I do not own Harry Potter, Percy Jackson or any of the original works of JK Rowling and Rick Rioridan.
Ariadne's POV
It was my idea. I loaded us into the back of a Vegas taxi as if we actually had money, and told the driver, "Los Angeles, please."
The cabbie chewed his cigar and sized us up. "That's three hundred miles. For that, you gotta pay up front."
"You accept casino debit cards?" I asked.
He shrugged. "Some of 'em. Same as credit cards. I gotta swipe 'em through first."
I handed him her green LotusCash card. He looked at it skeptically.
"Swipe it," I invited.
He did.
His meter machine started rattling. The lights flashed. Finally, an infinity symbol came up next to the dollar sign. The cigar fell out of the driver's mouth. He looked back at us; his eyes wide. "Where to in Los Angeles... uh, Your Highness?"
"The Santa Monica Pier." I sat up a little straighter. I liked the "Your Highness" thing. "Get us there fast, and you can keep $200 tip."
Maybe she shouldn't have told him that. The cab's speedometer never dipped below ninety-five the whole way through the Mojave Desert.
On the road, we had plenty of time to talk. Percy told Annabeth, Grover and I about his latest dream, but the details got sketchier the more he tried to remember them. The Lotus Casino seemed to have short- circuited his memory. He couldn't recall what the invisible servant's voice had sounded like, though he was sure it was somebody we knew. The servant had called the monster in the pit something other than "my lord" ... some special name or title...
"The Silent One?" Annabeth suggested. "The Rich One? Both of those are nicknames for Hades."
"Maybe ..." he said, I just didn't think it was Hades.
"That throne room sounds like Hades's," Grover said. "That's the way it's usually described."
He shook my head. "Something's wrong. The throne room wasn't the main part of the dream. And that voice from the pit ... I don't know. It just didn't feel like a god's voice."
My eyes widened. It- It couldn't be...? He- oh, my.
"What?" he asked.
"Oh ... nothing. I was just-No, it has to be Hades. Maybe he sent this thief, this invisible person, to get the master bolt, and something went wrong- "
"Like what?"
"I-I don't know," Annabeth continued, "But if he stole Zeus's symbol of power from Olympus, and the gods were hunting him, I mean, a lot of things could go wrong. So, this thief had to hide the bolt, or he lost it somehow. Anyway, he failed to bring it to Hades. That's what the voice said in your dream, right? The guy failed. That would explain what the Furies were searching for when they came after us on the bus. Maybe they thought we had retrieved the bolt."
She must have caught up with me. She looked pale.
"But if I'd already retrieved the bolt," Percy said, "why would I be traveling to the Underworld?"
"To threaten Hades," Grover suggested. "To bribe or blackmail him into getting your mom back."
I whistled. "You have evil thoughts for a goat."
"Why, thank you."
"But the thing in the pit said it was waiting for two items," I said. "If the master bolt is one, what's the other?" Grover shook his head, clearly mystified.
Annabeth was looking at me as if she knew my next question, and was silently willing me not to ask it.
"You have an idea what might be in that pit, don't you?" Percy asked her. "I mean, if it isn't Hades?"
"Percy ... let's not talk about it. Because if it isn't Hades ... No. It has to be Hades."
Wasteland rolled by. We passed a sign that said CALIFORNIA STATE LINE, 12 MILES.
I got the feeling I was missing one simple, critical piece of information. It was like when I stared at a common word I should know, but I couldn't make sense of it because one or two letters were floating around. The more I thought about my quest, the more I was sure that confronting Hades wasn't the real answer. There was something else going on, something even more dangerous.
The problem was: we were hurtling toward the Underworld at ninety-five miles an hour, betting that Hades had the master bolt. If we got there and found out we were wrong, we wouldn't have time to correct ourselves. The solstice deadline would pass and war would begin.
"The answer is in the Underworld," Annabeth assured us. "Percy saw spirits of the dead. There's only one place that could be. We're doing the right thing."
She tried to boost our morale by suggesting clever strategies for getting into the Land of the Dead, but my heart wasn't in it. There were just too many unknown factors. It was like cramming for a test without knowing the subject.
The cab sped west. Every gust of wind through Death Valley sounded like a spirit of the dead. Every time the brakes hissed on an eighteen-wheeler, it reminded me of Echidna's reptilian voice.
