by Tee, Marian
Unfortunately, it did nothing to detract from her still-annoyingly-beautiful looks.
"I apologize for interrupting your lovers' quarrel," Mira began.
"We weren't quarreling," I countered sharply. And we weren't. Right?
"—-but I'm afraid we have a problem."
Chapter Five
Just like the rest of the Underworld, the inside of Hadrian's manor was bright and sunny (even without any actual sun shining down on us). We didn't even have a roof, but since I didn't think it ever rained here, I supposed that wasn't a problem.
I half-expected the floors to be of moving lava as well, similar to the cave that made up the second portal leading to the Underworld. But instead it was just good old stone.
As Mira took us down into a small, narrow side hall, I couldn't help sighing silently at how my house tour was turning out. I didn't even have time to savor the sights, with Mira forcing me to half-run just to keep up.
But it's fine, I told myself. Like Mira said, we had a problem, and as LOTUS, I needed to get used to putting my private concerns aside and prioritize the greater good.
So that secret fantasy I had of Hadrian's house tour including sex in each and every room in his home?
Already forgotten.
And the realization that Mira's laboratory being inside the manor could also mean we were housemates?
A matter of discussion, I told myself. Tonight, I'd ask Hadrian about it, he'd explain, I'd show him why it wouldn't work, and he'd see it my way. That's how discussions worked.
But all of that aside...
I deliberately slowed down a bit, and as Hadrian automatically matched my pace, I waited until there was a proper amount of distance between Mira and us before saying hesitantly, "I hope you don't mind me asking, but...I kinda imagined you'd have more people around." The place was beautiful...but gigantic, and the upkeep of it had to be just as gigantic. But so far, we had yet to encounter a single soul, living or not.
"There usually is," Hadrian agreed, "but when the Underworld is on lockdown, our SOP includes making the manor and its grounds off limits to visitors."
"So that leaves..."
"You and me, Gaea and Cronos, our personal security, and the rest of the live-in staff—-"
"Back up a bit," I blurted out. "Did you just say...Gaea and Cronos?"
Hadrian looked at me warily. "If you say you know them from Hercules..."
I rolled my eyes. "No, I don't actually, but even if I did, I don't see anything wrong with that."
"I beg to differ," Hadrian muttered under his breath.
Pretending not to hear anything, I asked, "So Gaea and Cronos...it's really them?"
"Is there a right or wrong answer to this?" Hadrian's tone had become rather careful, and I wondered if it was because he was worried his next words would have me throwing a menopausal fit.
And honestly, who knew?
"How exactly are you guys related?"
"We're their direct descendants."
Sheesh. It was amusing and exasperating at the same time, with how terribly casual he was when dropping facts like that. You'd imagine a Greek god like him to be beautiful, sexy, and lofty, but Hadrian, well, he was beautiful, sexy...and not lofty.
And as for the two other immortals...
Cronos was the god of time and Gaea the goddess of the freaking planet, and if Hadrian was their direct descendant...
"Does that make them your grandparents?"
Hadrian shrugged. "I guess."
Gaaaah.
His grandparents were Cronos and Gaea, and he was still being so casual that I didn't know whether to laugh, cry, or kiss him because he was being too exasperatingly cute for words.
"Do you think they'll like me?" I asked nervously.
"It doesn't matter if they do or don't. You're married to me, not them."
"That doesn't—-" Mira called to us then, and I forced myself to stop speaking. LOTUS, I reminded myself. We could discuss this later, but for now we had Mira's problem to take care of.
Hadrian's so-called distant cousin was waiting for us in front of a vine-colored wall, and she started singing the moment we reached her. At first I thought she was just showing off, which of course begged the question: how did she know that I couldn't carry a melody to save my life?
But then I saw the vines start to crawl, and I realized this wasn't about Mira poised to win next season's The Voice Factor. Apparently, that was some kind of chanting spell I heard, and as the vines receded from view, the door hidden underneath it was gradually revealed.
