They emerged in Central Park just north of the Pond. Mrs. O'Leary looked pretty tired as she limped over to a cluster of boulders. She started sniffing around, and Y/N was afraid she might mark her territory, but Nico said, "It's okay. She just smells the way home."
Percy frowned. "Through the rocks?"
"The Underworld has two major entrances," Nico said. "You know the one in L.A."
"Charon's ferry," Y/N remembered.
Nico nodded. "Most souls go that way, but there's a smaller path, harder to find. The Door of Orpheus."
"The dude with the harp," Percy said.
"Dude with the lyre," Y/N corrected.
"Yeah, him," Nico said. "He used his music to charm the earth and open a new path into the Underworld. He sang his way right into Hades's palace and almost got away with his wife's soul."
Y/N remembered the story. Orpheus wasn't supposed to look behind him when he was leading his wife back to the world, but of course he did. It was one of those typical "and-so-they-died/the-end" stories that always made them demigods feel warm and fuzzy.
"So this is the Door of Orpheus." He tried to sound impressed, but it still looked like a pile of rocks to him. "How does it open?"
"We need music," Nico said. "Does any one of you sing?"
"Um, no," Y/N and Percy said at the same time.
"Can't you just, like, tell it to open?" Percy said. "You're the son of Hades and all."
"It's not so easy," Nico said. "We need music."
Y/N was pretty sure if he and Percy tried to sing, all they would cause was a storm.
"I have a better idea," Percy said. He turned and called, "GROVER!"
They waited for a long time. Mrs. O'Leary curled up and took a nap. Y/N could hear the crickets in the woods and an owl hooting. Traffic hummed along Central Park West. Horse hooves clopped down a nearby path, maybe a mounted police patrol. They'd love to find three kids hanging out in a park at one in the morning.
"It's no good," he said at last.
"Wait," Percy said. "I've got a feeling. My empathy link is tingling, which either means a whole lot of people have suddenly switched on the Nature Channel, or Grover's close."
Y/N stared at him. "After all those years, I'm used to weird stuff, you know. But that's just nonsense."
Percy shut his eyes and frowned as if concentrating. He made weird faces and pricked up his ears one side or the other. Perhaps he was having connection problems.
Suddenly he fell over.
"What happened?" Nico asked.
"I got through," Percy said. "He's . . . yeah. Grover's on his way."
A minute later, the tree next to them shivered. Grover fell out of the branches, right on his head.
"Grover!" Percy yelled.
"Woof!" Mrs. O'Leary looked up, probably wondering if they were going to play fetch with the satyr.
"Blah-haa-haa!" Grover bleated.
"You okay?" Y/N said.
"Oh, I'm fine." Grover rubbed his head. His horns had grown so much they poked an inch above his curly hair. "I was at the other end of the park. The dryads had this great idea of passing me through the trees to get me here. They don't understand height very well."
He grinned and got to his feet—well, his hooves, actually. Since last summer, Grover had stopped trying to disguise himself as a human. He didn't even wear jeans, since he had furry goat legs to the waist down. His T-shirt had a picture from the book Where the Wild Things Are. It was covered with dirt and tree sap. His goatee looked fuller, almost . . . goatly, whatever that meant.
"Good to see you, G-man," Percy said.
Grover nodded at Nico, then he gave Percy and Y/N a big hug. He smelled like fresh-mown lawns.
"Perrrrcy!" he bleated. "I missed you! I miss camp. They don't serve very good enchiladas in the wilderness."
"We were worried," Y/N said. "Where've you been the last two months?"
"The last two—" Grover's smile faded. "The last two months? What are you talking about?"
"We haven't heard from you," he said. "Juniper's worried. We sent Iris-messages, but—"
"Hold on." Grover looked up at the stars as if he were trying to calculate his position. "What month is this?"
"August," Percy said.
The color drained from Grover's face. "That's impossible. It's June. I just lay down to take a nap and . . ." He grabbed Percy's arms. "I remember now! He knocked me out. Percy, we have to stop him!"