At sunset, the taxi dropped us at the beach in Santa Monica. It looked exactly the way L.A. beaches do in the movies, only it smelled worse. There were carnival rides lining the Pier, palm trees lining the sidewalks, homeless guys sleeping in the sand dunes, and surfer dudes waiting for the perfect wave.
Grover, Annabeth, Percy and I walked down to the edge of the surf.
"What now?" Annabeth asked. The Pacific was turning gold in the setting sun.
Percy stepped into the surf; I was getting worried.
"Percy?" Annabeth said. "What are you doing?"
He kept walking, up to his waist, then chest. She called after him, "You know how polluted that water is? There're all kinds of toxic- "
That's when his head went under. "What now? Percy just played a Moana on us."
Grover shrugged unsurely, "He's the son of the Sea God; he'll be fine." it sounded as though he was trying to convince himself more than me. We waited in awkward silence as Percy reached the beach, clothes dried instantly. He told Grover, Annabeth and I what had happened, and showed us three pearls.
I frowned, "There's only three. There are four of us."
Annabeth grimaced. "No gift comes without a price."
"They were free."
"No." She shook her head. "'There is no such thing as a free lunch.' That's an ancient Greek saying that translated pretty well into American. There will be a price. You wait."
On that happy thought, we turned our backs on the sea. With some spare change from Ares's backpack, we took the bus into West Hollywood. I showed the driver the Underworld address slip I'd taken from Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium, but he'd never heard of DOA Recording Studios.
"You remind me of somebody I saw on TV," he told Percy. "You a child actor or something?"
"Uh ... I'm a stunt double ... for a lot of child actors."
"Oh! That explains it."
We thanked him and got off quickly at the next stop. We wandered for miles on foot, looking for DOA. Nobody seemed to know where it was. It didn't appear in the phone book. Twice, we ducked into alleys to avoid cop cars.
I froze in front of an appliance-store window because a television was playing an interview with somebody who looked very familiar-Percy's stepdad, Smelly Gabe. He was talking to Barbara Walters-I mean, as if he were some kind of huge celebrity. She was interviewing him in our apartment, in the middle of a poker game, and there was a young blond lady sitting next to him, patting his hand.
A fake tear glistened on his cheek. He was saying, "Honest, Ms. Walters, if it wasn't for Sugar here, my grief counselor, I'd be a wreck. My stepson took everything I cared about. My wife ... my Camaro ... I-I'm sorry. I have trouble talking about it."
"There you have it, America." Barbara Walters turned to the camera. "A man torn apart. An adolescent boy with serious issues. Let me show you, again, the last known photo of this troubled young fugitive, taken a week ago in Denver."
The screen cut to a grainy shot of me, Annabeth, Percy and Grover standing outside the Colorado diner, talking to Ares.
"Who are the other children in this photo?" Barbara Walters asked dramatically. "Who is the man with them? Is Percy Jackson a delinquent, a terrorist, or perhaps the brainwashed victim of a frightening new cult? When we come back, we chat with a leading child psychologist. Stay tuned, America."
"C'mon," Grover told me. He hauled me away before I could punch a hole in the appliance-store window.
It got dark, and hungry-looking characters started coming out on the streets to play. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm no New Yorker, but I don't scare easy. L.A. had a totally different feel from New York. Back there, everything seemed close. It didn't matter how big the city was, you could get anywhere without getting lost. The street pattern and the subway made sense. There was a system to how things worked. A kid could be safe as long as he wasn't stupid.
L.A. wasn't like that. It was spread out, chaotic, hard to move around. It reminded me of Ares. It wasn't enough for L.A. to be big; it had to prove it was big by being loud and strange and difficult to navigate, too. I didn't know how we were ever going to find the entrance to the Underworld by tomorrow, the summer solstice.
We walked past gangbangers, bums, and street hawkers, who looked at us like they were trying to figure if we were worth the trouble of mugging. As we hurried passed the entrance of an alley, a voice from the darkness said, "Hey, you."
Like an idiot, Percy stopped.
Before I knew it, we were surrounded. A gang of kids had circled us. Six of them in all-white kids with expensive clothes and mean faces. Like the purebloods in the wizarding world that didn't need to worry about getting in trouble: rich brats playing at being bad boys.
Instinctively, Percy uncapped Riptide.
When the sword appeared out of nowhere, the kids backed off, but their leader was either really stupid or really brave, because he kept coming at us with a switchblade.
