gnossienne
n. the realisation that you didn't actually know someone as well as you thought you did
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'Look, I never wanted to be a half-blood.
Let's start from the top, shall we?
My name is Cassandra Jackson, but everyone usually calls me Ca...
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We found the studios quite quickly after leaving Crusty's. Once we were inside, Charon (who is defiantly not Chiron and would like it if people stopped getting them confused) was swayed easily enough with some drachmas and a promise to speak to Hades about a pay rise.
And that was it. We were now in the Underworld.
It wasn't exactly what I'd expected. There was no pearly gates or heaven or hell. Instead, the Underworld looked like cross between airport security and a Jersey Turnpike.
There were three separate entrances under one huge black archway that said: YOU ARE NOW ENTERING EREBUS.
Each entrance had a pass-through metal detector mounted with security cameras. Beyond this were tollbooths manned by black-robed ghouls like Charon.
The howling of a large animal we had heard from the boat was really loud now, but I couldn't see where it was coming from. I was also noted that the three-headed dog, Cerberus, who was supposed to guard Hades' door, was nowhere in sight.
But I figured he was the one howling.
The dead queued up in the three lines, two marked: ATTENDANT ON DUTY, and the other marked: EZ DEATH. The EZ DEATH line was moving right along. The other two were crawling.
"What do you figure?" Percy asked Annabeth.
"The fast line must go straight to Asphodel," she said. "No contest. They don't want to risk judgement from the court, because it might go against them."
"There's a court for dead people?" I asked, racking my memories for any useful information that Chiron taught us as Mr Brenner.
"Yea. Three judges. They switch around who sits on the bench. King Minos, Thomas Jefferson, Shakespeare - people like that. Sometimes they look at a life that needs a special reward - the Fields of Elysium. Sometimes they decide on punishment. But most people, well, they just lived. Nothing special, good or bad. So they go to the Fields of Asphodel."
"And do what?"
Grover said, "Imagine standing in a wheat field in Kansas. Forever." My eyes widened.
"Harsh." Percy said.
"Not as harsh as that," Grover muttered. "Look."
A couple of black-robed ghouls had pulled aside one spirit and were frisking him at the security desk. The face of the dead man looked vaguely familiar.
"He's the preacher that made the news, remember?" Grover nodded at me.
"Oh, yeah." Percy realised.
We'd seen him on TV a couple of times at the Yancy Academy dorm. He was this annoying televangelist from upstate New York who'd raised millions of dollars for orphanages and then got caught spending the money on stuff for his mansion - gold-plated toilet seats, and an indoor putt-putt golf course. He'd died when his 'Lamborghini for the Lord' went off a cliff in the middle of a police chase.
