Chapter 14:
They stood in the shadows of Valencia Boulevard, looking up at gold letters etched in black marble: DOA RECORDING STUDIOS.
Underneath, stencilled 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. All he needed was a donut.
Percy turned to the group. "Okay. You remember the plan."
"The plan," Grover gulped. "Yeah, I love the plan."
"What happens if the plan doesn't work?" Annabeth asked, worry in her tone.
"Don't think negative," Percy suggested.
"Right," she said. "We're entering the Land of the Dead, and I shouldn't think negative."
Percy took his own set of pearls out of his pocket. The rest were with Markus. They didn't seem like much of a backup plan in case something went wrong.
Annabeth put a hand on his 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 mum. No problem."
Markus patted his shoulder, grinning while doing so. "We got this, baby brother. Just make sure you close your mouth and we'll be fine."
He looked at all three of them, and felt really grateful. Only a few moments before, two of them nearly got stretched to death on deluxe water beds, and now they were trying to be brave for his sake, trying to make him feel better.
Percy slipped the pearls back in his pocket. "Let's whup some Underworld butt."
Markus stopped the group right there by laughing, clutching his stomach.
"What is it, now?" Percy asked indignantly.
"T-that's your i-inspiring speech?" Markus asked while still laughing.
"Yeah. What about it?"
Markus stopped laughing, shaking his head. "Okay. Watch, baby brother. This is how you do it. Huddle up, people." The group did so, heads crammed together. "Now, we are about to enter the Underworld, the Land of the Dead, to confront Hades, my undead uncle. And all we have are our wits, our skills, and our guts. The situation may seem dire, but together, we can succeed! We can be victorious! We can conquer! So say it with me!" Here Markus broke the group huddle and stood in front of the door, foot raised up. "So join me, brothers and sister-in-arms! This may be madness, but nay." Markus kicked the door, making it snap open, almost breaking it off its hinges. "This-is-Sparta!"
After that 'inspiring' speech, Markus stepped forward, leaving the group behind him.
The others watched him, befuddled. And then they burst into laughter at the whole thing, breaking the tense atmosphere.
"W-well," Grover said, still chuckling. "At least he knows how to make an entrance."
"That he does," Annabeth said, giggling.
Percy himself laughed. And Markus said that he should be careful of what he did. He was glad that his brother was here with him.
The group joined Markus in the DOA lobby.
Muzak played softly on hidden speakers. The carpet and the walls were steel grey. 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 now staring at the group, after Markus's bizarre entrance. Nobody moved, or talked, or did much of anything. Wow, they really got the 'dead humour' theme right.
The security guard's desk was a raised podium, so they had to look up at him.
He was tall and elegant, with chocolate-coloured skin and bleached-blonde 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.
Percy read the name tag, then looked at him in bewilderment, "You're name is Chiron?"
Markus facepalmed. "Not even five seconds," he muttered to himself.
The man leaned across the desk. You couldn't see anything in his glasses except your own reflection, but his smile was sweet and cold, like a python's, right before it eats you.
"What a precious young lad." He had a strange accent – British, maybe, though it sounded like English was his second language. "Tell me, mate, do I look like a centaur?"
"N-no."
"Sir," he added smoothly.
"Sir," Percy 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," Percy said with more certainty.
"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 Percy off-guard. He immediately turned to Markus for help.
Markus mentally sighed as he began his plan. "We would like to go to the Underworld, please," he said with a pleasant smile on his face.
Chiron's mouth twitched. "Well, that's refreshing."
"It is?" Annabeth asked.
"Straightforward and honest. No screaming. No 'There must be a mistake, Mr. Charon.'" He looked them over. "How did you die, then?"
"Got ran over by a bus," Markus told him casually, as if the idea was nice.
Charon nodded, as if he'd experienced the situation before. "Yeah, there are a lot of cases for you guys. 'Don't get run over,' I said. 'Why can't you die a decent death, ya know?' Honestly, you people won't shut up about it all."
He grimaced but eventually sighed and stared at them with boredom. "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 t 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, which was part of the stash they'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.
They were so close.
Then Charon looked at Percy. That cold stare behind his glasses seemed to bore a hole through his chest. "Here now," he said. "You couldn't read my name correctly. Are you dyslexic, lad?"
"No," Percy said. "I'm dead."
"You're about to be," Markus said, glaring at Percy.
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 forgot I saw you."
