It was Annabeth's idea. She got us into the back of a Vegas taxi with no money. Great, this can go well.
She told the taxi driver," Los Angeles, please."
The driver chewed his cigar and sized us up. That's three hundred miles. For that, you gotta pay upfront."
"You accept casino debit cards?" Annabeth asked.
He shrugged. "Some of 'em. Same as credit cards. I gotta swipe 'em through first."
Annabeth handed him her green LotusCash card.
He looked at it skeptically.
"Swipe it," Annabeth invited.
He did.
"His meter machine rattled. The lights flashed with an infinity symbol coming up next to the dollar sign.
The cigar dropped to his lap with his eyes wide. "Where to in Los Angeles... uh, Your Highness?"
"The Santa Monica Pier." Annabeth straightened her posture. Oh god, she already looks like a princess, don't say that.
"Get us there fast, and you can keep the change."
After she said that, the car practically flew, it's a miracle that we didn't get pulled over. I'm pretty sure his speedometer never dipped below ninety-five.
On the road, we had a lot of time to ourselves, and eventually, Percy told us about a dream he had with a servant calling someone "lord". I wasn't super invested until he described the voice in his dreams. Ge described the same scratchy voice that I'd had in my dreams. He said something about the voice being called a title but he couldn't remember which.
"The Silent One?" Annabeth suggested. "The Rich One? Both of those are nicknames for Hades."
"Maybe..." He said while he looked out over the desert. Probably hoping that the answer would poke out over the dunes.
"That throne room sounds like Hades's," Grover said. "That's the way it's usually described.
Percy shook his head. "Something's wrong. The throne room wasn't the main part of the dream. And that voice from the pit... I don't
know. It just didn't feel like a god's voice."
Annabeth's eyes widened
"What?" Percy and I asked.
"Oh... nothing. I was just—No, it has to be Hades. Maybe he sent this thief, this invisible person, to get the master bolt, and something went wrong—"
"Like what?" I asked.
"I—I don't know," She said. "But if he stole Zeus's symbol of power from Olympus, and the gods were hunting him, I mean, a lot of things could go wrong. So this thief had to hide the bolt, or he lost it somehow. Anyway, he failed to bring it to Hades. That's what the voice said in your dream, right? The guy failed. That would explain what the Furies were searching for when they came after us on the bus. Maybe they thought we had retrieved the bolt."
Annabeth was pale now. Why? I mean I slightly believed everything she said but she didn't seem to believe it.
"But if I'd already retrieved the bolt," Percy said, "why would I be traveling to the underworld?"
"To threaten Hades," Grover suggested. "To bribe or blackmail him into getting your mom back."
Something wasn't adding up. The voice said that he wanted to use me as a pawn, to work with him. The same person in Percy's dream wanted to have two items and he's in a pit. Why would the god of the dead spend his days in a pit?
I turned to Annabeth, like always, for answers.
She seemed to be zoning out into her own world, with the puzzled expression I've seen when she's deep in thought.
"You have an idea what might be in that pit, don't you?" I asked her. "I mean if it isn't Hades?"
"Y/N... let's not talk about it. Because if it isn't Hades... No. It has to be Hades."
I studied Annabeth. She seemed zoned out looking down at the floor, trying to find answers. I tapped her on her shoulder and gave her my best, "Are you ok?" looks. She only nodded and went back to staring at the floor.
We had to be missing something. There was something going on, behind the scenes, that I couldn't grasp. It was like hunting but not being able to hear or see. You knew something was out there but you didn't know where and the more that I think about it, am I sure we're the hunters?
"The answer is in the Underworld," Annabeth assured us. "You saw spirits of the dead, Percy. There's only one place that could be. We're doing the right thing."
She kept trying to assure us that we were doing the right thing by coming up with strategies to get into the Land of the Dead, but everyone besides her seemed out of it.
The taxi unexpectedly stopped. I looked out of the window to see a beach reaching out to endless water, leading out to the setting sun.
We got out and I took in my surroundings. Yeah, I never want to "take in" that smell ever again. Other than that, it looked like your classic L.A. beach with carnival rides lining both ends of the beaches, homeless guys sleeping in the sand dunes, Pam trees next to the sidewalks, and surfer dudes wading in the water.
All of us walked to the edge of the water.
"What now?" Annabeth asked