craving |PERCY JACKSON| [book 1] UNDER EDITING

XXVIII

IT WAS ANNABETH'S IDEA. She loaded them into the back of a Vegas taxi as if they actually had enough money, and told the driver, "Los Angeles, please."

The cabbie chewed his cigar and sized them 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 them, his eyes wide. "Where to in Los Angeles... Uh, Your Highness?"

"The Santa Monica Pier." Annabeth sat up a little straighter. Selena 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.

On the road, they had plenty of time to talk. Percy told them about his latest dream, but the details got sketchier the more he tried to remember them. The Lotus Casino seemed to have short-circuited his memory. He couldn't recall what the invisible servant's voice had sounded like, though he was sure it was somebody he knew. The servant had called the monster in the pit something other than "my lord"... Some special name or title...

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

"Maybe..." Percy said though neither sounded quite right.

"That throne room sounds like Hades's," Grover stated, "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, "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."

Selena wasn't sure what was wrong with her. She looked pale, "But if I'd already retrieved the bolt, why would I be traveling to the Underworld?" Percy asked,

"To threaten Hades," Grover suggested. "To bribe or blackmail him into getting your mom back."

Percy whistled. "You have evil thoughts for a goat. "

"Why, thank you."

"But the thing in the pit said it was waiting for two items," Percy 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?" Percy asked her. "I mean, if it isn't Hades?"

"Percy ... 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.

Percy got the feeling he was missing one simple, critical piece of information. The more he thought about his quest, the more he was sure that confronting Hades wasn't the real answer. There was something else going on, something even more dangerous.

The problem was: they were hurtling toward the Underworld at ninety-five miles an hour, betting that Hades had the master bolt. If they got there and found out that they were wrong, they wouldn't have time to correct themselves. The solstice deadline would pass and war would begin.

"The answer is in the Underworld," Selena assured him. "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 by suggesting clever strategies for getting into the Land of the Dead, but Percy's heart wasn't in it. There were just too many unknown factors. It was like cramming for a test without knowing the subject. 

The cab sped west. Every gust of wind through Death Valley sounded like a spirit of the dead. Every time the brakes hissed on an eighteen-wheeler, it reminded Selena of Echidna's reptilian voice.

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.

The four of them walked down to the edge of the surf.

"What now?" Annabeth asked.