The Shadow Thieves Read online

  She spoke with them all, quietly, lovingly, caresses of breath against the dark. And Zee waited his turn and tried with all his might not to run from the room, from this moment, from the utter certainty of what was about to happen. He tried so hard to keep his hand on her shoulder, firm and true. He tried so hard to keep from dissolving completely, so his grandmother would see him solid and present and strong.

  And then she beckoned him closer, and he leaned toward her, and she smiled a little and told him, firmly and truly, “I will always watch over you. Never doubt that.”

  He did not doubt her, not one bit. You never doubt Grandmother Winter. In that moment Zee—who had never considered an afterlife, and even if he had, certainly would not have believed in it—felt with his entire body, from his toes to his tear-filled eyes, that she was telling the truth.

  Grandmother Winter took a big breath in, a loud, urgent breath—and then Zee saw something flash in her eyes, and what he did not know was that his grandmother was having her last premonition. Her face darkened, then she turned to her boy, her beloved Zachary, and pulled his ear right to her mouth.

  It would be her last breath, and with it she said two distinct syllables to Zee. But he did not understand them and would not for several more months. How could he? For when he leaned in close to her, close enough to smell the floury, powdery, lotiony smell of her, Grandmother Winter had whispered:

  Me-tos.

  CHAPTER 9

  A Brief History of the Underworld as It Pertains to Charlotte Mielswetzski

  FOR A VERY, VERY LONG TIME KING HADES— KING OF the Dead, The Unseen One, The Illustrious, The All-Knowing, The Receiver of Many—ruled the Underworld in peace. In the beginning there were some mishaps—the Persephone business and the whole Heracles to-do—each and every one caused by some rupture of the world of the Living and that of the Dead. No more, though. Hades learned his lesson quickly enough. There would be no more journeys into his Underworld for disoriented vagabonds with pretensions to myth or muscle-bound, snake-wrestling goons with delusions of grandeur. There would be no more sorrowful supplications from pretty-boy amateur musicians, no more frat-boy bride-stealing pranks, and (yes, he took responsibility too) no more bursting the earth open to kidnap pretty, young maidens. “Let them have their world and let us have ours,” he would say to the Queen. “Never the twain shall meet!”

  So a millennia or three ago Hades locked the doors and threw away the key, metaphorically speaking. No Admittance. No Exit. There would be only one way for mortals to get in, and once that happened, there would be no getting out.

  After all, he would say to the Queen, Death is not a place from which to come and go, to stop by for a holiday, for a quick jaunt—Oh, I know, let’s stop by Death for a quick bite to eat and maybe some gelato. That’d be splendid.

  Through his minions he let word slip about some of the more extreme fates one could meet in his backyard. That, combined with an unforeseen sociopolitical shift in the Upperworld, gave his domain a reputation as a wholly undesirable place to visit. No one willingly goes to a nine-level torture chamber; when your welcome mat says ALL HOPE ABANDON, YE WHO ENTER HERE, it tends to keep out the riffraff.

  The Underworld was no hell, of course; at least Hades didn’t think so. Sure, if you had been really, really bad (like, in the upper one half of one percent of all time bad), his Department of Eternal Rewards would send you to Tartarus and devise something suitably punitive—monkeys swinging by your entrails for eternity, say—but your average Joe would be just fine.

  Really, Hades tried to be a good king. As he said to himself, if his lot in life was to rule the Domain of Death, darn it, he would be the best Domain of Death ruler the world had ever seen. He tried to keep his subjects reasonably comfortable—or at least make sure they were not un comfortable. After all, they would all be together for a very long time. A very, very long time.

  And once Hades passed his Decree for Underworld Preservation and Sanctity, the realm ran very smoothly for a good number of years. The King himself was so much happier without having to deal with mortals, and Immortals (people with god or demon blood) were governed by a strict invitation-only policy that kept out anyone who might mean him ill.

  But nothing (other than Death) lasts forever, and as the centuries passed by, the Underworld became a more and more difficult place to manage. The problem was simply the lack of turnover in the population; people kept moving in, but no one ever moved out.

