A Lakeshore Picnic

“What do you mean, he isn’t in? Where is he?”

Jonah leaned against the office chair. His hands gripped the arms so hard his knuckles had turned white. “He didn’t say, only that he wouldn’t be in today.”

Hades wiped a hand over his mouth. “And tomorrow?”

“He’s…actually not supposed to be in for the rest of the week. Can—can I take a message?”

Hades stopped the stream of curses that threatened to loose from his tongue. He hoped his brother had left—without warning—for something important, at least. A crisis, maybe. Or the meeting with Hephaestus, who still insisted upon living in the largest volcanoes he could find. The actual probability of Zeus doing the things he was supposed to do, however, did not inspire confidence.

“No message,” Hades said, the words strained. “Do you know when he’s supposed to be back in the office?”

Jonah didn’t even look at his computer. “Ten o’clock on Monday. I have a note that I’m not supposed to call him until then.”

Hades thanked Jonah, walked around the corner, and pulled out his own phone. Unlike human secretaries, he had no rules forbidding him from calling gods.

The line went to voicemail three times before Hades settled for two hurried sentences, the first telling Zeus exactly what he thought about taking a vacation at nine A.M. on a Thursday, and the second telling him to call as soon as possible.

Seventy-two flights of stairs later, Hades emerged onto a stinking city street. Cars buzzed past, people pushed by him, and the horrid stink of machinery filled his nose. He glanced right, then left, and wondered what in Tartarus to do now.

He wouldn’t go back to his office only to sit on his hands and wait for a call that might never come. He certainly couldn’t work on anything else, not with the collapse of the entire Underworld hanging over his head.

Hades wanted to scream. Or hit something.

Before he could decide which, his pocket buzzed. He scrambled to rip his phone from it, hoping against hope Zeus’s name would flash across the screen.

Of course not. But the one that did appear still made him answer.

“Where are you?” Minthe asked before he could even say hello. “I came by to see if you wanted to go to lunch, and you went missing again.”

Her tone made him wince. “I had to take an emergency meeting.”

A long pause. Hades wondered what must be racing through her head, if he would hear another lecture about working too much.

“Is everything okay?” she asked instead. “You sound like you’re freaking out.”

“Only a little.”

“You want to talk about it?”

He did. He wanted to tell someone, anyone, what he’d seen. He wanted to hear them say it shouldn’t fall to him alone, keeping every single soul in the mortal world alive. He wanted to, for once, make the selfish decision of crawling beneath the earth and never coming out.

When his silence dragged on, Minthe spoke again. “You can always tell me later. Is there anything I can do to help now?”

Hades found his reflection in the glass of the building across from him. A suit, a briefcase, and a trip to the surface, all for what? The world as he knew it might end soon, and did he really want to spend the days before it did searching for his delinquent brother?

“Actually, there is. Would you like to have lunch with me on the surface?”

#

He met her in the park. Hades stood on the bank under a bridge and watched her emerge, dripping, from the still lake. She waved a greeting over her head, a real smile for once lighting up her angular face. If she minded the humans staring at her, standing in full business attire while knee-deep in the water, she didn’t show it. Instead she lifted her heels to take her shoes off and waded towards him, white ridges gathering on her thighs with every long-legged stride.

She greeted him on the shore with a kiss. “Thanks for the invite.”

“How was the trip?”

She grimaced. “No matter what they do to this lake, it still tastes like swamp.”

“Once a swamp, always a swamp.”

“I’ll say.” Minthe noticed the paper bag in his hand. “What are we having today?”

“Sandwiches.”

Minthe leaned over to wring her hair. The lake fell from her in sheets, slicking off her like droplets from a duck. Within seconds, he never would have guessed she’d traveled by water table to reach him.

They sat on a grassy hill. Hades hadn’t thought to bring a blanket—he hadn’t intended to have a picnic in Central Park, to his defense—but he spread out his suit jacket, and Minthe tucked herself onto it amicably enough. She took the tomato sandwich he handed her and unwrapped the crinkly brown paper.

“So,” she said between bites, “what’s so important it got you up here twice in two days?”

Hades glanced sidelong at her. “I thought my work bothered you.”

“It’s far from my favorite subject, but it seems like it’s all you can think about right now.”

