of Persephone…” He hesitated.
“Speak, Helios!” the woman in black commanded him sternly.
Helios sighed. “Much as I hate to break a mother’s heart, I did see Hades take Persephone. But it looked to me as if she went willingly.”
Demeter let out a wail that woke tears in Leo’s eyes, and at least half the gods’ as well. “No, great Zeus, this cannot be! Hades? Lord of Darkness and Gloom and Death? He is no fit mate for my golden child!”
Helios coughed. “Ah, gracious goddess, I hate to contradict you, but Hades is ruler of the Underworld, the third part of creation, and is the brother-equal to Poseidon and Zeus himself. If he isn’t worthy, no one is.”
“Then I shall linger here no longer!” Demeter let out a heartbroken cry and fled, vanishing among the gardens and marble edifices below. The woman in black watched her go, broodingly, then turned to Zeus.
“I would learn the truth of this myself, Zeus,” she declared.
“By all means, Hecate, do as you please.” the man on the throne said weakly. “Don’t mind me, I’m only the king here.”
With a sardonic smile, the woman in black vanished in another poof of black smoke.
Now Helios turned to Leo. “As for this mortal…” he said, his brow wrinkling thoughtfully. “Ah, yes. It was Hades’s chariot that took his golden mate. But it was Thanatos who took her.”
A leaden silence fell. It was the woman in the helmet who broke it. “Mortal, what was it you said that Thanatos called out?”
Leo licked lips gone dry. Whoever this “Thanatos” was—the gods thought the situation was very serious indeed. “Uh—he said, ‘Well, there you are! You went to the wrong meadow, just like a girl. I’ve been looking all over for you!’ Then he grabbed her and vanished into the earth.”
“Oh, dear.” The silence grew even heavier. “Mortal, I am sorry. Given that Hades was seen to leave with Persephone—who is a golden-haired maiden—and given that Thanatos, Hades’s servant, was driving Hades’s chariot—I believe your wife is the victim of a case of mistaken identity.”
Zeus looked unhappily down at the helmeted woman. “Do you think?”
She nodded. “Aye. I think he sent Thanatos to fetch Persephone, so that her mother would have no way to take her back. But Thanatos had never seen the girl, and took the first woman that matched her description. This mortal’s wife.” She turned to Leo. “Mortal, I am sorry. There is nothing we can do for you.”
Leo’s anger erupted again. “What do you mean, there is nothing you can do for me? He’s one of you, isn’t he? Order him to bring her back!”
“Mortal—” The oldest woman stepped forward, a sympathetic and sorrowful expression on her face that filled him with dread. “Mortal, even the gods are subject to rules. Thanatos took your lady. Thanatos is the god of death. Not even we can take her back from him. That is why Hades must have sent Thanatos to take Persephone.” She shook her head. “I am sorry. But we are as helpless as you.”
“Is there a precedent for getting someone out of here?” Brunnhilde demanded.
“Well…” Hades paused.
“I didn’t actually die, you know!” she snapped. “I was kidnapped by your dim-witted flunky!”
“Hey—” Thanatos objected weakly.
“She has a point,” Persephone said patiently. “Just because Thanatos took her doesn’t mean she actually died. He took her body and spirit.”
“It’s a technicality, but it’s the technicality we were going to use to keep you here,” Hades pointed out.
Brunnhilde’s eyes darkened dangerously. “Do you really want to get into a battle between my people and yours?” she asked, her voice low and menacing. “You wouldn’t like that. We’re not civilized.” She moved very close to Hades and narrowed her eyes. “We live for fighting. We thrive on doom. My father actually tried to bring on Ragnorak. He’d be overjoyed to find a way to destroy not just one, but two entire sets of gods. If only to get away from his wife.”
“What’s Ragnorak?” Thanatos wanted to know.
“Never mind. I don’t want to know.” Hades waved his hands frantically. “No, we have to work together to figure out a solution. There has to be an answer.”
A puff of black smoke erupted next to Hades’s throne. “By Gaia’s left breast, Hades, you really are a moron,” said a sardonic female voice from inside it. The smoke cleared away, revealing a handsome dark-haired woman with a torch in one hand, accompanied by two dogs. “I cannot believe what a hash you made of this business. And you’re no better,” she added in Thanatos’s direction. She looked down at her dogs. “You two, go run and play with Cereberus.” She stuck her torch in a nearby holder, and the dogs, suddenly looking like perfectly ordinary canines, yipped and ran off.
She turned to Brunnhilde. “I’m Hecate. You must be the abducted barbarian.”
Brunnhilde nodded, and drew herself up straight. “Brunnhilde, of the Valkyria, daughter of one-eyed Odin, king of the gods of Vallahalia, and Erda, goddess of the Earth.”
“Or, in other words, half-Fae like all the rest of us.” Hecate did not quite smile. “When we choose to remember it, that is. Bah! A fine mess this is.”
She sat down on Hades’s throne. Hades didn’t even bother to protest. “All right, first things first. Persephone, I assume you’re here of your own free will?”
Persephone looked ready to burst. “Aunt Hecate, I am sick to death of being treated like a toddler! I love my mother, really, I do, but she—”
“Was smothering you, as I told her a dozen times in the last year alone. You, Hades. Is this some enchantment or some other trick?” The gaze she threw at Hades would have impaled a lesser man.
Persephone answered before he could, proudly detailing how Hades had met her as a simple shepherd-god, much her inferior, and wooed her gently and with humor and consideration. Brunnhilde caught Hecate’s lips twitching a little during this ebullient tale, as if the goddess was having trouble keeping her expression serious.
“All right, all right,” Hecate said when Persephone paused for breath, before she could start in on another paean to her love. “I’ll take that as a no. And I suppose Athena was right—you intended to have Thanatos take her so you’d have the rules on your side to keep her here. Right?”
Hades confined himself to a simple “Yes, Hecate.”
“By Uranus’s severed goolies, this is a mess. Let me think.” Hecate drummed her fingers on the marble arm of the throne. Her nails made a sound like hailstones. “Persephone, keeping you here should be easy enough. Eat. Eat something that was grown down here.”
Hades grimaced. “Ah…not…that…easy. The only thing that grows here is the asphodel—and that only nourishes spirits. We bring all the food we eat from Olympia. There just aren’t that many of us that need real food.”
“Try the Elysian Fields, at least there’s light there,” Hecate suggested. “Persephone, there has to be some of your mother’s powers in you, go coax something to grow, then eat it. That will make you part of this realm. That’s what works for the Fae realms, and The Tradition should make it work here.” She pointed a thumb at Brunnhilde. “Now, you, and your mate. What is it, usually, Hades? Nearly impossible tasks?”
Hades nodded. “As few as one, as many as seven.”
Brunnhilde quickly saw where this was going, and nodded, though not with any enthusiasm. “And a year and a day, usually,” she said with resignation. “Damn.”
“Hades, you figure out some tasks for the barbarian woman. I think the best thing to