“Well, Cerbie,” I said, after Persephone had disappeared from sight, “let’s go see what’s doing at the palace.”

Cerberus gave me a little nudge with one of his heads, and I knew we were friends again.

“Home, steeds!” I called. Harley and Davidson took off running. In a short time, I pulled up in front of Villa Pluto. My first clue that something was wrong was the dozens of little white tents pitched all over the palace grounds. “Hypnos!” I called to my first lieutenant. “Hypnos? Where are you?”

Hypnos is the god of sleep, and he lives up to his name. Most days I could count on finding him out by the pool, snoozing in the hammock. But that day he came rushing down the walk to meet me.

“Oh, King Hades! I’m so glad you’re here!” he cried. “So many new ghosts have arrived. We don’t have room for them all! We are overbooked, overextended, overwhelmed!”

“Take it easy, Hypnos,” I said.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. And then another breath. And another. I realized he was snoring.

“Hypnos!” I shouted. “Not that easy.”

“Huh?” He woke with a start. “Oh, King Hades! I’m so glad you’re here!”

“You mentioned that,” I said. “Now tell me what happened.”

“There was a big battle up on earth,” Hypnos said. “Many mortals were slain, and Hermes is bringing them down here by the busload. Motel Styx is a disaster. There are ten times more ghosts in every room than the fire code allows. The ghosts are howling their heads off—well, the ones who still have their heads, anyway.”

I sighed. Ghosts are so demanding! There isn’t much to them, but boy, can they put up a fuss. I spent the next several hours managing the crisis. It was almost XI o’clock by the time I finished. My stomach was growling. I hadn’t eaten a thing since I’d grabbed a hot dog at the wrestling match, and I was hungry. But before I could eat, I had to pick up Persephone.

I jumped back into my chariot and galloped over to Elysium.

“Yoo-hoo! Hades!” Persephone ran toward me when she spotted the chariot. “That was the best concert!” she exclaimed. “Fantastic!” She hopped in, bringing the scent of roses with her.

Cerberus sneezed and hunkered down, claiming his spot on the seat between us. He growled softly. Persephone wisely ignored him. “Shades of Purple sang all their classic songs,” she told me as we headed for my palace. “The dead mortals knew all the words, so we sang along. I’ve never had so much fun.”

“Glad you liked it,” I said. “Listen, your phone’s been ringing nonstop. How about phoning home? Your mom might be worried.”

“Might be?” said Persephone. “Ha! She’s always worried.” She took out her purse phone and checked her voicemail. “Look! I have seventy-three messages, and they’re all from my mother! What does that tell you? She is so out of control! I can’t deal with her right now, Hades. I just can’t. But I’ll give her a call first thing tomorrow. Honest.”

“Okay,” I said. “Then you can say you’re on your way home.”

Persephone’s face fell when she heard that. We drove the rest of the way to Villa Pluto in silence. I stopped at the entrance.

“What an awesome palace!” Persephone said. “It’s huge! Do you have a throne room? How about a ballroom?” She didn’t wait for me to answer but jumped out of the chariot and ran up the steps. She pushed open the big front door.

I turned the chariot over to a stable-boy ghost and followed Persephone into the marble entryway. “I’m going to order us a pizza.” I picked up the nearest phone and punched in the number I knew so well.

“Di Minos Pizza!” a cheery voice answered. “We deliver in under XXX minutes, or your pie is free.”

I didn’t like giving di Minos my business, but what could I do? I was hooked on his pizza. I ordered two extra-large ambrosia and sausage pies and a VI-pack of Necta-Colas.

“Come on down to the den,” I said to Persephone. “You can meet my houseguests.”

“You have company?” Persephone asked.

“They aren’t exactly company,” I said. “They live here because they more or less work for me.” I led the way down a long hallway and opened the door to the den. I nodded toward an old man conked out in a rocker. “That’s Thanatos. He’s the actual god of death,” I told Persephone. “The one dozing over there under the little blanket? That’s his brother, Hypnos, god of sleep.”

“Wow, what a fun pair,” said Persephone.

A voice came from the couch on the far side of the den: “Aren’t you going to introduce me, Hades?”

I turned around. “Tisi!” I exclaimed. “What are you doing home at this hour? Why aren’t you up on earth, hounding the wicked and settling scores?”

“I took the night off,” Tisi said. She yawned and put her magazine, Underworld Bizarre, down on the coffee table. She looked relaxed with her great black wings folded against her back. The dozens of snakes that sprouted from her head were snoozing. Evidently they were taking the night off too.

“Tisi, this is Persephone, goddess of spring,” I said. “Don’t ask how she got here. She’s leaving first thing tomorrow. Persephone? Meet Tisi, one of the Furies.”

Tisi winked a bright red eye and smiled, showing gleaming white fangs. “Hey, Persephone,” she said.