He started to go for the coins, but Percy quickly snatched them back.
"No service, no tip," Percy said, trying to sound brave.
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." He said this while holding up the entire bag from Crusty's stash. He took a fistful of drachmas and let the coins spill through his fingers. This made Markus drool almost as much as Charon was.
His 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, a smirk coming to his face. "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," the boy agreed. "A little appreciation. Respect. Good pay."
With each word, he stacked another gold coin on the counter. Markus was trying not to get carried away, but damn, that was a lot of money!
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."
Percy stacked another few coins ."I could mention a pay raise while I'm talking to Hades."
He sighed. "The boat's almost full, anyway. I might as well add you four and be off."
He stood up, scooping up the money, and said, "Come along."
As they pushed through the crowd, Markus insisted on carrying the pouch of drachmas. When asked why, he said it was better to keep it in his hands. Inwardly, however, he was whooping at the amount of money that he had.
The spirits started grabbing at the group's clothes like the wind, their voices whispering things you couldn't 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 them 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 they started to descend.
"What happens to the spirits waiting in the lobby?" Annabeth asked curiously.
"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 plan to live, thank you very much," Markus said with narrowed eyes.
"Ha."
Markus suddenly felt a bit dizzy when they stopped going down, but moved forward. The air turned misty. The spirits around them started changing shape. Their modern clothes flickered, turning into grey hooded robes. The floor of the elevator started swaying.
It was then 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. The flesh of his face was becoming transparent, letting you see straight through to his skull.
The floor kept swaying.
Grover said, "I think I'm getting seasick."
The elevator wasn't an elevator anymore. They were standing in a wooden barge.
Charon was now poling them across a dark, oily river, swirling with bones, dead fish, and other stranger things – plastic dolls, crushed carnations, soggy diplomas with gilt edges. To Markus, it was the worst river that he'd ever looked at, and he'd seen the East River on its worst day.
"The River Styx," Annabeth murmured. "It's so…"
"Polluted," Charon said. "For thousands of years, you humans have been throwing in everything you come across – hopes, dreams, wishes that never came true. Irresponsible waste management if you ask me."
Mist curled off the filthy water. Above them, almost lost in the gloom, was a ceiling of stalactites. Ahead, the far shore glimmered with greenish light, the colour of poison.
Markus had a foreboding thought: his mum might be among the ones who were dead. Hell, she might even be one of the spirits who were on the boat with them. He never realised until now that he might meet his mother in the Underworld. That fact scared him more than it relieved him. He didn't think he could stand the sight of his mother as a drifting spirit in this place.
Annabeth grabbed hold of Percy's hand while she also held onto Markus's. Under normal circumstances, this would've embarrassed him, but he understood how she felt. She wanted reassurance that somebody was alive on this boat.
Percy wanted to pray, but he didn't think it would go through. Only one god mattered here and he was about to come face to face with him.
The shorelines 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 the group could see.
A sound came from somewhere nearby in the green gloom, echoing off the stone – 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."
To calm his nerves, Markus started to hum the 'Spooky Scary Skeleton' song that he heard one Halloween. The others looked at him strangely, but he ignored them. It was catchy.
The bottom of their 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 together arm in arm. A boy no older than they were, shuffling silently along in his grey 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 their golden coins into his pouch, then took up his pole. He started to sing something that sounded like a Barry Manilow song as he ferried the empty barge back across the river.
The questers followed the spirits up a well-worn path.
Now, one would think the entrance to the Underworld would be the stereotypical Pearly Gates, or some big black portcullis, or something. But the entrance 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 Chiron.
The howling of the hungry animal was really loud now, but they 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 ATTENDANCE 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 judgement from the court, because it might go against them."
"There's a court for dead people?" Markus asked with a blink.
"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?" Percy asked curiously.
Grover said, "Imagine standing in a wheat field in Kansas. Forever."
"Harsh," Markus commented, while Percy nodded in agreement.
"Not as harsh as that," Grover muttered. "Look."
A couple of black-robed ghouls had pulled aside one spirit and were frisking him to the security desk. The face of the dead man looked vaguely similar.
"He's that preacher who made the news, remember?" Grover asked.
"Oh, yeah." Percy did remember now. He'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 of the Lord" went off a cliff.
Percy asked, "What're they doing to him?"
"Probably some special punishment from Hades," Grover assumed. "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 Percy shudder. He was in their home field now, and old Mrs. Dodds would be licking her lips with anticipation.
