ɪᴄʜᴏʀ

The Doors of Death

Annabeth dove for the chains holding the Doors of Death. Her drakon-bone blade cut through the left-side moorings in a single swipe. Meanwhile, Percy drove back the first wave of monsters. He stabbed an arai and yelped, "Gah! Stupid curses!"

Then, he clenched his fist and waved his hand in a sweeping motion across the air. About a dozen telkhines disintegrated. She had no idea how, but knew this was not the time to ask.

Annabeth lunged behind him and sliced through the chains on the other side.

The Doors shuddered, then opened with a pleasant Ding!

Bob and his saber-toothed sidekick continued to weave around Tartarus's legs, attacking, and dodging to stay out of his clutches.

They didn't seem to be doing much damage, but Tartarus lurched around, obviously not used to fighting in a humanoid body. He swiped and missed, swiped and missed.

More monsters surged toward the Doors. A spear flew past Annabeth's head. She turned and stabbed an empousa through the gut, then dove for the Doors as they started to close.

She kept them open with her foot as she fought. At least with her back to the elevator car, she didn't have to worry about attacks from behind.

"Percy, get over here!" she yelled.

He joined her in the doorway, his face dripping with sweat, and blood from several cuts, as well as a thick layer of monster dust.

"You okay?" she asked.

He nodded. "Got some kind of pain curse from that arai."

He hacked a griffon out of the air. "Hurts, but it won't kill me. Get in the elevator. I'll hold the button."

"Yeah, right!" She smacked a carnivorous horse in the snout with the butt of her sword and sent the monster stampeding through the crowd.

"You promised, Seaweed Brain. We would not get separated! Ever again!"

"You're impossible!"

"Love you too!"

An entire phalanx of Cyclopes charged forward, knocking smaller monsters out of the way. Annabeth figured she was about to die.

"It had to be Cyclopes," she grumbled.

Percy gave a battle cry. At the Cyclopes' feet, a red vein in the ground burst open, spraying the monsters with liquid fire from the Phlegethon.

The firewater might have healed mortals, but it didn't do the Cyclopes any favors. They combusted in a tidal wave of heat. The burst vein sealed itself, but nothing remained of the monsters except a row of scorch marks.

"Annabeth, you have to go!" Percy said. "We can't both stay!"

"No!" she cried. "Duck!"

He didn't ask why. He crouched, and Annabeth vaulted over him, bringing her sword down on the head of a heavily tattooed ogre.

At almost the exact same moment, Percy yelled again, causing another vein to erupt with water from the Lethe. A bunch of empousa and dracaena paused on the spot, looking around confusedly.

She and Percy stood shoulder to shoulder in the doorway, waiting for the next wave. The exploding vein had given the monsters pause, but it wouldn't be long before they remembered: Hey, wait, there's seventy-five gazillion of us, and only two of them.

"Well, then," Percy said, "you have a better idea?"

Annabeth wished she did.

———-————

As Bob's attacks started to slow, the monsters turned to watch, as if sensing that their master Tartarus was about to take the spotlight. The death of a Titan was worth seeing.

Percy gripped Annabeth's hand. "Stay here. I've got to help him."

"Percy, you can't," she croaked. "Tartarus can't be fought. Not by us."

However, she wasn't sure if that was true anymore. Percy was powerful, and ever since Akhlys, even more so. He might be able to hold Tartarus off, if only for a few seconds.

However, she couldn't stand to let him charge to his death. Annabeth also knew that Percy wouldn't listen, especially if he knew he had a chance, no matter how slim.

He couldn't leave Bob to die alone. That just wasn't him—and that was one of the many reasons she loved him, even if he was an Olympian-sized pain in the podex.

"We'll go together," Annabeth decided, knowing this would be their final battle. If they stepped away from the Doors, they would never leave Tartarus. At least they would die fighting side by side.

She was about to say: Now.

A ripple of alarm passed through the army. In the distance, Annabeth heard shrieks, screams, and a persistent boom, boom, boom that was too fast to be the heartbeat in the ground—more like something large and heavy, running at full speed.

An Earthborn spun into the air as if he'd been tossed. A plume of bright- green gas billowed across the top of the monstrous horde like the spray from a poison riot hose. Everything in its path dissolved.

Across the swath of sizzling, newly empty ground, Annabeth saw the cause of the commotion. She started to grin.

The Maeonian drakon spread its frilled collar and hissed, its poison breath filling the battlefield with the smell of pine and ginger. It shifted its hundred- foot-long body, flicking its dappled green tail and wiping out a battalion of ogres.

Riding on its back was a red-skinned giant with flowers in his rust-colored braids, a jerkin of green leather, and a drakon-rib lance in his hand.

"Damasen!" Annabeth cried.

The giant inclined his head. "Annabeth Chase, I took your advice. I chose a new fate."