IT WAS OFFICIAL, Percy hated Tartarus. Poisonous air, sharp rocks, endless terrain. Ugh. What he wouldn't give to be able to be with his Wise Girl, taking a stroll on the beach, or better yet, eating a blue cheeseburger. He swore that if he had to walk any further, his knees might just give in and he'd have to drag himself to the Doors of Death like a limp fish out of water.
He followed the River Phlegethon, stumbling over the glassy black terrain, jumping crevices, and hiding behind rocks whenever the vampire girls slowed in front of him. It was tricky to stay far enough back to avoid getting spotted but close enough to keep Kelli and her comrades in view through the dark hazy air.
The heat from the river baked Percy's skin. Every breath was like inhaling sulfur-scented fiberglass. When he needed a drink, the best he could do was sip some refreshing liquid fire.
Yep. Percy was definitely on a nice stroll on the beach, hand in hand with his girlfriend. At least Annabeth was safe, away from here, with the rest of the seven. So what if he was in Tartarus? So what if he stood a slim chance of surviving? He was so glad that his Wise Girl didn't have to go through this with him, he had the ridiculous urge to smile.
Physically, Percy felt better too, though his clothes looked like he'd been through a hurricane of broken glass. Then again, they kind of had. He was thirsty, hungry, and scared out of his mind, but he'd shaken off the hopeless cold of the River Cocytus. And as nasty as the firewater tasted, it seemed to keep him going. Or maybe he was just in so much pain he didn't feel it anymore.
Time was impossible to judge. He trudged along, following the river as it cut through the harsh landscape. Fortunately the empousai weren't exactly speed walkers. They shuffled on their mismatched bronze and donkey legs, hissing and fighting with each other, apparently in no hurry to reach the Doors of Death.
Once, the demons sped up in excitement and swarmed something that looked like a beached carcass on the riverbank. Percy couldn't tell what it was—a fallen monster? An animal of some kind? The empousai attacked it with relish.
When the demons moved on, Percy reached the spot and found nothing left except a few splintered bones and glistening stains drying in the heat of the river. Disgusting. Percy had no doubt the empousai would devour demigods with the same enthusiasm. He glanced at one of the long, curved rib bones. Maybe....
Percy snapped one of them offth carcass, discarding his rock. Still not a great weapon, but at last it has reach and a fairly sharp edge. He kept going, as he didn't want to lose them.
As they walked, Percy thought about the first time he'd fought the empousa Kelli at Goode High School's freshman orientation, when he and Rachel Elizabeth Dare got trapped in the band hall. At the time, it seemed like a hopeless situation. Now, he'd give anything to have a problem that simple.
At least he'd been in the mortal world then. Here, there was nowhere to run. Wow. When he started looking back on the war with Kronos as the good old days—that was sad.
He kept hoping things would get better for him, but his life just got more and more dangerous, as if the Three Fates were up there spinning his future with barbed wire instead of thread just to see how much a demigod could tolerate. Well, at least they'd spared Annabeth from this horror.
After a few more miles, the empousai disappeared over a ridge. When Percy caught up, he found himself at the edge of another massive cliff. The River Phlegethon spilled over the side in jagged tiers of fiery waterfalls.
The demon ladies were picking their way down the cliff, jumping from ledge to ledge like mountain goats. Percy's heart crept into his throat. Even if he reached the bottom of the cliff alive, they didn't have much to look forward to.
The landscape below them was a bleak, ash-gray plain bristling with black trees, like insect hair. The ground was pocked with blisters. Every once in a while, a bubble would swell and burst, disgorging a monster like a larva from an egg. Suddenly Percy wasn't hungry anymore.
All the newly formed monsters were crawling and hobbling in the same direction—toward a bank of black fog that swallowed the horizon like a stormfront.
The Phlegethon flowed in the same direction until about halfway across the plain, where it met another river of black water—maybe the Freezing River of Crying Souls again? The two floods combined in a steaming, boiling cataract and flowed on as one toward the black fog.
The longer Percy looked into that storm of darkness, the less he wanted to go there. It could be hiding anything—an ocean, a bottomless pit, an army of monsters. But if the Doors of Death were in that direction, it was his only chance to get home, to get back to Annabeth.
He peered over the edge of the cliff. "Wish I could fly," he muttered. Luke's winged shoes? Maybe they're still down here somewhere? However, those shoes had been cursed to drag their wearer into Tartarus. They'd almost taken his best friend, Grover.
He'd settle for a hang glider, but maybe not a good idea. He looked up. Above him, dark winged shapes spiraled in and out of the blood red clouds. Maybe Furies? Percy wondered. Or some other kind of demon, Tartarus has thousands, including the kind that eats hang gliders, Percy guessed.
"Okay, so I climb." He muttered to himself. He couldn't see the empousai below him anymore. They'd disappeared behind one of the ridges, but that didn't matter. It was clear where he needed to go.
Like all the maggot monsters crawling over the plains of Tartarus, he should head toward the dark horizon. Percy was just brimming with enthusiasm for that.
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