"But if he's a preacher," Percy said with a knitted brow in thought, "and he believes in a different hell…"
Grover shrugged. "Who's to say 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."
They got closer to the gates. The howling was so loud now it shook the ground at their feet, but they still couldn't figure out where it was coming from.
Then, about fifty feet in front of them, the green mist shimmered. Standing just where the path split into three lanes was an enormous shadowy monster.
They 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 them.
Percy's jaw hung open. All he could think to say was, "He's a Rottweiler."
He'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 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."
"Or we're getting accustomed to the Underworld," Markus suggested. His suggestion seemed more positive, so he stuck with it.
The dog's middle head craned towards them. It sniffed the air and growled.
"It can smell the living," Percy said with a gulp.
"But that's okay," Grover said, trembling next to him. "Because we have a plan."
"Right," Annabeth said. They'd never heard her voice sound quite so small.
"I know this plan is going to be fucked up," Markus muttered. "I just know it."
They moved towards the monster.
The middle head snarled at them, then barked so loud that they almost shook out of their shoes.
Markus was ruffling through his bag for a solution, because he knew somehow that Percy would fuck up the plan. Call it brotherly intuition.
"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."
"Screw it," Markus muttered, finally getting something out of his bag. He found that it was… an MP3 player. Where the hell did he get this? It had the Waterland logo on it, along with images of starfishes and beach balls. He shrugged. What the hell? It could work. Besides, Markus recalled that in the myths, Cerberus was put to sleep by music.
Markus pressed the play button, and instantly a theme song began to play. Specifically, the Aquaman theme song from the cartoon series.
The growling three heads stopped and turned to Markus, as did the group. The three dog heads were swaying to the theme as he sat down with a small quake, sitting on some of the spirits of the dead. His tail was wagging happily to the theme.
Markus almost laughed at how the situation played out. So the big bad Cerberus liked cartoon music? Well he wasn't complaining. He was just thankful that he had it on him, somehow.
Eventually the three heads' eyes began to dim. Seeing this chance, Markus turned to the others and whispered, "Go. I'll catch up."
"What about you?" Percy asked.
"I need to constantly repeat it," Markus said. "Go."
Cerberus' heads started to yawn and laid down on his belly to listen more.
Seeing this, the group quickly went around Cerberus, catching up with the rest of the spirits at the entrance. When they got there, they waved at Markus to follow.
Markus, still playing the Aquaman theme on his MP3, ran after the group, sliding under Cerberus' belly, where an opening was available.
Cerberus' heads growled, hearing that his music disappeared from in front of him. He barked loudly, making more mini quakes as he did.
Markus ran to join the others at the metal detector.
"How did you do that?" Percy asked his brother, amazed.
Markus shrugged. "Had it in my bag. Don't know how."
"We can talk about it later," Grover said. "Come on!"
They were about to bolt through the EZ DEATH line when Cerberus moaned pitifully from all three mouths. Markus stopped, and turned towards the dog.
Cerberus panted expectantly, waiting for more music to listen to.
"Good boy," Markus said, sounding uncertain as he said it.
The monster's head turned sideways, as if worried about him.
"I'll bring you a whole lot of songs to listen to," Markus said, his voice sounding more certain. He didn't know why he was saying that, since he didn't plan to make any more trips to the Underworld that weren't necessary. But the more he thought about it, he pitied the monster. He probably had never heard music before. Plus, despite his appearance. He was really just a dog that wanted entertainment. And Markus planned to give that to him.
Cerberus' heads turned towards him, looking unsure.
"I promise," Markus said, with utmost certainty. He then turned towards the group. "Let's go."
Grover and Percy pushed through the metal detector, which immediately screamed and set off flashing red lights. "Unauthorized possessions! Magic detected!"
Cerberus began to bark.
The kids burst through the EZ DEATH line, 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 scuttled past, yelling for backup from the Furies.
As they hid, Percy's mind wondered. Even here in the Underworld, everybody – even monsters – needed a little attention once in a while. He thought about that as the questers waited for the ghouls to pass.
Hello, everyone! So good to write to you all! So sorry for taking a while to update. I was busy with exams, like I said earlier. So, nothing really new happened here. I added the Aquaman theme song bit, because I found it funny, so why not?
Also, I hope you find out about Markus's other fatal flaw. It's pretty clear by now, but I'll let you figure it out.
Thanks, read and review!