House of Hades: Percy Alone.

Chapter 12

After a While, Percy's feet felt like Titan mush. He marched along, following Bob, listening to the monotonous slosh of liquid in his cleaning bottle. 

Stay alert, he told himself, but it was hard. His thoughts were as numb as his legs. He tried to think of the past, better times to give him strength. But the memories paled before him. The strawberry fields of Camp Half-Blood had decayed to only a faded pink, the beach and sea of his memories, a washed out masquerade of summer. Like his whole life up until that point was a lie, the only reality was this pit. The only reality was suffering. 

"Hey, Bob, where exactly are we heading?" Percy cut himself off before he spiraled in too deep 

"The lady," Bob said. "Death Mist."

Percy fought down his irritation. "But what does that mean? Who is this lady?" 

"Naming her?" Bob glanced back. "Not a good idea." 

Percy sighed. He had always heard people saying names were dangerous. He still had never gotten a proper explanation why. 

"Could you at least tell me how far?" He asked. 

"I do not know," Bob admitted. "I can only feel it. We wait for the darkness to get darker. Then we go sideways."

"Sideways," Percy grumbled. "Naturally."

Percy was tempted to ask for a rest. But he knew he couldn't. He had heard the voice calling for his murder back at the altar, and he recognized the voice. Polybotes, the giant designed to kill his dad. Sure, Percy had taken him down once, but that was a whole different story, in a whole different world. They were in his territory now.

Bob raised his hand. Stop.

"What?" Percy whispered. 

"Shh," Bob warned. "Ahead. Something moves."

Percy strained his ears. From somewhere in the fog came a deep thrumming noise, like theidling engine of a giant tractor. He could feel the vibrations through his shoes. 

'We will surround it,' Bob whispered. "Percy right, I will go left."

Percy wondered what he would use as a weapon, in lieu of a sword. He opted for a shard of the black glass that Tartarus was littered with, gripping it like a dagger. 

Bob readied his broom, the spearhead glowing in the fog. 

The humming grew louder, shaking the ground beneath them. The noise seemed to be coming from straight in front of them.

"Ready?" Bob asked.

Percy nodded

"I will count to three." "One. two-"

a figure appeared in the Fog. Percy braced for an attack. 

"Wait!" Bob cried. 

Percy froze just in time. before them, was a tiny calico kitten.

"Rrow?" said the kitten clearly unimpressed by their attack plan. It fixed its lamp like yellow eyes on Percy and hissed. It butted its head against Bob's foot and purred loudly. It seemed impossible, but the deep rumbling sound was coming from the kitten. As it purred, the ground vibrated and the pebbles vibrated. Bob scooped up the kitten.

Percy hadn't dropped his guard. the cat looked perfectly normal, maybe a little bony, but that didn't mean anything, especially not here. It could be a monster in disguise, or some kind of demon. 

The kitted purred again, rubbing its head against the base of Bob's Palm. 

"be careful Bob, we don't know what that thing is," Percy cautioned. He wanted to tell Bob to leave the creature behind, who knew what it actually was. it felt wrong to act hostile to this tiny creature, but what else could he do?

'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.

Percy walked in a daze, trying not to remember the hot dog he had had back at the altar. He entertained himself by watching the kitten, Small Bob, which was now perched on Bob's head. For a moment, it fixed its eyes on Percy. Then it happened. 

One second it was a normal kitten, the next it turned translucent, he could see its skeleton like it had just stepped inside an X-ray machine. Percy blinked, and it had turned back to normal, just a calico kitten purring on the head of a titan. 

It was one of the dozen kitten from the Smithsonian. Back when he was on a quest to free Artemis, he found himself in the Museum of Natural History, where atlas had tried to raise a bunch of skeletal warriors to hunt the hunters, by planting the teeth of a dragon into some magic dirt. His first attempt had failed when they planted a saber-tooth tiger's teeth instead, resulting in a batch of these kittens. 

Typical. life created by gods and titans, nothing but the result of compounding mistakes. Someone gets horny, or someone else wants to get revenge, and they end up creating one mistake after the other, another creature or monster. Maybe the real bad guys are the guys responsible for creating these things, as opposed to the creatures unwillingly created, set on a path of misery. 

Percy wondered where the rest of the litter was. Maybe this one had gotten into an accident and ended up here. maybe a demigod somewhere had slain this kitten as part of some absurd quest. Maybe all 12 of the creatures where somewhere in this pit, spawning at different places in Tartarus. 

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 my luck, Percy thought, we're marching through the armpit of Tartarus. 

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

'What is it?' Bob turned and looked back, confused. 'We are stopping?' 

Percy held up his hand for silence. He wasn't sure what had set him off. Nothing looked different. Then he realized the tree trunk was quivering. He wondered for a second 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," Percy whispered. 

Almost right on cue, the first of them dropped from the sky

The creature looked almost exactly Mrs. Dodds: a wrinkled hag with bat-like 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. 

we are the arai  called a voice a thousand curses in the name of Mother Night