“Oh, hi, Rosie. Hi, Winston.” My brain spun as I tried to come up with some kind of excuse. The look of shock and disapproval on Rosie’s face was making it hard to think. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the end of a black tail under the lounge. Lucas, of course, was nowhere to be seen. He’d moved surprisingly fast for such a big guy. Thanks for your help, guys. “I was just, ah …” The tail twitched as the moment lengthened. “Just looking for a cat.”
“Looking for a cat?” Rosie’s tone was heavy with disbelief as she frowned at me. Now I knew how Cody must feel when he got into trouble. “What are you talking about?”
Zeus’s balls. Come on, dammit, you can do this. “I was out walking with Lucas. It’s such a nice day for a walk, isn’t it? And as we went past here, we thought we heard a kitten miaowing. I knew Becky had moved out, so we had a look in the windows, and it wasn’t a kitten, but there was a little black cat in here. We figured it was stuck inside, so we came in to help. To get it out.”
“I can’t see it anywhere,” Lucas called from the kitchen, then did a reasonably convincing double take as he came back into the room and saw Rosie and Winston. “Oh, hi. I didn’t realise we had company. Nice to see you again, Rosie.”
Her frown only deepened at the sight of her ex-brother-in-law. “What cat? How would a cat get in here? For that matter, how did you get in here?”
“The door wasn’t locked; we just walked straight in,” I said.
Rosie drew herself up, looking affronted. “I brought a client through the house yesterday, and I assure you, I locked the door.”
*This is your cue,* I said to Syl. *Get out here and look half-starved.*
*But she knows me!*
I shrugged, ignoring Syl’s objections. “Must be something faulty with the lock.”
Rosie opened her mouth to argue when Syl bolted across the room and into the kitchen, startling a small scream out of her.
“There it is!” I said. “Open the back door, Lucas—it might run outside.”
Lucas and Syl both took the hint, and in a moment, the poor, trapped cat had disappeared into the backyard.
Still frowning, but no longer quite as suspicious, Rosie turned to me. “That looked a lot like your cat.”
“It did, didn’t it?” I agreed. Thank God—or Zeus, or whoever—the crisis had been averted. “I guess most black cats look alike. The poor little thing—I wonder how long it’s been trapped here?”
“Well, it certainly wasn’t here yesterday,” Rosie said, with renewed annoyance. “How on earth did the stupid thing get in here anyway?”
“Search me.”
“It was very good of you and your friend to try to help it,” Winston said, speaking for the first time. He sounded sincere, and I couldn’t tell if it was an act or not. He’d seen Syl in cat form only the day before, and he knew perfectly well she was a cat shifter. “The poor thing could have starved to death in here.”
Rosie took a deep breath and offered him her professional real estate agent smile. I had a feeling she’d forgotten he was there, and was now rather guiltily realising that this was no way to sell houses to people. “Yes, very kind.”
He wandered into the kitchen and started opening cupboards. “What a delightful outlook from this window!”
With a last puzzled glance at me, she followed him. “Yes, the kitchen gets plenty of light, and as you can see, it’s fully stocked with crockery, glassware and utensils. The last tenant left in a hurry, so the owner is happy to throw in everything left behind as part of the deal, to save him having to clear it out. The house is a great size for you, and the yard isn’t too much work. Let me show you the master bedroom.”
She marched off in the direction of the bedrooms. Winston winked at me, then followed obediently. Well, I guess that answered the question of whether he believed our little charade or not. I had to smile. Winston was just full of surprises.
Lucas rejoined me and we headed out the front door. Neither of us spoke until we were out on the street again. Rosie’s little car was parked there. I couldn’t believe we hadn’t even noticed it driving up. What a fustercluck.
“There’s never a dull moment around you, is there?” Lucas said.
I strode off down the footpath toward Syl, who was sitting on the front fence of a house further down the street, swinging her legs idly as she waited. “Glad you enjoyed yourself. Thanks for the back-up in there, by the way. So nice of you to run and leave me.”
