Magic and Mayhem: A Collection of 21 Fantasy Novels

by Jasmine Walt

  I glared daggers at him, not sure what to say. If he hadn't found me, I would be dead. If he had been out when Charon was still prowling, he could have been the one who was in my place. I shivered thinking about it.

  Apollo chuckled, and got up out of his seat. “I'll go get Hades.”

  “The servants can do that,” Plutus said.

  “No, that's all right,” Apollo said. He gave me a pointed look. “I need to go for a walk anyways.”

  He left the two of us alone.

  It was awkward. A long, heavy silence separated us before we spoke, and when we did, it was both of us at once.

  “Listen, Plutus,” I started. He held up a hand, shushing me.

  “I'm glad you're all right,” he said softly. “After losing Cerberus, I didn't want to lose you too.”

  The gulp stopped halfway in my throat. I felt my cheeks heat up, and my heart fluttered like a flailing bird. “Are you saying that you'd miss me?”

  Another smile, although I could tell it was pained. He sat down next to me and gave my hand a squeeze. It was a tender gesture that I hadn't expected.

  Beneath his carefully constructed façade, did he care about me too?

  “Listen.” The squeeze on my hand lessened. “I know who did it,” I said. “I know who's behind all this.”

  He smiled sadly. “Yeah, it was Charon all along.”

  “No,” I said, the lump in my throat. “It was—”

  “Am I interrupting anything?”

  I turned my gaze onto Hades, who had entered the room, flanked by Tisiphone and Apollo. Tisiphone looked as if she could barely contain herself. In fact, when Hades moved out the way, she rushed over to me and wrapped me up in a huge hug.

  “You're a dumbass, you know that?” she chided, not unkindly.

  “And you're a judgmental bitch,” I told her.

  She smiled. “That’s why we make such a great team.”

  Hades cleared his throat and she dropped me like I was a cockroach. I ignored him. “Can you grab my tablet?” I asked her. “I need it.” Tisiphone quickly ducked out of the room.

  Hades cleared his throat again, and I turned my attention to him, making sure that I didn't look very impressed with him. I was mad at him.

  He acted like he didn't notice my hostility. “You're awake, I see.”

  “Yeah. Surprisingly.”

  “I trust you're feeling better?”

  Apollo gave a mock-offended snort. “Of course she is,” he muttered under his breath.

  Hades smiled, although it didn't reach his eyes. “We have a lot to be thankful for then.”

  Plutus said something so quietly, I didn't even know if he had spoken or not.

  Hades didn't acknowledge it, so I must have imagined it.

  “So now that we've found who is behind all of this, I guess we need to talk about sending you back to Life.” He smiled, although I could tell it was forced. “You've fulfilled your end of the bargain, Callie, it's time for me to fulfill mine.”

  The entire room broke into pandemonium. Persephone pushed her way in, exclaiming about a party, a young, green-skinned girl who reminded me of Tisiphone winked into existence and began taking notes right away, and Apollo clapped Hades on the back. Plutus was silent.

  It was so loud that I couldn't speak above the din.

  “We'll have to have a ceremony,” Persephone said. “Like a party.” It was the first time I'd heard her excited about anything. The only time I’d ever seen her happy was when she was planning to get rid of me. It didn’t surprise me at all.

  “See, you thought she wouldn't be up to it,” Apollo told Hades.

  “I'll arrange everything,” the green-skinned girl said.

  Persephone nodded. “Yes, we'll need everything booked, Alecto. So much to do...”

  “Now that we've determined that it was that treasonous Charon...”

  “But—” I tried.

  “We'll have to put this thing in a dress,” Persephone was saying, gesturing at me. Alecto dutifully wrote everything she was saying. At least the goddess didn't leer at me too long.

  “But—”

  “My son is safe,” Hades said with a proud pat on Plutus' back.

  A dam inside my head. “But Charon wasn't the one who did all of this!” I shouted.

  Everyone stopped and looked at me in shock.