Terribly cool, but no way was I going to tell her that.
Inside, Mira's workplace looked a lot like Dr. Ace's lab. Or any other scientific facility for that matter. Specimen bottles kept behind glass cabinets and air-conditioning that made me feel like I had been thrown back into the Ice Age. Dissection tables on one side, a complicated set up of chemical apparatuses on another...
Huh.
Since the deification process was a gradual thing, Dr. Ace had advised me to expect my senses to heighten by increments as well. That had been the case back in the human world, but here in the Underworld, it seemed to have grown by leaps and bounds.
Like earlier, with how I had heard Mira's footsteps, and now...this.
I took another sniff, just to be sure.
Definitely floral.
A rather interesting scent, considering I couldn't see any botanical samples around.
"Your workplace smells really good, Mira." My tone was all casual, but to my surprise, it had Hadrian's so-called distant cousin paling, with her face now whiter than her lab coat.
Oh no.
Did that mean what I think it meant?
Was the floral scent I detected her perfume, and she had been using it to seduce Hadrian or maybe it could even be some kind of love potion—-
"I'm sorry, Hades."
I knew it! Oh my God, I knew it!
"One of the SR-41 vials was stolen. I've been wracking my brain, trying to think of how the thief got in, and now..."
"Echo's spell," Hadrian said grimly.
"Exactly."
Don't you hate it when the guy you love and the girl you hate started speaking in a language you didn't understand? And don't you hate it more when they did it in English?
LOTUS, I reminded myself even as I had this childish urge to stick my tongue out at both of them. I mustn't act without dignity, ever. And so I forced myself to smile as I said, "ELI5, please."
Hadrian and Mira both looked puzzled, and it kinda made me feel smug. Finally. Now they knew how I felt.
"What does ELI5 mean?" Hadrian asked finally.
I grinned at him. "Explain like I'm five, duh."
Hadrian laughed, and Mira stared at him incredulously. "You're only being polite and considerate to your consort, yes? That truly could not have been funny for you."
"It was, actually," Hadrian said without a qualm, and oh God, but he just gave me another reason right there to fall in love with him.
"But it's beneath you to even laugh at such a thing." Mira sounded bewildered and offended, and a tiny gasp involuntarily escaped me as I finally realized what kind of stick she had up in her butt all this time.
Mira didn't dislike me because she was hoping to fill my shoes as Hadrian's new wife. Rather, she disliked me because she didn't think I had the right pedigree as LOTUS.
"Saoirse?" Hadrian's sharp tone startled me out of my rather blissful state of enlightenment. "Are you alright?"
"Totes." I meant it. Mira as a distant cousin whose approval I needed to win was so much better than Mira the distant cousin who had the hots for my boyfriend, and so when I saw her lip start to curl up again—-
"I beg your pardon," I said in my best Queen Elizabeth voice and gave Hadrian a regal nod. "What I intended to say was yes, I'm alright."
The Lord of the Underworld was now staring at me like I had started growing eyes all over my face in hopes of being the next Cyclops. "Seriously,"
he said finally. "Are you okay? Is it your—-"
I glared at him. If he dared, oh if he dared breathe a single word about my big M in front of Mira...
But thankfully, my boyfriend was anything but dense, and he said right away, "On second thought, you do look fine, love. And as for what you were asking about earlier..."
Knew it. I was grudgingly impressed at his nice segue, and just the tiniest bit suspicious. Maybe he really was Eros—-
"The floral scent you identified is narcissus."
It wasn't so much as the words than the way Hadrian's jaw had hardened that caught my attention.
"It's the key ingredient in Echo's spell," he said said flatly, "which is used to remember certain words and play it back...using the same exact voice."
I knew I wasn't as brainy as either of these two, but even I didn't need to have the consequence of that spelled out. Someone had obviously used Echo's spell to unlock the door to Mira's laboratory, and as for SR-41...
