Riptide by Annabeth Chase

Chapter Fourteen: Procrustus, Cerberus & Tartarus

(The Lightning Thief pg 277 - 307, also if Cerberus looks the way he does in the show a little girl who owned a doberman as a kid would think he was completely adorable)

The morning had been a blur (and apparently the whole week). We had saved the animals, looked for a new ride west and got trapped in a pleasure hotel (but not the gross adult kind, come on) and now a week had passed, and we were almost out of time to complete our quest. As we got into the cab, I passed a few tokens I'd been holding onto to Grover, and he started to eat them as always.

Compared to all the times we had almost died on this quest the Lotus Hotel seemed infinitely scarier and if it hadn't been for Percy we probably would have stayed there forever. If he hadn't realized it was weird and remembered an old story about the Island of Lotus Eaters we never would have gotten out. Apparently, the island had updated itself to be a Casino in Vegas and I had a sneaking suspicion that Ares was the reason we had gotten trapped there.

I decided it probably wasn't worth exploring that train of thought for too long, but it did make me curious about his motives once more. As we traveled to the Santa Monica pier Percy tried to tell us about the dream he'd had in the transport truck. But even though it only seemed like this morning he'd had that dream a week ago and the details were fuzzy.

"It was about that pit again, the one I told you about before," Percy started. "The thing in the pit was talking to someone, someone who's voice I recognized ... I'm sure I knew who the voice belonged to but ... ach I can't remember what it sounded like."

He was getting frustrated with himself for not being able to remember. I thought about reminding him that there wasn't going to be a quiz on the contents of his dream. But then I realized that just because there wasn't a quiz didn't mean it wasn't important so the reminder might not be helpful.

"The thing in the pit was talking with someone ... but I can't remember what they were talking about and then the dream shifted, and I was in a throne room. It was dark and the throne was made out of bones I think."

"My mom was there, but I couldn't get to her," he said, with so much sadness it hurt. I didn't know how to comfort him, and I was a little surprised how much I wanted to help.

"The servant had called the monster in the pit something other than 'my lord' ... some special title or name?"

"The Silent One, the Rich One," I suggested, "both of those are nicknames for Hades." I was hoping he would connect with one of them because I was getting a really bad feeling about this.

He just said, "Maybe..." which of course meant no.

"The throne room sounds like Hades'. That's the way it's usually described." Grover said.

"Somethings wrong," Percy said, which was painfully obvious. "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."

As he said this my stupid brain finished a large part of the puzzle I'd been trying to solve and made my blood run colder than I had ever experienced before.

"What?" Percy asked me, clearly seeing on my face that I knew what was going on. Gods, I hated how good he was at that.

"Oh ... nothing, I was just," I started trying to come up with something that wouldn't terrify Percy and Grover. The truth, if I was right, was the worst possible answer.

"No, it has to be Hades," I tried to sound convincing. I was trying to convince myself as well although Percy didn't seem to be buying it. "Maybe Hades is working with the thing in the pit. Hades sent this thief, then Ares found the thief and so they had to hide the bolt. Hades knew you would try to save your mom and he thought you would find the bolt and bring it as a trade. Anyway, the thief failed to bring it to him. That's what the voice said in your dream, right? The guy failed."