"Whoa," Percy said. "Slow down. Tell us what happened."
Grover took a deep breath. "I was . . . I was walking in the woods up by Harlem Meer. And I felt this tremble in the ground, like something powerful was near."
"You can sense stuff like that?" Nico asked.
Grover nodded. "Since Pan's death, I can feel when something is wrong in nature. It's like my ears and eyes are sharper when I'm in the Wild. Anyway, I started following the scent. This man in a long black coat was walking through the park, and I noticed he didn't cast a shadow. Middle of a sunny day, and he cast no shadow. He kind of shimmered as he moved."
"Like a mirage?" Nico asked.
"Yes," Grover said. "And whenever he passed humans—"
"The humans would pass out," Nico said. "Curl up and go to sleep."
"That's right! Then after he was gone, they'd get up and go about their business like nothing happened."
Y/N stared at Nico. "You know this guy in black?"
"Afraid so," Nico said. "Grover, what happened?"
"I followed the guy. He kept looking up at the buildings around the park like he was making estimates or something. This lady jogger ran by, and she curled up on the sidewalk and started snoring. The guy in black put his hand on her forehead like he was checking her temperature. Then he kept walking. By this time, I knew he was a monster or something even worse. I followed him into this grove, to the base of a big elm tree. I was about to summon some dryads to help me capture him when he turned and. . . ."
Grover swallowed. "Percy, his face. I couldn't make out his face because it kept shifting. Just looking at him made me sleepy. I said, 'What are you doing?' He said, 'Just having a look around. You should always scout a battlefield before the battle.' I said something really smart like, 'This forest is under my protection. You won't start any battles here!' And he laughed. He said, 'You're lucky I'm saving my energy for the main event, little satyr. I'll just grant you a short nap. Pleasant dreams.' And that's the last thing I remember."
Nico exhaled. "Grover, you met Morpheus, the God of Dreams. You're lucky you ever woke up."
"Two months," Grover moaned. "He put me to sleep for two months!"
Y/N tried to wrap his mind around what this all meant. Now it made sense why they hadn't been able to contact Grover all this time.
"Why didn't the nymphs try to wake you?" Percy asked.
Grover shrugged. "Most nymphs aren't good with time. Two months for a tree—that's nothing. They probably didn't think anything was wrong."
"We've got to figure out what Morpheus was doing in the park," Percy said. "I don't like this 'main event' thing he mentioned."
"He's working for Kronos," Y/N said. "We know that already. A lot of minor gods are. This just proves there's going to be an invasion."
"Percy, we have to get on with our plan," Nico said.
"Wait," Grover said. "What plan?"
Y/N, Percy and Nico told him, and Grover started tugging at his leg fur.
"You're not serious," he said. "Not the Underworld again."
"We're not asking you to come, man," Percy promised. "I know you just woke up. But we need some music to open the door. Can you do it?"
Grover took out his reed pipes. "I guess I could try. I know a few Nirvana tunes that can split rocks. But, Percy, are you sure you want to do this?"
"Please, man," Percy said. "It would mean a lot. For old times' sake?"
Grover whimpered. "As I recall, in the old times we almost died a lot. But okay, here goes nothing."
He put his pipes to his lips and played a shrill, lively tune. The boulders trembled. A few more stanzas, and they cracked open, revealing a triangular crevice.
Y/N peered inside. Steps led down into the darkness. The air smelled of mildew and death. It brought back bad memories of his trip through the Labyrinth last year, but this tunnel felt even more dangerous. It led straight to the land of Hades, and that was almost always a one-way trip.
Percy turned to Grover. "Thanks . . . I think."
"Perrrrcy, is Kronos really going to invade?"
"I wish I could tell you better, but yeah. He will."
Surprisingly, instead of chewing up his reed pipes in anxiety, Grover straightened up and brushed off his T-shirt. Fat old Leneus could just not compare. "I've got to rally the nature spirits, then. Maybe we can help. I'll see if we can find this Morpheus!"
"Better tell Juniper you're okay, too," Y/N said.
