“Could you?”
He nodded. “Absolutely. If you ask me, you did your job properly.”
I clicked my tongue, disagreeing.
Avenger of murder was my official title. Human societies were not as civilized millennia ago. They were fragmented. Corrupt. Dysfunctional. Barbaric. And when a person sinned against another or against a populace, it was the duty of the gods to ensure that the person be punished when mortal law failed to do so. Sometimes the humans handled things well on their own. Sometimes not. My sisters covered lesser crimes—thievery, assault, societal violations, moral codes, falsehoods—while I had the big one. Murder.
As societies developed, laws became more enforceable, courts became more judicious, and we were needed less and less, until eventually the gods decided it was time to allow humans to police themselves except under the most heinous of circumstances.
Unfortunately, humans being humans, those circumstances did arise from time to time.
It was just such a circumstance that had led to my exile.
“You were found not guilty, Tisi,” Hermes said.
It was an arduous trial, and the Fates were furious with me, especially Atropos, since it was her mess to clean up. They wanted to bind me to the Underworld forever, and I couldn’t blame them. What I did disrupted the fabric of both worlds, but no punishment could be as severe as my own shame. My own withdrawal from my people. If it weren’t for Hades’s and my sisters’ constant encouragement, I doubt I would ever have left my cavern.
Hermes said, “Sometimes we are forced to choose between the lesser of two evils.”
We were approaching Hades’s palace. But instead of the excitement that usually flushed through me at the sheer majesty of the sleek stone walls encrusted with garnet and hematite, I was filled with dread.
What was this task? Where would I have to go this time? Europe? Asia? America? Africa? Lords, I hoped it wasn’t Alaska. Too damn cold.
But more importantly, whom would I be there to punish?
Because, gods help me, if it was another man who had shed the blood of children, I just might kill again.
I looked down at my hands, the murder weapons, and stepped forward.
Chapter 3
When we reached the stone steps of Hades’s palace, I looked up at the gaping mouth of the gargoyle that framed the gargantuan gray door and hesitated. What if they wanted me to hunt another serial killer? Would they listen to my protests? Would they accept the fact that I was not up to the challenge? Perhaps they would consider sending one of my sisters, Meg or Alex. Or perhaps they would be too stubborn or prideful to hear my concerns. Wouldn’t be the first time. The highest gods in our pantheon, while often fair, did not like to be questioned about their decisions—although, rumor had it, we were better off than the subjects of the Norse gods. Thor, I’d been told, could be a real hard-ass.
Hermes asked if I was ready. I took a deep breath and nodded before he swung open the heavy door. I stepped over the threshold, the messenger god floating behind me, both of us expecting to be greeted by Hades and his brothers in the parlor, but the palace was dark and quiet.
“Where do you suppose they are?” I asked, scanning the hall and the parlor. The rich-indigo walls were lit by firefly sconces, their fluttering wings zigzagging around the crystal glass. The sleek piano that anchored the receiving area beckoned for Apollo’s skilled fingers, while a silver sideboard overflowed with delicate pitchers of wine and glass bowls filled with fresh plums, blackberries, and grapes.
Hermes said, “Perhaps they’re in the war room.”
The war room was where the gods met to discuss policy, strategy, and laws. It’d been updated in recent years, thanks to Athena’s inventive mind. The walls were now covered with large screens that transmitted information to the gods about the goings-on of all of Olympus, as well as areas of the human plane. I had no idea how it worked, nor did I care to learn. Technology did not interest me. All those lights, bells, buzzes, and talking machines made my head want to explode. I preferred the dark, the calm, the quiet.
“I’m sure you’re right.”
I turned left toward the hall that led to the war room but stopped dead in my tracks when I heard a deep, menacing growl.
Uh-oh.
I couldn’t see him, but I heard him coming. I was about to release my wings, when he came hurtling at me full speed. I put my hands out in a feeble attempt to slow him down. “Cerberus, no! Easy, boy!”
