Deadly Waters | Percy Jackson

22. The Prophecy Comes True

They were the first heroes to return alive to Half-Blood Hill since Luke, so of course everybody treated them as if they'd won some reality-TV contest. According to camp tradition, they wore laurel wreaths to a big feast prepared in their honour, then led a procession down to the bonfire, where they got to burn the burial shrouds their cabins had made for them in their absence.

Annabeth's shroud was so beautiful – grey silk with embroidered owls – Percy told her it seemed a shame not to bury her in it. She punched him and told him to shut up.

Being the son of Poseidon, he didn't have any cabin mates, so the Ares cabin had volunteered to make his shroud. They'd taken an old bedsheet and painted smiley faces with X'ed-out eyes around the border, and the word LOSER painted really big in the middle.

It was fun to burn.

Would've been better if Pez were here, he thought.

Almost the second Percy had left the Empire State building, he had sent a desperate prayer to Hermes, quite unashamedly begging him to somehow get Pez out of the Underworld.

He didn't know if it worked.

He didn't even know if the god had received his prayer, or if he would react to it.

He could only hope.

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Hermes was old.

Very old.

He wasn't as old as some of his family members, but that wasn't saying much – he was only couple hundred years younger, after all.

He was a god, of course he was old.

And being the God of Messengers, Travelers, and Thieves, God of Roads and Merchants, God of Trade and Sports, God of Loads, God of Border Crossings and official Messenger of the Gods, Hermes tended to see and hear things he probably shouldn't see or hear.

Said things varied – some of them were important, some of them were irrelevant.

Some of them were harmless, some of them were dangerous.

Some of them were mundane, and some of them . . . some of them were downright weird.

All this being said, in all his time, Hermes didn't think he'd ever seen something as strange as what he was seeing.

Unlike the rest of his immortal family, Hermes quite liked keeping tabs on the modern world. Demigod and mortal alike. So, of course he watched as the young Percy Jackson set out on his quest, faced off The Furies and Medusa and Echidna alike, and even make deals with gods. That means he wasn't exactly surprised when Martha relayed young Perseus's plead to the god for the safe retrieval of his friend from the Underworld.

The boy sounded so hopeful and sad, Hermes couldn't have said no even if he wanted to. So, a few minutes later – after settling some other affairs – the Messenger of the Gods travelled to the Underworld.

And that is when his troubles began.

You see, his Uncle, Lord Hades, had always had a terrifying reputation. It came with the job – King of the Dead, God of all Beneath the Earth – and really, he was excellent at it. Not many would dare argue or raise their voice at him, and some were even afraid to utter his name, in fear of incurring his wrath. Personally, Hermes had always quite like his Uncle, and had often thought that he was treated somewhat unfairly.