Oh, this cousin of his...
I had a feeling 41 was supposed to symbolized my age, which normally I didn't give a whit about, but now that I was suffering from the most exaggerated symptoms of menopause...
She obviously wanted to annoy me, and she got what she wanted. I was annoyed, never mind if we both knew I was the equivalent of a three-month-old fetus when compared to her ancientness.
"Let me guess," I said darkly. "SR stands for Saoirse Repellent, doesn't it?"
"I only had the word 'remedy' in mind," Mira answered, "but seeing that milady's quite obsessed with repellents..."
Cousin, I reminded myself. She was Hadrian's cousin, which made her my cousin by marriage.
Hadrian walked towards the table where the vials were, and I followed behind him. There was a set of vials placed in a cooling tray, with one spot conspicuously empty.
"The formula still needs a couple of tweaks," Mira told us, "but I've tested it on a couple of basilisks—-"
I took mental note of this so I could Google it later on. Why a basilisk and not the usual rat or guinea pig?
"And it worked," Hadrian ended for her. "Didn't it?"
"We have enough samples of Zeus' thunderbolts here, so it was quite simple to create miniature carbon copies and bespell them in a similar way. I then placed them inside the basilisks' cage, and not a single one of the thunderbolt was activated. They didn't recognize the basilisks as targets at all!"
I wanted to start cheering at this, but Hadrian's forbidding expression made me think twice. "Isn't this a good thing?" I asked uneasily.
"If SR-41 proves safe and effective to use for humans and non-humans," he answered reluctantly, "then that means we have created something which could potentially make anyone invincible to Zeus's thunderbolts."
"So again...that's good, right?"
"It could destroy the natural balance of things," Hadrian said grimly, "especially when placed in the wrong hands."
Which a thief's hands certainly were, I realized.
"I take full responsibility for the theft, Hades." Mira's voice was tight, and the look on her face made it seem she was on the brink of committing seppuku at any moment. "But I also want you to know that all is not lost. We'll know if that vial is opened within the Underworld. Milady's blood has a distinct scent—-"
Oh, for the love of...would it kill her not to insult me at every turn? She had good as said I had bloody odor.
"I'll take a vial and have Cerberus take a sniff."
I had been imagining myself throttling Mira at that point, but Hadrian's words distracted me. "Cerberus as in..."
"My pet," Hadrian said easily, "and now he's yours as well."
I couldn't help feeling excited. "In Hercules, Cerberus was—-"
Hadrian was glaring at me.
Right.
I kept forgetting how touchy he was about the animation film-slash-TV-series. I honestly didn't understand why. I'd love to have Disney make up a film about my life, but oh well. I decided to take the diplomatic route, saying, "I just wanted to make sure we're talking about the same Cerberus."
"Depends," Hadrian murmured. "Our Cerberus is a warrior on its own, a legendary three-headed beast and thus undeserving of being disrespected with animated comparisons. So..." He raised a brow. "Are we talking about the same creature?"
It was all I could do to keep myself from smiling. "Yes, milord." A smart girl knows how to pick her battles, and this was one of those I'm better off losing, if it meant seeing Hadrian act so cute. "Anyway..." Deciding it was time to change the subject, I asked pointedly, "What was that you were saying about Cerberus and SR-41?"
"No creature can rival his ability to track by scent." Hadrian's voice was once again serious. "Once we give him a whiff of SR-41, and our thief opens that vial while in the Underworld, he's good as caught."
"If, on the other hand, our thief is planning to take it out of the Underworld..." Mira's lip curled once again, and I'm beginning to understand this was her go-to expression for everything. This time, it was meant to express her scorn, and...that was understandable.
A few years ago, a prisoner had been able to escape Tartarus, and Underworld's security had undergone a complete revamp since then. So this lockdown Hadrian ordered? Not even a baby ant had the slightest chance of leaving or sneaking in without the Lord of the Underworld knowing, and since that was the case...
