Bandages and Salt (PJO X BSD AU)

Chapter thirty-five

Dazai POV

When the darkness cleared, we were in Central Park, just north of the Pond. It had long become dark outside, so no one else that was at the park at this hour noticed when three teens and an overly large dog suddenly appeared. Even if they did, the mist manipulated them into passing it off as a trick of the light, like we'd always been there. The hellhound didn't so much as spare the three of us a glance before slowly walking over to a cluster of boulders a few meters away.

"Is she..." Chibi started pointing at the beast as it started sniffing the rocks in a way that most dogs do before they mark their territory.

"It's okay," the son of Hades assured. "She just smells the way home."

"Another entrance to the Underworld?" I guessed, remembering my last trip there when I was twelve.

The entrance that Grover, Chase and I had used then had been in L.A. Back then we had used the Charon's ferry entrance, pretending to be three children that had all drowned together in the same tub. Honestly I think the only way we got away with such a blatant lie was that we had money unlike all of the other souls waiting to cross the River Styx

The other demigod nodded. "The Underworld has two main entrances," the teen explained, "this is one of them."

"Which one is this?" I asked, gesturing veaugly to the rocks that the hellhound was still circling like a lost puppy.

I already had some idea, there weren't many stories of people successfully entering the underworld while still being one of the living. But there was one well known one that had to do with the earth as this did.

"The Door of Orpheus."

I hummed lightly, silently pleased that I had been right. "He used his lyre to charm the earth into opening up and creating a path for him," I recalled, speaking it aloud more for the hatrack's benefit than my own. "He almost got away with his wife's soul, but he broke the only rule that he was given and looked back to make sure that she was still there, so they both died instead of just the wife."

"Idiot," the slug said, spitting the word out like it was some kind of curse. I titled my head to the side to show that I agreed with the older teen.

All he had to do was not look back, how foolish.

We walked over to the stones. The other ability user stepped forward, kicking one of them in a way that was light for him, but left a small crack in the previously unmarred structure. I saw the son of Hades wince lightly at my side while watching the sight.

If I wasn't trying to be somewhat of a more normal teenager while we were here, I would've given the child nightmares and told him the Chibi wasn't even using his ability while he did that, that it was all natural strength. But I didn't say anything, I figured that the child already had enough nightmare material for the day from Ms. Castellan and the shit show that was soon to go down.

"The only thing I don't get," the son of Hades started, his hand resting on the cool stone, "is why Hestia sent us here and not to your mother when she knows that we need her blessing for this to work."

I felt my body stiffen at the other demigod's words. I'd honestly had been hoping that he would be too consumed with everything that's going on to notice the seemingly obvious flaw in the goddess's logic. I glanced at the slug, knowing that this was one of the pieces of my story that I hadn't told the other boy.

"Probably because she's dead," I told them, looking anywhere but the other ability user's face.

The demigod made a small sound of surprise before muttering a small apology.