❝ Does being a Child of Hermes automatically make you good at flirting? Or was that just a skill you picked up? ❞
Andromeda Jackson knew she was not cut out for the demigod life, and that was before she heard about her death from the creepy oracle i...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
𝔄nnbeth had good ideas.
She 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?" Luke stepped in for Annabeth, who was starting to splutter.
He shrugged. "Some of 'em. Same as credit cards. I gotta swipe 'em through first."
Luke handed over his green, Lotus Casino card.
He looked at it skeptically.
"Swipe it," Luke 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." Annabeth sat up a little straighter. I could tell she liked the "Your Highness" thing. "Get us there fast, and you can keep the change."
Maybe she shouldn't have told him that. The cab's speedometer never dipped below ninety-five the whole way through the Mojave Desert, which, let me tell you, made for some hair raising bends.
On the road, we had plenty of time to talk. I told the trio about my latest dream, but the details got sketchier the more I tried to remember them. The Lotus Casino seemed to have short-circuited my memory. I couldn't recall what the invisible servant's voice had sounded like, though I was sure it was somebody I 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..." I said, though neither sounded quite right, it was something else.
"That throne room sounds like Hades'," Grover said. "That's the way it's usually described."
I 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."
Luke was quiet and pale next to me, his fingers drumming against his knee, as the rest of the cab went silent.
