𐌙/𐌍 Ᏽ𐌵𐌀𐌋𐌄 & 𐌕𐋅𐌄 Ᏽ𐌐𐌄𐌀𐌕 𐌌𐌙𐌕𐋅𐌔 ¹

Chapter 16

16 | Going Shopping ... Wait, that's not the kind of shopping I like!

It was Annabeth's idea. 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?" 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 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.

But it was a fun and colorful ride. All I could see were blurs of random color as I picked up the various small smells and noises of stuff along the way.

–Note to self: do not drive into the desert, specially fast. Synesthesia does not make it easy to see at all with all the sounds and scents.

I laid down to help with the massive headache I built from a sensory overload I got from all the sounds and colors. I just remember falling onto Annabeth's shoulder and that's about it. I could still hear the conversation the three had, though.

Percy was talking about how that weird voice from the dreams he had, found an invisible servant, and he called the voice “my lord” or some tittle Percy couldn't remember, the Lotus hotel must have hazed his memory. But he remembered that the voice seemed familiar.

"The Silent One?" Annabeth suggested. "The Rich One? Both of those are nicknames for Hades."

"Maybe ..." Percy said.

"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's eyes widened. She started mindlessly playing with my hair to distract herself from something. I sighed in satisfaction from the ticklish feeling over my scalp.

"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–"

"Like what?"

"I-I don't know," she said. "But if he stole Zeus's sym-bol 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."

I wasn't sure what was wrong with her. She looked pale.

"But if I'd already retrieved the bolt," I said, "why would I be traveling to the Underworld?"