Thanatos said it was all right. But the hell it was. They stood surrounded by death and disease, preserved body parts and grotesque medieval books on anatomy. Covered petri dishes lined three rows, each labeled lovingly in fancy, handwritten calligraphy. She thought she read ANTHRAX below the nearest one and stumbled away. Calypso caught her by the shoulders and steadied her until they passed the shelves.
A large white bed lay near the windows.
“This is his bedroom?” Cassandra asked, and shuddered.
“He’s the god of the dead,” Thanatos said. “He’d sleep like a baby here.”
“And so would you, I suppose?”
He kept his eyes on the window. Not exactly a denial, but no admission, either.
“Having second thoughts about facing him?” Calypso asked Cassandra.
“No,” Cassandra snapped. But the place had her rattled. From the dead cat and friends on the stoop to the taxidermied butler to the cavalcade of heads, she would have liked to smash everything and run screaming, even if she would likely die of bubonic plague, yellow fever, and botulism before she made it out the door. “But Calypso, maybe you should go. This isn’t exactly the safest place.”
Calypso smiled and nudged her shoulder, as though that was the silliest suggestion in the world. “I’ll stay with you. You know that.”
Cassandra glanced into a shadowy corner at what looked to be the entire mummified corpse of a woman, and couldn’t help being relieved. Having Calypso there was comforting as a soft breeze. But she wished even more for the warmth of Aidan’s hands.
Calypso turned to Thanatos.
“How long do you think, until Hades comes home?” she asked.
Thanatos shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s still underneath. I should’ve drunk the rest of Megaera’s blood. Maybe then I would’ve been able to pinpoint him.”
“It would have put you on your ass for days. What use would you have been to me then?” Cassandra grumbled. She looked away. She sounded cold, like Athena.
“What use will I be to you now?” he asked. “I said I’d bring you here. And here you are.”
“But … you’re not leaving?”
He smiled. “One minute a murderess and the next a frightened girl. I don’t know how you manage to pull off so many things at once.” The smile faded, and he looked at her in that way he had, as though he could see the future better than she could. “I don’t know how much longer you’ll be able to.”
“It will be dark soon,” Calypso said. “I’m going to gather more candles.”
It was probably too much to hope for something with batteries. A camping lantern or, hell, some extravagant electric chandelier. Cassandra approached Hades’ king-sized, white-blanketed bed and ran her hand across it.
“How likely am I to catch hepatitis if I sit on this?”
Thanatos smiled. He went to the bed and sat. Cassandra sat on the side opposite.
“You’ve been vaccinated, right?” he asked, and she chuckled nervously.
“Asshole.”
They talked quietly, with one eye each trained on the setting sun. The other they kept on Calypso, who set lit candles around them until the room looked less like a lab at the CDC and more like the apse of a church. It was almost pretty, if they ignored the way the firelight lit the gaunt cheeks of the formaldehyde-soaked heads.
Time passed. The candles burned down by half, and Cassandra’s eyes grew heavy. She thought it monstrous that Hades slept in the same room as his shelves of death, but the bed was so soft. Thanatos touched her arm.
“I’ll stay awake if you sleep,” he said.
“Mm,” Cassandra muttered. She couldn’t stay awake forever. Who knew how long it would be before Hades returned.
“What was that?” Calypso asked suddenly.
“What was what?”
Cassandra hadn’t heard a thing. But both Thanatos and Calypso sat upright and stared through the candles to the shadows near the stairs. Cassandra trained her ears in the same direction. There it was: a papery whisper, like old parchment rubbing together.
It might have been nothing more than air moving through the building and stirring the pages of an open book. It might have been the sound of the tarps covering the collapsed walls. But it wasn’t. It was too deliberate.
Cassandra rose off the bed quietly. Thanatos stood with her, and Calypso, too, but Cassandra held her hand out in front of Calypso’s chest.
Cassandra’s eyes tracked over the floating heads, the preserved digestive tracts in sealed plastic. But the noise wasn’t coming from them. The flickering candlelight only made them appear to move. She walked through the rows of shelves, heat flowing to her fingertips. Fear lent itself to anger with comforting ease.
