The Iron Queen Page 3

  “Not just his,” I interjected. “I’m loyal to all of my family to some degree, but I have to obey any family who outranks me. Including Persephone.”

  Hades’ eyebrows shot up. “Persephone wouldn’t control you.”

  “Uh, have you ever met your wife? She’s bossy and—” I glanced between Hades and Demeter and cleared my throat. “Gosh, she’s just a wonderful person. I’m sure she would have toned down the orders had she known I didn’t have a choice in the matter.”

  “Joel is Zeus?” Demeter’s shocked voice pulled the conversation back to its focus. I waited for Hades to make some sarcastic comment about Demeter not paying attention, but he remained silent, allowing her time to process the news, maybe? She didn’t need it. “What else were you ordered to do?”

  I squirmed under her piercing green eyes. She looked like a taller version of Persephone with the same blond hair, same tan, same build. But she had a coldness Persephone lacked. Something in her expression told me she would not only throw me to the wolves, but she’d watch them rip me apart with a smile on her face.

  My mouth went dry, and I swallowed hard. “Nothing yet. But if I were you, I’d keep me supervised by someone who can’t be charmed.”

  Demeter’s hands shook. She took a deep breath, clenched her fists so tight her knuckles whitened, and glared at Hades. “This”—the venom in her voice had me edging backward—”is your fault.”

  “I’m aware of that.” Hades’ voice was flat, void of any emotion.

  Demeter didn’t care. “You brought that thing to my realm and put it under my roof with my daughter, and then you let Zeus—”

  Let Zeus? I thought of Hades’ crumpled body on the ground, the anguish in his eyes when he’d woken up and discovered her gone. She made it sound like he’d just handed Persephone over. My nails drummed on the wooden railing, and I looked over the glistening water. Somewhere between here and the path it had stopped raining, and the sun had emerged. Maybe it was a sign everything would be okay.

  “I did not let him take her,” Hades snapped. “If you weren’t so stingy with your teleportation authorization, I’d have been able to get to her—”

  Or maybe not. I glanced from Hades to Demeter, two of the oldest remaining gods in creation. Surely they could come up with a plan.

  Well, a good plan. Hades hadn’t mentioned anything about his whole “rewriting the rules” idea yet.

  Demeter gasped. “Are you suggesting this is somehow my fault? You made her a target when you forced her to marry you—”

  Forced? From what Melissa had explained, Hades married Persephone to rescue her from Boreas, the God of Winter. He’d saved her life.

  “She was already a target! And thanks to you, she was helpless without any clue of what she was—”

  I inspected my nails, but they didn’t seem to notice or care how bored I’d grown. This could go on all day. “Really, the blame game’s the most important thing on the agenda right now? Okay, I’ll take a turn. This is your fault”—I gestured at Hades—”because you’re an idiot. Had you treated her more like a goddess and less like an addlepated teenager, she wouldn’t have given Joel a second look. Your marriage should have made her too powerful for Zeus to charm. Instead you left her weak. If you two were linked the way you should be, then you would have known about Thanatos and the Reapers.

  “But don’t look so smug,” I added, turning to Demeter. “You’d have her believe she was nothing more than some silly mortal teenager. She shouldn’t have been going on dates and hanging out with friends while there were demigods and minor deities going missing from your realm.”

  Demeter looked at me in surprise.

  “Oh yes, I know all about that,” I said with a condescending smile. “Did it ever occur to you she could help? That she should? You know”—I put a finger to my lip as a startling thought occurred to me—”the only person who treated her with the respect due to her station is Zeus. He at least treats her like a threat. You two”—I waved my hand—”seem to have forgotten she can actually be useful.”

  Demeter sucked in a breath like she was about to say something, but Hades cut her off. “We don’t have time to argue about this right now. We need to rescue—”

  “Rescue!” I threw my hands in the air, almost impaling a bright yellow butterfly that fluttered away on the breeze. “You still don’t get it, do you? She’s powerful! She ranks, and incidentally, she’s part of a very small group that can kill Zeus. Use her.”

