Chapter XIX

"Yeah, they are following us alright," Bianca said as she turned around from looking behind us.

I glanced back at the convoy of three black SUVs behind us, those things looked armored, which did little to ease my worry. We had noticed them after we had crossed the Ohio River in Cincinnati, they had pulled on the highway behind us and were following us since. Things had been so smooth up until then, but of course trouble found us and we hadn't even reached the underworld yet.

"I am getting a Déjà vu," I complained and sighed. "at least it's no helicopter..."

"Do you think those are the same lot that followed us in the winter?" Bianca asked and I considered for a moment.

"Maybe," I said with a shrug. "I am not up to date enough to know how many they hired."

"Too many," Eleanor interjected from the back. "but I can't say who that is either, that's kind of the point of unmarked cars..."

"Oh really?" Bianca muttered with slight annoyance.

Eleanor ignored her and I saw her turn to me. "Theseus, the highway splits soon, keep on the road, let us go over Lexington-"

The bitterness in her tone at the mention of the last word didn't go unnoticed as Bianca spoke up again.

"What's wrong with Lexington?" Bianca asked and even I felt Eleanor glare at her.

"Nothing, just bad memories," Eleanor hastily said, trying to brush it off. "My point is, I know that city, I can lose anyone there."

"I don't know, it's pretty far till we reach Lexington," Bianca argued. "what if they do something till then?"

"What are they going to do?" Eleanor asked, annoyed herself now. "Ram us off the road on a busy highway? Just quit giving me the third degree-"

"I am just saying I feel like we need to lose them now-" Bianca interrupted before getting interrupted in turn.

"Just trust me, will you?" Eleanor started. "I know-"

"Girls, can we focus please!" I interjected, not willing to listen to the two bickering much longer. "Lexington you say? Fine."

I turned my eyes back on the road, there was no point in speeding up as long as our pursuers remained distant, which they did. I wasn't sure if there was all that much point in losing them, Kronos seemed to know where we were headed anyways and he didn't seem all too eager to stop us, which I found rather troubling, but I'd work it out somehow.

They merely seemed to be stalking us for now, he probably just wanted to make sure we didn't do anything unexpected and follow his plans for now, but two can play that game. I'd do what he expects for a while, sure, but only because I had no choice currently, I needed to get to the Underworld either way, after that however, I could try to surprise him.

Still, I didn't want them catching up with us, so there was little I could do for the next hour as we sat in tense silence but to keep driving.

"Ah, home, sweet home," Eleanor finally mumbled as we passed the city entrance sign. "Head into the suburbs as soon as we get past that crossing there, will you?"

"The suburbs?" I asked, weary of the urban planning nightmare.

"Yeah," Eleanor confirmed. "Trust me, I have a plan."

"Take a left now," She told me not long after, leaning up to me from the backseat.

I swallowed my doubts and did as she asked, leaving one of the main streets and entering into the monotonous suburbs of Lexington. Soon repetitive houses passed us left and right as I slowed down to avoid drawing attention, at least the white pickup we had picked didn't stick out too much among the cars around us.

"And another left here," She commanded and again I followed suit. "now just head down till the end of this one and turn right."

We drove deeper into the suburban jungles and Eleanor started spewing commands that seemed random, maybe they were, but the chaos seemingly had method to it as we continuously drove without hitting any dead ends. After a couple of minutes, I was admittedly utterly lost, despite the fact I was driving, though Eleanor seemed unbothered.

My only hope was that if the mercenaries after us were even half as lost as I was, we wouldn't hear from them for a couple of months at least.

"Alright, just head over the street into that other suburb and we'll leave town from it."

"Fine by me," I said as we went over the crossing before remarking. "How didn't we just get lost on that escapade?"

"My dad's also the god of knowledge, remember?" She pointed out. "That also applies to memory."

Admittedly I had gotten that feeling before as well, though the only occasion that I could recall was her counting cards in a game of blackjack. Now before you go and judge me for being part of an illegal underage gambling group, you have to consider, ships get really dull, real quick. Not to mention in light of the effective terrorist group we were more or less a part of that was the least of our crimes.

