* * *
Thanatos drove fast through the nighttime desert. Too fast for Cassandra’s taste, but he seemed at home behind the wheel, and it was nowhere near as gut-wrenching as driving up the steep, curving road to his home. Behind them, Calypso reclined in the backseat, twisting her white-tainted braid around her finger and looking at the stars.
“Where do you think he is?” Cassandra asked Thanatos. “Do you have any guesses?”
Thanatos cocked his head. “If I had to guess? I’m leaning toward Greece. If the god of the underworld is dying, it might have made him a little homesick. Or at least nostalgic.”
“We’re going to Greece?”
“Or somewhere else in Europe. Maybe Africa. He loves those places best. They’re where all his favorite plagues happened.” He glanced her way and smiled. There was something so disarming about it that she almost smiled back.
“You know how creepy that is, right?” she asked. “Talking about plagues that killed thousands and then grinning like a goon?”
“Millions,” he corrected her. “They killed millions. And it isn’t me who loves the plagues. It’s Hades. They fill his halls. He loves his dead.”
“Shouldn’t the god of death love the dead?”
“No,” he said. “It’s a difficult thing to understand. You wouldn’t comprehend it even if I told you. But I think you will, someday.”
Cassandra rolled her eyes. Gods. They acted like they knew everything, but they were some of the most obtuse creatures she’d ever met.
“There is one thing I don’t get,” she said. “Why do you exist? If Hades is lord of the dead, and Atropos is the Fate of death, why does there need to be another?”
“Hades is lord of the underworld. Like a shepherd. And Atropos is a Fate. The decider. I am death embodied. I am the hand, and if you want to get specific, I’m the hand of gentle death. There are,” he said, and eyed her sideways, “many of us. All different sorts.”
“What a lovely thought.”
Thanatos shrugged and pressed down on the accelerator a little harder.
“Would you slow down?” Cassandra asked. “We’re going to run out of gas before we get to a station.”
“I’ve got extra gas. In the trunk.”
“Fantastic. When we flip over, we’ll make an extra big explosion.” She mimed a car accident and subsequent fireball with her hands, and Thanatos laughed. She laughed, too, until a wing beat against her window.
“What was that?” she asked.
There was no time to say anything else before the Fury’s heavy body struck the side and the car started to spin.
Thanatos swore and squeezed the brakes, trying to steer into it. Dust and grit from the shoulder of the highway flew up on all sides and hit the window in a rain of pebbles. Cassandra’s head spun as the car twisted and fishtailed. She gripped the door handle hard, knowing the impact would come in the next moment. One hard jerk and one black thud, and maybe she would wake up afterward and maybe she wouldn’t.
The dark part of her mind clicked open: she saw the car spinning as if from above, as if she was outside of it, and saw not one but two Furies latched onto the roof, wings unfurled like sails. Two more sets of wings flapped into view. If they attached, the car would flip.
“Two more!” she shouted. “Get them off the roof!”
The car slowed, but Thanatos couldn’t do much besides control the fishtail. Cassandra fumbled for the window button and failed, but Calypso got hers down and snaked her torso through, knife in hand. She cut one of the Furies and it tumbled off of the car. With it gone, Thanatos hit the brakes hard. The car careened to the side as they stopped. Cassandra was thrown against the door. Calypso was thrown out.
“Calypso!” Cassandra wrestled with her seat belt.
“No! Stay inside!”
“But—” Before she could protest, Thanatos was out and over the hood. He dove for Calypso and scooped her up. She had her right arm gripped tight to her body, but otherwise seemed all right. Cassandra tried to catch her breath. Every inch of her felt as though it was made of loose Jell-O. Her heartbeat vibrated in her ears.
“Where are they?” she asked, and in answer, heard a boot heel stomp on the roof of the car. She looked out the back window, into the weak red of the taillights.
Two Furies walked the road. They weren’t in their creature form. They wore the same short black dresses and tall boots that Megaera had, when she hadn’t been sporting claws and leathery wings. The Fury that Calypso had knocked off the car followed behind, still hideous, perhaps too injured to affect the change. One of her legs dragged as she crawled and scratched toward them.