Look... I didn't want to be a demigod. It wasn't really a choice though, a curse thrown upon her the moment her parents met. Sure it had been rough, gods, monsters and countless other things that wanted to kill her. But there were some parts of it t...
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The dead queued up in the three lines, two marked ATTENDANT ON DUTY, and one marked EZ DEATH. The EZ DEATH line was moving right along. The other two were crawling.
"What do you figure?" Percy asked Annabeth.
"The fast line must go straight to the Asphodel Fields," she said. "No contest. They don't want to risk judgment from the court, because it might go against them."
"There's a court for dead people?" Percy asked.
"Yeah. Three judges. They switch around who sits on the bench. King Minos, Thomas Jefferson, Shakespeare—people like that. Sometimes they look at a life and decide that person needs a special reward—the Fields of Elysium. Sometimes they decide on punishment. But most people, well, they just lived. Nothing special, good or bad. So they go to the Asphodel Fields."
"And do what?"
Grover said, "Imagine standing in a wheat field in Kansas. Forever."
"Harsh," Percy said.
"Not as harsh as that," Grover muttered. "Look."
A couple of black-robbed ghouls had pulled aside one spirit and were frisking him at the security desk. The face of the dead man looked vaguely familiar.
"He's that preacher who made the news, remember?" Grover asked.
"Nope." Sophie hummed quietly. Her memory was really bad... like really, really bad.
Percy said, "What're they doing to him?"
"Special punishment from Hades," Grover guessed. "The really bad people get his personal attention as soon as they arrive. The Fur—the Kindly Ones will set up an eternal torture for him."
"But if he's a preacher," Percy said, "and he believes in a different hell..."
Grover shrugged. "Who says he's seeing this place the way we're seeing it? Humans see what they want to see. You're very stubborn—er, persistent, that way."
They got closer to the gates. The howling was so loud now that it shook the ground at their feet.
Then, about fifty feet in front of them, the green mist shimmered. Standing just where the path split into three lanes was an enormous shadowy monster.
They hadn't seen it before because it was half transparent, like the dead. Until it moved, it blended with whatever was behind it. Only its eyes and teeth looked solid. And it was staring straight at them.
The dead walked right up to Cerberus—no fear at all. The ATTENDANT ON DUTY lines parted on either side of him. The EZ DEATH spirits walked right between his front paws and under his belly, which they could do without even crouching.
"I'm starting to see him better," Percg muttered. "Why is that?"
"I think..." Annabeth's voice shook slightly. "I'm afraid it's because we're getting closer to being dead."
