Hermes turned to the others. “Come, come,” he called. “Stop dragging your feet. Koalemos was a clever choice, but Mr. Croft won fair and square, and now we must all heed the agreement.”

  It had been a clever choice. It also explained why they had stipulated no spells or potions. The instant one of my raw invocations contacted Koalemos, I inherited his stupidity and he my intelligence.

  Hermes took the chaplet from me and replaced it around Koalemos’s neck. He then snapped his fingers in front of the god’s face. The god of stupidity blinked his eyes open and squinted around.

  “Whoa, what is this place?” he asked with a lazy smile.

  “Home, for now,” Hermes replied, then addressed himself to the approaching beings. “Though you came up short, there is only one way to conclude a contest, and that is with feasting. Come, let’s put these ill feelings behind us. Allow me to lavish you with New York’s version of ambrosia and nectar.”

  Koalemos chuckled as he stood and knotted the sleeves of his hoodie around his waist. “I could totally go for that.”

  The prospect of food seemed to lift the others’ moods, too.

  “Hey, you promised me information,” I reminded Hermes.

  “Yes, yes, but let’s get them settled first, hmm? Then I have much to tell you. So much to tell you.” Mischievous light glimmered in his eyes.

  “Can’t wait,” I muttered.

  7

  As we left the park, currents of Hermes’s green-tinged magic swirled around us, cleaning up the debris and restoring fences, equipment, and buildings to their pre-brawl states. By the time we descended to the street, the block looked banged up but typical of the city. Detective Hoffman was leaning against one of the cement columns at Rizo’s Storage. He pocketed his phone and limped forward to meet us.

  “Everything cool?” he asked.

  He eyed the mythic beings warily, which was only natural. How often did you see a centaur trotting alongside a seven-foot-tall woman? But his gaze lingered on Hermes, whom he’d only known to that point as Alec.

  I knew the feeling. Same body, but clearly a different being.

  “Yeah, it is now,” I replied, deciding to spare Hoffman my doubts.

  “Just so long as we don’t have to deploy half the department again,” he grumbled, then turned toward the transport van. “I had ’em drive up like you asked. Need any help transferring him?”

  Adding Arimanius to the mix had been Hermes’s idea, one I preferred to storing him in my basement, frankly. I just hoped his unhealthy obsession with comedy wouldn’t trigger another knock-down, drag-out with the others.

  “We’re good,” I said. “Go home and get some rest.”

  Hoffman nodded in obvious relief—not only for the break, but for the excuse to leave a scene that was well outside his comfort zone. “I’ll tell the department they can release the traffic. Call me if you need anything.” He stopped and reconsidered. “Better yet, give me a few hours, then call if you need anything.”

  I smiled. “Will do.”

  He clapped my shoulder, gave Madge the Amazon a final up and down, and signaled to the van driver to open the rear holding area.

  Mr. Funny sat slumped in his seat, still muttering out comedic bits—and still without any sense of timing or understanding. I released him from the warded restraints and helped him down. He continued to mutter as I led him to where Hermes was surveying the blown-out metal doors to the storage building.

  “And what happened here?” he was asking the others.

  The beings glanced at one another guiltily before Madge spoke up. “Phrixus told Priapus that I was smelling up the joint, that I needed a bath. As if he’s one to talk. Shouldn’t he be in a stable?”

  “I never said that!” Phrixus shouted.

  “The nymphs are spreading rumors again,” Priapus put in, adjusting his pants.

  “No we aren’t!” Comet cried. “We heard him!” Ivy added.

  “Then you heard wrong!” the centaur thundered, balling up his fists.

  Koalemos, who’d lost whatever intelligence he’d siphoned from me, could only watch with a gaping mouth. But before the argument spiraled out of control, Hermes sliced a hand through the air.

  “You failed the test,” he snapped. “All of you. As a result, you’ve agreed to put this silliness behind you.” He stared each Greek into submission, even Arimanius, who ceased muttering and looked over at me worriedly.