Grover's eyes widened. "Juniper! Oh, she's going to kill me!"
He started to run off, then scrambled back and gave Percy and Y/N another hug. "Be careful down there! Come back alive!"
Once he was gone, Y/N, Percy and Nico roused Mrs. O'Leary from her nap.
When she smelled the tunnel, she got excited and led the way down the steps. It was a pretty tight fit. Y/N hoped she wouldn't get stuck. He couldn't imagine how much Drano they'd need to un-stick a hellhound wedged halfway down a tunnel to the Underworld.
"Ready?" Nico asked them. "It'll be fine. Don't worry."
He sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
Y/N glanced up at the stars, wondering if he would ever see them again. Annabeth would kill him for sure. Then they plunged into darkness.
The stairs went on forever—narrow, steep, and slippery. It was completely dark except for the light of Percy's sword. Y/N tried to go slow, but Mrs. O'Leary had other ideas. She bounded ahead, barking happily. The sound echoed through the tunnel like cannon shots, and he figured they would not be catching anybody by surprise once they reached the bottom.
Nico lagged behind, which was strange.
"You okay?" Y/N asked him.
"Fine." What was that expression on his face—doubt? "Just keep moving."
Not much of a choice. Y/N followed Mrs. O'Leary into the depths. After another hour, he started to hear the roar of a river.
They emerged at the base of a cliff, on a plain of black volcanic sand. To their right, the River Styx gushed from the rocks and roared off in a cascade of rapids. To their left, far away in the gloom, fires burned on the ramparts of Erebus, the great black walls of Hades's kingdom.
Y/N shuddered. He'd first been here when he was twelve, and only Annabeth, Ethan, Percy, and Grover's company had given him the courage to keep going. Percy and Nico weren't going to be quite as helpful with the "courage" thing this time. They looked pale and worried themselves.
Only Mrs. O'Leary acted happy. She ran along the beach, picked up a random human leg bone, and romped back toward him. She dropped the bone at his feet and waited for him to throw it.
"Um, maybe later, girl." He stared at the dark waters, trying to get up his nerve. "So, Nico . . . how do we do this?"
"We have to go inside the gates first," Nico said.
"But the river's right here."
"I have to get something," Nico said. "It's the only way."
He marched off without waiting.
Y/N frowned. Nico hadn't mentioned anything about going inside the gates. But now that they were here, he didn't know what else to do. Reluctantly, he followed Nico with Percy down the beach toward the big black gates.
Lines of the dead stood outside waiting to get in. It must've been a heavy day for funerals, because even the EZ-DEATH line was backed up.
"Woof!" Mrs. O'Leary said. Before Y/N could stop her she bounded toward the security checkpoint. Cerberus, the guard dog of Hades, appeared out of the gloom—a three-headed rottweiler so big he made Mrs. O'Leary look like a toy poodle. Cerberus was half transparent, so he was hard to see until close enough to kill you, but he acted like he didn't care about them. He was too busy saying hello to Mrs. O'Leary.
"Mrs. O'Leary, no!" Y/N shouted at her. "Don't sniff. . . . Oh, man."
Nico smiled. Then he looked at Y/N and Percy and his expression turned all serious again, as if he'd remembered something unpleasant. "Come on. They won't give us any trouble in the line. You're with me."
They slipped through the security ghouls and into the Fields of Asphodel. Y/N had to whistle for Mrs. O'Leary three times before she left Cerberus and ran after us.
They hiked over black fields of grass dotted with black poplar trees. Niko trudged ahead, bringing them closer and closer to the palace of Hades.
"Hey," Percy said, "we're inside the gates already. Where are we—"
Mrs. O'Leary growled. A shadow appeared overhead—something dark, and stinking of death. It swooped down and landed on the top of a poplar tree.
Unfortunately, Y/N recognized her. She had a shriveled face, a horrible blue knit hat, and a crumpled velvet dress. Leathery bat wings sprang from her back. Her feet had sharp talons, and in her brass-clawed hands she held a flaming whip and a paisley handbag.
"Mrs. Dodds," Percy said.