  “I—”

  “I think everyone should leave right now,” Hades said, a dangerous tone threading through his voice. He looked scary and the entire room picked up on that. I felt the tendrils of his dark power reaching out, trying to suffocate me.

  At that moment, Tisiphone came back to the door, carrying my tablet. She glanced at him, and her usual smirk immediately fell.

  “Out,” he commanded. “Out!”

  Everyone in the room slunk out quietly. Tisiphone met my eyes and pressed my tablet into my hands. She didn't say anything and followed the others.

  Plutus didn't move.

  “Get out, Plutus,” Hades said, that dangerous tone still there.

  “No.”

  I got the impression from Hades' face that while he and Plutus had their disagreements, it was rare that his son flat-out told him ‘no’. Things in the room startled rattling, the hair on the back of my neck rose. Hades was unhappy, and his was losing his hold on his powers. I'd seen him use his powers a few times before; I didn't want him to lose control.

  “It's fine, Plutus,” I said. His frown deepened, an uncertain look on his face, but he didn't budge. The rattling in the room was increasing. “It's fine.”

  He considered this for a moment. A switch finally seemed to go off in his head. “All right,” he said, resigned, and he hunched over himself, like a scolded dog. “I'll be just outside if you need anything.”

  Then I was alone with an angry god. Oh well, I'd dealt with hot-shot billionaires, Shadow Assassins, an ancient mariner, and getting hit by a bus. If it was my time, it was my time. I was going to talk to Hades about this.

  “You can’t accuse others of trying to murder Plutus, Callie,” Hades said, his tone far worse. “Especially with the evidence stacked so highly against Charon.”

  “Charon was just a pawn,” I said. “The real culprit is someone far more dangerous.”

  I turned on the tablet and ran a quick Google search on Stephen Cross. The very first image was a photo from an article about his bachelor status. I fought to urge to gag and touched it so it filled the screen.

  “Are you familiar with a man named Stephen Cross?” I asked. I laid the tablet down with the image of Stephen facing him.

  Hades looked at the image, all of the color draining from his face.

  At last, I had caught the bastard off guard.

  “Do you recognize him?”

  “Yes.” The word was quiet, barely audible.

  “I know him from when I was alive,” I said, my voice wavering. “I was investigating him for a string of murders, embezzling, sex trafficking, drug trafficking...” I stopped myself from rattling off his offenses. We would have been there for a while if I did. “When I checked Cerberus, I found a photo of him and me there. A calling card.”

  Hades had gone very still.

  “I know why he, of all people, is trying to kill Plutus.”

  Hades still didn't say anything.

  “He's not on the list you gave me,” I pressed, “but I believe he's your son.”

  I saw it then. I saw a flicker of something pass across Hades’ face. I’d seen it once before in another case, when I confronted a widower about the murder of his wife. He too, had been a well-to-do business man who had secrets, too many secrets. He had been practiced enough to hide his emotions, but when I asked him if he had hired a hitman to do the job, there was something that reared its ugly head deep inside. He knew who had done it.

  It was the same expression that passed across Hades’ face now. He knew. He’d known all along. And he had removed Stephen's name from that list himself.

  Fury boile
d up inside me. “Why?” I asked, my voice low, dangerous. It was wavering because I was so desperately trying not to reach out and throttle him. If I were in San Francisco, I’d have arrested him for perjury and interfering with an investigation. As it was, Hades was the one who had hired me to find out who was trying to kill Plutus, which left me with few options. I was going have to pressure him into talking. “Why did you blackmail me into doing this investigation if you already knew who it was?”

  Another expression passed across Hades’ face and this time, he didn’t even bother hiding it. “I needed to have evidence.”

  “Bullshit!” I slammed my hands down on either side of me and gripped the bedspread. “You’re the Lord of the goddamn Underworld!” I shouted. “You don’t need evidence, you’re an omniscient god! Don’t try feeding me that, I'm not stupid. Again, why did you hire me?”

  Hades met my eyes. “I did it for my son.”

  “Which one?”

  He sighed. I had made my point. “Plutus.”