Whatever it was whispered again. A meatier sound this time, and closer. Not paper rubbing together, but leather. She should have brought a candle. But Thanatos was beside her, and his preternatural eyes could see where hers couldn’t. She looked deep into the far corner, toward the preserved, shriveled corpse of the woman.
It wasn’t there.
Cassandra grabbed Thanatos’ arm.
“What?” he asked.
“There was—” She paused. How could she explain it? She’d barely looked at it before, out of sheer aversion. Part of her thought she’d imagined it, or gotten the placement wrong. “There was something there before.” She pointed into the dark. “A body. It isn’t there now.” Thanatos came close and she leaned into his chest, not caring whether it was something she should do. “Why would Hades move it?”
The leathery whisper issued from somewhere to their left, in the shelves.
“He didn’t.” Thanatos dragged her back toward Calypso and the candlelight. He held her tightly. “It’s not Hades.”
They retreated fast into the circle of candles and stumbled against the side of the bed. Calypso had drawn her knife. Thanatos held Cassandra by the wrist and kept her carefully behind him.
The corpse of the woman ran. It ran, letting them glimpse it through jars of formaldehyde. Then it disappeared. All was silent for a span of minutes. When it moved again, it was much, much closer.
“Can I kill that?” she asked Thanatos. “It looks like it’s already dead, so can I kill it?”
“No,” the corpse laughed. “You can’t kill it.” She stepped out from between the glass cases, a beautiful, dark-haired girl in a black dress and high boots. A Fury.
“Alecto,” Thanatos said.
The girl smiled, and Cassandra flinched. Alecto of the Unceasing Anger. The Fury they’d taken such care to avoid.
Or no care at all, considering we drank her sister like a bottle of Coca-Cola.
Thanatos lunged, and knocked up against the shelves of dead and diseased things. Cassandra held her breath while they rattled and rocked. If anything fell and shattered, she wasn’t sure if she could control her panic.
Alecto laughed and danced easily out of his grasp. She moved too fast to be seen. Even Hermes might have had trouble getting his hands on her.
But he would have eventually, and Cassandra wished he was there.
The Fury stepped into the light again. Her face was sharper than her sisters’ and her eyes smaller, the dark irises so large Cassandra could barely make out any white.
“What? Just one charge?” She clucked her tongue. “I would very much like to see you bull your way through this china shop.”
Alecto traced her fingers along the row of petri dishes. Surely most of the specimens were dead, but Cassandra had heard stories of mass plague graves that authorities were afraid to disturb even sixty or a hundred years later.
“Hades would be displeased,” Calypso said. “If you damaged his collection.”
“More displeased than if I left you here to try and murder him?”
“It’s not murder. It’s an assassination,” Cassandra said.
“Semantics,” Alecto hissed, and gave them a view of her blackening teeth, so mismatched with her beautiful face. But that was
her true form. The girl was an illusion stretched over the top of decaying wings.
“What are you doing here?” Thanatos asked, and Alecto slipped behind them, fast as a light going out. She stayed just long enough for them to spin and stumble against the bed before flashing back to hide behind the stacks. She was too fast. Trying to follow her movements felt like a case of whiplash.
“I’m here to do what Furies do.”
“Your sister’s dead,” Cassandra said. “Let it go.”
“Let it go?” Alecto screeched. “Like you have let Apollo go?”
“Your sister was a monster.”
“We are all monsters here.”
Cassandra stepped forward. If Alecto wanted to join Megaera, then so be it. What was one more Fury? Thanatos was there. He would move when she did. Alecto didn’t look that much more terrible than Megaera had. Cassandra didn’t know what they’d been so afraid of.
“A little girl who presumes to kill gods.” Alecto grinned. “Who kills them with her hands. And with her heart.”
“What are you talking about?” Cassandra asked.