She bared her fangs. "Welcome back, honey."
Her two sisters—the other Furies—swopped down and settled next to her in the branches of the poplar.
"You know Alecto?" Nico asked Percy.
"If you mean the hag in the middle, yeah," Percy said. "She was my math teacher."
"We fought her and her sisters in a bus three years ago," Y/N said.
Nico nodded, as if this didn't surprise him. He looked up at the Furies and took a deep breath. "I've done what my father asked. Take us to the palace."
Y/N felt his ring melting into the hilt of a sword in his hand. "What?" he blurted out.
"Wait a second, Nico," Percy said. "What do you—"
"I'm afraid this is my new lead, guys," Nico said. "My father promised me information about my family, but he wants to see Percy before we try the river. You weren't supposed to be here, Y/N. I'm sorry."
"You tricked us?" Percy lunged at Nico, but the Furies were fast. Two of them swooped down and plucked him up by the arms.
They were about to take him up sixty feet in the air, but Y/N jumped forward. Too bad for them, there was air in the Underworld, and he was handling the winds pretty well now. Next moment they were pinned to the ground.
Even so, they didn't let go of Percy. He was defenseless and couldn't move.
Y/N felt a tingle behind his back. He whirled around. The tip of his sword missed by only a few inches that dear Alecto's neck.
He lunged forward, sword pointed at the Fury's guts, but Nico's black sword blocked his. "Y/N, stop!"
"Get out of my way!" He waved his free hand, and Nico lost his balance. He kicked him in the stomach, sending him to the ground.
By this time, the machinery of his body was working twice as fast as usual. He didn't even need his eyes anymore; they were too slow. Only the air around him, telling him where to strike, where to put his feet. The air that allowed him not to lose his balance, to strike faster and harder, to never lose his breath. His body was not a barrier between him and the air—he was the air.
Alecto cracked her whip, but he didn't care about her; he already felt Mrs. O'Leary leaping at her throat. He turned to face the other two Furies. They were still holding Percy, each by an arm.
"Stop right now!" one of them said. "Stop, or we'll kill him!" She placed a hooked hand around Percy's neck.
Y/N was seeing red. Anger exploded and nearly blinded him. He screamed and waved his free hand, throwing both Furies and Percy backward. At the same time, he jumped forward. Just as they were about to fall to the ground, he crushed the Fury's wrist and freed Percy's neck, then he thrust his sword straight into the old woman's chest. She dissolved in a puddle of dust.
He was about to charge the other one, but immediately knew he was surrounded. Alecto had gotten rid of Mrs. O'Leary and was raising her whip; Nico was rushing behind him to tackle him to the ground. He couldn't dodge both attacks; he wasn't fast enough yet. He avoided the whip. Nico tackled him and he went down to the ground.
Next second Alecto kicked his sword out of his hand, caught him by the arms, and before he knew it, he was dangling fifty feet in the air.
"So you thought you could beat us all alone?" the Fury crackled in his ear. "Oh, don't struggle, honey. I'd hate to drop you."
Mrs. O'Leary barked angrily and jumped, trying to reach Y/N, but they were too high.
"Tell Mrs. O'Leary to behave, Y/N," Nico warned. He and Percy were hovering near Y/N in the clutches of the second Fury. "I don't want her to get hurt. My father is waiting. He just wants to talk."
"Shut up or I tell her to attack you as soon as we land," Y/N said. But he knew this didn't do any good, and Nico was right about one thing: Mrs. O'Leary could get hurt if she tried to pick a fight with the Furies.
He gritted his teeth. "Mrs. O'Leary, down! It's okay, girl."
She whimpered and turned in circles, looking up at him.
"All right," he growled at Nico. "You've got your prize. Take us to the palace."
Alecto dropped Y/N like a sack of turnips in the middle of the palace garden.
It was beautiful in a creepy way. Skeletal white trees grew from marble basins. Flower beds overflowed with golden plants and gemstones. A pair of thrones, one bone and one silver, sat on the balcony with a view of the Fields of Asphodel. It would've been a nice place to spend a Saturday morning except for the sulfurous smell and the cries of tortured souls in the distance.
