Hades' Halls

Family troubles

"They are doing well aren't they", said Hades, hop, skip and jumping into his office, Garma tucked beneath his elbow. The students had taken Hades through everything they had been working on, Eloise and Lydia arriving home just after him to proudly display the magazines they had prevented heartless bastards from purchasing. He had even laughed at the caricature of himself, sketched so wonderfully on the blackboard, complimenting Seb on his art but only receiving a scowl in return. Hades should have known that he should not have tried to break through with that one.

Flinging himself into his chair, Hades placed Garma in his lap, squinted an eye and said, "Allow me to introduce myself."

Spike made no answer, but he was trying to manoeuvre Hades' new purchase of a 1930s writing desk through the doorway. Hades pouted as he waited for Spike to put the desk down in a corner of the room where it possessed no practical purpose but looked nice and complimented the skirting boards. Hands on lower spine, Spike lent back, until there was an audible click, making Hades grimace.

"Spike, who am I. Go on, guess." Hades lent back in his chair looking evil.

Spike shrugged. "I don't know Gov", he said with the rest of the sentence 'and I don't care' hanging between them.

"Agh, your no fun." Picking Garma up, Hades kissed her gently on the nose and put her down on the ground where she preceded to run around like a mad thing. Spike's eyes followed her.

Swinging round, Hades searched his office. "Where are the latest reports? Have you filed them away? How are things going in the land down under?"

Receiving no reply, Hades swung round again to face Spike. Flicking his eyes down then up, Hades lent back in his chair, steepling his fingers. "Spike, I get the feeling something's not quite right."

Tight lipped, Spike jerked his head aside in a shake. "No Gov. All fine Gov. Fine and dandy Gov."

"Riiiiight", Hades was not convinced. As a policy, he had never learnt to read emotions; there was pain and there was peace, that was all one needed to know in his line of work. But something was telling him that Spike was experiencing a more complex emotion, one intricately made from many thoughts and feelings. Concentrating, Hades tried to work it out, scrutinising Spike's despondent face but soon he had to stop. It was giving him a headache. He would have to mull it over, that's what humans did. "Reports?", he asked again.

"Nothing's come through today. I think there might be an issue with communications."

'"No, there's not", said Hades walking over to the fax machine. "Oh, what do you know."

Hades saw Spike roll his eyes but chose to forget it. His demon was obviously going through something. Inspecting the tube system from where he sent his instruction to Hell, Hades cried the same exclamation of discovery that Chris Columbous cried when he stood on the deck of his ship, pointing at 'India'.

"Ah ha, I see the problem", he exclaimed. "There's something jamming the pipe. It must be causing the whole system to go haywire; that's the problem with this new-fangled technology (Footnote 1). If I just ...." Hades reached into the opening and began to pull out communication tubes which sent his orders whizzing down to Hell like antibiotics through the digestive tract.

"Blimey, there's quite a few in here". The tubes were piling up on the floor, clinking together musically as Spike watched on, doing his upmost to ignore Garma who had become enamoured with his left shoe. Up to his shoulder, Hades stood on his toes to reach further, grasping at something soft and woolly like a claw in an arcade letting the pink teddy bear slip through its talons. "Bingo", said Hades as his fingers eventually caught hold of the material and he was able to slide his arm from the pipe and allow blood flow to resume.