“Yeah. Damn.” Jesse nods. “Guess they can’t impose term limits for the king of the gods.”
“Don’t think that’s a thing in Olympus—or probably ever will be.”
One side of his mouth hikes up. “Why, Maximus Kane. Are you defending your pops?”
“I’m defending the fact that everything in the Olympians’ world isn’t greener grass and sweeter nectar,” I rebut. “But that’s not an excuse for him. It’s an explanation for me.”
An inconvenient one. Even when I can imagine no greater crisis than this, Z’s top priority will never be his family.
True enough, until last week, he wasn’t a speck in my world, and I’d been perfectly happy. Working hard, surrounded by good friends and family, and falling in love like I never knew I could. My father hadn’t been a necessity in my world. Not even close.
But without Kara, I have no world at all.
No fire for my shadows. No torch to show me the way through an existence that will never be normal again.
With Jesse’s help, I’ll find the way to her. And as soon as we find that path, I’m going to march straight into hell. Unlike Dante, I’m not headed there for exploration. Once there, I’ll crush every stone I have to. Topple every wall. Fight every damned soul that gets in my way.
As more thunder rattles the city, I rise to pace the room, my fists coiled. “So you’re really buying all of this?”
My friend lifts a brow. “That you’re a demigod?”
Unfortunately, I’m long past thinking that insanity might not be real. A couple of trips to Labyrinth and a mind probe from Hades knocked those hopes right out of me. I wouldn’t wish that experience on my worst enemy, let alone the best friend hunched at the table in front of me. Contemplating this new reality through his eyes is another lash of anxiety that I’m barely able to handle right now.
I pivot in front of the kitchenette. “Sure. And the rest?”
He peers at his laptop screen again before scribbling a few lines in one of the spiral notebooks he’s rarely without. “Science studies facts so fiction is believable—even yours. There are just parts of the story, like Kara going all woo-woo empath to calm your stubborn ass, that are easier to swallow.”
His declaration brings the temptation to smile. The ache tugs at every corner of my chest, along with the edges of my mouth, but outright strangles the whole mound of my heart. “That’s fair,” I concede. “She has a good heart, but she’s always been tenacious when she wants to be.”
“That—and her being a demon—is either going to make your relationship a cosmic game changer or the most insane reality show on record.”
With hearing him refer to our relationship as a future thing, I finally give in to a smile. But the moment is quickly swallowed by a tsunami of rage when the full weight of our hopeless circumstances crashes over me again.
I have to find her.
No matter what it takes.
No matter how impossible.
No doubt Jesse can see that much as I push forward and drum a couple of fingers on the table.
I nod toward his notepad. “What have you got? Tell me you have something. Anything.” Now I’m tapping so hard, the tabletop gets a few dents.
“It’s not that I don’t have anything. I’ve got things.” The gullies across his forehead get deeper. “But this is more like…everything.”
“Meaning what?”
“It means finding the door to hell isn’t going to be a flicker in the dark. More like…a pinhole in a corkboard.”
During the declaration, Jesse slides his notepad across the table. Eagerly, I peer at the theories he’s got detailed on the page—as well as the twelve or more after it.
“Where do I start here?” I mutter.
“There’s not an easy answer for that, I’m afraid. For every biblical or literary reference you’ve unearthed, I’ve got scientific counterparts in the double digits,” he explains.
“But some are debunkers,” I counter. “Right? So we can rule those out at once.”
“The obvious ones, yes. Area Fifty-One, Stonehenge, Roswell, Eye of the Sahara, Loch Ness, the Blood Falls…”
I cock a brow. “Someone really thinks Loch Ness is a hellmouth?”
He shrugs. “Oh, you know Nessie and her secrets.”
I flip the page, scanning his next jumble of notes. “I don’t think anything is glaringly obvious when it comes to Hades. Last night, we simply thought we were at an extra-chill beach party.” There’s a stab in my chest matching the new growl in my throat. “Until we weren’t.”
“And that’s where your mope ends.” He pounces a hand back to his mouse like a lion tamer cracking a whip. His rapid clicks through the screens are just as methodical. “No time for brooding in the labor camp, buddy. I need your brain front and center if we’re going to figure all this stuff out.”
“You’re right.” My nod is just as much a mental shakedown. I repeat it, making sure I’ve hurled out as many dark memories as possible, before offering up the full force of my attention. “Walk me through this. What’s your theory?”
“Theories,” Jesse corrects. “Dude, we’re nowhere close to just one yet.”
“So how fast can we narrow it down?”
He has to know by now, nonstop rain or not, that my hope is already threadbare.
“Left my crystal ball back in the other mansion,” he deadpans. “But hopefully, we’ll catch a break soon.” He carefully eyes me again. “But first… You’re absolutely positive there was no possible egress through Rerek Horne’s living room? No other statuary to shatter and break open a dimensional door?”
I force a full breath in then out. “If there were, I wouldn’t be here now.”
He starts clicking again. “Stands to reason it was probably a king’s-only portal. Even palaces in this dimension have them. Or Hades is so damn special he doesn’t need a door. He’s powerful enough to make one wherever he wants to go.”
“There’s got to be another way in.” I stab a few more dents into the tabletop. “Something more substantial. Something physical. Or even metaphysical.” I’m not going to be picky about this. I don’t need a neon sign and golden entrance stairs. I just need a direction in which to look.
“Twenty-four hours ago, I would’ve laughed at that idea,” Jesse says. “But yesterday, I also didn’t believe in demons and demigods.”
“So what do you think? Where do we start looking for this…gateway?”
Kara’s fate rests in the answer.
“Well.” Jesse sits back again, letting one of his favorite sticky stretch toys come out for an appearance. He flicks out the long rubber length, letting the little hand on the end flatten to my patio window before yanking it back. “I took your mythological and sociological references on the subject and aligned them with what present-day science and geography can halfway confirm. Your first suggestion, about Hades ruling over a basic but bleak underworld at the outer edge of the sea, matched up to a healthy handful of islands across the globe.”
He shows me that specific list by using the rubber hand to lift the top page of the notepad. My first look at the thing is nothing short of an eye-bulger.