Cassandra’s eyes moved over nearby buildings. Someone dying in an apartment twelve blocks away? The thought filled her with dread and a spike of adrenaline.
“But you have,” she said. “Killed with your hands before.”
He looked into her eyes.
“I have. I won’t make excuses for what I am. Not even for a pretty girl.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, but didn’t have to, as Calypso finally returned with several tacos wrapped in brown paper. They ate in relative silence, and Cassandra was pleasantly surprised to find that she liked the food. Lots of salsa, and the fish was fresh. She watched Thanatos exchange godly small talk with Calypso. Maybe it was the daylight playing tricks with her eyes and mind, but he didn’t seem so bad. Certainly not as coldly menacing as he had in the club and in the serial killer’s pad he kept.
I’ve come this far. And I knew it was going to be dangerous anyway.
“Thanatos,” she said, and the laughter at the table died off. “I’ve made up my mind. You can come.”
* * *
After lunch, they checked out of their hotel and took their scant belongings to Thanatos’ house in the hills. The second she dropped her bags in one of his guest rooms, which was just as neutral and sparely decorated as the rest of the house, she felt like a fly beginning to notice bits of web sticking to her feet. But when he said it would be easier to make their plans if they were all together, she couldn’t think of a single reasonable objection.
She studied the floor-to-ceiling mirrors in the guest bath, and the oversized claw-foot bathtub. She walked the long hardwood hallways and let her eyes crawl up the walls to the vaulted ceiling. When she got back to the kitchen, he’d poured them glasses of sparkling water.
“What story do you tell?” she asked. “People must wonder who you are, to have all this. And they must notice you have no job besides … seducing girls with slightly self-destructive tendencies.”
“Lots of people have the same,” he replied. “I think it helps that no one can really tell how old I am. Everyone in this town can play from sixteen to thirty-five.” He shrugged. Standing behind the counter cutting limes, he looked not only human, but domestic. “Cassandra?”
“Yes?”
“How long are you going to study me like that?”
Her mouth dropped open, but he didn’t look up to see.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I sort of like it. At least when you’re not doing it with your eyes narrowed.”
“You can stop that any time,” she said. “I’m never going to smile at you.”
Calypso chuckled into her glass, and moved to the living room to sit. Thanatos went after her.
“You haven’t told us where we’re going,” Cassandra said. “Where Hades is.”
He and Calypso exchanged a look, and Cassandra ground her teeth. Their little god-moments were starting to get on her nerves. Oh, listen to the little mortal. Isn’t she cute? Isn’t she just precious, now that she can’t kill us?
But there had to be some way to kill him. Every god in the world was showing their underbelly. The god of death had to have one, too.
And I’ll find it. I might not be able to kill him with my hands, but I’ll kill him with something.
“Come and sit down for a few minutes,” he said. “Rest.”
“I don’t want to rest. I want to kill Hades, and all the gods I can find, so I can go home.” But not only that. Who knew what condition Hades was in. If he was already spreading disease wherever he went, then she didn’t have time to waste. Certainly not time to spend sipping sparkling lime water in Death’s living room.
Thanatos stood.
“As you wish. Come to the basement.”
So there is a basement.
The access was through the garage. As they descended the stairs Cassandra tried to put all thoughts of peeled eyeballs and girls on meat hooks out of her mind, but the unfinished state of the stairs didn’t help. Neither did the rough stone walls. It was such a sharp contrast to the rest of the house that it almost felt like descending into a cave.
Like descending into Olympus.
That one stupid day. The foolish pride of it and the disaster that awaited them. She and Athena had been no more than dogs with the scent of blood in their noses. They’d gone blindly, seeking meat in their teeth, and they’d paid the price.
On impulse, she reached back, slipped her hand into Calypso’s, and squeezed. The walk to the basement had to be bringing up similar memories for her, and hers were much worse.