The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus #4)(46)

“That’s one of them?” Annabeth asked. “How did it get here?”

Percy spread his hands helplessly. “Atlas told his servants to take the kittens away. Maybe they destroyed the cats and they were reborn in Tartarus? I don’t know.”

“It’s cute,” Bob said, as the kitten sniffed his ear.

“But is it safe?” Annabeth asked.

The Titan scratched the kitten’s chin. Annabeth didn’t know if it was a good idea, carrying around a cat grown from a prehistoric tooth; but obviously it didn’t matter now. The Titan and the cat had bonded.

“I will call him Small Bob,” said Bob. “He is a good monster.”

End of discussion. The Titan hefted his spear and they continued marching into the gloom.

Annabeth walked in a daze, trying not to think about pizza. To keep herself distracted, she watched Small Bob the kitten pacing across Bob’s shoulders and purring, occasionally turning into a glowing kitty skeleton and then back to a calico fuzz-ball.

“Here,” Bob announced.

He stopped so suddenly, Annabeth almost ran into him.

Bob stared off to their left, as if deep in thought.

“Is this the place?” Annabeth asked. “Where we go sideways?”

“Yes,” Bob agreed. “Darker, then sideways.”

Annabeth couldn’t tell if it was actually darker, but the air did seem colder and thicker, as if they’d stepped into a different microclimate. Again she was reminded of San Francisco, where you could walk from one neighborhood to the next and the temperature might drop ten degrees. She wondered if the Titans had built their palace on Mount Tamalpais because the Bay Area reminded them of Tartarus.

What a depressing thought. Only Titans would see such a beautiful place as a potential outpost of the abyss—a hellish home away from home.

Bob struck off to the left. They followed. The air definitely got colder. Annabeth pressed against Percy for warmth. He put his arm around her. It felt good being close to him, but she couldn’t relax.

They’d entered some sort of forest. Towering black trees soared into the gloom, perfectly round and bare of branches, like monstrous hair follicles. The ground was smooth and pale.

With our luck, Annabeth thought, we’re marching through the armpit of Tartarus.

Suddenly her senses were on high alert, as if somebody had snapped a rubber band against the base of her neck. She rested her hand on the trunk of the nearest tree.

“What is it?” Percy raised his sword.

Bob turned and looked back, confused. “We are stopping?”

Annabeth held up her hand for silence. She wasn’t sure what had set her off. Nothing looked different. Then she realized the tree trunk was quivering. She wondered momentarily if it was the kitten’s purr; but Small Bob had fallen asleep on Large Bob’s shoulder.

A few yards away, another tree shuddered.

“Something’s moving above us,” Annabeth whispered. “Gather up.”

Bob and Percy closed ranks with her, standing back to back.

Annabeth strained her eyes, trying to see above them in the dark, but nothing moved.

She had almost decided she was being paranoid when the first monster dropped to the ground only five feet away.

Annabeth’s first thought: The Furies.

The creature looked almost exactly like one: a wrinkled hag with batlike wings, brass talons, and glowing red eyes. She wore a tattered dress of black silk, and her face was twisted and ravenous, like a demonic grandmother in the mood to kill.

Bob grunted as another one dropped in front of him, and then another in front of Percy. Soon there were half a dozen surrounding them. More hissed in the trees above.

They couldn’t be Furies, then. There were only three of those, and these winged hags didn’t carry whips. That didn’t comfort Annabeth. The monsters’ talons looked plenty dangerous.

“What are you?” she demanded.

The arai, hissed a voice. The curses!

Annabeth tried to locate the speaker, but none of the demons had moved their mouths. Their eyes looked dead; their expressions were frozen, like a puppet’s. The voice simply floated overhead like a movie narrator’s, as if a single mind controlled all the creatures.

“What—what do you want?” Annabeth asked, trying to maintain a tone of confidence.

The voice cackled maliciously. To curse you, of course! To destroy you a thousand times in the name of Mother Night!

“Only a thousand times?” Percy murmured. “Oh, good…I thought we were in trouble.”

The circle of demon ladies closed in.

EVERYTHING SMELLED LIKE POISON. Two days after leaving Venice, Hazel still couldn’t get the noxious scent of eau de cow monster out of her nose.

The seasickness didn’t help. The Argo II sailed down the Adriatic, a beautiful glittering expanse of blue; but Hazel couldn’t appreciate it, thanks to the constant rolling of the ship. Above deck, she tried to keep her eyes fixed on the horizon—the white cliffs that always seemed just a mile or so to the east. What country was that, Croatia? She wasn’t sure. She just wished she were on solid ground again.

The thing that nauseated her most was the weasel.

Last night, Hecate’s pet Gale had appeared in her cabin. Hazel woke from a nightmare, thinking, What is that smell? She found a furry rodent propped on her chest, staring at her with its beady black eyes.