“So far,” said Hades.
Alice stopped smiling.
“Give us the dog and you can have your mortal back,” said Hades.
“No,” said Artemis.
“That’s right!” said Neil. “Well said, Artemis!”
“We will eat his soul,” said Hades.
“No!” cried Alice.
She made a move toward the cage, but Artemis held her arm out, signaling her to stop.
“Don’t worry about it, Artemis, stick to your guns,” said Neil. “It’s worth it for a few more seconds with her.”
“I’m really going to start sulking now,” said Persephone. “You could do with being a bit more romantic, Hades. You really take me for granted.”
“Neil, forget about me, just get out of the cage and run,” said Alice.
“I can’t,” said Neil. “It’s solid. I can’t get past the bars.”
“Are you Alice Mulholland?” said Persephone.
“Yes,” said Alice, wondering how she knew.
“They’re such a sweet couple,” said Persephone to Hades. “You can’t possibly separate them. You really should eat them both.”
Alice thought fast. “You can eat me, but you should spare Neil,” she said. “He’s an engineer. Very skilled. One of the best in the country.”
“What kind of engineer?” said Persephone.
“Structural,” said Alice.
Persephone turned to her husband.
“Darling,” she said, “do you have to eat his soul? Can’t I keep him? I’ll look after him, I promise. You know how much I love engineers. And structural is my favorite kind.”
“I will give you Cerberus,” said Artemis, “in exchange for the mortal in the cage, and the girl, and your help.”
“Me?” said Alice.
“But I want to keep him,” whined Persephone.
Hades drummed his fingers against the arm of his throne.
“Just what exactly would this help entail?” he said.
“Well,” said Artemis, “it’s hard to say. I don’t know what’s been going on on the surface since I left. But if you come back up there with me—”
“No,” said Hades. “Never.”
“But—” said Artemis.
“Not even for Cerberus,” said Hades.
“But that’s where we need you.”
“It’s out of the question. I do not go to the upperworld. That is final. And I see the little girl’s point about more people being born in the future, but actually I think we’ll just take the souls of all of the mortals that are on the surface now and be done with it. At least that way we’ll have dominion over you. You’ve been lording it up on that upperworld for far too long.”
“Hades is right,” said Persephone. “The surface is horrible and I don’t see why it’s worth saving.”
“But, Persephone,” said Artemis, “I thought you liked the upperworld. You always used to complain about having to come back down here.”
“That was before,” said Persephone. “Back when we were young and powerful and we lived on our lovely mountain in our beautiful palace, and people used to bring us sacrifices and pretty things. But it’s horrid now. We’re getting old and we have to live in that disgusting tiny house and I have to sleep on the floor, and I can’t do anything up there. I like it much better down here, where everybody knows who I am and I can do whatever I like.”
“From what Persephone tells me you’ve really let standards slip up on the surface,” said Hades.
“It’s not their fault,” said Neil. “Nobody believes in them there. Of course they’re not powerful anymore.”
Artemis looked at Neil. Her mouth opened, then shut again. Then it opened again.
“What did you just say?”
“Sorry, but it’s true,” said Neil.
For a couple of seconds Artemis stood absolutely still. Then she turned to Hades.
“Forget it,” she said. “I’ve changed my mind, I don’t need your help. Just give me the mortal in the cage and this girl, and you can have your dog back.”
“Why do you want the girl so much?” said Hades.
“Do you know how hard it is to get a decent cleaner in central London?” said Artemis.
“But I thought you said without our help the world will end,” said Persephone.
“Maybe it will,” said Artemis, “but until then I’m still going to need someone to do the vacuuming. Do we have a deal?”
Hades’ eyes narrowed as he stared at Artemis, trying to work out what the trick was. But he couldn’t spot it. Then he looked across to his cowering hellhound, who gazed back imploringly. He turned back to Artemis.
“We have a deal,” he said.
Alice ran over to the cage and threw herself down next to Neil, half laughing, half weeping dry tears, kissing the air that housed his image through the bars. Neil reached out and stroked the place where he could see her hair.
“But—” said Persephone.
“Persephone, darling, engineers die all the time. Even this one, eventually. Sooner rather than later, probably, given the situation. There’s only one Cerberus.”
“You never let me have anything I want,” whined Persephone, but she knew from the look on Hades’ face that the door had slammed shut and no amount of banging and hollering would get it open again.
“Great,” said Artemis. “So that’s settled. Listen, while you let the mortal out of his box, would you mind if I used your telephone? I need to put in a quick call to Hermes.”
“Why?” said Hades, eyes narrowing again.
“Oh, just to let him know we’re on our way back.”
And Artemis smiled in a way that Hades knew meant that she’d got away with something, but he had no idea what.
38
APHRODITE WAS PACKING. She didn’t know for where. All she knew was that if the world was ending she wasn’t planning to stick around. It wasn’t going to be pretty and Aphrodite liked everything to be pretty. It wasn’t a weakness of hers; it was what she was for.
