The Nature of a Demigod

Now its Water Beds??

[Y/N's POV]

Annabeth had yet another brilliant idea. We loaded into the back of a taxi. I didn't think we had any money left, but she still told the driver, "Los Angeles, please."

The driver watched us through his rearview mirror. He was smoking a cigar. I didn't think this was good for any of us, but it didn't seem to matter.

"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 Lotus card.

He looked at it skeptically. Eventually, the pieces clicked in my brain.

"Swipe it," I said with a weak hint of authority.

He did. His meter machine started rattling. The lights flashed. Finally an infinity symbol came up next to the dollar sign. The driver's jaw dropped. His cigar fell to the floor and his eyes widened.

He looked back at us, his eyes wide. "Where to in Los Angeles... uh, Your Highnesses?"

"Oh that's gonna go to her head." Grover muttered.

"The Santa Monica Pier." Annabeth smirked. Grover was right. She obviously was enjoying the "Your Highness" thing. "Get us there fast, and you can keep the change."

Well. He did get us there fast. Dangerously fast. The desert landscape was a blur and I don't know if we dropped below 100 the whole way there.

We still had plenty of time. Percy told us about a dream. He said how another person called the voice a certain title...

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

"Maybe..." Percy said.

It didn't sit right with me anyway. "The Unseen one? That's another nickname for Hades." I suggested to them.

"That throne room sounds like Hades'," Grover said. "That's the way it's usually described."

"All dark and dreary and the like." I chuckled, tightening my new shoes. They were still getting broken in.

"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. Percy looked at her. "What?"

"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."

"If we look at it like that, then the Furies would make sense." I agreed. "All three of them came after you on the bus. Maybe they thought we already had the bolt."

Annabeth looked pale. Hopefully she wasn't still reeling from the sea of spiders at waterland. She looked at me. There was panic in her eyes, and a look that said, 'This is bad.'