"Do we really still have something to worry about?" Because from how this discussion was going, it seemed as if they already had all of their bases covered—-
"Smuggling," Hadrian said finally.
Did he just say—-
I studied his expression.
Not joking.
I stared at him blankly. "Smuggling is a thing here?"
"It's something we've turned a blind eye to over the years. We understand the occasional need of our people for some semblance of excitement in their lives."
Did Hadrian just make smuggling sound like some sort of adrenaline sport?
"It can get rather boring here."
And now he was saying the Underworld - the place that humans lived in terror of - was boring?
I guess I was just going to have to add those to my growing list of things to Google or whatever the magical counterpart of the search engine was here.
For now, we had a vial to search for, and when I tuned back to the conversation, it was to hear Hadrian telling Mira he would personally check every border of the realm, just to make sure it was both thunderbolt and escape-proof.
I need to be mature about this, I told myself, and so when we were alone in our bedroom, and Hadrian was telling me that he might be out the entire night—-
"It's fine," I assured him.
"You're sure?"
"Of course."
"Really sure?"
"Hadrian." I feigned a look of exasperation, and it proved to be the right move, with Hadrian's features instantly relaxing. But the moment he was gone, my stress levels shot up, and I found myself tossing and turning for hours.
I tried my hardest to sleep, but it was impossible. I briefly considered contacting any of my ghostly friends using a Ouija board, but then I thought about how that could lead to certain awkward questions...
Never mind.
I started counting basilisks in my mind.
One basilisk slithered under the fence.
Two basilisks slithered under the fence.
But just when I made it to 128, and my eyelids finally started to droop, that was when I felt it.
Shit.
I threw the covers off, but it didn't help.
I was burning hot, and unfortunately it was all for the wrong reasons.
Two words, guys: Hot. Flashes.
I hurriedly Googled what to do. Hormone therapy was out, and so was lowering the room temp. Hadrian's bedroom might be fit for royalty, but we also happened to be in Hell and not Hokkaido or Helsinki.
Sipping cold drinks didn't work either, but after a couple more trials by error, I eventually
struck gold with meditation.
As instructed, I imagined myself floating in a sea of calmness.
Calm.
I'm so calm.
So, so calm I don't even know how to spell stress.
Like, how many S does it even have?
Four? Ten?
Who knew?
Maybe you did, but I don't.
Because I'm calm.
And I was...until I woke up and received my first copy of Underworld Times.
NEW LADY OF THE UNDERWORLD HAD GOD OF MEDICINE ON CALL
AT FIRST SIGN OF TROUBLE!
Chapter Six
"This is unbelievable," I bemoaned to an indifferent and still-irritatingly-lovely Mira in her laboratory after breakfast. "They also had a super scary article on a Category 4 hurricane about to hit New England and how the wind gods are barely holding up against Zeus. That write-up should've been on the front page—-"
"It would've been," Mira agreed, "if the residents of the Underworld thought there was a chance we'd be similarly affected. But since Hades has personally assured everyone we're safe, the news needs something more sensational..."
"You're going to say something bad again, aren't you?"
"Like the fact that you're a failure as a queen—-"
"But I'm not a failure."
Mira only stared at me.
"Seriously, I'm not."
"If they compare you to Persephone," she pointed out, "you will always come up inferior—-"
I shot her an indignant look. "Just because I wasn't born a goddess?"
"Plus the fact that she plays the piano, guitar, violin, flute, and harp, is a champion in archery, tennis, polo, swimming, ballroom dancing, chess, jiu-jitsu—-"
"Does she speak Dothraki?" I challenged.
"No, she doesn't, but Persephone does speak 71 other languages—-"
"Next topic please."
"She made Hades court her for four decades—-"
"News flash, cousin of my boyfriend: if I made Hadrian court me for the same length of time, I'd be six feet underground by the time we have our first date—-"
"So many excuses," Mira sniped.
