Magic and Mayhem: A Collection of 21 Fantasy Novels

by Jasmine Walt

  I hoped that my meeting with the Lord of the Underworld didn’t involve a test about mythology. Or was it actually history?

  I went through a few more security gates, and was wanded a few more times, as if the guys before had missed something on me. I was beginning to feel violated and it was making me irritable.

  After the fifth one, it was just me and Ra waiting at a gate by ourselves. Through a small window, I could saw what looked like a ferry terminal. A dark river swirled beyond us stretching to the horizon.

  “Who’s this?” the gravelly voice asked.

  I looked up and saw an elderly guy that reminded me of my crazy uncle, Gary. He was one of those weather-beaten, fisherman guys who would love nothing more than to spend a day out at sea reeling in a huge fish. He was well-groomed, but it looked like sea salt had buried its way deep into his tanned skin. His sea green eyes scrutinized me. Stubbornly, I met his gaze.

  “Charon, sir,” Ra said. His entire demeanor changed and I could tell he was nervous. Charon? Who the heck was Charon? “This is Miss Callista Saunders.”

  “It’s Callie,” I muttered halfheartedly.

  “Lord Hades would like to see her.”

  Charon looked me up and down once more. There was judgement in his eyes and it made me feel vulnerable and exposed. “Does she have payment?”

  What the hell?

  “Lord Hades is paying her way across,” Ra said. His voice went shrill at that last word, and I winced at the sound. Why was my caseworker so nervous around this sailor-looking dude?

  The puzzle pieces finally clicked together for me. Charon was the ferryman. I was looking at the guy who ferried people in the Underworld, and he always expected some sort of coin donation. Self-consciously, I patted my pockets. I hadn’t brought any change with me into Death, so it was good that Hades was picking up the tab. I hoped he didn’t expect anything in return. Although at this point, I was highly doubted there was anything for free in the Underworld. I did remember one thing: The Gods loved to play games with the lives of mortals.

  “Pah,” Charon snorted and turned away. “The girl smells different anyhow. Keep an eye on her. We can’t have people like her runnin' rampant in the Underworld. But she can go across. She’ll need to be baptized to stay though afore long, you know that, right?”

  Ra nodded vigorously and swept me into a waiting boat. I sat across from Charon and Ra, looking out at the spread of the river before us.

  “Is this...Styx?” I asked. The lyrics to “Come Sail Away” floated around in my mind.

  Charon cackled at me, and I frowned. I didn’t like the way he made fun of me. “This is Acheron, lil mortal. This is the river we'll take to get to Hades’ palace.”

  I was the only mortal passenger on the boat. Neither of them talked to me They didn’t talk to me, nor did they talk to each other.

  After a while, Charon started whistling a tune that sounded incredibly familiar. His pitch was off and the rhythm was too slow but some part of my brain recognized it but I was so nervous I couldn't place it. He noticed me watching him and then gave a wide, toothy smile. Instead of making me feel more comfortable, it rubbed me the wrong way.

  He opened his mouth and began to sing.

  “Row, row, row yer boat

  Gently down the stream

  Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

  Death is but a—”

  “Please stop that,” Ra interrupted. His face was pale and he’d gone a little green. “You're making me seasick.” By the way he clutched the side of the boat, his knuckles white, I got the impression that he was afraid of the water. And looking at the bottomless black of river, I understood why. A feeling of unease settled over me looking at the placid and dark surface, and if I looked at it too long, I felt the urge to submerge myself in it. I was pretty sure that would be a bad idea.

  Charon scoffed. “Should've thought about that before setting foot on a boat, then, eh?”

  Ra didn't answer. Charon started whistling again, leaving my rattled mind to fill in the words. Ra kept his silence.

  Time seemed to stretch out forever before we finally pulled up to a palace. I tried not to gawk. The palace loomed over us like some sort of monolithic beast. It was white marble, complete with Greek columns and statues lining the waterfront property. And while it was absolutely enormous, it was still tasteful in its design. It was more European palace than McMansion.