  At the mention of Plutus, the edge of my anger softened if only for a moment. And then I steeled my resolve back into place. “You could do a far better job of protecting him than I ever could,” I said evenly.

  “I can protect him from people who are trying to kill him, yes. You can't protect someone who does not want to be saved himself,” he said. He sighed and leaned back against the wall.

  “What?”

  “I said that he didn't want to be saved,” Hades repeated, angrier this time.

  “Does Plutus know?” The thought made me sick.

  This is why you don’t get involved with someone in the investigation.

  I was in so deep into now, I had no idea which way was up. Or right. Or entirely wrong. If Plutus had lied to me too...

  “He does not,” Hades said quietly. “That still doesn't change the fact that he didn't care if he continued on existing. Surely you picked up on that, even just talking to him.”

  I had. I’d even suspected that he’d considered suicide. Who could blame him? Gifted with a power that was both exhilarating and devastating, he was unable to control the consequences of the gifts he bestowed on mortals. Crippled and blind, he was often the object of ridicule. I understood his depression but I’d thought he was resigned to his fate.

  Had Plutus really wanted to die?

  “You keep talking about that in the past tense,” I said with a frown. “He ‘did not’ want to be saved. He ‘did not’ want to continue existing.”

  The look on Hades’ face was of absolute apology. “That's because cares now.” He let that hang in the air between us for a few moments before continuing. “He's met someone who has given him the will to live, a woman who’s given him hope.”

  Me.

  My heart pounded in my ears. “And that’s why you hired me? To be a...a whore?” Nausea washed over me and my stomach catapulted up into my throat. I was going to vomit.

  “I hired you because I wanted you to give him purpose again.” Hades leaned forward, apparently not caring that I was going to retch in his face. “You have to understand, Callista, my son is not well loved. His mother hates him for not being a vision of perfection. Most of our family treats him the same way. He was shunned for being different. Even I...” his Adam’s apple bobbed, “even I held it against him for not being as perfect as Ares or Athena.”

  “That’s because you’re all fucked up.”

  Instead of smiting me, he nodded. “We have a warped sense of what beauty is. After millennia of being treated like that, Plutus would gladly die and fade into nothingness. He did not want to live any more. Until he met you, that is.”

  “Why me?” When Hades didn’t answer, I repeated it. “Why me?”

  “You are an exceptional woman, one who knows her place.”

  I frowned, balling my hand into a fist. I really wanted to deck him.

  “I figured if you did happen to find out that it was Stephen, you knew who you were dealing with. And I could put you together with Plutus, under the guise of an investigation and he would not second guess it.” He straightened and craned his neck, like he had a cramp in his neck. “I knew you would fall in love with him, that he would fall in love with you, and even just a touch of love would buy him enough time to appreciate life once again.”

  I straightened. Hades knew it was Stephen?

  My mind flipped through the pages of my mythology book, landing on one particular goddess. I recoiled in horror. “Oh G-God,” I stammered. “Aphrodite. You had Aphrodite make me fall in love with him?” My throat closed off. I remembered that day, meeting her in the hallway outside of my room. She had touched me, and I felt a flutter then. And that was when I really started developing feelings for Plutus, and when he’d started acting a bit differently around me. “She did the same thing to him?”

  He didn’t bother to deny it.

  I wrung my hands, unsure of what to do with them. Not that Plutus and I had ever kissed or had anything other than a platonic relationship.

  I should have been overjoyed to hear that the man I loved felt the same way in return; instead I saw it for what it was. A sham. I wasn’t going to let it continue. I refused to. No one messed with my life and my heart.

  “So what? You were going to let a madman potentially kill your son while we shoot googly-eyes at each other?”

  “I'm a god, Callista. I have the whole situation under control.”

  “Under control? Does 'under control' include having a puppy murdered in cold blood? Does it include having me stabbed by your ferryman?”

  He didn't answer. Even though it hurt like hell, I pulled the blanket off me and struggled to my feet. I was going to leave him here, like the pathetic little guy he was. “Fuck all of you. I don’t care if I go back to the Surface or not. You're not going to control me. You guys can all stew in Hell. Which is what this—” I gestured at the room around me “—is.”

