Chapter Text
It was barely five P.M., the middle of July, and yet, night had come early over the cottage at the dead end of the dirt road leading away from town. Although there were no neighbors for miles, the sky was wide open enough that somebody would spot the patch of midnight lingering over one specific home, which would inevitably lead to all kinds of weirdos coming by Zagreus' home only to have his mother explain away whatever was causing the disturbance.
That was what usually happened.
Although, he decided, leaning against the door of his truck and staring up at the stars, this was a little harder to explain than the usual questions over how Persephone could manage to make plants grow out of nothing.
There was a woman sitting next to his mother on the front porch, and she was the strangest person Zagreus had ever seen. Persephone had some odd friends, that much was certain, but Zag had never seen anybody dressed like a queen out of a fairy tale having a glass of lemonade on the porch.
When he approached, she stood, and the golden crown she wore nearly brushed the ceiling. If Zagreus stood beside her, he wouldn't even come up to her shoulder, and yet she was not intimidating. Her presence was gentle and even as she addressed him, she kept a hand on his mother's shoulder. "So. You must be Zagreus. It's a pleasure to finally get to meet you, my prince."
Reflexively, he laughed. "I'm not—no. I am Zagreus, but I'm not a prince. Hi. You must be a friend of my mother's?"
He'd been so distracted by this statuesque woman with her hair flowing even though there was hardly a breeze and her floor-length gown decorated with so many jewels and so much gold he wondered how it was at all comfortable, that he hadn't noticed the look on his mother's face. She was frowning, already a rare sight, and her face was pale under the tan she was already developing from spending so much time outside in the summer heat. She wouldn't look him in the eye. This was the most worrying detail of all.
"Zagreus, this is Nyx," she said, "and I think you had better sit down before we tell you what's going on."
"Just… out here? You're not worried about the weather?" He pointed off the porch at the sudden darkness that had descended like a curtain over the cottage.
"That, I'm afraid, is my doing," Nyx said, as if that was a totally normal thing to claim. His mother could sprout fully-grown plants out of empty soil, but that was… only a little supernatural. Certainly not an ability to bend the time of day. "I would have arrived after night had already fallen, to be less conspicuous, but I had to come as soon as I found out."
"Found what out?" Zagreus found himself tugged onto the porch bench by his mother, who really was insistent that he be seated for this.
He soon realized why, because Nyx announced: "your father is looking for you. To bring you back to the Underworld."
— — —
Long ago, there was a young woman who lived on Mount Olympus with her mother. Although her father, who had been a mortal, was now gone, she was happy to stay by her mother's side and spend time in the presence of her many relatives. It wasn't until she grew older that Olympus became stifling, her relatives often ending up in petty squabbles that she wanted no part of, and she longed to go to a place where life would be simpler.
She said as much to one of her mother's foster brothers, Zeus, the king of the gods and the ruler of the skies. He promised to help her escape, but he planned without her knowing, and when the time came it felt more as if she was being stolen away than escaping to greener pastures.
Although she had long admired Lord Hades of the Underworld, she knew that his domain was separate from the plane on which she lived, and she never expected to go there, unlike mortals who travel there when their time on this earth is done. Zeus had brought her to Hades, however, and Hades made her his queen. At first, she was afraid, but Hades was inclined to let her do as she liked, irritated that his brother thought he needed a queen and busy with all that required his attention in the Underworld.
She made many friends in the Underworld, including the goddess of the Night and her many children, and Hades' most loyal guardian, Cerberus. And eventually, she came to love Hades himself.
This is the part that you do not know, Zagreus.
The mortals say that Persephone's mother—my mother, Demeter, turned the world to ice and snow and would not allow a green thing to grow until her daughter was returned, and that her daughter split her time between the surface and the Underworld. It is an explanation of why we have winter and spring.
They would say that the story ends there. But that isn't quite true, because you're here.
There was a prophecy, given to us by the Fates, the three of Nyx's daughters responsible for the destinies of the mortals and the divine. They claimed that Hades, my husband, would never have an heir. Hades had no want for one, so the prophecy was inconsequential, that is, until I found out that I was with child.
It was the general consensus that there was no way the child would survive to be born. Hades would have no heir, that had been prophesied, and the Fates are never wrong.
But I knew you were alive, Zagreus, and I knew there had to be a way both to make the prophecy into truth and save my child. I knew that if I left Hades, and no longer ruled the Underworld as his queen, then my child would not be his heir and the prophecy would be fulfilled. I could be your mother, as I desperately wanted, and, I…
I left.
I couldn't return to Olympus, but I did let my mother know that I was alive. She deserved that much, and the mortals deserved that much, for the world truly was encased in ice at the time. You met her, once, as a baby. But I had to hide you away somewhere, and even the smallest village in the countryside of Greece was not far enough from the rest of the Olympians, who would want to be guiding influences over this new god.
And so, eighteen years ago, I came here. And I swear I never thought he would find you.
I'm so sorry, my son.
I wish I could do more to protect you.
— — —
Zagreus was dreaming. Or he'd crashed the truck on the way home and he was unconscious and this was his weird coma-vision, or something.
Or else, his mother had lost her mind.
And if his mother was insane, Zagreus was right there with her. There was a woman cloaking the house in night, after all. He had to be dreaming.
"Zagreus, please say something, you're looking at me like I've gone mad."
