Rise of the Blood

Archeron. One way or the other we’ll defeat the titans. Either we’ll stop them at the river or if they’re beyond, marching on the gods, we’ll sandwich them between the two armies.”

Armies. Right. I hoped the others’ recruiting efforts had been successful and I hoped that Rhea had been quiet while we’d been gone—other than possessing my best friend, which she was so going to pay for, and unleashing the titans. Come to think of it, that probably would have kept her pretty busy.

Hades turned back to us and ordered, “Follow me.”

He barked an order at the smart board and then made a gesture like he was closing it up between his hands. A door opened even as the smart board closed—part of the stone wall of the echoing space sliding out of the way. Beyond was a dark passage that Hades illuminated by clapping his hands. A Clapper? Seriously? Along the walls of the tunnel, torches seemed to flicker, but when I looked more closely, it was just a trick bulb. Electric torchlight.

“Nice effect,” I said wryly.

“I think so,” Hades answered.

I was eerily aware of Thanatos bringing up the rear of our party. He’d already tried to kill me more than once in our short acquaintance. Sure, those attempts had been at his father’s orders and we were temporarily on the same side, but if his father was worried about a coup, how much weight would that really hold? He could do away with his father and blame it on us without breaking a sweat. If we were killed in the assassination—if Thanatos killed us in supposed retribution—who could contradict his version of events?

Apollo, apparently picking up on my tension through our link, reached down and squeezed my hand. He let go almost immediately, to have both his hands free, I guessed, in case of trouble, but it was reassuring. Right now the odds were stacked against Thanatos. He had to know that. And anyway, who wanted to inherit a kingdom in the middle of crisis? Much better to let someone else do all the heavy lifting of putting things back in order.

It was a long corridor, and the walk was uneventful except for the gnawing in my gut, my precog trying to tell me what I already knew. War is coming. Hurry, hurry.

When we hit the end of the corridor, marked by another sliding slab of stone, we stepped out into another desolate cave. Skeletal trees stood on rocky ground, bearing no fruit and only the most occasional leaf, looking like carcasses dotting the landscape. As we followed Hades’s lead, though, moss and lichen started to cover some of the rocks. Then grass. Then, slowly, flowers started to appear within the grass. Teeny, tiny white flowers, sometimes interspersed with purple. Just like above ground. The light in the tunnels had changed too. Though I couldn’t spot the source, weak sunlight seemed to sift down from above.

And then…and then we reached them—the Elysian Fields. The diamond gates gave it away. A hundred million facets glittered in the sunlight that had grown progressively stronger. It should have been gaudy, like a Miss America crown. Instead it was…Heaven. Or one incarnation of it, anyway. Because beyond the gates the sunlight shined, butterflies chased each other, the whole world was in bloom. The peace and beauty of the place called out from beyond the gates, beckoning, making promises I was pretty sure it could keep. I wanted with an ache that was almost physical.

“Tori?” Apollo asked.

“Why would anyone ever leave?” I gasped, awed.

“Maybe you should wait here,” he said gently.

That swung my startled gaze toward him. “Like hell!” I answered, catching the irony only as the words left my mouth.

“Fine, but don’t eat or drink anything. And for gods’ sake, don’t fall for Theseus’s sloe-eyed look,” Apollo warned.

I gave him a startled glance. “Do I seem like the swooning type?” I asked, giving him the stink-eye.

He shrugged. “No, but then he doesn’t necessarily wait for the swooning. He’s more the grab and go type.” He looked to Hades. “Sounds like someone we know. Surprised you two aren’t best buds.”

Hades glared.

We followed him toward the gates, but he stopped a distance before them to mutter a spell to let us pass through the invisible barrier, like the one we’d seen explode outside of Tartarus. Once we’d stepped through the barrier, the glitter of the gemstone gate was almost blinding. It was a wonder the Underworld wasn’t awash in thieves. Then again, maybe it was. But Hades’s realm was like a roach hotel. You no sooner checked in than you checked out…permanently.

Hades put a hand to the ornate gates that rose to triple our height and they began to swing inward, so silently that we could hear the buzz of the bees beyond and the wingbeats of fireflies. Or maybe that was my imagination, but there was a music to the place, and a sweet breeze that wafted out toward us, scented with flowers and the smell of dew-drenched grass.

I breathed deeply as I passed through the gates, taking in the barely traveled path before us and the orchard all around, trees heavy with every kind of fruit imaginable. I wondered if the Elysian Fields had been modeled on the Garden of Eden or vice versa or… What did it matter? The thoughts flitted away along with all my cares. If I could just stay here in this heaven then no one else could ever get hurt because of me. No death, no destruction. No mystery, motives or murder.

Apollo pinched me. I yelped and jumped, then punched his arm. Hard. “What did you do that for?”

“The Elysian Fields, they’re making you peaceful, yes? Complacent? It’s something in the air here. It’s like a drug. Get over it.”

“You get over it,” I said stupidly. I rubbed my butt where I still felt his pinch. “Next time I pinch you back.”

He flashed a smile at me as lethal as Typhoeus. “I’m ready to turn the other cheek.”

I stuck my tongue out at him. But he had broken the spell. For now. I still felt the pull and the peace of the Elysian Fields…and most compelling the release from responsibility. But now I could remember that there were people who needed me, even if they didn’t think so. And those people were waiting for our help.

“Any way you can crank down on the happy hormones?” I asked. “I think rallying the troops for battle would go a whole lot smoother.”

Hades muttered yet another spell so low that I could barely hear it, and in a language I couldn’t understand. The breeze stopped. The sound of wingbeats and the buzzing insects no longer carried toward us. Everything seemed dead still, as though perfection had been trapped in amber. No longer a living, breathing thing.

As we walked through the orchard, I spotted a temple up on a hill. Classic architecture, built on the highest point, looking down. It had the typical pillars, pitched roof and triangular pediment at the pinnacle. I couldn’t see the relief carvings, but at a guess they’d be Hades’s greatest hits. I wondered what those would be. On the upside, he wasn’t the philanderer that most of the gods were. On the downside, he’d kidnapped his wife and impressed her into marriage against her will and he wasn’t exactly known for his heroism.

“The Hall of Heroes?” I asked, looking up.

“Precisely,” he answered.

It wasn’t as far off as it looked. Once past the orchard, we came to a grassy area that led into what looked like a temple complex or market square, similar to a Roman agora. Half-clothed children played hide and seek among the pillars, and a few women lay about in a grassy area nearby, drowsing, only half watching the children. No one else was about. I guessed everyone else was already at the Hall of Heroes.

The women began to sit or stand as Hades approached, but he motioned them down and smiled with almost a fatherly beneficence at the children. Could it be the Elysian Fields worked its magic on Hades as well? It was the first time I’d seen anything but a sadistic smile or out-and-out rage on his face. He directed us beyond the agora to a path that wound a little as we climbed, our view of the temple above and the agora below obscured from time to time by the trees in the way, some of which rose straight into the air, almost like Christmas trees that had never been cut out of their restraining mesh. They were that narrow and concentrated. Just like some actual trees on the actual Greek landscape. In fact, Elysia was so much like home, no one could possibly get homesick… except for the lack of monsters to fight, wars to win or other heroic pursuits. We were about to change all that.

As we took a turn of the path and it opened up onto the leveled grounds surrounding the hall, a child spotted us and flew into action, yelling that we’d arrived in Greek so ancient I barely understood.

We were met at the propylaea, the grand entrance to the temple, by a gaggle of men, some of them