"I guess that makes sense," I conceded after a bit of silence. "I just haven't really noticed it with any of your siblings before."

"Eh, we are a versatile bunch," Eleanor said proudly. "not to mention I am simply quite special."

"Careful not to sound too much like your dad," I said as I pulled out of the suburbs and onto a road leading out of the town and into vast stretches of farmland.

"Why, is there a problem you have with-" Eleanor stopped what she was saying as we left town. "Oh great, you just had to pick that road, didn't you?"

"What's wrong?" I asked, confused.

"Just something I had wanted to avoid," She said, her tone dark. "bad memories, as I had mentioned."

I could faintly remember Eleanor speaking of family troubles when we were on the Princess Andromeda, though she never had gone into detail about it and so I hadn't wanted to push her, so what I could recall was vague at best.

"See that big ol' manor and estate straight west from here?" She asked, pointing. "The one that really stands out?"

"The huge white one with the gray roof, there on that hill?" Bianca asked, scrunching her eyes and leaning forward to look past me.

"Exactly that one," The daughter of Apollo said bitterly. "I grew up there. See, my family is old money, landed gentry pretty much. Cattle is where the wealth originally stemmed from and still is today for the most part, also how my mother drew Apollo's attention."

"Really?" Bianca asked, sounding surprised. "I had honestly expected your mother to be a singer or Olympic archer or something like that."

"A lot of my siblings have such parents, true," Eleanor agreed hesitantly. "But people tend to forget that my father is also the god of herdsmen, as such that is also a good way of catching his attention."

"Your father and Hermes almost have more domains than the rest of the Olympians combined," I pointed out amused. "with that logic it is no wonder how the cabin's populations differ so much."

"Theseus, be quiet please," Eleanor said with a small chuckle, before growing serious again. "As I was saying, I grew up there. My mother died not too long after I was born, leaving me in care of my dearest grand-uncle. Let's just say he was a bitter, angry man and leave it at that. He made my life terrible enough that I ran when I was ten, I never looked back."

"With ten?" Bianca asked, surprised. "And you made it to Camp alive?"

"Well, I ran into a satyr after a few weeks alone," Eleanor elaborated. "but yeah, as you can see well enough, I survived."

"I am sorry for asking," Bianca said and I saw Eleanor shake her head.

"Don't be, I started talking about it, it's fine." She sighed and leaned back. "Let us just be done with it, Theseus, mind hitting the gas a bit harder, I don't want to have to look at that place any longer."

I did as she asked and didn't slow down as we kept on racing through the flat, well cultivated farmlands. After roughly half an hour, we had sped over the Kentucky river and the country started to shift from farmlands to hills and forests for the most part. And it went on like this for quite a while as we traveled Kentucky's countryside, hilly forests with wide swaths of farmland in between.

Now, I didn't know too much about Mammoth Cave National Park, but from the rise in tourist infrastructure and the exponentially growing number of signs helpfully informing us about such facts as it being the largest cave system in the world and over four-hundred-and-twenty miles long, I knew we were getting close and I started to worry.

If it was somewhere deep in there this could take ages and would be plenty dangerous and difficult enough even without monsters and mortal lackeys breathing down our necks.

"Say, Bi," I started after a while. "When you said those caves weren't exactly unpopulated, what did you mean by that?"

"Well, according to what I was told there is some giant serpent-like creature guarding its entrance," She started. "Supposedly its poison is lethal, no matter what you do once you get bit, you will die, so I feel like avoiding that is a good idea"

I thought it wasn't too surprising, most big snakes and snake-like creatures lived in some big cave originally, Python did, Echidna did, Sybaris did as well, so sure, big mythical cave meant big mythical snake ninety-nine percent of the time.

"Wait, a serpent you said," Eleanor asked from the back, her voice sounding very unenthusiastic. "I actually remember that story now. I think it was a drakon that lived there and guarded that entrance and over time people started to confuse it with Cerberus, right?"

"Yeah, how did you know?" Bianca asked and Eleanor tapped her temple.

