𝒎𝒊𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒓𝒃𝒂𝒍𝒍 - 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒄𝒚 𝒋𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒔𝒐𝒏 𝒙 𝒐𝒄

‧⁺˚*･༓𝑭𝑰𝑭𝑻𝑬𝑬𝑵༓･*˚⁺‧

It was Annabeth's idea. 

She loaded them all 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 upfront." 

"You accept casino debit cards?" Annabeth asked. 

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

Annabeth handed him her green LotusCash card.

He looked at it skeptically.

"Swipe it," Annabeth 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 us, his eyes wide. "Where to in Los Angeles...uh, Your Highness?"

"The Santa Monica Pier." Annabeth sat up a little straighter. She liked the "Your Highness" thing. "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 Phoenix, Annabeth, and Grover about his latest dream, but the details got sketchier the more he tried to remember them.

He had listened into a man and a servents conversation about the bolt.

The Lotus Casino seemed to have short-circuited his memory. He couldn't recall what the invisible servant's voice had sounded like, though he was sure it was somebody he knew.

The servant 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 though neither sounded quite right.

"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 and she shared a look with Phoenix who had the same idea.

"What?" Percy asked.

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

"Like what?"

"I—I don't know," she 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."

Percy wasn't sure what was wrong with her. She looked pale and so did Phoenix.

"But if I'd already retrieved the bolt," Percy said, "why would I be traveling to the Underworld?"

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

I whistled. "You have evil thoughts for a goat."