  “Times change, and the Underworld must change with them,” he would say to the Queen. “We must adapt!”

  Hades may have been a Greek god, but that didn’t mean his leadership practices had to be ancient. There were any number of great business minds in the Underworld, and Hades could spend as much time as he wanted picking their brains, sometimes literally. You can’t manage a burgeoning nether realm on your own, he learned. Not if you want to survive in today’s competitive atmosphere. Organize. Delegate. You’re only as good as your weakest link.

  He began to appoint various Regents and Vice-Regents, Directors and Chairs, luring Administrators from the Universe’s ever-growing pool of Immortals with the promise of flexible hours and a good pension plan.

  By the turn of the twenty-first century the Underworld had become a vast network of Divisions and Departments and Directories, with plenty of Subdivisions thrown in for good measure. Hades himself could barely keep track of them all, but it did not matter. Every Division and Department had a firm organizational structure, a careful and clear hierarchy that was quite literally etched in stone. The Assistant Managers reported to the Managers, the Managers to the Heads, the Heads to the Directors, the Directors to the Ministers, the Ministers to the Regents, the Regents to the Chancellors, the Chancellors to the Demigods, and the Demigods to the Lord of the Underworld himself. Any Assistant, Manager, Head, Director, Minister, Regent, or Chancellor who violated the carefully conceived management structure or (Zeus forbid) bothered Hades with the petty problems of his Division, would find himself living among the whip-happy Erinyes in Tartarus, where he could spend some time contemplating the benefits of adhering to management protocols.

  As a result ruling the Underworld had become a much less hands-on process than it used to be, and Hades, who once tried to visit every corner of his realm, now barely left the Palace. He got daily briefings from Thanatos, his Chief of Staff, and Hypnos, his Domestic Affairs Adviser. The twin brothers really ran the place, and they did such a good job, such a very nice job. So as the Underworld expanded, Hades’s duties contracted, and as a result he was able to enjoy the finer things of life. Or rather, death. It’s only right. He’s a god, after all.

  What with everything left to his advisers, and his advisers’ advisers, and so on, if there had been any trouble, Hades would really have been the last to hear about it. (The last except perhaps for his lovely bride, Queen Persephone, who did not venture out into the Kingdom at all, nor did she have anything resembling a daily briefing.) But really, how much trouble could there be? The Dead are a listless sort, not prone to revolt—they’re Dead, after all. And his management staff had all been carefully screened—though no longer by Hades himself, but surely they had been, hadn’t they?

  Hadn’t they?

  There was that one incident. But Hades was sure he had handled it effectively.

  Really.

  One night not so long ago, on the date of their anniversary, Hades was eating dinner with his wife. This was rare indeed; there were so many social duties involved with being King of the Underworld. Hades always seemed to find himself hosting dinner parties for various visiting Immortal dignitaries, luminaries, and/or personages, but on this particular night Hades wanted to spend some quality time with his wife, his queen, his bride, the love of his life, the answer to all his prayers, in the hopes that she might one day actually speak to him.

  Usually on their anniversary or on Persephone’s birthday or on Valentine’s Day or sometimes Just Because, Hades would throw a large party in honor of the Queen. Unfortunately, the Queen didn’t always bother to attend these functions, perhaps thinking that with so many guests he would not notice her absence. But he did. He always noticed. So this year he pronounced it would be just the two of them. Alone. Together. She’d have to come then.

  He had their personal chef prepare all her favorites—beginning with a light pomegranate soup because Persephone could not resist pomegranate. He had the table set as if for their finest dinner party. He informed all of his household staff that he was Absolutely Not to Be Disturbed.

  Together, the husband and wife sat in their places at either end of the long dining-room table, silver spoons clinking against china bowls, crystal goblets filled with the finest of wines, the flames of tall candles twinkling above silver candleholders, silk napkins folded like swans, shadowy servants bringing out large, steaming, silver tureens. The table could seat sixty-six, but on this night it was just the two of them—he in his white tie and tails, and she in a diamond tiara and one of the gowns she’d had imported from Paris (the city, not the man).