"Dad's god of knowledge, remember?" Eleanor said before smirking. "I am just kidding of course, I spent some time researching before we started. One of Pausanias' mentions of Taenarum spoke of it. He said that over time people started calling it the Hound of Hades, figuratively of course, and it got lumped in with Cerberus after a while."

"Pausinias isn't exactly trustworthy," I argued, unsure of the information. "that man wasn't even a demigod and got all his stuff second-handed."

"True, but I've just gotten confirmation. haven't I?" She countered and I sighed.

"So we have to get past?" I asked, already terribly excited for potential death.

"Oh, no, we can't kill it," Bianca said and I groaned. "Well we can, but I think Dad would really prefer us not to, can't just have an entrance to the Underworld unguarded, can we now?"

"Doesn't us getting past it kind of invalidate its capacity of functioning as a guard?" I mused.

"I mean just because three demigods with a screwed sense of self-preservation get past once doesn't mean it's a bad guardian." Eleanor argued.

"Fair, so I hope we have an actual plan to find that entrance," I said and nodded to a sign. "because we are getting close to the visitor center."

"We have a plan alright," Bianca started and I grew hopeful. "It's called following my intuition."

I looked at her perplexed, I really hoped she was kidding, but knew Bianca wasn't the type to kid about such things.

"Oh, don't give me that look," She chided and smirked. "I can feel us getting closer already."

I pulled into the parking lot and left the car at a spot which was as far out of sight as possible. Quickly we exited, all eager to move, since we had been driving for a good four hours now, with only a short break in the afternoon and another six hours of driving before that. I had been able to occupy myself with driving, but the other two had no such luck. At least it was still daytime, which was the reason we had originally chosen to delay the start by a day.

Bianca seemingly had a clear destination in mind as she strode over in the direction of the main building of the visitor-center. Since we had arrived at the end of prime tourism hours, the place was still crawling with tourists. I guessed the holiday season was starting to get into full swing, it was May already after all.

I had a moment of pity for Percy, The poor lad was probably dredging through exam season right now, I am sure he would prefer a delightful trip to the land of the dead.

The daughter of Hades stopped in front of a tall map of the park, studying it with scrunched up eyes as we joined her. I joined her in observing the map and snorted as I managed to make out a bit of writing near a river that flowed out of the hills and into the main river crossing the park, reading River Styx.

"What's so funny?" Bianca asked and I waved it off.

"Nothing, it's just-" I put my finger on the spot. "that isn't the actual Styx is it?"

"Don't be silly, the Styx feeds from the bottom of the ocean, you know that well enough," She said and held a serious expression. "that's the Acheron."

I looked at her perplexed, she was kidding right? If she wasn't that would be ridiculous. Who did name something like that? But as I had just stated, Bianca usually didn't kid about such things.

"You aren't serious, right?" I asked, still hopeful, though she shook her head.

"I am," She said, much to my dismay. "from what I was told the man who named it was a demigod, one with a particularly dangerous sense of humor."

To be fair in hindsight it sounded just like the kind of joke I'd pull given the opportunity, but nonetheless I merely found it annoying right now.

"Well, let's just keep away from it," I proposed and she again shook her head.

"Not a chance," She said, still smirking. "Because that's our path down, or at least the cave from which it flows."

I groaned and so did Eleanor, the daughter of Hades seemed disturbingly unbothered by the idea of hiking along the river of pain. Usually I was a big fan of water, for certainly understandable reasons, but this was a different case, this didn't sound fun at all.

"So we are heading down there?" I asked as Bianca snatched one of the foldable maps offered below the sign.

"Yeah, but first, food," She pointed to a café. "because I don't want the two of you starving down there since the food is a no-go for you."

I was rather optimistic she was joking this time at least, there was no need for food or drink in the Underworld as far as I knew, the spirits of hunger and thirst merely roamed the land of the living, well except for Tantalus' case of course.

Admittedly my basis for that assumption was limited, but when the original Theseus and his friend Pirithious were stuck down there for quite a few months neither of them starved, I mean, the latter is probably still sitting there, unless he died of old age.