“I’m talking about your … Aidan,” the Fury said. Her eyes lit up when she said the name, and Cassandra grimaced. It felt as if Alecto had reached into her head and torn his name out with clawed fingers. “Your Aidan, whom you killed.”
“I didn’t kill him.” Her hands burned. “But I’ll kill who did.”
“You killed him as sure as you stand before me.”
“No.”
“He died for you. Because of you. He never would have been there. Never would have fought. And one mortal girl lives, while a god lies dead.”
Cassandra’s vision swam and ran hot. Everything blurred around the edges, whether from tears or rage she couldn’t tell.
“Cassandra, don’t listen.” That was Thanatos’ voice. Far away and unimportant.
“He died a mortal’s death. Demeaned on the side of a road.” Alecto burrowed into Cassandra’s mind again and pulled the memory out by the root. “A branch shoved through his chest. Sputtering about love on a cloudy day.”
“Shut up!”
“You made him nothing. Made him fallible.”
“I didn’t ask for any of that!”
“But it’s your fault. He died for you. Because of you.”
“I never asked him to,” Cassandra screamed. “He never listened to anything I wanted. He was a god! A stupid, stupid god!” Fire licked up and down her arms. Pure, clean hate. “He didn’t die for me. To save me. He died to clear his own conscience, and he got what he deserved!” Tears rolled down her cheek. “For what he did. For what they all did.”
“Cassandra,” Calypso said, her soothing voice, like music, pale as an echo. Everything spun and burned before Cassandra’s eyes, ready to explode. To send glass and disease flying.
“And now Athena returns,” Alecto whispered. “Alive and well. With Aphrodite and Ares by her side. Friends. Allies. Your Aidan forgotten.”
“Athena?” Calypso asked. “Alive? But how?” She stepped closer to Alecto, looking for a miracle, but Cassandra couldn’t see her. Her world had turned red. Athena was with Aphrodite. She was with Ares.
I always knew it. I always knew she’d go to them.
Cassandra’s palms bled where her nails dug in.
“Cassandra, we have to go! We have to see.” Calypso was in her ear, imploring and so damn hopeful. “We have to—”
“You want to help them!” Cassandra whirled and grabbed Calypso by the shoulders. Thanatos screamed for her to stop, but it was too late. Angry as she was, it only took a touch.
And Alecto laughed, and disappeared.
PART II
TWO WARS
17
STAIRS UP, ALL TOGETHER NOW
Hermes led Andie and Henry deeper and deeper into the belly of Hephaestus’ house. The only sounds were their footsteps and rapidly huffing breath. He held the Shield of Achilles ahead of them at chest level. What must they look like? What would Hades think when they burst into the underworld, a scrappy army of three?
Doesn’t matter. Just get them down. He looked back. And be ready to catch them if they stumble.
They had run over two hundred stairs and still saw no sign of the bottom. If they took a fall, it wouldn’t be pretty.
“Slower,” he said. “We’ve gone far enough now. We can take it easy.” He thought of his friend above, Hephaestus in the grip of the Moirae. But when Hephaestus had told them to go, he’d meant it, knowing what it would cost.
“How much farther?” Andie asked.
“Don’t know.” He cupped his hands and hooted down into the dark, heard it echo five times before going out of earshot. “Long way.”
Andie puffed, hands on her knees. “Guess I shouldn’t have stopped going to hockey practice.”
“It doesn’t help that much, actually,” Henry puffed beside her. “Can I see it?”
It took Hermes a minute to realize he meant the shield.
“Of course.” He handed it over. “You won it. It’s yours.”
His. But not his. He saw it in Henry’s eyes the moment he held it, studying the intricate carvings. It took Henry two arms to keep it aloft. Achilles could have flung it like a discus.
“Andie,” Henry said. “Do you want to see it?”
“No.” She turned her shoulder. “I don’t care.”
Henry frowned, and Hermes took the shield back. Of course she didn’t want to see it. It wasn’t hers. Her lot was to be the war wife, all over again.
But it might turn out different, this time.
“Did you hear that?” Henry asked.
“Hear what?” Andie asked.