He grinned, not the least bit put off by my sarcasm. “You should have seen the look on your face.”
Syl stood up as we drew level with her. “Most black cats look alike? Really?”
“What else was I going to say? You were no bloody help.”
“Shame we didn’t find anything,” Lucas said, putting his arm around Syl’s shoulders. “What are we going to do now?”
Syl smiled up at him with such a light in her face it caught my breath. Despite the height difference, they looked as though they belonged together. Lucas unconsciously shortened his stride to match hers, and she settled against his side as naturally as if she’d been doing it for years.
“Stuffed if I know,” I said, unable to keep the grumpy note out of my voice. “I’m open to suggestions.”
It had so easily become “we” for him. I should be grateful, but the truth was that seeing them together only made me miss Jake more. When would I see him again? At the rate we were going, probably never. My one lead had just fizzled out, and I was no closer to discovering Hades’ whereabouts than before.
4
“You’re going to wear a hole there if you don’t stop pacing,” Syl said, eyeing me over the rim of her coffee cup with a sort of weary patience. She was stretched out on the lounge, and Holly was in the armchair, feeding Mireille. It astonished me how often that baby needed feeding—and how long it took. Holly had come in nearly an hour ago, because she liked to have someone to talk to while the baby fed, and they were still going. For most of that hour she’d been regaling Syl with stories about Lucas, and Syl was lapping it up.
I stopped moving and stared out the big window, towards the ocean. From here, a white sliver of beach was visible to the right. The wharves where the tourist boats were tied up lay in the other direction, and I could see a couple of the boats out on the blue water, probably on a dolphin-watching cruise. Usually, this view soothed me. I could sit on the couch where Syl lay, staring out at it for hours at a time. But today, it had lost its power. I sighed and checked my watch again. Still too early to try sneaking down into the cellar of the pub—I’d have to wait until the lunchtime crowd thinned out a little.
The front door opened and a man strode in. I’d been expecting Joe or Lucas, but it was Apollo. He wore all black, his shirt open at the collar, showing a tanned chest. It occurred to me that I’d never seen him wear any other colour—probably someone had told him once that black looked good against his tan. It certainly set off his blue eyes and blonde hair.
“Told you he wouldn’t knock,” Syl said, shooting me a triumphant glance as she got up to give him a hug.
Winston followed him in, looking a little awkward. He probably would have preferred to knock; he struck me as the kind of person who liked to observe the niceties. No doubt that was his years in the temple showing through—his life there would be governed by rituals and routines. He turned and shut the door quietly behind him.
Apollo returned Syl’s embrace warmly, kissing her on each cheek as if he hadn’t seen her for years. His affection didn’t bother me now that Lucas was in the picture. I couldn’t see her falling for the sun god’s charms while the burly werewolf was warming her bed.
“I didn’t expect to see you again so soon,” I said. “Aren’t you still busy rooting out corruption in the Ruby Palace?”
“You were right. I should have left more of them alive.” He gave me a fierce grin. No kisses, though, which was fine by me. Despite the continuing danger from the shadow shapers, he looked happier than I�
��d ever seen him. Killing people must really agree with him. “The Ruby Adept and his immediate cronies managed to slip away. The ones that are left are either innocent or stupid, as far as I can tell. I’m having trouble finding out anything useful.”
He said hello to Holly and admired the baby, tickling her tiny feet, before he dropped onto the lounge Syl had been sitting on. She sat down beside him, perfectly at ease with him. Holly, on the other hand, looked a little startled to find herself in a god’s company, but luckily, Mireille was taking up most of her attention. Winston hovered awkwardly by the door. I wondered if Apollo had commented on his lack of priestly attire.
“Have a seat, Winston.” I gestured at the other armchair, but he shook his head. Maybe there was some priestly prohibition about sitting in the presence of your god.
“Can you afford to leave the fireshapers unsupervised for so long?” Syl asked. It was a six-hour round trip from Crosston.