  I guess it made sense that the Lord of the Underworld had to have grand digs. It wouldn’t surprise me if it had six living rooms, four basketball courts, some pools, its own IMAX theater, and a bowling alley.

  The grounds were immaculate. “I’m surprised plants grow here,” I said absently. We were underground after all. I blinked up into the hazy sky. The luminescent gemstones gave off a permanent dusky light but it wasn’t nearly enough for plants to grow. Yet, it looked like spring was in full swing here, as flowers of every imaginable color surrounded the house.

  “The Master’s wife is back from holiday,” Charon muttered offhandedly. “An' she likes her garden.” Based on the tone of his voice, he apparently didn’t like her.

  My mind reeled, trying to put the rusty pieces together. Persephone. He meant Persephone, who Hades had abducted and made his wife. Her mother brought her back to the surface, but because she ate some pomegranate seeds, she had to spend six months on the surface and six months in the Underworld. Her presence here made everything flourish. I briefly wondered what it looked like when Persephone was above ground with her mother, Ceres.

  The injustice of the whole kidnapping and marrying thing made my cheeks burn. As a cop who dealt with real-life domestic situations like that on a regular basis, the story wasn't sitting well with me.

  I wasn’t going to get on well with this guy, was I? I would have put anyone who tried to pull that shit nowadays in jail. Abduction and forced marriage? Hades sounded like a douche bag of the first order.

  We docked the boat and Charon helped me and Ra off the boat. “Be seein’ ya,” he cackled. He pushed off and disappeared quickly into the mist that enveloped him, his whistle drifting back on the fog that rolled in off the water. A chill ran down my spine at the thought of seeing that creep again.

  Ra ushered me through the palace. Security here was even tighter than it was on the other side of Acheron, almost like they were protecting the President. Or hiding the Hope Diamond.

  Hades must be a really big deal.

  We entered a hallway and Ra began to fidget. I watched him as he chewed on his bottom lip and rubbed his palm across the thigh of his pants.

  “You must address him as Lord Hades,” he told me. “Don’t meet his eyes. Treat him with respect. And...”

  I tuned him out. I wasn’t interested in groveling in front of this guy. He was a god and had lived for countless years. Anything that I could possibly do must have seemed inconsequential right? At least that was my theory, anyway.

  A set of double doors opened as if by magic, and Ra ushered me into a brightly lit office. He abandoned me there, leaving alone in the expansive, grandiose room. It was so huge Donald Trump would have been jealous. Not intimidating at all right? The doors shut quickly behind me with a heavy thud.

  Thousands, if not millions of books lined the wall to my left. If every book in the San Francisco Public Library were shelved there, they would probably only fill half the space. The adjacent wall was a floor-to-ceiling glass window, where I could see quite a good distance into the rest of the Underworld, which glittered with an ethereal beauty. From here, it looked like a fairly ordinary city scape from here. For a moment, I wondered who else lived here, other than the Dead and a few gods.

  A large, elegant desk, larger than my apartment in San Francisco faced me. In this room, it looked small only because of the size of the room. A gorgeous leather office chair was positioned behind it. I couldn’t see who was sitting in it, as they were facing the window.

  “Sorry about all of the security,” a warm, soothing, bar
itone voice told me from the other side of that chair. “We’ve had to take certain precautions recently, as you’ll see. I trust it wasn’t too bad.”

  I swallowed to clear my throat. “It was like going through customs twenty times at the airport,” I croaked. Ah man, why did I try telling a joke? I nearly giggled in spite of myself, but I managed to hold it in; it wouldn’t be good to crack in Hades’ presence.

  Hades laughed. The chair swiveled around so he could face me. I had no idea what to expect. But it wasn’t what was in front of me.

  Hades was middle-aged, dressed in a finely cut Giorgio Armani suit. I’d bet my last paycheck it was custom. He had a stylish haircut, peppering from a dark brown to a light gray at his temples. He looked like the CEO of a big company. I just wasn't expecting him to be smiling at me. Or to look so...happy.

