'•' The Lightning Thief '•'

17 :: Crusty... Beds?

Published: August 17, 2021
Edited: July 17, 2022
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It was my idea, I'm proud to say. I loaded all four of us into the back of a Vegas taxi, and leaned towards the driver.

"Los Angeles, please." I told him, trying to sound as innocent as possible. The cabbie chewed his cigar and sized us up. 

"That's three hundred miles. For that, you gotta pay up front." 

"You accept casino debit cards?" I asked. He shrugged. 

"Some of 'em. Same as credit cards. I gotta swipe 'em through first." I handed him my green LotusCash card. He looked at it skeptically. 

"Swipe it," I invited, mentally begging Tyche it would go through. He did. His meter machine started rattling. The lights flashed. Finally an infinity symbol came up next to the dollar sign. The cigar fell out of the driver's mouth. He looked back at us, his eyeswide. 

"Where to in Los Angeles...uh, Your Highness?" 

"The Santa Monica Pier." I sat up a little straighter. I liked the 'Your Highness' thing. "Get us there fast, and you can keep the change."

Maybe I shouldn't have told him that. The cab's speedometer never dipped below ninety-five the whole way through the Mojave Desert. On the road, we had plenty of time to talk. Percy and I told Annabeth and Grover about our latest dream, but the details got sketchier the more I tried to remember them. The Lotus Casino seemed to have short-circuited my memory. I couldn't recall what the invisible servant's voice had sounded like, though I was sure it was somebody I knew. The servant had called the monster in the pit something other than "my lord"...some special name or title.... 

"The Silent One?" Annabeth suggested. "The Rich One? Both of those are nicknames for Hades." 

"Maybe..." Percy said, though neither sounded quite right. 

"That throne room sounds like Hades's," Grover remarked. "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." Percy rubbed at his forehead, like his brain cells were getting a work out. Annabeth's eyes widened. 

"What?" Percy asked, looking up at her sudden stillness. 

"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—I don't know," she stuttered. "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." I knew what was wrong with her, she'd had the same thought I had on the train to St. Louis. She looked pale. 

"But if I'd already retrieved the bolt," Percy said in confusion, "why would I be traveling to the Underworld?" 

"To threaten Hades," Grover suggested. "To bribe or blackmail him into getting your mom back." I whistled lowly. 

"You have evil thoughts for a goat." 

"Why, thank you." 

"But the thing in the pit said it was waiting for two items," I said, suddenly remembering another part of the dream. "If the master bolt is one, what's the other?" Grover shook his head, clearly mystified. Annabeth was looking at Percy as if she knew his next question, and was silently willing him not to ask it.