❦𝓕𝓪𝓿𝓸𝓻𝓲𝓽𝓮 𝓒𝓻𝓲𝓶𝓮❦ - 𝓟𝓮𝓻𝓬𝔂 𝓙𝓪𝓬𝓴𝓼𝓸𝓷

𝒳𝐼𝒳. 𝐿𝑜𝓈 𝒜𝓃𝑔𝑒𝓁𝑒𝓈

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

"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 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 them, his eyes wide. "Where to in Los Angeles... uh, Your Highness?"

"The Santa Monica Pier." Zoe snorted as Annabeth sat up a little straighter. "Get us there fast, and you can keep the change."

The cab's speedometer never dipped below ninety-five the whole way through the Mojave Desert. It was almost like Zoe and her dad were just driving around together.

Zoe remembered most of her favorite moments with her dad were when they sped down the road and the many times they got cheeseburgers.

On the road, they had plenty of time to talk. Percy told the other three about his latest dream, but the details got sketchier the more he tried to remember and relay them. The Lotus Casino seemed to have short circuited his memory. Zoe couldn't remember what her dreams had been right before they went into the Lotus Casino either. Percy couldn't recall what the invisible servant's voice had sounded like, though he said he was sure it was somebody he 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..." he said, though he seemed hesitant. Like neither sounded familiar.

"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 and she shared a look with Zoe.

"What?" the son of Poseidon asked.

"Oh... nothing. We were just-" Zoe paused, looking back at Annabeth. "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 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."