Skeletal warriors guarded the only exit. They wore tattered U.S. Army desert combat fatigues and carries M16s.
The other Fury deposited Percy and Nico next to Y/N. Then both monsters settled on the top of the skeletal throne.
Y/N stared at the empty thrones, waiting for something to happen. Then the air shimmered. Three figures appeared—Hades and Persephone on their thrones, and an older woman standing between them. They seemed to be in the middle of an argument.
"—told you he was a bum!" the older woman said.
"Mother!" Persephone replied.
"We have visitors!" Hades barked. "Please!"
Hades, one of Y/N's least favorite gods—maybe because he'd tried to kill him the first time they'd met—smoothed his black robes, which were filled with the terrified faces of the damned. He had pale skin and the intense eyes of a madman.
"Percy Jackson," he said in satisfaction. "At last. And . . . Y/N L/N?"
He glanced at his son, who gestured to say he'd explain later.
Queen Persephone studied Y/N and Percy curiously. Y/N had seen her once before in the winter, but now in the summer she looked like a totally different goddess. She had lustrous black hair and warm brown eyes. Her dress shimmered with colors. Flower patterns in the fabric changed and bloomed—roses, tulips, honeysuckle.
The woman standing in the middle was obviously Persephone's mother. She had the same hair and eyes, but looked older and sterner. Her dress was golden, the color of a wheat field. Her hair was woven with dried grasses so it reminded Y/N of a wicker basket. If somebody lit a match next to her, she'd be in serious trouble.
"Hmmph," the older woman said. "Demigods. Just what we need."
Nico knelt. "Father," he said. "I have done what you asked."
"Took you long enough," Hades grumbled. "Your sister would've done a better job."
Nico lowered his head. If he hadn't been so mad, Y/N would've felt sorry. If.
"What do you want, Hades?" Percy said.
"To talk, of course." The god twisted his mouth in a cruel smile. "Didn't Nico tell you?"
"So this whole quest was a lie. Nico brought me down here to get me killed."
"Oh, no," Hades said. "I'm afraid Nico was quite sincere about wanting to help you. The boy is as honest as he is dense. I simply convinced him to take a small detour and bring you here first."
"Father," Nico said, "you promised that Percy would not be harmed. You said if I brought him, you would tell me about my past—about my mother."
Queen Persephone sighed dramatically. "Can we please not talk about that woman in my presence?"
"I'm sorry, my dove," Hades said. "I had to promise the boy something."
The older lady harrumphed. "I warned you, daughter. This scoundrel Hades is no good. You could've married the god of doctors or the god of lawyers, but noooo. You had to eat the pomegranate."
"Mother—"
"And get stuck in the Underworld!"
"Mother, please—"
"And here it is August, and do you come home like you're supposed to? Do you ever think about your poor lonely mother?"
"DEMETER!" Hades shouted. "That is enough. You are a guest in my house."
"Oh, a house is it?" she said. "You call this dump a house? Make my daughter live in this dark, damp—"
"I've told you," Hades said, grinding his teeth, "there's a war in the world above. You and Persephone are better off here with me."
"Excuse me," Y/N broke in. "But if you're going to kill us, could you just get on with it?"
All three gods looked at him.
"Well, this one has an attitude," Demeter observed.
"Indeed," Hades agreed. "I'd love to kill him."
"Father!" Nico said. "You promised!"
"Husband, we talked about this," Persephone chided. "You can't go around incinerating every hero. Besides, he's brave. I like that."
"But I didn't promise not to kill him!" Hades sighed. "I never said anything about Y/N L/N." He rolled his eyes. "You liked that Orpheus fellow too. Look how well that turned out. Let me kill him, just a little bit."
"Father, please!" Nico said. "You don't need to kill Y/N. You said you only wanted to talk to Percy. You said if I brought him, you'd explain."