  Gods can’t die. But everything has a weakness to keep balance and all that Zen crap. We’re vulnerable to ourselves. An ingenious work around that still allowed for a balance, yet made us very difficult to kill because using our powers to hurt ourselves goes against our instincts. It would be like a human trying to gouge out his own eye. Every fiber of his being would rebel at the idea alone, forget acting on it.

  But there was an unintended side effect to only being vulnerable to our own powers. Children. Gods pass powers onto their offspring. That power can be used against the god it came from, which meant that as Zeus’ daughter, Persephone could kill him without breaking all of creation.

  Demeter shook her head. “She’s not strong enough.”

  I scoffed, propping myself up on the rail of the bridge overlooking the sparkling fountain. “Well then, let’s fix that. I swear fealty—”

  Hades’ hand shot out, nearly knocking me off the bridge. “Stop. Persephone still hasn’t come into her powers.”

  Which meant too much power could kill her. Bingo. I filed that tidbit of information away should the worst happen and I actually needed to use it. If there was one thing I had to work with, it was power.

  Wait a minute! There’s a reason there are no myths about child gods. Most gods are created full grown, like me, but a few deities want the experience of raising a child from infancy. Physically, a child’s body isn’t capable of channeling power until maturity. So child gods stay out of public eye, living off their parents’ worship, until whatever random time their body decides it’s ready. How was Persephone still alive? I’d felt her power. She had worshipers and at least enough power to put up some resistance to Zeus’ charm.

  Hades must be using the link to siphon off her extra power. I wasn’t sure how often he had to do it, but surely she couldn’t last too long without him.

  Demeter sagged against the bridge as if all her hope had drained out of her. She must have come to the same conclusion I just had. Persephone was running out of time.

  Hades closed his eyes. “We’re going to find her.”

  “Maybe.” I shrugged, not finding it likely, but saying so wouldn’t help them right now. “But if you don’t, and she’s going to die anyway, why not take Zeus down with her?”

  Chapter VIII

  Hades

  “CASSANDRA?” I pushed open the door to my throne room. Massive and carved from white marble, the room was more ostentatious than I liked, but it served its purpose. First impressions trumped personal preference. At the room’s center stood two thrones cut from a solid black stone so dark they seemed to absorb all the light in the room. Pausing mid-stride, I stared, lost in thought. Was it just this morning Persephone and I’d sat there making plans to capture Aphrodite?

  I shook off the memory, disappointed in myself. I’d been around since the beginning of creation, I should know better than to expect time to behave in a logical fashion. Time isn’t consistent. Some minutes take hours and some days take years; others slip past so fast they’re hardly experienced at all. Like last night. But every moment since her capture had lasted eons.

  As much as I wanted to hit the ground running in my search for Persephone, I had an entire Underworld’s worth of responsibilities. My realm never weighed so much. To spend any amount of time away, I needed to make arrangements. Cassandra was most likely already on it, but the Underworld
had been through quite an upheaval with Thanatos’ death. If I was going to be absent as well, no amount of prophecy could counter logistics.

  Cassandra knelt beside a child in the opposite corner of the throne room with... everyone. I frowned. What matter would concern Cassandra, Moirae, Charon, Hypnos, and all the judges? When the door slammed shut behind me, Cassandra jumped to her feet, pushing the boy toward Minos. The child’s eyes were blank with shock. He couldn’t have been more than thirteen, far too young to earn a trip to my realm. Minos wrapped an arm around the child, obstructing all but his messy blond hair from my view.

  “Get him settled, please, and then come right back,” Cassandra instructed. Minos nodded, and not one, but all three of the judges escorted the child from the room, footsteps echoing off the high ceilings as their sandaled feet hit the marble floor.

  Cassandra caught my quizzical look and shrugged. “Problems adjusting. You just missed the latest of the new souls. It would seem none of us are quite as good with people as you are.”