"Part of me thinks you may have! Mother, there's no way… those are stories, not—ugh. Dreaming. I'm dreaming. That's what I'm going with. I've decided it. There's no way." He stood, walking off the porch, hoping that if he got far enough away from the house and this weird bubble of night, he'd wake up, or else slip into another dream that wasn't so complicated. Maybe one of the ones about being a play you hadn't rehearsed for. Or teeth falling out. Even that would be preferable to this tangled mess of confusion.
"Zagreus, you have to listen—"
"I'm quite alright not doing that, Dream Mother, because while it's a fantastic tale and would perhaps make an interesting movie, there is no way it's the honest truth!" He shoved his hands in his pockets as he made his way down the path. At the end of the driveway, the sky was still light. He could get back to normalcy once he hit the main road.
He didn't reach the end of the driveway, however, because a being materialized directly in front of him, making him stumble backwards, tumbling onto his ass on the gravel driveway. His palms smarted where he'd reached out to catch himself, which…
He couldn't be dreaming if he'd managed to hurt himself, right?
The man who stood—no, floated—over him towered nearly as tall as Nyx, with white hair that fell to his waist. With the hooded cloak and the ridiculously enormous scythe, he looked very much like the grim reaper.
Or, if he went by the tales his mother had told him…
"Don't tell me. Thanatos?"
The man blinked, and Zagreus realized his eyes were bright gold, almost orange. "You're not as oblivious as I thought you were going to be." His voice wasn't quite as ethereal as Nyx's, almost like he could be just a regular person in a costume. Except for the floating.
Even stranger, he vanished in a flash of green light and reappeared on the porch before Zag's mother, bowing low and addressing her as "Lady Persephone."
Zagreus scrambled to his feet and followed Thanatos at a much less teleport-y speed. "This is all absolutely ridiculous!" he shouted, as he ran. "Are you honestly telling me I'm the son of a Greek god—I thought I was just born in Greece!"
"He's honestly taking this better than I thought," Mother said.
"This is better than you thought?" Thanatos asked.
"Does this make me a god!?" He paced back and forth before the porch steps, his usual bevy of energy running inordinately high. "Holy shit, Mother, I just graduated high school a month ago, and now I'm a god!?"
"Language, Zagreus."
Zagreus dragged both hands through his hair and groaned. "I think this is an apppropriate time for language."
Nyx looked as though she may have been hiding laughter behind one hand.
"Zagreus." This time, he found himself being addressed with Persephone's best 'you shouldn't have done that' voice, and he stopped short of another bout of ranting, his hands hanging uselessly in the air in front of him.
"Mother." This was nearly the same way they'd argued last week over whether he could get a motorcycle (no, far too dangerous) and last month over whether he could get a tattoo (all right, fine).
"Come with me."
She opened the front door of the house, and did not wait for him to follow.
He found her inside her bedroom, digging through the antique trunk she usually used to store all the blankets when it wasn't wintertime. Despite the heat, she dumped everything out, and Zagreus realized she was prying open a false bottom to the trunk, and pulling out a box that was hidden within.
It was the kind of thing you saw in a museum, encrusted with jewels and gold and embellished with a strange, two-pronged symbol that was familiar because of how often he'd seen his mother doodle it. His tattoo, which she had designed, even somewhat resembled this glyph.
"This was made for you by your father," she said, "if you had lived there, you likely would have worn it every day, but, well. It'd turn some heads, around here."
Zagreus lifted the lid of the box, and inside, sitting on a cushion of green velvet, was a wreath of leaves—laurels. They were coal-black, clearly not fresh greenery, but there was something alive about them, a pleasant, pulsating heat that matched the beat of his heart.
Zagreus brushed his fingers over one of the leaves, near the center where the laurel wreath was thickest, and the longer he looked at it, the less sooty the color appeared. It started to bleed red, a deep burgundy which spread out, licking across the surface of the leaves like spilled paint. "Mother, what…?" he asked, as the change in color continued to spread, becoming brighter toward the ends of the leaves, orange and then yellow.
Persephone watched him with her hands over her mouth. "I wasn't sure… after all these years, whether it would still react to you like this."
The warmth of the laurel wreath wasn't just a color, wasn't just a feeling, but a sound, too, crackling like sparks on a fire, even though the leaves were not consumed by flame. He set the box on the lid of the trunk, lifting the wreath out. "Should I… put it on?"
"If you would like, go ahead."
She looked at him with a strange sort of hope in her eyes, like Zagreus wearing the laurel would mean something, or prove something—and he was nothing if not willing to entertain his mother's hopes. He set it on his head gingerly, unaccustomed to wearing such an adornment, and as soon as it settled in place, a shower of sparks burst toward the ceiling, so voluminous Zagreus thought they might burn the place down until he realized they weren't really sparks after all.
They were leaves, fiery orange and red, and they settled to the carpet harmlessly, still glinting where they sat.
At first, he thought his mother's little noise of shock had been at the eruption of leaves, but he soon realized she was not looking at them, but straight at him instead. She pointed to the mirror hung over her armoire. "Zagreus, look."
She had been looking, Zagreus realized, at his eyes.
He'd always had one red eye, one green. A rare form of heterochromia, his mother told him, albinism in one eye, unusual but not abnormal. That had been another untruth, or perhaps a half-truth. It certainly was a rare genetic trait.
As he set the mark of his own godhood upon his head, his right eye had changed, the white of it gone black as the pupil.
He blinked at himself in the mirror, turning his face this way and that, examining. He felt no different, but the color itself was unnerving—when Zagreus glanced at only the right side of his face he looked like a different person, the blackness sharpening his other features. His dark eyelashes faded into his sclera so that the softness they gave his face was hidden. The red of his eye glowed brighter, matching the red of the laurel that burned against the dark of his hair.
