The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus #4)(129)

“Yeah, right!” She smacked a carnivorous horse in the snout with the butt of her sword and sent the monster stampeding through the crowd. “You promised, Seaweed Brain. We would not get separated! Ever again!”

“You’re impossible!”

“Love you too!”

An entire phalanx of Cyclopes charged forward, knocking smaller monsters out of the way. Annabeth figured she was about to die. “It had to be Cyclopes,” she grumbled.

Percy gave a battle cry. At the Cyclopes’ feet, a red vein in the ground burst open, spraying the monsters with liquid fire from the Phlegethon. The firewater might have healed mortals, but it didn’t do the Cyclopes any favors. They combusted in a tidal wave of heat. The burst vein sealed itself, but nothing remained of the monsters except a row of scorch marks.

“Annabeth, you have to go!” Percy said. “We can’t both stay!”

“No!” she cried. “Duck!”

He didn’t ask why. He crouched, and Annabeth vaulted over him, bringing her sword down on the head of a heavily tattooed ogre.

She and Percy stood shoulder to shoulder in the doorway, waiting for the next wave. The exploding vein had given the monsters pause, but it wouldn’t be long before they remembered: Hey, wait, there’s seventy-five gazillion of us, and only two of them.

“Well, then,” Percy said, “you have a better idea?”

Annabeth wished she did.

The Doors of Death stood right behind them—their exit from this nightmarish world. But they couldn’t use the Doors without someone manning the controls for twelve long minutes. If they stepped inside and let the Doors close without someone holding the button, Annabeth didn’t think the results would be healthy. And if they stepped away from the Doors for any reason, she imagined the elevator would close and disappear without them.

The situation was so pathetically sad, it was almost funny.

The crowd of monsters inched forward, snarling and gathering their courage.

Meanwhile, Bob’s attacks were getting slower. Tartarus was learning to control his new body. Saber-toothed Small Bob lunged at the god, but Tartarus smacked the cat sideways. Bob charged, bellowing with rage, but Tartarus grabbed his spear and yanked it out of his hands. He kicked Bob downhill, knocking over a row of telkhines like sea mammal bowling pins.

YIELD! Tartarus thundered.

“I will not,” Bob said. “You are not my master.”

Die in defiance, then, said the god of the pit. You Titans are nothing to me. My children the giants were always better, stronger, and more vicious. They will make the upper world as dark as my realm!

Tartarus snapped the spear in half. Bob wailed in agony. Saber-toothed Small Bob leaped to his aid, snarling at Tartarus and baring his fangs. The Titan struggled to rise, but Annabeth knew it was over. Even the monsters turned to watch, as if sensing that their master Tartarus was about to take the spotlight. The death of a Titan was worth seeing.

Percy gripped Annabeth’s hand. “Stay here. I’ve got to help him.”

“Percy, you can’t,” she croaked. “Tartarus can’t be fought. Not by us.”

She knew she was right. Tartarus was in a class by himself. He was more powerful than the gods or Titans. Demigods were nothing to him. If Percy charged to help Bob, he would get squashed like an ant.

But Annabeth also knew that Percy wouldn’t listen. He couldn’t leave Bob to die alone. That just wasn’t him—and that was one of the many reasons she loved him, even if he was an Olympian-sized pain in the podex.

“We’ll go together,” Annabeth decided, knowing this would be their final battle. If they stepped away from the Doors, they would never leave Tartarus. At least they would die fighting side by side.

She was about to say: Now.

A ripple of alarm passed through the army. In the distance, Annabeth heard shrieks, screams, and a persistent boom, boom, boom that was too fast to be the heartbeat in the ground—more like something large and heavy, running at full speed. An Earthborn spun into the air as if he’d been tossed. A plume of bright-green gas billowed across the top of the monstrous horde like the spray from a poison riot hose. Everything in its path dissolved.

Across the swath of sizzling, newly empty ground, Annabeth saw the cause of the commotion. She started to grin.

The Maeonian drakon spread its frilled collar and hissed, its poison breath filling the battlefield with the smell of pine and ginger. It shifted its hundred-foot-long body, flicking its dappled green tail and wiping out a battalion of ogres.

Riding on its back was a red-skinned giant with flowers in his rust-colored braids, a jerkin of green leather, and a drakon-rib lance in his hand.

“Damasen!” Annabeth cried.

The giant inclined his head. “Annabeth Chase, I took your advice. I chose myself a new fate.”

WHAT IS THIS? THE GOD OF THE PIT HISSED. Why have you come, my disgraced son?

Damasen glanced at Annabeth, a clear message in his eyes: Go. Now.

He turned toward Tartarus. The Maeonian drakon stamped its feet and snarled.

“Father, you wished for a more worthy opponent?” Damasen asked calmly. “I am one of the giants you are so proud of. You wished me to be more warlike? Perhaps I will start by destroying you!”

Damasen leveled his lance and charged.

The monstrous army swarmed him, but the Maeonian drakon flattened everything in its path, sweeping its tail and spraying poison while Damasen jabbed at Tartarus, forcing the god to retreat like a cornered lion.