The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus Book 4) (3 page)

‘Clytius.’ Hazel had never heard that name –
Clai-tee-us
– but saying it made her limbs feel heavy. She glanced at the images in the northern doorway – the massive dark shape looming over Percy and Annabeth. ‘Is he the threat in the House of Hades?’

‘Oh, he waits for you there,’ Hecate said. ‘But first you must defeat the witch. Unless you manage that …’

She snapped her fingers, and all of the gateways turned dark. The Mist dissolved, the images gone.

‘We all face choices,’ the goddess said. ‘When Kronos arose the second time, I made a mistake. I supported him. I had grown tired of being ignored by the so-called
major
gods. Despite my years of faithful service, they mistrusted me, refused me a seat in their hall …’

The polecat Gale chittered angrily.

‘It does not matter any more.’ The goddess sighed. ‘I have made peace again with Olympus. Even now, when they are laid low – their Greek and Roman personas fighting each other – I will help them. Greek or Roman, I have always been only Hecate. I will assist you against the giants, if you prove yourself worthy. So now it is your choice, Hazel Levesque. Will you trust me … or will you shun me, as the Olympian gods have done too often?’

Blood roared in Hazel’s ears. Could she trust this dark goddess, who’d given her mother the magic that ruined her
life? Sorry, no. She didn’t much like Hecate’s dog nor her gassy polecat either.

But she also knew she couldn’t let Percy and Annabeth die.

‘I’ll go north,’ she said. ‘We’ll take your secret pass through the mountains.’

Hecate nodded, the slightest hint of satisfaction in her face. ‘You have chosen well, though the path will not be easy. Many monsters will rise against you. Even some of my
own
servants have sided with Gaia, hoping to destroy your mortal world.’

The goddess took her double torches from their stands. ‘Prepare yourself, daughter of Pluto. If you succeed against the witch, we will meet again.’

‘I’ll succeed,’ Hazel promised. ‘And Hecate? I’m not choosing one of your paths. I’m making my own.’

The goddess arched her eyebrows. Her polecat writhed, and her dog snarled.

‘We’re going to find a way to stop Gaia,’ Hazel said. ‘We’re going to rescue our friends from Tartarus. We’re going keep the crew and the ship together
and
we’re going to stop Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-Blood from going to war. We’re going to do it all.’

The storm howled, the black walls of the funnel cloud swirling faster.

‘Interesting,’ Hecate said, as if Hazel were an unexpected result in a science experiment. ‘That would be magic worth seeing.’

A wave of darkness blotted out the world. When Hazel’s sight returned, the storm, the goddess and her minions were
gone. Hazel stood on the hillside in the morning sunlight, alone in the ruins except for Arion, who paced next to her, nickering impatiently.

‘I agree,’ Hazel told the horse. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

‘What happened?’ Leo asked as Hazel climbed aboard the
Argo II
.

Hazel’s hands still shook from her talk with the goddess. She glanced over the rail and saw the dust of Arion’s wake stretching across the hills of Italy. She had hoped her friend would stay, but couldn’t blame him for wanting to get away from this place as fast as possible.

The countryside sparkled as the summer sun hit the morning dew. On the hill, the old ruins stood white and silent – no sign of ancient paths, or goddesses, or farting weasels.

‘Hazel?’ Nico asked.

Her knees buckled. Nico and Leo grabbed her arms and helped her to the steps of the foredeck. She felt embarrassed, collapsing like some fairy-tale damsel, but her energy was gone. The memory of those glowing scenes at the crossroads filled her with dread.

‘I met Hecate,’ she managed.

She didn’t tell them everything. She remembered what Nico had said:
Their courage is already stretched to the limit.
But she told them about the secret northern pass through the mountains, and the detour Hecate had described that could take them to Epirus.

When she was done, Nico took her hand. His eyes were full of concern. ‘Hazel, you met Hecate at a crossroads. That’s … 
that’s something many demigods don’t survive. And the ones who
do
survive are never the same. Are you sure you’re –’

‘I’m fine,’ she insisted.

But she knew she wasn’t. She remembered how bold and angry she’d felt, telling the goddess she’d find her own path and succeed at everything. Now her boast seemed ridiculous. Her courage had abandoned her.

‘What if Hecate is tricking us?’ Leo asked. ‘This route could be a trap.’

Hazel shook her head. ‘If it was a trap, I think Hecate would’ve made the northern route sound tempting. Believe me, she didn’t.’

Leo pulled a calculator out of his tool belt and punched in some numbers. ‘That’s … something like three hundred miles out of our way to get to Venice. Then we’d have to backtrack down the Adriatic. And you said something about baloney dwarfs?’

