No matter how hard I tried to fly between worlds, luck was not on my side. There was no time to accept defeat though, I knew all too well what my prolonged presence would do to the living. Many would die prematurely and there would be nothing I could do about it. I would ooze out death and those around me will start dropping like flies. It's not like I brought my list with me either, my trusted list of the dead to be to carefully pick them off and restrain my godly power.

I flew aimlessly across the sky unsure what my next steps would be. No one would come to my aid if I asked, I was hated by my brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts. Why do they hate me you might ask? Well, let's just say I don't take orders from gods who think they can abuse their power because of their ranking.

On many occasions, the gods had their favourite heroes like Hercules or Perseus or even Achilles. Those poor bastards didn't see it coming, well, see me coming. They all thought that I would never touch them, that they would never see me guide them into the underworld for good. So did the gods, they placed wagers, sent the heroes on quests and bestowed them with gifts when they were done. They used the hero's as lackeys and reinforced their strength from the heroes' beliefs.

But I Thanatos, who did not discriminate against any mortal man, saw the readings of the Fates and did my part by allowing them to cease their existence. The manner of the death's well, that wasn't always up for me to decide, we all had our roles in this world.

I perched on a building ledge, in the dark anyone who looked up would mistake me for those wretched gargoyles. The humans looked like a colony of ants from here, they were significant beings but when you look at the big picture, they were all pawns for the gods. So few worshipped me, but that was not what I needed. I just needed to be the balance and from tonight, I was about to tip that balance and cause chaos for both worlds.

"That's it!" I shouted out to the world as an idea came to me.

I would call upon Hermes the messenger, he had no choice but to go to those who required his services. Of course, this job used to belong to Iris until she fully committed herself to serve only Hera.

"But there's one problem," I murmured to myself as I thought aloud.

Hermes was not always good at keeping his mouth shut, and in our rather strange family word spreads faster than wildfire. If Zeus were to find out I'd messed up yet again there could be worse punishments than this.

I contemplated this thoroughly, all the possible outcomes and scenarios of Hermes coming to my aid. No, I would not call upon any of them, a much better idea began to form in my head. It was an excellent idea but I'd be hitting an all-time low for myself. So many centuries of holding my firm belief were about to be shattered all because someone or something locked me out of the underworld. This meant war, and there was no time to hold onto such silly beliefs.

If the gods can use hero's, then so can I.

....

I stayed in China for a couple more days as I did my research, it wasn't as easy as the old days finding a hero to send on a quest. You'd normally be able to sniff them out in a village or town. No, now there were so many people on earth that I could not fully trace the line of a demi-god, half-human half-god. I was sure that my family at some point in recent history fooled around with a human and then left them to fend for themselves. I did not sire any offspring, I found matters of the heart to be so trivial. So using one of their kids was almost poetic.

The internet came in handy, I never thought I'd say that but it really did. Luckily for me, the gods seemed to like keeping track of their offspring and had a full database with names, pictures and addresses. It was found under a webpage called 'Missing Children'. Now I know what you might be thinking, that this was an ordinary page full of missing human children. That's not the case at all, right at the bottom on the left-hand side where the acceptance of 'cookies' was, was a link titled 'demi-gods'. Only we used the name demi-gods to label our human offspring and only us gods could see it. That is definitely an illusion run by some other minor god maintaining the servers.

Whoever created this either really hated the other god's children or was really stupid. Having this website was like shinning a beaming torchlight over every vulnerable demi-god out there. I was looking for pure unadulterated vengeance on one of my family members, then this website is the first place I'd go.

I found the perfect boy to undertake this quest. He was fourteen, weedy, and a son of Zeus. Powerful, but discrete. First, I'd have to find out if he even knew who his father was before I could send him on this quest. I didn't need Zeus breathing down my backside until this was all over. Plus I'd have leverage over Zeus should he try to punish me.

I'd overstayed my welcome here in China by four days now, nothing disastrous has happened so far, and I hoped it would remain that way. When it reached nightfall, I packed up all my things leaving nothing behind, I even masked my godly smell by filling the apartment I stayed in with flowers. The less traceable I was the better.

I took flight to my next destination, the Italian Alps, well the Alps on the side of Italy. Oh, I loved that place in winter, it was full of snow providing the perfect opportunity for sharpening my skills and snowboarding. Maybe I could teach Zeus' son a thing or two.

It took me eight hours of continuous flight to reach the mountain peaks in Italy. As the sun rose I basked in the glorious feeling of its rays, dipping and swaying as I descended over a town. I flew over a small townhouse, the address that of the boy. I hovered on the second story, peeping into the windows to see if I could catch a glimpse of the boy. All the windows had their shutters down.

"Damn" I cursed out loud.

Now I was going to have to formally introduce myself.

I settled down at the front door knocking as politely as I could.

A moment later, a woman pulled the door open, her olive skin and dark hair the first things I noticed. She took one look at me and paled.

"Morte," she breathed before collapsing at the door.

Stunned, I looked around, speaking to myself, "I did not touch her!"

"Mama!" A boy cried out, his body came into view when he knelt next to his mother.

I looked at the woman for a moment, her shoulders rose then fell.

"She'll be ok kid," I said in perfect Italian before stepping over the woman and making my way inside as my wings tucked away. "I've got a quest for you."