The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus #4)(25)

After a few more miles, the empousai disappeared over a ridge. When Percy and Annabeth caught up, they found themselves at the edge of another massive cliff. The River Phlegethon spilled over the side in jagged tiers of fiery waterfalls. The demon ladies were picking their way down the cliff, jumping from ledge to ledge like mountain goats.

Percy’s heart crept into his throat. Even if he and Annabeth reached the bottom of the cliff alive, they didn’t have much to look forward to. The landscape below them was a bleak, ash-gray plain bristling with black trees, like insect hair. The ground was pocked with blisters. Every once in a while, a bubble would swell and burst, disgorging a monster like a larva from an egg.

Suddenly Percy wasn’t hungry anymore.

All the newly formed monsters were crawling and hobbling in the same direction—toward a bank of black fog that swallowed the horizon like a storm front. The Phlegethon flowed in the same direction until about halfway across the plain, where it met another river of black water—maybe the Cocytus? The two floods combined in a steaming, boiling cataract and flowed on as one toward the black fog.

The longer Percy looked into that storm of darkness, the less he wanted to go there. It could be hiding anything—an ocean, a bottomless pit, an army of monsters. But if the Doors of Death were in that direction, it was their only chance to get home.

He peered over the edge of the cliff.

“Wish we could fly,” he muttered.

Annabeth rubbed her arms. “Remember Luke’s winged shoes? I wonder if they’re still down here somewhere.”

Percy remembered. Those shoes had been cursed to drag their wearer into Tartarus. They’d almost taken his best friend, Grover. “I’d settle for a hang glider.”

“Maybe not a good idea.” Annabeth pointed. Above them, dark winged shapes spiraled in and out of the bloodred clouds.

“Furies?” Percy wondered.

“Or some other kind of demon,” Annabeth said. “Tartarus has thousands.”

“Including the kind that eats hang gliders,” Percy guessed. “Okay, so we climb.”

He couldn’t see the empousai below them anymore. They’d disappeared behind one of the ridges, but that didn’t matter. It was clear where he and Annabeth needed to go. Like all the maggot monsters crawling over the plains of Tartarus, they should head toward the dark horizon. Percy was just brimming with enthusiasm for that.

AS THEY STARTED DOWN THE CLIFF, Percy concentrated on the challenges at hand: keeping his footing, avoiding rockslides that would alert the empousai to their presence, and of course making sure he and Annabeth didn’t plummet to their deaths.

About halfway down the precipice, Annabeth said, “Stop, okay? Just a quick break.”

Her legs wobbled so badly, Percy cursed himself for not calling a rest earlier.

They sat together on a ledge next to a roaring fiery waterfall. Percy put his arm around Annabeth, and she leaned against him, shaking from exhaustion.

He wasn’t much better. His stomach felt like it had shrunk to the size of a gumdrop. If they came across any more monster carcasses, he was afraid he might pull an empousa and try to devour it.

At least he had Annabeth. They would find a way out of Tartarus. They had to. He didn’t think much of fates and prophecies, but he did believe in one thing: Annabeth and he were supposed to be together. They hadn’t survived so much just to get killed now.

“Things could be worse,” Annabeth ventured.

“Yeah?” Percy didn’t see how, but he tried to sound upbeat.

She snuggled against him. Her hair smelled of smoke, and if he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine they were at the campfire at Camp Half-Blood.

“We could’ve fallen into the River Lethe,” she said. “Lost all our memories.”

Percy’s skin crawled just thinking about it. He’d had enough trouble with amnesia for one lifetime. Only last month, Hera had erased his memories to put him among the Roman demigods. Percy had stumbled into Camp Jupiter with no idea who he was or where he came from. And a few years before that, he’d fought a Titan on the banks of the Lethe, near Hades’s palace. He’d blasted the Titan with water from that river and completely wiped his memory clean. “Yeah, the Lethe,” he muttered. “Not my favorite.”

“What was the Titan’s name?” Annabeth asked.

“Uh…Iapetus. He said it meant the Impaler or something.”

“No, the name you gave him after he lost his memory. Steve?”

“Bob,” Percy said.

Annabeth managed a weak laugh. “Bob the Titan.”

Percy’s lips were so parched, it hurt to smile. He wondered what had happened to Iapetus after they’d left him in Hades’s palace…if he was still content being Bob, friendly, happy, and clueless. Percy hoped so, but the Underworld seemed to bring out the worst in everyone—monsters, heroes, and gods.

He gazed across the ashen plains. The other Titans were supposed to be here in Tartarus—maybe bound in chains, or roaming aimlessly, or hiding in some of those dark crevices. Percy and his allies had destroyed the worst Titan, Kronos, but even his remains might be down here somewhere—a billion angry Titan particles floating through the blood-colored clouds or lurking in that dark fog.

Percy decided not to think about that. He kissed Annabeth’s forehead. “We should keep moving. You want some more fire to drink?”