‘Dwarfs in Bologna,’ Hazel said. ‘I guess Bologna is a city. But why we have to find dwarfs there … I have no idea. Some sort of treasure to help us with the quest.’

‘Huh,’ Leo said. ‘I mean, I’m all about treasure, but –’

‘It’s our best option.’ Nico helped Hazel to her feet. ‘We have to make up for lost time, travel as fast as we can. Percy’s and Annabeth’s lives might depend on it.’

‘Fast?’ Leo grinned. ‘I can do fast.’

He hurried to the console and started flipping switches.

Nico took Hazel’s arm and guided her out of earshot. ‘What else did Hecate say? Anything about –’

‘I can’t.’ Hazel cut him off. The images she’d seen had
almost overwhelmed her: Percy and Annabeth helpless at the feet of those black metal doors, the dark giant looming over them, Hazel herself trapped in a glowing maze of light, unable to help.

You must defeat the witch
, Hecate had said.
You alone can defeat her. Unless you manage that …

The end
, Hazel thought. All gateways closed. All hope extinguished.

Nico had warned her. He’d communed with the dead, heard them whispering hints about their future. Two children of the Underworld would enter the House of Hades. They would face an impossible foe. Only one of them would make it to the Doors of Death.

Hazel couldn’t meet her brother’s eyes.

‘I’ll tell you later,’ she promised, trying to keep her voice from trembling. ‘Right now, we should rest while we can. Tonight, we cross the Apennines.’

N
INE DAYS.

As she fell, Annabeth thought about
Hesiod
, the old Greek poet who’d speculated it would take nine days to fall from earth to Tartarus.

She hoped Hesiod was wrong. She’d lost track of how long she and Percy had been falling – hours? A day? It felt like an eternity. They’d been holding hands ever since they’d dropped into the chasm. Now Percy pulled her close, hugging her tight as they tumbled through absolute darkness.

Wind whistled in Annabeth’s ears. The air grew hotter and damper, as if they were plummeting into the throat of a massive dragon. Her recently broken ankle throbbed, though she couldn’t tell if it was still wrapped in spiderwebs.

That cursed monster
Arachne
. Despite having been trapped in her own webbing, smashed by a car and plunged into Tartarus, the spider lady had got her revenge. Somehow
her silk had entangled Annabeth’s leg and dragged her over the side of the pit, with Percy in tow.

Annabeth couldn’t imagine that Arachne was still alive, somewhere below them in the darkness. She didn’t want to meet that monster again when they reached the bottom. On the bright side, assuming there
was
a bottom, Annabeth and Percy would probably be flattened on impact, so giant spiders were the least of their worries.

She wrapped her arms around Percy and tried not to sob. She’d never expected her life to be easy. Most demigods died young at the hands of terrible monsters. That was the way it had been since ancient times. The Greeks
invented
tragedy. They knew the greatest heroes didn’t get happy endings.

Still, this wasn’t
fair
. She’d gone through so much to retrieve that statue of Athena. Just when she’d succeeded, when things had been looking up and she’d been reunited with Percy, they had plunged to their deaths.

Even the gods couldn’t devise a fate so twisted.

But Gaia wasn’t like other gods. The Earth Mother was older, more vicious, more bloodthirsty. Annabeth could imagine her laughing as they fell into the depths.

Annabeth pressed her lips to Percy’s ear. ‘I love you.’

She wasn’t sure he could hear her – but if they were going to die she wanted those to be her last words.

She tried desperately to think of a plan to save them. She was a daughter of Athena. She’d proven herself in the tunnels under Rome, beaten a whole series of challenges with only her wits. But she couldn’t think of any way to reverse or even slow their fall.

Neither of them had the power to fly – not like Jason, who could control the wind, or Frank, who could turn into a winged animal. If they reached the bottom at terminal velocity … well, she knew enough science to know it would be
terminal
.

She was seriously wondering whether they could fashion a parachute out of their shirts –
that’s
how desperate she was – when something about their surroundings changed. The darkness took on a grey-red tinge. She realized she could see Percy’s hair as she hugged him. The whistling in her ears turned into more of a roar. The air became intolerably hot, permeated with a smell like rotten eggs.

Suddenly, the chute they’d been falling through opened into a vast cavern. Maybe half a mile below them, Annabeth could see the bottom. For a moment she was too stunned to think properly. The entire island of Manhattan could have fitted inside this cavern – and she couldn’t even see its full extent. Red clouds hung in the air like vaporized blood. The landscape – at least what she could see of it – was rocky black plains, punctuated by jagged mountains and fiery chasms. To Annabeth’s left, the ground dropped away in a series of cliffs, like colossal steps leading deeper into the abyss.

