Read Underworlds #1: The Battle Begins for Free Online

charities that morning.
    Sydney and Jon shook their heads at me.
    Charon’s old eyes flashed with anger. He turned away. “One-way voyage, then.”
    “But we have to get home!” said Jon.
    “No exceptions,” said Charon.
    “The penny!” Sydney whispered. “With the blue hair!”
    I dug into my pocket, pulled out Mags’s penny, and dropped it into Charon’s palm.
    He grinned. “If you come back after work hours, you’ll stay here, which means bye-bye to your old lives. No one leaves after I go off duty. Five P.M .” Tipping his filthy hat once more, he waded among the tall reeds and disappeared.
    “This is way scarier than the Runson house,” Jon muttered.
    We started walking up a rising slope of coal black ground dotted with leafless dead trees. It took us a few minutes to get to the top, where we found ourselves overlooking an enormous arena. It stretched for miles end to end and contained benches filled with millions of hooded, silent figures, who sat stiff and unmoving.
    I couldn’t believe it. “The dead,” I said. “So many of them …”
    At the near end of the arena stood what looked like the back of a throne, twenty feet high.
    “Someone’s big,” Jon said under his breath.
    Syd gasped softly. “That must be Hades’ throne! The king of the Greek dead would have a huge throne. Oh, man …”
    There was a long flight of stairs down to the throne. “This is for Dana, remember,” I said, setting my foot on the top step. But the moment I did — whoosh! — the stairs became a slide. We slammed onto our backs and shot all the way down the arena to the bottom.
    The instant we landed, the giant throne swung around to us, and my heart stopped.
    In the throne sat an enormous beast.
    It was shaped like a man, but its skin was as red as a stop sign, and it wore gleaming bloodred armor from shoulders to feet. Its head was a mess of wild flaming horns twisting out of its skin like a thicket. Its eye sockets were as wide as dinner plates and as hollow as tunnels, except for white flames blazing in each.
    And when it spoke, the air shook.
    “Welcome to my Underworld!”

“A LLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF ,” SAID THE GIANT red beast. “My name is Hades.”
    We all knew who he was. We had heard about him from the Valkyries and read about him in Dana’s overstuffed book. We had probably known about him since we were small. Every mythology had a Death King, and Hades was a mighty one.
    “You must be tired from your long and, no doubt, strange journey,” Hades said. “Take a rest. Here. By me.” He patted the arms of his giant throne. “Come, sit …”
    At every word, mist rose from his mouth like breath in the winter. Only it wasn’t human breath. It was smoke, thick and gray and smelling of death.
    “Why so standoffish?” he asked, his red armor gleaming.
    We didn’t move. We were too scared.
    But I managed to cough out a few words.
    “She’s here,” I said. “Dana Runson.”
    Hades slapped his knees and roared with laughter. “Getting right to the point!”
    His laughter ended as suddenly as it began. His smile died. He stared from one to the other of us in terrifying silence.
    Jon and Sydney took up their usual position behind me. I could hear them breathing. It felt good to have them that close.
    I gripped the lyre tightly, and its strings pressed into my arms. I had no idea if it would work on Hades, as the legends said it had for Orpheus. I was no Orpheus. And that scared me even more. But we had no choice. We came for one reason.
    “Dana Runson,” I said. “We want her back.”
    This time, Hades put on a sad face. “And she’s here , you say? Well, that is too bad.” He paused to summon one of the hooded shapes. It drifted over to the throne, and Hades leaned down as it whispered into his ear. He listened, then waved the shape away. “Was this Dana Runson young? I know it hurts you humans when your friends die young.”
    “She didn’t die,” Sydney said, staring up at Hades.