He knew, before his mother said a word, that it was his father's eye which looked back at him.
— — —
"Your father," Thanatos said, wasting no time after being told that Zagreus had calmed down and was beginning to accept the strange world he was finding himself pushed into, "is already sending wretches from the Underworld after you. It's too dangerous for you to stay in one place—"
"I'm not just going to up and leave home." Zagreus stood in the middle of the living room, because Thanatos wouldn't take a seat. He continued to float in midair, and Zagreus felt the distinct need to remain on his feet to challenge the looming Thanatos, even though his five-feet-seven-inches felt rather lacking. "Mother needs me around here."
Mother had gone to take the dog on a walk, and had brought Nyx with her, even though Nyx didn't seem like much of a dog person. Kirby, the unidentifiable mutt Zagreus had picked up from god-knows-where five years ago, was sweet enough to make anybody into a dog person, though.
"Let me put it this way." Thanatos folded his arms as if settling in for an argument. "If you stay here, Lord Hades will not find only you. He will also find your mother, who has made it abundantly clear she does not want her husband to find her. Are you planning on allowing him to do so?"
"Of course not!" Zagreus was pacing now, even though the living room didn't have quite enough space for it. He jammed his shin against the coffee table. Out of the corner of his eye, back to its usual red now that he'd put the laurel back in its box for safekeeping, he caught Thanatos shaking his head.
"So. The solution."
"Olympus," Zagreus said. Nyx had been the one to explain to him that the safest place for him to be right now was in the presence of his Olympian relatives. His mother didn't get along with them, but it was better than Zagreus becoming trapped in the Underworld for eternity, which was what he'd been promised would happen if Hades caught him. "What's the difference between living on a mountain with my aunts and uncles forever and living underground with my father forever?"
"Olympus won't be permanent. Once your father's ire has calmed, and Nyx has convinced him to let you remain on the surface, you can return to… this place." His nose wrinkled as though he wasn't sure why Zagreus would want to.
He kind of got that. Iowa was boring as hell.
Living underground or on a mountaintop both seemed equally boring, though, and neither of those places would have his mother or his dog or his friends.
(Not that home would have his friends, either. They were all moving off to their out-of-state colleges come September, while Zagreus was taking a gap year. It was going to be a very strange gap year.)
"So, I'm going to Greece." The boarding pass for his flight was already on the coffee table, having been procured by Nyx or Thanatos or his mother. He didn't like that it said 'one-way'.
Thanatos simply nodded. He tracked every step Zagreus took, his orangey-gold eyes following him back and forth, back and forth, like a cat looking at a laser pointer. Zagreus was half-expecting him to pounce at any time. "Mother asked me to escort you to the airport. She said there was a chance your father could attack, and that I am to keep his wretches at bay."
"Hate to have them kidnap me and drag me to the Underworld. Thanks, mate."
"Oh, they won't kidnap you," Thanatos said, a hint of a smile to his voice, "they'll just kill you. Much faster."
Zagreus ran into the coffee table again.
— — —
"I'm so sorry, Zagreus," his mother said again as she hugged him tight in the middle of the driveway. Apparently, 'you have to go to Greece' meant 'you have to go now,' and so Zagreus had packed whatever wasn't in his dirty clothes hamper into a duffel bag that he'd unceremoniously shoved into the backseat of his truck.
"I'll be alright, Mother." There was no way of knowing that, he thought, but it would be best to tell her so. Even if the look in her eyes said she didn't totally believe it either.
The door to the house swung open and then shut again, and Persephone let Zagreus go, the both of them turning to see Thanatos actually walking down the stairs instead of floating this time, looking vastly different.
Zagreus wasn't sure how Thanatos had managed a metamorphosis in under twenty minutes. Gone were the flowing robes, the waist-length hair, the enormous scythe. Instead, Thanatos was dressed in a leather jacket, with golden wings embroidered down the shoulder where he used to have a winged ornament Zagreus couldn't entirely discern the purpose of. The rest of his ensemble had been exchanged for dark jeans and combat boots, and a T-shirt with a pattern that resembled the elaborate neck-piece he'd been wearing before.
"What," he said to Zagreus, as if it was perfectly normal for someone to go from looking like a god to looking like an ordinary, if very fashionable, human man.
"You looked better with your hair long," Zagreus remarked.
Thanatos replied with a very heartfelt, "ugh." He then teleported himself inside the truck.
Nyx floated after him, still looking every inch a goddess, her presence no less intimidating even though the sky had all gone dark and her patch of nighttime no longer stood out. She folded her hands and looked between Thanatos sitting in the passenger seat of the truck, and Zagreus. "I know the two of you will not have to spend too much time together, but please do try to get along," she said. "You're more alike than you think."
It didn't feel appropriate to argue with her, even though they didn't seem even a little bit alike.
"I'll do my best," he said instead.
He didn't actually say 'goodbye' to his mother, because actually getting the word out was a step too close in the 'dissolving into tears' direction for him. He did hug her again, so tight he accidentally crushed the lilacs she had woven into her hair.
The scent stayed with him until he reached the highway.
— — —
There were three exits until the one he needed to take to get to the airport. Zagreus had been counting them down for six miles, now, because otherwise, he'd lose himself in his thoughts and miss his turn. So. Three. If he missed his turn, he'd miss his flight. As it were, he was already cutting it close.