The stench of sulphur made it hard to concentrate, but she focused on the ground directly below them and saw a ribbon of glittering black liquid – a
river
.

‘Percy!’ she yelled in his ear. ‘Water!’

She gestured frantically. Percy’s face was hard to read in the dim red light. He looked shell-shocked and terrified, but he nodded as if he understood.

Percy could control water – assuming that
was
water below them. He might be able to cushion their fall somehow. Of course Annabeth had heard horrible stories about the rivers of the Underworld. They could take away your memories, or burn your body and soul to ashes. But she decided not to think about that. This was their only chance.

The river hurtled towards them. At the last second, Percy yelled defiantly. The water erupted in a massive geyser and swallowed them whole.

T
HE IMPACT DIDN’T
kill her, but the cold nearly did.

Freezing water shocked the air right out of her lungs. Her limbs turned rigid, and she lost her grip on Percy. She began to sink. Strange wailing sounds filled her ears – millions of heartbroken voices, as if the river were made of distilled sadness. The voices were worse than the cold. They weighed her down and made her numb.

What’s the point of struggling?
they told her.
You’re dead anyway. You’ll never leave this place.

She could sink to the bottom and drown, let the river carry her body away. That would be easier. She could just close her eyes …

Percy gripped her hand and jolted her back to reality. She couldn’t see him in the murky water, but suddenly she didn’t want to die. Together they kicked upward and broke the surface.

Annabeth gasped, grateful for the air, no matter how
sulphurous. The water swirled around them, and she realized Percy was creating a whirlpool to buoy them up.

Though she couldn’t make out their surroundings, she knew this was a river. Rivers had shores.

‘Land,’ she croaked. ‘Go sideways.’

Percy looked near dead with exhaustion. Usually water reinvigorated him, but not
this
water. Controlling it must have taken every bit of his strength. The whirlpool began to dissipate. Annabeth hooked one arm around his waist and struggled across the current. The river worked against her: thousands of weeping voices whispering in her ears, getting inside her brain.

Life is despair
, they said.
Everything is pointless, and then you die.

‘Pointless,’ Percy murmured. His teeth chattered from the cold. He stopped swimming and began to sink.

‘Percy!’ she shrieked. ‘The river is messing with your mind. It’s the
Cocytus
– the River of Lamentation. It’s made of pure misery!’

‘Misery,’ he agreed.

‘Fight it!’

She kicked and struggled, trying to keep both of them afloat. Another cosmic joke for Gaia to laugh at:
Annabeth dies trying to keep her boyfriend, the son of Poseidon, from drowning.

Not going to happen, you hag, Annabeth thought.

She hugged Percy tighter and kissed him. ‘Tell me about New Rome,’ she demanded. ‘What were your plans for us?’

‘New Rome … For us …’

‘Yeah, Seaweed Brain. You said we could have a future there! Tell me!’

Annabeth had never wanted to leave Camp Half-Blood. It was the only real home she’d ever known. But days ago, on the
Argo II
, Percy had told her that he imagined a future for the two of them among the Roman demigods. In their city of New Rome, veterans of the legion could settle down safely, go to college, get married, even have kids.

‘Architecture,’ Percy murmured. The fog started to clear from his eyes. ‘Thought you’d like the houses, the parks. There’s one street with all these cool fountains.’

Annabeth started making progress against the current. Her limbs felt like bags of wet sand, but Percy was helping her now. She could see the dark line of the shore about a stone’s throw away.

‘College,’ she gasped. ‘Could we go there together?’

‘Y-yeah,’ he agreed, a little more confidently.

‘What would you study, Percy?’

‘Dunno,’ he admitted.

‘Marine science,’ she suggested. ‘Oceanography?’

‘Surfing?’ he asked.

She laughed, and the sound sent a shock wave through the water. The wailing faded to background noise. Annabeth wondered if anyone had ever laughed in Tartarus before – just a pure, simple laugh of pleasure. She doubted it.

She used the last of her strength to reach the riverbank. Her feet dug into the sandy bottom. She and Percy hauled themselves ashore, shivering and gasping, and collapsed on the dark sand.

Annabeth wanted to curl up next to Percy and go to sleep. She wanted to shut her eyes, hope all of this was just a bad dream and wake up to find herself back on the
Argo II
, safe with her friends (well … as safe as a demigod can ever be).

But, no. They were really in Tartarus. At their feet, the River Cocytus roared past, a flood of liquid wretchedness. The sulphurous air stung Annabeth’s lungs and prickled her skin. When she looked at her arms, she saw they were already covered with an angry rash. She tried to sit up and gasped in pain.

