The Unknown (A Percy Jackson Fanfiction)

12. We Take a Taxi to the Underworld

Hellooo! 

Sorry this chapter is a little late, but I hope you enjoy it nevertheless :) 

It is unedited, so expect some typos. Also, I have never been to New York-therefore, never to Grand Central Terminal-so I have little idea what it looks like apart from some google images. 

Chapter Twelve

"Thalia!" Annabeth exclaimed.

I frowned. "How did you know we were going on a quest?"

Thalia raised a dark eyebrow. "Hey, I'm no Annabeth, but I can figure out stuff too. If I were Percy, I would want to go on a quest too, so I worked from there."

Annabeth blinked, as if she were shocked. "Thalia, that's smart."

Nico snorted. "Well, there's a first for everything."

There was a buzzing sound as the passenger window was rolled down. Three heads stuck out of the window and I recoiled as they set their closed, sunken eyelids on me.

Nico gagged. "Oh gods."

They each had a mop of grizzly hair, almost covering their shrivelled and sunken eyelids. If it weren't for the empty sockets, they would look like the normal old ladies who drove grey taxis and wore charcoal-coloured sackcloth dresses.

"What are you waiting for?" The sisters mumbled with a hint of anger in their voices. "It's rush hour and we have plenty of people in need of our service."

Will checked his watch. "It's ten thirty."

One of the sisters ducked their head back into the taxi and returned with an eyeball in her hand. "Well maybe if Tempest hadn't convinced us to play beer pong with the eye, then I would know what time it was."

"Hey!" Tempest lunged for the eye but the sister wiggled it into her socket with a loud pop! "That's better." The eye was slime-coloured and bloodshot, swerving around in her socket like it was hungry to see everything.

Grover squeezed his eyes shut. "Gross."

The eye glared hungrily at each of us in turn. "There's six of you. Does it look like this thing can hold all of you at once?" The sister with the eye said.

"Uh—" I began to say.

Annabeth reached into her pocket, taking out two handfuls of drachma's. "Not even if we pay a little extra?"

The other sister snatched one of them and bit it with a yellowed incisor. "It's real gold, Anger."

Anger's eye swivelled to us and then back to the other sister. They put all of their heads together and started murmuring in low voices.

"Even if we do pay them extra, how are we all supposed to fit?" I whispered to Annabeth.

She squeezed my hand. "Trust me."

They stuck their heads back out of the window. "Ten more drachmas and it's a deal."

Annabeth sighed. "Fine." She handed them her drachmas. "I'll pay you the extra ten when we get there."

The sisters cursed. "I hate doing this." Wasp complained.

Anger slammed her hand down on something on the dashboard.

For a moment, nothing happened. And then the vehicle started shaking and elongating, the roof rising.

Right before our eyes, the grey New York taxi cab transformed to a charcoal-colour New York sight-seeing bus.