Sea Green Eyes

Chapter 73

What is this? The god of the pit hissed. Why have you come, my disgraced son?

Damasen glanced at Cressida, a clear message in his eyes: Go. Now.

He turned toward Tartarus. The Maeonian drakon stamped its feet and snarled. "Father, you wished for a more worthy opponent?" Damasen asked calmly. "I am one of the giants you are so proud of. You wished me to be more warlike? Perhaps I will start by destroying you!" Damasen levelled his lance and charged. The monstrous army swarmed him, but the Maeonian drakon flattened everything in its path, sweeping its tail and spraying poison while Damasen jabbed at Tartarus, forcing the god to retreat like a cornered lion.

"Cress!" came Castor's voice from somewhere but she was panicked because she couldn't see her brother's ghostly form presumably from where he was surrounded by a horde of empousai. "Give me your thyrsus!"

"WHY?!"

"JUST DO IT!"

And Cressida drew her weapon, the pinecone with a sharpened point and she sent it flying through the acidic air of Tartarus' breath. And it stopped when Castor's hand closed around the shaft and the weapon glowed purple as Castor spun it in his hands as the empousai were turned to dust.

Bob stumbled away from the battle, his sabre-toothed cat at his side. Percy gave them as much cover as he could—causing blood vessels in the ground to burst one after the other. Some monsters were vaporized in Styx water. Others got a Cocytus shower and collapsed, weeping hopelessly. Others were doused with liquid Lethe and stared blankly around them, no longer sure where or even who they were. Cressida played into that, manipulating the victims of the Lethe with her purple fire as their minds may as well have been mortal with how easy they were to manipulate with nothing in it. Those monsters began fighting towards Castor, helping him hold the line and keep the monsters from the Doors.

Bob limped towards them, golden ichor flowed from the wounds on his arms and chest. His janitor's outfit hung in tatters. His posture was twisted and hunched as if Tartarus's breaking the spear had broken something inside him. Despite all that, he was grinning, his silver eyes bright with satisfaction.

"Go," he ordered. "I will hold the button."

Percy gawked at him. "Bob, you're in no condition—"

"Percy," Cressida's voice broke, "together."

"We can't just leave them."

"I know!" she cried, her tears no longer happy.

"You must, friend," Bob said before he clapped Percy on the arm, nearly knocking him over. "I can still press a button. And I have a good cat to guard me." Small Bob the sabre-toothed tiger growled in agreement. "Besides," Bob said, "it is your destiny to return to the world. Put an end to this madness of Gaia."

Cressida was still crying as she reached up to kiss Bob's cheek before he pushed her down as a screaming cyclops, sizzling from poison spray, sailed over their heads. Fifty yards away, the Maeonian drakon trampled through monsters, its feet making sickening squish-squish noises as if stomping grapes. On its back, Damasen yelled insults and jabbed at the god of the pit, taunting Tartarus farther away from the Doors.

Tartarus lumbered after him, his iron boots making craters in the ground. You cannot kill me! he bellowed. I am the pit itself. You might as well try to kill the earth. Gaia and I—we are eternal. We own you, flesh and spirit! He brought down his massive fist, but Damasen sidestepped, impaling his javelin in the side of Tartarus's neck. Tartarus growled, apparently more annoyed than hurt. He turned his swirling vacuum face toward the giant, but Damasen got out of the way in time. A dozen monsters were sucked into the vortex and disintegrated.