ONE

Today is Nyx's day with Dad. Hades knows what they're up to. Get it? Hades...? Screw you, I'm funny.

Anyway, I'm sitting on one of the leather couches Dad loves so much, reading a book. Mother always chastised me for reading. It doesn't matter; she's gone.

Hazel sits across from me, writing a sickening love letter to her boyfriend, Frank, who's topside. When she finishes, she tosses it into the fireplace. It disappears into the green flames. I roll my eyes. Nyx and Hazel can't use phones, even here, at Dad's.

The door opens behind me and Nyx sulks in. I know what you're thinking, 'things went wrong with Dad.' Nah. Nyx is always sulking. I'm pretty sure she was born with a scowl.

Then again, she was born over 100 years ago.

"Hey, Nyxie," I say, barely glancing up from my book.

"Don't call me that," she snaps.

"How'd it go?" Hazel asks.

"Usual," she mutters, flinging herself onto the couch next to Hazel. "Dad sends his regards."

I grunt. Dad avoids us whenever we're together. I would avoid my kids, too, if they gave me schizophrenia.

See, he's all three of our dads, but we're not actually–genetically–siblings.

Nyx is a child of Hades; she was born as Melanie Joy Lawless on January 1, 1903, before the Pact that banned any of the Big Three from having kids. When she was 14, Hades sent her to this place called the Lotus Casino, which is suspended in time. About 20 years later, when the Pact was made, he put his other two kids, Nico and Bianca DiAngelo, there too. Melanie, Nico, and Bianca were there for decades, never aging. Of course, they didn't know each other at the time. Melanie eventually got out–how, she won't tell–and changed her name to Nyx. Sometime after that, Hades got Nico and Bianca out too.

Hazel is more closely related to Nyx than I am to either of them; she's Pluto's daughter. You know, Hades' Roman personality? Hazel is also out of her time–we all are, really. Hazel actually died, about 70 years ago, trying to stop a big, bad giant from being reborn to destroy the world. He ended up rising anyway, last year, but whatever. You want the details? Ask Hazel. Nico found Hazel a few years ago in the underworld and snuck her back to the land of the living.

As for me, I was born in pre-revolutionary Russia–1889, to be exact–to a Jewish woman with a bad temper. I guess that's part of what attracted my father–Lucifer.

Yeah sure. Run and scream from the terrible demon. I'm hell spawn. Whatever. I'm actually half-angel, if you want to get snippy.

Point is, Dad met my mother during one of his stints in the world as Lucifer and voilá...me. I had an older half-brother, Motel; he married and left. Good riddance. Mother named me Marcia. I changed it as soon as I could. That's about all you're gonna get about my past. Enjoy it.

Supposedly, the humans believe, when Dad fell from Heaven–long before the Greeks came along–he was locked up in a cage at the bottom of Hell–deeper than Tartarus. They got it half right. Really, Michael and my other wonderful uncles cast him into Hell and trapped him inside his own mind. "The Pit" is nothing more than a mind prison. The Greeks discovered some of his residual power and named it Hades.

See, the thing about the imagination, if you believe hard enough, it comes true. So Dad got lumped in with the rest of the newly made Greek gods. He didn't complain. It gave him a personality so he could walk around again. Lucifer was still trapped inside his head, though.

Then the Romans came along and made him into Pluto. Suddenly, his mind was a hullabaloo of voices.

Lucifer fought to get out; he managed it a few times a century, including just before I was born. There was so much evil in the world during the time I lived that Dad was able to break out of his prison–but only for a day or two.

Remember when I said we shouldn't be alive? That's 'cause we all technically died.

For Hazel, as I said, she actually did. Nyx dies so many times she might as well be a zombie, but Hades brings her back every time anyway. Sometimes I think she dies just to get his attention. As for me, I never actually died, but I'm not technically alive either.

One of the times Dad managed to slip Lucifer out of the Cage, when I was about 19, I paid him a visit. I chilled–or rather, boiled–in the underworld for a bit, putting up with Dad's constant shift of personalities. Eventually, he created some dumb-ass quest-thing for me to do for him and made me immortal as a reward. As Hades or Pluto, he'd never be able to pull that off, but as Lucifer, he's pretty unlimited in power, and since I'm already half-angel, it wasn't hard.

Well, if you call having your daughter steal another angel's grace, concoct a potion, and drink it, almost killing herself in the process, "easy."

Then, three years ago, these two bozos fully released him–nearly setting off the Apocalypse. They sent him back to the Pit–or so they thought. What they really did was send him into Tartarus–but his mind was still intact.

So now all three of his personalities can walk, talk, and shout. But the weird thing with the immortals, when they have multiple aspects, they tend to easily shift back and forth when influenced.

Hence Dad avoiding being near more than one of us girls.