“Oh, I only ducked down for a moment.” Seeing her confused expression, he added: “Winston’s set up the temple. I can be here faster than walking from one room to another.”
“Already? I thought he was buying a house?” Even if he’d offered on a house today, there would be weeks to wait before settlement. “Did you decide to rent instead?”
“Your friend Rosie arranged for me to rent from the seller until settlement,” Winston said. “I have moved in.”
“That’s good,” I said to Apollo. “At least now we have a way to contact you more easily. You should get a phone.”
“And make it easier for my enemies to track me? No, thanks.”
“Do you know where the Ruby Adept is?” Syl asked.
“There are rumours that he’s gone to Brenvale.” The god shrugged. “I suppose it’s possible, but I would have expected him to flee to the human territories, if he’s in bed with the shadow shapers. Not a watershaper city. If he thinks they can hide him from me, he’s sadly mistaken. What’s been happening here? Have you found out anything?”
“No. We thought we had a lead—a human we suspect of working for the shadow shapers left town suddenly just before Hades disappeared. We tried searching her old house, but we couldn’t find any information there.”
“Why do you suspect her of working for the shadow shapers? Just because of the timing of her departure?”
I described my chat with Rosie, and how Hades had seemed to find Becky’s departure significant. I added that I’d sometimes seen her looking at shifters in an odd way, and had wondered if she belonged to One World—the human organisation that hated shifters and shapers—long before I knew anything about shadow shapers. Holly looked down at Mireille’s sweet face when I brought that up, not saying anything. She had considered the woman a friend.
Apollo looked thoughtful when I’d finished. “You say Hades left town straight after he spoke to Rosie in the bar?”
“Well, I don’t know if he left town or not, but no one saw him again after that, and I don’t think he came back to the underworld.”
“And when you and Jake were travelling back from your visit to Hephaistos in the underworld, Cerberus felt that his master was in danger and left you?”
“That’s right.”
“But that was some time later, right?”
“Yes.” Hades had spoken to Rosie on the Tuesday night. I’d waited all day for him to return on the Wednesday. When he didn’t, I’d taken the Helm of Darkness on Wednesday night—or, more accurately, the early hours of Thursday morning—and Jake and I had left in search of Hephaistos. We’d spent Thursday night at his house. It wasn’t until we were on our way back to Hades’ palace on Friday that Cerberus had suddenly panicked and run off and left us. “I guess it was more than forty-eight hours later. What could he have been doing for those two days?”
“No idea,” Apollo said. “I find it hard to believe it could have had anything to do with this Becky person. What would be the point of searching for her after she’d told the shadow shapers all about him—if she was, indeed, working for the shadow shapers? Nothing he could do at that point would make him any less exposed. Chasing after her would only lead him closer to danger. And he’s always been the cautious type, preferring to keep a low profile than get directly involved. If he knew his cover was blown, why didn’t he just go back to the underworld where his enemies couldn’t reach him?”
“And how did they reach him?” Syl asked. “That’s the part I don’t understand. We don’t know how they’re managing to capture gods, but Hades has an advantage over the other gods. If he found himself trapped, or felt threatened, he could have just opened a passage to the underworld and escaped. He can do that anywhere, any time, right?”
“Right.” Apollo’s handsome face was sombre. Perhaps he was reflecting on his own time in captivity. He might even be afraid for himself, that he might get taken again. Since we didn’t know how the shadow shapers were capturing the gods, it was impossible to guard against them. “But I’m not convinced this Becky has anything to do with it. Her leaving is surely just a coincidence. He must have been about some other business.”
“Coincidence or not, I reckon the end result is the same. Unless he suddenly decided to go on holidays and forgot to tell us, there’s really only two options,” I said. Gods could be fickle, and a bit careless of the passage of time, but Hades had to know we would be worried about him. He wouldn’t have stayed away this long without at least sending a message if he had any choice in the matter. “Either the shadow shapers are holding him, or he’s already dead.”