Hades considered his own food, turkey and provolone on toasted rye. Maybe she had a point. “The North Bank is getting dangerous. I’ve been taking meetings with Zeus, trying to get a few more gates installed. But now with Hecate’s vision—”

“Hecate?” Minthe pulled up short, her sandwich halfway to her mouth. “When did you see her?”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Hades watched her expression carefully. “She came over yesterday, after work.”

Minthe chewed slowly. Swallowed. “Let me get my timeline in order. You kicked me out of your office last night because you didn’t have enough time for me, then when you got home at midnight, you had Hecate over?”

“I didn’t kick you out of my office,” Hades said, not knowing where else to start. “You left on your own.”

“That’s the part you’re trying to defend?”

“I—no—Hecate was there when I got home. I didn’t invite her to anything.”

“That’s even worse!”

“How do you know when I got home?”

Minthe had the decency to blush, her expression turning to something sheepish.

“Minthe?” he prompted.

“The entire underworld is made up of rivers. Nymphs talk. It’s not hard to figure out where you are on any given day.”

“Minthe, that’s—are you saying you spy on me?”

She wilted, shoulders curling. “I know, it’s terrible. But sometimes you’re so distant, I don’t even know how to talk to you. It makes me feel better to at least know where you are.”

Hades didn’t respond. He stared at the park, at the humans who walked along the paved paths and sat on the benches and enjoyed the colorful fall leaves. He wondered if they, too, had such insecurities, felt like no matter what they did, it would never be enough.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

Hades blew a long sigh out of his nose. “You don’t need to worry about me going off somewhere without you. And certainly not with Hecate.”

Minthe seemed chagrined, at least. “She’s a Titan. Between the two of us, I wouldn’t look at me, either.”

Hades shook his head. “That implies I’ve ever looked at Hecate.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Then tell me why I need to repeat it.”

Minthe only took a nibble of her sandwich.

Hades thought about pressing the point, but nothing would be gained from fighting with her further, and he’d rather enjoy what he could of the morning. He searched for something to settle whatever fears may still be burning through her.

“I’m not my brothers,” he said at last.

That got a smile, even if it looked strained. “No, you’re not. Thank the stars for that.”

Hades finished his sandwich, balled up the paper and set it back in the bag. He settled his hands on the grass behind him and let the weak autumn sun find his face.

“How did your meeting go?”

Another one of her changes to the subject. This one, though, Hades didn’t mind. “Not well. Zeus wasn’t in, and I don’t know when he’ll be back. Which is a problem, because we only have a few weeks before disaster.”

“It’s that bad?”

Hades nodded.

For a long moment, Minthe chewed her sandwich in silence. When she finally spoke, her voice came out small. “I know where you can find him.”

His tongue found one of his back teeth. He considered standing and walking away.

“Like I said, nymphs talk,” Minthe defended herself. “Do you want the address or not?”

Did he? Who knew what Zeus got up to on his days off? Hades would jump in the river Styx before he willingly discovered the answer for himself. Still, he could not let the dead amass the way Hecate had seen, not if he had the power to stop it.

He let his head loll on his shoulder. “I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”

Minthe tried for a smile and fell miserably short. “Who knows? He might be pleasant.”

#

When Hades stood at the address Minthe texted him, he almost considered turning around. The apartment building hadn’t been a far walk from the park, one of those new high-rises with the sharp corners and strange colors. Tall enough his head spun when he found the top, and he had to shut his eyes and count to ten to right himself again.

Hades shook himself. He tried the door, but it didn’t budge. A callbox stood next to the locked handle, and he scrolled to find the topmost apartment, under a name he didn’t recognize.

He pressed the buzzer. It rang, and rang, and rang. No answer.

Hades turned away, slipping his phone from his pocket. The first two calls went straight to voicemail. The third at least rang before Zeus hung up on him, and a text answered the fourth.

Can’t talk now. Call tomorrow?

Hades snapped a picture of the front door. He sent it as his response.

A loud buzz sounded from the electronic lock, followed by the heavy click of it opening from the inside.

A foyer rose away from him in a great sweep of marble and steel. A desk stood in the way of a bank of elevators, which he ignored. Something in his expression must have warned the human behind it not to stop him, because she said nothing and let him pass.

