Despite the midday heat and the raging storm of death energy, a group of tourists was climbing over the ruins. Fortunately there weren't many, and they didn't give the demigods a second look.
After the crowds in Rome, Rebecca had stopped worrying too much about getting noticed. If they could fly their warship into the Roman Colosseum with ballistae blazing and not even cause a traffic slowdown, he figured they could get away with anything.
Rebecca and Nico led the way, true to their promise with Percy. At the top of the hill, they climbed over an old retaining wall and down into an excavated trench. Finally they arrived at a stone doorway leading straight into the side of the hill. The death storm seemed to originate right above their heads.
Rebecca looked back at the group. "From here, it gets tough."
"Sweet," Leo said. "'Cause so far I've totally been pulling my punches."
Nico glared at him. "We'll see how long you keep your sense of humor. Remember, this is where pilgrims came to commune with dead ancestors. Underground, you may see things that are hard to look at, or hear voices trying to lead you astray in the tunnels."
"Frank, do you have the barley cakes?" Rebecca asked.
"What?"
"I've got the cakes," Hazel said. She pulled out the magical barley crackers they'd made from the grain Triptolemus had given them in Venice.
"Eat up," Rebecca advised.
She chewed her cracker of death and tried not to gag.
"Yum," Piper said. Even the daughter of Aphrodite couldn't avoid making a face.
"Okay." Rebecca choked down the last of his barley. "That should protect us from the poison."
"Poison?" Leo asked. "Did I miss the poison? 'Cause I love poison."
Rebecca shot him an unimpressed look.
"Soon enough," Nico promised. "Just stick close together, and maybe we can avoid getting lost or going insane."
On that happy note, Nico and Rebecca led them underground.
The tunnel spiraled gently downward, the ceiling supported by white stone arches that reminded Rebecca of a whale's rib cage.
As they walked, Hazel ran her hands along the masonry. "This wasn't part of a temple," she whispered. "This was...the basement for a manor house, built in later Greek times."
"A manor house?" Frank asked. "Please don't tell me we're in the wrong place."
"The House of Hades is below us," Rebecca assured him. "But Hazel's right, these upper levels are much newer. When the archaeologists first excavated this site, they thought they'd found the Necromanteion. Then they realized the ruins were too recent, so they decided it was the wrong spot. They were right the first time. They just didn't dig deep enough."
They turned a corner and stopped. In front of them, the tunnel ended in a huge block of stone.
"A cave-in?" Jason asked.
"A test," Nico said. "Hazel, would you do the honors?"
Hazel stepped forward. She placed her hand on the rock, and the entire boulder
crumbled to dust.
The tunnel shuddered. Cracks spread across the ceiling. Then the rumbling stopped. The dust settled.
Rebecca smiled at Hazel and patted her on the shoulder.
A set of stairs curved deeper into the earth, the barreled ceiling held up by more repeating arches, closer together and carved from polished black stone. Painted on the walls were crude pictures of black cattle marching downward.
"I really don't like cows," Piper muttered.
YOU ARE READING
Haunted || Leo Valdez
FanfictionRebecca was haunted by the ghosts of her past. Angered by her sister's death in Hephaestus' junkyard, she'd joined the wrong side of the war and was paying the price. When she joined a new quest to save Hera, she was told that one of the Seven of th...
