Luminesence (Slow Updates)

010

It was Annabeth’s idea.

She loaded the group into the back of a Vegas taxi as if they actually had money, and told the driver, “Los Angeles, please.”

The cabbie chewed his cigar and sized them up. “That’s three hundred miles. For that, you gotta pay up front.”

“You accept casino debit cards?” Annabeth asked.

He shrugged. “Some of ’em. Same as credit cards. I gotta swipe ’em
through first.”

Annabeth handed him her green LotusCash card. He looked at it skeptically.

“Swipe it,” Annabeth 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 them, his eyes wide. “Where to in Los Angeles...uh, Your Highness?”

“The Santa Monica Pier.” Annabeth sat up a little straighter. Phaedra could tell she liked the “Your Highness” thing. 

That's not fair, I want to be "your highness" too.

“Get us there fast, and you can keep the change.” Annabeth told him.

Maybe she shouldn’t have told him that. The cab’s speedometer never dipped below ninety-five the whole way through the Mojave Desert.

On the road, we had plenty of time to talk. Percy told Annabeth, Grover and Phaedra about his latest dream, but the details got sketchier the more he tried to remember
them. He couldn’t recall what the invisible servant’s voice had sounded like. 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.” Phaedra said.

“Maybe...” He said, though neither sounded quite right.

“That throne room sounds like Hades’s,” Grover said. “That’s the way it’s usually described.”

Percy shook his 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.”

Annabeth looked at Phaedra and their eyes widened.

“What?” He asked.

“Oh...nothing. I was just—No, it has to be Hades. Maybe he sent this thief, this invisible person, to get the master bolt, and something went wrong—” Annabeth said 

“Like what?”

“I—I don’t know,” she said. “But if he stole Zeus’s symbol of power from Olympus, and the gods were hunting him, I mean, a lot of things could go wrong. So this thief had to hide the bolt, or he lost it somehow. Anyway, he failed to bring it to Hades. That’s what the voice said in your dream, right? The guy failed. That would explain what the Furies were searching for when they came after us on the bus. Maybe they thought we had retrieved the bolt.” Annabeth finished.

That makes no sense because they would need a demigod to go take it. Furies wouldn't do that.

Both girls looked pale.

“But if I’d already retrieved the bolt,” Percy said, “why would I be traveling to the Underworld?”

“To threaten Hades,” Grover suggested. “To bribe or blackmail him into getting your mom back.”