Sorry for the long wait!
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DOA RECORDING STUDIOS
Leo shivered at seeing the entrance to the Underworld. He'd only been there a handful of times, and the last time was the brief glimpse he caught of it before appearing in Cronos's throne room (now that Leo thought about it, he didn't even remember how he got there. It was safe to assume he died, but he didn't remember dying at all. That was probably for the best). Yeah, he was still not too happy about visiting again.
Leo stared at the words stenciled upon the glass doors.
NO SOLICITORS. NO LOITERING. NO LIVING.
"Looks like we're breaking the rules," Leo weakly joked.
Nico smiled, bitterly. "We're demigods. When do we follow the rules?"
"Good point. Ready to go in?"
"Nope."
"Neither am I. Let's go."
Leo shook himself out of the memory and focused on the people inside.
Despite the late night, the lobby was brightly lit (almost excessively so) and full of people (ghosts, Leo's mind corrected). Behind the security desk sat a buff gourd with sunglasses and an ear piece.
"Charon," Leo stated, and the man looked up.
"Back again? Hello, Valdez, Nico. What do you need this time?"
"We need to speak with-"
Leo was jolted out of his flashback by Percy's voice.
"Okay," the son of Poseidon was saying. "You remember the plan."
"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."
"It could be worse," Leo stated.
"How?" Annabeth asked.
"Well, let's see. It could be Tarturas, a cave full of giants, or Alaska. "
Annabeth blinked. "Way to look on the bright side of things."
"Hey, if something looks bad, replace it with something worse. It makes me feel better."
Besides, compared to a world where Gaea reigned, the Underworld wasn't so scary. Even Tarturas wasn't so scary, now that Leo thought about it.
Percy took the pearls out of his pocket, the ones he'd received at St. Monica.
Three pearls. Five people, including Percy's mom. Leo didn't have to be a genius to figure out that two of them wouldn't be leaving the Underworld with the others (Leo knew Hades would eventually return the remaining two, but the others didn't know that)
Annabeth put her hand on Percy's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Percy. You're right, we'll make it. It'll be fine."
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."
"It'll all work out, Perce," Leo agreed. "That, I can promise you."
Annabeth glanced at him, as if to say don't make promises you can't keep, but Leo sent her a glance that was begging for her to trust him. She nodded, not sure how he knew everything would work or what trick he had up his sleeve, but deciding Leo's confidence in whatever back up plan he had was better than nothing.
Percy slipped the pearls back into his pocket. "Let's whup some Underworld butt."
They walked inside the DOA lobby.
It looked the same as it did in the future, although much less crowded.
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.
Leo stared at one little boy. He was around eight and facing the window; he was wearing a hoodie, a T-shirt, and jeans, and his entire outfit was covered in dirt. Maybe he'd been involved in a landslide or maybe he'd been kidnapped and buried alive.
But then the boy turned, and Leo's eyes widened.
It was Harley.
"Make it right, big brother," he whispered.
Leo rubbed his eyes, and when he looked again, Harley was gone. Grover, Annabeth, and Percy, although weirded out by the ghosts and the Underworld in general, didn't seem to have noticed Harley or heard him speak.
The security guard's desk was a raised podium, so the four of them had to look up at him.
Percy looked puzzled. "Your name is Chiron?"
Leo blinked. "His name is Charon, Percy. They're entirely different."
"Thank you," Charon told Leo. "So many people mix up my name these days. And now, how may I help you little dead ones?"
Percy frowned at Annabeth, looking for support.
"We want to go to 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?"
"There was a fire," Leo said before anyone else could open their mouths.
Charon frowned. "I see. 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." Percy set three golden drachmas on the counter. He must've snatched them from Crusty's 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.
Leo was prepared to dart into the elevator before Charon could notice anything, but…
Then Charon looked at Percy with a cold stare.
"Here now," he said. "You couldn't read my name correctly. Are you dyslexic, lad?"
"No," Percy 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," Percy 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 them. "I'll just take these and forget I saw you."
He started to go for the coins, but Percy snatched them back.
"No service, no tip."
Charon growled again-a deep, blood-chilling sound. The spirits of the dead started pounding on the elevator doors.
"It's a shame, too," Percy sighed. "We had more to offer."
Percy held up the entire bag from Crusty's stash. He took out a fistful of drachmas and let the coins spill through his 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," Percy said. "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," Percy agreed. "A little appreciation. Respect. Good pay."
With each word, he 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, lad, you're making some sense now. Just a little."
"And," Leo added, leaning closer to avoid the others overhearing. "I'm friends with a certain Bianca and Nico Di Angelo, children of Hades. I could always ask them to talk to their father about giving you a pay raise. If you let us through, of course. But if you don't, I could tell them to ask Hades to cut your pay. It's your choice, Mr. Charon."