Two.
Was he supposed to be taking the A exit or the B one?
Before he could even glance at his GPS, he had to come to an abrupt stop, because, for the fourth? fifth? time that day, something impossible and supernatural was happening in his vicinity.
A glowing sigil burned into the asphalt before him, full of strange symbols he didn't recognize, and then another appeared beside it, and another, until there were four of them lighting up the otherwise-empty freeway. Thanatos put a hand out, across Zagreus' chest.
"Blood and darkness," he spat, like a curse, "they're already here. I didn't think—"
Silhouettes of hulking figures appeared within the confines of each sigil, and Thanatos, rather than doing something sensible and perhaps allowing Zagreus to back away, opened the door.
Zagreus threw the truck into park. "Hey, wait!"
"Stay in the car!" Thanatos said, before Zagreus had so much as set foot on the road. "I can take care of them. Stay back and let me."
Zagreus wasn't without a weapon, of course. His mother had given him Exagryph for his sixteenth birthday, and although he didn't make it out to the range as much as he'd like, he knew he was a good shot with the pistol. It was currently strapped into holster he never really wore, sitting in the glove box of. He'd been concerned when she first urged him to take it with him—it wasn't like he'd get a gun on the plane, Mother, and what was he to do with it otherwise? Just leave it in the truck until he got back? Give it to Death for safekeeping?
Now, he was glad she'd convinced him.
Thanatos, it appeared, was without a weapon as he approached the four figures, which had turned monstrous, great beasts dragged from below the earth.
He didn't seem to need one. Thanatos simply raised his hand and another sigil appeared on the ground, this one black as the night Nyx had spread across the early-evening sky, ringed with violet and large enough to trap three out of the four monsters. It shone there for just a moment, and then it vanished, taking the creatures with it, as though pulling them back to the Underworld from whence they came.
The fourth was advancing on him. Zagreus lifted Exagryph, realized it was much harder to steady his aim when his heart wouldn't stop pounding and fear made his throat constrict. Before he could even take a shot, Thanatos whirled around to face the monster, pulling not his scythe, but a sword out of thin air and driving it into the heart of the beast with seemingly little effort. Zagreus' hair stood on end just watching him.
There was a soft, hissing sound from behind him and Thanatos turned, looking over Zagreus' head. "Get back in the damn car!" he shouted, blinking across the highway in a flash of green.
Zagreus whipped around to watch Thanatos, as more monsters appeared from the opposite direction. There were six this time, and two of them were bigger, and moved much faster than the others had, rushing Thanatos before he had a chance to manifest his sigil on the ground.
Zagreus stepped out of the truck, put his feet on solid ground. Breathed. Aimed steadier this time.
A single shot from Exagryph was enough to take out one of the beasts, allowing Thanatos to focus his attention on the others. It became difficult to aim around him, Thanatos darting too fast and too unpredictably for Zagreus to be reasonably certain he wouldn't hit him.
A flash of movement in his peripheral drew Zagreus attention, and he caught sight of a creature even stranger than the enormous, orange-skinned monsters that were rushing Than.
It was a single, floating, disembodied hand, and it was ever-steadily approaching him, holding a thick length of chain.
If he'd noticed it sooner, he probably could have avoided it.
He hadn't noticed it sooner.
"Than—!" Zagreus lunged forward, trying to get out of the way, but the chain wrapped around him like a living being, like it was as much a part of this monster as its fingers were, drawing tighter as he struggled. He was pulled backward, almost off his feet. This certainly felt like an attempt to drag him to hell.
For a moment, he thought the pit opening beneath him was the entrance into the Underworld, but he realized it was the same dark sigil Thanatos had used to dispatch the other monsters. Zagreus stilled—struggling only made the chains tighter—and squeezed his eyes shut, hoping that Thanatos' magic wouldn't destroy Zagreus as easily as it'd taken out those other creatures. A rush of cold ran through him as it activated, and then Zagreus pitched forward, no longer held back by inescapable lengths of metal, falling to his knees on what, now, looked like an ordinary stretch of road.
Thanatos grasped him by his bicep, pulling him easily to his feet with godly strength. "I told you," he hissed through his teeth, hauling Zagreus backward until his shoulders were pressed to the side of the truck, Thanatos pinning him there, "to stay in the car."
"Still got in one good shot, at least, didn't I?" he said, gesturing weakly with Exagryph, still clutched in his hand, which shook.
"You could have died. You don't know how to fight those wretches, how to predict the patterns in which they move." Thanatos shook his head. "I can't leave you alone. Are you hurt?"
Zagreus shook his head. He was bruised, sure, but it was nothing that needed attention.
"Good. Get in the car. We're switching to plan B."
"Plan—what about my flight!?"
"You can't make it in time for that, I'm sure." Thanatos shoved him toward the still-open car door. "And I can't let you go alone. It's too dangerous. Drive. East. I can't let you get on a plane without me, but I can get you to your other uncle's domain." He groaned, irritated either with himself, with Zagreus, or with the scenario as a whole. "Even if it's going to take significantly longer."
"What," Zagreus said, slamming the door behind himself and refusing to drive until he got an explanation, "do you mean?"
Thanatos had once again teleported into the passenger seat. "I mean, your uncle Poseidon. We have to get you to the ocean, Zagreus. Before your father kills you."
"Well, alright. I'd really like it if he didn't kill me, yeah."
— — —
Dull fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, Thanatos was looking around like they'd be attacked again at any moment, and Zagreus was frankly appalled by the lack of variety in snacks this gas station convenience store had on offer.