Then, a couple months after Dad's return to Hell, there was almost another apocalypse–this time, not Dad's fault. I'm pretty sure Hazel and her friends wrote a book or two so I'm not going to get into that story.

That's when I met my sisters. They met through Nico, who called them both to the battle. I met them through Dad–all three of Dad. See, Dad called me to the battle, not realizing all four of his kids would be in the same place; he almost had a mental breakdown. I got him back to his palace and then returned to meet my siblings–including Nico.

Since then, we've scheduled once-a-month Hell Weeks. Well...that's what I call them. Basically we all get together in Dad's palace one week a month to get to know each other and spend time with Dad. We each get a day every week. The other four are spent terrorizing each other and the undead.

For the underworld, that's pretty fun.

Nico rarely attends.

Nyx whips out a pomegranate and bites into the tough skin. For some reason, she can eat underworld food, despite the fact that doing so should trap her in Hell forever. Maybe it's because she's died over 300 times. "What's new with you?" She asks around a mouthful of juice and seeds. Hazel and I grimace. We were both raised by strict mothers with even stricter rules regarding manners.

Nyx was barely raised at all.

"I'm reading," I state plainly. "And Hazel just finished being mushy." Nyx's face contorts.

"Boys. Gross," she jokes. Despite her frivolity, I see a tiny spark of sadness in her eyes. Pluto's daughter and I are strikingly beautiful, while the children of Hades are dark and brooding. Nyx often finds it difficult to get a boy to look at her–unless it's in a scared, creeped, or suspicious way.

At least her mother didn't try to marry her off to a 40-year-old butcher.

"What book are you reading, Jez?" Hazel asks me. Jezebel is the name I currently go by; I named myself after a biblical princess. Dad didn't find it funny.

I hold up the book for her to see. It's one of my dragon series.

"Another dragon book, Jez?" Nyx groans. "Why are you so obsessed with them?"

I shrug. "Dad took me to Purgatory once to see them. I find them fascinating."

Hazel's eyes bug out of her head. She shakes her head, golden-brown curls dancing around her face like fire. "I'll never get over the idea that Purgatory exists. I wish I could see it."

"You wouldn't survive," I say plainly. "You think your current attraction level of monsters is bad? The beasties here on earth are bunny rabbits compared to Eve's lot. Mummy Monster doesn't fool around when it comes to her kids. Remember me telling you about the Leviathans?"

Hazel and Nyx shudder.

"Besides, Hades and Pluto can't enter Purgatory." I'm about to continue reading when there's a loud tapping on the door–the sound of bones on wood. "What?" Nyx shouts, at the same time I bellow, "Enter!" and Hazel calls, "Yes?" The door creaks open in that ominous way all the doors in the palace do. Standing behind it is one of the skeleton guards. His skull turns, his hollow eye sockets looking at each of us in turn, before landing on Nyx. His jaw moves, but no words come out. Instead, he clicks and grinds his teeth together; it is both a chilling and beautiful sound.

"What did he say?" I ask Nyx. She's the only one who understands the skeletons.

Nyx rolls her eyes. "Cerberus wants us to play with him again." I groan. I'm already on Hellhound-sitting duty for ruining Persephone's garden yesterday.

"You play with him, Nyxie," I say. "He likes you better anyway."

"He scares me," Hazel mutters.

"Ugh! Fine," Nyx stands up and stomps out of the room, nearly disassembling the skeleton guard in the process.

"Do you think she's mad?" Hazel asks, looking guilty.

"Nah," I say, flipping a page in my book. "She loves the slobbering goofball. She just won't be sappy in front of us."

"Why?"

I pause. "I don't know," I reply after a moment. "She doesn't talk about herself that much. Who knows what dark secrets lay in her past?" Hazel nods thoughtfully and I return my attention to my book, thinking bitterly of my own dark memories.

A minute later, the fire makes a hissing noise, and then, with a loud pop, a scroll shoots out of the flames, landing on the carpet between us. Hazel and I stare at it. The scroll is obviously paper, not animal skin or papyrus. A thin, purple ribbon is wrapped around the center, sealed with a still-cooling blob of wax. Stamped into the center are a crossed sword and torch. Hazel's eyes widen and she scoops the scroll up off the floor.

"I know this symbol," she gasps. "The message is from Reyna!"

"Your…er, leader, right?"

"Praetor," she corrects. She picks at the glob of wax and unwraps the scroll. "Hazel," she reads, "I know you are spending your monthly week at your father's palace, but I need you to return to Camp Jupiter. I need your expertise. We've gotten reports of strange men capturing and interrogating demigods. One of them was almost killed. Her report states that they thought she was a witch–" I take a sharp breath. Hazel trails off and looks up at me.

My book slips out of my hand and lands loudly on the floor. I barely notice. "Impossible," I breathe. "How could they possibly track demigods?"

"Who?" Hazel asks.

My voice shakes as I say, "The Winchesters."