Sea Green Eyes

Chapter 69

Spread to the horizon was an army of monsters—flocks of winged arai, tribes of lumbering Cyclopes, clusters of floating evil spirits. Thousands of baddies, maybe tens of thousands, all milling restlessly, pressing against one another, growling and fighting for space—like the locker area of an overcrowded school between classes, if all the students were 'roid-raging mutants who smelled really bad.

Bob led them toward the edge of the army. He made no effort to hide, not that it would have done any good. Being ten feet tall and glowing silver, Bob didn't do stealth very well. About thirty yards from the nearest monsters, Bob turned to face Percy. "Stay quiet and stay behind me," he advised. "They will not notice you."

"We hope," Percy muttered, and Cressida smacked his shoulder as she followed after him, Castor taking up the rear.

On the Titan's shoulder, Small Bob woke up from a nap. He purred seismically and arched his back, turning skeletal then back to calico. At least he didn't seem nervous.

Cressida examined her own zombie hands. "Bob, if we're invisible... how can you see us? I mean, you're technically, you know..."

"Yes," Bob said. "But we are friends."

"Nyx and her children could see us," Cressida told him.

Bob shrugged. "That was in Nyx's realm. That is different. And Little Guy can see you because he is already dead."

"Thanks for the reminder, Big Guy," Castor laughed and the thought floated across the back of her mind. What if Castor came with them? What if he came back to the mortal world? He could see Pollux again, see the sun. He could see her grow up and live and be a part of her life and go back to Elysium when all three of them were ready.

But she knew what stupid philosophy her brother would say.

We can't change the past. We can't move backward only forward. We can't fight fate and his fate was to die. She has to learn to keep going without him. If he was dead, it was because she didn't need him anymore. Everything happens for a reason, blah, blah, blah.

Saying goodbye to him got harder each time, but this felt more final. This really felt like the end.

She was snapped from her thoughts by Percy who was staring at the swarm of vicious monsters.

"Well, at least we won't have to worry about bumping into any other friends in this crowd."

Bob grinned. "Yes, that is good news! Now, let's go. Death is close.

"I think you mean the Doors of Death are close, Big Guy," Castor corrected.

"Yeah, let's watch the wording," Cressida agreed.

They plunged into the crowd. Percy trembled so badly, he was afraid the Death Mist would shake right off him. He'd seen large groups of monsters before. He'd fought an army of them during the Battle of Manhattan. But this was different. Whenever he'd fought monsters in the mortal world, Percy at least knew he was defending his home. That gave him courage, no matter how bad the odds were. Here, Percy was the invader. He didn't belong in this multitude of monsters any more than the Minotaur belonged in Penn Station at rush hour.

"Oh, shit," Cressida swore after a time.

"What is it?"

"What's wrong?" Both Percy and Castor asked instantly, and Cressida just gestured with her head.

"Look."

A stone's throw away, a guy in a cowboy outfit was cracking a whip at some fire-breathing horses. From the side, he might have passed for human—until he turned, and Percy saw that his upper body was split into three different chests, each one dressed in a different-colour Western shirt. It was definitely Geryon, who had tried to kill Percy two years ago in a Texas ranch and who Cressida ended up actually killing. He knew that she wouldn't be happy to see him, especially after she'd taken on the arai that made her suffer from the killing blow that she'd inflicted on him.