“Where’s Calypso?”
“Don’t know.” Cassandra shrugged. “Did you find him?”
He pulled the towel off his shoulders and ran it through his hair.
“I found his house. Without him in it.”
Acid churned in Cassandra’s gut and heat flooded her fingertips. They’d come all that way to find an empty house. On another continent. Across an ocean. She was up and pacing before she knew it, back and forth, back and forth.
“So where did he go? Ant-fricking-arctica?”
“He didn’t go anywhere, really. He went underground. Off the map underground.”
To the underworld. Cassandra narrowed her eyes. Had someone tipped him off? Had he run?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Thanatos said. “And yes, he probably knows you’re coming. But he wouldn’t run from you. Hades wouldn’t run from anything.”
“So he’ll be back?”
“He’ll be back.”
“Good. We’ll go to the house, then, and wait. He might not expect that. What? What’s that look for?” She narrowed her eyes, and he looked away.
“You don’t think I can kill him,” she said.
He threw his towel over the back of a chair.
“Can I?” she asked. “Or is he like you? Have you known this was impossible the whole time?”
“He’s not like me,” Thanatos said. “He’s the god of the dead, not death himself. You can kill him. What I’m beginning to wonder is if he can kill you.” He closed the distance between them in a few slow steps. Not sad or worried, but curious.
Don’t be stupid. He’s a god. And death, besides. It doesn’t matter how many times he’s kind, or if he’s saved my life. Death is what’s underneath. He’s not wondering if Hades can kill me. He’s wondering if he could do it himself.
“Why are you helping me?” she asked. “Why are you here?”
“I’m here because a girl with a broken heart came looking. And I have a soft spot for girls with broken hearts.” He reached out to touch her hair. His face was so charming and harmless when he smiled, like a pinup in a girls’ magazine. You could take the god of death home to meet your parents, as long as he was smiling when you did it.
“Maybe I looked into your eyes and couldn’t say no,” he said. She knocked his hand away, and he chuckled. “Maybe I like being with you, moody as you are. Maybe you’re the first living girl I’ve ever met who I’d like to stay living.”
“Cut the bullshit.”
He smiled again.
“Or maybe I just want to know what you are.”
*
Hades’ house looked more like an abandoned building: a great, dirty slab of white, with windows spotted with fly dirt. Half of it had been torn down, or had fallen in. At any rate, the top three floors of the eastern side were missing, the hole covered over with black tarps and drop cloths.
“This is it?” Cassandra asked doubtfully. “I expected columns. Maybe some gold and gilding.”
“You’ll find that inside. Richness abounds.” Thanatos stood beside her, and Calypso behind. They had armed themselves lightly with knives bought in one of the flea markets. The one Calypso carried was purely ornamental, not even sharpened. But if she pushed hard enough, it would do the job.
On the doorstep before them lay three dead rats. The cat that might have eaten them lay dead in a nearby planter box. Except for the flies and squirming maggots under their fur, they looked as though they had fallen asleep, a happy ending to a quaint fairy tale of dancing predators and prey.
“How did you get in before?” Cassandra asked. Thanatos nodded toward the side of the building.
“There’s a broken window. It was cracked when I arrived, but I smashed it clean through. You’ll be able to climb in.”