  It felt weird.

  “Don’t look so uncomfortable, Callista,” he chided. He gestured to a chair in front of the desk. “Here, have a seat.”

  “It’s Callie,” I told him.

  “Callie then,” Hades corrected himself. “Have a seat, Callie.” His voice was as smooth as butter.

  Before I had the chance to reconsider, I quickly sat down on the chair—which happened to be the most comfortable seat I had ever sat on—and I perched to attention.

  With a wave of his hand, Hades produced a tablet, which he flicked through with detachment.

  “Callista...Callie...Saunders. Twenty-seven years old. Graduated first in her class at the University of Pennsylvania. Degree earned: a Bachelor’s of Science in Criminal Justice. Joined the police force at San Francisco PD. Worked the beat for two years before becoming a police detective.”

  I closed my eyes, wondering how much information was in that tablet of his. I suspected he knew everything. This felt a whole lot like a job interview. My gut instinct told me that, in a way, it was. And my gut instinct was rarely wrong.

  Where the hell was this going?

  “In three years, you’ve earned quite a few awards for your work,” Hades went on. “You’ve solved many murder cases, even prevented a few. You’re devoted to your job, and you’re very good at it. You're highly respected by your colleagues. You’re an excellent marksman. A black belt in Tae Kwon Do and a brown belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. You spend most of your spare time on side cases, and you especially are trying to bring down underworld Kingpins, like one Stephen Cross, for which your boss suspended you once.”

  I flushed deeply. That part wasn't my fault. And if no one believed me that the underworld mob bosses were a big problem, then I was going to have to bring them down myself. Granted, many would have argued that I had been too involved in that case but I couldn’t help it. Once on the scent of a criminal, I was like a registered Bloodhound.

  Hades continued. “You have a deeply seated sense of right and wrong. You live alone. Survived by your mother, Kathleen McCormick, and your stepfather Seth McCormick.” He flicked through another page. “And you recently broke up with your boyfriend of four years just two months ago.”

  My eyes widened at the mention of Ben. “That’s personal,” I snapped.

  “Hit a nerve, have I?” He seemed amused.

  “I don’t see what any of this has to do with me being dead.”

  Hades’ eyes sparkled. “Dead, no. Mostly dead, yes.”

  Talk about sentences I never thought I’d hear.

  My heart thudded heavily in my chest. “What?”

  He feigned disinterest as he flicked through the tablet. “You threw yourself in front of a bus to save a little girl. Now the little girl is alive, when she was meant to die. And you...” he grinned down at me, “you’re in a very deep coma at UCSF Medical Center.”

  The news hit me like a ton of bricks. My knuckles were white and the room suddenly felt very hot. “I’m...I’m alive?” I looked down at my hands in disbelief and held them up to the light to inspect them.

  No wonder everyone was treating me strangely. I was different. I was still alive.

  Hades nodded somberly. “For the moment, yes.”

  I gaped at him. “For the moment?” That sounded like a threat.

  “You weren’t supposed to save that girl, Callie. She was meant to die. To become the martyr behind a movement towards stricter punishment for reckless driving. It would have saved many lives down the line.”

  I swallowed. My throat felt dry. No matter what he said, I wouldn’t regret saving that girl. I would never regret that decision, yet it still felt strange to hear all of this.

  “Because of that change of plans, I have a whole bunch of paperwork to fill out, you see. And there’s a spot in the Underworld that you’re currently occupying. I could have you fill her place and take elements from your future to put on hers and vice versa. It would make my life so much easier. Unless...” His voice trailed off and he looked at me expectantly.

  He wanted me to jump on that word, thinking that I would demand to know what I could do to get me back to Life. I didn’t rise to the bait. This whole thing smelled fishy, and the thought of it was pissing me off.

  “You’re blackmailing me,” I sneered at him, fury raging within me at the realization. “You want me to do something in return before you allow me to wake up.”

  I hated corruption and I hated being manipulated, both of which Hades was doing to me right now.