  “That’s better,” Hermes said, his taut expression relaxing out again. “You have a new roommate. Everyone, this is Arimanius, a god of darkness and vermin. Go on, introduce yourselves.”

  If the others were upset at having to share their space, they didn’t dare show it. They greeted him in turn.

  Mr. Funny regarded them somberly. “Do any of you do standup?”

  “There will be time for that later,” Hermes said. “Now we feast!”

  He restored the ruined doors with the snap of his fingers and skipped his way up a ramp. The gods followed eagerly. Even Arimanius seemed to discover a small bounce in his step. The ramp led onto a corridor lined with large storage units.

  No wonder they became unruly, I thought. This place is grim.

  Hermes restored another damaged door and threw it open. It didn’t give onto a cement cell, however, but an enormous penthouse fit for royalty. I followed the others into a common area with plush couches and chairs, fine rugs, a massive stone fireplace, and a sunken jacuzzi in the far corner.

  With a sweep of his arm, Hermes gestured to a dining area, where a long table was already set. An array of platters held New York-style pizzas, thick pastrami sandwiches, and bagels heaped with smoked salmon and cheeses. Drinks lined the far end, sectioned into Manhattans, Cosmopolitans, New York Sours, and Long Island Ice Teas. The city’s version of ambrosia and nectar, indeed.

  “Go ahead,” Hermes said. “Eat and drink!”

  The Greeks wasted no time crowding the table. I was tempted to join them—I’d had nothing since breakfast and the pastrami looked especially tasty—but Hermes cocked his head at me.

  I followed him into an adjoining library, where he set his pack beside a leather reading chair and sank into the seat. As a book junkie, I felt my browsing habit twitch, but now wasn’t the time. Instead, I took the chair opposite Hermes. The library’s oak door swung closed, muffling the sounds from the other room.

  “Minor beings can be so exhausting,” he sighed. “Brandy?”

  He was already lifting two snifters of the reddish-brown liqueur from a table beside him. I accepted one, and he clicked his rim against mine.

  “To a battle well fought,” he said.

  “To a battle I’ll never fight again,” I amended.

  I matched his sip and immediately regretted it. Holy hell! I thought, grimacing and smacking my mouth.

  “Something wrong?”

  “A little sweet for my taste.” Which was to say it had felt like drinking diabetes.

  “My apologies.” The drink softened to a light tannic color. “Try it now.”

  “Thanks, but I’m good.” I set the snifter aside, not trusting that he’d tempered it down from god strength. “You have information for me?”

  He chuckled. “You mortals always like to shoot straight to the point.”

  “Considering the circumstances, I don’t think that’s unreasonable.”

  He took another sip and cradled the snifter in his lap. “Very well. There have been some developments over there.”

  “The shadow realm?”

  He smirked. “It seems our meeting with Persephone shook her up.”

  He was referring to our last visit to the shadow realm, when I’d helped the shadow Detective Vega and her husband escape the city. En route, we encountered Persephone’s terrifying Iron Guard, a shadow version of Mayor “Budge” Lowder, who was under the goddess’s control, and finally Persephone herself. I only glimpsed the goddess, but I hadn’t been able to get her eyes out of my head. Eyes that balanced the darkness of the underworld, where Hades had forced her into queenhood, and the light and bounty of the living world, where she was allowed to return each spring.

  Hermes must have caught something on my face because he said, “She’s stunning, isn’t she?”

  “What? Not really.” I felt my cheeks flush around the obvious lie. “Well, yes, but it’s not every day that you look into a god’s eyes. I mean, I think about yours, too—not in that way. Not in that way with her, either. My point is that gazing into a god’s eyes—any god—isn’t something one soon forgets.”

  My actual point was that my wife’s eyes were the only ones I treasured, but with Hermes’s face turning wistful, I doubted he’d caught most of my backpedaling anyway.