"You know, ordinarily, I'd enjoy the idea of a road trip. If it didn't involve running for our lives, that is."
Thanatos stuck close to Zagreus as he meandered through the store, making little irritated scoffs like this entire detour was unnecessary. This, of course was wrong, Zagreus would need some snacks if he meant to drive through the night. He wasn't bothered much by weariness on the road, but hunger was another matter entirely.
"What is all of this?" Thanatos asked, looking at the various items Zagreus was picking up. "I wouldn't think you'd need to eat."
"It seems I've made a habit of it," Zagreus said, his mind too stuffed full with strangeness to accept the fact that Thanatos had just admitted his surprise at Zagreus' need to eat. "Do you not?"
"No. Not usually."
"I'm making you try all my snacks, then," Zagreus decided, heading for the cooler to determine which flavor of soda would most offend the palate of a god. Mtn Dew, probably, but he couldn't stand caffiene.
Thanatos also did not understand the necessity of putting gas in a vehicle to make it drive. He just wrinkled his nose at the smell of it and actually opened the door to get inside, since there were two other cars parked nearby and plenty of people about who wouldn't react well to seeing a man teleport.
Zagreus hopped back into the driver's seat once the tank was full and tore open a bag of Doritos. "I told you we wouldn't get attacked during a five-minute break," he said. "Here." He extended a chip to Thanatos, who made the same face he'd made when he smelled gasoline.
"I'm not going to eat that."
"Just try it! You're in the human world now, or whatever, enjoy it while you're here!"
Thanatos took it, covering his mouth while he chewed and looking increasingly disgusted. "This is awful." He looked at the label on the bag. "'Cool Ranch'? Is there a 'Hot Ranch' somewhere, and is it less horrid?"
"I had not considered the possibilities of Hot Ranch," Zagreus admitted. He reached for the bag—more for him, if Thanatos didn't like them. He'd already done some quick configuring with his phone to determine the closest ocean access (East Coast, obviously, near New York), and he plugged his phone in so that the GPS wouldn't kill it dead right away. He'd rather crash his truck than drive in silence, so he plugged the aux cord in, too.
"Your music is terrible," Thanatos said, before they even reached the highway.
"Don't pretend I didn't just see you stealing a gummy shark."
"The gummy sharks are also terrible." Thanatos sighed, leaning back against the headrest. "I can't believe mortals have to put so much time into just getting somewhere."
"At least traffic slows down late at night," Zagreus said, "we won't have to worry about getting held up. According to this—" he lifted his phone and showed Thanatos the screen, "—we'll be seaside by tomorrow. Doesn't seem too hard."
Thanatos closed his eyes, and it made him look a little less unsettling, a little more human. Zagreus wasn't sure if he liked him better unsettling. "Don't tempt your father to make it harder on you," he said.
Zagreus laughed. "He can try."
He did try. Zagreus was singing along to his, quote, terrible and far too loud music when another monster came after them, this one immediately different than their last encounter. It was more human-like, for one, human-looking enough that Zagreus slammed on the brakes, unsure why somebody was standng in the middle of the highway and terrified of hitting them. As it turned out, he didn't need to worry, because the unfortunate person he nearly ran down turned out to have wings, and leapt into the air before Zagreus would have hit them. It would have been cool, if they hadn't landed straight on the hood of his truck, a heavy enough fall to dent it in and send a plume of smoke billowing from the engine like an ominous portent of 'your car is not going to be drivable after this'. "What the hell!" Zagreus screeched.
"Oh, great," Thanatos sighed, much less impressed. "Will you stay in the car this time?" he asked Zagreus.
"No, I don't think I will!" He was already putting it into park, turning the car off so the engine didn't catch on fire or explode, hoping that if anybody was speeding along this highway at night, they'd realize there was somebody just sitting in the fast lane because some kind of batman had landed on their car and probably totaled it.
Batwoman he realized after a second, when the newest denizen of the Underworld he met stepped into the light of the nearest streetlamp.
She was head and shoulders taller than Zagreus, with one huge bat-like wing shadowing half her face and what was probably some kind of weapon clutched in one hand. He couldn't exactly make out her expression, but from the way she stood, back straight and free hand on her hip, she didn't seem pleased.
"So, Lord Hades roped you into all this, too?" Thanatos asked. He held his sword, but his grip was loose, like he intended on conversing instead of jumping straight into battle. Zagreus had tucked Exagryph into the waistband of his jeans, and kept a hand on the pistol just in case. As if his draw would be faster than this woman moved.
"And I see Nyx drafted you into joining the other side of the fight. Should have figured." Her voice was a rasp, barely above a whisper, like she knew she didn't have to shout to be heard. A somewhat confusing chill ran up Zagreus' spine. She was quite beautiful, if strange.
"I suggest you be on your way, Megaera. I'd rather not have to dispatch you."
"As if you could." She unspooled what turned out to be a whip made of braided cords, so bright pink Zagreus could see it even in the darkness, and she leapt into the air, twisting around and showing off the reverse of her wing, which was just as pink. "I recommend you come with me, Prince Zagreus. You won't like who he sends next."
That particular threat caused Thanatos to make a little growling noise. "Really? He called up all three of you?"
"Amazing what finding a long-lost Prince of the Underworld will do to bring a family together. Or, not really. I'm still working solo."
Thanatos disappeared and reappeared directly in front of Zagreus. "Run," he said. "Do whatever you can to stay away from her while I take her out. She's a lot more dangerous than a swarm of wretches."
