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

W
HEN THEY REACHED THE LEDGE,
Annabeth was sure she’d signed their death warrants.

The cliff dropped more than eighty feet. At the bottom stretched a nightmarish version of the Grand Canyon: a river of fire cutting a path through a jagged obsidian crevasse, the glowing red current casting horrible shadows across the cliff faces.

Even from the top of the canyon, the heat was intense. The chill of the River Cocytus hadn’t left Annabeth’s bones, but now her face felt raw and sunburnt. Every breath took more effort, as if her chest were filled with styrofoam peanuts. The cuts on her hands bled more rather than less. Annabeth’s ankle, which had almost healed, now seemed to be broken again. She’d taken off her makeshift cast, but now she regretted it. Each step made her wince.

Assuming they could make it down to the fiery river, which she doubted, her plan seemed certifiably insane.

‘Uh …’ Percy examined the cliff. He pointed to a tiny fissure running diagonally from the edge to the bottom. ‘We can try that ledge there. Might be able to climb down.’

He didn’t say they’d be crazy to try. He managed to sound hopeful. Annabeth was grateful for that, but she also worried that she was leading him to his doom.

Of course if they stayed here they would die anyway. Blisters had started to form on their arms from exposure to the Tartarus air. The whole environment was about as healthy as a nuclear blast zone.

Percy went first. The ledge was barely wide enough to allow a toehold. Their hands clawed for any crack in the glassy rock. Every time Annabeth put pressure on her bad foot, she wanted to yelp. She’d ripped off the sleeves of her T-shirt and used the cloth to wrap her bloody palms, but her fingers were still slippery and weak.

A few steps below her, Percy grunted as he reached for another handhold. ‘So … what is this fire river called?’

‘The
Phlegethon
,’ she said. ‘You should concentrate on going down.’

‘The
Phlegethon
?’ He shinned along the ledge. They’d made it roughly a third of the way down the cliff – still high enough up to die if they fell. ‘Sounds like a marathon for hawking spitballs.’

‘Please don’t make me laugh,’ she said.

‘Just trying to keep things light.’

‘Thanks,’ she grunted, nearly missing the ledge with her bad foot. ‘I’ll have a smile on my face as I plummet to my death.’

They kept going, one step at a time. Annabeth’s eyes stung with sweat. Her arms trembled. But, to her amazement, they finally made it to the bottom of the cliff.

When she reached the ground, she stumbled. Percy caught her. She was alarmed by how feverish his skin felt. Red boils had erupted on his face, so he looked like a smallpox victim.

Her own vision was blurry. Her throat felt blistered, and her stomach was clenched tighter than a fist.

We have to hurry, she thought.

‘Just to the river,’ she told Percy, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. ‘We can do this.’

They staggered over slick glass ledges, around massive boulders, avoiding stalagmites that would’ve impaled them with any slip of the foot. Their tattered clothes steamed from the heat of the river, but they kept going until they crumpled to their knees at the banks of the Phlegethon.

‘We have to drink,’ Annabeth said.

Percy swayed, his eyes half-closed. It took him three counts to respond. ‘Uh … drink fire?’

‘The Phlegethon flows from Hades’s realm down into Tartarus.’ Annabeth could barely talk. Her throat was closing up from the heat and the acidic air. ‘The river is used to punish the wicked. But also … some legends call it the River of Healing.’

‘
Some
legends?’

Annabeth swallowed, trying to stay conscious. ‘The Phlegethon keeps the wicked in one piece so that they can endure the torments of the Fields of Punishment. I think … it might be the Underworld equivalent of ambrosia and nectar.’

Percy winced as cinders sprayed from the river, curling around his face. ‘But it’s fire. How can we –’

‘Like this.’ Annabeth thrust her hands into the river.

Stupid? Yes, but she was convinced they had no choice. If they waited any longer, they would pass out and die. Better to try something foolish and hope it worked.

On first contact, the fire wasn’t painful. It felt cold, which probably meant it was
so
hot it was overloading Annabeth’s nerves. Before she could change her mind, she cupped the fiery liquid in her palms and raised it to her mouth.

She expected a taste like gasoline. It was
so
much worse. Once, at a restaurant back in San Francisco, she’d made the mistake of tasting a ghost chilli pepper that had come with a plate of Indian food. After barely nibbling it, she’d thought her respiratory system was going to implode. Drinking from the Phlegethon was like gulping down a ghost chilli smoothie. Her sinuses filled with liquid flame. Her mouth felt like it was being deep-fried. Her eyes shed boiling tears, and every pore on her face popped. She collapsed, gagging and retching, her whole body shaking violently.

‘Annabeth!’ Percy grabbed her arms and just managed to stop her from rolling into the river.

The convulsions passed. She took a ragged breath and managed to sit up. She felt horribly weak and nauseous, but her next breath came more easily. The blisters on her arms were starting to fade.

‘It worked,’ she croaked. ‘Percy, you’ve got to drink.’

‘I …’ His eyes rolled up in his head, and he slumped against her.

