𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄, PJ2

𝟎𝟎𝟖.𝟒

They followed the River Phlegethon, stumbling over the glassy black terrain, jumping crevices and hiding behind rocks whenever the vampire girls slowed in front of them.

It was tricky to stay far enough back to avoid getting spotted but close enough to keep Kelli and her comrades in view through the dark hazy air. The heat from the river baked Juliet's skin. Every breath was like inhaling sulphur-scented fibreglass. When they needed a drink, the best they could do was sip some refreshing liquid fire.

At least Annabeth's ankle seemed to have healed. She was hardly limping at all. Her various cuts and scrapes had faded. She'd tied her blonde hair back with a strip of denim torn from her jeans, and in the fiery light of the river her grey eyes flickered.

Physically, Juliet felt better too, though her clothes looked like she'd been through a hurricane of broken glass. She was thirsty, hungry and scared out of her mind (though she wasn't going to tell Annabeth that), but she'd shaken off the hopeless cold of the River Cocytus. And as nasty as the firewater tasted it seemed to keep her going.

Time was impossible to judge. They trudged along, following the river as it cut through the harsh landscape. Fortunately the empousai weren't exactly speed walkers. They shuffled on their mismatched bronze and donkey legs, hissing and fighting with each other, apparently in no hurry to reach the Doors of Death but they were following demon ladies so they needed to be quick on their feet.

Once, the demons sped up in excitement and swarmed something that looked like a beached carcass on the riverbank. Juliet couldn't tell what it was – a fallen monster? An animal of some kind? The empousai attacked it with relish.

When the demons moved on, Juliet and Annabeth reached the spot and found nothing left except a few splintered bones and glistening stains drying in the heat of the river. Juliet had no doubt the empousai would devour demigods with the same gusto.

"Come on." Annabeth led her gently away from the scene. "We don't want to lose them."

Juliet's vision swam for a second, the landscape looked the same infant of her, but still slightly different as if looking through a memory, a huge sense of deja vu hit her before she shook her head and stabilised. The lack of sunlight was messing up with her.

After a few more miles, the empousai disappeared over a ridge. When Juliet and Annabeth caught up, they found themselves at the edge of another massive cliff. The River Phlegethon spilled over the side in jagged tiers of fiery waterfalls. The demon ladies were picking their way down the cliff, jumping from ledge to ledge like mountain goats.

Juliet's heart crept into her throat. Even if she and Annabeth reached the bottom of the cliff alive, they didn't have much to look forward to. The landscape below them was a bleak ash-grey plain bristling with black trees, like insect hair. The ground was pocked with blisters. Every once in a while, a bubble would swell and burst, disgorging a monster like a larva from an egg.

Suddenly Juliet wasn't hungry any more.

All the newly formed monsters were crawling and hobbling in the same direction – towards a bank of black fog that swallowed the horizon like a storm front. The Phlegethon flowed in the same direction until about halfway across the plain, where it met another river of black water – maybe the Cocytus? The two floods combined in a steaming, boiling cataract and flowed on as one towards the black fog.

The longer Juliet looked into that storm of darkness, the less she wanted to go there. It could be hiding anything – an ocean, a bottomless pit, an army of monsters. But if the Doors of Death were in that direction it was their only chance to get home. Her vision kept getting in and out of focus, as if switching between two different set of eyes, worlds bleeding in together.

She peered over the edge of the cliff.

"Wish we could fly," she muttered.

Annabeth rubbed her arms. "Remember Luke's winged shoes? I wonder if they're still down here somewhere."

Juliet remembered. Those shoes had been cursed to drag their wearer into Tartarus. They'd almost taken their best friend, Grover. "I'd settle for a hang glider."

"Maybe not a good idea." Annabeth pointed. Above them, dark winged shapes spiralled in and out of the blood-red clouds.

Juliet sighed, why was life just so fucked up? "Okay, so we climb."

She couldn't see the empousai below them any more. They'd disappeared behind one of the ridges, but that didn't matter. It was clear where she and Annabeth needed to go. Like all the maggot monsters crawling over the plains of Tartarus, they should head towards the dark horizon. Juliet was just brimming with enthusiasm for that.