Too late. He crashed into me, all three heads and 250 pounds of him. He was a massive beast, taller than I when he stood on his hind legs. He knocked the wind from my lungs for a second. As I struggled to free myself from beneath the muscular frame of Hades’s hound, I was glad I hadn’t opened my wings, or surely he would have broken one. On second thought, perhaps I should have. It would have been a graceful way to decline the mission and still maintain my reputation. Dammit. Why couldn’t I think more like a deviant?
Hermes hovered over my prone body, concern coloring his face. “Are you all right, Tisi?”
“Eh,” I choked, still trying to catch my breath as Cerberus coated me in licks from head to toe. Much faster to accomplish with three tongues. I could feel his hot breath frizzing my hair, but I couldn’t see much beyond his watermelon-sized heads.
I really wished Hades would send him to obedience school.
A familiar voice shouted down the hallway then. “Cerberus! Off!”
It was Artemis, Apollo’s twin sister. Thank the heavens. The goddess of the hunt had a special knack for taming beasts.
Immediately, the dog leaped off me and I felt the breath fill my body once again. I gathered myself, with the assistance of Hermes, and stood, straightening out my clothing. Cerberus slunk over to the golden goddess, remorse dripping off his frame. He hung his heads low as she scolded him. She whispered something in his fourth ear a moment later, and he gingerly walked over to me and extended his paw. I shook it and told him he was forgiven. Artemis tossed him three bones, and the big black dog caught each one and trotted down the corridor and out of sight.
“A thousand pardons, Tisiphone,” Artemis said. “I have tried to instill propriety in that canine time and time again, yet Hades refuses to correct his bad habits.” She flicked her blue eyes to where Cerberus had trotted off, and finished with “I’m afraid the poor beast is terribly confused about etiquette.”
“Don’t give it another thought, Artemis,” I said.
She smiled, her bright teeth lighting up the room, and motioned with her suntanned hand. “Come. We’ve been expecting you.”
Hermes and I followed Artemis down a wide passageway. Her gauzy robes grazed her curved hips as her sandals clicked against the marble floor. We passed gilded portraits of the gods, vases of black dahlias, and chairs carved from jet, until we reached the massive room filled with screens, knobs, buttons, type boards, speakers, cords, and various other electronic devices that I could not identify. The war room had changed since I had last stepped foot in it. Gone were the welcoming stone walls, replaced with a smooth, shockingly white surface from which the screens now hung. The whole place was offensive to my senses. I was forced to shield my eyes for a moment.
A gentle hand covered mine.
“Tisiphone, remember your breathing exercises,” Athena said.
It was Athena who had shown me the power of mercy, forgiveness, and meditation. She had taught me how to gain peace and strength from the natural surroundings that appealed to me, like the water and the moon. In other words, it was Athena who had taught me how to subdue my fury.
Her gray eyes gazed into mine as I took a few deep breaths, imagining all the noisy electronics fading away, gently lapping waves taking their place.
“Feel better?” the goddess of wisdom asked.
“Yes, thank you.”
I turned to find Zeus and Hades deep in conversation. Zeus’s thick, snowy brows kept crashing into each other like two caterpillars fistfighting as he listened to his brother w
ith intensity. Hades tugged on his black beard as he spoke, the dark skin on his bald head wrinkling with his movements. I spotted Poseidon at the opposite end of the room, sitting in a chair that was too small for him, his long, thick legs propped on a far table, remote in hand. His back was toward me, trident at his side, green robes pooled around the metal chair. A tiny trickle of seawater dripped from his seat as he watched that movie the mortals had made about him.
Hermes flickered over to Zeus, said something quietly, and shuffled from the room. Zeus and Hades exchanged a few more words. Then they both stood and faced me.
“Tisiphone!” Hades boomed in that roaring voice of his. “Wonderful to see you.” He smacked his hands together to emphasize his point.
I felt Athena and Artemis slip to the side.
“My lord.” I bowed my head.
