“See you!” Hercules waved as Hippolyta sped off with Po. He watched until they were no more than a red speck on the horizon. “Dang!” he said. “I thought she liked me.”

“She did, Hercules,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “I could tell. But it’s hard to compete with a god. Especially one with a bright-red sea chariot.”

“At least you got the girdle,” said Cee, coming up to take a turn at the wheel.

Hydra made a few hand signals that seemed to mean, She ate too much anyway.

By the time we reached Mycenae, Hercules had pretty much gotten over Hippolyta. He marched proudly through the city gates holding the jeweled girdle high over his head, showing it to the crowd. All the onlookers ooohed and aaahed.

“Eury!” Hercules called when he reached the palace. “Come out of the pot! A girdle can’t hurt you.”

“Just put it down, Hercules,” Eury called from inside the pot. “I’ll have my people pick it up.” Then he slid a piece of parchment out through the slot. “Here’s Labor X. Get to work, Hercules!”

Cee unrolled the parchment. “Holy cow!” he said. “More cows.”

“I like cows,” said Hercules.

“Then you’ll like this one,” said Cee. And he read: “Labor X: Fetch the red cattle of Geryon, and bring them to me.”

“No problem!” said Hercules, and the trio turned back toward the city gates. “Where’s Geryon?”

Geryon wasn’t a where. Geryon was a who. I’d had to tell Hercules about the Stymphalian birds. But I decided not to break the bad news about Geryon. There were just some things that Hercules was going to have to find out on his own.

I headed back to my kingdom for a while. When I got a message from Po that Hercules and company had rented a small ship and sailed almost all the way to the west coast of Iberia—ZIP!—I came invisibly aboard.

Whew! It was like an oven on that ship. The sun was beating down. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

Hercules stood at the wheel, red-faced and covered with sweat. He was grumbling loudly about the sun and how Helios ought to drive his flaming chariot higher in the sky so it wouldn’t be so hot down below. I hardly blamed Hercules. Three burning hot days at sea in a small boat, and I would have been grumbling, too. Cee was stretched out in the stern, fanning himself. Hydra had squished herself under a seat, the only place she could find any shade.

Suddenly Hercules let go of the wheel. He grabbed his bow, put in an arrow, and aimed it at the sun. “Look out, Helios!” he shouted.

“Hercules! Don’t shoot!” I lunged for him. But I didn’t make it in time.

He fired at the chariot of the sun.

I watched in helpless horror as the arrow rose swiftly into the sky. It struck the flank of one of Helios’s steeds. The arrow didn’t stick, but the horse reared and whinnied in surprise. The other seven horses began to buck and whinny, too. They snorted flames that shot across the sky, turning it orange. A roar like thunder rumbled.

“Ooops!” Hercules turned his face up to the sky. “Sorry, Helios! Forgive me!”

At least he had the sense to apologize. But it was too little, too late. Once again, it was U.H.T.T.R.

I chanted the astro-traveling spell. ZIP! I found myself clinging to the rear bumper of Helios’s chariot. He was going about CC dekamiles an hour. I hung on tight. Talk about hot. How did Helios stand the heat, day after day? I inched forward, hand over hand, and knocked on the passenger-side window. Helios leaned over and opened the door.

“Hey, it’s air-conditioned!” I exclaimed as I slid inside.

“Shut the door,” said Helios, never taking his orange eyes off the Sky Highway. “It can heat up pretty fast.” He’d calmed his steeds by this time. “So who’s the genius down there taking potshots at my horses?”

“Hercules,” I said. “He’s got a little temper problem.” I explained about Hera, King Eurystheus, and the XII Labors. “He’s my nephew—Zeus’s son. Think you could let this one go?”

Helios shook his mane of wild orange hair. “I don’t think so, Hades. No one shoots the sun and gets away with it.”

“Helios,” I said, “did I mention that it was Hercules who cleaned out the stables where you keep your twelve white bulls?”

“No kidding?” said Helios. “Well, that changes everything. My bulls have never been so frisky. But, Hades, if Hercules tries anything like this again, I’ll give him a sunburn he’ll never forget.”