She was going to miss her bedroom, with its roses and filigrees and the swan-shaped bed and all the lovely mirrors. She would probably miss this planet too. It was such a sensual place; there was so much to enjoy. Wherever they were going next was unlikely to be so pleasant, as they were going to have to create it without a sun. Mortals had a saying that she adored: All you need is love. But the thing was—though she would never admit this out loud—it wasn’t true. If she had to set up a world by herself, the sex there would be phenomenal, and if you could see anything it would be beautiful too, but you wouldn’t be able to see anything because you needed light to see, and light was not her department. She needed Apollo for light, for light and for warmth, otherwise any creatures that she created would spend eternity having cold dark sex and there was nothing beautiful about that and—she stifled a sob. Where was he?
She redoubled her efforts at packing. Any mawkish dwelling on Apollo might lead to feeling bad about how she had treated him, and Aphrodite didn’t do feeling bad. It was not what she was for. And the packing, she thought to herself, was going very well, mainly because most of her clothes folded up extremely small so she could fit them into compact luggage with ease. The shoes, though, they were going to be a problem. Wherever she was going next, Aphrodite was going to need lots of pairs of shoes. Aphrodite refused to go anywhere where you didn’t need lots of pairs of shoes.
The door opened. Aphrodite looked up, hoping for one stupid moment that it might be Apollo, but it was only Eros.
“Oh,” she said, “it’s you.”
“Are you okay, Mum?” said Eros.
“Of course I’m okay,” said Aphrodite, folding clothes at double speed.
Eros sat down at the tail end of the swan bed. His shirt was untucked and he hadn’t brushed his hair.
“You mustn’t give up hope, Mum,” he said.
“I’m not giving up hope,” said Aphrodite. “Who’s giving up hope? I’m just being prepared.�
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She stuffed some handfuls of lingerie inside a pair of thigh boots and put them in the bottom of a new suitcase.
“Apollo’s going to be fine,” said Eros. “Artemis will find him.”
“Of course she’ll find him,” said Aphrodite. “Artemis is a great huntress. She can find anything.”
“I wish she’d told us where she was going,” said Eros, “instead of just running out of the house like that.”
“I’m sure she had her reasons,” said Aphrodite. “Can you hand me one of the boxes of sex toys from under the bed?”
Eros reached down and passed his mother one of the matching translucent pink crates.
“So you’re definitely fine,” said Eros.
“Definitely.” Aphrodite tipped the contents of the box into a rattling heap in her bag.
“Full of hope?”
“Overflowing.”
A switch on one of the vibrators must have flicked on as they fell, because Aphrodite’s suitcase was now buzzing and jiggling. She started digging through it, searching for the culprit.
“The thing is,” said Eros. “The thing is . . .”
“What is the thing? Ah, here it is.” She switched the errant item off.
“The thing is,” said Eros again, “is that I’m kind of, you know, giving up hope, you know.”
“Oh,” said Aphrodite. She put the vibrator down. “Oh, Eros. Why didn’t you say?”
She pushed her suitcases to one side and sat down on the bed next to her son, putting her arms around him and holding his head against her shoulder.
“Darling,” she said, “it’s going to be fine. Everything’s going to be fine.”
“But you’re packing,” said Eros.
“Darling, remember, this is me,” said Aphrodite. “Everybody else might be happy to flee with only the clothes they have on their backs, but some of these things are designer. Look, just because I’m packing doesn’t mean we have to go. I just like to be ready, that’s all. I don’t like surprises. And I’m a materialistic bitch. Everybody knows it. You can’t take me as an example. Don’t tell anyone about the hugging thing, by the way.”
“I won’t,” promised Eros into her collarbone. “But, Mum, I don’t think it’s going to work out this time. Nothing like this has ever happened before. We need Apollo. We just can’t do without him.”
“We need all of us,” said Aphrodite. “We need me to keep looking good; it gives the mortals something to aspire to. We need Artemis to zoom off to who knows where so it looks like something is being done. And we need you to have faith.”
“But I don’t have faith,” said Eros.
“Well, if you don’t, nobody else is going to,” said Aphrodite. “There haven’t been this many gods in the house since Zeus’s last big birthday and they’re running around like headless chickens—dear me, what a hideous thought. They’re running around like sperm looking for an egg, and the fact of the matter is that you’re the only person who has any experience in this area, you’re the only one who knows how to believe in things that aren’t true. So you’d better get out there and start persuading everybody that we’re going to find Apollo and things are going to be all right, and that’ll keep everyone busy until . . .”
“Until what, Mum?”
“Until either it does work out fine or I can get us all packed and ready to go. We’re gods, Eros. We’ll find a way around this, even if it isn’t a way we like the look of much. We always do.”
Eros sat up straight and nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “You’re right.”
“I always am,” said Aphrodite.
Just then the door opened again and Hermes came in.
“Doesn’t anybody knock anymore?” said Aphrodite.
“I think you’d better come downstairs,” said Hermes. “I’ve just had a call from Artemis.”