One of the elevators waited, open, for him. He pressed the button for the top floor and felt his feet lift beneath him. Soon enough, he stepped into another foyer with a wall of windows across from him.

Hades turned away from the ridiculous view and found a door marked 2001. He knocked, none too gently, and hoped whoever answered didn’t present an image he couldn’t un-see.

Zeus appeared, thankfully dressed in a t-shirt and cargo shorts. His expression looked dark enough to blind. “This had better be good.”

Hades didn’t bother answering, instead pushing his way into the apartment. He walked down a long hallway and into a living room. Yet another absurd windowscape of the city beyond greeted him there.

Zeus followed, huffing as he let himself fall onto one of the couches. “What’s so important you’ve decided to interrupt my vacation?”

Hades lowered himself onto a seat opposite his brother. Beside his feet rested a pair of shoes, white sandals much too small to belong to Zeus.

If he had questions—which he didn’t—they could wait. “Has Ares given you any reason to think he might start a war lately?”

Zeus raised his eyebrows, clearly not expecting this topic. “Have you seen the state of human affairs? When is there not a war?”

“I don’t mean the petty squabbles they get themselves into. I mean destruction. Carnage. Genocide, maybe.”

Zeus stared for a long while. He leaned his elbows on his knees, a gesture that might have read as protective concern if Hades didn’t know him better. “Where is this coming from?”

“If you’ve given Ares permission for another global conflict, you need to rescind it. We can’t have any large-scale population decline for the foreseeable future.”

“That sounded dangerously close to a command, little brother.”

Hades grit his teeth. “Hecate has had a vision. The dead will break through the barrier. They will climb from the rivers and burst from the ground and devour everything in their path. Humanity will not survive.”

Curses fell out of Zeus’s mouth, words in the old language harsh enough to make their mother blush. He paced to the window, where he stood with his hands on his hips. “When?”

“You know Hecate’s visions. Weeks, maybe days.”

The blue sky gave way to roiling gray as Zeus worked his jaw. “This is some ploy, Hades. I told you I would speak to Hephaestus. Was that not enough for you?”

For a moment, Hades struggled to understand. Then, all at once, he got it, and anger roared in his ears. He waited, hoping Zeus would crack one of his infernal smiles and declare the whole thing a joke. But he remained at the window, silent, chin lifted in challenge.

“It’s been a long time since you’ve called me a liar,” Hades said. “I’ll give you one chance to take it back.”

Lightning cracked in the newly gathered clouds. “Is that a threat?”

“It might be.” Hades stood. “I am not one of the lesser gods, crawling to you for favor. As it seems you’ve forgotten, let me remind you: we stand on the same footing.”

Zeus rocked forward on his toes, and Hades saw the intention in his eyes. A pulse of divine blood set his fingers tingling. He reached out, searching with invisible hands, for a purchase his power would grab.

Deep below, so far he could hardly feel it, a familiar tug met him. Hades pulled, clenched his teeth at the pressure spike against his eyes. The building shuddered. First it lurched to one side, then the other. Cracks shot through the plaster walls with a pop, dust falling in a gauzy sheet. The lights flickered. The chandelier overhead swung wildly.

Zeus tried to lunge, but he lost his footing in the earthquake. He tumbled into the window, bashing his head against the glass with a sickening thud. When he managed to look around again, Hades had disappeared.

Invisibility had never been pleasant, but Hades pushed one step at a time until he reached his brother. He struck first, a closed fist to the jaw, then twisted a hand in Zeus’s shirt and lifted him off his feet to pin him against the window.

Hades allowed himself to flicker back to reality. “Try it, and watch your world crumble around you.”

Anger and fear mixed in Zeus’s electric eyes, but eventually the fear won. He sagged against Hades’s hand.

Hades leaned in until he could smell the fresh toothpaste on Zeus’s breath. “You have two days to make the gates. Don’t make me find you again.”

He let go, and Zeus dropped into an undignified heap on the ground. Hades did not stay to hear the apologies sure to come, or worse, be bribed into forgetting the incident. He let himself flicker out of the visible spectrum once again, and stayed that way the entire journey home.