Sunburn- phoebus apollo

-xvi. why does the underworld have to be in l.a.?

IT WAS ANNABETH'S IDEA, of course. 

Annabeth 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."

Annabeth started to sputter. Apparently, she hadn't thought this far ahead.

"You accept casino debit cards?" Rhea asked, an idea popping into her mind. 

He shrugged. "Some of 'em. Same as credit cards. I gotta swipe 'em through first."

Rhea grabbed the platinum card from her pocket that she had taken from the Lotus worker and handed it to him. He looked at it skeptically.

"Swipe it," Rhea 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," Rhea said, smirking smugly and sat up a little straighter. Oh yeah, she could definitely get used to people calling her "Your Highness". "Get us there fast, and you can keep the change."

Maybe she 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, they had plenty of time to talk. Percy told them about his latest dream, but it seemed the Lotus Casino had short-circuited his memory. Apparently the invisible servant from his dream 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, but he didn't sound sure.

"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.

"What?" Rhea asked anxiously.

"Oh... nothing.  I was just-No, it has to be Hades. Maybe he sent this thief, this invisible person, to get the mater bolt, and something went wrong-"

"Like what?"

"I-I don't know," Annabeth 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." 

Rhea wanted to believe her, but Annabeth was making it really hard to, because she looked pale, like she was beginning to realize something she did not want to realize. 

"But if Rhea and I already retrieved the bolt," Percy said, "why would we be traveling to the Underworld?"

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