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Chapter 8
Mattresses Make Us Grow
(And We Reach L.A.)
Volume 1: The Lightning Thief
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It was Annabeth's idea. She loaded them into the back of a Vegas taxi as if they actually had money, and told the driver, "Los Angeles, please."
The cabbie chewed his cigar — Pat wanted to gag at the smell — and sized them 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."
She handed him her LotusCash card. When he hesitated, probably skeptical, Annabeth invited, "Swipe it,"
He did. His meter machine started rattling until it eventually stopped. Whatever numbered popped up made the cigar fall out of the driver's mouth. When he turned to them, he stammered, "Where to in Los Angeles...uh, Your Highness?"
"The Santa Monica Pier." Annabeth sat up a little straighter. He could tell she liked the "Your Highness" thing. "Get us there fast, and you can keep the change."
Maybe she shouldn't have told him that. Pat was sure they were going one hundred the whole way through the Mojave Desert.
On the road, they had plenty of time to talk. Percy told them about his latest dream, but the Lotus Casino had short-circuited his memory. He only had an outline of the details, something about an invisible servant speaking to a monster in a pit. He couldn't remember the name the servant had used for the beast.
"The Silent One?" Annabeth suggested. "The Rich One? Both of those are nicknames for Hades."
"Maybe..." Percy said, though his hesitation was clear.
"That throne room sounds like Hades's," Grover said. "That's the way it's usually described."
Percy hummed, thinking, disagreeing. "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 straightened slightly, and Percy asked, "What?"
"Oh...nothing. I was just—No, it has to be Hades." Annabeth tried to push down whatever she was thinking, "Maybe he sent this thief, this invisible person, to get the master bolt, and something went wrong—"
"Like what?" Percy 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."
"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."
Percy whistled. "You have evil thoughts for a goat."
"Why, thank you." He replied.
"But the thing in the pit said it was waiting for two items," Percy reminded them. "If the master bolt is one, what's the other?"
YOU ARE READING
Prophesied Powder, PJO
Fanfiction(Atropos cuts the threads of Human Fate.) Pat was destined for something great. Apollo himself had said it. The only issue is, no one knows what he's meant to do or how he's involved in the so-called Great Prophecy. Percy is the only son of Posideon...