He made the biggest mistake of swinging. The kid yelped. But he must've been one hundred percent mortal, because the blade passed harmlessly right through his chest. He looked down. "What the ..."
I figured I had about three seconds before his shock turned to anger. "Run!" Percy screamed at Annabeth, Grover and I.
We pushed two kids out of the way and raced down the street, not knowing where we were going.
We turned a sharp corner.
"There!" Annabeth shouted.
Only one store on the block looked open, its windows glaring with neon. The sign above the door said something like CRSTUY'S WATRE BDE ALPACE.
"Crusty's Water Bed Palace?" Grover translated.
It didn't sound like a place I'd ever go except in an emergency, but this definitely qualified. We burst through the doors, ran behind a water bed, and ducked. A split second later, the gang kids ran past outside.
"I think we lost them," Grover panted. A voice behind us boomed, "Lost who?"
We all jumped.
Standing behind us was a guy who looked like a raptor in a leisure suit. He was at least seven feet tall, with absolutely no hair. He had gray, leathery skin, thick-lidded eyes, and a cold, reptilian smile.
He moved toward us slowly, but I got the feeling he could move fast if he needed to. His suit might've come from the Lotus Casino. It belonged back in the seventies, big-time. The shirt was silk paisley, unbuttoned halfway down his hairless chest. The lapels on his velvet jacket were as wide as landing strips. The silver chains around his neck-I couldn't even count them.
"I'm Crusty," he said, with a tartar-yellow smile.
I resisted the urge to say, Yes, you are.
"Sorry to barge in," I told him. "We were just browsing."
"You mean hiding from those no-good kids," he grumbled. "They hang around every night. I get a lot of people in here, thanks to them. Say, you want to look at a water bed?"
I was about to say No, thanks, when he put a huge paw on my shoulder and steered me deeper into the showroom.
There was every kind of water bed you could imagine: different kinds of wood, different patterns of sheets; queen-size, king-size, emperor-of-the-universe-size –Zeus might like the last one.
"This is my most popular model." Crusty spread his hands proudly over a bed covered with black satin sheets, with built-in Lava Lamps on the headboard. The mattress vibrated, so it looked like oil- flavored Jell-O.
"Million-hand massage," Crusty told us. "Go on, try it out. Shoot, take a nap. I don't care. No business today, any-way."
"Um," Percy said, "I don't think ..." What the hell
"Million-hand massage!" Grover cried, and dove in. "Oh, you guys! This is cool."
"Hmm," Crusty said, stroking his leathery chin. "Almost, almost."
"Almost what?" I asked.
He looked at Annabeth. "Do me a favor and try this one over here, honey. Might fit."
Annabeth said, "But what- "
He patted her reassuringly on the shoulder and led her over to the Safari Deluxe model with teakwood lions carved into the frame and a leopard-patterned comforter. When Annabeth didn't want to lie down, Crusty pushed her.
"Hey!" she protested.
Crusty snapped his fingers. "Ergo!"
Ropes sprang from the sides of the bed, lashing around Annabeth, holding her to the mattress. Grover tried to get up, but ropes sprang from his black-satin bed, too, and lashed him down.
"N-not c-c-cool!" he yelled, his voice vibrating from the million-hand massage. "N-not c-cool a- at all!"
The giant looked at Annabeth, then turned toward me and grinned. "Almost, darn it."
I tried to step away, but his hand shot out and clamped around my waist, the other was holding Percy by the neck. "Whoa, kid. Don't worry. We'll find you one in a sec."
"Let my friends go."
"Oh, sure I will. But I got to make them fit, first."
"What do you mean?"
"All the beds are exactly six feet, see? Your friends are too short. Got to make them fit." Annabeth and Grover kept struggling.
"Can't stand imperfect measurements," Crusty muttered. "Ergo!"
A new set of ropes leaped out from the top and bottom of the beds, wrapping around Grover and Annabeth's ankles, then around their armpits. The ropes started tightening, pulling my friends from both ends.
"Don't worry," Crusty told me, "These are stretching jobs. Maybe three extra inches on their spines. They might even live. Now why don't we find a bed you like, huh?"
"Percy!" Grover yelled.
My mind was racing. I knew I couldn't take on this giant water-bed salesman with or without Percy. He would snap my neck before I ever got my sword out.