Charon blinked at Leo, seemingly shocked by the mention of Hades's children.
"You should be a negotiator," Charon told Leo. "All right, I'll let you in for all the drachmas currently on the desk and your part of deal," he said, looking at Leo.
Percy nodded. "Deal."
He stood, scooped up the money, and said, "Come along."
They pushed through the crowd of waiting spirits, who started grabbing at their clothes like the wind, their voices whispering things Leo couldn't and didn't want to make out. Charon shoved them out of the way, grumbling:
"Freeloaders."
He escorted them 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 the four demigods 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?"
"What deal did you make with Charon?" Grover asked Leo.
"I told him I would ask someone close to Hades to talk to him about giving Charon a pay raise," Leo explained.
"How are you going to do that?" Annabeth asked.
"I have my ways," Leo assured her before going to stand by the rail.
For several moments, he stood alone, watching the murky waters of the River Styx swirl beneath them as they began to move across the water. He stared at the remainders of lost dreams, ripped wedding gowns, bloody baby blankets, torn diplomas, even photographs…
Leo stared at one in particular- a woman with a toddler on her lap. A corner had been burned away.
"I remember taking your mother across this river," a voice said, and Leo spun around to see Charon, now dressed in dark robes, leaning against the rail beside him. "She was trying to be brave. She wasn't afraid to die, but she was afraid of leaving her son behind."
For a moment, Leo wondered why Charon was being so sympathetic, but then he smiled, bitterly.
"Parents are always the most miserable," he said, smiling a cruel grin, before walking away.
Leo turned back to the River Styx, and he jumped when the water splashed against the side, nearly hitting his skin. Before he could think it through, he snatched the photograph from the waters and heated up his hand, not enough to burn or damage it, but enough to dry it.
He stared at the photo of his Mama. This photograph had been lost in the fire; a lot of photos had, actually. They were never picture kind of people, so they only had a handful, and the ones that weren't destroyed in the fire were taken by his Aunt Rosa.
(Leo's pretty sure she burned or cut his face out of several of them.)
"Leo."
Leo spun around, searching the crowd. No one was even looking his way.
Huh. For a moment, he could've sworn he heard Jason…
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 asLeo 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 Leo 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 the 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.
Leo stored the photograph in his pocket before the demigods followed the spirits up a well-worn path.
Leo remembered the Underworld well, and while he wasn't scared of it after seeing the apocalypse, it still unsettled him.
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 Leo vaguely smiled, trying to hide it from the others. Cerberus looked mean and scary, but he was actually a big sweet heart.
"Nico?" Leo whispered, shakily, upon seeing the three headed dog.
Nico laughed. "Calm down, Valdez. He's no Mrs. O'Leary, but he's still a big sweetheart."
"Nico, he's ten times the size of us!"
Nico nodded. "I know, and he could bite our heads off if he wanted to, but I know the way to calm him down."
Nico raised a red ball in the air and tossed it across the courtyard. Cerberus jumped in excitement and bounded after it, shaking the ground of the Underworld.
Leo gaped.
Nico shrugged. "Annabeth came up with it on her first trip to the Underworld."
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?" Percy asked Annabeth.
"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," Percy said.
"Not as harsh as that," Grover 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," Percy remembered.
"Wasn't he that guy who raised money for orphans and then used it on himself?" Leo asked. He remembered that story, mostly because the first time around, he was living with a devoted Christian family, and they talked about it for days and how it was unbelievable how people could be so selfish. By the time Leo left that foster home, the story of the selfish preacher was imbedded into his brain.
Percy 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."
"But if he's a preacher," Percy 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."
The demigods got closer to the gates. The howling was so loud now it shook the ground, and Leo was the only one that didn't look uneasy as they crossed the trembling ground. If the others weren't so afraid, they probably would've noticed how oddly calm Leo was, but their apprehension distracted them.
Then, about fifty feet in front of the four of them, the green mist shimmered. Standing just where the path split into three lanes was an enormous shadowy monster.
"He's a Rottweiler."
Leo frowned and turned to Percy. "What did you think he would be? A Labrador?"
"No," Percy said, but he was too shocked to elaborate.
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," Percy 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," Percy realized.
"But that's okay," Grover said, trembling next to Percy. "Because we have a plan."
"Right," Annabeth said. Her voice was so tiny, it shocked Leo, but he understood. After all, they were facing a dog ten times their size. Leo's voice had been small when he first saw Cerberus, too. "A plan."
The four of them moved toward the monster.
The middle head snarled at them, then barked so loud, even Leo, who had heard Cerberus bark before, jumped.
"Can you understand it?" Percy 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."
Percy fished a big stick out of his backpack, something he'd broken off of one of Crusty's beds, and he smiled as he raised it above his head. The stick shook as his trembling hand gripped it.
