SON OF HADES: The Army of Hypnos

2. NAUSEATING NORMAL .II.

The reporter's frown deepened. "Social media is flooding with paranormal claims and theories but be rest assured, science will explain this and come up with a cure."

Queen turned her phone away and paused the video. "That's basically the summary of last night."

I heaved a sigh. "When I killed Thanatos, I thought things would finally be normal. How long do we keep doing nothing about this?"

"What can we do?" Bryce sounded defeated. He began quoting the revelation given to us by the Morai over a week ago. "Legends' children meet Hades' son, a sign that their quests have just begun. The underworld Prince must contend with Death, Racheal West has a meeting set. The sleeping army will spread far and wide, the work of Da Vinci shall be your guide. To crown it all, a captured king, and a rumble for power in the heavenly ring."

He caught his breath. "Queen and I were both there when you killed Death and met your mother's soul. So quest one fulfilled. This is obviously quest two, the sleeping army stuff. But we still don't know how to stop them. Are we supposed to fight them? They're just ordinary people."

Queen tucked her hands in her cargo pants. "Of course not. If the origin of this is a deity from Greek mythology, then it has to be Hypnos. Either him or Hecate. I can't think of any other being who can pull off such a stunt."

"But aren't they both based in the Underworld?" Bryce pinched the bridge of his nose. "No offense dude, but I thought your dad was in charge of making sure those in his domain don't overstep their boundaries."

"Tch," he talked like I was close with my father when in reality we've barely spoken since I came back to life. My father only whispered in my head a couple of times and even that ended right before I faced Thanatos. Hades has literally been ghosting me. "You can offend him all you want. Apparently, he's terrible at more than just parenting."

Queen sagged her shoulders. "So...are we going to finally decide what to do about this current dilemma?"

The way I saw it, all roads led to one place. The place where I could confront my father, heck even confront Hypnos if I had to. A handful of heroes had gone there in the past without dying. Perhaps that's where we needed to go to get answers. "Guys, I think we might have to find a way to the Underworld."

Bryce looked like he just saw Thanatos. "You can't be serious."

"Think about it," I said. "Hypnos is probably abusing his power and according to history, his cave is in the Underworld. My father's also in the Underworld. And so is Hecate. If we want to stop what's up here, we'll have to find a way to go down there."

Queen sighed. "I had a feeling you'd suggest that. Though the thing is, the heroes of the past who went there alive never actually revealed the path they took."

"We'll need to find a doorway ourselves." Bryce stroked his chin. "Call me crazy, but I think that car from my dreams might be a clue."

Queen and I gave him skeptical glances.

"Just saying," he raised his hands in surrender. "Could just be random too. Say, how about we get something to eat? The Cheesecake Factory, maybe?"

"No homemade tacos?" I whined. "Or burritos?"

He shrugged. "Hey, I got permission from my parents to stay the weekend at your place but my Abuela, wasn't really in support. You know, with all the sleepwalking stuff. Bottom line, she wasn't in the mood to cook for me. Or us."

I took a deep breath. "Alright, the Cheesecake Factory it is. From there we could go shopping. Let me grab some cash from one of the stashes."

"Not too much cash, though," Queen called after me as I strode back into the mansion. "Don't want us drawing a lot of attention this time."