Persephone’s picnic basket slid from her hand. It took her a few seconds to find her voice. I understood. If you’ve never seen a Fury before, it’s sort of a shock.

Tisi and her sisters, Meg and Alec, had been in the universe for a long time before we gods showed up. When I became King of the Underworld, I built the Furies their own private wing in my palace. I considered them my closest friends. Still, I was always careful not to offend them. The Furies have quick tempers. And when they get angry? Look out! They carry little whips called scourges, made of many leather strips. Each strip ends in a sharp brass tip. Tisi has a special scourge tipped with live scorpions.

“Tisi, hi,” Persephone managed at last. Then she dashed across the room and sat down across from her. “Oh, wow, I love your hair. I mean, snakes. And that is such a cool leather minirobe. Did you get it at the mall down here at that Robe and Tunic Shoppe? Because I wouldn’t mind having one just like it. But maybe not in black. I’m goddess of spring, so I wear pastels. You know, peach, baby blue, yellow, mint green . . .”

I smiled. Obviously, Persephone had never met anyone as cool as a Fury. She yakked away about Tisi’s great look. And Tisi? I could tell she was enjoying it. Even a Fury likes to be admired now and then.

I only hoped that Persephone wouldn’t start complaining about her mother, because things could have gotten very ugly, very fast. The main job of a Fury is to punish ungrateful children who have insulted their mothers. But luckily, Persephone just seemed to want shopping tips, so Tisi kept her claws retracted, and everything was friendly.

I wasn’t interested in the whole hair-and-fashion chat, so I made my way over to my La-Z-God recliner. I sat down, flipped up the footrest, and clicked on my big-screen TV. The picture came on. An announcer’s voice boomed out, “And now, back to The Zeus Show!”

“Tisi?” I called. “Where’s the remote?”

Tisi shrugged. “Haven’t seen it.”

A close-up of Zeus flashed onto the screen. That’s the major drawback of having a big-screen TV—Zeus’s face is enormous!

Had Hypnos dropped the remote when he had dozed off? I jumped up and hurried over to where he was sleeping. I dug under his chair cushions. No remote.

I always used the remote, but I thought there must be a channel changer on the set itself. I ran over to the TV. I searched for an OFF button, but I couldn’t find one. Ohhh, who’d tuned into the Zeus Channel, anyway? It was all Zeus, all the time. When it wasn’t live, it showed endless reruns. I couldn’t imagine why anyone in their right mind wanted to watch Zeus for two seconds, let alone XXIV/VII.

“Are you sure the remote isn’t over by you?” I asked Tisi.

Tisi shot me a red-eyed glare. “Quite sure.”

She and Persephone were now deep into a discussion of sandals, and they weren’t paying the least bit of attention to me or the TV.

The camera pulled back, and I saw that Zeus was getting a royal rubdown from the Mount Olympus Massage Nymph. Demeter, goddess of agriculture, was standing beside him, ranting.

“She’s still missing!” Demeter wailed. “She went out to pick flowers, and that’s the last I saw of her! You must find her, Zeus! Find her!”

Demeter hadn’t changed a bit since I had last seen her, a few hundred years back. What a drama goddess!

“She’ll come home,” Zeus said. “Now, uh, go see if my new tree is bearing olives yet, will you, Demeter? I have a sudden craving.”

Oooh, Zeus was such a louse. Where was that remote? I got down on my hands and knees and peered under my La-Z-God. Nothing. I crawled over to the couch.

I was still crawling when I heard Demeter howl, “No olives shall ripen! No figs shall fatten! No tomatoes shall redden! No crops of any kind shall grow! Hot winds shall scorch the earth until Persephone comes home!”

Persephone?

I jumped up, banging my head hard on the coffee table. “Ow!” I rubbed the sore spot. “Persephone?” I said, staring at her.

“Hades?” she said. “What is wrong with you?”

“Your mother is Demeter?” I said.

Persephone nodded and went back to her conversation with Tisi.

Weak in the knees, I plopped down on the nearest chair. Now all Persephone’s complaints about having to weed and harvest crops made sense! My sister, Demeter, the scariest Olympian of them all, was her mother!

Even when she was a little girl goddess growing up in Dad’s belly, Demeter had been a weirdo. All she could talk about was planting a garden. Then she’d become attached to that stone Mom had fooled Dad into swallowing. Now, I guessed, she was equally obsessed with her daughter. No wonder she kept calling! And if she knew Persephone was in the Underworld, she’d come raging down here to get her. Nothing would stop her.

“Get a life, Demeter,” Zeus said. Then to the Massage Nymph, he added, “A little higher on the right shoulder. Ah! That’s the spot.”

“I shall go to Crete!” Demeter cried. “There, at my shrine, I shall weep and rend my garments until Persephone is found!”

