Theo had died before.
Soon after he’d met Selene, he’d stood in a cave in Central Park, surrounded by cult initiates who believed his death would grant them immortality. One raised a knife. Then everything had gone black. The next thing he knew, he’d awoken in Selene’s arms, gasping back into life.
So why, oh why, do I think there’s an afterlife now if there wasn’t one last time? he asked himself as he reached for another T-shirt to shove into his suitcase. Yet he remembered what Dennis had said—the raw meat at the bacchanal had transformed into something more because he thought it did. Belief itself could create reality. Weren’t the gods themselves proof of that? They had come into being because they were worshiped—because mankind believed in them. Before learning Selene’s true identity, Theo had considered himself a confirmed atheist. Nine months later, he still didn’t believe in God, but he sure as hell believed in the gods.
Even if the Underworld didn’t exist for me before, he reasoned, maybe it does now.
From the top shelf of his closet, he pulled down a large cardboard box. He hadn’t opened it since Scooter gave it to him in December. Now, raising the lid, he found his gaze caught by the empty holes in the dark bronze helmet. With its flared nosepiece and long cheek guards, it looked like the face of Death. When he lifted it from the box, frost stuck to his fingers, sapping the warmth from his body as surely as any wind blown from the Underworld.
This is my inheritance: Hades’ helm. Emblem of the Lord of the Dead, he thought grimly. Who knew it would be so fitting?
“Theo? You finally home?”
He quickly wrapped a shirt around the helmet before turning to Ruth with studied casualness. She stood blinking at him in her pajamas. “It’s four in the morning.” Her eyes flicked to the half-packed suitcase, and a hint of fear tightened her voice. “Are you going somewhere?”
“Rome,” he answered shortly, placing the wrapped helmet into his suitcase. “Flight leaves in two hours.”
She didn’t say anything for a long moment, just stared at him. “Please tell me that means Scooter and Flint have found Saturn, and you’re just going along as a … consultant?”
“Not exactly.” He returned to the cardboard box and, with his back to her, pulled out a second divinely forged item. He shoved it into his satchel before she could see it, making a mental note to transfer it to his checked baggage before he got to the airport. Otherwise, he’d be spending the summer solstice trying to get out of TSA security rather than the Underworld.
“You’re going by yourself.”
“Not exactly.”
“Theo, you can’t,” she said, sitting down heavily on the bed.
“That’s what everyone says.” He tried to sound cheerful as he tossed a flashlight into his bag. “But I defeated Saturn once before, remember? Tracking him down again shouldn’t be too hard. I have a lead.”
He tried to sound confident, but he’d only gotten as far as: Get to Vatican City. Miraculously find hidden mithraeum. Kill myself. The whole “come back from the dead and bring Selene, too” part was still pretty fuzzy. His last-minute plane ticket included a layover in Iceland and another in Geneva before he finally made it to Rome, giving him a total of sixteen hours to figure out how to defeat Death itself. No problem.
Ruth brought him back to the present with a small groan. “And when you find Saturn …” She didn’t finish the thought.
Theo didn’t like lying to Ruth, but he’d been doing it for months now. It was getting easier. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone else again.”
“But Selene’s gone,” she said softly. It was the first time he’d heard her speak Selene’s name in a very long time. “Revenge won’t bring her back.”
He felt her eyes on him and this time said nothing. He just kept packing, moving a pile of underwear to hide the crown of the dark bronze helm—it had slipped from its wrappings like a corpse rising from the grave.
“Theo? It can’t bring her back. You know that, don’t you? Please, tell me you know that.” He heard the tears in her voice a moment before they streaked her cheeks.
Crouching beside the bed, he took her hands in his. “I have to try, Ruth. There’s a chance she might not be—out of reach.”
She clenched her jaw tight, as if to hold back her words, but he read the accusation in her eyes: I’m not enough. You’d rather go after a dead woman than be alive with me. Then her nostrils twitched, her eyes widened, and she blurted, “You smell like …” She jerked away from him with a dismayed gasp. Theo hadn’t yet changed out of the clothes he’d worn upstate.
His first instinct was to explain. To apologize. To tell her about the drugs and the dancing and the hallucinations, then laugh it off with a joke about Dennis’s jean shorts, all so she wouldn’t feel worse than she already did. So many months living in the same house and he’d never done more than hold her. How must it feel to think he’d chosen to have sex with someone else while she waited desperately for him to make up his mind?
But he didn’t say a word. If Ruth thinks I love someone else more than her—she’s right. And I owe her the truth, even if it hurts.
He stood, threw his toiletries into the suitcase, and zipped it shut. He picked up his satchel, heavy with its divine burden, and slung it over his shoulder. He paused in the doorway, resisting the urge to embrace her one last time.
“I’m not going to follow you,” Ruth said slowly, talking more to herself than to him. “I’ll want to. I’ll want to chase you to the airport and smuggle myself aboard that plane and help keep you safe as you face these … whatever they are. And when you fail, I’ll want to be there to hold you when you feel the hurt all over again. But I can’t do that, Theo. I can’t bear knowing I’m your second choice. I’ve been doing that for months. I won’t do it anymore.”
“I know,” he said. “And I’m sorry. For everything.” He turned to go.
“Theo—” Her voice was thick with desperation.
“Yeah?”
“Be careful. You’re not a superhero, you know.”
She was right. He wouldn’t heal quickly like the gods. His arms weren’t as strong as Flint’s, nor his feet as swift as Scooter’s. But he had three things they didn’t: a god-forged bronze sword, Hades’ Helm of Invisibility, and the magic to wield them both.
With such weapons, I might just make a convincing hero after all, he thought, jogging down the stairs. His satchel banged against his chest; he could feel the sword’s razor edge resting against his ribs in silent remonstrance.
That is, if the damn things don’t kill me before I make it out my own front door.