Hello there, gods, half-bloods and friends. Welcome to the next chapter of The God Hunter.
Not much to make note of, but I hope you enjoy and now on to the story.
The elevator wasn't going down anymore, but forward. The air turned misty. Spirits around started changing shape. Their modern clothes flickered, turning into gray hooded robes. The floor of the elevator began swaying.
Suddenly Charon's creamy Italian suit had been replaced by a long black robe.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 the tall blonde looking, and said, "Well?"
"Nothing." Matt said turning away, "You have very pretty eyes."
"What?"
"What." Matt said as the floor kept swaying.
Grover said, "I think I'm getting seasick."
Suddenly the elevator wasn't an elevator anymore, they were standing in a wooden barge. Charon was 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.
"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, almost lost in the gloom, was a ceiling of stalactites. Ahead, the far shore glimmered with greenish light, the color of poison.
Matt felt someone grab his hand. With a raised eyebrow he looked at Annabeth who had grabbed his hand.
Under normal circumstances, he would have made a snarky remark to go along with his smirk, but he felt someone else grab his other hand and his upper arm.
It was Percy and Grover, much to his confusion.
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 the eye 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 the boat slid onto the black sand and 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 they were, shuffling silently along in his gray robe.
Charon said, "I'd wish you luck, mate, but there isn't any down here." He counted our golden coins into his pouch, then took up his pole.
"Don't worry about that, I make my own luck." Matt told him as he ferried the empty barge back across the river.
"And can you three let go of me!" he said to his friends who where still holding his hands and upper arm.
As they followed the spirits up a well-worn path. 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. Cerberus, the three-headed dog, 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?" Percy said.
"The fast line must go straight to the Asphodel Fields." Annabeth noted, "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?" Matt said surprised.
"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 said.
Grover said, "Imagine standing in a wheat field in Kansas. Forever."
"Sweet merciful gods." Matt said with wide eyes, "If it's that bad, I don't want to know what the Field of Punishment is."
They got closer to the gates. The howling was so loud now it shook the ground. 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.
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.
"He's a Rottweiler." Percy said.
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 them. It sniffed the air and growled.
"I think it can smell us." Matt said.
"But that's okay." Grover said, trembling, "Because we have a plan."
"We do!?" Matt said as if it was the first time he heard of anything resembling a plan.
The middle head snarled at them, then barked so loud their eyeballs rattled.
"Can you understand it?" Percy asked Grover.
"Oh yeah. I can understand it." the satyrs said, "But I don't think humans have a four-letter word that translates, exactly."
As Matt took a baseball he had taken with him from the RV, out of his pocket. Then he held it up so it was clear to see, "Hey, big doggo." he said, "I guess they don't play with you a lot, right?"
"Growl!"
"That's a good doggo." Matt said, he waved the ball.
The dog's middle head followed the movement. The other two heads trained their eyes, completely ignoring the spirits. Matt had Cerberus's undivided attention.
"See the ball? You want the ball, right Cerberus? Sit!"
Cerberus looked as stunned as Percy, Annabeth and Grover were.
All three of his heads cocked sideways. Six nostrils dilated. 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.
"See?" Matt said, "Good doggo."
He threw Cerberus the ball, who 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." Matt ordered.
Cerberus's heads stopped fighting and looked at him. 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 Matt's feet.
He picked up the ball, ignoring the monster spit all over it. "Go." Matt said gesturing for them to move to the 'Ez Death' line.
Percy, Annabeth and Grover inched forward warily as Cerberus started to growl.
"Stay!" Matt ordered the monster, "If you want the ball, stay!"
Cerberus whimpered, but he stayed where he was.
"What about you?" Percy asked as they passed him.
"Give me five minutes." Matt said with a wink.
Five minutes later, while the monster was distracted, Matt walked briskly under its belly and joined them at the metal detector.
"How did you do that?" Percy asked amazed.
"Animals can feel it if there is a alpha in their presence." Matt said smugly.
"Checks out. That an animal would noticed another animal." Annabeth said, "Wouldn't call you an alpha though."
They were about to bolt through the 'Ez Death' line when Cerberus moaned pitifully from all three mouths. Annabeth stopped and she turned to face the dog, which had done a one-eighty to look at them.
Cerberus panted expectantly, the tiny red ball in pieces in a puddle of drool at its feet. The monster's heads turned sideways, as if worried about him.
