ENTRAPPED ₂

87

MADELEINE HAD DONE A LOT OF SUICIDAL THINGS IN HER LIFE. Some were on purpose, some were on accident. She had taken Luke's flying shoes from Grover and had almost been dragged to Tartarus at age fifteen. She had jumped in front of a giant to save Lee Fletcher's life and nearly been brutally murdered.

Despite these incidents and more, Madeleine was pretty sure that this was the most suicidal thing she had ever done. The only thing keeping her moving forward were her friends walking valiantly at her side.

As they trudged toward the heart of Tartarus, she kept glancing down at her body, wondering how it could be her. Her arms looked like bleached leather pulled over sticks. Her skeletal legs seemed to dissolve into smoke with every step. She'd learned to move normally within the Death Mist, more or less, but the magical shroud still made her feel like she was wrapped in a coat of helium.

She felt approximately like Madeleine Aetos, but she certainly didn't look like it. If she thought too hard about it, it made her feel dizzy and unreal. She worried that the Death Mist might cling to her forever, even if they somehow managed to survive Tartarus. She didn't want to spend the rest of her life looking like a zombie. Drew would never forgive her. She imagined getting married to Ethan when the both of them looked like dried-out husks.

Woah. Married? Calm down, Madeleine. It was more than likely that they were both going to die very soon, and even if they didn't, they still had the war with Gaea to think about. Besides, Ethan and Madeleine both had commitment issues. It had taken them long enough to start dating. Madeleine wasn't even sure if she believed in marriage, really.

She tried to focus on something else, but there was no safe direction to look.

Under her feet, the ground glistened a nauseating purple, pulsing with webs of veins. In the dim red light of the blood clouds, Madeleine's friends looked like freshly risen zombies.

Ahead of them was the most depressing view of all.

Spread to the horizon was an army of monsters―flocks of winged arai, tribes of lumbering Cyclopes, clusters of floating evil spirits. Thousands of enemies, maybe tens of thousands, all milling restlessly, pressing against one another, growling and fighting for space―like the locker area of an overcrowded school between classes, if all the students were monstrous mutants that smelled really bad.

Bob led them toward the edge of the army. He made no effort to hide, not that it would have done any good. Being ten feet tall and glowing silver, Bob didn't do stealth very well.

About thirty yards from the nearest monsters, Bob turned to face the demigods.

"Stay quiet and stay behind me," he advised. "They will not notice you."

"We hope," Percy muttered.

"Thank you, Captain Optimism," Ethan grumbled.

On the Titan's shoulder, Small Bob woke up from a nap. He purred seismically and arched his back, turning skeletal and then back to calico. At least he didn't seem nervous.

Annabeth examined her own zombie hands. "Bob, if we're invisible... how can you see us? I mean, you're technically, you know..."

"Yes," Bob said. "But we are friends."

"Nyx and her children could see us," Annabeth said.

Bob shrugged. "That was in Nyx's realm. That is different."

"Uh... right." Annabeth didn't sound reassured.

"Isn't Tartarus the realm of all monsters?" Madeleine tried.

"No," Bob said with a frown. "Tartarus is Tartarus's realm. As long as he does not make an appearance, you four should be okay."

"Brilliant," Ethan said. "So we just can't awaken another primordial entity. Cake."