Megaera didn't have anything more to say, choosing to strike instead. She moved almost as fast as Thanatos teleporting, leaping the span of a few yards between them in a single bound. Zagreus was already running, but he had to work hard to get out of her way. It was easier for Thanatos to dodge; she hadn't been aiming for him.
Thanatos' wide circle of darkness appeared below them again, and Zagreus hopped over the highway divider, hoping he could crouch down there and get a better shot at her. Megaera was forced to back away to avoid being caught caught in Thanatos' sigil, but the way she moved made one thing obvious: he was never going to get her with that.
"I meant what I said, Meg! I don't want to hurt you!"
"That's boring of you, Than." When she cried out and spun her whip in a circle, a volley of purple lights burst from her, forcing Thanatos to take flight and Zagreus to abandon trying to aim at her. He ducked out of the way of her attack but still didn't manage to fully avoid it, one of the sparks of energy striking him across the cheek and another across the shoulder, both burning like an electrical shock.
Megaera may have forced him back, but she was still coming in his direction and he could take aim as long as he was fast enough.
Zagreus was crouched down when he saw her leap across the divider, a flash of brightness as she struck at the same time he fired. Exagryph was knocked from his hand with a swift strike of her whip, skittering across the pavement and out of his reach. His shot went way off course.
He made to sprint for his weapon, but she was leagues faster than Zagreus and struck again before he could so much as scramble to grab it, knocking him off his feet and sending him sprawling.
Well, he thought, as she pulled back to strike again while her target was down, if he was going to be killed by anybody, she seemed to be a worthy opponent at least. He shut his eyes, gritted his teeth, holding a hand up as if blocking his face from her strike would do anything to help him, and…
It never came.
When Zagreus opened his eyes, Thanatos was standing over him, the enormous blade of his sword skewered through her torso and pushing further.
"Thought you didn't want to hurt me," she said, the words coming out choked, as Thanatos drew the blade back. The blood on it was a weird blackish-blue, and he frowned at it.
"It seems you've forced my hand. Tell Hypnos I said hello."
A splash of bright red appeared beneath Megara's feet, and she slumped forward like a doll as she sank into it, back down, Zagreus assumed, to the Underworld. It looked as though she was descending into a pool of blood, far more gruesome than what had had happened to the other wretches they'd fought.
Even when it disappeared and left them standing in an ordinary spot of highway, Zagreus stared at the place she'd sunk into.
"I'm sorry," he said, not sure if he was speaking to Thanatos or to her.
Thanatos was less perturbed by what had happened to their adversary, and simply stood there with his arms crossed, his sword having vanished to wherever it went while he wasn't fighting. Zagreus assumed this meant the danger had, at least somewhat, passed them by. "We really need to teach you how to defend yourself better," he said, and Zagreus couldn't help but agree. He was a good shot, but being able to aim at a target didn't translate perfectly to being able to aim at a winged woman who was trying to kill you with a whip.
Speaking of… where was Exagryph.
Zagreus turned in the direction it had been whacked in when Megara hit his hand, and found that not only was his gun right in front of his face, it was being held out handle-first like an offering by a man who looked almost as strange as Thanatos and Nyx did, and therefore was probably a god.
"Hey there, coz! Think you might have dropped something. Also think you might want to get out of the road, yeah?"
"Uh… yeah." Zagreus took his weapon and then took the hand extended to him as the newcomer pulled him to his feet. He was dressed all in orange and had… wings on his head? Oh. Hermes. Zagreus knew enough to draw that particular association. "Thank you, but I don't know if we'll exactly be able to get out of the road until we, I dunno, call for a tow."
Hermes laughed, bounding over the highway divider and hovering before the hood of the car, still smoking from Megara crushing it. "C'mon, you don't think the god of travel is appearing to you for no reason, right? Do you know how busy my schedule is!? I had to make time to help out my mysterious new cousin, though. And you, of course, Thanatos. Your brother says hi, by the way. Or, actually, he said huaaaagh but I think that meant 'my dearest professional associate, please do tell Thanatos I say hi'. So, Charon says hi."
He gave this entire tirade while darting around the truck, popping inside to open the hood, and then rattling around in the general area of the engine in a way Zagreus thought was more likely to further damage the vehicle.
Thanatos didn't respond to the comment about his brother with anything aside from a nod, which Hermes either seemed to sense or not care about, because he kept going.
"Tragically, this may take a while. I suggest you gents take a rest in the back while you can, as it turns out, some people do need to slow down at times. Who would have thought! Not me, certainly." He was banging around even louder in there now, and if Zagreus continued to watch what he was doing, he'd be stressed beyond belief, so he agreed to Hermes' terms and hopped into the truckbed, trying to ignore the clattering from the front end.
Thanatos, to his surprise, joined him, floating into the truckbed beside him and settling with his back to the cab beside Zagreus. "Are you…" he began, and then cut himself off, staring at the sky above as if fumbling for words. "Are you all right?"
"This smarts a bit," he said, gesturing to the mark on his cheek where the little ball of magic or energy or whatever it had been had collided with him. "Who was that woman?"
"Megaera. She's the first of the Furies, usually employed by your father to torment the souls of those who do something especially egregious in life. Oathbreakers are her specialty."
"And now she's tormenting me." Zagreus knew the title but not the specifics, had never connected a Fury with a living person who was especially intent on his demise.
Thanatos nodded.
"You seemed like you knew her?"