"Your real name's not Crusty, is it?" I asked warily.
"Legally, it's Procrustes," he admitted.
"The Stretcher," I said. I remembered the story: the giant who'd tried to kill Theseus with excess hospitality on his way to Athens.
"Yeah," the salesman said. "But who can pronounce Procrustes? Bad for business. Now 'Crusty,' anybody can say that."
"You're right. It's got a good ring to it." Percy said, not too shabby.
His eyes lit up. "You think so?"
"Oh, absolutely," I said. "And the workmanship on these beds? Fabulous!"
He grinned hugely, but his fingers didn't loosen. "I tell my customers that. Every time. Nobody bothers to look at the workmanship. How many built-in Lava Lamp headboards have you seen?"
"Not many."
"That's right!"
"Guys!" Annabeth yelled. "What are you doing?"
"Don't mind her," Percy told Procrustes. "She's impossible."
The giant laughed. "All my customers are. Never six feet exactly. So inconsiderate. And then they complain about the fitting."
"What do you do if they're longer than six feet?"
"Oh, that happens all the time. It's a simple fix." He let go of my neck, but before I could react, he reached behind a nearby sales desk and brought out a huge double-bladed brass axe. He said, "I just center the subject as best I can and lop off whatever hangs over on either end."
"Ah," Percy said, swallowing hard. "Sensible."
"I'm so glad to come across an intelligent customer!" The ropes were really stretching my friends now. Annabeth was turning pale. Grover made gurgling sounds, like a strangled goose.
"So, Crusty ..." I said, trying to keep my voice light. I glanced at the sales tag on the valentine- shaped Honeymoon Special. "Does this one really has dynamic stabilizers to stop wave motion?"
"Absolutely. Try it out."
"Yeah, maybe I will. But would it work even for a big guy like you? No waves at all?"
"Guaranteed."
"No way."
"Way."
"Show me."
He sat down eagerly on the bed, patted the mattress. "No waves. See?"
I snapped my fingers. "Ergo." Ropes lashed around Crusty and flattened him against the mattress.
"Hey!" he yelled.
"Center him just right," I said.
The ropes readjusted themselves at my command. Crusty's whole head stuck out the top. His feet stuck out the bottom. "No!" he said. "Wait! This is just a demo."
I uncapped Riptide. "A few simple adjustments ..."
I had no qualms about what I was about to do. If Crusty were human, I couldn't hurt him anyway. If he was a monster, he deserved to turn into dust for a while.
"You drive a hard bargain," he told me. "I'll give you thirty percent off on selected floor models.'"
"I think I'll start with the top." I raised my sword.
"No money down! No interest for six months!"
Percy swung the sword and cut the ropes on the other beds. Annabeth and Grover got to their feet, groaning and wincing and cursing me a lot.
"You look taller," Percy said.
"Very funny," Annabeth said. "Be faster next time."
I, however, started stabbing the giant with a blunt knife as Crusty screamed and groaned in agony, begging to die. It was then, that I killed him off.
I looked at the bulletin board behind Crusty's sales desk, ignoring the wide- eyed looks my friends sent me. There was an advertisement for Hermes Delivery Service, and another for the All-New Compendium of L.A. Area Monsters- "The only Monstrous Yellow Pages you'll ever need!" Under that, a bright orange flier for DOA Recording Studios, offering commissions for heroes' souls. "We are always looking for new talent!" DOA's address was right underneath with a map.
"Come on," Percy told our friends.
"Give us a minute," Grover complained. "We were almost stretched to death.'"
"Then you're ready for the Underworld," I said. "It's only a block from here."
Percy's POV
We stood in the shadows of Valencia Boulevard, looking up at gold letters etched in black marble: DOA RECORDING STUDIOS.
Underneath, stenciled on the glass doors: NO SOLICITORS. NO LOITERING. NO LIVING.
It was almost midnight, but the lobby was brightly lit and full of people. Behind the security desk sat a tough-looking guard with sunglasses and an earpiece. I turned to my friends. "Okay. You remember the plan." Ariadne shrugged.
"The plan," Grover gulped. "Yeah. I love the plan."
Annabeth said, "What happens if the plan doesn't work?"
"Don't think negative."
"Right," she said. "We're entering the Land of the Dead, and I shouldn't think negative."
