fifty six.

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VAL WASN'T DEAD yet, but she was already tired of being a corpse.

Was this what the Underworld was like as a dead person? She wouldn't like it then the next couple weeks? Days? Until she'd be down there. Whatever. Time in Tartarus was weird.

As they trudged toward the heart of Tartarus, Val kept glancing down at her body, wondering how it could belong to him. Her arms looked like bleached leather pulled over sticks. Her skeletal legs seemed to dissolve into smoke with every step. She'd learned to move normally within the Death Mist, more or less, but the magical shroud still made her feel like she was wrapped in a coat of helium.

She worried that the Death Mist might cling to her forever, even if they somehow managed to survive Tartarus. She didn't want to spend the rest of her life looking like an extra from The Walking Dead. Despite that she'd probably look akin to this soon. Maybe.

Val tried to focus on something else, but there was no safe direction to look.

Under her feet, the ground glistened a nauseating purple, pulsing with webs of veins. In the dim red light of the blood clouds, Death Mist Percy and Annabeth looked like freshly risen zombies.

Ahead of them was the most depressing view of all.

Spread to the horizon was an army of monsters — flocks of winged arai, tribes of lumbering Cyclopes, clusters of floating evil spirits. Thousands of baddies, maybe tens of thousands, all milling restlessly, pressing against one another, growling and fighting for space — like the locker area of an overcrowded school between classes, if all the students were 'roid-raging mutants who smelled really bad.

Bob led them toward the edge of the army. He made no effort to hide, not that it would have done any good. Being ten feet tall and glowing silver, Bob didn't do stealth very well.

About thirty yards from the nearest monsters, Bob turned to face Val.

"Stay quiet and stay behind me," he advised. "They will not notice you."

"We hope," Percy muttered.

On the Titan's shoulder, Small Bob woke up from a nap. He purred seismically and arched his back, turning skeletal then back to calico. At least he didn't seem nervous.

Annabeth examined her own zombie hands. "Bob, if we're invisible . . . how can you see us? I mean, you're technically, you know..."

"Yes," Bob said. "But we are friends."

"Nyx and her children could see us," Val said.

Bob shrugged. "That was in Nyx's realm. That is different."

"Uh . . . right." Annabeth didn't sound reassured, but they were here now. They didn't have any choice but to try.

Percy stared at the swarm of vicious monsters ahead of them. "Well, at least we won't have to worry about bumping into any other friends in this crowd."

Bob grinned. "Yes, that is good news! Now, let's go. Death is close."

"The Doors of Death are close," Annabeth corrected. "Let's watch the phrasing."

"The Doors of me," Val twirled. "I could go on about that monologue about that — don't look at me like that!" She frowned at Annabeth. "I'm my father's daughter, after all. Come on. I can feel the power."

They plunged into the crowd. Despite her words earlier, Val trembled so badly, she was afraid the Death Mist would shiver right off her. She'd seen large groups of monsters before. She'd fought an army of them during the Battle of Manhattan. But this was different.

          

A few feet away, a group of empousai tore into the carcass of a gryphon while other gryphons flew around them, squawking in outrage. A six-armed Earthborn and a Laistrygonian giant pummeled each other with rocks, though Val wasn't sure if they were fighting or just messing around. A dark wisp of smoke — Val guessed it must be an eidolon — seeped into a Cyclops, made the monster hit himself in the face, then drifted off to possess another victim.

Annabeth whispered, "Percy, look."

A stone's throw away, a guy in a cowboy outfit was cracking a whip at some fire-breathing horses. The wrangler wore a Stetson hat on his greasy hair, an extra-large set of jeans, and a pair of black leather boots. From the side, he might have passed for human — until he turned, and Val saw that his upper body was split into three different chests, each one dressed in a different-color Western shirt.

"Why doesn't he have better fashion sense?" Val muttered. "Come on, man. I know it's hard, but stoplights are not in right now."

"What's wrong?" Annabeth whispered to Percy.

With his zombie Death Mist disguise, Percy looked like he was grimacing in pain. Naturally.

"Nothing," he said. "I was just—"

Somewhere in front of them, a deep voice bellowed: "IAPETUS!"

* * *

A Titan strode toward them, casually kicking lesser monsters out of his way. He was roughly the same height as Bob, with elaborate Stygian iron armor, a single diamond blazing in the center of his breastplate. His eyes were blue-white, like core samples from a glacier, and just as cold. His hair was the same color, cut military style. A battle helmet shaped like a bear's head was tucked under his arm. From his belt hung a sword the size of a surfboard.

The Titan stopped in front of Bob. He clapped him on the shoulder. "Iapetus! Don't tell me you don't recognize your own brother!"

"No!" Bob agreed nervously. "I won't tell you that."

The other Titan threw back his head and laughed. "I heard you were thrown into the Lethe. Must've been terrible! We all knew you would heal eventually. It's Koios! Koios!"

"Of course," Bob said. "Koios, Titan of . . ."

"The North!" Koios said.

"I know!" Bob shouted.

They laughed together and took turns hitting each other in the arm.

Apparently miffed by all the jostling, Small Bob crawled onto Bob's head and began making a nest in the Titan's silver hair.

"Poor old Iapetus," said Koios. "They must have laid you low indeed. Look at you! A broom? A servant's uniform? A cat in your hair? Truly, Hades must pay for these insults. Who was that demigod who took your memory? Bah! We must rip him to pieces, you and I, eh?"

"Ha-ha." Bob swallowed. "Yes, indeed. Rip him to pieces."

Val's fingers closed around her knives. She didn't think much of Bob's brother, even without the threat. Compared to Bob's simple way of speaking, Koios sounded like he was reciting Shakespeare. That alone was enough to make her irritated.

Val was ready to strike if she had to, but so far Koios didn't seem to notice her. And Bob hadn't betrayed them yet, though he'd had plenty of opportunities.

"Ah, it's good to see you . . ." Koios drummed his fingers on his bear's-head helmet. "You remember what fun we had in the old days?"

"Of course!" Bob chirped. "When we, uh . . ."

TERRIFIED . . . annabeth chaseWhere stories live. Discover now