Desperately, she cupped more fire in her palm. Ignoring the pain, she dripped the liquid into Percy’s mouth. He didn’t respond.

She tried again, pouring a whole handful down his throat. This time he spluttered and coughed. Annabeth held him as he trembled, the magical fire coursing through his system. His fever disappeared. His boils faded. He managed to sit up and smack his lips.

‘Ugh,’ he said. ‘Spicy, yet disgusting.’

Annabeth laughed weakly. She was so relieved she felt light-headed. ‘Yeah. That pretty much sums it up.’

‘You saved us.’

‘For now,’ she said. ‘The problem is we’re still in Tartarus.’

Percy blinked. He looked around as if just coming to terms with where they were. ‘Holy
Hera
. I never thought … well, I’m not sure
what
I thought. Maybe that Tartarus was empty space, a pit with no bottom. But this is a
real
place.’

Annabeth recalled the landscape she’d seen while they fell – a series of plateaus leading ever downwards into the gloom.

‘We haven’t seen all of it,’ she warned. ‘This could be just the first tiny part of the abyss, like the front steps.’

‘The welcome mat,’ Percy muttered.

They both gazed up at the blood-coloured clouds swirling in the grey haze. No way would they have the strength to climb back up that cliff, even if they wanted to. Now there were only two choices: downriver or upriver, skirting the banks of the Phlegethon.

‘We’ll find a way out,’ Percy said. ‘The Doors of Death.’

Annabeth shuddered. She remembered what Percy had said just before they fell into Tartarus. He’d made Nico di Angelo promise to lead the
Argo II
to Epirus, to the mortal side of the Doors of Death.

We’ll see you there
, Percy had said.

That idea seemed even crazier than drinking fire. How could the two of them wander through Tartarus and find the Doors of Death? They’d barely been able to stumble a hundred yards in this poisonous place without dying.

‘We have to,’ Percy said. ‘Not just for us. For everybody we love. The Doors have to be closed on both sides, or the monsters will just keep coming through. Gaia’s forces will overrun the world.’

Annabeth knew he was right. Still … when she tried to imagine a plan that could succeed, the logistics overwhelmed her. They had no way of locating the Doors. They didn’t know how much time it would take, or even if time flowed at the same speed in Tartarus. How could they possibly synchronize a meeting with their friends? And Nico had mentioned a legion of Gaia’s strongest monsters guarding the Doors on the Tartarus side. Annabeth and Percy couldn’t exactly launch a frontal assault.

She decided not to mention any of that. They both knew the odds were bad. Besides, after swimming in the River Cocytus, Annabeth had heard enough whining and moaning to last a lifetime. She promised herself never to complain again.

‘Well.’ She took a deep breath, grateful at least that her
lungs didn’t hurt. ‘If we stay close to the river, we’ll have a way to heal ourselves. If we go downstream –’

It happened so fast that Annabeth would have been dead if she’d been on her own.

Percy’s eyes locked on something behind her. Annabeth spun as a massive dark shape hurtled down at her – a snarling, monstrous blob with spindly barbed legs and glinting eyes.

She had time to think:
Arachne.
But she was frozen in terror, her senses smothered by the sickly sweet smell.

Then she heard the familiar
SHINK
of Percy’s ballpoint pen transforming into a sword. His blade swept over her head in a glowing bronze arc. A horrible wail echoed through the canyon.

Annabeth stood there, stunned, as yellow dust – the remains of Arachne – rained around her like tree pollen.

‘You okay?’ Percy scanned the cliffs and boulders, alert for more monsters, but nothing else appeared. The golden dust of the spider settled on the obsidian rocks.

Annabeth stared at her boyfriend in amazement. Riptide’s Celestial bronze blade glowed even brighter in the gloom of Tartarus. As it passed through the thick hot air, it made a defiant hiss like a riled snake.

‘She … she would’ve killed me,’ Annabeth stammered.

Percy kicked the dust on the rocks, his expression grim and dissatisfied. ‘She died too easily, considering how much torture she put you through. She deserved worse.’

Annabeth couldn’t argue with that, but the hard edge in Percy’s voice made her unsettled. She’d never seen someone
get so angry or vengeful on her behalf. It almost made her glad Arachne had died quickly. ‘How did you move so fast?’

Percy shrugged. ‘Gotta watch each other’s backs, right? Now, you were saying … downstream?’

Annabeth nodded, still in a daze. The yellow dust dissipated on the rocky shore, turning to steam. At least now they knew that monsters could be killed in Tartarus … though she had no idea how long Arachne would remain dead. Annabeth didn’t plan on staying long enough to find out.

‘Yeah, downstream,’ she managed. ‘If the river comes from the upper levels of the Underworld, it should flow deeper into Tartarus –’

‘So it leads into more dangerous territory,’ Percy finished. ‘Which is probably where the Doors are. Lucky us.’

T
HEY’D ONLY TRAVELLED
a few hundred yards when Annabeth heard voices.

