𝐒𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄, PJ2

𝟎𝟏𝟎.𝟒

Juliet blinked—and the world slammed back into focus like a door crashing shut.

The haze was gone. Her ears rang with the echo of bones breaking, with snarls cut short. Two empousai lay crumpled on the warped ground, their bodies twitching unnaturally before melting into dust and ichor. Annabeth was on one knee a few feet away, blood slicking her arm, her dagger trembling in her grip.

And Kelli was right there.

Her talons gleamed black as obsidian, already arcing down toward Juliet's chest. Juliet barely had time to lift her arms before the empousa crashed into her, knocking her back into the blistering soil. The heat of Tartarus seared her spine through her clothes, but the real burn was Kelli's weight pressing her down, talons straining closer, closer to her throat.

Then a shadow fell across Juliet. A deep war cry bellowed from somewhere above, echoing across the plains of Tartarus, and a Titan dropped onto the battlefield.

Juliet thought she was hallucinating. It just wasn't possible that a huge silvery figure could drop out of the sky and stomp Kelli flat, trampling her into a mound of monster dust. But that's exactly what happened. The Titan was ten feet tall, with wild silver Einstein hair, pure silver eyes and muscular arms protruding from a ripped-up blue janitor's uniform. In his hand was a massive push broom. His name tag, incredibly, read BOB.
"SWEEP!' The Titan grinned with delight and did a victory dance. 'Sweep, sweep, sweep!"
Juliet  couldn't speak. She couldn't bring herself to believe that something good had actually happened. Annabeth looked just as shocked. "H-how ...?" she stammered.
"You called me!" the janitor said happily. "friends of Percy!"
Annabeth crawled a little further away. Her arm was bleeding badly. 

"Called you? Who – wait. You're Bob? The Bob?" Juliet said, she remembered Percy telling her about this, one night when she had been in a sleepy haze he had told her about Bob.

The janitor frowned when he noticed Annabeth's wounds. "Owie."
Annabeth flinched as he knelt next to her.
"It's okay," Juliet said, still woozy with her visions. "Percy said, He's supposed friendly."
"Yes Percy!" Bob pointed at Juliet's shirt, and she looked down remembering she was wearing Percy's t-shirt. "Heard Percy's friends, came to help!" The janitor tapped Annabeth's forearm and it mended instantly.
Bob chuckled, pleased with himself, then bounded over to Juliet and healed her bleeding neck and arm, even her eyes cleared up. The Titan's hands were surprisingly warm and gentle.
"All better!" Bob declared, his eerie silver eyes crinkling with pleasure. "I am Bob, Percy's friend!"
"Uh ... yeah," Juliet managed. "Thanks for the help, Bob. It's really good to meet you, I'm Juliet."