I whisked the blanket off Hypnos and threw it over the TV. Through gritted teeth, I said, “Phone home, Persephone! Tell your mother that you’re on your way home right now!”

Just then, the palace doorbell rang. A voice call out, “Di Minos!” The scent of warm pizza wafted into the den as one of my staff let the delivery ghost in.

“Can we eat first, Hades?” said Persephone.

“All right.” I was too hungry to argue. “But the second we’ve finished, I’m taking you home.”

Two of my serving ghosts brought in the pizza. Tisi didn’t bother with a plate. She extended a single claw, speared a slice, and devoured it in a single, elegant gulp. I put a slice on a plate and offered it to Persephone. She took one look at it and wrinkled up her nose.

“Try it,” I told her. “Di Minos is a jerk, but he’s a whiz with pizza.”

Persephone shook her head. “Too greasy,” she said. “I’ll find something in my basket.” She took the plate over to her picnic basket and filled it with what looked like stuffed grape leaves. I shrugged and dug into my pizza.

When we’d finished eating, I turned to Persephone. “A deal’s a deal,” I said. “Now let’s get you home.”

“Deal?” said Persephone. “I never agreed to any deal, Hades. You saw how my mother is. Please! Let me stay! Just for a few days.”

“If Demeter finds out where you are—” I began.

“But she won’t!” said Persephone. “How can she? Besides, you need help down here, Hades. Those Asphodel Fields are so depressing. You saw how I made the asphodel bloom. I could turn those fields into a garden! For a goddess, I’m a very hard worker. I could do flower arrangements for Motel Styx. Or—or I could work with Tisi.” She turned to the Fury. “What is it you do, exactly?”

“I’m an avenger,” Tisi said. “I hear the complaints of mortals—mostly mothers—who have been wronged by their children. Then my sisters and I punish the offenders.”

“I could help with that!” Persephone said. “I’m really into justice!”

Tisi only shrugged.

Persephone’s words gave me an idea. If I tried to take her back to earth, she’d be protesting the whole way. And then I’d have to deal with Demeter. But what if I got the Furies to take her? Of course, they couldn’t exactly tell her they were taking her home. But they could fly her up to Crete and—surprise! Mother-and-daughter reunion. I smiled. It was a perfect plan!

“Oh, all right, Persephone,” I said. “I’m not going to argue with you.”

“Smart move,” said the goddess of spring with a giggle.

“But I have a full schedule tomorrow,” I went on. “Hundreds of ghosts to deal with. I won’t have a spare minute to spend with you.” I turned to Tisi. “How about taking Persephone avenging with you tomorrow?”

Persephone gasped. “Would you, Tisi? That would be so amazing!”

“Hmmmm,” Tisi said, looking thoughtful. “I don’t think we have anything too gruesome lined up for tomorrow. All right, Persephone can come.”

“Oh, Tisi! Thank you!” exclaimed Persephone. “Thank you, Hades!”

Tisi stood up and stretched. “Well, I need my beauty rest,” she said.

“Me too,” said Persephone. “Totally.”

“The Furies’ wing is through that door,” I told Persephone, nodding toward it. “Go have a look around. I need a private word with Tisi. She’ll be there in a minute to show you which bedroom you can have.”

Persephone smiled. “Good night, Hades. And thanks for the greatest day of my life!” Then she scampered through the doorway. I felt sort of bad, thinking how I was about to trick her. She had such a trusting smile. But it seemed the only way to get her back to her mother.

I turned to Tisi. “You must have figured out by now that Persephone has run away from home,” I said. “From her mother.”

Tisi’s red eyes widened in surprise. I guessed she really hadn’t been paying attention to The Zeus Show. On hearing this, Tisi’s snakes woke up and started swaying.

“Her mother is Demeter,” I went on, “goddess of agriculture. She’s desperate to have her daughter back. She’s in Crete right now, sobbing and carrying on. You know how upset mothers can get when they’re worried about their children.”

The snakes were really riled up now, squirming and hissing.

“We avenge the wrongs of mortals, Hades,” Tisi said. “Not goddesses.”

“Okay, Persephone’s a goddess,” I told Tisi. “But her mom’s still a mom. And if you take Persephone home to her, I guarantee Demeter will be the happiest mother in the universe. Of course, you’ll have to . . . surprise Persephone,” I added. “Take her on one or two avenging missions. Then fly her over to Crete. You’d be doing a great good deed.”

Tisi thought for a moment. Then she said. “It sounds like the right thing to do, Hades. I’m sure Meg and Alec will agree.”

I smiled. “Sleep well, my avenger.”

“I always do,” Tisi said. Then she drew closer to me. Her eyes sparkling like rubies, she whispered, “Hades, Persephone has such a crush on you!”

Then she, too, disappeared into the Furies’ wing.

I stood frozen in the spot.

Never in my life had I heard such horrible, terrible words.