“It sounded like someone shouting, from down there.” He pointed down the stairs.
Hermes stilled, and listened.
“Did it sound like torture?” He asked. “Maybe we’re closer than I thought, and coming in on the Tartarus side.”
They started forward again, this time easy and ambling. Apprehension grew in Hermes’ chest with every step. They weren’t much of a match for anything that might crawl up to the gates. The sound of tramping feet reached them and Hermes wished for more light, or a few stretched-out shadows to serve as warning. Judging by the noise, they were about to be overtaken by a herd of Cape buffalo.
“Turtle up,” he said, and set the shield in front of them. No time like the present to find out what it was worth.
Ares’ face, smeared with blood, came into view first. There was just enough time for Hermes to think, Oh, shit, before Athena shouted, “Get out of my way,” and pushed past him. Hermes let the shield roll, let Henry scramble to keep it from bouncing down the million or so remaining stairs.
It was Athena. It was his sister.
Hugging her felt so good it seemed imaginary, even if the impact of her rattled all the bones in his body.
* * *
When Athena threw her arms around her brother, she thought she’d never let go. She was afraid it was all an illusion, that they’d never escaped the underworld at all and any moment Hermes would dissolve into molecules right beneath her fingers.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Shut up. You’re here. You’re back. I found you.” He squeezed her tighter. “Though admittedly I wasn’t really looking.”
“Odysseus? Odysseus!” Andie shouted and stumbled on jelly legs down the steps to put her hands on his shoulders in disbelief. “You’re alive.”
“Thanks to her.” He grinned at Athena. “And him, if you can believe it.”
Ares tipped an imaginary cap with his mangled hand.
“What are they doing here?” Henry asked, glaring at Panic and Oblivion.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Athena said. She held Hermes at arms’ length. He looked thinner. More pale. And weary. He looked incredible.
“Where’s Cassandra?” Odysseus asked. “And Cally?”
“Finding their way back,” Andie answered. “At least that’s what Demeter
said when we went to see her in the desert. We haven’t seen them since the fight on Olympus. We thought they were dead. We thought you all were.”
Athena nodded. So Cassandra and Calypso were together. Good. At least they weren’t alone. And it was good, too, that Cassandra wasn’t with Hermes. She’d have killed Ares if she was, and Athena owed him more than half a trip up the underworld’s stairs. But they would find her. And soon.
I won’t pick sides.
But that felt like a lie.
“If you weren’t looking for me,” she asked Hermes, “what are you doing down here?”
“The Moirae,” he said. “They’re up there with Achilles. In Hephaestus’ house. They’ve got him. We were after the shield and we got it. But we had to run. Athena.” He grabbed her arm. “I stood against them. They’re weakening. Hephaestus told me to come back, if I found help.”
Athena thought quickly, remembering how it felt to have the Moirae in her head on Olympus. How easily they’d forced her to her knee. But Hermes had faced them down.
And I stood, too, when I had to. When Odysseus fell.
“We have to go back up.” Hermes tugged her gently. “Hephaestus was trying to help us.”
“Then we won’t lose him.” She nodded to Ares, and he sprinted ahead at once. Athena choked down the urge to tell him not to do anything stupid. Wasted words.
Odysseus flipped his sword in his hand, but Athena pressed it to his side.
“Don’t face him,” she said.
“Not going to face him. I’m just going to give back this sword, and we’ll call it quits.”
“I mean it. You’d lose.”
“Yes,” he said. “But it’d be closer than you think.”
* * *
Athena knew long before she got inside Hephaestus’ house that it was over. Ares hadn’t even bothered to battle cry.
The sight when she reached the top of the stairs was sad and strangely empty. The fireplaces still burned. Hermes pressed a hand to a motorized chair and declared it still warm. No doubt the blood was warm, too, where it lay in streaks and puddles. Everything about the scene felt immediate, as though if they’d gotten there a blink sooner they’d have seen it all. But Hephaestus was gone. Vanished. Not even a twisted body remained for them to mourn.
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