“Maybe I looked into your eyes and couldn’t say no,” he said. She knocked his hand away, and he chuckled. “Maybe I like being with you, moody as you are. Maybe you’re the first living girl I’ve ever met who I’d like to stay living.”

“Cut the bullshit.”

He smiled again.

“Or maybe I just want to know what you are.”

*   *   *

Hades’ house looked more like an abandoned building: a great, dirty slab of white, with windows spotted with fly dirt. Half of it had been torn down, or had fallen in. At any rate, the top three floors of the eastern side were missing, the hole covered over with black tarps and drop cloths.

“This is it?” Cassandra asked doubtfully. “I expected columns. Maybe some gold and gilding.”

“You’ll find that inside. Richness abounds.” Thanatos stood beside her, and Calypso behind. They had armed themselves lightly with knives bought in one of the flea markets. The one Calypso carried was purely ornamental, not even sharpened. But if she pushed hard enough, it would do the job.

On the doorstep before them lay three dead rats. The cat that might have eaten them lay dead in a nearby planter box. Except for the flies and squirming maggots under their fur, they looked as though they had fallen asleep, a happy ending to a quaint fairy tale of dancing predators and prey.

“How did you get in before?” Cassandra asked. Thanatos nodded toward the side of the building.

“There’s a broken window. It was cracked when I arrived, but I smashed it clean through. You’ll be able to climb in.”

He led them to it, and they picked their way through the slivers of glass. Thanatos went first, jumping up and through with all the grace and balance Cassandra knew she didn’t have. It took her almost two minutes to navigate the window and stay clear of the glass edges.

Once her head was inside the house, it was all shadows and stale air, and she suddenly wanted to ask what had killed the cat and the rats. But then Thanatos held out his hand, and she took it.

When her eyes adjusted to the dimness, they still weren’t much use. They’d come into an interior hallway and, except for the white shaft of window light behind them, it was completely black. Nobody home, Thanatos had said. No servants or watchdogs.

No dogs because you wouldn’t need them. Who would think to rob the place?

Her foot crunched something as she edged down the hall, and she twisted her toe hard into the floorboards in case it was a cockroach stuck to her shoe.

“You didn’t see any squatters here, either?” she asked.

“None,” Thanatos replied. “There’s a body on the third floor, but it’s stuffed.”

“Stuffed?”

“Stuffed. You know. Taxidermied.”

Cassandra’s hand went to her mouth. Almost instantly, her nose invented the smell of that taxidermied corpse, and it didn’t matter that she didn’t really know what it would smell like. At least if I throw up here the vomit will be right at home.

She peered in every door she passed. Each room was filled with enough knickknacks to stock several gift shops. Many of them shone silver and gold in the scant light from the windows. Expensive knickknacks. Museum-gift-shop quality.

Silver and gold. Hades loved them well. No wonder so many kings tried to buy their way out of the underworld. She wondered if Hades might try to buy his way clear of her.

He could offer me every jewel in this house. The contents of every bank account. It wouldn’t be enough.

Ahead of them, the hallway ended and opened on a large central room, cut through by a winding staircase. Silhouettes of dense oak tables and lamps stood like sentries. It was difficult to reconcile the finery inside with the desolate façade of the building outside. She expected dust and got oiled wood. Expected cobwebs and found polished marble. And there wasn’t a single roach or rat to be seen.

But don’t forget the stuffed body upstairs.

Cassandra glanced at a gold candelabrum with white candles. If only it would sing, and dance, and talk in a French accent to lighten the mood. Disney enchantments were never around when you needed them.

“There’s no one here,” she said suddenly, and loudly. “So why are we creeping? Can’t we get some light?”

Thanatos and Calypso moved to light candles. They might have tried the light switch. It wouldn’t have surprised Cassandra to find the electricity on. But she supposed the candles attracted less attention.

“Where is the best place to wait?” she asked as they walked up the stairs.