Though, frankly food and coffee sounded enticing and so it didn't take any further convincing for us to follow her in. A few minutes later I was munching on a terribly overpriced croissant and satisfying my caffeine addiction with a similarly priced cup of coffee.

I was certain whoever ran this place would end up in the Fields of Punishment for waylaying, because that was what this was, there was no claiming anything different. I was certainly facing worse bandits than the original Theseus.

"Oh great and here I thought we had lost them," Eleanor spoke up, looking out of the café.

Me and Bianca turned around, looking over our seats just as the three SUVs we had spotted before pulled into the parking lot. It seemed we had at best gained twenty minutes on them with our little maneuver, or maybe they had known our exact destination from the start and just kept behind us.

"Alright, everybody," I said and stood up. "I suggest we leave right now."

Both of them nodded in agreement and we quickly shoved our bags of pastries into our backpacks and left as fast as we could, fleeing through the emergency exit. We ran into the woods, following a hiking path, leading westwards, towards the river. If we weren't being chased by some cold-blooded killers it could have been enjoyable, the fog that covered it made the landscape look quite stunning, but as it was we had no time for such pleasures.

The hill quickly grew steep as we descended, soon we could hear the splashing sounds of the river and not long after we spotted it as well. Below us it carved a path out of the rocky hillside and through the forest for a couple of hundred yards till it met another river and was swallowed by it.

"I had honestly expected the Acheron to look more ominous," I stated and Bianca shook her head.

"It gets worse the deeper we go down," She explained hurriedly. "it sucks up all the pain of the dead and damned, especially in the fields of punishment, up here it's more or less just a normal river."

"So we can go in it without any problems?" Eleanor asked and Bianca pursed her lips.

"Probably," She said cautiously. "I hope so at least."

"So let's get down there then," I said and lifted myself over the railing of the path along it, sliding down the hillside to the river-bank and coming to a grinding halt at the water's edge.

Bianca and Eleanor admittedly both went about it in an admittedly more elegant manner, descending down without any trouble and much more care.

The valley the river cut was filled with low hanging fog, which only seemed to thicken as we approached the cave. Not that it bothered me, this was at least just normal fog, nothing that truly obscured my vision.

Though I wasn't so sure about my two companions, when it came to seeing properly right now, it was hard to tell, not like I could turn it off and on. As we got deeper in the river bank grew narrower, before ending in a dead end, the whole cave seemed to do so, in fact, a wall of solid rock blocking our path forward.

"Can you two see alright?" I asked, concerned.

"Yeah, it's just a bit of fog," Bianca said, rolling her eyes. "Sure it's annoying, but I am not about to fall into the river because of it."

"Why are you asking?" Eleanor added on.

"Because it seems like we have reached a dead end already." I commented and saw Bianca narrow her eyes.

"Are you sure?" She asked, disbelieving. "I can definitely feel it's really close, like right there behind that wall."

She pointed at the cave wall and I furrowed my brows in confusion.

"What are you two on about?" I heard Eleanor ask as she pushed past me. "there is no wall here?"

As if to prove her point she took her sword from her belt and stabbed forward and I watched as it went right into the wall, without as much as a sound. I shook my head and blinked to make sure I was seeing right, for a short moment the wall seemed almost transparent. Doubtfully I raised my hand and pushed against where I expected it to be, almost stumbling when I felt no push back.

"You are right, Ell," I agreed. "There is no wall here. Is this just the mist?"

"Probably," Bianca sounded unsure. "Can't just have mortals stumbling into the Underworld can we?"

"How come you can see past it?" I asked Eleanor, confused, who just shrugged.

"I am asking that myself," She said, her face thoughtful, before throwing a concerned look behind me. "but, there's enough time for that later, we need to continue."

Nodding we followed as she led the way this time, pushing through the wall. As soon as we had passed it, the comparatively small cave opened up into a wide, rocky tunnel, carved by the flow of the Acheron running in the middle and it only got wider the deeper into the cave you looked.

The walls of the cave started to shift from sand- and limestone to a strange and eerily beautiful green marble, the soft golden light of my and Eleanor's swords created strange patterns on it as it reflected off the rushing river to our left.