“I suppose you’re wondering what led us to request your presence.”
“As I understand it—”
Then I stopped, remembering what Hermes had said about this being a secret.
Zeus rolled his eyes and grumbled under his breath.
Snake spit! I hadn’t intended to get Hermes in trouble. I quickly tried to cover. “It has to do with Charon.”
Zeus’s sky-blue eyes sparkled at me. He didn’t believe my explanation, but he seemed to appreciate the effort I had made to cover for his son.
Hades waved a bejeweled hand. Poseidon rose to join his brothers. He had to tilt his head to the side to avoid hitting it on the ceiling. He was the tallest of the brothers, although all of them were impressive in stature.
“No, I’m afraid it’s more serious than anything that old bag of bones has to whine about,” Hades said.
I stood there expectantly, dreading what was to come. A dozen alternatives ran through my mind. Perhaps Artemis could go? She was skilled in the hunt. Surely she could train her beasts to help her find mortals. Or Ares? He was the god of war, after all. He had more skill than most in battle and strategic planning.
The bright lights were hot on my face. Steady breaths, Tisi, steady breaths.
Hades glanced at Poseidon and nodded. The ruler of the seven seas raised his remote and aimed it at a large screen to my left. He clicked it once, and an image filled the rectangular frame.
“This is a land in the mortal realm called Las Vegas,” Hades said.
The backdrop of the picture was a night sky void of stars and moon, but that was the only darkness. Endless stretches of bright lights in every color covered the landscape, blinking, twinkling, and chasing each other in circles. The speakers in the war room screamed out horns, bells, jingles, and endless shouts of humans who had clearly consumed too much wine and were spilling all over the streets and the sidewalks. Flashy automobiles crawled across the roads, with people hanging out of the windows in various forms of dress, and it seemed there was a talking machine every few inches across the screen.
It was garish. It was vulgar. I had once had an assignment in a restaurant called Chuck E. Cheese’s, and this was more obnoxious than that place. It was unlike anything I had ever seen, mortal or immortal. Granted, I had not been to the outer plane in years, but had things really changed that much?
“This is what the humans have succumbed to?” I asked, incredulous. “Is the species now ruled by machines?”
Zeus chuckled. “Not exactly. This place is, for lack of a better term, a human playground. It’s where they holiday.”
I widened my eyes. “Holiday? I cannot imagine a less relaxing place to holiday.”
Poseidon clicked the remote again, and the image changed. I stared at the screen as giant animals stumbled across the walking paths, bottles of liquor in hand.
“Those creatures. They don’t seem real.”
Hades said, “They aren’t. They are people in disguise. They are a part of the games.”
“I don’t understand. Are they hunted for sport?”
Zeus said, “No, Tisi. They provide entertainment and souvenirs to the visitors in the form of pictures.”
That was the dumbest thing I had ever heard. “Why would anyone want a portrait of a stranger dressed in a giant mouse costume hanging on the wall?”
Humans. I didn’t get it.
Hades said, “It’s not our place to question; it’s our place to observe. Keep watching.”
Poseidon hit another button on the remote, and the scene changed to a fountain spouting water into the air in tandem with glaring lights and symphony shouts set against the backdrop of a most uninspired building. I cringed. I found the melodic song of water in its natural state to be beautiful. Dressing it up with lights and trumpets was blasphemy. Like drowning a steak in ketchup.
I had the sickening feeling that this outrageous human playground was where they wanted to send me.
I wouldn’t last a day.
The next image was indoors. A grand lobby of some sort, with creamy marble floors ribboned with swirls of darker colors that met acanthus-leaf rugs. A long reception desk hugged the back wall in an oval shape, and there were huge paintings depicting Olympus behind it. Centering the area was a likeness of the three Graces, the party girls of Olympus, surrounded by a gazing pool. Some mortals referred to them as the three Charities. It was a common misconception that the Greek and Roman pantheons were separate entities, but that wasn’t so. We were one and the same; it was just that different mortals called us by different names. Artemis, for example, was also known as Diana.