I took the pearls out of my pocket, the three milky spheres the Nereid had given me in Santa Monica. They didn't seem like much of a backup in case something went wrong. Annabeth put her hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Percy. You're right, we'll make it. It'll be fine."
Ariadne continued to frown unsurely at it. There's only three.
She gave Grover a nudge. "Oh, right!" he chimed in. "We got this far. We'll find the master bolt and save your mom. No problem."
I looked at them both, and felt really grateful. Only a few minutes before, I'd almost gotten them stretched to death on deluxe water beds, and now they were trying to be brave for my sake, trying to make me feel better. I slipped the pearls back in my pocket. "Let's whup some Underworld butt."
We walked inside the DOA lobby. Muzak played softly on hidden speakers. The carpet and walls were steel gray. Pencil cactuses grew in the corners like skeleton hands. The furniture was black leather, and every seat was taken.
There were people sitting on couches, people standing up, people staring out the windows or waiting for the elevator. Nobody moved, or talked, or did much of anything. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see them all just fine, but if I focused on any one of them in particular, they started looking … transparent. I could see right through their bodies.
The security guard's desk was a raised podium, so we had to look up at him. He was tall and elegant, with chocolate-colored skin and bleached-blond hair shaved military style. He wore tortoiseshell shades and a silk Italian suit that matched his hair. A black rose was pinned to his lapel under a silver name tag.
I read the name tag, then looked at him in bewilderment. "Your name is Chiron?"
He leaned across the desk. I couldn't see anything in his glasses except my own reflection, but his smile was sweet and cold, like a pythons, right before they eat you.
"What a precious young lad." He had a strange accent-British, maybe, but also as if he had learned English as a second language. "Tell me, mate, do I look like a centaur?"
"N-no."
"Sir," he added smoothly.
"Sir," I said.
He pinched the name tag and ran his finger under the letters. "Can you read this, mate? It says C- H-A-R-O-N. Say it with me: CARE-ON."
"Charon."
"Amazing! Now: Mr. Charon."
"Mr. Charon," I said.
"Well done." He sat back. "I hate being confused with that old horse-man. And now, how may I help you little dead ones?"
His question caught in my stomach like a fastball. I looked at Annabeth for support.
"We want to go the Underworld," she said.
Charon's mouth twitched. "Well, that's refreshing."
"It is?" she asked.
"Straightforward and honest. No screaming. No 'There must be a mistake, Mr. Charon.'" He looked us over. "How did you die, then?"
I nudged Grover.
"Oh," he said. "Um ... drowned ... in the bathtub."
"All three of you?" Charon asked. We nodded.
"No, I got hit with the killing curse in London," Ari admitted.
Charon nodded, "You're a part of Hecate's little club, aren't you? The family only." She nodded her head.
"so, Big bathtub." Charon looked mildly impressed. "I don't suppose you have coins for passage. Normally, with adults, you see, I could charge your American Express, or add the ferry price to your last cable bill. But with children ... alas, you never die prepared. Suppose you'll have to take a seat for a few centuries."
"Oh, but we have coins." I set three golden drachmas on the counter, part of the stash I'd found in Crusty's office desk.
"Well, now..." Charon moistened his lips. "Real drachmas. Real golden drachmas. I haven't seen these in..."
His fingers hovered greedily over the coins.
We were so close.
Then Charon looked at me. That cold stare behind his glasses seemed to bore a hole through my chest. "Here now," he said. "You couldn't read my name correctly. Are you dyslexic, lad?"
"No," I said. "I'm dead."
Charon leaned forward and took a sniff. "You're not dead. I should've known. You're a godling."
"We have to get to the Underworld," I insisted.
Charon made a growling sound deep in his throat.
Immediately, all the people in the waiting room got up and started pacing, agitated, lighting cigarettes, running hands through their hair, or checking their wristwatches. "Leave while you can," Charon told us. "I'll just take these and forget I saw you."
"No service, no tip." Ari teased lightly.
Charon growled again-a deep, blood-chilling sound. The spirits of the dead started pounding on the elevator doors. "It's a shame, too," she sighed. "We had more to offer."
As if on que, I held up the entire bag from Crusty's stash. I took out a fistful of drachmas and let the coins spill through my fingers.
Charon's growl changed into something more like a lion's purr. "Do you think I can be bought, godling? Eh ... just out of curiosity, how much have you got there?"
"A lot," she continued suggestively. "I bet Hades doesn't pay you well enough for such hard work."
