Helle // Apollo x oc

Part 22

Tuulis POV

Annabeth had an idea and we sort of just blindly followed her.

And that's how we ended up in a Vegas taxi, and told the driver, "Los Angeles, please."

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

"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 from the backseat.

He looked at it sceptically.

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

"The Santa Monica Pier." Annabeth sat up a little straighter. "Get us there fast, and you can keep the change."

The ride was a bit terrifying, the taxis speedometer never dipped below ninety-five the whole way through the Mojave Desert.

While on the road, we had some time to talk. And Percy told us about the latest dream he had had.

And how there was an odd title someone had used.

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

"Maybe..." Percy said.

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

"I haven't read like a quarter of the books I was supposed to study so I'll stay out of this." I say as I look at the backseat where the three of them are sitting.

Annabeth looks at me disappointingly.

Percy shakes 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.

"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?" Percy asks.

"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 her. She looked pale.

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

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

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

"Why, thank you."

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