“Everyone says you can influence the sea,” he says, no preamble, and I don’t think I imagine a slight hitch in his voice. He’s a young guy. He didn’t want to die from a bullet through the head on Haven Island. “That it tells you things, and you can tell it things back.”
The sea rustles against the hull of the ship like it’s laughing. An open invitation. The breeze kicks up to ruffle my hair in an affectionate way that I’ve never deserved and swoops back down to join the water. “What if I said it was true?”
A long silence. “I’d ask you to put in a word for me.”
“About what?”
A stretch of calm opens up below us. The sea, waiting. “I’ve always wanted a jet ski. Maybe it could send one over.”
I laugh at that, and it feels so fucking good. This day feels so good that I know it won’t last. “Christ. Why did I hire you?”
Jason jumps down from the crates and stands at the railing. He doesn’t press me on whether it’s true or not. “I’m kidding about the jet ski. But I bet the sea knows where to find some ancient coins from one of those Greek sailing ships.”
“Why do you want those?”
He shrugs. “They knew about epic quests for impossible treasure. I wouldn’t mind going on one of those one day.” Jason shades his eyes with a hand. “There’s the last helicopter,” he says. “Better get ready.”
He jogs off down the deck, and Hades and Zeus come up from below, Conor at Hades’ side, followed by Ashley and Buddy. For a shining five minutes we’re all there together on deck, waiting for the last piece of my ship.
The whole time the helicopter is coming toward us, I fight the urge to do something dramatic and foolish, like shoot it out of the sky, so this day never has to end.
It’s almost on top of us when Zeus claps me on the shoulder. “You napping today, sleeping beauty?”
I punch him back. “I’m fine, asshole.”
“You don’t have to be embarrassed about it. Hades is a nightmare when he misses his naps.”
Hades rolls his eyes. “Fuck off, Zeus. No one’s a bigger nightmare than you.”
18
Poseidon
The trip back to Haven Island is an open stretch of dread that sits in the pit of my stomach and won’t let go.
For all their nice office clothes and business-meeting attitudes, Hades and Zeus have come armed to the teeth. They both own tactical clothes, and not the bullshit kind they sell to military fans—the kind with lightweight Kevlar sewn in. Not enough to be obvious, but enough to give them a fighting chance when people start shooting at us. The three of us sit by the cargo crates, Conor with his head resting on Hades’ thigh, and make a plan for what we’ll do when we get to the island.
It will be obvious when we arrive. The people from town will have scattered, and whoever has fucked with us will have cleared out the rest of the pirates who just want peace. Anyone in sight will be an enemy. I describe the guy with the kraken tattoo, and anything else I can remember about his accomplices.
“So you’ll take that guy,” Hades says. “Is everyone else fair game?”
In general, he despises guns, but now he has a rifle strapped to his back, a pistol at his side, and three knives lined up on his belt. I don’t know this version of him. “How many people are you planning to shoot today?”
He smiles, and I have never been afraid of Hades but I see it now. The terror other people have of him when he’s pissed. His strange, black eyes are alive with bloodlust, not dead and detached. “Hard to say. I’ll shoot them if they run from me.”
Zeus laughs. They’ll run from him, too. There’s a reason he was able to keep his whorehouse in line for so long. He was the consequence for fucking around.
Thirty minutes before we make landfall, I take Ashley by the hand. I drag her downstairs, push her against the wall, and kiss her.
Her mouth opens for me, sweet and soft, and another wash of guilt moves down over me like island rain. She senses what I’m going to say before I can say it. “You needed to spend time with them,” she says, and kisses the side of my neck. “And you had to sleep. There will be time for us when this is over.”
I don’t tell her about my secret fear that it will never end. I just kiss her harder, pouring myself into it, ripping down the last walls between us with bare hands. They’ll come up again. They always do. I can’t help it. But right now, no.
One more kiss. I don’t let myself think last. I just crush her into a hug and tip her face toward mine. “You stay down here,” I tell her, knowing she won’t do it. “And if you have to come up, don’t do it alone. I won’t be able to focus if I’m worried about you.”
Ashley wouldn’t take a gun. She said it reminded her too much of another night and didn’t want to feel out of control. So she’ll be down here with Buddy, who will at least bite people for her.
A shout from the deck.
It’s Hades.
We’re here.
There’s no warmup. No gradual realization that we’ve arrived and a scramble for battle. They’re waiting for us, and as the ship docks, they start shooting.
So do we.
Zeus starts picking people off from the deck, along with Jason and Nicholas and the crew members we could spare. The rest of them have to be ready to sail.
But Hades jumps off the ship with me, a knife in his hand, and sprints through a hail of bullets to the other side of the shipyard. He made Conor stay with Zeus. I can hear the dog growling above me.
Fear grips my throat, but then something happens to my vision. It gets clearer as Hades runs, the sun crowning his blond hair. He’s like a king. A god? The air shimmers with shadows like I’m seeing into a deep past, or into a deep truth, and with a shock like cold water my perception shifts.
Hades is not death, though he becomes it for the traitors he’s heading for. He is not death, but he knows it like a friend. Bargains with it easily. Like a brother. That has to be why all the bullets swing wide around him. Nothing touches him. Nothing.
Cronos put him at the threshold of life and death so many times that Hades made it his own kingdom. He stands at the gates. I hear the words like the sea has spoken them, or something older than the sea, and goose bumps skitter down my arms. His mountain, with all its black stone, is another threshold. People run there because they think they’ll die, and I understand now.
I understand.
It’s not hell they’ll find, not flames and fire and torture. It’s blessed darkness. Like the deepest parts of the ocean. Hades, in that darkness, would remind people of sunshine and blue sky. They would trust him to let them through.
But he hasn’t been. He’s been turning them away.
And right now, for me, he’s extending an invitation. Hauling my enemies right out of life and into the next world.
One blink, and the world is back to normal, no shadows in the air, no ultra-sharp clarity. Hades’ suicide sprint has had the right effect. It’s made them think he’s crazy, which he might be. Only someone with no fear would run into a gunfight with a knife in his hand. And more importantly it’s given us critical firepower from multiple vantage points.