Deadly Waters | Percy Jackson

17. Chop, Chop, Time's a Ticking

It was Annabeth's idea.

She loaded them – more like crammed them – into the back of a Vegas taxi as if they actually had money, and told the driver, "Los Angeles, please."

The cabbie chewed his cigar and sized them 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.

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

"The Santa Monica Pier." Annabeth sat up a little straighter. Pez could tell she liked the "Your Highness" thing. "Get us there fast, and you can keep the change."

Pez was glad she told him that. The cab's speedometer never dipped below ninety-five the whole way through the Mojave Desert.

She was grinning the entire way.

On the road, they had plenty of time to talk. The first thing Pez did was cap Jackson on the back of his head and harshly pinch his ear. "If you even dismiss me like that again, I'll throw you off the next building I see – and this time, there won't be a river to save your arse."

He had nodded frantically and apologised.

Percy was still rubbing his ear reproachfully as he told Annabeth and Grover about my latest dream, but the details got sketchier the more he tried to remember them. The Lotus Casino seemed to have short-circuited his memory. Of course, he once again left out Pez's involvement. There would be too many questions that they couldn't answer if he did. Percy couldn't even recall what the invisible servant's voice had sounded like, though he was sure it was somebody he knew. The servant had called the monster in the pit something other than "my lord" . . . some special name or title . . . .

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

"Maybe . . ." he said, though neither sounded quite right.

He caught Pez's eye, and she minutely shook her head.

She didn't think so either.

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

Percy shook 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?" Pez demanded.

"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?"

"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."