We made our way along its edge, staying as far away from the river as humanly possible. Inside the cave, the river looked a lot more troubling than outside, not all that bad, but definitely commanding more respect. I felt tempted to try and control it, but I also didn't want to unnecessarily offend any river deities, I had already had enough trouble with one of them.

"So how much longer till we start actually going down?" Eleanor asked after what felt like an hour of walking at least.

"I don't know if we will actually go down," Bianca said unsure. "I've only taken the entrance in LA, I don't know if the same principles apply here."

"Percy told me about it. It's an elevator, isn't it?" I asked and saw her nod.

"Let's just hope someone had time to install one here as well," Eleanor commented." I wouldn't want to see that staircase."

"Well, one could almost call it a stairway to heaven- or eh Hades, I suppose." Bianca remarked and I couldn't help but laugh, even if it wasn't particularly funny looking back.

The sound mixed with the sound of rushing and crashing waters and echoed in the cave, creating a strange resonance. Suddenly I came to a stop as I almost walked off the edge of the cliff, next to us the Acheron fell down into the darkness and only now I noticed that it had somehow reversed the direction in which it flowed.

"Ah, I feel like we have arrived at our destination," I noted and turned to the other two. "small problem, I can't see anything down there..."

"Let me have a look," Bianca said and stepped to my side before crouching down.

"Ah, right, you have darkvision," I remembered, before wondering. "say, why haven't you been walking in the front since the beginning?"

"Hush, it's down there, be quiet now," She told me and I grew worried.

"It?" I whispered to it. "You mean the Taenarian serpent?"

"If you want to call it that," She said, confirming it, before her tone grew annoyed. "now shut up before it comes up here and eats you."

Bianca rose again and gestured to us to follow her. With careful steps she moved along the narrow rocky path that followed the edge of the cave, descending into it. As we walked along it I wondered just how Heracles had managed to get Cerberus up here, though perhaps it looked differently back then.

Another bonus about the power of Sinis, it made climbing any rock surface quite easy as long as you had a foothold, as slipping off became a non-worry. Not that it made the descent any more inviting as I knew what we were approaching, but at least I didn't have to worry about falling.

Eventually we reached the bottom of the cave and I noticed my vision lighting up and clearing, I looked down and realized we were standing ankle deep in the waters of the Acheron. It seemed Bianca's estimation was right, because I wasn't screaming in pain, or having psychic terrors or so, yet that is.

If the water wasn't spread in a thin wide pool that covered the entire ground of the massive cave the others would probably have been ripped away by the current, but nonetheless I noticed something strange, the water felt cold, freezing, even to me.

In the middle of the pool a coiled up resting form laid, dark scales piled on top of each other in a true mountain of a serpent, it seemed to be resting currently and I had no problem with letting it stay that way.

Bianca turned to us, pointing towards the far edge of the cave, where a small almost man-made looking tunnel led out of it, we only needed to get past the giant drakon between us.

I had to resist the urge to groan, the quest was already shaping up to be far too similar to the last for my tastes. But I didn't have any intention of losing someone else to the poison of another oversized reptile this time, but at least this one only had one head.

The serpent started to stir, its nostrils flaring dangerously, I got the notion we really shouldn't stick around.

Looking to Eleanor I saw that she looked really shaky as she looked upon the monster, her eyes utterly spellbound upon it, wide in terror. Concern came over me and I looked to Bianca who gestured first to me and then to her.

"Get her," Bianca whispered and I nodded.

Reaching over, I grabbed Eleanor's sword hand, shaking her out of the trance, though she flinched at my touch, her eyes turned to me and I gestured for her to sheath her sword.

"We have to keep on moving," I said to her as silently as I could. "Take my hand, we can't risk the light waking him."

She nodded and hesitantly let her sword slide into its sheath and I let my own sword disappear as well and started carefully leading her through the dark. Bianca was heading us as her vision was still quite superior in the near total darkness.

We had made it perhaps halfway across the cave when I noticed something in the corner of my vision. Namely, the slowly opening yellowish eyes of the drakon as it lifted its head.