"I do. We were raised together, along with my twin brother and her sisters—although her sisters have been banned from the House of Hades, so I don't see them often." He drew his leg up, leaning his chin on his knee, his wrists loosely crossed over his ankle. "I can only hope she was lying about them coming after us."
"You brother, the one Hermes was talking about?"
Thanatos rolled his head to the side so he could look at Zagreus, his hair scattering shadows over his face. "No, Hermes is talking about my eldest brother, Charon. My twin is Hypnos, sleep incarnate in the same way I am death. I have… a lot of siblings. The Fates are my sisters, and then there's Nemesis and Eris… blood and darkness, however did Mother Nyx keep track of us all?"
"Must make for some interesting family reunions." Zagreus picked at a loose thread at the hem of his jeans, watching headlights appear in the distance and then fade as cars passed them. None of them seemed to slow to catch a glimpse of the floating god doing some intense mechanical repairs.
"You may be surprised to learn that we don't have many of those. I think they're more common on Olympus, though. Your cousin Dionysus will probably hold a feast for the ages when you get there."
Zagreus tipped his head back, the coolness of the glass on the rear window seeping into his scalp. "I doubt they'll be pleased with having to watch over me," he said.
"They'll be thrilled," Thanatos said, "you're valuable. Nobody knows what you're the god of, yet, but considering that you're the son of Hades and Persephone, and the grandson of Demeter, you're bound to be something quite powerful."
So far, the only supernatural abilities he'd demonstrated had been being able to make a laurel wreath light up and having one eye that sometimes turned black. "I don't think I'm the god of anything," he admitted. "Certainly not something as powerful as you. I mean, Death? You must be one of the strongest ones out there."
It got a laugh out of Thanatos, and Zagreus' gaze immediately dropped to see if he could catch the smile on his face. It had faded by the time he caught Thanatos' eye, though. "Olympus doesn't pay me much mind. I only deal with mortal affairs, of course, and they are beyond that. they're only bothered when the mortals stop dying or die too quickly, although the latter is usually Ares' fault."
Zagreus watched the stars above them for a while, even though they were dimmed slightly by the streetlights and the proximity to civilization. It was a clear night, a bright moon, as if Thanatos' mother had wanted to give him the best chance of making his journey as she could. "Well, they're idiots, then, aren't they? You took that Fury out in one hit, I mean, I wouldn't want to get in a fight with you."
"So, stop trying to get me to eat your terrible road trip snacks, then."
"You wouldn't stab me. You like me too much."
"That's entirely untrue. I wouldn't stab you because I am obedient to my mother and to the Queen."
"And because you like me. Because we're friends."
"We're not—"
"I'm friends with Death, everybody, that's right," Zagreus said, as if he was announcing the news to the world. "Yes, you would not believe, he likes me so much he saved my life from a very angry blue woman—"
There was a thump on the roof of the truck as Hermes landed above them, poking his head down between Thanatos' and Zag's. "Hey, boss, if you're done flirting with Death, I'd like to announce that there's been a tragic accident done unto your car by that Fury, really just awful."
"You can't get it working?" Zagreus hopped out of the bed and raced around to the front of the truck, which was actually looking better in that it was no longer smoking and the dent in the hood was somewhat less extreme.
Hermes drifted above him, slumping over in midair as if he was languishing on some kind of fancy old fainting couch. Zagreus could appreciate the drama of it. "No, no, even worse. I can't get it to go faster."
"That's fine, Hermes," Thanatos grumbled, joining them and observing the hood of the car as though he could appraise it even though he hadn't known what gasoline was up until a few hours ago.
"You won't be able to drive it on the highway, though! You'll be going so slow, I wish I could give you a boon to make you faster, but that works alright for a person running and very badly for a vehicle on account of the whole stopping thing."
"How fast can we get it going?"
Hermes made a face like he'd tasted something sour when he admitted, "maybe fifty miles per hour, maximum? Ugh. Terribly slow. Glacial, even."
"So, we take the long way. How much does that add to the trip?" Thanatos asked, teleporting in and out of the truck to grab Zagreus' phone for him. He worried for a moment, but the phone seemed none the worse for wear for being teleported. They'd originally had fourteen hours left, which seemed like a slog, but…
"Twenty-four hours of driving. Oh. Wow. Alright, then, I suppose we'd best get going before we get attacked and slowed down even more," Zagreus said. He was already feeling the exhaustion creeping in, probably because of the fight they'd gotten themselves into, and Thanatos couldn't get behind the wheel.
"I suppose I ought to tell Dionysus you'll be late," Hermes sighed. "My deepest apologies, coz, I hope to see you later. On Olympus, that is; I've got a bet running with Charon that you'll make it there, you know, rather than being sent down below."
"You're betting on—" Thanatos sounded particularly scandalized on Zagreus' behalf.
"Of course we are! Later, gents, I'm off!" With that, he was off, zipping away into the dark so fast Zagreus hardly saw him go, almost mocking the fact that they were going to take twenty-four hours of driving time to reach their destination.
Despite the fact that it had never, ever done anything except make him anxious, Zagreus sort of wanted a coffee.
— — —
Zagreus only realized what Hermes had meant by I'll tell Dionysus you'll be late when, at around five in the morning, Thanatos told Zagreus to pull into a parking lot apropos of absolutely nothing. It was a strip mall, with a nail salon, a defunct grocery store, and a liquor store, which Thanatos started walking toward as soon as Zagreus parked. There was no way it was open; the parking lot was empty except for Zagreus' truck, but Thanatos just teleported inside the building and unlocked the door.