"Oh, you don't know the half of it. How would you like to babysit these spirits all day? Always 'Please don't let me be dead' or 'Please let me across for free.' I haven't had a pay raise in three thousand years. Do you imagine suits like this come cheap?"
"You deserve better," she readily agreed. "A little appreciation. Respect. Good pay."
With each word, I stacked another gold coin on the counter. Charon glanced down at his silk Italian jacket, as if imagining himself in something even better. "I must say, darling, you're making some sense now. Just a little."
I stacked another few coins. "I could mention a pay raise while I'm talking to Hades." she purred softly.
He sighed. "The boat's almost full, anyway. I might as well add you four and be off."
He stood, scooped up our money, and said, "Come along."
We pushed through the crowd of waiting spirits, who started grabbing at our clothes like the wind, their voices whispering things I couldn't make out. Charon shoved them out of the way, grumbling, "Freeloaders."
He escorted us into the elevator, which was already crowded with souls of the dead, each one holding a green boarding pass. Charon grabbed two spirits who were trying to get on with us and pushed them back into the lobby.
"Right. Now, no one get any ideas while I'm gone," he announced to the waiting room. "And if anyone moves the dial off my easy-listening station again, I'll make sure you're here for another thousand years. Understand?"
He shut the doors. He put a key card into a slot in the elevator panel and we started to descend.
"What happens to the spirits waiting in the lobby?" Annabeth asked.
"Nothing," Charon said.
"For how long?"
"Forever, or until I'm feeling generous."
"Oh," she said. "That's ... fair."
Charon raised an eyebrow. "Whoever said death was fair, young miss? Wait until it's your turn. You'll die soon enough, where you're going."
"We'll get out alive," I said.
"Ha."
I got a sudden dizzy feeling. We weren't going down anymore, but forward. The air turned misty. Spirits around me started changing shape. Their modern clothes flickered, turning into gray hooded robes. The floor of the elevator began swaying.
I blinked hard. When I opened my eyes, Charon's creamy Italian suit had been replaced by a long black robe. His tortoiseshell glasses were gone. Where his eyes should've been were empty sockets- like Ares's eyes, except Charon's were totally dark, full of night and death and despair.
He saw me looking, and said, "Well?"
"Nothing," I managed.
"You look all skin and bones."
I thought he was grinning, but that wasn't it. The flesh of his face was becoming transparent, letting me see straight through to his skull. The floor kept swaying.
Grover said, "I think I'm getting seasick."
When I blinked again, the elevator wasn't an elevator anymore. We were standing in a wooden barge. Charon was poling us across a dark, oily river, swirling with bones, dead fish, and other, stranger things-plastic dolls, crushed carnations, soggy diplomas with gilt edges.
"The River Styx," Annabeth murmured. "It's so ..."
"Polluted," Charon said. "For thousands of years, you humans have been throwing in everything as you come across-hopes, dreams, wishes that never came true. Irresponsible waste management, if you ask me."
Mist curled off the filthy water. Above us, almost lost in the gloom, was a ceiling of stalactites. Ahead, the far shore glimmered with greenish light, the color of poison.
Panic closed up my throat. What was I doing here? These people around me ... they were dead. Annabeth grabbed hold of my hand. Under normal circumstances, this would've embarrassed me, but I understood how she felt. She wanted reassurance that somebody else was alive on this boat. I found myself muttering a prayer, though I wasn't quite sure who I was praying to. Down here, only one god mattered, and he was the one I had come to confront.
The shoreline of the Underworld came into view. Craggy rocks and black volcanic sand stretched inland about a hundred yards to the base of a high stone wall, which marched off in either direction as far as we could see. A sound came from somewhere nearby in the green gloom, echoing off the stones-the howl of a large animal.
"Old Three-Face is hungry," Charon said. His smile turned skeletal in the greenish light. "Bad luck for you, godlings."
The bottom of our boat slid onto the black sand. The dead began to disembark. A woman holding a little girl's hand. An old man and an old woman hobbling along arm in arm. A boy no older than I was, shuffling silently along in his gray robe.
Charon said, "I'd wish you luck, mate, but there isn't any down here. Mind you, don't forget to mention my pay raise."
He counted our golden coins into his pouch, then took up his pole. He warbled something that sounded like a Barry Manilow song as he ferried the empty barge back across the river. We followed the spirits up a well-worn path.
