NEVER BE THE SAME . . . percy jackson

ninety eight: the misery.

IF THE SOBBING ghoul was Bob's idea of help, Brooklyn was pretty sure she didn't want it.

Nevertheless, she trudged forward. She felt obliged to follow. If nothing else, this area was less dark — not exactly light, but with more of a soupy white fog.

"Akhlys!" Bob called.

The creature raised her head, and Brooklyn's stomach screamed, do not!

The creature's body was bad enough. She looked like the victim of a famine — limbs like sticks, swollen knees and knobby elbows, rags for clothes, broken fingernails and toenails. Dust was caked on her skin and piled on her shoulders as if she'd taken a shower at the bottom of an hourglass.

Her face was utter desolation. Her eyes were sunken and rheumy, pouring out tears. Her nose dripped like a waterfall. Her stringy gray hair was matted to her skull in greasy tufts, and her cheeks were raked and bleeding as if she'd been clawing herself.

Brooklyn couldn't stand to meet her eyes, so she lowered her gaze. Across her knees lay an ancient shield — a battered circle of wood and bronze, painted with the likeness of Akhlys herself holding a shield, so the image seemed to go on forever, smaller and smaller.

"That shield," Annabeth murmured. "That's his. I thought it was just a story."

"Oh, no," the old hag wailed. "The shield of Hercules. He painted me on its surface, so his enemies would see me in their final moments — the goddess of misery." She coughed so hard, it made Brooklyn's chest hurt. "As if Hercules knew true misery. It's not even a good likeness!"

Brooklyn grimaced. When she, her brother, and his girlfriend had encountered Hercules at the Straits of Gibraltar, it hadn't gone well. The exchange had involved a lot of swimming, death threats, and high-velocity pineapples.

"What's his shield doing here?" she asked.

The goddess stared at her with her wet milky eyes. Her cheeks dripped blood, making red polka dots on her tattered dress. "He doesn't need it anymore, does he? It came here when his mortal body was burned. A reminder, I suppose, that no shield is sufficient. In the end, misery overtakes all of you. Even Hercules."

Brooklyn inched closer to Percy and Annabeth. She tried to remember why they were here, but the sense of despair made it difficult to think. Hearing Akhlys speak, Brooklyn no longer found it strange that she had clawed her own cheeks. The goddess radiated pure pain.

"Bob," Percy said, "we shouldn't have come here."

From somewhere inside Bob's uniform, the skeleton kitten mewled in agreement.

The Titan shifted and winced as if Small Bob was clawing his armpit. "Akhlys controls the Death Mist," he insisted. "She can hide you."

"Hide them?" Akhlys made a gurgling sound. She was either laughing or choking to death. "Why would I do that?"

"They must reach the Doors of Death," Bob said. "To return to the mortal world."

"Impossible!" Akhlys said. "The armies of Tartarus will find you. They will kill you."

Annabeth turned the blade of her drakon-bone sword, which Brooklyn had to admit made her look pretty intimidating and hot in a "Barbarian Princess" kind of way. "So I guess your Death Mist is pretty useless, then," she said.

The goddess bared her broken yellow teeth. "Useless? Who are you?"

"A daughter of Athena." Annabeth's voice sounded brave — though how she did it, Brooklyn didn't know. "I didn't walk halfway across Tartarus to be told what's impossible by some minor goddess."