"Yes!" the janitor agreed. "Bob. That's me. Bob, Bob, Bob." He shuffled around, obviously pleased with his name. "I am helping. I heard my name. Upstairs in Hades's palace, nobody calls for Bob unless there is a mess. Bob, sweep up these bones. Bob, mop up these tortured souls. Bob, a zombie exploded in the dining room."
Annabeth turned to Juliet, "Your boyfriend has odd friends." She said and all Juliet could do was nod.
"Then I heard you call!" The Titan beamed. "You said, Bob!"
He grabbed Juliet's arm and hoisted her to her feet. Juliet remembered Annabeth had casually mentioned Bob when they were climbing down the cliff.
"That's awesome," Juliet said. "Seriously. But how did you –"
"Oh, time to talk later." Bob's expression turned serious. "We must go before they find you. They are coming. Yes, indeed."
"They?" Annabeth asked.
Juliet scanned the horizon. She saw no approaching monsters – nothing but the stark grey wasteland.
"Yes," Bob agreed. "But Bob knows a way. Come on, friends! We will have fun!"
They followed Bob through the wasteland, tracing the route of the Phlegethon as they approached the storm front of darkness. Every so often they stopped to drink firewater, which kept them alive, but Annabeth wasn't happy about it. Her throat felt like she was constantly gargling with battery acid. 
"So, Bob ..." She tried to sound casual and friendly, which wasn't easy with a throat scorched by firewater. "How did you get to Tartarus?"
"I jumped," he said, like it was obvious.
"You jumped into Tartarus," she said, "because we said your name?"
"Percy's friends needed me." Those silver eyes gleamed in the darkness. "It is okay. I was tired of sweeping the palace. Come along! We are almost at a rest stop."
A rest stop. Annabeth couldn't imagine what those words meant in Tartarus. Wherever Bob was taking them, she hoped it had clean restrooms and a snack machine. She repressed the giggles. Yes, she was definitely losing it. Annabeth hobbled along, trying to ignore the rumble in her stomach. She stared at Bob's back as he led them towards the wall of darkness, now only a few hundred yards away. His blue janitor's coveralls were ripped between the shoulder blades, as if someone had tried to stab him. Cleaning rags stuck out of his pocket. A squirt bottle swung from his belt, the blue liquid inside sloshing hypnotically.
She glanced nervously at Bob's broom handle, wondering how long it would be before that hidden spearhead jutted out and was pointed at her. Following Bob through Tartarus was a crazy risk. Unfortunately, she couldn't think of a better plan.
They picked their way across the ashen wasteland as red lightning flashed overhead in the poisonous clouds. Just another lovely day in the dungeon of creation. Annabeth couldn't see far in the hazy air, but the longer they walked, the more certain she became that the entire landscape was a downward curve.
She'd heard conflicting descriptions of Tartarus. It was a bottomless pit. It was a fortress surrounded by brass walls. It was nothing but an endless void.
One story described it as the inverse of the sky – a huge, hollow, upside-down dome of rock. That seemed the most accurate, though if Tartarus was a dome Annabeth guessed it was like the sky – with no real bottom but made of multiple layers, each one darker and less hospitable than the last.
And even that wasn't the full, horrible truth ...
They passed a blister in the ground – a writhing, translucent bubble the size of a minivan. Curled inside was the half-formed body of a drakon. Bob speared the blister without a second thought. It burst in a geyser of steaming yellow slime, and the drakon dissolved into nothing. Bob kept walking.
Monsters are zits on the skin of Tartarus, Annabeth thought. She shuddered. Sometimes she wished she didn't have such a good imagination, because now she was certain they were walking across a living thing. This whole twisted landscape – the dome, pit or whatever you called it – was the body of the god Tartarus – the most ancient incarnation of evil. Just as Gaia inhabited the surface of the earth, Tartarus inhabited the pit.
If that god noticed them walking across his skin, like fleas on a dog ... Enough. No more thinking.
"Here," Bob said.
They stopped at the top of a ridge. Below them, in a sheltered depression like a moon crater, stood a ring of broken black marble columns surrounding a dark stone altar.
"Hermes's shrine," Bob explained.
Juliet frowned, blinking hard, Annabeth didn't even had the heart to ask about the episode by the river. "A Hermes shrine in Tartarus?"
Bob laughed in delight. "Yes. It fell from somewhere long ago. Maybe mortal world. Maybe Olympus. Anyway, monsters steer clear. Mostly."
"How did you know it was here?" Annabeth asked.
Bob's smile faded. He got a vacant look in his eyes. "Can't remember."
"That's okay," Juliet said quickly.
Annabeth felt like kicking herself. Before Bob became Bob, he had been Iapetus the Titan. Like all his brethren, he'd been imprisoned in Tartarus for aeons. Of course he knew his way around. If he remembered this shrine, he might start recalling other details of his old prison and his old life. That would not be good.
They climbed into the crater and entered the circle of columns. Annabeth collapsed on a broken slab of marble, too exhausted to take another step. Juliet slumped beside her, reaching to hold the end of her t-shirt, clutching it tight. The inky storm front was less than a hundred feet away now, obscuring everything ahead of them. The crater's rim blocked their view of the wasteland behind. They'd be well hidden here, but if monsters did stumble across them they would have no warning.
"You said someone was chasing us," Annabeth said. "Who?"
Bob swept his broom around the base of the altar, occasionally crouching to study the ground as if looking for something. "They are following, yes. They know you are here. Giants and Titans. The defeated ones. They know."
Annabeth tried to control her fear. How many Titans and giants had she and Juliet fought over the years? Each one had seemed like an impossible challenge. If all of them were down here in Tartarus, and if they were actively hunting Juliet and Annabeth ...
"Why are we stopping, then?" she said. "We should keep moving."
"Soon," Bob said. "But mortals need rest. Good place here. Best place for ... oh, long, long way. I will guard you."
Annabeth glanced at Juliet, sending her the silent message: Uh, no. Hanging out with a Titan was bad enough. Going to sleep while the Titan guarded you ... she didn't need to be a daughter of Athena to know that was one hundred percent unwise.
"You sleep," Juliet told her, blinking her eyes. "I'll keep the first watch with Bob. I...don't want to sleep yet."
Annabeth understood, there was something definitely going wrong with Juliet, her mind felt fractured, not to say being such feet below the sky would be messing with her very body structure.
Bob rumbled in agreement. "Yes, good. When you wake, food should be here!"
Annabeth's stomach did a rollover at the mention of food. She didn't see how Bob could summon food in the midst of Tartarus. Maybe he was a caterer as well as a janitor.
She didn't want to sleep, but her body betrayed her. Her eyelids turned to lead. "Juliet, wake me for second watch."
Juliet nodded moving beside Annabeth to let her rest her head on Juliet's lap. Annabeth felt like she was back in the Hypnos cabin at Camp Half-Blood, overcome with drowsiness. She curled up on the hard ground and closed her eyes.