"I'll bring you another ball soon." Matt suggested, "Would you like that?"
The monster whimpered. "Good doggo. I'll come visit you soon. I promise." Matt said turning to the others, "Can't we keep him?"
"No." Annabeth said much to Matt's disappointment, "Let's go."
Percy and Grover pushed through the metal detector, which immediately screamed and set off flashing red lights.
"Unauthorized possessions! Magic detected!"
Cerberus started to bark.
They 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 scuttled past, yelling for backup from the Furies.
Grover murmured, "Well, Percy, what have we learned today?"
"That three-headed dogs prefer baseballs?" Percy
"No." Grover told him, "We've learned that your plans really, really bite!"
"Wait." Matt said, "We had a plan?"
They waited for the ghouls to pass. Matt ignored Annabeth wipe a tear from her cheek as she listened to the mournful keening of Cerberus in the distance, longing for his new friend.
The black grass of the Fields of Asphodel had been trampled by eons of dead feet. A warm, moist wind blew like the breath of a swamp. Black trees, Grover informed them that they were poplars, grew in clumps here and there.
The cavern ceiling was so high above it might've been a bank of storm clouds, except for the stalactites, which glowed faint gray and looked wickedly pointed.
"You know." Matt said as he looked up, "I can never tell the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite."
"Stalagmite's got an 'm' in it." Annabeth said dryly.
"Yeah." he said with a nod, "That must be it."
Percy, Matt, Annabeth and Grover tried to blend into the crowd, keeping an eye out for security ghouls. They crept along, following the line of new arrivals that snaked from the main gates toward a black-tented pavilion with a banner that read:
Judgements for Elysium and Eternal Damnation
Welcome, Newly Deceased!
Out the back of the tent came two much smaller lines.
To the left, spirits flanked by security ghouls were marched down a rocky path toward the Fields of Punishment, which glowed and smoked in the distance, a vast, cracked wasteland with rivers of lava and minefields and miles of barbed wire separating the different torture areas.
Even from far away, Matt could spot people being chased by hellhounds, burned at the stake, forced to run naked through cactus patches or listen to opera music.
The line coming from the right side of the judgment pavilion was much better. This one led down toward a small valley surrounded by walls, a gated community, which seemed to be the only happy part of the Underworld.
Beyond the security gate were neighborhoods of beautiful houses from every time period in history, Roman villas and medieval castles and Victorian mansions. Silver and gold flowers bloomed on the lawns. The grass rippled in rainbow colors.
Elysium.
In the middle of that valley was a glittering blue lake, with three small islands like a vacation resort in the Bahamas. The Isles of the Blest, for people who had chosen to be reborn three times, and three times achieved Elysium.
"That's what it's all about." Annabeth said, "That's the place for heroes."
They left the judgment pavilion and moved deeper into the Asphodel Fields. It got darker. The colors faded from their clothes. The crowds of chattering spirits began to thin.
After a few miles of walking, a familiar screech could be heard loudly in the distance. Looming on the horizon was a palace of glittering black obsidian. Above the parapets swirled three dark batlike creatures: the Furies.
"I suppose it's too late to turn back." Grover said wistfully.
"Indeed it is!" Matt said with a grin.
"Maybe we should search some of the other places first." Grover suggested, "Like, Elysium, for instance..."
"Come on, goat boy." Annabeth said, grabbing his arm.
Grover yelped. His sneakers sprouted wings and his legs shot forward, pulling him away from Annabeth. He landed flat on his back in the grass.
"Grover." Matt said concerned, "You okay there buddy?"
He yelped again. His shoes were flapping like crazy now. They levitated off the ground and started dragging him away.
"Maia!" he yelled, but the magic word seemed to have no effect, "Maia, already damn it! Nine-one-one! Help!"
"Guess it's not okay." Percy said as he made a grab for Grover's hand, but too late. He was picking up speed, skidding downhill like a bobsled.
The three ran after him.
Annabeth shouted, "Untie the shoes!"
A smart idea, but not so easy when your shoes are pulling you along feet first at full speed. Grover tried to sit up, but he couldn't get close to the laces.
They kept after him, trying to keep him in sight as he ripped between the legs of spirits who chattered at him in annoyance. One would expect Grover to go barreling straight through the gates of Hades's palace, but his shoes veered sharply to the right and dragged him in the opposite direction.