  “Such a beautiful night, my love,” he said.

  Persephone sipped her soup.

  “You look ravishing this evening.”

  Persephone took a bite of bread.

  “The green makes your eyes look like emeralds.”

  Persephone coughed and turned to one of the butlers. “Would you ask the King to pass me the salt?”

  The butler bowed. “Certainly, madam.” He turned to King Hades. “My Lord, would you pass Queen Persephone the salt?”

  “Certainly, my dear,” said Hades, smiling at Persephone. He reached for the salt shaker, and that’s when the heavy dining-room door burst open.

  At the sound of the interruption Hades stood up, knocking his tall ebony chair over. The chair hit the ground with a deadened thump, and all the servants in the room jumped. Persephone took a long, languid sip of wine and sat back in her chair. In front of the door had appeared a tall, dark, angular shape clutching a bowler hat.

  It was Thanatos—Hades’s Chief of Staff, the demonic personification of Death, dark twin brother of Sleep, wretched son of Darkness and Night, with a heart made of iron and a soul that knew no pity, on whom the Sun never dared cast its blessed beams. And he was in a twit.

  “My Lord,” he said, breathing heavily, “there’s a problem.”

  “Excuse me?” Hades said as if he really did not want to be excused at all.

  “I-I-I’m sorry, Sir. But…there’s a…problem.”

  “Well, fix it!” Hades roared. “Can’t you see it’s my wedding anniversary?” Across the long table Persephone rolled her eyes.

  Thanatos cleared his throat. “I know, Sir…I thought you’d want to be aware, Sir!”

  “What is it?” Hades sighed.

  “It’s Philonecron, he…he—”

  “Who’s Philonecron?” snapped Hades.

  “Assistant Manager of the Department of Sanitation, Sir. A grandson of Poseidon. He…he—”

  “He what? Get out with it!”

  Thanatos exhaled. “He has blood.”

  Perhaps we should pause here and explain a few things. You are, no doubt, not very familiar with life in the Underworld, nor with what it is to be one of the Shades who live there, unless you are already Dead. In which case you may skip this part.

  A Shade is, simply, a dead person. Well, not a person, exactly. A Shade is the essence of a person, what the body leaves behind after Death. History has portrayed the Shades as dull remnants of Life, aimless and joyless shadows lacking in thought or will. This isn’t entirely true—or at least they don’t begin that way. The problem is, life for a Shade in Hades’s Underworld is not exactly a red-hot, thrill-a-minute, madcap adventure sort of thing. One could call it rather dull, which one, if one is a Shade, often does. As much as Hades may say he likes to make his subjects comfortable, he really doesn’t care a whit for them, and all of the Dead know it. As a result, over time, the Shades tend to lose their will, their emotions, their personality, everything that connects them with Life.

  But there is one thing that can change all that:

  Blood.

  Yes, this sounds completely disgusting. Any warm-blooded human being finds the idea of drinking blood completely icky, oogy, squitchy, and well, just plain gross. But the Dead are not warm-blooded human beings. They are, well, Dead. And the only thing that can make them feel Alive again, if only for a brief time, is blood.

  Blood is Life, and to the Shades in the Underworld the taste of blood, the feel of blood, gives them the thrill of Life again. As the blood courses through their bodies, the Shades thicken, gain substance, form, emotion.

  There was a time, back before the Decree for Underworld Preservation and Sanctity was passed, when people would waltz through the Underworld all the time, carrying fresh blood with them. The smell would lure the Shades, who would crowd, clamor, and claw as if they had already drunk the stuff, as if merely the promise of blood gave them enough Life to fight for a taste.

  But if you were the ruler of subjects who were half comatose by nature, any substance that transforms them into crowders, clamorers, and clawers would make you distinctly nervous. And the prospect of any old Tom, Dick, or Herodotus waltzing through your realm and being able to lure and excite your people would not be an attractive one.

