’d chosen us for his realm. Somehow, that made me feel even better about ending up here.
“Where do they dine?” Maximus asked.
The old man pointed behind us. “Go that way. It won’t be long before you see the enormous house at the edge of town. That is Rhadamanthus’s accommodation. They will eat there, if they are indeed meeting tonight.”
Fingers crossed.
“Thank you,” Maximus said.
The man nodded. “Likewise. But be careful. If the judges catch you trying to steal, you will be sent to Tartarus.”
Yikes. I swallowed hard
. That could be a problem.
8
We left Aklos relaxing under the tree and cut back across the square, heading toward the house that he’d mentioned. The sun was dipping down toward the horizon, so hopefully dinner would be soon.
The shades that played and sat within the square paid us no mind, and we hurried past them. We went down a wide street bordered on either side by large, judicial-looking buildings.
When I spotted the enormous house at the end of the road, I grinned. “Twenty bucks that’s the judge’s place.”
“I didn’t take him to be a subtle guy, so I won’t take that bet.”
“Smart move.” He’d have lost.
We walked sedately toward the house, cutting down a side street to walk around to the back.
“Do you see a way in?” I asked. There weren’t many doors, especially not along the side of the house.
“Not yet.” We turned to walk along the back of the house, and I spotted a small door.
A harried-looking shade rushed from the door, an apron tied around her front. She didn’t speak, but she didn’t have to.
I nodded toward her as she passed. “She looks like cooking staff.”
“Kitchen is a good place to do recon. Let’s go in.”
“I like how you think.” I walked toward the door like I knew what I was doing, stepping into a bustling kitchen that smelled of amazing food.
Strangely, though, I wasn’t hungry. Maybe it was the potion that made me seem partially dead, but I had no desire to eat. I shivered, wanting to get back to my normal body as quickly as possible.
No one stopped us, but then, this didn’t seem like the kind of place where people snuck around doing things they shouldn’t. They might not even know what to do with us if they did try to interrogate us.
The judges, however… If they saw us, they’d know. We’d need a way around that.
“Let’s see if we can find the dining room,” I whispered. “If Aeacus is here, I bet he’ll be at the table.”
Maximus nodded, and we strode away from the kitchen. Our disguise as a shade worked well, because no one said a word to us.
The massive hallway that we entered was made entirely of white marble. It was cold and clean, and we followed it to a large room set with a big wooden table.
Bingo.
The room was empty, so I searched for a place to hide.
“There.” Maximus pointed to a darkened alcove on the wall to our right.
We hurried toward it, slipping into the shadows. There was another door in there, which Maximus tested. It led right outside into a pretty courtyard.
“Perfect.” I nodded. “If he arrives, we’ll sneak out that way if we need to.”
“Let’s get comfortable, then.”
I sank down against the wall, careful to keep myself in the shadows of the alcove. Maximus joined me, and despite the potion we’d taken to make ourselves look like shades, I could feel the warmth of him.
I leaned against his shoulder, resting my head and eyes for a moment.
“Hell is better with you in it,” Maximus said.
“That’s because we’re in heaven, dummy.” Kinda, at least. The ancient Greek version of it. It, too, was comfortable to me, in a weird, distant way.
“With you, any place is heaven.”
I stifled a giggle at the ridiculous phrase and looked up at him.
His eyes twinkled with humor. “I know that was over the top, but the sentiment remains.”
“Aw, you say the sweetest things.”
“You should see how men wooed women in my day. A lot of flowery language and then…”
“Boom, you were chattel for life.”
He shrugged lightly. “Not always, but too often. Women didn’t have many rights to speak of then.”
“You prefer modern day?”
“Most definitely.”
I nodded and leaned my head back against his shoulder. “Good.”
I didn’t want some loser who longed for the day when women were back in the kitchens. That was a good life for many women, but only if they got to choose it. Ancient times weren’t great for choice.
Choice.
What an interesting concept.
I hadn’t chosen to be a Dragon God. I hadn’t chosen the Greeks as my patrons. But they were what I’d gotten. And that was life—play the cards you were dealt. And they were good cards. I could make a difference with these cards.
But in some things, we got to choose. For me, that meant choosing Maximus. It was becoming clearer with every day. I hadn’t known him long, but my instincts were dead-on. And my feelings were starting to become pretty insistent.
If I made it out of this whole thing alive, I’d be choosing Maximus. In whatever capacity he’d have me.
Maximus squeezed my hand, as if he knew what I was thinking. I smiled.
A few minutes later, he nudged my shoulder. “They’re arriving.”
I leaned out to look, spotting two figures walking into the room.
Rhadamanthus and Aeacus.
