“You didn’t think they’d just let that go? They’ll be on our trail every step of the way to Hades. And even if I don’t come back to this house for a decade, one of them will be here waiting when I do. Unless they’re all dead. The Erinyes have patience to spare.”
Cassandra paused in the living room and looked out over the darkness of the hills, at the thousand tiny points of light from mortal houses. She thought she detected movement in a few of the closest and, standing in front of the large windows with the neon glow from the kitchen bathing her back, she felt suddenly exposed.
Relax. There’s no Fury standing in the bushes with leathery wings and bloody eyes. She blinked and focused in on a particularly tall shadow. That’s just a tree, idiot.
Thanatos moved around in the kitchen, stuffing supplies into a bag. The extra Fury blood went into a cooler with a couple of ice packs. He seemed calm. Sure of his timeline. But maybe he was always calm. Death had nothing to fear.
“Does this mean you can’t come back to this house?” Cassandra asked. “Did you give up your house for this?”
He nodded.
“It’s just a house,” he said. “And I will come back. As soon as you’re strong enough to come with me and scare the Furies out of my basement.” He closed the last of his cabinets and picked up his bags. “Time to go. Taking the car east.”
“Is that where Hades is?”
“Must be. That’s the way my arteries are straining.”
*
Thanatos drove fast through the nighttime desert. Too fast for Cassandra’s taste, but he seemed at home behind the wheel, and it was nowhere near as gut-wrenching as driving up the steep, curving road to his home. Behind them, Calypso reclined in the backseat, twisting her white-tainted braid around her finger and looking at the stars.
“Where do you think he is?” Cassandra asked Thanatos. “Do you have any guesses?”
Thanatos cocked his head. “If I had to guess? I’m leaning toward Greece. If the god of the underworld is dying, it might have made him a little homesick. Or at least nostalgic.”
“We’re going to Greece?”
“Or somewhere else in Europe. Maybe Africa. He loves those places best. They’re where all his favorite plagues happened.” He glanced her way and smiled. There was something so disarming about it that she almost smiled back.
“You know how creepy that is, right?” she asked. “Talking about plagues that killed thousands and then grinning like a goon?”
“Millions,” he corrected her. “They killed millions. And it isn’t me who loves the plagues. It’s Hades. They fill his halls. He loves his dead.”
“Shouldn’t the god of death love the dead?”
“No,” he said. “It’s a difficult thing to understand. You wouldn’t comprehend it even if I told you. But I think you will, someday.”
Cassandra rolled her eyes. Gods. They acted like they knew everything, but they were some of the most obtuse creatures she’d ever met.
“There is one thing I don’t get,” she said. “Why do you exist? If Hades is lord of the dead, and Atropos is the Fate of death, why does there need to be another?”
“Hades is lord of the underworld. Like a shepherd. And Atropos is a Fate. The decider. I am death embodied. I am the hand, and if you want to get specific, I’m the hand of gentle death. There are,” he said, and eyed her sideways, “many of us. All different sorts.”
“What a lovely thought.”
Thanatos shrugged and pressed down on the accelerator a little harder.
“Would you slow down?” Cassandra asked. “We’re going to run out of gas before we get to a station.”
“I’ve got extra gas. In the trunk.”
“Fantastic. When we flip over, we’ll make an extra big explosion.” She mimed a car accident and subsequent fireball with her hands, and Thanatos laughed. She laughed, too, until a wing beat against her window.
“What was that?” she asked.