Chapter 14: Clio, Part 5: Underworld

The rancid smell of death lingered potently along the cavernous castle walls of Hade's Underworld dominion. Bones decorated the floor and every so often, we could spot a skeletal guard walking down a distant hallway. Instinctively, Seth and I kept close together while Nico walked solemnly ahead. He had been to this disgusting, dark, death palace before, and it seemed to have only a mild effect on him. However, Seth and I had never even met our father before, much less visited this Hell-hole.

Seth accidentally stepped into a pile of bones that littered the floor, snapping a few of them like twigs. He yelped and sped forward several steps, dragging me along with him. Nico, however, didn't even glance behind, and trudged forward, zombie-like, as if nothing had happened.

In the past few days, ever since Cassy had left camp, Nico had reverted to his old self, to the Nico I had known before he had met Cassy. he was humorless, dark, and his eyes were lifeless. I knew what feelings tormented him, I had similar feelings of my own, tucked away where no one could find them, but I still felt resentful of his attitude.

Before us walked a hateful creature, with the most revolting countenance. A fury, named Alecto, who took us grudgingly past the gates of Hade's castle to see the God of the Underworld himself. Being a child of Hades, I would have expected that the ghostly chill of the Underworld, the rotted smell corpses in the ground, and the sight of thousands and thousands of dead souls trapped forever in the gray fields of Asphodel, would not have affected me very much at all. But I still wanted to get the hell out. No pun intended.

The worst part of the journey had been making our way through the fields. Seth had kept his eyes dead ahead (no pun intended) to avoid scanning the crowd for those he knew. His own mother had left him with his grandparents at a young age, and I could tell he didn't want to find her here. I also noticed Nico's eyes desperately searching the faces for Cassy, though he tried not to appear too anxious. Every so often, we'd both spot a head of bright, golden blonde hair in the crowd, but each time the ghostly figure would turn around and reveal itself to be someone else.

There was once I could've sworn I'd seen Percy's untidy brown hair, and I felt like my heart had sunk to somewhere around my stomach, but the image flickered and disappeared before I could tell for sure. Strange, I had thought, I didn't know ghosts could vanish like that.

And as we had neared the edge of the fields, Nico lost all pretense and turned around, giving the fields one last searching glance, and turned to leave.

Deep down, as much as I'd fantasized about her getting hit by a car or eaten by a dragon, I had dreaded seeing her in the fields almost as much as Nico. If I ever saw her again, I wouldn't want it to be like this. My mind drifted to the last cold words I had spoken to her before she left. Seth was right. I was just bitter and jealous. And suddenly, I wished I could apologize to her somehow.

"Seth?" I whispered.

"Yeah?" He said, laughing silently at how silly we both looked, huddled together in Nico's shadow.

I bit my lip. "I was thinking about the fields—" I began, but Seth stiffened.

"Just don't, okay, Clio? Don't think about 'em."

"If Cassy had been—" I started.

"But she wasn't there, was she? And even if she had been, you know she'd have forgiven you." He said calmly.

After a long pause, I asked, "How do you always read my mind?"

"It's my job." He smirked.

Suddenly we reached the end of the hall, the hideous creature paused before two ornate wooden doors with knobs in the shape of skulls and turned around.

"Young masters" she said, with as much venom as she could pack into those words, "Please enter. Your father expects you." And, with an almost gleeful grin, uglier than anything I'd ever seen in my life, she flitted away.

Nico turned to see Seth and me cowering behind him. Quickly, we both straightened up and cleared our throats.

"Well," Seth said, adopting a sarcastic smile, "I suppose its now time for us to meet our dear father, Clio?"

I grinned back at him, and rolled my eyes as if to say, No big deal. Couldn't care less. But in reality, I was hastily combing my hair with my fingers. Even Seth licked his hand and tried in vain to flatten the back of his spiky hair. We both inhaled sharply, and I squeezed Seth's arm, as Nico pushed open the great wooden doors.

The throne room was bathed in a ghoulish light, emanating from torches filled with green flames which lined the dark stone walls. At the end of the room sat two large, stone thrones encrusted with rubies and emeralds and other precious stones. Gold coins, chalices, and jewelry lay at the feet of these thrones in large heaps, and sitting one each throne was a black robed figure.

One was a tall, serious-looking man, with a thick, long black robe with some strange pattern on it that I didn't have the time to study. My eyes moved to his solemn face, which held deep, jet black eyes, and was surrounded by long, dark black hair. Next to him was a slightly less solemn-looking girl, with similar long, black hair, and warm brown eyes, though they seemed lifeless on her pale skin. She wore an expression of disgust as she surveyed Nico, Seth, and I.

What else had I expected? I mean, we were all the living proof that Hades had cheated on Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, at least three times.

Hades stood slowly and opened his arms wide in welcome, but his cold, sinister eyes betrayed this hospitable gesture. "Welcome, my children."

…..

Hope you enjoyed this short installment. What will Hades do next, I wonder? And what's become of Percy, Annabeth, and Cassy!

Please leave a review for me, that'd be nice :)

~ Calliope