The slope got steeper. Grover picked up speed. Percy, Matt and Annabeth had to sprint to keep up. The cavern walls narrowed on either side, as they entered some kind of side tunnel. No black grass or trees now, just rock underfoot, and the dim light of the stalactites above.
"Grover!" Percy yelled, his voice echoing, "Hold on to something!"
"What?" he yelled back.
He was grabbing at gravel, but there was nothing big enough to slow him down.
The tunnel got darker and colder. It smelled evil down here.
The tunnel widened into a huge dark cavern, and in the middle was a chasm the size of a city block and Grover was sliding straight toward the edge.
Theosjager appeared through its usual flames in Matt's hand. In a second eruption of white and gold flames, it reformed into a pair of silver ornate bracelet's, one around each arm. On the wrist side there seemed to be some sort of mechanism, a button where his middle and ring finger could press down.
Without thinking Matt extended his hand before shouting, "Shazam!" a wire made of faintly glowing gold shot out, reaching upwards and wrapping itself tightly around Grover's middle. With all his might, Matt attempted to pull him back but the winged shoes had enough fight in them that Matt was sliding over the ground.
He only came to a stop when he felt the arms of Percy and Annabeth wrap around him as they too began to pull back.
Raising his free hand, Matt shot a second rope this one sticking into the ground, anchoring them down.
With them working together, they bought enough time for the left shoe to come lose and fly off. It sped into the darkness, down into the chasm. The right shoe kept tugging him along, but not as strongly now.
The other winged shoe tugged itself off, circled around us angrily and kicked our heads in protest before flying off into the chasm to join its twin.
The four of them all collapsed, exhausted, on the obsidian gravel as the wires disappeared. Grover was scratched up pretty bad. His eyes had gone slit-pupiled, goat style, the way they did whenever he was terrified.
"I don't know how..." he panted, "I didn't..."
"Wait." Percy said, "Listen."
Matt perked his ears and indeed, he could hear something. A deep whisper in the darkness. The sound was getting louder, a muttering, evil voice from far, far below them.
Coming from the pit.
Grover sat up, "W-what's that noise?"
"This place..." Matt said concerned, "Is this..."
"Tartarus." Annabeth said, "The entrance to Tartarus."
Percy uncapped his sword. The bronze sword expanded, gleaming in the darkness, and the evil voice seemed to falter, just for a moment, before resuming its chant.
Ancient, ancient words, older even than Greek. As if...
"Magic." Percy said.
"We have to get out of here." Annabeth said.
"I find myself agreeing with Annabeth." Matt said and together with Percy, they dragged Grover to his hooves and started back up the tunnel. But Percy wasn't moving fast enough, his backpack weighed him down. The voice got louder and angrier behind them, and they broke into a run.
Not a moment too soon.
A cold blast of wind pulled at our backs, as if the entire pit were inhaling. For a terrifying moment, Percy almost lost his footing, if Matt hadn't caught his arm and pulled him back up.
They kept struggling forward, and finally reached the top of the tunnel, where the cavern widened out into the Fields of Asphodel. The wind died. A wail of outrage echoed from deep in the tunnel. Something was not happy they got away.
"What was that?" Grover panted, when they collapsed in the relative safety of a black poplar grove, "One of Hades's pets?"
Percy, Matt and Annabeth looked at each other. Each of them could tell, they where nursing the same idea, probably the same one Annabeth gotten during the drive to L.A., but she was too scared to share it.
Percy capped his sword, put the pen back in his pocket.
"Let's get back to it." Matt said, looking to Grover, "Your well enough to walk?"
He swallowed, "Yeah, sure. I never liked those shoes, anyway."
"Good goat." Matt said, patting him on the back.
He tried to sound brave about it, but he was trembling as badly as the other three, though they weren't as good at hiding it as Matt was.
Whatever was in that pit was nobody's pet. It was unspeakably old and powerful.
"So, what happened to your sword." Percy said, gesturing to Matt's arms.
"I don't know. But it sure came in handy." Matt said, looking at the bracelets, "...Do you think I can swing from those wires?"
"Don't know." Percy said, "Would be pretty cool if you could though."
"Yeah." Matt said as the bracelet disappeared in white and gold flames.
There you go, hope you enjoyed. Many thanks to everyone who reads, reviews, favorite, or follows this story.
Take care of yourself, drink plenty of water and I will see you people next time.