It was AB's idea as we loaded into the back of a Vegas taxi saying, "Los Angeles, please."
The cabbie chewed his cigar and looked at the four of us skeptically. "That's three hundred miles for that you gotta pay upfront."
"You accept casino debit cards?" I asked the driver.
He shrugged. "Some of them. It's the same as credit cards. I gotta swipe em through first."
I handed my green LotusCash card to him and he looked at it skeptically.
"Swipe it," Annabeth suggested.
He did as she said and his meter started rattling. The lights flashed and an infinity symbol came up next to the dollar sign. I laughed to myself as the cigar fell out of the driver's mouth. He looks back to me, his eyes wide. "Where to in Los Angeles...uh, Your Highness?"
I saw a flash of lightning from the nearby storm and chuckled at his reaction to the oblivious mortal's choice of words.
"The Santa Monica Pier," I say sitting up a little straighter. Smirking at Annabeth to my right I see a glint in her eyes and nod my head for her to do it.
"Get us there fast and you can keep the change." She tells the man.
He definitely started working for that money as the speedometer never dipped below 95 the whole way through the Mojave Desert. During the drive, we had quite a bit of time to talk. Percy told Annabeth about his latest dream but I noticed the details were harder to remember the more he tried. I think that can be accredited to the Lotus Casino as I'm having trouble remembering some of the finer details and one major detail, the invisible man's voice. I can't tell them any more than Percy has and explain why so I stay silent while they speak. Percy mentions the invisible servant and that he can't remember his voice either but he remembers the title the voice had used.
"The Silent One?" AB suggested. "The Rich One? Both of those are nicknames for Hades."
"Maybe... " Percy says.
"That throne room sounds like Hades's, Grover says. "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."
Not a God... Does that mean it could be...
"What?" Percy asks looking at Annabeth.
"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 says. "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."
"But if I'd already retrieved the bolt," I said, "why would I be traveling to the Underworld?"
"To get your- our mother back. He thinks you're going to blackmail or bribe him." I state.
Percy whistled. "You have evil thoughts for someone who's my twin."
"I try," I say with a smirk.
"But the thing in the pit said it was waiting for two items," Percy says. "If the master bolt is one, what's the other?"
Grover shook his head, having no idea what it could be. That's what seals the deal. I know who's in the pit and what he wants.