  “Ahh, yes, her eyes. My mind goes there often as well. It’s a shame she wants me gone along with the Olympic order. Though her grievance is certainly justified. I never cared for Hades, the miserable sod.” His expression soured before illuminating again. “But I can’t describe to you the privilege of delivering Persephone from the underworld. It was like holding perfection herself. And to witness the light and joy on her face as I lifted her into the arms of her mother?” He pressed a hand to his heart and sighed.

  Hermes’s unrequited feelings for Persephone were well documented, but I didn’t want this to devolve into a lovelorn confessional.

  “Can we go back to the developments you mentioned?”

  His eyes sharpened above a humorless grin. “Once again, straight to the point. Well, you asked earlier how I’ve been using Alec. If you allow me this small aside, I can tell you, because it relates to the developments.”

  “Go on,” I said, becoming a concerned father.

  “First, I had to relocate his mother. The last thing we need is for Persephone to leverage her against Alec, and let’s face it, against you. We can’t afford that disadvantage. I assure you, she’s secure now.”

  I’d dated Jennifer DeFazio in this life, but I’d gone on to marry her in the shadow realm, where we’d had Alec. I had been nervous about her remaining in the city for the exact reasons Hermes just mentioned.

  “Okay, good,” I said cautiously.

  “With that accomplished, I divided my time between seeking out more enlistees for our army and recruiting informants. I found the nymphs just the other day. Someone had buried bronze idols to them in a park.” He chuckled. “Feisty little things. My informants have been busy as well. Their efforts are already paying dividends. It seems Persephone has drawn her forces tightly around City Hall.”

  “Why?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? She’s working on another scheme to call up Cronus, and she can’t risk us interfering this time. Using the explorers club and converting its members into raving devotees to Cronus—that was clever. But she didn’t count on me calling to Alec, and in turn, to you. We stopped her, but only just. She’s determined not to make the same mistake.” He drummed his fingers against the bottom of his snifter in thought. “And the fact she’s being so obvious suggests she must be close.”

  “But the last time it took very specific organ offerings and a lot of worship to call up Cronus. How is she replicating that in City Hall?”

  “You just answered your own question, my friend. Politics.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “Well, what is politics for many but religion by another name?”

  I considered his rhetorical question with pursed lips. He had a point.

  “The Society of Cronus claimed, what, a few hundred members?” he continued. “The city, even the shambles over there, boasts millions of inhabitants. If Persephone can channel their political allegiances into devotion to Cronus, even by proxy, it should be enough to open Tartarus and call him forth.”

  “That would explain her interest in Mayor Lowder.”

  He snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “Precisely. The mayor has already announced a referendum on his agenda. Have a look-see.” He reached into his pack, pulled out a flyer, and handed it to me.

  The flyer featured a grinning image of Budge. Not the chubby-cheeked version with an unruly cowlick and “aw shucks” demeanor, but a slim power player with slicked-back hair. His hands grasped the lapels of a tailored jacket, showcasing his jeweled fingers as he beamed for all he was worth.

  I read it aloud: “‘Don’t get left behind! Vote YES to support my “Full Steam Ahead” agenda! All aboard the Budge Train!’” I lowered the flyer with a grimace. “With a pitch like that he’s sure to have at least twice as many people opposing as supporting him, especially given the state of the city.”

  “Yes, but the referendum is meaningless. The point is to excite a response. Look again.”

  I returned my gaze to the flyer and chastised myself for missing it the first time. Superimposed over the image, almost light enough to be a watermark, was a circular symbol whose lines created an illusion of funneling.

  “A siphon sigil,” I marveled.

  “Yes, to capture the people’s emotions. These sigils are everywhere now. On billboards, buildings, practically anyplace you look. The symbol will soak up that emotional energy like a sponge and direct it to where Persephone is storing it. The more intense the reaction, the better. And the process has already begun. I can feel it.”

  “Can we assume she’s assembling an army of deities too?”

  “She doesn’t have to now, not with everything progressing apace. Her Iron Guard is sufficient.” My chest constricted as I recalled my encounter with her stone servants and their underworld magic. Exposure to the magic had felt like being crammed into a too-small coffin and buried. Something I never wanted to experience again.