  That was an understatement. With any luck, Cassandra hadn’t caused any psychological scarring with her “Yeah, you’re dead, get over it” speech. She wasn’t a people person. Ordinarily, I greeted the new souls and took special care to deal with any “adjustment problems.” I enjoyed that part of my work. It was one of the few good deeds I could credit myself with. But as much as I’d love to tell myself otherwise, I wasn’t settling in the souls out of the goodness of my heart. Just lack of better alternatives. The other gods had difficulties relating to humans. But those difficulties were nothing compared to the problems the humans in my court had relating to each other. Souls lose something the longer they’re dead. They forget what it was like to worry, to be scared, to be human. Just yesterday, I’d caught Cassandra telling a frightened new soul I’d gone through a dark phase back when Dante passed through, but not to worry. I hadn’t gone off my meds for centuries.

  Fucking Dante.

  Crossing the large room, I studied each member of my court as I walked. I’d done a lot of walking today. Of course I could have teleported within my realm, but I’d needed the time to think over the logistics of being gone and to close all but one guarded entrance into the Underworld. Demeter would post a guard on her side of the realm too, just in case.

  It had taken too much time. Every minute I spent down here was a minute away from my search for Persephone and a minute longer she had to spend with Zeus. I knew what he wanted and what lengths he was willing to go through to get it. There was no more time to waste.

  I paused at the obsidian throne. It was clear from Cassandra’s face she already knew, and she would have wasted no time telling the others.

  “Hades, I’m sorry.” Charon’s gray eyes were so full of concern I couldn’t look at him straight on. I didn’t have time to take solace in the presence of my friends. He looked down at his hands then returned his gaze to mine, all business. “What do you need us to do?”

  Moirae, the current embodiment of the fates, and Hypnos, the god of sleep and the head of Underworld security, jumped in with condolences. I waved them away. “I need you all to cover things while I find her.”

  “Is that wise?” Cassandra leaned against the marble wall and gave me a frank look. “Being away from the Underworld right now?”

  “No.” I shoved my hair out of my face and narrowed my eyes at her, daring her to tell me to do otherwise. Pain racked through my entire body, and I knew what was causing it. Zeus was hurting her.

  I had to find her.

  Cassandra’s thumbnail dug into the cuticle of her middle finger, leaving a white gouge where the living would bleed. She was nervous. The dead didn’t handle stress well.

  I took a deep breath to brace myself before asking my prophet the question that brought me down here. “Is she all right?”

  She hesitated, twirling a strand of dark hair between two long fingers. “It’s best I don’t tell you.”

  “That bad?”

  Her dark eyes met mine, begging me not to ask any more questions. “It will be.”

  Fury coursed through me, and I surged forward, opening my mouth to demand answers, then, with a herculean effort of will, swallowed my words. Cassandra didn’t hedge. If it would help in any way, she would tell me because the future wasn’t set in stone. I could still change it. But some prophecies had a tendency to self-fulfill. Sometimes the change that brought the vision about was the fact that someone knew about the prophecy in the first place. She’d been around long enough to know the difference.

  I watched her for a moment. She fiddled with a strand of her dark hair, twirling it back and forth between her forefinger and thumb. That was a new nervous gesture. Whatever she’d seen... I didn’t want to make it come true.

  “Sit.” I pushed aside my impatience and sat down, motioning for them to do the same. The chairs all faced the door. Damned inconvenient for speaking to one another. We didn’t meet in here for more than issues between souls, but I didn’t suggest we move to the dining room. Thanatos’ absence was somehow more noticeable there.

  Thanatos. My thoughts came to a screeching halt at the reminder of his betrayal. What could Zeus have offered him that made it worth turning his back on the Underworld? On us? Thanatos tricked Persephone into promising not to reveal he was working for Zeus and then tortured her for months, secure in the knowledge that she couldn’t come to me for help.