Jackpot.
They each took a seat at the long table, one at either end. I inspected Aeacus’s apparel, looking for any keys hanging around his neck or stuffed into large pockets. There was just one pocket that I could see, and I hoped the key would be in there.
“That’s our cue,” I murmured.
Before I could get up, three tiny figures appeared in front of me. The Menacing Menagerie, and they looked like ghosts.
“What are you doing here?” I hissed.
Helping. Romeo the raccoon grinned toothily at me.
I looked at Poppy and Eloise, who both grinned. “How are you ghostly?”
Took some potion from the purple-haired witch.
I remembered the third bottle of potion that Hedy had set on the table in her workshop after we’d made the batch. I frowned at Romeo. “Stole, you mean.”
No. We didn’t steal. The Cats of Catastrophe stole it for us.
“So you teamed up with some famous cat burglars”—who were actually cats—“and stole some valuable potion?”
To help you.
I sighed. “Thanks. But you need to be careful. I don’t want you getting stuck here.”
He nodded eagerly. Honestly, I was glad to have him on my side. Who knew what kind of help we could need, and these three were pretty clever. It was dangerous, though. Raccoons didn’t usually gain admittance to Elysium. If anyone saw him or Eloise or Poppy, they’d know something was up. At least they’d entered this realm while seeming to be dead, so it shouldn’t alert the gods. Hopefully it wouldn’t be a problem that they hadn’t crossed the Styx with Charon.
I glanced at Maximus. “Let’s get out of here and come up with a plan.”
He nodded, and we slipped out the door into the courtyard. The Menacing Menagerie followed, and we all ducked behind a huge bush. The sun had sunk below the horizon, and the sky was illuminated with a bright pink light.
“How do you want to do this?” Maximus asked.
I looked down at my potion belt and pulled out two tiny vials. I stared at them a moment, debating my options. Then I nodded and looked up at Maximus. “These are invisibility potions.” I looked down at Romeo. “If I give you an invisibility potion, do you think you can sneak the key out of that man’s pocket? The one who was sitting closest to us?”
Romeo nodded eagerly. I picked up some pointers from Muffin.
“Good.” I explained the rest of my plan to Maximus, who nodded, then I handed the invisibility potion to Romeo, who grabbed it with his little paw. “Be careful.”
He nodded.
“Split it between the three of you and take it now. It should last a while. We don’t need anyone seeing you.”
He uncorked it and held it out to Eloise and Poppy. Their hands weren’t as agile as his, so he helped them drink. One by one, they disappeared. Then he took the last swig and saluted me right before he disappeared.
“I can think of no finer army,” Ma
ximus said, a grin in his voice.
I was sure the Menacing Menagerie were eating that up.
“Let’s take ours. We’ll all be able to see each other since we’ve taken the same potion. But it won’t last long.” I uncorked the bottle.
He nodded. “We’ll be quick.”
I took a half swig of the potion, which was two doses for people our size. The thick taste of mud coated my tongue, and I tried not to gag.
“Ugh, here.” I handed it to Maximus.
“Cheers.” He took it and swallowed.
Ice shivered down my limbs as the potion went to work. A moment later, I could see the Menacing Menagerie. Then Maximus appeared, the potion clearly working on him as well.
We headed around the building toward the kitchen, moving quickly. We cut through the bustling space again, drawing no looks this time. I saw Romeo give the trash bin one longing glance, but he soldiered on. Once we were in the hall that led to the main dining room, we ducked into a small alcove and waited.
I leaned toward Maximus. “Can you conjure two tiny pairs of scissors?”
He and I both had very weird but specific jobs during this heist. He nodded, his magic flaring so lightly that I wouldn’t have sensed it if I hadn’t been waiting for it. He handed me a tiny pair of silver scissors, and I gripped them in my hand. He kept the other pair for himself.
When two pairs of footsteps sounded in the hall, we peered around the edge of the alcove.
Two shades, a man and a woman, each carrying a tray with a large bowl on it. Perfect.
I dug into my potion bag, finding a stunner potion bomb. It was one of the weaker ones, and when ingested, it would cause drowsiness. I unscrewed the little metal cap that kept the liquid locked inside, then looked at Maximus. “Distraction?”
“On it.” He kept his voice whisper low. Then he whistled, sounding just like a bird.
The servers stopped dead in their tracks, eyes wide. They were clearly not used to birds. They looked at each other, confused, and I darted out from the alcove, tipping my potion bomb over each of their big bowls of soup. My steps were silent enough, and my invisibility potion definitely worked, because they didn’t notice me at all.
I was careful to add just a few drops, and when I was done, I ducked back into the alcove.