𝐃𝐄𝐉𝐀 𝐕𝐔 • Percy Jackson.

19

THEY SAT IN THE TAXI. It had been Annabeth's idea, calling a cab, and said to the driver; "Los Angeles, please." He wondered if the Driver would do that, but then again he also traveled almost 300 miles to get to Camp. The cabbie chewed his cigar and sized us up. "That’s three hundred miles. For that, you gotta pay up front." He rubbed his temple.

"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 sceptically. "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?" Amani covered his laughter, "the Santa Monica pier." Annabeth sat up a little straighter. "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.

On the road, they had plenty of time to talk. Percy told them about his latest dream, but with the breaks Percy had in-between the details must have gotten lost. "The Silent One?" Annabeth suggested. "The Rich One? Both of those are nicknames for Hades." Amani had his doubts. "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’s eyes widened. A pit? "What?" Percy 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 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." She explained so calmly, but her face looked pale.

"But if I’d already retrieved the bolt," he said, "why would I be travelling to the Underworld?" Amani hummed, something was wrong, but yet so right. "To threaten Hades," Grover suggested. "To bribe or blackmail him into getting your mom back."
Percy whistled. "You have evil thoughts for a goat." Amani said. "Why thank you."

"But the thing in the pit said it was waiting for two items," he said. "If the master bolt is one, what’s the other?"  Grover shook his head, clearly mystified.
Annabeth was looking at Percy as if she knew his next question, and was silently willing him not to ask it.

"You have an idea what might be in that pit, don’t you?" Amani asked her. "If it isn’t Hades?" He pointed out. "Amani, let’s not talk about it. Because if it isn’t Hades… No. It has to be Hades." Wasteland rolled by. They passed a sign that said: CALIFORNIA STATE LINE, 12 MILES.

"The answer is in the Underworld," Annabeth assured. "You saw spirits of the dead, Percy. There’s only one place that could be. We’re doing the right thing." Annabeth tried to boost their morale with suggestions of strategies, but nobody's heart was in it. The cab sped west. Every gust of wind through Death Valley sounded like a spirit of the dead.

At sunset, the taxi dropped them at the beach in Santa Monica. It looked exactly the way L.A. beaches do in the movies, only it smelled worse. There were carnival rides lining the pier, palm trees lining the sidewalks, homeless guys sleeping in the sand dunes and surfer dudes waiting for the perfect wave.