QUEST WITHOUT HARRY

Chapter 17 : We Shop for Waterbeds

It was Andy's idea. He loaded us into the back of a Vegas taxi as if we actually had money, and told the driver,

"Los Angeles, please."

The cabbie chewed his cigar and sized us up. "That's three hundred miles. For that, you gotta pay up front."

"You accept casino debit cards?" Andy asked.

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

"em through, first." Andy handed him his green LotusCash card. He looked at it sceptically.

"Swipe it," Andy 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."

Andy sat up a little straighter. I could tell he liked the "Your Highness" thing.

"Get us there fast, and you can keep the change."

Maybe he 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, we had plenty of time to talk. I told Andy and Grover about my latest dream, but the details got sketchier the more I tried to remember them.

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

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

"The Silent One?" Andy suggested.

"The Rich One? Both of those are nicknames for Hades." "

Maybe..." I said, though neither sounded quite right.

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

I shook my 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." Andy's eyes widened.

"What?" I 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."

I wasn't sure what was wrong with him. He looked pale.

"But if I'd already retrieved the bolt," I said, "why would I be travelling 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."

"Why, thank you."

"But the thing in the pit said it was waiting for two items," I said. "If the master bolt is one, what's the other?"

Grover shook his head, clearly mystified. Andy was looking at me as if he knew my next question, and was silently willing me not to ask it.

"You have an idea what might be in that pit, don't you?" I asked him. "I mean, if it isn't Hades?"