"GROWWWLLLL!"
"Good boy," Percy said weakly.
The son of Poseidon waved the stick. The dog's middle head followed the movement. The other two heads trained their eyes on the demigods, completely ignoring the spirits.
"Fetch!" Percy threw the stick into the gloom, a good solid throw. It splashed into the River Styx, and Leo blinked as Cerberus glared at Percy, unimpressed. He looked almost bored.
"Try the ball," Leo hissed.
"What?" Percy demanded.
"Try… the ball," Leo said, slowly, gesturing to Annabeth's backpack.
Annabeth's eyes widened. "Great idea!"
She snatched the red ball out of her backpack and raised it high.
"You want the ball?" she said in a high pitched voice. "Go get it."
"If the stick didn't work, I don't think the ball is going to-" Grover began.
Annabeth hurled the ball through the air, and Cerberus leaped in excitement before chasing after it.
"And it worked," Grover said, eyebrows raised in surprise,
Cerberus returned with the ball in his middle mouth a moment later. The heads on the left and right were snapping at the middle one, 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.
"What is happening?" Percy asked.
"Apparently, she's doing obedience school," Leo snorted.
"How can you laugh at a time like this?" Grover demanded.
"Because it's hilarious. I mean, Annabeth isn't even five feet tall and she's training a dog that could leap over my old school! Don't tell me you don't find that ironic?"
"Oh, it's ironic. It's a lot of things, but it is definitely ironic," Grover muttered.
Annabeth turned towards her companions. "Go now. EZ DEATH line-it's faster."
Percy said, "But-"
"Now.'" She ordered, in the same tone she was using on the dog.
Grover and Percy inched along while Leo walked straight forward. Maybe he was daring. Maybe he was too familiar with Cerberus to remember how dangerous he could actually be. Maybe he knew it would all be okay. Maybe all three, but either way, he walked straight up to the dog without missing a beat.
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?" Percy asked Annabeth as they passed her.
"I know what I'm doing, Percy," she muttered. "At least, I'm pretty sure..."
"That isn't very reassuring," Leo mumbled, but he didn't argue with her as the three boys (well, two boys and one half boy-half goat) walked between the monster's legs.
The three of them made it through.
Annabeth said, "Good dog!"
She held up the tattered red ball and threw the ball. The monster's left mouth immediately snatched it up, only to be attacked by the middle head, while the right head moaned in protest.
While the monster was distracted, Annabeth walked briskly under its belly and joined them at the metal detector.
"How did you do that?" Percy asked her, amazed.
"Obedience school," she said breathlessly. "When I was little, at my dad's house, we had a Doberman..."
"Never mind that," Grover said, tugging at Percy's shirt. "Come on!"
The four demigods were about to bolt through the EZ DEATH line when Cerberus moaned pitifully from all three mouths. Annabeth stopped.
She turned to face the dog, which had done a one-eighty to look at them.
Percy opened his mouth, but Leo stopped him.
"She made a new friend," he pointed out. "Let her say goodbye."
"New friend?" Percy asked, staring at the dog in apprehension.
"Hey, I was once friends with a table. Compared to that, this is normal," Leo pointed out. "Oh, and about the table… don't ask. It's a weird story."
"Oh, you are so telling me that story some time," Percy chuckled.
"But not now!" Grover exclaimed as he began backing away from the three headed dog.
Cerberus panted expectantly, the tiny red ball in pieces in a puddle of drool at its feet.
"Good boy," Annabeth said, but her voice sounded melancholy and uncertain.
The monster's heads turned sideways, as if worried about her.
"I'll bring you another ball soon," Annabeth promised faintly. "Would you like that?"
The monster whimpered, and Leo honestly felt sympathy for the dog. He knew what it was like to meet and lose a friend in one day. Being a runaway had its pros and its cons.
"Good dog. I'll come visit you soon. I-I promise." Annabeth turned to the other quest members. "Let's go."
Grover, Percy, and Leo pushed through the metal detector, which immediately screamed and set off flashing red lights. "Unauthorized possessions! Magic detected!"
Cerberus started to bark.
The four demigods burst through the EZ DEATH gate, which started even more alarms blaring, and raced into the Underworld.
A few minutes later, they were hiding, out of breath, in the rotten trunk of an immense black tree as security ghouls dashed past, yelling for backup from the Furies.
Grover murmured, "Well, Percy, what have we learned today?"
"That three-headed dogs prefer red rubber balls over sticks?" Percy guessed.
"That even huge three headed dogs want friends?" Leo suggested.
"No," Grover told them. "We've learned that your plans really, really bite!"
"Yes, they do, but they also work," Leo pointed out.
"Now… to Hades's palace!" Percy said with a weak smile.
"Try not to say that so cheerfully," Grover murmured.
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