Hades spoke. “You are looking at a lodging house called Caesars Palace. It’s more refined than other inns of the village, but it does have gaming and public water holes within its walls. It also has bathhouses and is quite popular with the mortal elite.”
Again, the sea lord clicked over to another scene. More talking machines, more bells, whistles, flickering lights, and humans wandering about aimlessly like sheep without a shepherd.
I rubbed my temple to stop it from throbbing.
“This is one of the gaming arenas,” Zeus said.
Another click, another image. This one revealed a ridiculous representation of sea horses lined up behind a liquor dispensary with a glass-ensconced water tank filled with floating fish. More gaming tables too. They seemed to be everywhere. Quite profitable, I imagined.
“Caesar must be an aristocrat. Is he a descendant of the great statesman?” I asked.
“The lodging house is named after Julius Caesar, but his descendents do not own the palace,” Hades said.
That seemed silly. Why would anyone name a modern facility after an ancient general if he wasn’t a relation?
The next image showed another public house, lined with bottles of elixirs and revelers gathered around tables, enjoying a dance performance. The silhouettes of two women, each behind a white screen, moved in a graceful rhythm, gyrating their curves and swirling their arms overhead. There was a sign off to the side that read SHADOW BAR.
Hades turned to me. “This is the reason I called you here, Tisiphone. Several women have gone missing from this establishment. We’ve been monitoring the problem as of late because the police seem to be at a loss for answers. There is no apparent link between these females, and the baffling part is that their companions don’t seem to realize the women are missing until days later.”
Missing women? That was the top-secret mission? Women went missing all the time in the mortal world. True, the perpetrators did not always meet justice, but we had resolved not to get involved with this class of crime long ago.
I looked around the room from one god to another. Athena was smiling at me, while Artemis twirled a lock of hair through her fingers. The three brothers stood in silence. I didn’t know where Hermes had gone off to.
“I don’t understand. This seems not to be a matter for a Fury. The new law states that only under the most heinous of circumstances should I return to the human plane to seek retribution for a mortal sin—acts such as enslavement, matricide, infanticide, genocide,” I said. There were more, but just saying those words broug
ht up painful memories that boiled my blood.
Hades said, “You’re correct. Normally, we wouldn’t send you or anyone, wouldn’t even be monitoring the humans, but this is an important case.”
I looked at the screen. I would rather dig out my own eyeballs and feed them to a raccoon through a straw than go to Las Vegas. I had to think fast. “By order of the Fates, all missions of duty by any god or goddess must be approved by them. Surely they would never agree that I, a daughter of the night, travel to such an aesthetically offensive locale. They would fear that my decision making would be compromised.” I didn’t add, Like last time. To this day, I cannot look at a clown without wanting to strangle him with my bare hands.
“The Fates have offered their full support,” Zeus said. “It has to be you.”
I snapped my head toward him. “Why me? Why not Athena or Apollo?” Athena smiled at me patiently, shook her head. Heavens help me, this was not going well. “We don’t even know if the women have been harmed. And why, for the love of Gaia, would the Fates approve of this cause?”
“Because I asked them to.” It was a woman’s voice, coming from behind me.
I spun around to see my sister Megaera step into the room.
“Meg? What are you doing here? I thought you were on holiday.”
“I was. I’m home now.” She sniffled and looked down for a moment, then steadied herself.
I rushed to her. Meg rarely showed emotion. She was a rock, a Fury. I grabbed her hands.
“What is it? Why would you request that I complete this task?”
Her stormy eyes met mine. She said, “It’s Sister.”
“Alecto? What about her? Is she all right?”
“She’s… gone.”
Chapter 4
It turned out Meg and Alecto had been on holiday in Las Vegas.
“We knew you wouldn’t come, Tisiphone—you never travel with us to the outer plane—so we didn’t bother asking you to join us. It was to be a short excursion anyway.” She was right. I left home only if I was forced to.
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