Suddenly, with unexpected speed it shot forward towards me and Eleanor, clearly discerning us to be less agile targets.

Deciding that the best I could do was at least get Eleanor out of harm's way, I mustered all the strength I could and aided by the water threw Eleanor in Bianca's direction and out of harm's way.

"Watch out!" I heard Bianca yell as I turned back to serpent.

I summoned my sword as the gaping jaw opened before me, two large fangs bearing down on me. Slashing downward I drove my sword into the soft flesh of its mouth, cutting into it, causing the snake to recoil in pain.

Rearing up the serpent lifted its huge body, revealing its menacing set of claws on its front legs. The pale yellowish eyes focused on me and I felt like a shock went through me, paralyzed, unable to move.

I feared that it was about to come down and simply smash me to demigod-mash when something black hit the side of its head, impaling its eye, and it turned to its source.

Looking to its point of origin I saw Bianca, bow in hand, retreating onward together with a shaking Eleanor, she looked to me with a desperate expression.

"Theseus, come on, keep moving!" She called as she turned and fired another arrow towards it.

This one did little more than anger the drakon as the Stygian Iron deflected off its scales without effect with a simple turn of its head. It snarled and swept out with its tail, towards them.

Out of instinct I rushed towards them as Bianca pulled both of them into an alcove in the wall, the tail smashing past them. The drakon pushed forward, moving between us, occupying the space it created and separating us.

Not daring to risk meeting its eyes again, I turned my gaze to the ground and let my senses reach through the water, feeling the drakon move in it.

Feeling it rush towards me I threw myself to the side, dodging its maw and thrust my sword against its side. In a stroke of luck I managed to ram it below the fold of one of its scales and stood my ground as it ran past me like a freight train.

Ichor sprayed as the serpent struggled and trashed, I had hoped that would be its end, that wound was long enough to split an elephant apart.

But I knew monsters could be incredibly enduring and it seems this one was as well, as it simply pulled back, preparing for another attempt.

But in doing so it opened another opportunity for me to get past it, one I was not willing to waste, so I started running towards the others and the exit as fast as my feet would carry me.

I heard and felt the Drakon reapproaching behind me, but knew if I slowed down the trip to the underworld would become far more permanent, so I did the only sane thing and kept on running.

In a display of impeccable timing I felt myself turn weight- and formless as the monster smashed through where I was a second past as I resolidified behind Bianca and Eleanor.

Out of breath I stumbled against the wall of the cave as they whirled around to me, Eleanor yelping in surprise, Bianca with an inquisitive look on her face.

She was about to remark something but thought better of it as she gestured us to continue and we turned to run down the tunnel, the frustrated roars of the Drakon sounding behind us.

We only stopped when we finally came out of the tunnel and the vast expanse that was the Underworld opened up before us, overlooked from the rocky outcrop we stood on.

"I see you haven't lost your powers," Bianca remarked as we came to a halt.

"Yeah," I said, exhausted, yet still managing a smirk. "they would have been sorely mist."

Elanor and Bianca groaned as they realized the terrible pun, but it had the desired effect as they both smiled, annoyed and amused at the same time.

"Oh shut up," Bianca said, stifling her laughs. "still I have to say I would have preferred the classical entrance."

"Eh," I shrugged. "at least this one was pretty fast."

"Still not worth it," Eleanor said, shaking her head.

I looked at her, I had noticed her shaken state in the cave already, but it still held on. Clearly there was some sort of problem she had.

"Ell, is everything okay?" I asked and she steeled her expression.

"Yeah it's just, Apollo's kids and snakes don't mix," She stated, shaking herself. "big ones don't exactly improve the situation."

"Because of Python?" I asked and she nodded.

"Yeah," She confirmed with a shudder. "because of Python."

"Well, buckle up, we still have a snake tailed dog to get past," I said and sighed. "at least the first line of the prophecy is dealt with..."

AN:

Well, here it is, hopefully this chapter is recieved less controversially than the last, though I can't for the love of me explain why it was.

As always thanks for reading, I would greatly appreciate a favorite or follow and even more so a review!