I'm not sure what I was expecting-Pearly Gates, or a big black portcullis, or something. But the entrance to the Underworld looked like a cross between airport security and the Jersey Turnpike. There were three separate entrances under one huge black archway that said YOU ARE NOW ENTERING EREBUS. Each entrance had a pass-through metal detector with security cameras mounted on top. Beyond this were tollbooths manned by black-robed ghouls like Charon.
The howling of the hungry animal was really loud now, but I couldn't see where it was coming from. The three-headed dog, Cerberus, who was supposed to guard Hades's door, was nowhere to be seen.
The dead queued up in the three lines, two marked ATTENDANT ON DUTY, and one marked EZ DEATH. The EZ DEATH line was moving right along. The other two were crawling.
"What do you figure?" I asked Ariadne.
"The fast line must go straight to the Asphodel Fields," she said. "No contest. They don't want to risk judgment from the court, because it might go against them."
"There's a court for dead people?"
"Yeah. Three judges. They switch around who sits on the bench. King Minos, Thomas Jefferson, Shakespeare-people like that. Sometimes they look at a life and decide that person needs a special reward-the Fields of Elysium. Sometimes they decide on punishment. But most people, well, they just lived. Nothing special, good or bad. So, they go to the Asphodel Fields."
"And do what?"
Grover said, "Imagine standing in a wheat field in Kansas. Forever."
"Harsh," I said.
"Not as harsh as that," Ariadne muttered. "Look."
A couple of black-robbed ghouls had pulled aside one spirit and were frisking him at the security desk. The face of the dead man looked vaguely familiar.
"He's that preacher who made the news, remember?" Grover asked.
"Oh, yeah." I did remember now. We'd seen him on TV a couple of times at the Yancy Academy dorm. He was this annoying televangelist from upstate New York who'd raised millions of dollars for orphanages and then got caught spending the money on stuff for his mansion, like gold-plated toilet seats, and an indoor putt-putt golf course. He'd died in a police chase when his "Lamborghini for the Lord" went off a cliff.
I said, "What're they doing to him?"
"Special punishment from Hades," Grover guessed. "The really bad people get his personal attention as soon as they arrive. The Fur-the Kindly Ones will set up an eternal torture for him."
The thought of the Furies made me shudder. I realized I was in their home territory now. Old Mrs. Dodds would be licking her lips with anticipation. "But if he's a preacher," I said, "and he believes in a different hell..."
Grover shrugged. "Who says he's seeing this place the way we're seeing it? Humans see what they want to see. You're very stubborn-er, persistent, that way."
We got closer to the gates. The howling was so loud now it shook the ground at my feet, but I still couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Then, about fifty feet in front of us, the green mist shimmered. Standing just where the path split into three lanes was an enormous shadowy monster.
I hadn't seen it before because it was half transparent, like the dead. Until it moved, it blended with whatever was behind it. Only its eyes and teeth looked solid. And it was staring straight at me. My jaw hung open. All I could think to say was, "He's a Rottweiler." Ariadne frowned.
I'd always imagined Cerberus as a big black mastiff. But he was obviously a purebred Rottweiler, except of course that he was twice the size of a woolly mammoth, mostly invisible, and had three heads.
The dead walked right up to him-no fear at all. The ATTENDANT ON DUTY lines parted on either side of him. The EZ DEATH spirits walked right between his front paws and under his belly, which they could do without even crouching.
"I'm starting to see him better," I muttered. "Why is that?"
"I think ..." Annabeth moistened her lips. "I'm afraid it's because we're getting closer to being dead."
The dog's middle head craned toward us. It sniffed the air and growled. "It can smell the living," I said.
"But that's okay," Grover said, trembling next to me. "Because we have a plan."
"Right," Annabeth said. I'd never heard her voice sound quite so small. "A plan." We moved toward the monster. The middle head snarled at us, then barked so loud my eyeballs rattled.
"Can you understand it?" I asked Grover.
"Oh yeah," he said. "I can understand it."
"What's it saying?"
"I don't think humans have a four-letter word that translates, exactly."
I took the big stick out of my backpack-a bedpost I'd broken off Crusty's Safari Deluxe floor model. I held it up, and tried to channel happy dog thoughts toward Cerberus-Alpo commercials, cute little puppies, fire hydrants. I tried to smile, like I wasn't about to die.