  Now Zeus had her. How had I failed so colossally at protecting her? I’m not supposed to be your responsibility. The memory of Persephone’s indignant voice echoed through my mind. She’d been right. Every time I stepped in, I made things worse. Rescuing her from Boreas painted an even bigger target on her back. I’d made Thanatos her guard. Then I’d all but hand-delivered her to Zeus when I encouraged her to see other people. Persephone would have been better off without my protection.

  What if Aphrodite was right? Instead of putting all my focus on rescuing her, what if I gave Persephone the tools she needed to have a fighting chance? There were ways to trigger maturity. If one of her parents were to swear fealty to her and give her every drop of his powers, Persephone would come into hers. But how? The sheer power Persephone would need to charm Zeus into swearing over could kill her. It wasn’t worth the risk.

  A hand on my shoulder startled me out of my reverie. “Hades?” Cassandra’s voice was gentle. “We’ve got this.”

  I blinked. “Right. I should...” I shifted, ready to stand, but Charon cleared his throat.

  “She’s lying, Hades, we’re drowning without Reapers. We need more. Zachary and I didn’t find that kid for... a while. We can’t keep up with all the souls by ourselves. You know I wouldn’t bring this up right now if the need wasn’t great.”

  My mind flashed to the child with the empty eyes. Poor kid. Until a soul was released by a Reaper, it was stuck in its dead body, completely aware and helpless.

  “Use the demigods.” Reapers and demigods were the only souls that could come and go in the Underworld, thus they were the only potential spies. If Zeus had infiltrated as high as Thanatos, then no telling how many sources he had among them. I could take away a Reaper’s power to cross between realms, but the ability was innate with demigods. If I couldn’t control their abilities, I might as well use them.

  “But Hades”—Moirae leaned forward, brown hair falling over her shoulders—”my visions are blind to demigods.”

  “Yes, thank you for stating the obvious.” My already frayed patience snapped with such a violent surge of frustration that it even took me by surprise. I needed to be done with this so I could find her. Every minute I was down here...

  I closed my eyes. Cassandra wouldn’t tell me what was going to happen to her. If it was that bad...

  I had to find her.

  “We can rotate them in shifts,” Hypnos suggested, adjusting the sleeves of his gray robes.
“Keep them separated on the other side of the river when they’re in our realm. Limit the information they could spread.”

  “They won’t like that.” Cassandra’s dark eyes were narrowed in thought.

  “They’ll get over it!” I snapped.

  She flinched, moving away from me with a small, almost imperceptible motion. “Of course. It’s temporary, and there’s enough that we can ask for volunteers.”

  It took a while, but eventually we got all the details hammered out. One by one I sent them away to complete their tasks until it was just Cassandra left in the throne room.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” There was no chance Cassandra hadn’t seen this coming with so many living deities involved.

  She looked at the floor. “This has to happen, Hades.”

  For a moment, I was furious. How dare some human tell me what had to happen? Persephone was suffering, and Cassandra could have prevented all her pain with a single warning.

  But the irony was too great for even me to ignore. I was a god. I’d allowed humans to suffer since their creation, sat by and watched while the rest of the pantheon used them as pawns in their petty games, and done nothing when my clairvoyants reported catastrophic happenings that would happen on the surface. There was so much I could have stopped. Instead, I’d felt good about myself for treating the souls in my realm well, like I was some sort of Prometheus figure. No wonder I struggled to sleep at night. But what else could I have done? Every hard decision I’d ever made, no matter how difficult, served the greater good.

  I was intimately familiar with the greater good. It was cold and heartless and didn’t give a damn about any of us. But we were all bound to it, because the only thing worse than being its agent was being its opposition.

  Cassandra put a hand on mine, and I looked up, startled at the pain in her eyes. “I need you to trust me, Hades, without knowing why.”

  I nodded. “I do.” I’d known Cassandra for lifetimes. She didn’t have an ill-intentioned bone in her body. If she said this needed to happen, however hard that was to accept, it needed to happen.