39
IT WAS A tense walk back to the surface. Having got everything she could have wanted, Alice was now terrified that it would all be taken away from her. Following the precedent established by Orpheus, Neil was made to walk in front of her and told that if he turned around to look at her before they got out, she would be sent back down to the underworld forever. So for the first part of the journey, from Hades and Persephone’s palace to the underworld Tube station, she didn’t say a thing aside from, periodically, “I’m still here,” afraid that were she to begin a conversation, Neil would forget himself and look back to reply. Instead she focused on the back of his beloved head, his brown hair rising above the scrubbed pink neck speckled with freckles, and then, beneath that, the soft blue of his dressing gown, and, oddly, poking out beneath that, jean cuffs and trainers.
As the black of the tunnel closed around them, though, Alice felt herself starting to panic, and she could no longer wait.
“Don’t turn around,” she started. “Artemis, I don’t mean to be at all ungrateful, I’m just a bit worried. I don’t have a body anymore. Am I going to be a ghost now?”
“Don’t worry,” said Artemis. “Aphrodite can take care of that.”
“Aphrodite?”
“Yes. She’ll probably make you a bit prettier than you are now but she’s very good at making bodies on the whole. She was the one who made Helen beautiful, and people are still talking about her.”
“That’s very nice,” said Alice, “but I’m not sure Aphrodite likes me very much.”
“She will once we’ve finished,” said Artemis.
“But are you sure she’ll agree to do it?” said Neil, his voice as anxious as Alice felt. “I thought you were all supposed to be conserving your power, especially now that the sun’s gone out.”
“That’s all going to be fine now,” said Artemis.
“But how? The world’s about to end, we still haven’t woken Apollo up—”
“Trust me.”
They walked on a little farther in silence.
“Don’t turn around,” said Alice, “but I can’t just turn up alive again. Everybody knows I died. I had a funeral. Didn’t I have a funeral?”
“Well, I wasn’t exactly invited,” said Neil to Artemis. “But I’m sure that she did, and not only that, her death was in all of the papers and on the news because of her being struck by lightning. There was a photograph. Everybody knows who she is. Everybody knows she’s dead.”
“Good,” said Artemis.
“So we can’t just bring her back.”
“Yes, we can,” said Artemis, “and we will.”
“But—”
“Didn’t I just say to trust me?” said Artemis.
By the time they reached the end of the tunnel, Alice was so nervous that she could no longer speak at all, just cough out the occasional “Still here” in her terror that Neil would turn around to reassure himself. The three of them scrambled up onto the platform, Neil holding his head perfectly still to prevent himself from turning back even accidentally, and then they stepped through the wall into the mortal station. The lights were still out but after the total darkness of the tunnel, there was a certain shape to the shadows that was just enough to tell Alice that she was in a place she knew, and the banal familiarity of it closed around her like a soft glove.
“Are we here now, can I look at her yet?” said Neil, and the pain and longing in his tone struck Alice so deep that it was as if she were experiencing them for herself.
“I’m not sure,” said Artemis. “I don’t know exactly where the portal is. I think you’d better wait until we’re out of the Tube station completely, just to be certain.”
And so they faced the long, long climb up the stairs to the exit, together yet still alone.
It was only when they finally stepped through the ticket barriers and half ran, half fell through the grille into the street outside that Alice finally believed that this was really happening, that she was being given a second chance at life, and Neil finally turned around and looked at her, his face transformed by joy, and they threw themselves into each other’s arms,
and went right through each other and ended up falling onto the frozen pavement on either side, and then they picked themselves up and laughed, and turned to each other and looked at each other, and looked, and looked, and looked.
“You look exactly the same,” whispered Alice, shaking her head. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
“Right, then,” said Artemis, “when you’re done. We don’t have a lot of time. We need to go back to Neil’s flat and pick up the bodies.”
“Bodies?” said Alice.
“I’ll explain on the way,” said Neil.
As Neil told her what had happened with Apollo and the sun, Alice tried to listen—it was obviously very important—but she couldn’t focus on his words. Like parched earth in the rain, she drank in the wonderful contours of his face, the lively expression of his eyes—lively! Was anything lively in the underworld?—the tightening and slackening of his skin as he spoke, every hair, every pore, everything she had tried to conjure up for herself, and tried not to conjure up for herself, throughout that long lonely time without him. And she could see Neil staring at her, and she wondered if her own face was reflecting back that same dazed, amazed look.
“I love you,” she interrupted him. “Neil. I can’t wait another second to tell you. I love you.”
“I love you too,” said Neil.
“That’s lovely,” said Artemis. “Keep walking.”
Artemis led the way to Neil’s flat through the scummy back roads and miserable cheap shopping streets that constitute the crumbling edifice holding up the shining façade of London. The orange neon of streetlights bounced off the metal shutters of shops and takeaway restaurants boarded up against looters, illuminated scraps of litter blowing along the pavements like tumbleweed. To Alice’s eyes it was one of the most beautiful sights she had ever seen.
“I’d forgotten,” she told Neil, “just how many places there are here just for selling food. All these restaurants and supermarkets and corner shops. Nobody eats in the underworld. There are a few bars, like the one I worked in, but they’re just places for people to go and socialize. But there’s no food, aside from the pomegranates in the palace, and there aren’t any drinks, aside from Lethe. Here there’s food all over the place. I wish I could eat some. Or even just smell it. You don’t know how much I’ve missed it, I can hardly remember what it’s like to eat.”
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