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Rory wasn't dead yet, but she was already tired of being a corpse.
As they trudged toward the heart of Tartarus, she kept glancing down at her body, wondering how it could belong to her. Her arms looked like bleached leather pulled over sticks. Her skeletal legs seemed to dissolve into smoke with every step.
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 an extra from Night of the Living Dead. No. If the Death Mist did stick with her, the rest of her life would be very short, because there was no way in Hades that Rory could survive more than a month with the smell of death shrouded around her — suffocating her like plastic wrap around her face.
Rory 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, Death Mist Percy looked like a freshly risen zombie.
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 baddies, maybe tens of thousands, all milling restlessly, pressing against one another, growling and fighting for space.
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 Rory and Percy.
"Stay quiet and stay behind me," he advised. "They will not notice you."
"We hope," Percy muttered.
On the Titan's shoulder, Small Bob woke up from a nap. He purred seismically and arched his back, turning skeletal then back to calico. At least he didn't seem nervous.
Rory examined her 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," Rory said.
Bob shrugged. "That was in Nyx's realm. That is different."
"Uh... right." Rory wasn't reassured, but they were here now. They didn't have any choice but to try.
Percy stared at the swarm of vicious monsters. "Well, at least we won't have to worry about bumping into any other friends in this crowd."
Bob grinned. "Yes, that is good news! Now, let's go. Death is close."