  “If you leave here, Callista,” he said warningly, “you will not have another chance to go back to Life.”

  “That's fine,” I told him coldly. He was making an idle threat. At least I hoped it was idle.

  “I forbid you from speaking about this to anyone, Callista.” He looked sad as he said it, but he was sealing how ridiculous this entire thing was.

  I gagged when I opened my mouth to make a retort. Apparently the over-bearing son of a bitch had put a spell behind his edict, and I couldn't even speak against him. I tried again. It didn't work. I flicked him off, turned on my heel and left. He didn’t try to stop me.

  I was in a different wing of the palace than I was used to, so I had to navigate my way out. My shoulder throbbed, the pain constant. Apollo said that he had to repair several organs and arteries. Based on how badly I felt, he might have missed one or two.

  I eventually located my room, and I threw open the door. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me, but I didn’t care. I’d kept my end of the bargain for Hades. It was up to him to follow through on his end of the deal, though I didn't think he would after I blew up at him. He’d already shown his true colors. I searched through my pile of dirty laundry on the floor, planning to grab my police badge and go. I had to leave. Before Plutus...

  “Callista?”

  I stiffened for a brief second, debating on what to say. I couldn't explain what happened. I couldn't tell him that his father had betrayed him. Every time I tried to speak, I gagged on the words even before I formed them.

  I wanted to warn him, and I couldn't. The only thing I could do was leave.

  I shook my head and continued looking for my badge. “Go away, Plutus,” I said, my voice husky. “I don’t want to see you.” I didn’t want to make this harder than it was, but it was devastating to leave him behind when I knew how his father had betrayed him.

  “What're you doing?” he asked, stepping into my room.

  I didn’t invite him. Anger boiled up in me. I was tired of being manipulated, tired of no one taking my feelings into account for any
thing they did. At that moment, I didn’t care that he was being manipulated just as much as me.

  “I’m leaving,” I said. I shoved another pile of shirts aside, and something glittered in the dim light. My badge. The only anchor I had left to the life above. I grabbed it, deliberately ignoring the God Gun that glittered tantalizingly at me. I didn't pick it up. Now that I was effectively discharged, I wasn't going to bring it with me.

  “What? Why?” Plutus sounded frantic. I guess he would be, after being under the influence of the love goddess. “You're leaving before Dad can send you to the surface properly?”

  “And if I stay here another moment, I’m going to go postal. Get out.”

  I stood up to leave, but he was blocking the door. For someone who was blind, he knew exactly where to stand to make it difficult for me to leave.

  “Move out of the way,” I pleaded. I didn’t want to do this. Not now, not ever. It was only a love spell I was under. Nothing more. I really didn't love him. I never did. He didn’t love me either.

  And that hurt more than I wanted to admit.

  “No,” Plutus said. “Not when you are so close to being restored to life. You have protected me, you have saved me. I won’t let you throw it all away.”

  “I’m tired of being manipulated. That’s all anyone’s ever done to me since I’ve gotten here.”

  “I've been manipulated all my life too,” he said quietly. “I mean, look at me. I am blind and lame because someone else decided that it would be the best for the God of Wealth.”

  “So stop being manipulated by them,” I said, “and leave.” As I said that, I realized that he was trapped here. He couldn't go to the Surface. He couldn't escape the gods. His fate was tied to the Underworld and even if he was a god, he was a doomed one.

  Before I realized what was happening, he’d moved closer. I smelled the intoxicating scent of his cologne and the fluttering feeling was back.

  He kissed me. My eyes fluttered closed. Raw intensity mixed with scorching heat. He tasted like an exotic candy and I loved the feel of his lips on mine. Whatever spell Aphrodite had placed on him, it was strong. I knew that, because it was strong in me too. I clung to him, shivering.

  He broke our kiss and put his forehead against mine. “Stay. Please.” He swallowed. “I just want what's best for you. What will make you happy. And then you will not have to deal with any of us for a long time.”