Underworld

“The River Styx,” Annabeth murmured. “It’s so…”

“Polluted,” Charon said. “For thousands of years, you humans have been throwing in everything as you come across—hopes, dreams, wishes that never came true.”

A sound came from somewhere nearby in the green gloom—the howl of a large animal.

“Old Three-Face is hungry,” Charon said. His smile turned skeletal in the greenish light. “Bad luck for you, godlings.”

Standing just where the path split into three lanes was an enormous shadowy monster. I’d always imagined Cerberus as a big black mastiff. But he was obviously a purebred Rottweiler, except of course that he was twice the size of a woolly mammoth, mostly invisible, and had three heads.

Annabeth produced a red rubber ball the size of a grapefruit. Before I could stop her, she raised the ball and marched straight up to Cerberus.

“Sit!” Annabeth called again. I was sure that any moment she would become the world’s largest Milkbone dog biscuit. She threw Cerberus the ball. He caught it in his middle mouth.

“Drop it!” Annabeth ordered.

Cerberus’s heads stopped fighting and looked at her...then dropped the ball, now slimy and bitten nearly in half, at Annabeth’s feet.

“Good boy.”

To the left, spirits flanked by security ghouls were marched down a rocky path toward the Fields of Punishment.

Even from far away, I could see people being chased by hellhounds, burned at the stake, forced to run naked through cactus patches or listen to opera music. The line coming from the right side of the judgment pavilion was much better. This one led down toward a small valley surrounded by walls—a gated community, which seemed to be the only happy part of the Underworld. Beyond the security gate were neighborhoods of beautiful houses from every time period in history. I could hear laughter and smell barbecuecooking. Elysium.

“The garden of Persephone,”

Annabeth said. “Keep walking.”

I understood why she wanted to move on. The tart smell of those pomegranates was almost overwhelming. I had a sudden desire to eat them, but then I remembered the story of Persephone. One bite of Underworld food, and we would never be able to leave.

...

He was the third god I’d met, but the first who really struck me as godlike. He was at least ten feet tall, for one thing, and dressed in black silk robes and a crown of braided gold. His skin was albino white, his hair shoulder-length and jet black. He wasn’t bulked up like Ares, but he radiated power. He lounged on his throne of fused human bones, looking lithe, graceful, and dangerous as a panther.

“Return my helm now, or I will stop death,”

“But I don’t have your helm. I came for the master bolt.”

“Which you already possess!” Hades shouted. “You came here with it, little fool, thinking you could threaten me!”

“But I didn’t!” “Open your pack, then.”

A horrible feeling struck me. The weight in my backpack, like a bowling

ball. It couldn’t be.…

I slung it off my shoulder and unzipped it. Inside was a two-foot-long metal cylinder, spiked on both ends, humming with energy.

“Percy,” Annabeth said. “How—”

“I—I don’t know. I don’t understand.”

Yes,” Hades said with satisfaction. “I took your mother. I knew, Percy Jackson, that you would come to bargain with me eventually. Return my helm, and perhaps I will let her go. ”

I thought about the pearls in my pocket. Maybe they could get me out of this. If I could just get my mom free…

“Ah, the pearls,” Hades said, and my blood froze. “Yes, my brother and his little tricks. Bring them forth, Percy Jackson.”

My hand moved against my will and brought out the pearls.

“Only three,” Hades said. “What a shame. You do realize each only protects a single person. Try to take your mother, then, little godling. And which of your friends will you leave behind to spend eternity with me? Go on. Choose. Or give me the backpack and accept my terms.”

“I’ll find your helm, Uncle,” I told him. “I’ll return it. Remember about Charon’s pay raise.”

We smashed the pearls at our feet. For a scary moment, nothing happened.

Hades yelled, “Destroy them!”

The army of skeletons rushed forward, swords out, guns clicking to full automatic. Just as the skeletons opened fire, the pearl fragments at my feet exploded with a burst of green light and a gust of fresh sea wind.

I had to get to shore. I had to get Zeus’s thunderbolt back to Olympus. Most of all, I had to have a serious conversation with the god who’d tricked me.