"Hey, Big Fella," I called up. "I bet they don't play with you much."
"GROWWWLLLL!"
"Good boy," I said weakly.
I waved the stick. The dog's middle head followed the movement. The other two heads trained their eyes on me, completely ignoring the spirits. I had Cerberus's undivided attention. I wasn't sure that was a good thing.
"Fetch!" I threw the stick into the gloom, a good solid throw. I heard it go ker-sploosh in the River Styx. Cerberus glared at me, unimpressed. His eyes were baleful and cold. So much for the plan.
Cerberus was now making a new kind of growl, deeper down in his three throats. "Um," Grover said. "Percy?"
"Yeah?"
"I just thought you'd want to know."
"Yeah?"
"Cerberus? He's saying we've got ten seconds to pray to the god of our choice. After that... well... he's hungry."
"Wait!" Annabeth said. She started rifling through her pack. Uh-oh, I thought.
"Five seconds," Grover said. "Do we run now?"
Annabeth produced a red rubber ball the size of a grapefruit. It was labeled WATERLAND, DENVER, CO. Before I could stop her, she raised the ball and marched straight up to Cerberus.
She shouted, "See the ball? You want the ball, Cerberus? Sit!" Cerberus looked as stunned as we were.
All three of his heads cocked sideways. Six nostrils dilated. "Sit!" Annabeth called again.
I was sure that any moment she would become the world's largest Milkbone dog biscuit. But instead, Cerberus licked his three sets of lips, shifted on his haunches, and sat, immediately crushing a dozen spirits who'd been passing underneath him in the EZ DEATH line. The spirits made muffled hisses as they dissipated, like the air let out of tires.
Annabeth said, "Good boy!" She threw Cerberus the ball.
He caught it in his middle mouth. It was barely big enough for him to chew, and the other heads started snapping at the middle, trying to get the new toy. "Drop it.'" Annabeth ordered.
Cerberus's heads stopped fighting and looked at her. The ball was wedged between two of his teeth like a tiny piece of gum. He made a loud, scary whimper, then dropped the ball, now slimy and bitten nearly in half, at Annabeth's feet.
"Good boy." She picked up the ball, ignoring the monster spit all over it. She turned toward us. "Go now. EZ DEATH line-it's faster."
I said, "But- "
"Now.'" She ordered; in the same tone she was using on the dog.
Grover and I inched forward warily.
Cerberus started to growl. "Stay!" Annabeth ordered the monster. "If you want the ball, stay!"
Cerberus whimpered, but he stayed where he was.
"What about you?" I asked Annabeth and Ariadne as we passed them.
"I'll stay here, take Annabeth and go, I know what I'm doing." Ari replied flippantly.
Grover, Annabeth and I walked unsurely between the monster's legs.
Please, Ariadne, I prayed. Don't tell him to sit again.
Ariadne POV
It felt as if it had been years, my body was now a silvery mist that you could see through. The Cerberus was playing with the transfigured red ball, waggling his tail as a happy bark bubbled from his leathery throat. I smiled weakly as I felt cold hands on mine as everything became still –the first since last seeing my friends...
Turning around, not sure what to expect, I saw Lord Hades –in all his glory- as he gave me a tight, cold smile, "Your father had taken away the women I loved, banned me in this horrid place and didn't honor me as the Olympian I am. He took a lot from me, turned my own sister against me; now... he shall suffer, feel the pain I did at the loss of those I deeply loved." A familiar sense of dread filled my stomach, "Your little friends have left you with my brother's precious pearls. You, however, are still here. In my lands."
He let out a laugh, as cruel and disgusting as the man himself as the hands of different souls clamped around my body started pulling me... The River Styx's waters poisonous and harsh across my skin. I closed my eyes, as the last memory of mine was the mad twinge in Hade's eyes.
I smiled, as all the polluted hopes and dreams of other souls were suck out of the river and into me. How the cruel pasts of those anchors were pulled to me, like iron to magnets. She smiled yet again, her beauty making itself known one last time...
Above on the surface world, over the clouds on the 600th floor of the Empire State building, Lord Zeus let out a roar of anger as the news hit him. His precious daughter was gone. Lost, in his brother's world. He closed his eyes, Hades had hell to pay for and, if the sympathetic glance his way was any indication, Poseidon and he had something the two would agree on.