Skin Game (The Dresden Files 15)

Hades had just offered me his protection—and with it, the obligations of a good guest. Obligations like not stealing anything from his host, for example. I had to tread very carefully here. Bad Things Would Happen To Me if I dared to violate my guest-right. But I couldn’t help but think that Bad Things Would Happen To Me even faster if I insulted a freaking Greek god by refusing his invitation.

I remember very little of my father, but one thing I do remember is him telling me always to be polite. It costs you nothing but breath, and can buy you as much as your life.

What, don’t look at me like that. I’m only a wiseass to monsters.

And people who really need it.

And when it suits me to be so.

Oh yeah. I was going to have to watch my step very, very carefully here.

“Thank you, Lord Hades,” I said, after a pause. My voice quavered only a little.

He nodded without looking away from the fire, and moved his free hand in a languid gesture toward the other chair. “Please, join me.”

I moved gingerly and sat down slowly in the chair.

Hades gave me a brief smile. He poured wine from the ceramic bottle into the other glass, and I took it with a nod of thanks. I took a sip. I’m not really a wine guy, but this tasted like expensive stuff, dark and rich. “I . . . ,” I began, then thought better of it and shut my mouth.

Hades’ eyes shifted to me and his head tilted slightly. He nodded.

“I feel that I should ask you about the passage of time,” I said. “It is possible that time-sensitive events are occurring without your knowledge as we speak.”

“Very little in the lives of you or your companions has occurred without my knowledge for the past several days,” Hades replied.

I got that sinking feeling that reminded me of all the times I got called in front of the principal’s desk in junior high. “You, uh. You know?”

He gave me a very mildly long-suffering look.

“Right,” I said quietly. “It’s your realm. Of course you know.”

“Just so,” he said. “That was fairly well-done at the Gate of Ice, by the way. Relatively few who attempt it take the time to watch first.”

“Um,” I said. “Thank you?”

He smiled, briefly. “Do not concern yourself with time. It currently passes very, very slowly for your companions at the vault, as compared to here.”

“Oh,” I said. “Okay. That’s good.”

He nodded. He took a sip of wine, directed his gaze back upon the fire and trailed the fingers of one hand down over the nearest head of the dog sleeping beside his chair. “I am not what the current age of man would call a ‘people person,’” he said, frowning. “I have never been terribly social. If I had the skill, I would say words to you that would put you at ease and assure you that you are in no immediate peril of my wrath.”

“Your actions have already done so,” I said.

The wispiest shade of a smile line touched the corners of his eyes. “Ah. You have a certain amount of perception, then.”

“I used to think so,” I said. “Then I started getting older and realized how clueless I am.”

“The beginning of wisdom, or so Socrates would have it,” Hades said. “He says so every time we have brunch.”

“Wow,” I said. “Socrates is, uh, down here?”

Hades arched an eyebrow. He lifted his free hand, palm up.

“Right,” I said. “Sorry. Um. Do you mind if I ask . . . ?”

“His fate, in the Underworld?” Hades said.

I nodded.

Hades’ mouth ticked up at one corner. “People question him.”

The dog took note that it was no longer being petted, and the nearest head lifted up to nudge itself beneath Hades’ hand again. The Lord of the Underworld absentmindedly went back to petting it, like any man might with his dog.

The second head opened one eye and looked at me from beneath a shaggy canine brow. Then it yawned and went back to sleep.

I sipped some more wine, feeling a little off-balance, and asked, “Why did you, um, intervene in the . . . the intrusion, just now?”

Hades considered the question for a while before he said, “Perhaps I did so to thwart you and punish you. Do not villains do such things?”

“Except you aren’t a villain,” I said.

Dark, dark eyes turned to me. The fire popped and crackled.

“Granted, I’m basing that on the classical tales,” I said. “Which could be so much folklore, or which could have left out a lot of details or wandered off the truth in that much time. But you aren’t the Greek version of the Devil.”

“You’d hardly think so from the television,” Hades said mildly.

“TV rarely does the original stories justice,” I said. “But the stories bear out that you might not be such an awful person. I mean, your brothers got up to all kinds of shenanigans. Like, utterly dysfunctional shenanigans. Turning into a bull and seducing a virgin? How jaded do you have to be for that to sound like fun?”

“Careful,” Hades said, very, very gently. “I do not deny anything you say—but they are, after all, family.”

“Yeah, uh, right,” I said. “Well. My point is that they each had a sphere of responsibility of their own, and yet they seemed to spend a lot of time maybe neglecting that responsibility—which is not my place to judge, sure, but such a judgment might not be without supporting evidence.”

Hades flicked a few fingers in acknowledgment of my statement.

“But the thing is, there’s no stories about you doing that. The others could sometimes show capricious temper and did some pretty painful things to people. You didn’t. You had a reputation for justice, and never for cruelty. Except for that . . . that thing with your wife, maybe.”

Fire reflected very brightly in his dark eyes. “How I stole Persephone, you mean?”

“Did you?” I asked.

And regretted it almost immediately. For a second, I wanted very badly to know a spell that would let me melt through the floor in a quivering puddle of please-don’t-kill-me.

Hades stared at me for a long, intense period of silence and then breathed out something that might have been an extremely refined snort from his nose and sipped more wine. “She came of her own will. Her mother failed to cope. Empty-nest syndrome.”

I leaned forward, fascinated despite myself. “Seriously? And . . . the pomegranate seeds thing?”

“Something of a political fiction,” Hades said. “Hecate’s idea, and my brother ran with it. As a compromise, no one came away from it happy.”

“That’s supposedly the mark of a good compromise,” I said.

Hades grimaced and said, “It was necessary at the time.”

“The stories don’t record it quite that way,” I said. “I seem to recall Hecate leading Demeter in search of Persephone.”

That comment won a flash of white, white teeth. “That much is certainly true. Hecate led Demeter around. And around and around. It was her wedding present to us.”

I blinked slowly at that notion. “A honeymoon free of your mother-in-law.”

“Worth more than gold or jewels,” Hades said. “But as I said, I’ve never been the most social of my family. I never asked the muses to inspire tales of me, or visited my worshipers with revelations of the truth—what few I had, anyway. Honestly, I rarely saw the point of mortals worshiping me. They were going to come to my realm sooner or later, regardless of what they did. Did they think it would win them leniency in judging their shades?” He shook his head. “That isn’t how I operate.”

I regarded him seriously for a moment, frowning, thinking. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Words are not my strong suit,” he said. “Did you ask the best question?”

I sat back in the chair, swirling the wine a little.

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Hades had known we were coming, and we’d gotten in anyway. He’d known who I was. And there was, quite obviously, some kind of connection between Hades and the Queens of Faerie. I sipped at the wine. Add all that together and . . .

I nearly choked on the mouthful as I swallowed.

That won a brief but genuine smile from my host. “Ah,” he said. “Dawn.”

“You let Nicodemus find out about this place,” I said.

“And?”

“Mab. This is Mab’s play, isn’t it?”

“Why would she do such a thing?” Hades asked me, mock reproof in his voice.