"What are you waiting for? Get inside," he ordered, like he did casual burglary every Tuesday.
"You can't just! Than!"
"Come on, it's fine," he said, still holding the door open.
Despite the fact that there had been no breaking, only entering, Zagreus still felt a creeping sensation of wrongness as they walked in. That feeling may have also had something to do with the fact that he was still a few years underage and had never really been into that whole 'get a fake ID so you can get drunk at high school parties' thing. Running cross country while hungover had always sounded like hell to Zagreus, and with their meets scheduled for Saturday mornings, Friday nights were basically out. Plus, he had no idea where you even got a fake ID.
The lights were all shut off inside the shop, except for the bluish-white ones illuminating the cooler on the far side of the wall, and the red neon sign that labeled the door next to the coolers as the "BEER CAVE."
Zagreus had no desire to go inside anywhere called a "BEER CAVE," but that's where Thanatos was headed, and like a duckling in a row, Zagreus followed him.
He wasn't certain what he was expecting to be inside, but it wasn't this.
A few dozen packages of beer had been stacked up inside to resemble a throne, upon which was the strangest man Zagreus had ever seen. The purple hair would have been weird enough—at least, Zagreus thought it was purple, it was hard to tell in the weird blue cooler-light—but he'd also elected to dress in a lot of leopard print and more bright purple. Combined with the fact that he was lounging on a throne made of beer, the whole atmosphere made him look like some kind of king of alcohol. He was holding a bottle of wine, which he gestured to Thanatos with, and announced in a voice a bit blurred around the edges:
"You're quite late. I've had to hang out here, drinking all this stuff, and it is not good, I'll tell you. Not good at all. What are these humans doing with my gifts, honestly? I ought to come down here for a while and help them sort it out."
Were there… grapes in his hair?
"Dionysus." Thanatos was a little more stiff with him than he'd been with Hermes, despite Dionysus' lazy attitude feeling much more comfortable than Hermes' frenetic way of speaking.
"Oh, and heeey, you must be Zag! Good to meet you, man." He gestured widely as if he was welcoming Zagreus to a palace and not a beer cooler. "I am, as Thanatos has introduced me, Dionysus, the god of wine and your favorite cousin, shhh, I know you haven't met them all yet, but I'm definitely your favorite, alright?"
"Sure," Zagreus said, because it felt best to agree. "It's good to meet you."
"Of course, of course, come, hang out, have a drink." He offered Zagreus the bottle of wine, and Zagreus examined it. There was a nondescript picture of a vineyard on the front, and Dionysus had pronounced it 'not good at all,' so he wasn't sure how much he wanted to follow Dionysus' suggestion.
Luckily, Thanatos stepped it, snatching the bottle and setting it out of reach. "We're on a bit of a time limit, Dionysus. And Zagreus isn't of legal drinking age, according to that sign right over your head. And he's about to drive a car, which that other sign says not to do while intoxicated."
"You're no fun, Thanatos, you ought to lighten up from time to time, stop listening to what signs tell you to do." The bottle of wine floated back into Dionysus' hand, and he drank from it, then looked at it with deep disappointment. "Ah, well. I'll give you the good stuff when you get to Olympus, Zag. For now, I'll help you out in getting there. May I see that weapon of yours?"
Zagreus handed over Exagryph, triple-checking the safety and wondering if he should have unloaded it before handing it to somebody who was likely drunk.
Dionysus whistled as he examined the pistol, turning it from side to side. "Looks different, but it sure is the same one Hestia used. I can give it a little bit more a punch, though, if you like?"
"I suppose so?"
The flash of purple light made Zagreus flinch, even though it wasn't quite the same shade as the projectiles Megara had fired at him. Dionysus handed it back, grinning widely at him. "This'll do. Hit somebody with that, man, they'll be feeling it for hours. Hangover like you would not believe."
"Seems useful. Thanks, mate." Exagryph didn't look any different, but there was a feeling in it, like if Zagreus concentrated hard enough he could sense something bubbly inside.
"You are so welcome. Now, when you get to Olympus—"
"Dionysus. Who should we be expecting next?"
Dionysus sighed, glaring at Thanatos with sharpness that was unexpected from somebody so tipsy. "I dunno, man. Aphrodite's around. Artemis, too, if you can believe it. I'm sure she's in the woods somewhere. But nobody told me exactly where you'd find them. I expect they'll come to you."
Zagreus could see Thanatos' jaw clench. "Alright. We've got to go, if you don't have anything helpful to say. Come on, Zagreus."
"This is why nobody invites you to feasts, man! I mean it, lighten up!"
The bell above the front door of the shop rang out cheerfully as Thanatos grumbled his way to the car. He actually opened the door this time, if only so that he could slam it behind himself.
"So, I take it you don't like to party?" Zagreus was mostly successful at not bursting into hysterical laughter at the look on Thanatos' face, like a grumpy little cat.
Thanatos refused to answer, which was answer enough, Zagreus supposed.
"Hey, what do you think the owner of that shop's gonna do when they come in tomorrow morning and find some guy drunk in their cooler on a throne made of beer?"
"Probably call the authorities."
Zagreus pictured it and shoved a hand over his face to hide his laughter. "He'll just tell them their wine is bad."
"Don't laugh, he's your cousin."
"Pfft. You're laughing too, Than."
"I certainly am not."
He was.
Zagreus pulled out of the parking lot, wishing the owner of the liquor store much luck in their godly interactions to come.