Annabeth plodded along, half in a stupor, trying to form a plan. Since she was a daughter of Athena, plans were supposed to be her speciality, but it was hard to strategize with her stomach growling and her throat baking. The fiery water of the Phlegethon may have healed her and given her strength, but it hadn’t done anything for her hunger or thirst. The river wasn’t about making you feel good, Annabeth guessed. It just kept you going so you could experience more excruciating pain.

Her head started to droop with exhaustion. Then she heard them – female voices having some sort of argument – and she was instantly alert.

She whispered, ‘Percy, down!’

She pulled him behind the nearest boulder, wedging
herself so close against the riverbank that her shoes almost touched the river’s fire. On the other side, on the narrow path between the river and the cliffs, voices snarled, getting louder as they approached from upstream.

Annabeth tried to steady her breathing. The voices sounded vaguely human, but that meant nothing. She assumed anything in Tartarus was their enemy. She didn’t know how the monsters could have failed to spot them already. Besides, monsters could
smell
demigods – especially powerful ones like Percy, son of Poseidon. Annabeth doubted that hiding behind a boulder would do any good when the monsters caught their scent.

Still, as the monsters got nearer, their voices didn’t change in tone. Their uneven footsteps –
scrap
,
clump
,
scrap
,
clump
– didn’t get any faster.

‘Soon?’ one of them asked in a raspy voice, as if she’d been gargling in the Phlegethon.

‘Oh my gods!’ said another voice. This one sounded much younger and much more human, like a teenaged mortal girl getting exasperated with her friends at the mall. For some reason, she sounded familiar to Annabeth. ‘You guys are
totally
annoying! I told you, it’s like three
days
from here.’

Percy gripped Annabeth’s wrist. He looked at her with alarm, as if he recognized the mall girl’s voice too.

There was a chorus of growling and grumbling. The creatures – maybe half a dozen, Annabeth guessed – had paused just on the other side of the boulder, but still they gave no indication that they’d caught the demigods’ scent.
Annabeth wondered if demigods didn’t smell the same in Tartarus, or if the other scents here were so powerful they masked a demigod’s aura.

‘I wonder,’ said a third voice, gravelly and ancient like the first, ‘if perhaps you do not know the way, young one.’

‘Oh, shut your fang hole, Serephone,’ said the mall girl. ‘When’s the last time
you
escaped to the mortal world? I was there a couple of years ago. I know the way! Besides,
I
understand what we’re facing up there. You don’t have a clue!’

‘The Earth Mother did not make you boss!’ shrieked a fourth voice.

More hissing, scuffling and feral moans – like giant alley cats fighting. At last the one called Serephone yelled, ‘Enough!’

The scuffling died down.

‘We will follow for now,’ Serephone said. ‘But if you do
not
lead us well, if we find you have
lied
about the summons of Gaia –’

‘I don’t lie!’ snapped the mall girl. ‘Believe me, I’ve got good reason to get into this battle. I have some enemies to devour, and you’ll feast on the blood of heroes. Just leave one special morsel for me – the one named Percy Jackson.’

Annabeth fought down a snarl of her own. She forgot about her fear. She wanted to jump over the boulder and slash the monsters to dust with her knife … except she didn’t have it any more.

‘Believe me,’ said the mall girl. ‘Gaia has called us, and we’re going to have
so
much fun. Before this war is over,
mortals and demigods will tremble at the sound of my name – Kelli!’

Annabeth almost yelped aloud. She glanced at Percy. Even in the red light of the Phlegethon, his face seemed waxy.

Empousai
, she mouthed.
Vampires.

Percy nodded grimly.

She remembered Kelli. Two years ago, at Percy’s freshman orientation, he and their friend Rachel Dare had been attacked by
empousai
disguised as cheerleaders. One of them had been Kelli. Later, the same
empousa
had attacked them in Daedalus’s workshop. Annabeth had stabbed her in the back and sent her … here. To Tartarus.

The creatures shuffled off, their voices getting fainter. Annabeth crept to the edge of the boulder and risked a glimpse. Sure enough, five women staggered along on mismatched legs – mechanical bronze on the left, shaggy and cloven-hooved on the right. Their hair was made of fire, their skin as white as bone. Most of them wore tattered Ancient Greek dresses, except for the one in the lead, Kelli, who wore a burnt and torn blouse with a short pleated skirt … her cheerleader’s outfit.

Annabeth gritted her teeth. She had faced a lot of bad monsters over the years, but she hated
empousai
more than most.

In addition to their nasty claws and fangs, they had a powerful ability to manipulate the Mist. They could change shape and
charmspeak
, tricking mortals into letting down their guard. Men were especially susceptible. The
empousa
’s
favourite tactic was to make a guy fall in love with her, then drink his blood and devour his flesh. Not a great first date.

Kelli had almost killed Percy. She had manipulated Annabeth’s oldest friend, Luke, urging him to commit darker and darker deeds in the name of Kronos.

Annabeth
really
wished she still had her dagger.

Percy rose. ‘They’re heading for the Doors of Death,’ he murmured. ‘You know what that means?’

Annabeth didn’t want to think about it, but sadly this squad of flesh-eating horror-show women might be the closest thing to good luck they were going to get in Tartarus.

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘We need to follow them.’