  Blood did not belong in the Underworld. It changed the Shades. Made them unruly. They couldn’t control their actions. They began to have delusions of Life—and nothing is more disruptive to a realm of the Dead than delusions of Life. In his Decree for the Promotion of Underworld Hygiene, Hades proclaimed that blood would be strictly forbidden in the Underworld (excepting, of course, inside the Palace. Hades liked his boar extremely rare).

  What Hades did not know was that not all of his employees obeyed his decrees scrupulously. And the most unscrupulous disobeyer of all was an Immortal named Philonecron.

  Philonecron was actually born in the Underworld, the son of a daughter of Poseidon and one of the demons who staffed the employee mud spa. He grew up playing along the banks of the Styx, skipping through the Vale of Mourning, frolicking in the Plain of Judgment.

  It wasn’t bad, growing up in the Underworld. There were quite a lot of Immortal kids, actually; what with such a large number of Immortals working there, most of them only tangentially related to one another, romances sprung up right and left, and sometimes those romances resulted in families. Or at least children. Whether birthed, hatched, or regurgitated, new babies were a common occurrence in the Underworld.

  And of course with children came institutional needs. And the Underworld adapted. Day care. A good school system. Interspecies medicine. Children are a nether realm’s most valuable resource, and Hades made sure they were treated accordingly. And he was rewarded; most of the kids grew up to work in the Administration, serving Hades loyally (and eternally).

  As a student, Philonecron took a long time to pick a career path. His teachers pronounced him highly intelligent but lacking discipline, the sort that would rather spend his time writing sonnets about gastronomical distress than doing his geometry homework. His first internship in high school was with the Erinyes in Tartarus, but his guidance counselors thought he seemed to enjoy the job a bit too much. After graduation from high school he worked in a few low-level agencies before settling in at the Department of Sanitation.

  But Philonecron had other goals. He wasn’t going to be a garbage man forever. He had a plan.

  For, despite what his teachers thought, he had been paying attention at school. He’d learned all of his history well. And he knew that there was only one thing that mattered in the world, and that was power.

  Philonecron wanted power. Not pretend power, like the bloated Managers, lording over Recreation or Meal Services as if they were kingdoms unto themselves. He wanted real power. He wanted everything. He wanted to rule.

  Oh, not the Universe. He had no desire for the earth, for the stars and the heavens, for Mount Olympus and all it surveyed. That was too much. All he wanted was his own world, his home, the Underworld. Anyway, he’d learned well that people who tried to overthrow Zeus did not come to good ends. But as far as he could see, no one had ever tried to overthrow Hades. And Hades was ripe to be overthrown.

  Over the millennia King Hades had become complacent, lazy. Everyone knew it; they were just too scared to say anything. He sat in the Palace counting his gold, mooning over the Ice Queen, and letting the Administrators make up work for themselves.

  The Underworld wasn’t supposed to be like this. It’s the Underworld, for the love of Zeus—the Dark Domain, the Realm of the Dead—it shouldn’t be run like some two-bit provincial government. Bureaucracy isn’t even a Greek word. The Underworld needed a strong ruler, a man with a vision, a man handy with a whip, a man who could live up to the promise of the domain, bring back the days when it meant something to be a Greek god. The Underworld needed Philonecron.

  But getting the Underworld to realize this was another matter. Taking control would not be easy. Hades was firmly entrenched. And all his Administrators enjoyed their petty positions of power. Hades had them all in his shadowy hands. Philonecron knew the whole Administration was designed only to perpetuate itself—all the Departments and Sections and Agencies only assured the complacency of the people who worked there, and kept Hades wedged in his throne.

  The Underworld was now designed to serve the Administrators—the Immortals who served in the burgeoning bureaucracy. None of it was for the Shades. The Shades were the true subjects of the Kingdom of the Dead, and yet no one paid them any attention at all. No one cared about the Shades.

  Really, Philonecron did not care about the Shades either, but he wasn’t about to tell them that. Because the Shades outnumbered the Administrators at least five thousand to one. If someone could only incite them…