𝐂œ𝐮𝐫𝐬 𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐬é𝐬 [Percy Jackson]

115

Percy wasn't dead yet, but he was already tired of being a corpse.

As they trudged toward the heart of Tartarus, he kept glancing down at his body, wondering how it could belong to him. His arms looked like bleached leather pulled over sticks. His skeletal legs seemed to dissolve into smoke with every step. He'd learned to move normally within the Death Mist, more or less, but the magical shroud still made him feel like he was wrapped in a coat of helium.

He worried that the Death Mist might cling to him forever, even if they somehow managed to survive Tartarus. He didn't want to spend the rest of his life looking like an extra from The Walking Dead.

Percy tried to focus on something else, but there was no safe direction to look.

Under his feet, the ground glistened a nauseating purple, pulsing with webs of veins. In the dim red light of the blood clouds, Death Mist Hadrian looked like a freshly risen zombie.

"How do you manage to pull the death mist look off?" Percy mumbled.

"Jealous I'm hotter?"

Percy couldn't argue with that. Even with the zombie look, the sunken skin (if you could even call it skin), the haunted look, Hadrian looked much better than what Percy was sure he looked like.

Ahead of them was the most depressing view of all.

Spread to the horizon was an army of monsters—flocks of winged arai, tribes of lumbering Cyclopes, clusters of floating evil spirits. Thousands of baddies, maybe tens of thousands, all milling restlessly, pressing against one another, growling and fighting for space—like the locker area of an overcrowded school between classes, if all the students were 'roid-raging mutants who smelled really bad.

Bob led them toward the edge of the army. He made no effort to hide, not that it would have done any good. Being ten feet tall and glowing silver, Bob didn't do stealth very well.

About thirty yards from the nearest monsters, Bob turned to face Percy.

"Stay quiet and stay behind me," he advised. "They will not notice you."

"We hope," Percy muttered.

On the Titan's shoulder, Small Bob woke up from a nap. He purred seismically and arched his back, turning skeletal then back to calico. At least he didn't seem nervous.

Hadrian examined his own zombie hands. "Bob, if we're invisible... how can you see us? I mean, you're technically, you know..."

"Yes," Bob said. "But we are friends."

"Nyx and her children could see us," Hadrian said.

Bob shrugged. "That was in Nyx's realm. That is different."

"Uh... right." Hadrian didn't sound reassured, but they were here now. They didn't have any choice but to try.

Percy stared at the swarm of vicious monsters. "Well, at least we won't have to worry about bumping into any other friends in this crowd."

Bob grinned. "Yes, that is good news! Now, let's go. Death is close."

"The Doors of Death are close," Hadrian corrected.

They plunged into the crowd. Percy trembled so badly, he was afraid the Death Mist would shake right off him. He'd seen large groups of monsters before. He'd fought an army of them during the Battle of Manhattan. But this was different.

Whenever he'd fought monsters in the mortal world, Percy at least knew he was defending his home. That gave him courage, no matter how bad the odds were. Here, Percy was the invader. He didn't belong in this multitude of monsters any more than the Minotaur belonged in Penn Station at rush hour.