A sudden silence descended on the room, as if everyone was holding their breath at once. Even little Mireille, fussing on her mother’s shoulder, fell silent. Her dark eyes were enormous in her tiny face.
No one spoke, though they all must have considered the possibility. I can’t have been the only one worried about it. “We should at least check that he’s still alive before we go tearing the world apart looking for him. Where would we even start?” It could all be for nothing. I didn’t want to face the possibility, but it had to be said.
Holly spoke for the first time since Apollo had arrived. “I think Becky was from Brenvale originally.”
Apollo looked sharply at her. “Did she tell you that?” Implicit in his tone was the fact that you couldn’t trust anything a mole told you. Why would she give any of her real background away? “It’s a shaper city, so it’s probably a lie.”
“Not necessarily,” Syl said. “There are plenty of humans around here, and this is shaper territory. Maybe that’s where she learned her hatred of shapers.”
It wasn’t hard to imagine. Shapers—and even shifters, to a lesser extent—had no trouble flaunting their supposed superiority over humans. She could easily have had a bad experience that turned her against the ruling classes.
“She didn’t say so specifically.” Mireille began to fuss, so Holly stood up and started the jiggling-and-patting routine that always seemed to follow a feed. She paced back and forth in front of the window, just as I had done, though she wasn’t admiring the view. “I just figured it out from a couple of things she said about her childhood. And yes, I suppose they could have been a lie—part of her cover story, if she really was a spy—but we haven’t got much else to go on. And it seems unlikely that she would have lied about everything. Keeping track of so much, all the time, would have been exhausting.”
“If it’s true that the Ruby Adept is holed up there, it does seem more likely,” Syl said. “But she could just as easily have gone to Newport. We know for a fact that the shadow shapers have a base there.”
Apollo tapped his fingers on the arm of the lounge, thinking. “The shadow shapers could have bases in a dozen different human cities. I’d be more prepared to believe that than that they have a base in the biggest watershaper city in the southern hemisphere. Forget this Becky. I’d like to know where the shadow shapers kept me imprisoned all that time. It was secure enough to hold me for a year—it seems likely that that’s where they’re
keeping Hades.”
“You don’t know where you were?” Syl asked.
“No. I woke up in a cell there, and I never saw the outside of the building until they brought me to Newport for sacrifice. It didn’t seem far from Newport by car, though, so I doubt it was Brenvale.”
“Even if this Becky person has no connection to the case, my lord,” Winston offered, “finding the Ruby Adept would most likely lead to the people responsible for Lord Hades’ disappearance. Brenvale might be a good place to start if he is there.”
“True.” Apollo smiled approvingly at his priest, and Winston beamed with pleasure.
“Well, before we go anywhere, I’m going to speak to Charon,” I said. “I’m just waiting until the crowd in the pub thins out, and then I’ll head down to the underworld.”
Apollo snorted. “The ferryman may not speak to you, after you assaulted him and stole his ferry.”
I’d needed the famous ferry of the dead to save Jake, and Charon the ferry master hadn’t been open to persuasion, so I’d “persuaded” him with a lump of metal instead. “He seemed okay about it afterwards.”
“The ferry may not be in, anyway,” he said. I glared at him. Why did he always have to argue? “I’ll come with you, and we’ll speak to Thanatos instead. He will know whether Hades is numbered among the dead.”
“Who’s Thanatos?”
“He is Death.”
“I thought that was Hades?”
“No. Hades is Lord of the Underworld, king of the dead. It is a subtle but important distinction. Thanatos is Death itself personified.”
“So he’s, like, the Grim Reaper? The guy with the scythe?”
Apollo rolled his eyes. “You watch too much TV.”
“Can he question the dead, too, like Hades can?” Syl asked. “Maybe one of the dead shadow shapers knows where you were held.”
Apollo shook his head. “I think only Hades holds that power, but perhaps he can still help us. The Pool of Mnemosyne holds many memories.”
Hidden Goddess (Shadows of the Immortals Book 4) Page 4