  “Not to mention her access to the underworld itself,” Hermes continued. “Horrible beings down there, some of which she can summon by virtue of her powers alone. And once she siphons enough power from the city to free Cronus, every Titan imprisoned in Tartarus will be at their beck and call.”

  I stood and paced the room on unsteady legs.

  Hermes took a slow sip of brandy as though giving me space to process the information.

  “If it comes to war,” I said, “I’m not sure the misfit crew you’ve assembled is the answer. I mean, a junior Amazon, a drunken centaur, a pair of nymphs who look all of ten, a god of stupidity, another god who’s borderline suicidal, and a deity with a permanent hard-on, which also happens to be his weapon of choice?”

  “Not yet, no,” Hermes admitted. “But with training, I believe we can forge them into a capable force.”

  At that moment, glass shattered in the common room. A cheer or battle cry went up, I couldn’t tell which. I leveled my gaze at him. “Capable force? They’re behaving like they’re in an episode of Big Brother.”

  “Then let’s avoid war.”

  “Great, I’m all ears.”

  “Persephone’s scepter is the source of her power.”

  “Yes? And you just said she’s fortified her position at City Hall.”

  “What if I discovered a blind spot?” His eyes twinkled. “A way in?”

  I tensed my jaw, tired of his little teases. “Well, have you?”

  “Straight to the point,” he sighed. “Yes, I have. And I know Persephone well enough to know where she keeps her scepter. I have a plan to steal it, destroy it. A brilliant plan. This could all be over by tomorrow.”

  More crashes sounded in the common room, and the beings broke into drunken song.

  He glanced over, then back at me. “But I can’t do it without you.”

  8

  “Sorry I’m late,” I called, hanging my coat and satchel on the door-side rack and dropping my cane in the umbrella holder.

  At the dining room table, Ricki and her eight-year-old son, Tony, looked to be finishing dinner, while Bree-yark and his fiancée, Mae Johnson, carried dishes to the kitchen. The couple had picked up Tony from soccer camp, and Ricki invited them to stay for dinner. A dinner I was supposed to have partaken in.

  “Everson!” Bree-yark barked. “Was starting to think you’d ditched us for your cooler friends.”

  Mae swatted the goblin’s bottom as she passed him. “Stop giving him a hard time. Can’t you see he’s dog tired?”

  “Aww, he knows I’m just busting his hump. Right, Prof?”

  “Just keeping me honest,” I agreed.

  “Go on and have a seat, hon,” Mae said to me. “I’ll heat you up a plate.” The large, cherub-faced woman, who’d become like a surrogate grandmother, disappeared before I had the chance to respond.

  “Thanks for the offer,” I called after her, “but I had a late lunch.”

  I’d made the mistake of sampling what was left from Hermes’s feast. The pastrami sandwich had tasted as divine as it appeared, but like the brandy, it was intended for mythic beings, not a human digestive tract. It sat like a stone in my stomach and was only now beginning to break down.

  “Are you sure?” Mae asked. “You look fit for the bean patch.”

  “Easier to launch myself onto buildings,” I said, only half-joking.

  “Well, I hope you saved some room for dessert,” she said. “Bree-yark and I picked up a pumpkin cheesecake from Magnolias.”

  I patted my stomach. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to settle for coffee.”

  “Nonsense. I’ll cut you a sliver.”

  Ricki came over and searched my face. “Long day, huh?” She wrapped her arms around my waist. As an NYPD homicide detective, not to mention Hoffman’s partner, she knew all about long days.

  I kissed her forehead and hugged her close. “It was interesting, at least. How’s Tabitha doing?”

  She followed my gaze to the divan, where Tabitha remained propped on her side. “No movement. Well, except for tipping over a couple times. I found that shoes work better than books for wedging her in place.”

  That explained the assortment of high heels. I frowned as I walked over to examine her. Tabitha’s essence was still in there, hard and compressed, but I wasn’t sure what concerned me more—that her forty pounds had remained inert all day or the idea of my pregnant wife maneuvering her.