The beach wasn’t sand. They were sitting on a field of jagged black-glass chips, some of which were now embedded in Annabeth’s palms.

So the air was acid. The water was misery. The ground was broken glass. Everything here was designed to hurt and kill. Annabeth took a rattling breath and wondered if the voices in the Cocytus were right. Maybe fighting for survival was pointless. They would be dead within the hour.

Next to her, Percy coughed. ‘This place smells like my ex-stepfather.’

Annabeth managed a weak smile. She’d never met Smelly Gabe, but she’d heard enough stories. She loved Percy for trying to lift her spirits.

If she’d fallen into Tartarus by herself, Annabeth thought, she would have been doomed. After all she’d been through beneath Rome, finding the Athena Parthenos, this was simply too much. She would’ve curled up and cried until she became another ghost, melting into the Cocytus.

But she wasn’t alone. She had Percy. And that meant she couldn’t give up.

She forced herself to take stock. Her foot was still wrapped in its makeshift cast of board and bubble wrap, still tangled in cobwebs. But when she moved it, it didn’t hurt. The ambrosia she’d eaten in the tunnels under Rome must have finally mended her bones.

Her backpack was gone – lost during the fall, or maybe washed away in the river. She hated losing
Daedalus
’s laptop, with all its fantastic programs and data, but she had worse problems. Her Celestial bronze dagger was missing – the weapon she’d carried since she was seven years old.

The realization almost broke her, but she couldn’t let herself dwell on it. Time to grieve later. What else did they have?

No food, no water … basically no supplies at all.

Yep. Off to a promising start.

Annabeth glanced at Percy. He looked pretty bad. His dark hair was plastered across his forehead, his T-shirt ripped to shreds. His fingers were scraped raw from holding on to that ledge before they fell. Most worrisome of all, he was shivering and his lips were blue.

‘We should keep moving or we’ll get hypothermia,’ Annabeth said. ‘Can you stand?’

He nodded. They both struggled to their feet.

Annabeth put her arm around his waist, though she wasn’t sure who was supporting whom. She scanned their surroundings. Above, she saw no sign of the tunnel they’d fallen down. She couldn’t even see the cavern roof – just
blood-coloured clouds floating in the hazy grey air. It was like staring through a thin mix of tomato soup and cement.

The black-glass beach stretched inland about fifty yards, then dropped off the edge of a cliff. From where she stood, Annabeth couldn’t see what was below, but the edge flickered with red light as if illuminated by huge fires.

A distant memory tugged at her – something about Tartarus and fire. Before she could think too much about it, Percy inhaled sharply.

‘Look.’ He pointed downstream.

A hundred feet away, a familiar-looking baby-blue Italian car had crashed headfirst into the sand. It looked just like the Fiat that had smashed into Arachne and sent her plummeting into the pit.

Annabeth hoped she was wrong, but how many Italian sports cars could there be in Tartarus? Part of her didn’t want to go anywhere near it, but she had to find out. She gripped Percy’s hand, and they stumbled towards the wreckage. One of the car’s tyres had come off and was floating in a back-water eddy of the Cocytus. The Fiat’s windows had shattered, sending brighter glass like frosting across the dark beach. Under the crushed hood lay the tattered, glistening remains of a giant silk cocoon – the trap that Annabeth had tricked Arachne into weaving. It was unmistakably empty. Slash marks in the sand made a trail downriver … as if something heavy, with multiple legs, had scuttled into the darkness.

‘She’s alive.’ Annabeth was so horrified, so outraged by the unfairness of it all, she had to suppress the urge to throw up.

‘It’s Tartarus,’ Percy said. ‘Monster home court. Down here, maybe they can’t be killed.’

He gave Annabeth an embarrassed look, as if realizing he wasn’t helping team morale. ‘Or maybe she’s badly wounded, and she crawled away to die.’

‘Let’s go with that,’ Annabeth agreed.

Percy was still shivering. Annabeth wasn’t feeling any warmer either, despite the hot, sticky air. The glass cuts on her hands were still bleeding, which was unusual for her. Normally, she healed fast. Her breathing got more and more laboured.

‘This place is killing us,’ she said. ‘I mean, it’s
literally
going to kill us, unless …’

Tartarus. Fire.
That distant memory came into focus. She gazed inland towards the cliff, illuminated by flames from below.

It was an absolutely crazy idea. But it might be their only chance.

‘Unless what?’ Percy prompted. ‘You’ve got a brilliant plan, haven’t you?’

‘It’s a plan,’ Annabeth murmured. ‘I don’t know about brilliant. We need to find the River of Fire.’