Hades glowered, smoothing the folds of his robes. "And so I shall. Your mother—what can I tell you? She was a wonderful woman." He glanced uncomfortably at Persephone. "Forgive me, my dear. I mean for a mortal, of course. Her name was Maria di Angelo. She was from Venice, but her father was a diplomat in Washington, D.C. That's where I met her. When you and your sister were young, it was a bad time to be children of Hades. World War II was brewing. A few of my, ah, other children were leading the losing side. I thought it best to put you two out of harm's way."
"That's why you hid us in the Lotus Casino?"
Hades shrugged. "You didn't age. You didn't realize time was passing. I waited for the right time to bring you out."
"But what happened to our mother? Why don't I remember her?"
"Not important," Hades snapped.
"What? Of course it's important. And you had other children—why were we the only ones who were sent away? And who was the lawyer who got us out?"
Hades grit his teeth. "You would do well to listen more and talk less, boy. As for the lawyer. . . ."
Hades snapped his finger. On top of his throne, the Fury Alecto began to change until she was a middle-aged man in a pinstriped suit with a briefcase. She—he—looked strange crouching at Hades's shoulder.
"You!" Nico said.
The Fury cackled. "I do lawyers and teachers very well!"
Nico was trembling. "But why did you free us from the casino?"
"You know why," Hades said. "This idiot son of Poseidon cannot be allowed to be the child of the prophecy."
Percy plucked a ruby off the nearest plant and threw it at Hades. It sank harmlessly into his robe. "You should be helping Olympus!" he said. "All the other gods are fighting Typhon, and you're just sitting here—"
"Waiting things out," Hades finished. "Yes, that's correct. When's the last time Olympus ever helped me, half-blood? When's the last time a child of mine was ever welcomed as a hero? Bah! Why should I rush out and help them? I'll stay here with my forces intact."
"And when Kronos comes after you?"
"Let him try. He'll be weakened. And my son here, Nico—" Hades looked at him with distaste. "Well, he's not much now, I'll grant you. It would've been better if Bianca had lived. But give him four more years of training. We can hold out that long, surely. Nico will turn sixteen, as the prophecy says, and then he will make the decision that will save the world. And I will be king of the gods."
"You're crazy," Y/N said. "And stupid on top of that! Kronos will crush you, right after he finishes pulverizing Olympus."
Hades spread his hands. "Well, you'll get a chance to find out, half-blood. Because you'll be waiting out this war in my dungeons."
"No!" Nico said. "Father, that wasn't our agreement. And you haven't told me everything!"
"I've told you all you need to know," Hades said. "As for our agreement, I spoke with Jackson. I did not harm him. You got your information. If you had wanted a better deal, you should've made me swear on the Styx. Now go to your room!" He waved his hand and Nico vanished.
"That boy needs to eat more," Demeter grumbled. "He's too skinny. He needs more cereal."
Persephone rolled her eyes. "Mother, enough with the cereal. My Lord Hades, are you sure we can't let these little heroes go? They're awfully brave."
"No, my dear. I've spared their lives. That's enough."
Persephone shrugged indifferently. "Fine. What's for breakfast? I'm starving."
"Cereal," Demeter said.
"Mother!" The two women disappeared in a swirl of flowers and wheat.
"Don't feel too bad, godlings," Hades said. "My ghosts keep me well informed of Kronos's plans. I can assure you that you had no chance to stop him in time. By tonight, it will be too late for your precious Mount Olympus. That trap will be sprung."
"What trap?" Y/N demanded. "If you know about it, do something! At least let us tell the other gods!"
Hades smiled. "You are spirited. I'll give you credit for that. Have fun in my dungeon. We'll check on you again in—oh, fifty or sixty years."
A/N: Hey! Hope you liked the chapter.
Just to tell you that I've added a chapter "Art Gallery" because I received some work from some of you and I couldn't just keep it to myself.
Also, I've finished the PJO part of this fanfic for the French version, and now I'm working on the first chapters of the HoO part. Next week I'll only focus on that, so I don't know if it'll impact the date of the next chapter for this version or not. I don't think so, but better safe than sorry, at least you know.
See you next time, happy reading!