  He raised his hand in a gesture of supplication. “Not blackmail,” he assured. “I’m looking to employ you for a time.”

  I recoiled. “Employ me? As what? Muscle? Is this the Underworld's version of the Mafia?” Now that I thought about it, Hades did remind me of a mob boss. He even looked like some I knew. “I don’t play that, sorry.”

  He waved those questions off with a chuckle. “Funny analogy, but no, Callie. I was looking to employ your detective skills in protecting someone who’s very dear to me.”

  “Persephone?” I tiredly guessed. My guess made him laugh even more.

  “Gods, no, Callie,” he chided. “She wouldn’t let me protect her like that at any rate. No, someone else.” He gestured to the double doors. “Remember when I said we had to take more precautions as of late? Someone has been attempting to take the life of my son. I want you to find the culprit and bring him to justice.” As he talked, his tone became more serious. I was a good enough judge of character to know that he genuinely cared about this assignment.

  My mind reeled at the mention of his son. A son? I flipped through the pages of my memories of myths, and I couldn’t recall anything about Hades having a son. He was supposed to be the God of Death—no Life could ever come from Death, right? So what was this about him having a son?

  “You have a son?” I asked dubiously.

  Hades gave me a sad smile. “After a string of threats, someone tried to kill him about six weeks ago. I've no idea who could be doing this or to what end. But you must understand, Callie, my son must not die. That would throw off the balance of the world.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “I thought gods were immortal?”

  “We are. Mostly. Well, it is possible to kill a god, and this someone figured out how to kill us easily. If we die, we just...fade into nothingness.”

  I placed my hand on the desk and leaned forward. “So you’re saying that if I do this, you’ll restore me back to my body and I’ll continue living as if I hadn’t, uh, died?”

  Hades grinned. “I’ll make a deal with you, Callista.” I didn’t bother correcting him at this point. “You find out who is trying to kill my son. Give me a name and a motive. Then I’ll restore you to life.”

  “Don’t you have someone else who would be...better at it than I am?” I asked. I immediately thought of a whole bunch of possibilities, monsters, immortals, and gods who would probably fit the bill better than a lowly mortal like me.

  Hades shook his head. “I’ve already tried that, and our culprits are getting closer than ever to succeeding. No, I think I need to try a different tactic. Someone they wouldn’t ever expect to succeed
.”

  “Someone like me?” I should have been offended. After all, this was bigger than I could have possibly ever imagined.

  His eyes glittered with a preternatural glow. “You shouldn’t doubt your abilities, Callie. Your credentials are among the best out of any I’ve ever seen come through these gates. You have a lot of potential.”

  “I just think this is a pretty huge project.” I shrugged. “I mean, there has to be a catch, right?”

  “No catch. Just keep my son alive. I don’t care how you do it.”

  “What happens if I can't find out who's doing it?” I asked. “Is there a time limit on me...” I swallowed self-consciously. “Will they unplug me if I can't solve it soon?”

  A look passed across Hades’s face, something that he couldn’t hide. “You have as long as you need, but yes, the longer you wait, the harder it will be to restore you back to life.” He smiled. “Don't worry, I have faith that if you put your mind to it, you’ll be able to find out who’s trying to kill Plutus.”

  The name immediately made me think of Mickey’s dog Pluto and I nearly laughed out loud, although that would have been very inappropriate. I stifled the laugh by biting the inside of my cheek. Plutus. It was ridiculous name. I imagined the bearer of that name to be a spoiled little brat. Could I babysit someone and conduct an investigation? I looked down at my hands.

  I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

  4

  I was ten years old when I watched my father die.

  He was taking me to school on his way into work. We stopped at a gas station to pick up a bottle of juice for my lunch since I’d forgotten to pack one. Dad hadn’t wanted to stop

  “You can drink water for one day,” he’d said.

  “I don’t like water,” I’d whined. “I want juice!”

  I threw a bit of a tantrum in the car, and he begrudgingly stopped the car at a Stop and Go just outside town. He followed me inside, tapping his keys against his palms.